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Darwin’s Sad Legacy (evolution invented to give death and suffering a positive explanation?)
AiG ^ | April 14, 2009 | Dr. Tommy Mitchell

Posted on 04/15/2009 10:52:09 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts

The common thread throughout Darwin’s life was his continual struggle with the issue of death and suffering. He was never able to reconcile the existence of death, disease, and struggle with the character of a loving God:

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.[1]

Darwin was unable to understand why a loving Creator God would allow the horrible things he witnessed in nature and everyday life. Animals fed on one another; creatures ripped each other apart; women died in childbirth, etc. The world seemed heartless and cruel. Darwin’s eventual expansion of the concept of evolution seemed to provide a somewhat positive purpose for the suffering and death he could not explain.

Two of Darwin’s biographers went so far as to imply that...

(Excerpt) Read more at answersingenesis.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: answersingenesis; creation; darwin; evolution; goodgodimnutz; happiness; intelligentdesign; joy; moralabsolutes; oldearthspeculation; purpose; religionofatheism; science
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To: onewhowatches; metmom
“Logic and reason are part of God's gift of intellect, the beginning of divinity that evolves us beyond common life and makes us in God's image.

In this day and age to be a creationist is to have rejected God's gift and thereby rejected God.”
[excerpt]
A man cannot reject that which makes him in the image of God.

The idea that intellect is the beginning of divinity is not scriptural. (and your whole premise of evolving into the image of God from common life, is its self directly contradictory to scripture)

God gave man the gift of physical strength and intelligence thereby enabling him to kill.

If a man exercises restraint and does not harm his fellow man, is he rejecting the gift and the giver because he does not do all that the giver has enabled him to do?

I think not!


Creationists do not reject God's gift as you have asserted.

It is however, the evolutionist who rejects God Himself by rejecting His Word.

“Meanwhile evolutionists have embraced the intellect and accepted God's gift.” [excerpt]
And all the while misusing that gift to deny the truth of God's Word.

“Even those who accept evolution and are atheists are closer to God's desire for mankind than creationists.” [excerpt]
Unless one accepts Christ as their Lord and Savior, they are lost.


Overall, I find your line of reasoning interesting (paraphrased):

Assertion: Logic and reason are part of God's gift of intellect, which makes us in God's image

Assertion: Creationists reject that gift as well as God.

Assertion: Evolutionists who accept that gift are closer to God desire for mankind than Creationists.

Inferred conclusions: Creationists are not made in God's image, are not going to heaven, and are inferior to Evolutionists.


Where have we seen that type of argument before?
301 posted on 04/28/2009 2:05:15 PM PDT by Fichori (The only bailout I'm interested in is the one where the entire Democrat party leaves the county)
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To: Fichori

All the time. They just can never get around the superior to thou attitude. Kind of ironic, isn’t it.


302 posted on 04/28/2009 2:15:15 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: onewhowatches; metmom; Fichori; GodGunsGuts; betty boop

Logic and reason are part of God’s gift of intellect, the beginning of divinity that evolves us beyond common life and makes us in God’s image.

In this day and age to be a creationist is to have rejected God’s gift and thereby rejected God. Meanwhile evolutionists have embraced the intellect and accepted God’s gift. Even those who accept evolution and are atheists are closer to God’s desire for mankind than creationists.


Now there’s the knee-slapper award of the day!

I guess you simply ignored the part in Genesis about God making man just the way he is, in His image.

To the evolutionist, a mere great ape, with no soul, he is closer to God’s will by worshipping Darwin and ignoring God’s word.

More proof that in the liberal world, up is down and down is up.


303 posted on 04/28/2009 3:05:10 PM PDT by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing---Edmund Burke)
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To: onewhowatches; metmom; Fichori; GodGunsGuts; betty boop

Logic and reason are part of God’s gift of intellect, the beginning of divinity that evolves us beyond common life and makes us in God’s image.

In this day and age to be a creationist is to have rejected God’s gift and thereby rejected God. Meanwhile evolutionists have embraced the intellect and accepted God’s gift. Even those who accept evolution and are atheists are closer to God’s desire for mankind than creationists.


Now there’s the knee-slapper award of the day!

I guess you simply ignored the part in Genesis about God making man just the way he is, in His image.

To the evolutionist, a mere great ape, with no soul, he is closer to God’s will by worshipping Darwin and ignoring God’s word.

More proof that in the liberal world, up is down and down is up.


304 posted on 04/28/2009 3:05:13 PM PDT by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing---Edmund Burke)
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To: tpanther; Fichori; GodGunsGuts; betty boop; Alamo-Girl

Dontcha just love how the evos try to make themselves out to be more Godly than the Chrisitians/creationists, all the while denying God’s Word?

