The Dirty Little Secret Is Out: Religious Faith and Evolution Are Incompatible

ICR ^ | March 20, 2009 | Frank Sherwin, M.A.

[GodGunsGuts]

In a recent book review, Jerry Coyne, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, admitted that the secular worldview of macroevolution (the development of complex life from “simpler” forms) is at odds with Christian faith...

[MHGinTN]

In the Dark Gaes, do you suppose anyone was 'saved'? ... 'Of course'! you would say. So, even the conceptualization limits of a man or woman in the Dark Ages could grasp truth that is even today available, without being bogged down in the vagaries of physics and science and ... well, you get the gist. There is something happening in the human soul when the Holy Spirit touches our spirit, to bring it alive so that it may accept God's Grace, or reject His Grace. Our modern state of complex thinking doesn't aid us, it hinders us, IMHO. BUT it does not prevent us from having the same calling to 'come unto Him'.

In the fifth chapter of Daniel, the scene depicts a hand appearing, reaching forth from another unseen realm as close as a man's arm from Belshazar's realm. The erst fo the body to which the arm is attached exists in a spacetime coordinate system different from our own, but you may be assured there ius psace and time there else events would not occur and an arm could not reach forth. Describing the nature of that other coordinate system is the stuff of imagination, but science wants to measure it.

If you seek a question of wide scope, answer this one: Does the human spirit (not the soul of our behavior mechanism, the spirit to which God speaks via His Holy Spirit) exist in or out of spacetime, even a different spacetime from our current comprehension?

[hosepipe]

[ The authoritative early Jewish thinkers or “mystics” also made extraordinary breakthroughs in the understanding of time that arguably modern science utterly depends on for its own methodology. ]

Amazing the depths of thought the writer(s) of Genesis had...
Back when a decent time piece was a dream..

I'm impressed with the weight put on good and evil..
For what is good? and what is evil?..
Surely it takes a God to decide..

A mere observer is bogged down with qualia and timestamps..
For what may be good today may evil in a different situation.. same in the reverse..

Is murder the same as killing?..
Or is hate, love reversed?..
Should we hate some things and love others?..

Genesis goes for the throat on these issues..
No pussyfooting around..

If Genesis is a cartoon, it is a political cartoon..
Very deep timeless messages/images/metaphors there..

It might be beyond mere primates to invent..

[hosepipe]

[ The God to whom a man proves devout.. / That is his own soul turned inside out. ]

As Jesus said to one observer.. quoteing another passage..
"Ye shall be as God(s)"..

Same message in the Bride of Christ and the Body of Christ..

What is God?... Nobody really knows..
How can two become one?.. It may be possible..
In the flesh we would have to eat someone(*)...
But in spirit it maybe merely a "Merge"...

[Fichori]

“I have offered a few suggestions on how to do that, but people seem more interested in losing “pure” than winning and getting at least some of the things they want.” [excerpt, bold emphasis mine]

‘Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death’ —Patrick Henry

[Badger1]

Fichori: ‘Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death’ —Patrick Henry

You already have your liberty so your quoting Patrick Henry is pretty silly.

Or are you planning armed rebellion like Henry was? If that's the case, its pretty scary.

[Fichori]

I understand.

Not everybody has it in them to be a Patrick Henry.

[D-fendr]

Candles have the power to ameliorate the suffering of loved ones in purgatory.

It's helpful in discussion that when we state another person's doctrine we do so accurately.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for your wonderful essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!

“More like a boundary!” Now there’s an interesting idea! I wonder if that was the sort of thing Isaac Newton had in mind with his conception of the sensorium Dei; e.g., a boundary [firmament?] demarcating and separating heaven and earth while at the same time constituting the means of their abiding relations, a sort of “membrane” between the spiritual and the physical, enabling the relations that Newton summed up as “the Lord of Life with His creatures” to manifest in creation.

