Posted on 01/28/2005 4:28:41 PM PST by metacognative
Panicked Evolutionists: The Stephen Meyer Controversy
The theory of evolution is a tottering house of ideological cards that is more about cherished mythology than honest intellectual endeavor. Evolutionists treat their cherished theory like a fragile object of veneration and worship--and so it is. Panic is a sure sign of intellectual insecurity, and evolutionists have every reason to be insecure, for their theory is falling apart.
The latest evidence of this panic comes in a controversy that followed a highly specialized article published in an even more specialized scientific journal. Stephen C. Meyer, Director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, wrote an article accepted for publication in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The article, entitled "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," was published after three independent judges deemed it worthy and ready for publication. The use of such judges is standard operating procedure among "peer-reviewed" academic journals, and is considered the gold standard for academic publication.
The readership for such a journal is incredibly small, and the Biological Society of Washington does not commonly come to the attention of the nation's journalists and the general public. Nevertheless, soon after Dr. Meyer's article appeared, the self-appointed protectors of Darwinism went into full apoplexy. Internet websites and scientific newsletters came alive with outrage and embarrassment, for Dr. Meyer's article suggested that evolution just might not be the best explanation for the development of life forms. The ensuing controversy was greater than might be expected if Dr. Meyer had argued that the world is flat or that hot is cold.
Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, told The Scientist that Dr. Meyer's article came to her attention when members of the Biological Society of Washington contacted her office. "Many members of the society were stunned about the article," she told The Scientist, and she described the article as "recycled material quite common in the intelligent design community." Dr. Scott, a well known and ardent defender of evolutionary theory, called Dr. Meyer's article "substandard science" and argued that the article should never have been published in any scientific journal.
Within days, the Biological Society of Washington, intimidated by the response of the evolutionary defenders, released a statement apologizing for the publication of the article. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the society's governing council claimed that the article "was published without the prior knowledge of the council." The statement went on to declare: "We have met and determined that all of us would have deemed this paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." The society's president, Roy W. McDiarmid, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, blamed the article's publication on the journal's previous editor, Richard Sternberg, who now serves as a fellow at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institute of Health. "My conclusion on this," McDiarmid said, "was that it was a really bad judgment call on the editor's part."
What is it about Dr. Stephen Meyer's paper that has caused such an uproar? Meyer, who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, argued in his paper that the contemporary form of evolutionary theory now dominant in the academy, known as "Neo-Darwinism," fails to account for the development of higher life forms and the complexity of living organisms. Pointing to what evolutionists identify as the "Cambrian explosion," Meyer argued that "the geologically sudden appearance of many new animal body plans" cannot be accounted for by Darwinian theory, "neo" or otherwise.
Accepting the scientific claim that the Cambrian explosion took place "about 530 million years ago," Meyer went on to explain that the "remarkable jump in the specified complexity or 'complex specified information' [CSI] of the biological world" cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.
The heart of Dr. Meyer's argument is found in this scientifically-loaded passage: "Neo-Darwinism seeks to explain the origin of new information, form, and structure as a result of selection acting on randomly arising variation at a very low level within the biological hierarchy, mainly, within the genetic text. Yet the major morphological innovations depend on a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. Yet if DNA is not wholly responsible for body plan morphogenesis, then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely, without regard to realistic probabilistic limits, and still not produce a new body plan. Thus, the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations in DNA cannot in principle generate novel body plans, including those that first arose in the Cambrian explosion."
In simpler terms, the mechanism of natural selection, central to evolutionary theory, cannot possibly account for the development of so many varied and complex life forms simply by mutations in DNA. Rather, some conscious design--thus requiring a Designer--is necessary to explain the emergence of these life forms.
In the remainder of his paper, Meyer attacks the intellectual inadequacies of evolutionary theory and argues for what is now known as the "design Hypothesis." As he argued, "Conscious and rational agents have, as a part of their powers of purposive intelligence, the capacity to design information-rich parts and to organize those parts into functional information-rich systems and hierarchies." As he went on to assert, "We know of no other causal entity or process that has this capacity." In other words, the development of the multitude of higher life forms found on the planet can be explained only by the guidance of a rational agent--a Designer--whose plan is evident in the design.
