Posted on 01/27/2009 10:41:55 AM PST by smokingfrog
Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries. In an interview with this week's Radio Times about his latest documentary, on Charles Darwin and natural selection, the broadcaster said: "They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance."
Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."
Attenborough went further in his opposition to creationism, saying it was "terrible" when it was taught alongside evolution as an alternative perspective. "It's like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five ... Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
God is indeed sovereign over all of creation.
Are you sure you won't be among them? From Luke 18, KJV:
[18] And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
[19] And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.
[20] Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
[21] And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
[22] Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
[23] And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.
[24] And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
___________________________________
Do you lack that one thing?
Not all who accept evolution are atheists. As far as I'm concerned, to God be the Glory of the billions year-old universe He created. To God be Glory of creating a universe, in which such a marvelous system, such as evolution can arise and create God's image.
Nice strawman.
...not to mention our enlightened MODERN society, with instantaneous electronic communications, still managed to get Obama elected.
Cheers!
Begging the question in the service of a truncated metaphysic.
Usable, by whom, for what?
Just because it adds no immediate pratical predictive value, nor gives the power to control, does not affect the truth value of a statement, in either direction.
Cheers!
Not necessarily--the rate of mutations and the rate of change of the environment would enter in too...Not too much change in the oceans in the last couple of hundred thousand years, right? And yet on land, we've been through ice ages, global warming, and the election of Obama during that time. Which is why there have been woolly mammoth fossils but no wooly great white fossils.
Look at this article on armored whales for another example.
I think they'd all drown or starve before they would have enough kids to mutate successfully ;-)
Cheers!
Whiskey Tango? If someone believes that, they're not a Christian.
This sounds like Pascal's wager inverted.
Cheers!
One would think that those who believe in both God and evolution, wouldn't have a problem with this. After all, evolution is a messy business, and attaching a moral value to a physical process seems a bit odd.
I think Mr Attenborough's objection to God lies somewhere much deeper ...
“Thanks, Chuck. We need old-timers like you to keep the newbies in line.”
no prob dude..
I’ve heard those kinds of things, a relativity approach etc. That’s all fine. I don’t think genuine Christians should be arguing about it. But we really have only been given one side of the story.
We’ve been given this idea that the science is rock-solid & unquestionable about billions of years, but there is plenty of evidence against the 19th century earth science worldview that would have been modified & updated, except doing so benefits the Christians
Christians should get both sides of the story. We weren’t apes.
That was meant specifically for that man, because Christ knew that it was the most major obstacle to his service. It is NOT a command for all of us to go sell everything we have and give it to the poor. It is rather an example to each of us to shun the things that would hinder us from whole-hearted service to Him.
You’re either a liar, a fool, or both.
good comeback, if you cant argue intelligently you resort to name calling.
Pro 26:4,5 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
Pro 23:9 Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.
Pro 18:2 A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.
Rom 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
1Ti 6:20, 21 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.
Then I recommend that you dont answer yourself or speak into your own brainwashed ears.
What evidence is there that the last half chapter of Deuteronomy was written by Joshua? I'm not expecting you to produce a sworn affadavit or anything, but some crumb of actual, verifiable proof would be much appreciated!
I didn’t expect we were splitting hairs.
You made a sweeping statement-of-fact which was patently false. This is very disheartening to laypersons like myself who are trying valiantly to take your arguments seriously. There is simply no need to make hasty overgeneralizations like "Moses wrote the Pentateuch." That is a disservice to your cause.
Regards,
Alexander, I am a layperson myself and don’t mean to puff myself up as any more than that.
A typical biblical historian comments:
“The first and obvious point is that Deuteronomy claims to be the last words of Moses. Deuteronomy consists of three sermons (chs. 1-4, 5-28, 29-30) and two poems (32, 33) ascribed to him. Not only is Moses said to have uttered most of Deuteronomy, he is also said to have written down ‘this law’. ‘Moses wrote this law, and gave it to the priests’ (3 1:9; cf 31:24). Admittedly it is not exactly clear what ‘this law’ consisted of, but the most obvious candidate is the oral exposition of the law given by Moses in Deuteronomy.
It is important to notice that the presentation of the law in Deuteronomy is different in character from that found in the earlier books of the Pentateuch. Most of the laws in Exodus to Numbers are represented as having been revealed to Moses: they are usually introduced by the remark ‘the LORD said to Moses’, but it is rare for it to be said that Moses wrote them down (Ex. 24:4; 34:28). It is never said of the great mass of laws mediated by Moses in Leviticus and Numbers that he wrote them down. But the law of Deuteronomy is presented differently: here Moses paraphrases the law in his own words: ‘[he] undertook to explain this law’ (Dt. 1:5). He puts the legislation into his own words, he describes Israel’s history from his personal perspective as leader, and he is expressly said to have written down ‘this law’.” In other words the claim to be of Mosaic, as opposed to just of divine revelation, is made repeatedly.
Of course you can look these things up yourself, easily in this day and age.
The important thing is, that it claims to be the word of God (repeatedly) and so we all must decide: is that true?
Jesus accepted it as the word of God. That is good enough for me.
Jesus, for instance, referenced the immediate creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden while arguing against divorce. He did not equivocate.
You might be missing the point. The point isn't that we have to bow to science and twist scripture to match science's timeline. The point is that science doesn't have a timeline. The age of the universe is entirely dependent on your position relative to the local gravitational forces vs. the position of the clock and its local gravitational forces.
It's like saying that the Earth, Sun, Milky way Galactic core, or Dallas Texas is the center of the universe. If everything is moving differently relative to everything else (and this includes time), then science has no real fixed answer to such a question. The Bible gives us insight where science throws up its hands.
It is not just a question of deciding whether the Bible is true. We also have to decide what it says. The medieval Jewish sage, Rashi, who the Jews revere to this day, wrote that Genesis does not tell of creation in the order that God did it, because it says, "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” before it says God created water.
It is not enough to believe the Bible. It is necessary to read it and study it, in the light of modern knowledge. Intellect is as necessary as faith.
“brainwashed”
Better than having one’s brain dirtied.
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