I would not at all be surprised if the concept of the firmament as a boundary that is not a geometrical separation was what Newton had in mind with the term sensorium Dei. And I strongly agree that he had a Jewish bent to his thinking, e.g. as I recall, he believed the Scriptures were encoded by God.

And thank you so very much for the Pannenburg excerpt and the comparison to the classical Greek concept of time as the “eternity of changeless existence” v the Jewish concept of eternity as "unlimited duration throughout time.” ternity - as Pannenburg so beautifully described - is "contemporaneous with all time."

Aristotle explained the concept of time by counting.

And I would extend that to say that eternity is extra-dimensional time with no end to the counting.

As Pannenburg suggests, eternity is contemporaneous with all geometries of space/time. And yet the sum of all such geometries would not equal it - the counting doesn't halt when a universe begins or ends.

A new time of counting will begin, but eternity will not end, when God creates the new heaven and new earth.

Geometrically, one could view it as volumetric in that past, present and future are concurrent in eternity, i.e. it is not a timeline.

But counting does not apply to God whose Name is I AM. He does not change.

Or to put it another way, eternity like space/time is part of the creation, not a property of the Creator.

In sum, your insight to the necessity of that which does not change for that which does change applies to time as well.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for sharing your insights, dear sister in Christ, and thank you for your encouragements!

[Alamo-Girl]

What I need your help with: In your experience, on what basis, by what criterion, could I prove Feuerbach's theory fundamentally wrong?

Feuerbach's theory presupposes that God is a hypothesis.

Expose that error and his theory crumbles.

Of course, when you testify that God is not a hypothesis, that He lives, that His Name is I AM and you know Him - your correspondent might just walk away shaking his head.

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? - Isaiah 53:1

But if he has "ears to hear" he will.

[D-fendr]

Excuse me for jumping in. I’m not familiar with the theory, but the logic would be:

Unless one’s assumptions are truly self evident, capable of rising to the level of axiom, or proven deductively from other axioms, the presupposition that X is a hypothesis is no more valid that not-X is a hypothesis. Thus any theory dependent on it is not proven.

Wouldn’t it fall to Feuerbach to prove his own assumptions, or else the conclusions are moot?

[Alamo-Girl]

Precisely so, dear brother in Christ!

But sadly, many do not follow the formalities of their reasoning and yet demand we accept it as if they had.

In this case, Feuerbach holds "God is a hypothesis" as axiomatic when it is not as any of us would testify: He lives, His Name is I AM - we know Him.

Concealing the presupposition, by the way, is a common ploy in debate when we come up against atheists and agnostics.

And it is an effective counter argument to expose those unspoken axioms and postulates. Ditto for principles, e.g. methodological naturalism.

Indeed that one is a 'classic' as our correspondents often proceed with the presupposition that the principle is the reality. IOW, that reality consists only of matter in all its motions, i.e. if it cannot be observed with a telescope or microscope, it does not exist.

And we frequently counter that nature is a subset of "all that there is" pointing to physical laws, mathematics, information, etc. which are not objects subject to such methodology.

And, once that door is open, we proceed to Logos, Jesus Christ, God. If they have "ears to hear" they will.

When the foundation is destroyed the whole house comes crumbling down.

[tpanther]

Noooo, he just knows who’s naugthty and nice!

[tpanther]

Scientists were involved, and they received public funding, and this is what loons squeal about constantly when it comes to their discomforts with God and science; are you saying that everything that science investigatges must be formally peer reviewed or studied? To what end other than concensus?

How very convenient!

Even that doesn’t hold water, as it’s so lame as to be a complete joke.

Sorry, scientists and their objective method looks nice on paper, but we all know theory isn’t practice either.

[hosepipe]

If God were not hypothetical then would faith be needed?..
What value is faith?..

Can faith trump hypothesis?...
Is the hypothesis that God exists a test of faith?..

To prove God exists requires to know What God Is?..
Does any know what God is?..