Meyer's article was enough to cause hysteria in the evolutionists' camp. Knowing that their theory lacks intellectual credibility, the evolutionists respond by raising the volume, offering the equivalent of scientific shrieks and screams whenever their cherished theory is criticized--much less in one of their own cherished journals. As Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Discovery Institute explained, "Instead of addressing the paper's argument or inviting counterarguments or rebuttal, the society has resorted to affirming what amounts to a doctrinal statement in an effort to stifle scientific debate. They're trying to stop scientific discussion before it even starts."
When the Biological Society of Washington issued its embarrassing apology for publishing the paper, the organization pledged that arguments for Intelligent Design "will not be addressed in future issues of the Proceedings," regardless of whether the paper passes peer review.
From the perspective of panicked evolutionists, the Intelligent Design movement represents a formidable adversary and a constant irritant. The defenders of Intelligent Design are undermining evolutionary theory at multiple levels, and they refuse to go away. The panicked evolutionists respond with name-calling, labeling Intelligent Design proponents as "creationists," thereby hoping to prevent any scientific debate before it starts.
Intelligent Design is not tantamount to the biblical doctrine of creation. Theologically, Intelligent Design falls far short of requiring any affirmation of the doctrine of creation as revealed in the Bible. Nevertheless, it is a useful and important intellectual tool, and a scientific movement with great promise. The real significance of Intelligent Design theory and its related movement is the success with which it undermines the materialistic and naturalistic worldview central to the theory of evolution.
For the Christian believer, the Bible presents the compelling and authoritative case for God's creation of the cosmos. Specifically, the Bible provides us with the ultimate truth concerning human origins and the special creation of human beings as the creatures made in God's own image. Thus, though we believe in more than Intelligent Design, we certainly do not believe in less. We should celebrate the confusion and consternation now so evident among the evolutionists. Dr. Stephen Meyer's article--and the controversy it has spawned--has caught evolutionary scientists with their intellectual pants down.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr
I ask questions because, as I read through these threads, month after month, I don't see them answered. There are certain specific questions that are key to the misunderstanding of evolution. The failure to respond to them seems to me to be wrapped up in a mischaracterization of evolution.
The answer to this last question is NO as you very well know.
Read about laser cooling and get back to me.
Yawn! Another creationist adds to the last seven years of dishonest creationist quote-mining, as if we needed more. I was hoping you'd look at the juncos. There's no substitute for observation. And a creationist who actually looked at an animal outside of a zoo or a bible would be a refreshing change.
The key is that the Torah looks forward in time, from very different time-space coordinates, when the universe was small. But since then, the universe has expanded out. Space stretches, and that stretching of space totally changes the perception of time. Imagine in your mind going back billions of years ago to the beginning of time. Now pretend way back at the beginning of time, when time grabs hold, there's an intelligent community. (It's totally fictitious.) Imagine that the intelligent community has a laser, and it's going to shoot out a blast of light, and every second it's going to pulse. Every second -- pulse. Pulse. Pulse. It shoots the light out, and then billions of years later, way far down the time line, we here on Earth have a big satellite dish, and we receive that pulse of light. And on that pulse of light is imprinted (printing information on light is called fiber optics - sending information by light), "I'm sending you a pulse every second." And then a second goes by and the next pulse is sent.
Now light travels 300 million meters per second. So the two light pulses are separated by 300 million meters at the beginning. Now they travel through space for billions of years, and they're going to reach the Earth billions of years later. But wait a minute. Is the universe static? No. The universe is expanding. That's the cosmology of the universe. And that mean it's expanding into an empty space outside the universe. There's only the universe. There is no space outside the universe. The universe expands by space stretching. So as these pulses go through billions of years of travelling, and the universe is stretching, and space is stretching, what's happening to these pulses? The space between them is also stretching. So the pulses really get further and further apart. Billions of years later, when the first pulse arrives, we say, "Wow - a pulse!" And written on it is "I'm sending you a pulse every second." You call all your friends, and you wait for the next pulse to arrive. Does it arrive another second later? No! A year later? Maybe not. Maybe billions of years later. Because depending on how much time this pulse of light has traveled through space, will determine the amount of stretching that has occurred. That's standard cosmology.
