Posted on 11/29/2011 12:32:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
For the last several months there has been a flurry of discussion—mostly online, of course—about the impossibility of a literal Adam & Eve (see, e.g., here and here and here). This ruling-out has been accomplished recently by the Human Genome Project, which indicates that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000. In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple. So what else can we learn from this story?
Plenty, it turns out. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who blogs at Patheos, has been following the discussion with some care. Lately he has done us all a great favor: written a series of posts pointing out recurring mistakes made by many of those doing the discussing. Many of these mistakes are rhetorically effective but collapse upon even modest inspection.
But not all of them.
On Friday, he listed one held mostly by the pro-science crowd: “Evidence for and against evolution is open to all and can be assessed by anyone.”
Enns declares that this is not so. “The years of training and experience required of those who work in fields that touch on evolution rules out of bounds the views of those who lack such training,” he writes.
This is true but it misses the point. The open-access-to-science cliché, usually trundled out by those who wish to contrast the transparency of science with the supposed obfuscation of religion, carries some truth.
Science actually is transparent in a way that religion is not. That’s because, in science land, there is nothing but to follow the evidence. It’s out on the table, after all, able and willing to be poked and prodded and analyzed and figured out and held up and turned around and looked at from new angles. Also, what counts as evidence in science is pretty well-defined. And if you do become an evolution expert, you actually will see that 99% of all scientists back evolution for a reason: the evidence demands it.
This is the great generosity of science, and its great strength: It is actually all right there, ready to be seen and understood. It is relievedly explicit. It takes effort, sure, just as Enns suggests; it’s not easy to become a professional research biologist. But the reason biologists agree on evolution is because it’s a relatively simple matter to be objective about fossils and genes. Unlike the objects of religion—the divine and humanity’s relation to it—the objects of science give themselves up for abstraction and analysis without a fight.
Therefore Richard Dawkins (for example) is right when he says, as he has on many occasions, that the evidence for evolution is there to be inspected by anyone. It is sitting out there on the table, waiting patiently for most of humanity to catch up to it, waiting to tell us it’s time to bid the historical Adam & Eve a final, if fond, farewell.
Uh, no.
The first eleven and a half chapters of Genesis are written in a style that can be understood as quasi-history. It's a story fashion that contains spiritual and internal meaning that goes far deeper than the literal sense lets on. Why? To prevent the spiritual sense from being profaned.
Swedenborg puts it this way:
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1 sRef Matt@6 @33 S0' 1. THE BOOK OF GENESIS
The Word of the Old Testament contains heavenly arcana, with every single detail focusing on the Lord, His heaven, the Church, faith, and what belongs to faith; but no human being grasps this from the letter. Judging it by the letter or sense of the letter, nobody views it as anything more than a record, in the main, of external features of the Jewish Church. Yet at every point there are internal features that are nowhere evident in the external, apart from the very few which the Lord revealed and explained to the Apostles, such as that sacrifices mean the Lord; that the land of Canaan and Jerusalem mean heaven, which is therefore called Canaan and the heavenly Jerusalem; and that Paradise is similar in meaning.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 2 2. But that every single detail, even the smallest, down to the tiniest jot, means and embodies matters that are spiritual and celestial is a truth of which the Christian world is still profoundly ignorant, and for that reason it pays insufficient attention to the Old Testament. Nevertheless they are able to know this truth from the single consideration that because the Word is the Lord's and derives from Him, it cannot possibly exist if it does not contain within itself such things as belong to heaven, the Church, and faith. If this were not so it could not be called the Word of the Lord nor be said to have any life within it. For where does its life originate except in those things which belong to life, that is, in having every single detail go back to the Lord, who is life itself? Therefore anything that does not interiorly focus on Him has no life; indeed any expression in the Word that fails to embody Him within itself, or does not in its own way go back to Him, is not Divine.