Posted on 09/09/2006 8:39:07 PM PDT by curiosity
“In the final analysis (God) used evolution to set us free.”
Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller used this quote from his book “Finding Darwin’s God” as a central point in his speech about simultaneously believing in evolution and religion.
Miller spoke to more than 500 people Thursday evening in the Kansas Union Ballroom.
He testified for the pro-evolution side in the recent lawsuit against the Dover, Pa., school district, where a federal judge ruled against the district’s teaching of intelligent design in biology classrooms. He said it was creationism in disguise.
Conservatives on the Kansas State Board of Education approved science standards last year that criticized evolution, but after the August primary election, it appears moderates will regain control of the board and eventually reinstate the former standards.
Miller gained several laughs from the audience during his speech as he described the Dover trial, including a scene when intelligent design proponent Michael Behe asked the judge if he could “move the evidence to the side.”
Plaintiffs’ attorney Eric Rothschild had stacked 58 scientific papers, nine books and other textbook chapters on evolutionary evidence supporting development of the human immune system in front of Behe on the witness stand.
Miller said religion and evolution are too often played as opposing forces and incorrectly identified as mutually exclusive. At Brown, a student once told him he could not worship at the university chapel and cited a book that places evolution as the fruit in the serpent’s mouth or a “tool of Satan.”
But Miller said the root of the portrayal of religion and evolution as opposites may come from scientists who have an “anti-theistic interpretation of evolution,” a stance he disagrees with.
“People of faith are shooting at the wrong target. They should not be shooting at evolution itself,” he said.
Miller, a Catholic, said evolution has been remarkably robust in answering criticism through fossil records, the fusing of human chromosomes and other examples.
Instead of attacking evolutionary theory, the argument should be against the anti-theistic interpretation of evolution, he said.
He quoted several scientists, philosophers and religious leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI, who has written: “Even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation.”
“By understanding the mechanics of this world, what one is really doing is praising and glorifying God,” Miller said.
Miller will answer questions from the public at 10 a.m. today at the Hall Center for the Humanities.
The lecture was the first in the “Difficult Dialogues” series on “Knowledge: Faith & Reason,” presented by the Hall Center and the Biodiversity Institute.
Federal Judge John E. Jones III, who ruled in favor of the Dover plaintiffs, will speak Sept. 26.
How do we know for sure that is what GOD meant by creation?
If that's true, then what's to prevent us from evolving away from God...forever.
What then is the point?
It's what I mean by creation. Do I really need to explain that.....
Look, If you don't want to continue, then just say so.....
Considering that you initially responded to the statement: "...what would be the purpose of employing a transitional system," I think they're entirely relevant. I hesitate to continue, since you seem to be going off on a tangent, which I may or may not be interested in.
Tell me a little more about this secondary causation.
Talk about an oxymoron. "Theistic Evolution" is like talking about "Brain-Dead Brilliance."
You seem to be implying that special creation infers a contradiction of free will.
I'd like to know how you come to that conclusion
No, I don't think there's a necessary contradiction. My point is that special creation implies that God, prior to the creation of man, interacted with the natural world in a very different way from how he interacts with Man.
Specifically with man, God does not directly cause everything we do. He gives us freedom to make our own choices, thereby allowing his overall plan for humanity to be realized through our quasi-independent actions. I say quasi-independent because we cannot act without His sustaining the existence of the physical world and our souls. So we're not completely independent, but we can make choices that are our own.
Now it is possible that God could directly specially create creatures like us with the freedom to make our own choices. But I think it is more fitting that we, whose actions God does not directly control, were created through a process that God set in motion but did not directly control or cause, i.e. that we were created through secondary causes. It would be more consistent, and I think that God tends to be consistent.
Another point, which I did not make before, is that by creating us sequentially through a material process ensures that we are one with the rest of the natural world, which is a very Biblical concept.
In your initial post, you said this:
In order for free will to exist...