Today, we look at time going backward. We see 15 billion years. Looking forward from when the universe is very small - billions of times smaller - the Torah says six days. In truth, they both may be correct. What's exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the "view of time" from the beginning, relative to the "view of time" today. It's not science fiction any longer. Any one of a dozen physics text books all bring the same number. The general relationship between time near the beginning and time today is a million million. That's a 1 with 12 zeros after it. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says "I'm sending you a pulse every second," would we see it every second? No. We'd see it every million million seconds. Because that's the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe.
The Torah doesn't say every second, does it? It says Six Days. How would we see those six days? If the Torah says we're sending information for six days, would we receive that information as six days? No. We would receive that information as six million million days. Because the Torah's perspective is from the beginning looking forward. Six million million days is a very interesting number. What would that be in years? Divide by 365 and it comes out to be 16 billion years. Essentially the estimate of the age of the universe. Not a bad guess for 3000 years ago.
The way these two figures match up is extraordinary. I'm not speaking as a theologian; I'm making a scientific claim. I didn't pull these numbers out of hat. That's why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so you can follow it step-by-step. Now we can go one step further. Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets exponentially longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world.
(In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)
The calculations come out to be as follows:
The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
The fourth day - one billion years.
The fifth day - one-half billion years.
The sixth day - one-quarter billion years.
But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.
The above is the explanation of the age of the universe from a Jewish physicist. My article agrees with all of that but carries it forward into Christian theology. (You asked a theological question, hence the theological response). I won’t go through the discussion of days again or repeat Genesis 1 or many of the sources, but rather excerpt the portions which I suspect are of interest to you:
Day 1
The first day was spent in creating light and separating it from darkness.
The word "darkness" is used repeatedly in the Scriptures to symbolize evil.
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. – I Thess 5:5
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. – 2 Corinthians 4:6
The word "light" is used repeatedly to symbolize His divinity, holiness, goodness.
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. – I John 1:5
Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. – John 8:12
I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. – John 12:46
Notice that both "Day" and "Night" are capitalized as proper names in Genesis 1.
As we can see in I Thes 5:5 "day" parallels "light" and "night" parallels "darkness" - spiritually. Believers are children of the light, a point to keep in mind as we explore Adam in the subsequent days.
The use of the phrase "without form, and void" indicates that there was originally no physical existence, no physical laws, e.g.
The phrase "the deep" is symbolized in Romans 10:7 to mean death (lifelessness.) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
The word "waters" is symbolized in Revelation 17:15 to mean peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
Since obviously there was no physical life, the word "waters" must mean "tongues." There has been much discussion about what the term "tongues" means. It is used throughout Scripture along with references to nations, peoples or beings – but, in context at this point of the creation, I understand "tongues" to mean intelligence in sound or thought. In the mathematics/physics sense it can be viewed as information (the Shannon definition of information is roughly a successful communication).
Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?
And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? - I Corinthians 14:6-7
Other Scriptures point to "water" as the word symbol for such Spiritual communication:
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. – Jeremiah 2:13
Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that [be] above the heavens. – Psalms 148:4
The words of a man's mouth [are as] deep waters, [and] the wellspring of wisdom [as] a flowing brook. – Proverbs 18:4
The voice of the LORD [is] upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the LORD [is] upon many waters. – Psalms 29:3
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. – John 3:5-8
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. John 4:13-14
I find the phrase "God said" to be very important in understanding what was going on in the physical realm while all this was happening in the spiritual realm.
I believe the resonance of God speaking caused the physical realm to come into existence because it was, in effect, a higher dimensional shockwave. It would be known as the "big bang." In the physical realm, the consequence of His speaking in Day 1, from our four dimensional viewpoint, would look like a cosmic soup.
