Posted on 03/09/2006 6:55:14 PM PST by Greg o the Navy
AN EXAMINATIONS board is including references to “creationism” in a new GCSE science course for schools.
If there is no Adam and Eve, then there is where does wrong originate? If no wrong, then there is no reason for Jesus Christ being born. If no Adam and Eve, then marriage has no significance. If we have no eternal destiny and are just animals, then live it up.
If on the other hand, we are created in the image of God, and there is a concept called sin that God sent Christ to die on cross for and there is a judgment that we must face after death and we have two destinies Heaven or the Lake of Fire. Then sure I guess someone could believe in evolution but what is most important is what someone does with Christ who says,"I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me." Either He is lying or telling the truth?
It's not as though evolutionists have a single story to tell.
I use the term scientist instead of evolutionists. And actually, they do have a single story to tell. Science being science, there are always unknowns and disagreements about details, but overall, by far, scientists tell the same story about evolution.
And I'd guess they agree much more than Bible interpreters agree in their interpretation of the Bible. I am sure they agree much more than Biblical creationists agree with non-biblical creationists.
But, alas, has no scientific content whatsoever...
That is funny because the scientists I know debate all the time. They fight like wild pack animals at times.
I wish it were not the case, but I have been forced to conclude that the Darwinists' core belief is that species evolved without God. That's what they will defend.
Well some may believe that. All I can say is that if one looks at the fossil record it seems that Genesis left out a lot of the details.
I don't care what Science is or is not. I just want the truth.
Ditto. I want to know what really happened too. However due to the lack of a time machine the best thing is to use the scientific method and look at the fossil evidence. So far I am backing the tenets of evolutionary theory.
The only other way to defend it, it seems to me, is to talk about the power of random chance to create and select mutations.
I am sorry but you are a mistaken if you think that Evolution is nothing but random chance. Natural selection is based on random mutations taking place, which we all know does happen. It is natural selection that sorts out the variations, right?
How can the random chance hypothesis ever by proved? Anyone?
Well like I said before... random chance only plays a role in mutations. Mutations happen ALL the TIME. If the mutation is better adapted to survive in its current environment then its chances of survival are greater. Doesn't mean it will... but its chances are better depending on the mutation.
That is often the case. If one defines science as only touching upon what is "natural," then one has to decide what constitutes "natural" from a scientific standpoint. Difficult to do, because that word denotes an arbitrary idea spawned from a subjective point of view.
Why should it not be natural for a single creator to make the heavens and the earth? Why should it not be natural for that same creator, for a particular purpose, to allow wine to come from water in a short period of time, all the time using natural means? Why should the force of gravity be considered natural if in fact it is the nature of things to fly apart at whim?
But for certain people to insist by law that science and public education are defined solely by what is "natural" (as in willfully ignorant of causes beyond human comprehension) is to introduce a philosophy by force of law. This is not healthy either for science in particular or education in general.
Just for the record, I am a creationist and my IQ is 153, Your assumption that all creationist are intellectually inferior is ignorant, and petty. I could also say by default that all evolutionist are morally depraved due to a lack of biblical guidelines, but that would also be a false assumption as are most stereotypes.
No assertion was made that 'all creationist (sic) are intellectually inferior'. And if you do the math, it's obviously a joke, hyperbole, satire, etc.
So basically they're teaching creationism in the same syllabus as phlogiston and the four humours.
Science always takes place with a foundation. It is the foundation I was addressing. What foundation do you have? Your own feelings, opinions, and observations, coupled with the observations of others in whom you've placed your trust. From there you have gained a great deal of scientific content. Much of it is correct. To the extent your scientific content causes you to disavow intelligent design as operative in the organization of matter that performs specific functions it may be aberrant.
And unfortunately, you and others lack the gene to recognize sarcasm. That is not a characteristic of your countrymen there in DarwinDawkinsland with whom I have had the privelege of serving while Carter, pittoo, and Reagan were our presidents.
As for your mainstream press, I consider most of it in the class of National Enquirer. So whatever is printed by them does not reduce my slumber time in any fashion.
OK. My problem is that there is no scientific evidence supporting either concept. They are religious, not scientific, in nature.
I have posted some specific information which argues against either concept before, but I'll do a short version again.
