Posted on 05/15/2009 8:46:06 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
5 May 2009
“Theistic evolutionists”: What they can expect after they have surrendered
O'Leary
[Theistic evolution, as normally propounded today = accept on faith that God dun it and holler yer guts fer Jesus to feel good - because the evidence suggests there is no God].
Why any theist should do that today is incomprehensible to me, because the evidence is all in the theists’ camp. But tax-supported, tenured professors can say anything they want, and they certainly do.
Here is an instructive story about their true fate:
After eviscerating two new books that attempt to show that Darwinism is compatible with religion, Jerry Coyne, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, admits that they are not, and that declarations to the contrary have been “a dirty little secret in scientific circles. It is in our personal and professional interest to proclaim that science and religion are perfectly harmonious.”
The reason for this unedifying dissembling:
“After all, we want our grants funded by the government, and our schoolchildren exposed to real science instead of creationism. Liberal religious people have been important allies in our struggle against creationism, and it is not pleasant to alienate them by declaring how we feel. This is why, as a tactical matter, groups such as the National Academy of Sciences claim that religion and science do not conflict. But their main evidence — the existence of religious scientists — is wearing thin as scientists grow ever more vociferous about their lack of faith.”
Once again, William Jennings Bryan has been proven right.
Add this one to the Theistic Evolutionists As Useful Idiots file.
Re Bryan: What you don’t hear about Bryan’s case at the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925 from the blowhard columnists who defend Darwinism is this: The science textbooks, including the one at issue in the trial, routinely fronted eugenics* as normal science.
Eugenics was closely linked to the idea that humans and apes had common ancestry (so we are all just apes, right, and so we kill each other for our own ultimate evolutionary good).
Bryan thought, based on his experience as US Secretary of State in the World War I era, that major social conflicts would follow from such an idea taking root, and that therefore it should not be taught in publicly funded schools.
Why should the public fund the teaching of an idea that would likely lead to disastrous social conflict?
His method - outlawing teaching it - could be contested. But not, I think, the outcome of the teaching. See WWII.
Go here for more.
*My view for what it is worth: Eugenics is not a science at all! It is not possible to say in advance who is more fit and who is less fit over time. No one can predict the effect of unknown future stresses.
You can, if you wish, consult either the eugenicist or Madam Rosa the Psychic for information about future fitness (she does health, as well as romance and business matters, I gather, and so does the evolutionary psychologist - the eugenicist’s heir).
I wouldn’t spend a dime on either of them, myself, but with all its faults, this is still a somewhat free country, so …
The evil that eugenicists did was not merely their pretense to knowledge that cannot, in principle, really exist, but their legal power to get people compusorily sterilized or euthanized.
Madam Rosa merely preys on silly people, lured on by her own delusions of grandeur. So,while I find these “psychic” shops a nuisance, that’s all they are. A nuisance, not a catastrophe.
Ping!
Apparently the author knows nothing of Theistic Evolution (or ID) and instead just likes to throw out insults based on his personal bias. The heavens declare the glory of God, the heavens don't trick you to believing there is no God- to me, that is the best summary of TE. We see God's hand in all of creation and the laws of nature he put into place, including Evolution. We don't see a nature that tricks people into not believing God.
You’re wasting your time.
Fortunately God is powerfull enough to not be threatened by knowledge.
I know, but I am sometimes inclined to say my peace..
What really strikes me about theistic evolution is how....</i>superfluous</i> it is. It’s like bringing bolt cutters to a log-sawing contest.
So begins The Origin of Species, whose title and first paragraph imply that Darwin will have much to say about speciation. Yet his magnum opus remains largely silent on the "mystery of mysteries," and the little it does say about this mystery is seen by most modern evolutionists as muddled or wrong. [from Speciation co-authored with Allen Orr]ML/NJ
I’m not sure I’m ready to declare myself a “theistic evolutionist”. I’m certainly on board with the “theistic” part — and willing to admit that evolution is a possible method that the Almighty might’ve used. But, maybe not. Who knows? Still doesn’t explain creation.
What I don’t understand is the throwing of epithets at people that are on your side. Believers in theistic evolution are not the enemy, they simply do not buy into the supposition that evolution necessarily eliminates the existence of God.
Evangelical atheistic evolutionists have long tried to say that proving evolution disproves God. It is a faulty premise. If evolution is proven, all that is established is the process ... not the creation, the catalyst, or what guided the process. It would answer how we got from point A to point B — but not how we got to point A to begin with, or why we ended up at point B rather than point F. It leaves unanswered the only real question — “why?”.
SnakeDoc
They actually think you can breed people like cattle even though the exogenetic control mechanisms now postulated for human beings surpass the combined sophistication of every variety of animal on Earth combined.
Abortion is the application of eugenics.
One big problem with theistic evolution -
it requires death, disease, mutation, and predation
before Genesis says those existed (after the fall of MAN).
Actually it’s her personal bias, from blogger Denyse (spell my name with a “y”) O’Leary
I’m not sure I’d rest my entire judgment of evolution on my (or your) interpretation of that passage. The Bible says that human death is the wages of human sin. Animal death may predate human sin.
There is also a chicken-egg scenario here. Did God create death because Adam sinned? Or, did God build death into the system knowing that Adam would sin?
SnakeDoc
Good analogy.
Thanks for the ping!
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
It is important not to read this verse correctly. The first half explains that because of man’s sin, death entered the world. Not just for man alone, but for the material world.
The second part explains how death in particular works for man. Not that death is being talked about referring only to mankind. The reason why the Bible spends so much time talking about how death (physical, spiritual) affect people because of the additional consequences affecting people (hell, etc) that do not exist for animals, plants, etc. They are not moral, they cannot sin, therefore they do not have the same problems facing them as we do.
Also consider this verse:
1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
The Bible describes death as an enemy. That God will destroy it at the end. Death is not a good thing, a tool that God uses to eventually make humans. Death has, and always has been, an enemy.
1 Corinthians 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
It appears the bible says it will be a victory the day death no longer occurs. If it’s such a great mechanism for God to use, why is it an enemy, and why is it great that such a great tool that supposedly gave us man, is crushed by God and ceases to exist?
Actually, Genesis made it clear those things didn't exist 'in the garden', however, it also made a clear distinction of the Garden as a unique place as man was sent out of the garden. If the garden was the entire world, that scripture would not make sense, however, if the garden was a unique place set apart from the rest of the world (or metaphorical), then there really isn't any reason to believe that the normal natural cycles of life/death/birth, etc didn't exist outside the garden. How did the cycle of life and death come about in the first place if God's hand wasn't in it. Unless you believe there was another creator, one who created what is in your mind the 'bad things', then by default, God's hand was in everything.
It is an enemy of man’s life, it doesn’t say it is God’s enemy. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that is a physical death, but spiritual.
Surrendering the the theistic creationists doesn’t appear a particularly attractive opton of late, either.
I agree with most of your interpretation ... except that I see all of that referring to human death, not death in general. Human death is an enemy. Animal death is a necessity of life — as we (and other animals) consume animal flesh for nourishment. It makes little sense that carnivores wouldn’t have killed prior to the sin of Adam.
SnakeDoc
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