Harmonics in the Early Universe – 6/5/2001
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – John 1:1
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. – Psalms 33:6
Day 2
The word "heaven" can mean a number of different things based on how it is used. Sometimes it refers to the firmament, as in the above passage, and sometimes "heaven" refers to the spiritual realm or the sky above. Sometimes it is used in plural. In every usage, the word speaks to a higher order, an "aboveness" - and here it is capitalized as a proper name.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. – Matthew 16:19
And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. – Acts 1:10-11
These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, - Genesis 2:4
I find the use of the plural of heaven interesting in light of the many worlds and multi-verse theories which have been proposed. Although the theories don’t do violence to my "take" on creation, it should be noted that the "multiple universes from multiple quantum fluctuations" is a rather convenient answer to why our universe happens to have just the right physical laws to support life, i.e. the other ones that don’t have the right physical laws may also exist if there are multiple universes. In other words, without more research, the multi-universe theory feels contrived to me.
I have the same reaction to theories of imaginary time, ekpyrotic cosmology and cyclic cosmology. All of these theories propose to move the beginning further back or obfuscate the beginning of time. Nevertheless, none of the theories defeat the fact that there was a beginning (Genesis 1:1)
Again, I take "waters" to mean tongues (intelligent sounds or thoughts, information.) Since physical realm beings don’t exist yet on day 2, I take this to mean that He was separating the spiritual realm from the natural realm. Or to put it another way, all lower waters (tongues, sounds, thought, information) were relegated beneath the firmament, which I believe is also a barrier between the spiritual realm and the natural realm.
I do not believe the barrier can be defined by geometric coordinates like a physical location. I see the physical and spiritual realm coexisting everywhere but separated by the firmament.
Some Kabbalist analysis arrived at this concept and suggested that the barrier is the speed of light and resonance itself (superstrings in the natural realm) along with thought are the only known common properties between the two realms.
This is appealing because we occupy our thoughts (Proverbs 23:7 - For as he thinketh in his heart, so [is] he:) and it is through thought that we receive Christ, pray and worship. And of course, Jesus emphasized in the Sermon on the Mount that thinking an evil deed has the same effect as doing it.
The Kabbalist view is also appealing because the speed of light is the delimiting factor to much of our current understanding. And the resonance observation would fit well with current research on higher dimensional dynamics.
It is possible that the firmament could be dimensional and nevertheless undetectable from our 4 dimensional worldview (3 spatial dimensions and 1 temporal dimension). We are inclined to view the physical realm on a timeline and thus expect each effect to have a cause. However if there were an additional time dimension, our timeline would be a plane and not a line and cause/effect could become effect/cause, past/present/future all malleable. It would make superluminal events (such as non-locality) and superposition logical. But I digress…
I see the barrier firmament like a one way mirror. The physical realm cannot clearly see into the spiritual realm, but the spiritual realm can see into the physical realm. The reason I suspect it works this way is because of I Cor 13:12 and what happened on day 6 (see below.)
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. – I Corinthians 13:12
Current theory is that the sun formed some 4.55 billion years ago from a supernova 5 billion years ago and that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, with the chemicals to support life existing on (physical) earth about 4 billion years ago. The NASA Genesis spacecraft will return with solar material in 2004 that will help test these theories. If all these theories hold true, then these building blocks to our solar system as we know it today were spawned during the 2nd Day.
Day 3
On this day I believe God created in the spiritual realm a perfect growing garden for spiritual beings. In this context, I believe "waters" refers to the common usage of the term, but the phrase "under the heaven" instead of "under the firmament of heaven" indicates that it was happening in the spiritual realm, above the firmament. Here the word "earth" is capitalized as a proper name. I believe this is supported by this later verse where God refers to having made the plants before they were in the earth (physical realm.)
And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground. – Genesis 2:5
My understanding of what was happening on day 3 has a lot to do with the garden of Eden. In Genesis 2 and Revelations 2 we see that the tree of life is in the center of Eden (Genesis) and Paradise (Revelation.) That tells me that Eden is either in the center of, or is the same thing as, the spiritual realm of Paradise.
