Does Darwinism Attempt to Replace God?

11-30-2004 | W.T. Stewart

[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.

[anguish]

You mean they discovered a fossil of a fish with wings?

Heck, who needs fossils when we have them alive in our times?

[orionblamblam]

> It must be difficult to feel comforted by your science.

It is not the purpose of science to provide comfort in the way you suggest. It provides answers. Sometimes they are comforting. Sometimes they are not.

> How do you know what you should be happy about or what to be sad about? Who sets the standard?

I do. Don't you set your own standards of what makes you happy or sad? Or do you have to keep a chart with you at all times?

> Whether you believe in Him or not is inconsequential to His existence. It is, however, consequential to your salvation.

Pure supposition.

[Junior]

There are extent fish with wings, however, I picked up a note of "hopeful monster" in your post. There are certain things evolution predicts will be found in the fossil record. There are certain things evolution says should never be found in the fossil record. This is one of the falsifications of evolutionary theory.

As for your request for transitional fossils, there is always the Transitional Fossil FAQ. Do not be put off by the website; they maybe pro-evolution but they do meticulously source all their materials (unlike some websites I've seen). That way you can double check their claims if you so wish.

[Junior]

As I pointed out to another poster, it all depends upon whether God created man in His physical image. Since I don't believe God has ever had, or even needed a body, I assumed this passage meant man's ensoulment. Remember, flowery, poetic language was once the way religious writings were done and was seldom meant to be taken literally.

Most of the folks on these threads aligning themselves with the evolution camp are as faithful to God as are any of the creationists we battle, though the latter would deny this fact. Most of us believe God gave us a brain to figure out how He did things.

[go_W_go]

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day

According to these three verses, light and darkness were created on Day one, "And there was evening and there was morning-the first day". Perhaps God simply created light and darkness, on day one... Verse 5 says he called the light day, and the darkness he called night. So, one would suppose that God, while not creating the sun and moon on Day 1, did create light... Enough light to separate the day with light and darkness. So, there was light.

[go_W_go]

"Your religious claims have to stand on their own merits"

My religious claims are backed up by the evidence, and research.

It's evolution that has dwindled for the last 150 years... With a fossil record that refutes evolution's every claim. I don't understand how you can believe something that has no glue to hold it together...But remember, as some have pointed out (folks on your side) there are people who still believe the earth is flat, and that's been for thousands of years, so if amount of time is somehow to it's merit, (Creation has been accepted for about 6,000 years) then Creation wins, hands down.

"He'll have his, you'll have yours, and I'll have mine, and together we'll be fine", to quote the "Diff'rent Strokes" theme song, you can believe in evolution all you want.

[go_W_go]

Quantum mechanics deals with randomness all the time.

Yes, but Quantum Mechanics cannot build a 747 out of nothing...

[go_W_go]

Beautiful, man...

[RadioAstronomer]

God is everything and anything He chooses to be.

Your posts puzzle me. You say, "God is everything and anything he chooses to be". Does that mean that he can present himself to the Native Americans as one of their deities and that be just as valid as Christianity? If so, where do you draw the line in what is “real” and what is not? You stated earlier in post #320 "Many people believe that God throws a red herring once in a while, just to test our faith. Another red herring, the Big Bang!"

The general idea I get from all this is that God can appear to anyone how he wishes, can falsify “data” just to see if we still “believe”, and then expect people to follow blindly a single particular faith. With this view, how can you say with certainty Odin is not the real view of God?

The ony person questioning His truth is you. Have at it, I'm sure he'll respect your opinion

What truth? You already stated he can appear to anyone anyway he wishes and he falsifies data across the universe. For example, I can “see” with my radio telescopes, the remnant echo from the Big Bang. I can see the red shift caused by an expanding universe. I am able to see gravitational lensing predicted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Is that all placed there by God as a “red herring?”

[RadioAstronomer]

Big deal, we believe differently.

