If one says that mankind evolved from a group of 10,000 plus group of pre-human species, and then it is suggested that it would be impossible for the genetic makeups of all humankind to exist from a single couple, then these are words right out of the person’s head that circumvent what Paul says in Acts 17. I am not judging anyone. I am reminding what was written by the person.
a month or so ago, I got an earful about rabbit populations and how rabbit species will change to a point that they no longer are able to mate with the mother species. But the daughter rabbit lost genetic capability…it did not gain it. When a wolf dog is bred towards a maltese (breeding is a fabricated form of what nature could have done in the case the wolf dog needed to adapt to survive, it lost genetic information, not gained it. All the species today are a result of this process and science can see this in real time…yet it chooses to focus on the unknowable deep past that, via naturalism, circumvents the idea of God creating for the more appealing view that nature made us. As Christians, we have to ask ourselves why this is and why we fee compelled to follow this mass called mainstream science.
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Greg, once again, you need to cite your sources. Without a link that I can click to follow up on your claims, I have no idea what you are talking about.
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Greg, I have no idea how you come to this conclusion. It would probably help your own writing if you actually included the text when you analyze it … to make sure you are looking at the right texts and the right words.
Here is Paul’s speech to the Greeks:
"Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. "
[Paul says God made the world - - and He did.]
“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing,…”
[God gave life to all creatures… and He did!]
“… seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;”
[God gave common descent to all Humans, and He did!]
“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation…”
[End of Quotes]
How you think this really changes anything, I can’t imagine.
But just in case you persist, I have stated this in many posts before:
Do you think Paul (or Jesus), confined to the flawed nature of their fleshy bodies, are really guarantors of what is true about the natural world? Do you think Paul could drive a stick shift mazda if you put him in one?
Do you think Jesus knew anything about Germ Theory … just because his soul and substance was divine? Do you think Jesus taught his father how to be a carpenter?
The average American Christian would probably not let Jesus do repair work on a Nuclear Power plant…
But you ascribe all sorts of fabulous things about the word of God … so I shouldn’t be surprised that you would bring this particular item out of your briefcase. But you should stick to the more ordinary examples; there’s nothing in Paul’s speech that Theistic Evolutionists would disagree about -
God did create the Rain & Snow … and the animals of the Earth. And he used the water cycle for the rain, and Evolution for humans and the rest of the animals!
Yes, @grog, you got that earful from me. And what exactly do you conclude from the Sunday School teacher’s discussion of these rabbit populations?
I think you are missing the point when you focus on “lost information”. This is a bogus concept. If a fish develops stronger fins that look like legs… did he lose Fin information? Or did he gain “feet” information?
When a population of water-going hippos start to move their hostrils higher on their head (on the way to the population becoming whales) … have they lost information? Or have they gained information for a more precisely located nostril?
Let’s suppose All of Evolution is about losing information … with the **ultimate loss of information when a species or kind goes extinct!!!" I think we should just conclude that Evolution is about how species become more successful in changing ecological settings when they do lose the old information … otherwise, they will go extinct, right?
From now on, I’m going to argue that this is the hidden secret of Evolution - - the fortuitous rescue of a population by “losing increasingly useless information”. So … I bet you are feeling a lot more positive about Evolution, right?
Take a moment to watch this video… it’s pretty good… it was brought to the discussion boards by Socratic!
The video is towards the bottom of this post:
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Post # 84, from the thread: “The mathematical probability of Evolution?”
. . . watch the video below, about Alaska and Florida Rabbits you will learn about one of the examples of common descent that even many Evangelicals accept.
"As introduced by Socratic Fanatic: "Youtube’s Potholer54 . . . [‘Potholer54’ is the name of the YouTube user/channel who has a strong interest in debating with YEC’s] . . . has a great video were he explains how even Kent Hovind had come to agree with the idea of evolution—as long the word is avoided . . . . I sometimes use that video as an example of directly observing macroevolution today, because a North American rabbit species has diversified to where Florida rabbits of that species can’t/won’t breed with [Alaska] rabbits . . . . but rabbits living in the Midwest can breed with both. "
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[This video was introduced by @Socratic.Fanatic at this post:
What is the Evidence for Evolution? - #11 by Socratic.Fanatic ]
The leading cause for common descent leading to 2 populations that cannot breed with each other is through “independent mutation” of the populations (usually when separated by significant barriers or distance). In Birds, such failures to breed can be triggered by “innovations in song”, making mates from the other population treat the candidate like a completely different animal.
But I don’t think too many people have heard rabbits sing…"
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[End of Excerpt from a second thread]
" it lost genetic information, not gained it. "
So, are you saying as humans we lost the information to grow tails? There are occasional birth defects where vestigial tails occur, so perhaps the information is not lost, only suppressed.
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The YEC response to the Harvard demonstration of bacteria evolving to explore environments with increasing toxicity was this brilliant statement:
“that’s not real evolution … it is de-volution… because the bacteria lost some of their earlier genetic qualities.”
Grog would say that humans didn’nt lose their “tail information”… because they didn’t evolve from anything … including those things that had tailis…"
I know. My comment was just a gentle poke in the ribs. I must agree with you Greg that it is pretty amazing that as much information is contained in those unused or poorly understood areas of our genome as there is, and how that got there to be used in novel ways.
I know some see the forum as a battleground to hash out ideas, but for the most part I am eating peanuts at the bar, watching the game on the wide screen, talking to my friends.
