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 Darwins 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 districts 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 serpents 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 Gods 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.
God cursed us with the experience of pain and a finite life. Given what He could have cursed us with, I can accept that.
I am still mad at Him about mosquitoes, however...
OTOH, I tell all of my patients that pain is God's way of telling us that we are still alive.
Here's one for all of you Creationists: I am absolutely positive that God created us as part of the "Cosmic Giggle" and if we don't believe in that, we can never really understand Him.
In any event, I am not sure what your point is. Is it that the magic mutation occcured X years ago rather than Y years ago, or something else? Obviously, if there was a magic mutation, it did not occur six thousand years ago, or whatever thereabouts the hard core fundamentalists posit.
But God included randomness as part of the process. Without randomness, we could not have "evolved" into His image.
Don't mess with God! He knows what He's doing so why worry about it at all?
Your neighbors descended from some other tree of life, or maybe the same tree, but from Neandrathals, while you descended from Cro-magnon man, or what?
My neighbors are Western caucasian vegetarian Buddhists who teach at the local university. I'm not even sure if they are from this planet!
This is sure a fun thread!
Do the planits orbit the sun or must Seven Spanish Angels push them through their respective epicycles? Does each falling particle need an angel to push it? Gravitational theory is non-theistic as normally taught.
And I am comfortable with what He created also. That includes humans and all living things. If you think He created evolution to bring man into existence, you do not believe the Bible.
Wishful thinking aside....Philosophically, theologically, and scientifically, they are not compatible. Like it or not.
To understand God's creation and our part in it we must try to comprehend the fourth dimension of time. God is infinite and eternal. We are finite and temporal. He knew exactly what was going to happen when He created all of this because His perception is circular. Ours is linear. This is why we will never be able to fully comprehend God - we don't have the mental capacity. What we do have is Faith. Thank you God for that.
Please direct me to the associated verse in the Bible that states this.
I believe that the Bible is the Word of God expressed by Man. I do not believe that Man has the capacity to express God's word with 100% accuracy. Nor do I believe that Science is 100% accurate.
I do believe that Man's highest calling in life is to explore and study what God had created for us with an open mind.
Who is the "tree of life"?
The flesh body is descent from one generation to the next and there is no way that all flesh alive on this planet today came from just two people. The evolutionist will tell you that Eve had to have had several partners to bare children of the ethnicity we see today. However, the tree of life represents life to the soul that does not die with the death of flesh.
Adam and Eve and their generations are recorded as they were the linage to Christ the one destined to ... Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise too part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
16 For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.
Christ demonstrated for us at His flesh body dying that He went to the 'prisoners' all those that came before Him the offering of salvation while it appeared to those in the flesh he was still in the tomb.
People who take everything that they read in the Bible as absolute truth are really missing out on a lot.
The Bible was written by HUMANS as directed by God. HUMANS have a tendency to screw things up ALL of the time.
Do you REALLY want to believe EVERYTHING in the Bible EXACTLY as it is written??? Open your mind - it does not hurt one bit and you may discover Glories of God that you never imagined!
And this is where we disagree. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God, period. If one doesn't, then one can draw up their own scenario as to how things happen, which is what you are doing.
Then by this logic, what is there to prevent us from evolving "out of," or away from, his image.
If your answer is, that he guides evolution, then you have just defeated your premise, since randomness becomes incoherent.
How do we even know what God's image is?
I have Faith that God will keep things under control and that if we evolve further, it will be in a positive direction towards Him, not away.
You and I must agree to disagree. I am not arrogant enough to think that humans could possibly represent the Word of God w/o messing up a few things and leaving a lot of things out.
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