Replies

“>>bwest said, “By the way, you do know that ToE does not address the origins of life, right?”

Baloney. Darwin, like many others in his day, believed in spontaneous generation. As aforementioned in the statement about the Bathybius affair, some deemed the origin-of-life to be important enough to seek evidence for it, a practice continuing until this day.

Mr. Kalamata “

It seems there are Christians who try to bridge the gap between Evolution and the Bible by resorting to an Aristotolian notion of God (or the uncaused Cause) setting into motion in the matter universe all the intricate series of causes and effects, much of it planned which would lead up to the gradual development of man as we know him today. The atheists in control of the high ramparts of of “Evolution-ism”(/s) aren’t having it of course, snearing at such attempts as back-door creationism.

Guided Panspermia or the notions that Earth’s evolutionary path was high-jacked somehow by ancient aliens has become more acceptable with some subsets of atheist scientists. To them, the possibility of interference in Earth’s genomic envelope answers some of the questions very neatly,I might add, that evolution theory would otherwise fall into disarray over. The whole “answer to God” business is thus neatly side stepped and they can continue on with their fashionably bigoted, wine and brie seminar sneers of the religious minded-/s. (of course then you have to question the origin of life of the ancient aliens who so seeded the Earth with panspermic life....but such a turn of questioning is often “tut-tutted” and cut short.)

I’ve been aware all my sentient life of the implicit anti-mosaic bias of many of the so called media savvy “scientists and the science writer pundit wannabe types”. Their whole modus operandi is exposed and derided in Psalms 2. Psalms 2 is actually a very good reference to put forth in this discussion in light of the postings you have shared and highlighted with me.

“Why do the nations so furiously rage together, why do the peoples imagine a vain thing? The kings of the Earth rise up; their rulers take counsel together against the Lord and his anointed saying let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their yokes from us!...Then He that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh them to scorn, The Lord shall have them in derision, he shall dash them in pieces like a potters vessel...!
Mr. Mathis(well since we are using formal titles...)

PS. Berean is Believin’

mdmathis6: "I’ve been aware all my sentient life of the implicit anti-mosaic bias of many of the so called media savvy “scientists and the science writer pundit wannabe types”.
Their whole modus operandi is exposed and derided in Psalms 2."

I read Psalm 2 as talking about politicians we might call secessionists, nothing to do with science.

Clearly both mdmathis6 and Kalamata are terribly confused about the definitions and methods of science.
You want scientists to begin their work by reading the Bible or some theological tome to see how nature operates, when neither the Bible nor theology requires that.
What science requires is that its workers begin with the evidence and follow it to whatever natural explanations work best, regardless of theology.
For over 150 years now the best natural explanations of geological & biological origins begin with Darwin & Lyell.

Now Kalamata regales us with quotes from Newton praising God for His handiwork among stars & planets, by stark contrast to 19th century thinkers like Charles Lyell quoted as saying he wants to "free the science from Moses".

But what Kalamata pretends to forget is that scientists like Galileo, Copernicus & Kepler were also opposed by the Church precisely because they too ignored the Bible's view of astronomy, as expressed in 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5 and Ecclesiastes 1:5.

"In February 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism to be: "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture".
The Inquisition found that the idea of the Earth's movement 'receives the same judgement in philosophy and ... in regard to theological truth it is at least erroneous in faith.[80]
Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Bellarmine to deliver this finding to Galileo, and to order him to abandon the opinion that heliocentrism was physically true.
On 26 February, Galileo was called to Bellarmine's residence and ordered:
... to abandon completely ... the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.[82]"

Still a hundred years later, Newton's ideas were no less heretical, but he at least had enough good sense to use them to praise God and His creations, and Newton was also lucky enough to live in a more tolerant Protestant land.

But 19th century thinkers like Darwin and Lyell had a far more difficult task, since natural history was not just a matter of a handful of scattered Biblical verses, easily ignored even by alleged literalists like Kalamata & mdmathis6, but natural history is built into the Bible's basic creation narrative.
God's creation and flood are just too big a part of the Bible to be hand-waved away and no scientist of the time, even someone who studied traditional theology like Darwin, could find a way to reconcile them.
So they never tried, instead, as Kalamata frequently quotes, they worked to "free the science from Moses".

However, soon enough many church theologians did find ways to reconcile Old Earth geology & evolutionary biology with Biblical Creation, through "theistic evolutionism" which essentially does for that science what Newton himself did for astronomy -- praises God for His creations, regardless of what methods God used.