There may be a physical "type" of Eden in the natural realm (like with the ark or the temple) – but it would only be a model and not the real (perfect) thing. After the creation week, I believe Adam was banished into a physical body in the natural realm specifically to make him mortal. Before then, there was no death or decay in Adam’s "world." (Genesis 2)
I believe Adam was banished into the body of a hominid, a modern physical earth-man, probably on Day 7. I believe other hominids existed, but only the spiritual descendants of Adam could have his essence, the life that was breathed into him.
And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. – Genesis 2:6
I suspect these spiritual descendants are the ones who have ears to hear and are the ones for whom the Bible is written, the ones He already knew.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. – Romans 8:29-30
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand.
My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father’s hand.
I and [my] Father are one. - John 10:26-30
Speaking of "ears to hear," the Word comes alive especially quick to me when reading the gospel of John. It is a love letter.
Current research shows that there are microfossils at 3.5 billion years in the fossil record and that atmospheric oxygen increased about 2.1 billion years ago. That would indicate some modeling activity was occurring in the physical realm to correspond with creation of the garden Earth in Paradise on Day 3.
Day 4
Because of the phrase "firmament of the heaven" I believe this refers to the physical realm, the structure of the solar system as we know it today – specific orbits and such. Notice how the word "earth" is now lower cased, not a proper name. Likewise, heaven is in lower case and singular.
As mentioned previously, the Genesis project of NASA will help to clarify what was happening in the formation of the solar system. I am curious if any catastrophic events occurred in our solar system approximately 1 to 2 billion years ago.
We already know of strange phenomenon in the solar system: that the orbits of the planets and satellites lie roughly in the same plane (the plane of the ecliptic) – that they orbit and rotate in the prograde direction, with axis tilts of less than 30 degrees and nearly circular orbits.
The fossil record indicates the oldest cellular organisms date back to 1.2 billion years, which would be towards the end of Day 4.
Day 5
Again the phrase "open firmament of heaven" causes me to view the 5th day in the physical realm.
On this day (a 500 million year period to us) God directed the physical realm waters to abundantly bring forth creatures. I see this as what is called "evolution" but clearly guided by intelligent design. The blessing I believe corresponds to the "Cambrian explosion." God’s interventions might be what is known as "punctuated equilibrium."
Of course, the debate rages on evolutionary biology and intelligent design. These verses indicate that we will find evidence of both - because on the one hand God tells the waters to bring forth abundantly (biologically) and other hand He says that He created whales and every living thing that moves, that the water brought forth abundantly (intelligent design.)
From that verse I would expect the fossil record to make a better case for evolutionary biology in the most simple of life forms and for intelligent design to make a better case for the more complex. For a graphic representation of the differences:
For a long time now I’ve been suggesting that the evolutionists should be malleable on the randomness tenet. I said that because it seemed like a good way to forge peace between that side and intelligent design with regard to teaching children in public schools. However, after doing a great deal of research on information theory, algorithms and mathematics in genetics – in particular, the symbolization – I’m even more convinced that evolutionists insist on randomness to their own peril. The current focus is autonomous biological self-organizing complexity.
I realize the evolutionist position is that randomness does not mean the same thing as ‘roll of the dice’ – because random mutations are culled by natural selection. Nevertheless, the initiating event in their theory is a random mutation. However, regulatory control genes and functional complexity point away from randomness and towards autonomy and self-organizing complexity.
In any case, I predict that intelligent design at first cause (abiogenesis, life from non-life) will be underscored since there is no origin for the minimal necessary information content whether or not opportunistic
Day 6
The sixth day is a split screen to me, because it doesn’t delimit by the firmament in either direction. The first two sentences continues the "evolution" on the earth, especially with regard to animals, but limits the creatures to reproduce after their own kind.
So far, the fossil record has shown no new animal phyla after the Cambrian explosion about 500 million years ago. The animals simply proliferate and diversify in agreement with the first two sentences. If the process were entirely natural at this point, I would expect to see fossil evidence of new animal phyla to correspond with the extinctions of 250 and 65 million years ago. I would also expect to see a much larger and diversified fossil record.
