Posted on 01/16/2011 4:09:10 PM PST by balch3
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- A Southern Baptist seminary president and evolution opponent has turned sights on "theistic evolution," the idea that evolutionary forces are somehow guided by God. Albert Mohler
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an article in the Winter 2011 issue of the seminary magazine labeling attempts by Christians to accommodate Darwinism "a biblical and theological disaster."
Mohler said being able to find middle ground between a young-earth creationism that believes God created the world in six 24-hour days and naturalism that regards evolution the product of random chance "would resolve a great cultural and intellectual conflict."
The problem, however, is that it is not evolutionary theory that gives way, but rather the Bible and Christian theology.
Mohler said acceptance of evolutionary theory requires reading the first two chapters of Genesis as a literary rendering and not historical fact, but it doesn't end there. It also requires rethinking the claim that sin and death entered the human race through the Fall of Adam. That in turn, Mohler contended, raises questions about New Testament passages like First Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive."
"The New Testament clearly establishes the Gospel of Jesus Christ upon the foundation of the Bible's account of creation," Mohler wrote. "If there was no historical Adam and no historical Fall, the Gospel is no longer understood in biblical terms."
Mohler said that after trying to reconcile their reading of Genesis with science, proponents of theistic evolution are now publicly rejecting biblical inerrancy, the doctrine that the Bible is totally free from error.
"We now face the undeniable truth that the most basic and fundamental questions of biblical authority and Gospel integrity are at stake," Mohler concluded. "Are you ready for this debate?"
In a separate article in the same issue, Gregory Wills, professor of church history at Southern Seminary, said attempts to affirm both creation and evolution in the 19th and 20th century produced Christian liberalism, which attracted large numbers of Americans, including the clerical and academic leadership of most denominations.
After establishing the concept that Genesis is true from a religious but not a historical standpoint, Wills said, liberalism went on to apply naturalistic criteria to accounts of miracles and prophecy as well. The result, he says, was a Bible "with little functional authority."
"Liberalism in America began with the rejection of the Bible's creation account," Wills wrote. "It culminated with a broad rejection of the beliefs of historic Christianity. Yet many Christians today wish to repeat the experiment. We should not expect different results."
Mohler, who in the last year became involved in public debate about evolution with the BioLogos Foundation, a conservative evangelical group that promotes integrating faith and science, has long maintained the most natural reading of the Bible is that God created the world in six 24-hour days just a few thousand years ago.
Writing in Time magazine in 2005, Mohler rejected the idea of human "descent."
"Evangelicals must absolutely affirm the special creation of humans in God's image, with no physical evolution from any nonhuman species," he wrote. "Just as important, the Bible clearly teaches that God is involved in every aspect and moment in the life of His creation and the universe. That rules out the image of a kind of divine watchmaker."
The BIOLOGICAL gap between us and our nearest biological relatives is minuscule.
Our capabilities are different, especially in intelligence, yet that doesn't establish any sort of “gap” in biological relatedness.
If someone speculates “seriously” as to the supposed extraterrestrial origins of humanity based upon our difference from our closest biological relatives, that person is inane and inept and ignorant.
What are the chances that an extraterrestrial creature would come down to a planet and ‘just happen’ to find a creature than has genes that are 98% the same?
The improbability of genes developing individually to such an amazing degree of similarity is astronomical!
It would be much more likely that I could throw up random letters of the alphabet and they would fall down and spell out the Constitution of the United States.
Or building cities and nations? Creating art and music? Doing science?
As far as I can tell, DNA doesn't do such things. But it seems to specify certain creatures that can do such things.
Neither daffodils — having some ~24% commonality with human DNA — nor chimpanzees — having some ~98% commonality with human DNA — can do these things.
Maybe at this point folks should start wondering about what DNA is capable of telling us about the different creatures it purports to describe....
Indeed, it would appear that "Labs are among the smarter canines." At least in the canine world as it interfaces with humans....
Much wisdom in your astute observations, dear padre! Thank you ever so much!
It is a larger more resource consuming ape brain.
DNA doesn't purport to describe creatures, genetic DNA codes for a functional molecular machine called a protein.
Our molecular machines are thus over 98% the same as a chimpanzee. That doesn't indicate that our abilities are going to be 98% the same, any more than the fact that I am over 99.9% the same in DNA as Tiger Woods means I can drive a golf ball straight within 99.9% of his ability; or that because I am over 99.9% the same in DNA as Newton that I could have come up with calculus - heck some people who are 99.9% the same as Newton cannot even UNDERSTAND calculus after the fact - let alone have nearly the cognitive ability to discover it!
There is a very SMALL biological “gap” between humans and chimps, mice and rats are much more distantly related to each other than humans and chimps are.
I have a problem with an axiomatic assertion Dawkins makes in that video, that ‘a designer’ can go back to the drawing board rather than following the evolutionary pathway which came before. With that assertion Dawkins tries to define the designer in the perspective best suited to Dawkins’ planned refutation of a designer. Since the nerve in question was much more idrect in the ancient ancestory (fish-like creatures) why would one jumpt ot he unwarrented axiom that a designer would start over with each emerging species? Sort of dishonest on ol’ Richard’s part don’tchaknow.
It's a paradox: that which exists is presumed ultimately caused (i.e. brought into existence) by the first cause, which means that the first cause cannot exist because nothing brought it into existence. In other words, the first cause "is" not.
