Posted on 11/30/2004 9:14:15 AM PST by cainin04
Over the past days there has been a great discussion about the role of the theory of evolution and whether it alone or the thoughts on Intellegent Design should be taught in schools.
I made the argument that Darwinsism attempts to replace God. "If you have Darwinism there is no need for God the Creator." But many of the Free Republic members disagreed.
Read the text from this recent text book used today in public schools and draw your own conclusions. I found this in Lee Stroble's "Case for a Creator."
Futuyma Douglas author of "Evolutionary Biology"--page 3--"By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superflous."
The book "Sign of Intellegence" cites several of the other popular text books. The writers cite the terms used to describe evolution; "evolution is random and undirected,"without plan or purpose,"Darwin gave biology a sound scientific basis by attributing the diversity of life to natural causes rather than the supernatural creation."
Stroble also cites an article from Time Magazine, "Charles Darwin didn't want to murder God, as he once put it. But he did."
One can read text book after text book, they all come to the same conclusion--Darwin replaced God.
Why then is a theory that has so many holes in it, still being taught as "fact?" Many excuses could be listed, but I would say it is just part of the liberal establishment trying to remove God from our schools and our country as a whole. In history class we can't read the "Declaration of ID" or say the Pledge of Allegiance, because they mention God; in English we can't read a story from the Bible, because that is seperation of church and state--yet we CAN read other religous materials as long as they are not Christian; and of course in science class we can't mention ID because that would include God.
Americans are going to have to stand up. We can not sit back and watch these atheistic liberals have every mention of God removed from our country. If we do stand up, not only will we produce children who have no understanding of our country, our history, or our values, but we will also see our nation fall into a great moral decline.
However, I do not think we are going to allow that to occur. In this last election we had a clear choice between a man of God--a man with values--and a man with little or no values. We chose the man with values. The fight will continue and Patriotic-God loving Americans can never give in. Read what is in your child's text books and if it attempts to remove God, speak out against it. Your voice matters--it matters not just for your child's sake, but for the sake of all America's citizens.
"It is possible to be an intelligent "Creationist." Sometimes people just read the evidence differently."
No, it isn't. Not if you understand the evidence. Not if you research and examine all the evidence honestly.
There are such things as objective facts. There are such things as objective evidence. All the evidence - all of it - points to a 4.5 billion year old Earth, and that allele frequncies change in populations over time.
i have been instructed by theologians that when in doubt, and unless you can see clear evidence that the bible is using literary devices such as similes, methaphors, symbolism, etc. (just like we do in modern literature), we should take it literally. plain and simple. add that to a decent understandable translation, the bible becomes very easy to understand.
if we second guess god and only accept some of the stories as true, mainly because WE can't imagine how they could possibly be true, we might as well use a rusty bucket full of holes to carry water because that is how much power we will have in our christian walk. do you think the holy perfect being (god) that is described in revelation will mind our picking and choosing what we are going to accept as truth??
there are plenty of things in the bible that have been doubted over the years and they say that every shovel of sand (from the 25,000 archaeological finds) provides more evidence of its truth and historical accuracy. plus, that aside, 2/3 of the 2000 plus prophecies can be proven to be totally accurate and most of them quite specific. that is why i believe the other things that i don't understand.
"A few examples of these scientists are:
1.Henry F. Schaefer--3rd most cited chemist in the world.
2. James Tour--Rice University Center for Nanoscale Sience and Technology
3. Fred Figwoth--professor of cellular and molecular biology at Yale Graduate School. "
And they deny it for religious, not scientific, reasons.
Meanwhile, the remaining 99.995% of the scientific community accepts the conclusion that evolution best explains what we observe.
You lost this fight 150 years ago. Give it up.
> Evolution, however, is on it's last legs
Hardly. The fossil record and DNA studies daily add to the already overwhelming weight of evidence in support of evolution. You'd think that if there was contradictory evidence, scientists (who are as interested in fame as anyone) would be falling all over themselves to present it. But they aren't.
At Best, Darwins theory is an attemp to explain "HOW".... God is the answer to "WHY" not how.
The theory of evolution is not in conflict with the church, and even the Vatican has said as much.
Does Darwinism Attempt to Replace God?
No.
If not being able to fully explain all observed phenomena requires changing theories I think you just shot yourself in the foot.
"Micro-evolution is a fact! No doubt."
Please explain the mechanism that allows "micro" evolution, but bars "macro" evolution.
In other words, please explain how many small changes over many generations somehow can not yield large changes over time.
Then you need to talk to Pope John Paul the II then.... by your definition he's a person of little religious knowlege and an atheist being disingenuous.
not at all. there is no subtle reference intended -- apes were created, named, and continue to be apes today. there is more proof for that than there is for "transitional forms". i personally think creation science/intelligent design is much more exciting and fascinating than evolution. i have heard some amazing descriptions of the flood and its impact on the earth and heavens, that make perfect sense based on the observable. we are even seeing some evidence of how it could have happened today.
> Far too often, there's a cavalier attitude among evolutionists about their own resopnsibility to temper the debate.
You must understand that that is difficult to do when debating people whose idea of debate is to claim that "the only reason why you don't believe as I do is so that you can feel free to behave immorally." And don't deny that you haven't seen THAT gem.
"The theory of evolution is fact.....do you understand that a theory is a mere supposition to explain how something happened? Your argument seems a bit hypocritical."