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 3 3. Without such life the Word as regards the letter is dead, for it is the same with the Word as it is with man, who, as the Christian world knows, is internal as well as external. The external man if parted from the internal man is just a body and therefore dead. It is the internal man which lives and imparts life to the external. The internal man is the soul of the external man. The same applies to the Word which as to the letter alone is like the body without a soul.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1 sRef Matt@6 @33 S0' 1. THE BOOK OF GENESIS The Word of the Old Testament contains heavenly arcana, with every single detail focusing on the Lord, His heaven, the Church, faith, and what belongs to faith; but no human being grasps this from the letter. Judging it by the letter or sense of the letter, nobody views it as anything more than a record, in the main, of external features of the Jewish Church. Yet at every point there are internal features that are nowhere evident in the external, apart from the very few which the Lord revealed and explained to the Apostles, such as that sacrifices mean the Lord; that the land of Canaan and Jerusalem mean heaven, which is therefore called Canaan and the heavenly Jerusalem; and that Paradise is similar in meaning. Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 2 2. But that every single detail, even the smallest, down to the tiniest jot, means and embodies matters that are spiritual and celestial is a truth of which the Christian world is still profoundly ignorant, and for that reason it pays insufficient attention to the Old Testament. Nevertheless they are able to know this truth from the single consideration that because the Word is the Lord's and derives from Him, it cannot possibly exist if it does not contain within itself such things as belong to heaven, the Church, and faith. If this were not so it could not be called the Word of the Lord nor be said to have any life within it. For where does its life originate except in those things which belong to life, that is, in having every single detail go back to the Lord, who is life itself? Therefore anything that does not interiorly focus on Him has no life; indeed any expression in the Word that fails to embody Him within itself, or does not in its own way go back to Him, is not Divine. Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 3 3. Without such life the Word as regards the letter is dead, for it is the same with the Word as it is with man, who, as the Christian world knows, is internal as well as external. The external man if parted from the internal man is just a body and therefore dead. It is the internal man which lives and imparts life to the external. The internal man is the soul of the external man. The same applies to the Word which as to the letter alone is like the body without a soul.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 4 4. As long as the mind confines itself to the sense of the letter alone one cannot possibly see that its contents are such. Take for instance these first sections of Genesis: From the sense of the letter the only subject matter people recognize is the creation of the world, and the Garden of Eden which is called Paradise, and Adam as the first man to be created. Who thinks anything different? The fact that these things contain arcana however which have never been revealed up to now will be sufficiently clear from what follows - especially clear from the fact that the subject of Genesis 1 is, in the internal sense, the NEW CREATION of man, that is, in general his REGENERATION, and in particular the Most Ancient Church. And the subject is presented in such a way that not the smallest part of any expression fails to have a representation, carry a spiritual meaning, or embody something within itself.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 5 5. But unless he has it from the Lord no human being can possibly know that this is the situation. By way of introductory remarks therefore it can be disclosed that in the Lord's Divine mercy I have been allowed constantly and without interruption for several years now to share the experiences of spirits and angels, to listen to them speaking and to speak to them myself. I have been allowed therefore to hear and see astounding things in the next life which have never come to any man's knowledge, nor even entered his imagination. In that world I have learned about different kinds of spirits, about the state of souls after death, about hell (the miserable state of people who do not have faith), about heaven (the very happy state of those who do have faith), and above all else about the doctrine of the faith that is acknowledged in the whole of heaven. In the Lord's Divine mercy more will be told about these matters in what follows.
You are behind the times. That "junk" theory was revised years ago. Do a search.
But, Dawkins would know nothing of these things.
Nope! Not going to do it. God give the account of creation, through the pen of His scribe, Moses. That account is an eye witness account by the Creator of heaven and earth and all things in them and one them.
Now what has this R. Dawkins got to his credit? Where is the universe he created?
God's word and His Son Jesus are the only things we have left to cling to. One would have to be an absolute arse to give that up.
