Replies

Shadowfax: "I accept the Genesis account of Creation."

Of course, I accept and respect those as your beliefs.
The ones that drive me nuts are those who pretend they hold some kind of alternative "scientific" theories.
They don't, they're just trying to be true to their understandings of Genesis, but won't admit it here.

Shadowfax: "I stand with God.
Either you do or you don’t.
Can you be a Christian and believe in evolution?
Sure, but there are a ton of inconsistencies in your stance.
Why not just accept God and His Word in its entirety?"

First, nowhere in the Bible does it command that I must accept any particular physical interpretation of Genesis, and second, the Christian Church has a long history of theological respect for science -- names like Augustine and Aquinas come to mind.

Of course, the Catholic Church has sometimes struggled against science -- most famously with Copernicus / Kepler / Galileo ideas on heliocentrism.
But in the end the Church allowed evidence and reason to prevail over its previous understandings.

Shadowfax: "Evolution preaches that life slowly arose through natural processes without outside influence or intelligence.
It was an accident.
If you accept evolution, you are an accident.
Your existence has no purpose. You are a freak.
A bit of primorial ooze with delusions of granduer.
Any meaning or purpose you devise for your life is simply you fooling yourself.
On the other hand, if you are created in the image and likeness of God by Him, He has a purpose for you.
The two are irreconciable."

Sorry, but that's all nonsense.
Nothing in the Bible or any Christian theology prevents God from using evolution to create and control life on Earth according to His purposes and meanings.

The fact that science calls it "random" or "accidental" is irrelevant to believers.
If you believe in God, then nothing is "random" or "accidental", everything has purpose and meaning, regardless of what naturalistic science calls it.

The point you need to understand, and keep in mind, is that science uses words like "random" or "accidental" because by definition of the word "science" they can't speak of "the Hand of God" or the "Will of God" or "God's purposes", or "God's design".
Those ideas are outside the realm of science, so you can't learn them from science.
You can only learn them in church, or perhaps a theology course in school.

Shadowfax: "Lastly, try as you might, you can’t straddle the fense.
Theistic evolution is nonsense.
Evolution is a process driven by death where lower order lifeforms give rise (through some inexplicable magic) to more complex lifeforms in succeeding generations."

I don't know what "fence" you imagine straddling.
Theistic evolution is exactly the response of most Christian churches to evolution theory -- meaning: if as science theorizes, life evolved, then obviously God directed its evolution, so what's your problem with that?

Indeed, this whole effort to find physical evidence for DNA's "intelligent design" is ludicrous from the beginning.
Can anyone name even a single sub-atomic particle in the entire Universe which was not "intelligently designed" by God?
No, of course not.
Everything is part of God's grand design, and behaves according to His laws and purposes, including evolution.

As for your claim of "inexplicable magic" directing evolution, there's nothing "magic" about it (miraculous, yes; magic, no).
And basic processes have been explained for 150 years now: 1) descent with modifications and 2) natural selection.

Descent with modifications: studies of human DNA show around 3 billion total "base pairs" of coded instructions (not all of which function).
Of those 3-billion, in any given human generation, circa 50 base pairs undergo "random" mutations.
With natural selection: over, say, 300,000 generations, that's enough to account for changes between humans and, for example, chimpanzees.

Again, my point is: if God created the Universe with all of this in His Mind, then none of it is truly "random" or "accidental".
So the only thing science has done is uncover a few of His natural laws & methods.

Shadowfax: "Gensis tells us that the animals were created in their final forms by God.
It [Genesis] also tells us that death did not enter into creation until after the Fall.
So, if there was no death until after the animals were created, how could God have used evolution, a process depended on death, to create life?
Totally illogical."

Speaking of illogical -- first, Genesis does not use the term "final form", implying that every creature always looked exactly as we see it today.
The word in Genesis is "miyn", meaning "kind", which is simply a classification that can refer to anything, including long extinct species.

Second, it's nonsensical say: "no death until after the animals were created".
Logically, when there were no animals, what exactly could suffer death?
And once animals began to exist, how could they even live without eating and thus killing other living things?

Indeed, the essence of Evolution -- descent with modifications and natural selection -- which we see around us everywhere, must logically have been there from the very Beginning of life on Earth.

Third, even when you consider Apostle Paul's New Testament words in Romans 5:12-14:

"..Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;...death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression..."

Paul's reference is clearly to humans, not animals or pre-human creatures.

Further, Paul's language of "death reigned" refers to a rule by fear of death, a fear which is defeated in Christ's Resurrection.
So Paul does not promise that Christians won't ever die, only that Christians need not fear death because, like Jesus, believers too will be resurrected.