I do archaeology in the western US. My colleagues and I have poked our noses into every crack and cave, and excavated tens of thousands of sites over 100+ years. There is no evidence in the western US of a large-scale (global) flood. But there is evidence of small-scale flooding, and that's easy to see. The channeled scablands of eastern Washington are well-known and well-understood; the origins and limits of this event are known, as are the dates of the multiple floods which occurred. If we can spot this and smaller floods, just think how easy it would be to spot a global flood. There is no such evidence.
Now, we are not dealing with fossils, we are dealing with soils. We have a continuous record of human occupation going back past 10,000 years. We have intact soils, with no evidence of such a large-scale flood. We have fauna and flora which show no such large-scale flood.
One of the most telling points is that the mtDNA shows a continuous record of Native American habitation. If there was a flood at about 2300 BC (4300 years ago; see sources below) then the earlier peoples would have been wiped out and, after a gap, replaced by peoples descended directly from Noah and his kin. This did not happen.
We also have a record in the tree-rings of continuous tree growth now back some 12,000 years. The way this is done is simple--you go to some place which has a lot of standing dead trees. The White Mountains of California have the bristlecone pines, and fit the bill perfectly. Find the oldest one you can find, and start counting rings. When you run out of tree, look for another dead tree with overlapping ring sequences, which allows you to go back farther. This method has now gone some 12,000 years into the past. Incidentally the way you match sequences is that individual rings vary with changing weather and climate, and also with volcanic events. This serves as a separate method of calibrating the accuracy of the rings.
First, the presence of these standing dead trees argues against a huge flood.
Second, now that you have the rings, start radiocarbon dating them. Date, say, every tenth ring all the way back. Use the data to create a calibration curve to improve the accuracy of the radiocarbon method. Also, date relics from Egyptian tombs which can be dated to within a year or two based on historical records. Repeat for other historical materials.
This produces an accurate calibration curve for the radiocarbon method. That in turn lets you date the soils and the cultural materials left behind. Again, there is a continuous record of human occupation across the 4,000-5,000 year period.
Now, a lot of information on the flood can be found in Problems with a Global Flood, Second Edition, by Mark Isaak.
But, I am using my own research, and that of my colleagues. This is not something found on some website, nor will the objections found on creationist websites necessarily address this research. For some reason they seem to address the fossils and geologic strata issue, which I don't think applies at all. The answers to questions only a couple of thousand years old are in the soils.
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My sources for the date of the global flood:
2252 BC -- layevangelism.com
2304 BC -- Answers in Genesis (+/- 11 years).
2350 BC -- Morris, H. Biblical Creationism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993.
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Additional resources for radiocarbon dating:
ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth CreationistsThe American Scientific Affiliation: Science in Christian Perspective Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.
This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.
Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
Tree Ring and C14 DatingHow does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
How precise is radiocarbon dating?
Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?
Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.
How much of the Earth's crust contains sedimentary rock or evidence of aqueous deposition? How much of the Earth's surface is covered by water? How certain are you that all physical processes have taken place at the same rate and in the same degree as recorded throughout history by the human observers in whom you place confidence?
That is not my real area of expertise. I'll let others deal with that one. Dirt and dating is more my area (even though I did do fossil man and osteology in grad school).
You know how it is, "Archaeologists will date any old thing!"
We're dealing with soils, not rocks. Its a whole different subject. (Better bone up on it a little; its one of my sedimental favorites.)
If it were still happening in any stage, show me any, "just one" living breathing transitional specimen......
Waiting......
Waiting......
didn't think so
What civility. No one could ever accuse your correspondent of being uncivil. Sarcasm is civil, isn't it?
It's difficult to spot a currently-living transitional, because you can't also see its future progeny. While a transitional species is alive, it's just another species. You don't know it's transitional until a very long sequence of generations has elapsed. So they're only identifiable in the fossil record. But if you want some currently-living candidates, try the walrus, seal, otter, walking catfish, penguin, and ostrich. Just don't ask what they're transitioning to. I don't know. That's the whole problem with your question.
You're making the same error a lot of anti-evos do: forgetting that part of the environment we're adapted to is **other people**.
Any clan, tribe, nation, etc, that had an ethos of unrestricted me-firstism is long extinct, having lost to those that value cooperation.
There is no conscience.
This condition is known as psychopathy or sociopathy.
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