The rationale that since God is smart, therefore everyone who is smarter than others is more godly is ludicrous.

God does indeed have a lot to say about the wisdom of this world, but I wouldn’t brag on it.


305 posted on 04/28/2009 4:25:10 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: onewhowatches; Filo; metmom; spirited irish; Alamo-Girl; GodGunsGuts; hosepipe; DallasMike; ...
In this day and age to be a creationist is to have rejected God's gift and thereby rejected God. Meanwhile evolutionists have embraced the intellect and accepted God's gift. Even those who accept evolution and are atheists are closer to God's desire for mankind than creationists.

I find your argument specious and thoroughly unbiblical. God created man in His image; that is, as possessing reason and free will as the essential divine endowments that characterize essential human nature from the very beginning. Reason, therefore, is not somehow an acquisition that man appropriates via evolution. It is an essential human property that defines what human nature IS already, from the get-go.

And certainly man cannot, via reason or any other way, elevate himself to the status of godhood. God is not generating "other gods"; He is forming human souls — sons (and daughters) — with whom to relate and communicate, in the now and hereafter.

"Creationists" — better to say Christians in general — understand and readily accept all this. So, contrary to your belief, they have in no way "rejected" God's gift, thereby rejecting God. This is simply nonsense, onewhowatches.

Also it is nonsense to claim that atheists "are closer to God's desire for mankind than creationists." (As if you had some sort of privileged information about God's desires whereby you can divine who would be "close" or "not close" to Him.) Atheists simply deny God altogether. Is it reasonable to expect that God would favor those who deny Him? To deny God is to deny universal Truth, and the foundation of reason itself. That denied, what is left of reason — and what is left for reason to do?

Plus it is idiotic to insist that Christians reject intellect, reason. As C. S. Lewis put it, faith and reason harmonize quite well. Lewis repudiated the assertion that religious truth can be obtained only through a blind, fideistic leap. This is not faith at all. Christians in general are not given to "blind" leaps: They know very well what they're "leaping" for — and towards. And they know that this leap is eminently reasonable.

The entire Christian message is eminently reasonable — and God wants us to know that. Thus faith and reason are allies; they are not enemies divided by an infinite epistemological chasm as evidently you would lead us to believe.

God made men "rational"; He made the universe in such a way that it can be consistently and accurately reasoned about, and therefore understood, by human beings. And He bids us to "Go look!" and understand what He has wrought.

Funny thing is, given the immediately foregoing, it is Christians who are more open to the facts of reality, and who are more willing to adjust their beliefs as disconfirming evidence piles up, than are, say, (1) atheists; (2) Darwinists; (3) naturalists; (4) materialists; (5) physicalists; (6) determinists.

If you subscribe to the doctrine of the "causal closure of the physical," and/or the doctrine of naturalistic/mechanistic determinism, there is simply no way that you can rationally account for human freedom — or for such other things as man's consciousness, intellect, aesthetic experiences, and moral motions. And yet human beings clearly demonstrate these things. This is not rocket science: Simple common sense tells you all this.

The mechanist/determinist position holds that all reality is interlocked in an inexorable, regressive causal chain. But this supposition makes freedom impossible; for a truly free act is one that has no deterministic cause. Yet in a deterministic universe, there are no uncaused events. Ergo: Freedom is an illusion.

I do believe, onewhowatches, that you may be attempting to "recreate the universe" in your own image. But this is to construct a "second reality,"and ultimately all second realities are "unliveable" by human beings. The tension of living in between First and Second reality is ultimately impossible to bear. And eventually, it affects the mind in unnatural ways....

JMHO FWIW.

306 posted on 04/28/2009 4:32:50 PM PDT by betty boop (All truthful knowledge begins and ends in experience. — Albert Einstein)
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To: betty boop

Excellent post!


307 posted on 04/28/2009 4:33:55 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: betty boop; metmom

Excellent post, BB! Where do these guys come up with this stuff? No scriptural references—nothing!—except their own frame of reference!


308 posted on 04/28/2009 5:13:50 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
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To: onewhowatches; metmom; betty boop; Alamo-Girl
In this day and age to be a creationist is to have rejected God's gift and thereby rejected God. Meanwhile evolutionists have embraced the intellect and accepted God's gift. Even those who accept evolution and are atheists are closer to God's desire for mankind than creationists.

In the beginning God CREATED heaven, and earth. (Genesis 1:1)

And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. 27 And God CREATED man to his own image: to the image of God he CREATED him: male and female he CREATED them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

Now, had the word "evolved" been used instead of created, you would probably be correct; however, had the word evolved been used I doubt we would be discussing this.

