Posted on 11/17/2005 9:25:39 PM PST by raj bhatia
A brilliant piece by Krauthammer, as usual. The punch line: "How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Blackie? Excuse me? You smug, racist -------.
Evolution says that death has been with us since the beginning.
Salvation is irrelevant in an evolutionary world. Jesus is an irrelevant fraud in an evolutionary world.
That's a good point, too. Evolution is really quite incompatible with Biblical Christianity, hm?
You have a severe misunderstanding of Christianity, my friend. Hebrews chapter 11 addresses your sentiment here.
Your use of the term "righteous pagans" further shows that you don't understand the greatness of the grace and forgiveness offered to us by our Creator. There are none righteous, according to Scripture. And that makes the gift of salvation that much sweeter. In the end, it's "Who you know" that determines your future....
That's great, as long as evolution is false. The problem is that there is massive amounts of evidence that evolution is true, even though you've obviously ignored it.
So now your problem is that you've set up a situation where one must either reject the physical proof of evolution, or reject mere words printed in a Bible with nothing whatever to back them up.
Or, you can take the direction the Catholic church did. Accept both evolution and the Bible. Problem solved.
As for myself, I decided that your position was correct, that I had to accept one or the other. So I rejected God in favor of the physical evidence I see of evolution.
Your god is a fantasy god that is so weak that he can't exist alongside the facts of the natural world.
Where do you get this stuff? Are there special comic books for true believers?
"Very few, possibly no evolutionists are devout Christians."
Completely false.
I am a Jew who converted to Christianity I believe in the Word so much.
I also see no discord between a proper reading of Genesis (without an agenda and pre-conceived ideas) and God using evolution (whose natural rules He created, after all) to make man.
Indeed, while not a Roman Catholic expert, the nearest-to-official pronoucement from the RCC (by far the largest Christian denomination, followed by the Anglican that expresses much the same belief -- together amounting to probably 2/3 of Christiandom) is that Word and the science of evolution are perfectly harmonious.
"Scripture says that death entered the world following Adam's sin. Evolution says that death has been with us since the beginning."
These are different kinds of death. When Jesus says we must die so we may live, He isn't referring to a literally, physical death, but to the end of our fleshy desires and ambitions and submission to His. Death in this context is equivalent of separation from God. This symbolic meaning of death is crystal clear to anyone who reads the Bible without in earnest to see what God intended rather than with the idea that it means whatever you want it to mean, like liberals interpreting the Constitution.
"Salvation is irrelevant in an evolutionary world. Jesus is an irrelevant fraud in an evolutionary world."
Salvation isn't the least bit irrelevant. I am not quite sure how to debate this one, because I don't see how you come to that conclusion.
Absolutely. It's amazing: every time there's a scientific breakthrough that describes or explains God's glorious work, supposedly religious people feel threatened and go into denial. It simply doesn't occur to them that maybe they are fallible and should consider changing their interpretation of the Word. No, they are so arrogant that they think their beliefs are flawless no matter what anyone else says or proves. They reject Paul's assertion that God "passes all understanding." That kind of arrogance is inconsistent with a truly Christian life.
"Why do archeologists keep digging for bones and missing links if it's all so self-evident? "
That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read on this forum.
Don't reject God based on idiots who know neither God, nor the his works.
The Bible is amazingly logical, in context.
The problem is judgmental idiots read it in a vaccuum and with an agenda.
Go get a NIV Study Bible (inter-denominational and striped of agendas as much as humanly possible) that has all the good, thick, historical footnotes. Sold at Sam's.
Start with Matthew, who was an (what we call now) Orthodox Jew who converted, and who takes a very logial, step-by-step explaination of the whole thing.
Even if you choose to reject it as a religion, it is essential reading for anyone who lives in Western Civilization.
"Why do archeologists keep digging for bones and missing links if it's all so self-evident?"
An over-generalization, but for our purposes here, archeologists generally study human structures. (Paleotologists study pre-history).
But to answer your question, paleotologists hunt for fossils for the same reasons archeologists keep digging up David's Jerusaleum --- to learn about and study the past.
My reference to "death" is different from yours, and so the "context" is different. You mention a dying to sin, something elaborated on in Romans 6 (and other places). I'm referring to the warning of physical (as well as spiritual) death given in Genesis 2 (and later discussed in verses such as Romans 5:15).
Physical death did not exist prior to sin, according to Scripture. Death is a consequence of sin, not a tool that God used to develop humanity.
About your other comment, you're right -- salvation isn't the last bit irrelevant. In an evolutionary world, though, salvation is indeed a confused irrelevant muddle.
FWIW, I think of "evolution" as the gradual increase of genetic information and complexity over generations. There are obviously mutations and variety among species, but this is not evidence of a growth of genetic complexity.
Can you give me a verse or two in Gen 2 so I can look it up?
I am just confused how some people are able to believe both Genesis 1 and 2, and Darwinistic evolution.
According to Genesis 1:11-15, for example, vegetation was created before the stars. That's weird. And verse 25 says, "God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind." Note that phrase "according to their kinds."
There is just so much incongruity between Scripture and Darwinistic evolution....
Oh this is great stuff! (I wasn't aware that Jeffrey Dahmer was on the forefront of evolutionary biology research.)
Verses 16 and 17:
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
And God's proclamation of his curse on Adam in Genesis 3:19:
"By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return"
Prior to that, there is no biblical evidence of death. Only evidence of life.
If you're talking about Gen 2:17, when God says Adam will surely die the moment he eats from the tree of good and evil, God couldn't possibly be referring to a literal death, because Adam doesn't literally die that moment. Indeed, later in the Bible people are referred to as descendants of Adam.
Newton was not, mainly because the theory of evolution had not been thought of during his life. Einstein, however, most certainly was an "evolutionist."
As Christians
Einstein was no Christian.
Very few, possibly no evolutionists are devout Christians.
I know from first hand experience that this is not the case. And I myself, while not a Christian, am pretty serious about my religion.
It is in fact the evolutionist, the enemy of intelligent design, who makes himself the enemy of God.
You seem mighty presumptive, speaking for God.
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