What is God?..
Is it important or even possible to know what God is?..

In the same vein, What are WE?..
Are we flesh or spirit or both? or something else?..

Is life on this planet a spiritual experience for flesh?..
Or a fleshly experience for spirits?.. or Both?..

What am I?.... a question most ask themselves at some point..
Wonder if any come up with the correct answer...

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your meditations, dear brother in Christ!

As you are wont to say: "JESUS: you must be born again."

When that happens, there is no further reason to doubt and every assurance to declare that God is not a hypothesis.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. – Romans 8:9

To God be the glory!

[tacticalogic]

Noooo, he just knows who’s naugthty and nice!

Then you better be nice.

[betty boop]

Concealing the presupposition, by the way, is a common ploy in debate when we come up against atheists and agnostics.

Indeed. Probably because the presupposition is not only untested, but untestable. As seems to be the case with Feuerbach's theory of religion as psychological projection, which begins with the presupposition that God is "not real," just an illusion "in our minds" produced by own own existential anxieties.

Yet Marx could take the insight and build on it; as in, "religion is the opiate of the masses." There are some who would further argue that Marxian theory also was strongly informed by another theory whose basic presupposition is also untested and untestable. That would be Darwinian macroevolution.

Marx erected his intellectual edifice on sand. No wonder his theory doesn't "work."

You wrote, "When the foundation is destroyed the whole house comes crumbling down." The problem is that Marxists as a rule do not appear eager to take questions regarding their foundational principles. Instead, anytime their house falls down (as it has repeatedly done in history, usually involving staggering human and social costs), they keep on trying to rebuild it on the same shaky ground as before.

Somebody once observed that the definition of an insane person is someone who keeps on doing the same failed things over and over again, expecting to get a different result with the next try. This is a case of the triumph of hope over experience....

I haven't the least doubt that Marxism is a quasi-religion supported by the great theological virtues of faith and hope (in man, not in God) — but not of love. Absent God, there is no love in the world.... Man is "leveled" into an anonymous abstraction, and then dissolved in the vast and churning sea of "massman"....

But I didn't mean to kick off a sidebar on the "intellectual roots" of Marxism here. Basically all I wanted to say was that honest thinkers usually are willing to question (test) their own presuppositions. This is what keeps them "honest."

Thank you ever so much for your wonderfully insightful essay/post, dearest sister in Christ!

[D-fendr]

reality consists only of matter in all its motions, i.e. if it cannot be observed with a telescope or microscope, it does not exist.

Which cannot be proved scientifically. A rough syllogism would be:

1) Only that which can be proven using science is true.
2) The statement "only that which can be detected by the senses and their extensions exists" cannot be proven using science.
3) Therefore, this statement 2) is false.

Further, the premise itself is falls in a performance error:

1) Only that which can be proven using science alone is true.
2) The statement "Only that which can be proven using science alone is true" cannot be proven using science.
3) Therefore, this premise 1) is false.

Of course all of this is scientism, which was thoroughly debunked centuries ago, yet remains the popular philosophy of our day.

As to the sparking others to take a peek at the cosmos outside science's view, the one I have found most useful is: "Does love exists?"

thanks for your reply..

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your insights into the Marxist's roots, dearest sister in Christ, and thank you for your encouragements!

I haven't the least doubt that Marxism is a quasi-religion supported by the great theological virtues of faith and hope (in man, not in God) — but not of love. Absent God, there is no love in the world.... Man is "leveled" into an anonymous abstraction, and then dissolved in the vast and churning sea of "massman"....

It is an outstanding example of the peril that can result when people allow the underlying presuppositions to go unchallenged.

Basically all I wanted to say was that honest thinkers usually are willing to question (test) their own presuppositions. This is what keeps them "honest."

Precisely so. And if they are unwilling, then it is readily apparent they have an agenda, they are trying to persuade, spin or sell - not inquire.