Darwinists have long embraced atheism to justify their positions and that is certainly their prerogative, but it is an insult to the intelligence of even the most ignorant among them to claim any sort of Divine Guidance for their positions.

309 posted on 04/28/2009 5:23:15 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: betty boop; onewhowatches; Alamo-Girl; GodGunsGuts; Fichori; tpanther; Mr. Silverback; ...

It’s worth a lot.

Claiming to be closer to God’s ideal all the while rejecting the source (the Bible) that tells us what that ideal is in the first place is simply not possible.

If one rejects the standard of godliness that God Himself set up and informed us of in His Word, there’s simply no other way to determine if one is getting closer to godliness (or godhood) or not.

Trying to determine that kind of detail simply based on what one can determine about God through creation, is not possible either.

Funny, is it not, that evos deny that the universe shows evidence of intelligent design and then with a straight face tell us that they expect us to learn all this detail about God from studying nature.


310 posted on 04/28/2009 5:32:53 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: GodGunsGuts; Alamo-Girl; onewhowatches; Filo; metmom; wagglebee; hosepipe
Where do these guys come up with this stuff? No scriptural references—nothing!—except their own frame of reference!

I figure they must be toking on some pretty strange weed.... LOLOL!

There's nothing rational about their fulminations that I can detect.

Oh, well....

I guess this is what happens when man makes himself the measure of all things — in the end, what you get is pure, unliveable fantasy.

Thanks ever so much, GGG, for your very kind words of support!

311 posted on 04/28/2009 5:38:05 PM PDT by betty boop (All truthful knowledge begins and ends in experience. — Albert Einstein)
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To: metmom; betty boop
“JMHO FWIW.” [excerpt, bb]
“It’s worth a lot.” [excerpt, mm]
Agreed.

Well said indeed.
312 posted on 04/28/2009 5:38:09 PM PDT by Fichori (The only bailout I'm interested in is the one where the entire Democrat party leaves the county)
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To: wagglebee
Ping to post 310. Didn't see your post there until after my post posted.

Evos like to ask why God simply didn't tell us how He did it and He does in His word. I don't know how much more clear it can be than to say.....

the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

and

So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

313 posted on 04/28/2009 5:40:33 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: betty boop; GodGunsGuts; Alamo-Girl; metmom
There's nothing rational about their fulminations that I can detect.

When you start with the assumption that there is no god (except possibly for one's own intellect), it is very easy to manipulate the evidence to reach the predetermined conclusion.

Man was created in God's Own Image, God is the Alpha AND the Omega, the Beginning AND the End -- it is IMPOSSIBLE to "evolve" beyond this; in fact, the ONLY thing we could do is FALL from it, which is what man did at the first opportunity. Were man capable of "evolving", there would be no need for Salvation, it would have occurred eventually on its own.

314 posted on 04/28/2009 5:46:39 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: metmom
That totally has NOTHING to do with the comments made in the previous posts. I was just responding to the absurdity of the argument that life existing is proof of abiogenesis. If you want to know the answer to your question, ask your fellow evo.

I wasn't responding to previous comments. I was responding to YOUR post. I hit reply to your post and quoted your post.

315 posted on 04/28/2009 5:47:28 PM PDT by ColdWater
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To: ColdWater

Which was a response to another post.

Focus....

It helps if you take things in context instead of misrepresenting what others say by quote mining.


316 posted on 04/28/2009 5:52:52 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom; GodGunsGuts; Alamo-Girl; onewhowatches; Filo; wagglebee; hosepipe; Fichori; ...
Funny, is it not, that evos deny that the universe shows evidence of intelligent design and then with a straight face tell us that they expect us to learn all this detail about God from studying nature.

The evo position is riddled with self-contradictions. If these were reasonable people, they would notice this.

Thank you so very much for your excellent essay/post, mm!

317 posted on 04/28/2009 5:56:24 PM PDT by betty boop (All truthful knowledge begins and ends in experience. — Albert Einstein)
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To: betty boop

No wonder they are so angry all the time!


318 posted on 04/28/2009 6:00:21 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
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To: GodGunsGuts; betty boop
No wonder they are so angry all the time!

Usually when the weed runs out.

319 posted on 04/28/2009 6:02:42 PM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: metmom

No quote mining or taking you out of context. If you do not care to answer my question (which applies to both sides of the issue, if you don’t mind) please just ignore instead of mischaracterizing my posts.


320 posted on 04/28/2009 6:05:08 PM PDT by ColdWater
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