If you are married, I will marry your older sister.
If you don’t have an older sister, I will marry an older aunt.
If you don’t have an older aunt, I’m willing to meet your mother.
You obviously come from good stock!
Thanks for your support on God’s engagement! 
Wow… God’s gift eh?
George, I too agree that God is 100% engages in creation but I do not know the mechanics of how that works.
I am happily married, so don’t go there.
I do have a buddy who is more into math than I am, and his view is that God works through probablilities. I don’t know really how that works, but imagine that if it takes a billion galaxies with a billion stars each to come up with one with the right conditions to produce us, then that what he used. Interesting thought, anyway.
The problem I see with this view (and I am heavily influenced by @Jon_Garvey in this) is that the concept of probability relies on ignorance of particularity. I.e. to have a God who “relies on probability” you need a God who either is (or has decided to be) ignorant of future outcomes. Otherwise probability simply collapses into certainty (from God’s point of view). So for those who might insist that God is sovereign in all things (“not a sparrow alights apart from His will…”) this creates an inconsistency.
Or to put it similarly to how I’ve heard Jon put it before (and I agree with him) … speaking of probability or randomness as some active “causal agent” is a confusion with little meaning. I can note that normal distributions seem to be “created” by randomness, but that is more a way of us noting what typically happens in the absence of detectable causal agents - not the presence of them. I.e. scientists seek out the results that are several standard deviations away from the norm in order to have confidence that something has emerged from the noise. The base-line norm is the null-hypothesis, right?
I also tend toagree with that view, which is why it is my friends opinion, not mine, though I do tend to a more free will view of the future, feeling that while God knows all that can be known, and being omnipotent can bring his will to be done regardless, that perhaps a variety of outcomes are possible within that will. I am plastic in those thoughts however.
Agreed. I think it’s really bad news that more people are capitulating to a foreign system of thought and anthropology. It would be one thing too if Christianity as a whole were doing ok, but seeing as Christians are declining, it just seems like a sign of loss more than anything else. The countries where evolution has won over like the UK and France are also countries where faith is pretty irrelevant. Probably because evolution makes faith irrelevant - if our faith does not decide our historiography, what does it decide?
The numbers quoted in the study above were for the US. So with 81% of the adult population accepting human evolution you have to include us in the evolution win column. So do you consider faith irrelevant here in the US?
It’s becoming increasingly so. It doesn’t shape public policy or moral values in any real way tbh.
Ah that post was actually meant to be entirely satirical as I clarified a little bit below.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘foreign system of thought.’ I would consider quantum mechanics to be a ‘foreign system of thought’ to Christianity as much as the theory of evolution. As for anthropology, I think it is interesting how to try to make sense of fossils that should exist if special creation is true, with a growing number of ‘intermediate’ like fossils that we classify as hominin but are not definitely not within the range of modern homo sapiens.
It does? I mean meteorology makes faith irrelevant too then:
https://biologos.org/blogs/brad-kramer-the-evolving-evangelical/atheistic-meteorology-or-divine-rain
The Bible is given us to inform us. As written, Do we believe or not. As for evolution vs the Biblical creation account, we also have our choice whether to believe it as written or not. But has man the power to prove or disprove what’s written? True science only confirms the word of God. If evolution is true whether by the hand of God or not, then death came before the fall of man and God’s creation would not have been very good as written in scriptures. It’s unfortunate that those that believe theistic evolution fail to see this.
ELD
Gee, Human Chicken, I thought the good news was that there were so many people who understand and rely on God being in charge of Evolution!
Popular acceptance of old earth and fossil evidence for Evolution of humankind was rather inevitable, don’t you think? The contest is really about whether the Western world makes God in charge… or doesn’t expect ANYONE to be in charge!
You do understand, yes?, that millions and millions of Eastern Orthodox Christians have lived good, generous and devout Christian lives, while completely dismissing the “Original Mess-o-Sin” that Augustine concocted for mystic consumption by the folks of Western/Latin civilization?
During Pope Benedict’s time, he declared that infants that are not baptized probably DO attain salvation without some “mandatorily awkward” time in any limbo.
But if you really really have to have Original Sin, the Genealogical Adam scenarios being developed by Professor @swamidass (at www.PeacefulScience.Org) includes special creation of Adam and Eve (2 miraculous events) set in a long timeline of Great Ape evolution, where an evolved humanity (sometimes referred to as Pre-Adamites) and the offspring of Adam mix God’s Biblical legacy together into human’s arc of atonement - - all aiming towards the End of Days and God’s fulfillment of prophecy.
Nothing about GA solves @Ecerotops “The Bible says no death before the fall” problem. I’m still convinced it is not at all palatable to YECs.
If the choice is between believing the Bible as you dictate it must be understood or not. Then I most definitely choose NOT!
If the choice is between believing the Bible twisted to make it contradict science, or not. Then I most definitely choose NOT!
If the choice is between believing the Bible made into a tool of power for manipulation and lording it over others, by making it all about obedience, or not, the I most definitely choose NOT!
If the choice is between believing the Bible as an historical account of an ancient necromancer creating the universe in seven 24 hour periods then creating golems of dust and bone, magical fruit, and talking animals, or not, then I most definitely choose NOT!
If the choice is between believing the Bible as a means of entitlement based on dogma and a righteousness based on laws, or not, then I definitely choose NOT!
If the choice is between believing the Bible as dictated by the same people who used the Bible to justify genocide, slavery, racism, and the abuse of women, or not, then I most definitely choose NOT!