That settles BrandtMichael's assertion "David and Bathsheba’s baby was not ‘punished’ rather he/she was immediately accepted into heaven and God’s presence..." as yet another non-biblical belief of the Bible-OnlyTM crowd.
“Now if we observe a 0.001% change in a population over 20 years, what is going to stop it from becoming a 1% change in 20,000 years?”
What will stop it is any event or events within the process which render it nonlinear. It’s far more likely to be nonlinear than linear.
“Why would this 2% difference not be sufficient to call them two different species?”
Again, the answer is very simple. The 2% change is more likely than not to be empty code—meaning it doesn’t have meaningful product.
For the benefit of anyone that might be reading this, let’s clarify the fact that the theory of speciation does not exist as a mathematical statement. It’s theorized to be a real world process. This tells us that throwing numbers out there—especially elementary math—will do nothing to illustrate it.
“Why would a bacteria have error prone DNA polymerase in the first place if most genetic changes were ‘entropic’? And why would it be expressed at times of high stress?”
Simple. Because error itself is entropic.
10% of human beings in most cultures are not biologically related to the man they think is their father.
Roughly 10% incidence, with the result being ten generations excluded........
Talk about collective punishment! And you might not even know, you think you are the legitimate son of a good man and woman from a long and prestigious line and work hard to please the Lord your God - and bam - sorry the son of the son of the son of the son of a bastard.
We must all hope for salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus the Christ - because the LAW is rough!
There are many sources explaining spoken Hebrew in the 1st century. One is:
http://blog.jerusalemperspective.com/archives/000126.html
I wasn’t really following the thread so don’t have a dog in the theological fight. Just thought I’d share some newer findings on one very narrow subject.
Please expound upon your fascinating point, if it is indeed a point, and not just meaningless semantics.
Why would a bacteria want an “entropic” condition during a time of high stress?
Why would introducing changes in DNA, which you maintained would NOT lead to better functionality, be a survival advantage to a bacteria under stress - unless it DID lead to better functionality?
But what if the change we are talking about IS in genetic DNA, as humans and chimps are only 2% different in genetic DNA (but some 6-10% different over the entire genome)? Would you STILL not quality a 2% accumulated difference to be a different species? After that much it is most likely that the two cannot interbreed with fertile offspring - that is the most “hard” definition of species there is.
What is going to stop the accumulation of change between two separated populations? Even if it is nonlinear, it NEVER goes down to zero, are you suggesting it goes exponential?
That might explain the supposed mechanism behind the supposed mass extinctions that should take place due to rampant mutation - if mutation is really the bad thing you said it was several posts ago - the cause of extinction. But of course that is all just Creationist delusion with no basis in observation or scientific theory. Mutations don't cause populations to go extinct.
Changes accumulate, because DNA polymerase (of even the highest fidelity) ALWAYS will introduce errors when replicating a chromosome.
Even if the slope of the accumulating change changes, and it does, it will never go to zero.
So if a 0.001% change is observed in a population over 20 years, it may not take EXACTLY 20,000 years to reach a 1% difference - but what is going to STOP the accumulation of change?
10% of human beings in most cultures are not biologically related to the man they think is their father...And you might not even know, you think you are the legitimate son of a good man and woman from a long and prestigious line and work hard to please the Lord your God - and bam - sorry the son of the son of the son of the son of a bastard
Talk about a rude awakening come judgment day: "Sorry, if you are 10th generation (or less) bastard, you need not apply...God doesn't want you!" :)
The argument is that you MUST have something UNcaused in order for the universe as we know it to exist.
Your premise creates the problem. The problem occurs IF you state that "nothing can exist that something else brought into existence." Then you are saying "it's turtles all the way down."
You can say that of course, but it's not an argument that effectively refutes the necessity for it. Neither argument is "proven," but one argument at least avoids a nonsensical result, which should be worth something.
:)
Oh, don't tell her that! Next this, she may call your thinking "grotesque" like she does mine (she has a propensity for such "rich" expresisve style). Forget the DNA! You have to be "spiritual" and endowed with secret knowledge from "above" reserved only for those who have spiritual "eyes" and "ears" (yup—Gnosticism is alive and well!) to "discern" invisible things as "real". And if you don't believe it, then you are spiritually "deyed". :)
Actually, BB, I'm the guilty original citer here. I appreciate your comments on them.
And, BTW, if you haven't read it, I recommend this book, Quantum Questions, it has a chapter on Einstein.
So, then, what brought that UNcaused thing into existence?
Your premise creates the problem
I think the problem existed way before I did.
The problem occurs IF you state that "nothing can exist that something else brought into existence."
No, that's not what I am saying at all. I am saying that the reason we exist is because we were brought into existence. If the UNcaused "exists" then it, too, must have been brought into existence or else it cannot be said to exist.
That's okay, D. I am the designated guilty party for so many charitable Christians on this forum. I am getting used to it. :)
Species is not defined by percent genomic difference.
So the answer is no, 2% difference does nothing to establish speciation.
As for the last question of your post—if 1% per 20,000 years were a relationship from which an accurate equation could be derived, it would tell us we would see 100% change in 2 million years. But even evolutionists would never accept this, given real world observations.
Speciation is a myth.
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