It is a big deal when you try to force your particular "belief" in a science class in a public school.

[Shryke]

Get a life!

My inquiry was honest, RIW. I did not intend to patronize you. Oh well.

[stremba]

Was the Bible not used to justify slavery? I was not comparing use of the Bible to justify slavery to Genesis. I was pointing out an example of a change in our understanding of the Bible. We no longer believe that the Scripture justifies slavery because our outlook on the world is different than it was in the US south before 1865. The Biblical passages that were so used are still there; we just understand them differently.

[VadeRetro]

You mean they discovered a fossil of a fish with wings? Transitional or adaptational fossils are micro-evolution. If you can direct me to the source of an actual macro-E fossil, I would certainly like to see some examples.

So what would "an actual macro-E" fossil look like? Shall I guess it's not any of these?

If it isn't, what would a thing have to be to qualify as this thing reasonably to be expected in the fossil record but supposedly not there?

[stremba]

And why couldn't God have used evolution as a tool to make man in His image? Or isn't God omnipotent anymore?

[stremba]

It says that God formed man from the dust of the earth. It doesn't say how He did so. It doesn't say, for example, that He definitely didn't cause non-living matter on earth (dust) to develop into some primitive form of life and then cause this primitive life to evolve via the mechanism of mutation (possibly guided by God) and natural selection and ultimately form man. Would that still not be forming man from the dust of the earth? If you bake bread, did you not turn flour into bread? You did it using some intermediate steps, however.

[stremba]

Obviously wrong. I believe that evolution occurred. I believe in God. I believe that God did not lie. My beliefs are not wrong simply because you disagree.

[JeffAtlanta]

Yes, but Quantum Mechanics cannot build a 747 out of nothing...

Neither does evolution

[MEGoody]

"How would you know that..?"

Because you seem completely uninformed about the fact that Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic.

"Actually I'm very well, informed..."

Apparently not, as I've already shown.

"Its you that are indoctrinated."

If by 'indoctrinated' you mean informed enough to know that both Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic, then that's what I am.

[Busywhiskers]

"Your theory was just falsified rather rapidly by Dimensio. Would you like me to provide some rather obvious tests for "macro" evolution?"

He certainly showed the circularity of my approach. I sit duly rebuked. My only defense is that it was the best I could up with in about a minute and a half.

But as I think of it, it really isn't the task of ID types to prove ID. That has been the presumptive world view for all of history and why Darwinian Evolution has such problems being accepted. In other words ID isn't an alternative theory to evolution. Evolution is an alternative theory to ID. The burden of proof is on Darwin, which I believe he acknowledged. So I would be interested in your tests. I would also be interested in your thoughts on the problem of "irreducible complexity"It seems to me that it presents a serious challenge to Darwin. Wouldn't one way of falsifying evolutionary theory be to show that there exists even one irreducably complex biological structure that could not have arisen from evolutionary processes?

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Greeeeat. More pictures of Ape and Human heads, which proves absolutely nothing.

Someone has been watching too much science fiction.

Early Man

HAZARDOUS SURMISING: "The fossil record pertaining to man is still so sparsely known that those who insist on positive declarations can do nothing more than jump from one hazardous surmise to another and hope that the next dramatic discovery does not make them utter fools ... Clearly some refuse to learn from this. As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated: if only they had the evidence..."

(William R Fix, The Bone Pedlars, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984, p.150)

Also see:

FRAUD: Neanderthal Man 'Never Walked In Northern Europe'

Historians of the Stone Age fear that they will have to rip up their theories about Neanderthal Man after doubt has been cast on the carbon dating of skeletons by a leading German anthropologist.

Also see:

Homo floresiensis and the Facts Emerging about the Evolution Myth

The game played by evolutionists by interpreting variations in ancient bones according to their own preconceptions consists of window-dressing scenarios of human evolution in any way they choose. It needs to be realized that telling fairy tales based on the similarity of bones is a pointless activity in the face of the true facts.