If the choice is between believing the Bible as a testament to a meglomaniacal, puritanical, hard-hearted, controlling, wrathful, and sadistic devil-god running a mafia-like protection racket, or not, then I most definitely choose NOT!
But if the choice is between believing in the Bible as seen through eyes wide open to the objective findings of science with Jesus as the lens through which God is understood as motivated only by love, or not, then I choose YES!
We don’t exactly do that, but rather can sometimes help interpret scriptures better as we learn more about the natural world. For example, few today are flat-earth geocentrists but the Bible does describe both perspectives when read a particular way.
I suppose but I would hope that you could separate ‘the word of God’ and your ‘interpretation of the Word of God.’ It is a classic move, I get it, I used to think that way too when I was a YEC in particular. It’s why Answers in Genesis says:
From the Bible we can already know the big bang idea is wrong: the Word of God in Genesis 1 says the earth was created before the stars.
A more accurate thing to say would be:
Our interpretation of the Bible is in conflict with the Big Bang idea. Because of our extreme confidence that our interpretation of the Bible is absolutely correct, then we feel confident to reject the Big Bang idea.
They’d be wrong of course but please let’s not make this about the Bible vs. science but rather interpretations of the Bible vs. science.
It is also unfortunate that the modern YEC reading of a deathless/perfect creation is an entirely foreign concept to those in the early church, in particular Irenaeus and more akin to the Gnostic teaching of the day of an original ‘perfect’ creation:
The question is … between Romans 5 and any other part of the Bible, which is the more important?
The existence of a real Adam? Or “no death before the Fall”?
The last position doesn’t seem very viable, or even explicit. What is the strongest verse to imply there is no death?
If the Tree of Life was the method of keeping animals (including 2 humans) from dying … how would the Tree of Life keep fish from dying? Or clams?
I agree that Genealogical Adam doesn’t reach or solve all the issues. But it does resolve Romans 5 in a way that allows the stymied YEC to eat his cake… and keep it too!
You might enjoy this book. From the description: “God’s world was created ‘very good,’ Genesis chapter 1 tells us, and in this book Jon Garvey rediscovers the truth, known to the Church for its first 1,500 years but largely forgotten now, that the fall of mankind did not lessen that goodness.”
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Good-Earth-Jon-Garvey/dp/1532652003
Do you live in Israel or are you hoping to defend some religion/culture like that of the Native Americans against an invasion of Middle Eastern thinking twisted by unwashed medieval barbarians?
The decline of the kind of Christianity which used the Bible to justify slavery and genocide seems like a good thing to me. I hope it disappears completely and forever.
Christians running round like chickens with there heads cut off screaming the “sky is falling” is familiar historical chorus. Christianity constantly experiences revivals as it sheds corruption and distortions to get back to the life revitalization experienced in a relationship with Jesus. As for Europe, they probably are just a little tired of Christianity being used to justify so much evil. And if they are not buying your particular version then consider that the problem might be with the product you are selling.
On the contrary, evolution makes Christianity more believable, dealing a death blow to the most ancient criticism of all – the problem of evil and suffering. It is a Gnostic-christian gospel of salvation by works of the mind consisting of believing in dogma, used to support an attitude of entitlement, which makes faith irrelevant.
That would be God – the one who cries out against the hypocrisy of entitled religiosity in Isaiah chapter one, demanding that we simply seek justice, correct oppression, and help those need.
The Bible never really states that humanity was immortal or all life never died. If that was so then why was there a Tree of Life in the Garden (Genesis 3:22) if they were immortal already? While early man might have had longer lives we were still mortal. Death before the events of the Garden in my opinion was natural and neutral (also animals have no souls thus death isn’t much of a tragedy and also If death is evil then why does God allow the Hebrews to commit a genocide of the native Canaanite population in Joshua and also allow for the massacre to take place in Benjamin in Judges 20:48?)Also death was needed to take place in order for Christ to die and pay atonement for the sins of the world. The Bible is true to all that it has to say but I feel the error many evangelicals take is that all things in the Bible must be a history and science text book when in truth its a text that teaches spiritual truths to a broken and lost humanity that needs the grace and mercy of God. Creation can still be very good even in the face of death, again death isn’t evil in itself, death became evil when humans rebelled against God and thus death was the path of total separation from God. Death lost it’s neutral position and became a thing of disorder and chaos.
Hello mitchellmckain,
Thank you for your reply.
Thie is for your post that contains,
"If the choice is between believing the Bible as you dictate it must be understood or not. Then I most definitely choose NOT!
If the choice is between believing the Bible twisted to make it contradict science, or not. Then I most definitely choose NOT! …
and
…But if the choice is between believing in the Bible as seen through eyes wide open to the objective findings of science with Jesus as the lens through which God is understood as motivated only by love, or not, then I choose YES!
As indicated in your first condition, you have trouble believing the Bible as pure? Where is your heart? Erroneous and impure understanding of the Bible as shown in some of your other conditions does more harm than good.
When you say, “believing in the Bible as seen through eyes wide open to the objective findings of science,” which group of scientists you think we should believe? Aren’t they also divided based on how the word of God is handled or mishandled (evolutionists vs creationists)?
Has the field of science obsoleted the holy ghost (John 14:26) in guiding us with understanding of the truth in its purity? Is the field of science our master or our servant? Isn’t it our servant as we through scientific inquiry deepen our knowledge of what’s already given us in the natural by God’s spoken word (in the first chapter of Genesis)? Supernatural truth is beyond the natural and is thus revealed only through the holy ghost.
I will probably have to wait until Monday to answer the rest of you.
ELD
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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