The Creation Debate(Vanity)

Me

[Safrguns]

Illustrations:
For whatever you bind on earth, it will be bound in heaven

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

[joanie-f]

(A belated) thanks for the ping, Steve. Will respond more later to this post, but just wanted to quickly make a few comments on evolution vs. intelligent design.

As you know, as a lay leader in our church, the subject that I chose to study this year, so as to be able to teach it later in the year, is creationism vs. evolution.

One of the things I’ve discovered is that, especially recently, the mainstream media and their cohorts in academia have been pushing false representations and skewed comparisons regarding theories of intelligent design. We’re led to believe that ID is simply a covert form of Christian fundamentalism. As a result, intelligent design and creationism are often considered one and the same -- when, in actuality, creationism assumes intelligent design, but the relationship isn’t commutative. :)

The New York Times (of all media outlets) last week published an essay by Dr. Michael Behe, professor of biological sciences at nearby Lehigh University. Behe is a respected theorist in intelligent design. His essay covered many aspects of current thinking on ID, but his main point was that it is not necessarily a religious-based theory, even though Christians, and followers of many other religions, embrace the concept.

Pure intelligent design theorists do not even necessarily invoke the concept of a Creator, so the mainstream media’s attempts to claim that there is a religious motivation behind the theory of intelligent design are bogus and simply attempts to open the door for cries of separation of church and state when ID’s proponents seek to teach the theory of intelligent design in our schools.

Last month the Wall Street Journal published a piece defending Dr. Richard Sternberg (who holds two PhDs in evolutionary biology), who had the ‘misfortune’ of publishing a pro-intelligent-design paper in the Proceedings of the Biological Society (Washington, DC), after which a vicious smear campaign ensued. Sternberg was labeled a heretic by the ‘scientific elites’ (and that was one of the kinder labels he endured).

Those ‘elites’ (just as the ‘elites’ in much of the rest of academia) appear to refuse to debate intelligent design on its merits, but instead seem to regularly resort to slander, personal attack, and character assassination against anyone (no matter how otherwise respected) who espouses a theory that diverges in any way from evolution without a Creator.

Those who dismiss intelligent design have generally based their dismissal on the fact that the theory is bogus because it has never enjoyed any kind of ‘peer review’ in a scientific journal. And, now that is has appeared in a scientific journal (the Proceedings of the Biological Society), they are claiming that Sternberg’s essay wasn’t ‘worthy’ to be included there to begin with.

Damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.

Since the leftist call for separation of church and state is reaching fever pitch, the public awareness of evolution vs. intelligent design (and/or creationism) is surely (and thankfully) going to increase. A large majority of Americans believe in either direct creation by God, or a divinely-directed evolutionary process. And that segment of society that mistrusts the mainstream media is growing daily as well. Let’s hope that the closed-minded, agenda-driven, hostile reporting on intelligent design (as if it were somehow a threat to the mind of modern man) serves to pique the interest and strengthen the resolve of humanity’s search to seek out the truth about our (and our universe’s) origins.

In the Times article, Dr. Behe, concluded (beautifully), ‘Whatever scientists adopt for themselves don’t bind the public, which polls show, overwhelmingly and sensibly, thinks that life was designed. And so do many scientists who see roles for both the messiness of evolution and the elegance of design.’

An excellent book (including six riveting essays) by Behe (and others) on the subject:

Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe
(Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute)

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters … (one of the most beautiful images in all of scripture)

[Minuteman23]

Very interesting, especially what happened to the article published in Proceedings of the Biological Society. These days either you agree with the elite or you are "branded."

When you have time, maybe you want to respond to #2 and #5 in the second part of this post. I was going to but would like to read your answers to this instead. {g}

Happy day after Valentine Day.

[conservative_crusader]

yeah... you're right... But let me do some lateral movement here in this discussion. Not everything decays into lead.

let me add something to the given.

7.) The universe is expanding.

So, given an infinite amount of time, every star in the universe has been moving away from all other stars forever. So we can conclude, that because they have been moving forever, that every star system is an infinite distance from the next star system. However, we know that this is not true. Proxima Centauri is not very far from Sol when compared to other star systems, but if stars had been expanding forever, then every star would be infinitely far from earth. We know this is not true, therefore, the universe must have come into existence at some point in time.