The word "theory" as used in science has a different meaning than when it's used in everyday English.
"You'd think that if there was contradictory evidence, scientists (who are as interested in fame as anyone) would be falling all over themselves to present it. But they aren't."
The only scientists who aren't presenting it are the liberal ones who want to get rid of God... Liberalism doesn't stop at the political arena. There is no evidence for macro-evolution, no proof exists, so there! Look at all the previous threads. I just don't have the energy to argue this all over again... You're wrong, that's about it.
Sorry if you're already familiar with the concepts of the theory of relativity, but you and your wife could both be correct. Relativity tells us that time is not an absolute quantity, but rather that the amount of time that passes between two events will depend on the observer's reference frame. Just as a simple example, if you board a fast spaceship and fly to Alpha Centuri and return while I stay on earth, I might say that the trip took you 4.5 years, while you might say you were only gone for one week. Which of us is right? We both are; that's what it means when we say time is a relative quantity. Time is affected by your state of motion and the gravitational field in your location. (General relativity allows us to make this generalization.) In the early universe, immediately after the big bang, the universe was much smaller, but there was the same amount of mass-energy present. Therefore, the gravitational field was extremely high. This high gravitational field causes time measurements to be different from measurements of the same time period today. (After apologizing for the long-winded explanation) It is possible that a period of six literal twenty four hour days measured during the time immediately after the big bang (creation of the universe) could be measured to be tens of billions of years as we see it today. Furthermore, there are other parallels. For example, God said "let there be light" as one of the first creation acts. In the first moments after the big bang, according to scientific theories, there was no matter, only radiation, ie. light. I have heard of further parallels, but I am not enough of a Biblical expert to delve into them further. Personally, I beleive that our ability to reason was given by God. Science is a product of human reason, so it too is given by God. Since this is the case, there can be no conflict between science and the Scriptures.
> Actually it is an attempt to ignore God rather than "murder" him.
I invite you to point to an electrical engineering text that doesn't "ignore God." How many say that electricty comes from god pushing on electrons? That lightning is a miracle?
We have found that we do not have to invoke the supernatural to gain a functional understanding of many aspects of the world. Biology is another one of those aspects.
"What caused circumstances to exist that would permit the existence of an omnipotent God?"
Self existent by nature. He never not existed.
please explain how many small changes over many generations somehow can not yield large changes over time.
I can, a lizard's DNA can not cause it to lay a chicken egg... A bird's DNA will not allow it to give birth to a rat, a rat's DNA will not allow it to give birth to a monkey, and last but not least, a monkey's DNA will not allow it to pop out a human being... Not naturally, anyways.
Evolution is anti-creation
It almost goes without saying that evolution is anti-creation. Darwin was opposed to all forms of creation (Gillespie, 1979, pp.xi, 3, 19-20, 39), even theistic evolution (Bowler, 1990, pp.158-161). In his Origin of Species Darwin mentioned "creation" or its cognates over 100 times, mostly pejoratively (Jones, 2002). Neo- Darwinism's co-founder Julian Huxley expressed the consensus of the scientific establishment when he declared that evolution and creation were mutually exclusive: "The earth was not created, it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion" (Huxley, 1960, pp.iii:252-253).
Dictionaries of biology (Abercrombie, et al., 1990, pp.194-195; Hale & Margham, 1988, p.214; Tootill, 1981, p.108), science (Isaacs, Daintith & Martin, 1991, pp.183, 251-252; Lafferty & Rowe, 1996, p.222) and philosophy (Vesey & Foulkes, 1990, p.108), define "evolution" as being opposed to creation. Leading biology textbooks usually commence their section on evolution with an attack on creation (e.g. Campbell, Reece & Mitchell, 1999, pp.415-417; Mader, 1990, pp.281-283; Raven & Johnson, 1995, pp.7-8; Keeton, Gould & Gould, 1986, pp.12-13; Knox, Ladiges & Evans, p.707; Solomon et al., 1993, p.390; Starr & Taggart, 1998, pp.16, 270-275). Leading evolutionary biology textbooks also usually contain an attack on creation (Dobzhansky, et al., pp.9, 349; Futuyma, 1986, pp.3,15; Ridley, 1996a, pp.41,65-66; Strickberger, 2000, pp.5ff, 53ff).
Evolutionists have also written many books attacking creation in defence of evolution (e.g. Berra 1990; Ecker, 1990; Eldredge, 1982; 2000; Futuyma, 1983; Gallant, 1975; Godfrey, 1983; Kitcher, 1982; McGowan, 1983; Montagu, 1984; Newell, 1982; Pennock, 1999; Plimer, 1994; Price, 1990; Selkirk & Burrows, 1988; Strahler, 1999; Wilson & Dolphin, 1983; Young, 1985; Zetterberg, 1983).
Evolution is so anti-creation, that leading evolutionists have admitted that even if creation was true, it could not be accepted by them as science (Eldredge, 1982, p.134; Ruse M., 1982, pp.322-323; Futuyma, 1983, p.169; Ruse, 1996, p.301; Pennock, 1999, p.283; Ratzsch, 1996, p.168). Which means that evolutionists would rather evolution be naturalistic and false than supernaturalistic and true! [top]
From here: http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/pe03rlgn.html
> You're wrong, that's about it.
A succinct summation of the entirety of the arguement in favor of Creationism.
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