...then you stated your argument in evolutionary terms. That, to me, seems like an implication that special creation woulld contradict free will, since the two paradigms are not compatible.
I don't really care which position you take, just so long as you're clear and consistent.
My point is that special creation implies that God, prior to the creation of man, interacted with the natural world in a very different way from how he interacts with Man.
Well, God makes it perfectly clear, almost from the very beginning in the Bible, that man is unique, and thus his relationship to us is also unique. I'm not sure how this point is significant to your argument though...
Specifically with man, God does not directly cause everything we do. He gives us freedom to make our own choices, thereby allowing his overall plan for humanity to be realized through our quasi-independent actions. I say quasi-independent because we cannot act without His sustaining the existence of the physical world and our souls. So we're not completely independent, but we can make choices that are our own.
I don't disagree with any of this, but again, how is this meaningful to what we are discussing.
Now it is possible that God could directly specially create creatures like us with the freedom to make our own choices. But I think it is more fitting that we, whose actions God does not directly control, were created through a process that God set in motion but did not directly control or cause, i.e. that we were created through secondary causes. It would be more consistent, and I think that God tends to be consistent.
All you're stating here is an overview of your belief, which I'm already familiar with. What you're not doing, is giving me a logical argument as to why it should be this way.
I'll ask you again, why does time and physical transition facilitate free will.
I am glad it is not up to me to turn people to the right way. That work is left to the Holy Spirit. It is only thru His work on human hearts that turn them to the correct way and the correct Book. Of course God does use His people to assist in this work but in the end it is the Holy Spirit who gets the credit, as well He should.
Just now checked in but I am going to try to post and freepmail later today.
I am glad it is not up to me to turn people to the right way. That work is left to the Holy Spirit. It is only thru His work on human hearts that turn them to the correct way and the correct Book. Of course God does use His people to assist in this work but in the end it is the Holy Spirit who gets the credit, as well He should.
Isaiah 55:6-12
6. Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
9. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11. so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Yes, it is; but it not also what is known as the Rapture?
Nah....
HE used Jesus!
Elsie posted: NIV 2 Timothy 4:3-4 3. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Like andysandmikesmom said, the idea that there is no rapture is unusual. It is not what the overwhelming majority of preachers, televangelists or "prophecey teachers" especially, teach. A great many teach the rapture.
Also keep --Amos 8:11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.-- in mind when reading my next post mainly dealing with 2Thess.
Elsie wrote:HERETIC!!! --EvoDude
No, that's what someone on this thread earlier in post 47 called intellectual Catholics. I strongly disagree. I agree with Torie's distaste for flinging the word about. It's too close to the way the jihadist muslims use the word infidel to describe anyone that disagrees with them. Even those within their own faith.
And starting in Exodus 3:2 He talked to Moses in the form of a burning bush that didn't char.
No. Don't confuse pleather with leather.
That is well stated and the way most people see things, I believe. I've never understood those that vehemenently insist every hurricane, storm or earthquake is created and directed by God because he is ticked off.
Just wanted to say this might be the best post I've ever read on this entire site. It sums up the disagreement perfectly and simply. As a side- the first time I saw the word Luddite I had no idea what it meant. Prompted me to look it up on Wikipedia.
1Thess4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
1Corinthians 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. 16And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
The last trump, the 7th in Corinthians 15:52 sounds like it's the same trump being described in 1Thess 4:16.
Notice the Lord does not come back and make the the world His kingdom to rule and reign until the 7th angel has blown the last trump in Rev 11:15.
I am not sure what Arnold Murray believes on this next point, but I believe Christ rose after 3 days in a fully flesh and blood body. Thomas put his hands in his wounds. As Luke 24:22 shows-
Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; 23And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.
---there was NO body in the tomb. That proves his flesh and blood body rose. From some verses in Acts 13 I don't believe it ever saw any rot either. He was special.
I haven't even gotten to 2Thess. yet but I will. I know this is a lot to read and think over but I hope you both can make heads and tails of my post, thoughts and HTML formating of the Bible verses.
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