[curiosity]

The fact that the universe is expanding and the fact that things are not inifinitley far from one another implies there was a point in time the universe started exapnding. How do you know it did not exist before it started expanding? Maybe it was just a clump of mass that sat around for eons before it started expanding.

[bondserv]

I like the way you stated this... However, I think the second sentence is slightly flawed. I believe that true reality actually resides in the supernatural... therefore it is not simply a matter of the supernatural (spiritual realm) influencing reality, but rather the physical realm (man's scope of reality) influencing the supernatural.

Great point!

You bring to mind an idea presented by C.S. Lewis wherein he posited that our perceived reality is less substantial from that of the Angels. Angels and the Glorified Christ can pass through us like we are a vapor, unbeknowenst to us -- thinking of Jesus breaking bread with those on the road to Emmaus, and Jesus appearing in the closed upper room.

From a practical point of view, we are affected by the supernatural, and it does influence our reality. That was the gist of my comment. Maybe I could re-word it.

[Safrguns]

Thank you. From a practical point of view, we are affected by the supernatural, and it does influence our reality. That was the gist of my comment. Maybe I could re-word it. Yes... the physical is certainly affected by the spiritual. However, in the order of things, one must place the supernatural OVER the physical. One realm CAN exist in the abscence of the other (Spiritual without physical), whereas the opposite CANNOT exist (Physical without Spiritual) We know this because God spoke the physical into existence FROM the spiritual realm (God is Spirit) and without God, the physical realm would simply be lifeless matter floating in space in chaotic fasion (lots of scripture references on this). Anyway, I'm not quite sure how you could re-word it. From our perspective it's correct. I guess my original point about something being flawed was not really your sentence, but rather the perspective from which we all communicate. Maybe if you just specify "our reality" that would fix it. Please forgive my nit-picking ;)

[bondserv]

Please forgive my nit-picking ;)

I don't take it as nit-picking. You make some great points.

However, in the order of things, one must place the supernatural OVER the physical. One realm CAN exist in the abscence of the other (Spiritual without physical), whereas the opposite CANNOT exist (Physical without Spiritual) We know this because God spoke the physical into existence FROM the spiritual realm (God is Spirit)...

Now, how to formulate your excellent incites into a pithy comment.

Thank you.

[Safrguns]

yeah... you're right... But let me do some lateral movement here in this discussion. Not everything decays into lead. No CC... YOUR right. I interpreted your point #5 as saying that things break down into their basic elements. (LIKE lead) While it could have been worded better, with a little more applicable example, this IS what #5 says) Lead IS an element... just like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, etc. etc. Your point still stands.

[Safrguns]

Thanks again.

Let me know when you got one... brevity is not one of my strong points. :) I always find simplified deep statements so interesting and useful.

[conservative_crusader]

Okay then, this is another point that has not been addressed in this discussion. The Bible talks about the Earth being without form in the beginning. Hence this mass that you are talking about. So, by one of Newton's laws, the reaction that caused this expansion must have had a cause.

Please note: There are some arguments floating around the Internet that try to prove that the beginning of the universe is without cause. This indicates a being capable of defying the laws of physics. Also, the arguments that I have read never really prove that things can happen spontaneously.

I am not convinced that actions can occur spontaneously, and quite frankly, assuming that the laws of physics can behave differently without a god, takes a greater "leap of faith," than most people who do believe in a god.

[curiosity]

Well, here you've also got some problems. It's well known that Newton's Laws aren't obeyed at the quantum level. And there are in fact particles that spontaneously come into and out of existence. So...

[conservative_crusader]

I've run into this argument a couple of times before. Here is my response:

In Christianity, God is known to speak things into existence. I'm not sure about other religions that mention a supreme being speaking things into existence. If God were to speak something into existence, would there be any evidence of an actual cause? I don't think there would be any real evidence of a cause. However; that does not mean that there wasn't one. We know that on the quantum level that particles can appear spontaneously (Or so I've been told, I haven't seen any real evidence of this). So, perhaps, your argument does not really contradict my own. That's one possibility that refutes the "quantum physics refutes God" argument.

[jwalsh07]

And there are in fact particles that spontaneously come into and out of existence. So...

It is my understanding that virtual particles require are only obeserved as other particles decay. No matter, no virtual. Is that your understanding?

[jwalsh07]

Observed was a bad choice of words since the particles do not exist long enough to observe them but I think you got the drift.