Bottom line: I've seen no Biblical verse which suggests that before Adam's Fall, animals never died.
Indeed, with just a moment's reflection you'd realize that rapid animal reproduction with no deaths, quickly leads to a planet with all its plant-life consumed by animals, who somehow can't die and therefore must not eat each other!

Surely you would not accuse even the Bible's most metaphorical writer, Paul, of suggesting such a picture?

Of course, in the end, your beliefs are your beliefs, and you are entitled not only to hold them, but also to teach them to others.
The ultimate irony is that while science increases and achieves by extracting God from its equations, human beings are reduced and degraded by every new distance inserted between God and our own hearts.

;-)

BroJoeK to Shadowfax
“Sorry, but that’s all nonsense.”

Actually, it’s not. I’ve heard honest evolutionists loudly proclaim that there is no objective meaning or purpose in life, there is no hope, and no transcendent absolute truth or morality. Such people, while I consider them wrong in their thinking, are at least being honest and logical about the end result of their evolutionary beliefs.

“Those ideas are outside the realm of science, so you can’t learn them from science.
You can only learn them in church, or perhaps a theology course in school.”

So, it appears that you are not standing with science. You are expressing your religious doctrine, which appears to be an amalgam of creationism (albeit not creationism in the Christian sense) and evolution. So, if I have a choice between traditional historic Christianity and your merged theology, why would I choose the latter?

“I don’t know what “fence” you imagine straddling.”

The fence I refer to is that which separates the beautiful truth of God’s Word and the damned lies of the pit of Hell. You can’t straddle the two. Christ made that clear. Either you are for Him or against Him.

“Theistic evolution is exactly the response of most Christian churches to evolution theory — meaning: if as science theorizes, life evolved, then obviously God directed its evolution, so what’s your problem with that?”

My problem with that is that it is contrary to the Biblical account. I would never sit under a pastor who proclaims theistic evolution in contrary to the clear teaching of scripture for the simple reason that if he or she had no problem gutting and disposing of one book of the Bible, why would I expect that he or she would treat the rest of the Bible respectfully as God’s truth?

“Indeed, this whole effort to find physical evidence for DNA’s “intelligent design” is ludicrous from the beginning.
Can anyone name even a single sub-atomic particle in the entire Universe which was not ‘intelligently designed’ by God?
No, of course not.
Everything is part of God’s grand design, and behaves according to His laws and purposes, including evolution.”

What you just expressed puts you totally outside the realm of today’s scientific thinking. The theory of evolution precludes an intelligent designer. It states that all life arose completely by random accident through natural processes. Again, the choice you are offering me is between my religion and yours.

Look, let me bottom line the issue for you - God created the universe and everything in it. When He did that, He was the only one around to witness that act of creation. He gave us His testimony of how it went down in the book of Genesis. He did in 6 days, and the Creation was perfect and without sin. (And, may I hasten to point out, without death. Death was clearly not a process that existed before the Fall. Scripture is clear on that point. “The wages of sin is death.” Ring a bell? Your argument that death had to exist because of rampant reproduction of animals is a huge assumption on your part. An assumption you’ve jumped to not because of the Bible or anything that it says but because of your attempt to reconcile your own ideas of origins with the Biblical account.) After those 6 days, He rested. He was done creating. Finished. Then, Adam sinned, Creation fell, and death entered the scene. That’s not my testimony. That’s God’s testimony. I believe Him. Your problem is that you don’t. I don’t know why that you think that a God who is powerful enough to do it all couldn’t manage it in 6 days or why God would lie about how He did it and exclude billions of years in history that atheistic man says is there but He doesn’t. However, that’s not an issue between you and me. That’s between you and God. Speaking for myself, He said it and I believe Him. It’s really that simple. You can disagree, but frankly, the world’s been disputing God’s Word for a long time now. There truly is nothing new under the sun. The lies may change, but it doesn’t alter the fact that they are lies.

This is my last word on the subject because... frankly, if you’re not going to take God’s word for how it went down, you won’t believe me. Why should you? But if you ever have any doubt and you want to really dig into the scripture and discuss this, contact me privately. I’m not interested in converting you. As long as you can’t accept God’s testimony, I’ve got nothing to offer you. In the meantime, I suggest you review the materials of a Christian ministry called Answers in Genesis. They maintain that the evidence available for the origins of the universe are completely consistent with the Genesis account. They have a lot of material on the flaws inherent in your theistic evolution.

God bless you!!!!!!