The split screen starts in the third passage where He says "Let us make man in our image." I believe this happened in the spiritual realm, i.e. spiritual man (Adam) was given authority over everything in the physical realm, but actually existed in the perfect spiritual realm which was set aside in Day 2 and furnished in Day 3. I believe Adam was banished from the spiritual realm to occupy a mortal body in the physical realm so that he would experience death and decay as punishment for disobediently obtaining the knowledge of good and evil which was established in Day 1.
This discussion raises the question of the purpose of evil and predestination v free will, both of which I address in a separate collection of musings http://www.alamo-girl.com/backdoor.htm
Day 7
This is the day God rested from His work.
The latest study pegs the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years with a very small margin for error
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/0206mapresults.htmlThis figure is about 14% lower than my ballpark estimates, but it is close enough for me because, as I noted in day 1, it is not disclosed exactly when on Day 1 God first spoke, causing the beginning of space/time.
The effect of the expansion rate of the universe on time is not relevant to subsequent verses in Genesis because the focus of the Scriptures changes from the Creator’s viewpoint to the Adamic viewpoint --- life on (lower case) earth.
The countdown began when Adam was banished. We are at year 5764 of the countdown according to the Jewish calendar.
The physical realm is still under the Adamic dominion and therefore suffers empathetically.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope,
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
And not only [they], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, [to wit], the redemption of our body. – Romans 8:19-23
Summary of the Creation week:
The creation week begins with language, thought, tongues, sounds, information. On personal experience, I know the Word is alive. And it is the written word that tells me that Jesus is the Word made flesh. From John 1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not..
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. – John 1:1-14
The spiritual descendants of Adam were not made for the physical realm – we were made for the spiritual realm. The Bible is a spiritual work and should be read that way. It shows us the way back home, which is through Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29-30)
Of course, I cannot be sure if my "take" on how the Bible reconciles with science is correct until the rest of me gets to the other side, but the flow of what I have written here rings true to my spirit, and in the end, that’s what counts to me.
You replies:I'm also worried about this statement. There is no Biblical support for such a claim, plus it also leaves out the whole issue of Eve in the story of the Fall. Jesus tells us in heaven that there is no marriage and Galatians states that in Christ there is neither male nor female. Assuming you meant Eve to be in the picture, why would God create a "woman" for Adam in this spiritual realm to be a helper/wife, when Scripture speaks to the opposite.
Galatians 3:8 indeed says that we are one in Christ Jesus: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Likewise in John 17:21-22, Christ is one in the Father and we are One in Christ: That they all may be one; as thou, Father, [art] in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
This is the mystery of which Paul speaks in Ephesians 5:30-32: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
In heaven, it is not about sex or reproduction.
Thank you for your reply!
What kind of scattergraph, of what kind of data, what's a "dot" in your sentence above, what sort of random distribution, and what "particular area" are you talking about?
If you want to argue science, you're going to have to learn to be far less vague.
Design predicts a scattergraph where the dots are in many very small localized clumps.
Define "very small", "localized", and "clumps" as you are using them in this sentence. Point-like clumps? Linear clumps? Planar clumps? Orthogonal or sloped? This is a multi-dimensional chartspace, is it not? And clumping around *which* kind of locations on the chart? Corners?
Plotting the scattergraph of observed lifeforms on a suitably-dimensional graph
Name the "suitable-dimensions", please.
still yields the second model even today and you know it.
He does? I doubt even *you* "know it". In fact, I think you're just making this up. Feel free to provide a citation to research which has actually plotted any such graph based on real-world data and prove me wrong.
This is a central and essential fallacy of using speciation to teach evolution.
Horse crap. There's no "fallacy" of "using speciation to teach evolution" when it's very heavily supported by multiple lines of evidence, and your imaginary charts can't change that.
Complexity is one of my favorite subjects! We had just begun exploring the various types on betty boop's Plato thread at post 875.
You might enjoy taking at peek at that summary.
The post to which I replied said this:
WildTurkey: It means you can't support your allegation.
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