Heretic! Abjure your blasphemy against Holy Science.
Endogenous retroviral sequences are “junk” DNA. Pseudogenes are “junk” DNA. Short repeat sequences are “junk” DNA.
Which is not to say that they are of no use. The “junk” in the basement may or may not be of use someday - but it is not presently being used - so it is deemed “junk”.
“In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple.”
Already knew? Really? Not just believed, or thought, or hypothesized, but KNEW?
Hm.
“Ideas passing as descriptions lead us to equate the tentative with the unambiguously factual.” No one has seen, nor measured, nor used methodological investigation to prove Darwinism. It is a metaphysical concept rooted in philosophy. These notions do, however, have conequences, and those consequences for the past 150 years have been a series of unadulterated tragedies. But as Dawkins says, evolution is pittiless, remorseless, and purposeless, so...who can lay responsible at the feet of anyone. As Neitsche said, “all things are allowed.”
I didn't ask if they could have been on the Ark - I asked you if you would consider the change between a mouse and a rat to be a “micro” change or a “macro” change.
As is all too typical - Creationist is of absolutely no use and has no answers - you are apparently far too confused about the subject to even give your opinion.
The point is that Creationists apparently are quite willing to accept evolution and the (semi) common descent of species - at many thousands of times the rates observed - resulting in changes well in excess of the DNA difference between humans and chimps.
So a 2% change in genetic DNA between two rodents of the same “kind” is easily accomplished in a few hundred years - and is only a “micro” difference - but a 2% change in genetic DNA between humans and chimps is absolutely impossible even over six to seven million years and is obviously a “macro” difference.
Do you see a problem with the above formulation?
If not you might be a Creationist!
My own personal faith tells me that this (and many other issues) I can faithfully leave out of forming an opinion on, leaving it is one of the mysteries G-d does not care if I have a solution for or not.
Where to begin...
You claim macro-evolution between species but these are in fact the same kind as the DNA obviously reveals.
You claim micro-evolution would have to be far faster than your ‘evo measurements / observations’ - since it is only observed within the last several hundred years at varying rates you only require longer time frames to fit your old earth assumptions imho.
I think your (and my) faith is more solid durable then the house of cards faith of the creationists, which collapses if any element of the literal interpretation of Genesis is admitted to be not literally true.
No, the report states "FROM" a population of about 10,000. There is no genesis listed.
Would the changes between a mouse and a rat be “micro” or “macro”?
How do you define “macro”?
I claim the difference in DNA between species that is observed is in line with the mutation rate observed.
What caused the mutation rate to supposedly increase thousands of times the current rate during the time after the Ark?
So a 2% difference in genetic DNA is perfectly reasonable to happen in a few hundred years, and only a “micro” change - when it happens between two rodents; but a 2% difference in genetic DNA between a human and a chimp is absolutely impossible even after six to seven million years, and is obviously a “macro” change.
The above could only make sense to a Creationist.
To any reasonable and intelligent person it is ludicrous.
Awesome! If Adam and Eve are a myth, so is the Fall of Man. If the Fall is a myth, so is Original Sin. If Original Sin is a myth, so is the redemptive work of Christ on the Cross. If that’s a myth, the whole Bible is lies.
No. DNA information consists of recursive computer-like functions that build structural proteins and nucleic acids. The so-called non-coding or "junk" DNA components actually interact with proteins as they are constructed.
How does impossible grab you?
Rats have 21 chromosome pairs. Mice have 20. There is no way to go from one to the other overnight or over millions of years.
ML/NJ
So all the species that are different or with different chromosome numbers all had to be on the Ark?
Gets way too crowded rather quickly.
But at least we FINALLY seem to have an actual objective definition of “kind”.
Ludicrous and idiotic - but at least you have a definition.
Plants easily developed populations with different chromosome numbers - that didn’t happen either overnight or over millions of years. Do you know and can you explain how it happens?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.