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Hi Greg,
It’s good that you’re reflecting on the Scriptures, Greg. We should all do so.
So here’s the Greek for Acts 17:26 (Hort and Westcott)
He made every nation of men “out of one…”, but one what? Since he was speaking to Greek philosophers, Paul could have been using the Greek conception of the one (in contrast to the many, which is regarded as negative in Platonism). What is “the one” really referring to? The Greek concept of one essence? One population? One individual man?
If we are to obey this passage of Scripture, clearly we must regard every human being as created in God’s image and equal before Him–regardless of ethnicity, creed, or national boundaries. And act accordingly. But is Acts 17:26 supposed to dictate our scientific views of genetic origins? In my opinion, reading a scientific explanation into this passage, when the context is so unclear, is a form of eisegesis.
I suggest that all of us, Greg, should adopt the same hermeneutical approach to Acts 17:26 that we use with Job 38:22 -
Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail?
What’s good for the goose in Acts 17:26 should be good for the gander in Job 38:22, in my view.
Remembering Father Clement Falter on this Memorial Day,
Chris Falter
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What about Romans 5:12-14? What about Jesus being called the “last Adam” which suggests in very plain language that where the historical Adam failed to birth an honorable mankind the “last Adam” does when we are re-born in Him and are imputed HIs righteousness?
I would never engage the same interpretive approach for all of Scripture. That is foolish and is even warned against by the Bible itself. For goodness sakes, we see human slavery in America justified by interpretations of the Bible! Dearly incorrect interpretations nonetheless.
That passage in Job hardly compares to the multiple passages about a literal Adam and Eve. To ignore these that base a literal Adam and Eve for trusting in the observations of man instead is tantamount to ignoring the glaringly obvious passages about certain sexual sin based on one’s perceptions about genetics and socialization that justify certain behaviors that the Bible calls out. To take such freedom is license to take freedom in all areas of Scripture to suite one’s own desires and beliefs…
I don’t need much more in the way of your interpretation of this passage minus my understanding that you indeed absolutely, totally and completely do not believe that Adam and Eve were literally the first human beings through whom all mankind came and from whom sin was introduced to all of mankind and from which marital roles and even church structure is based upon.
I have friends who I perhaps mistakenly challenged to consider that the gospel CAN be understood without a comprehension about the historical Adam and Eve…I am beginning to wonder if the implications of such a worldview about Adam and Eve not being historical figures be the very backbone of everything wrong I am finding in many church circles in this country and around the world. Where perhaps a person can become a believer and not believe the historicity of Adam and Eve, I am beginning to wonder if this viewpoint is the ushering in of a mass deception that causes many to miss the true Jesus that the apostles were so careful to define correctly and accurately to the church just after Christ’s resurrection.
I am reading an excellent book called "When people are Big and God is small by Ed Welch. I completely and totally agree with the sentiment in this book as it fits principles out from the Bible. I am finding that such loose interpretations surrounding Adam and Eve which calls them mere symbols etc could very well indeed redefine the “Last Adam” who is Jesus of course as small, fragile and impotent that results in the minds of sinful human beings almost as non existent as the first Adam! A small fragile “Last Adam” who if the Bible calls historical but maybe is not because Adam was not equates to the grounds for miserable marriages, goats outnumbering the sheep at church, plastic smiles, and mass apostacy. It reminds me of how Jesus told the Pharisees that because of their adding their own spin on Scripture that equated to incredible apostacy, that this was cause for their influence to steer their disciples who WOULD have come into a right relationship with God to instead become twice the sons of hell as the Pharisees were! I think that is in Mt. somewhere maybe in chapter 20 something.
A wolf dog has millions of genetic possibilities that they lose in process of breeding which is man made adaptation. Are you suggesting that such a birth defect is ample evidence that all of life evolved from bacteria the exact reverse of what we see in dog adaptation? How is it that one can trust in a rare genetic mutation for bolstering evolution and ignore the obvious signs of devolution that can be tested and confirmed very easily that indeed points to life forms being created with mass genetic capability then thereby devolve and speciate to what we have today.
many brilliant scientists confirm genetic loss. fish gaining strong fins that become legs is a guess based upon the religion of naturalistic evolution. A wolf dog that goes through real time adaptation in a series of man made breeding techniques results in dogs with less and not more genetic capabilities. Am I wrong? We are devolving.
See my comments to Chris Falter. And observe Ro 5. One cannot get around the existence of a literal Adam and Eve Biblically. the theistic gymnastics engaged here is enough to justify about any behavior unbecoming and warned against in Scripture.
Regarding the wolf- dog genetics, it seems it is more complicated, and you can’t make a chihuahua out of present day wolf, though there was a now-extinct common ancestor.
http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-wolf-genome-pushes-back-dawn-of-the-dog-1.17607
Hi Greg,
Since you are introducing more Scriptural detail – a very good thing! – and it’s somewhat orthogonal to the original topic, perhaps the admins will move our conversation to its own thread.
I take the Scriptures very seriously, as you do. Several details in the Scripture indicate that Adam and Eve were not the only individuals alive at the time God was dealing with them:
- Cain was afraid of being attacked by hostile men in the many places he might go (Genesis 4:14). How did those men come into being if they were actually brothers of Cain?
- Cain founded a city (Genesis 4:17). Who were the inhabitants of that cities?
And notice that Paul spoke of Adam as one man, through whom sin entered the world. Paul never claimed that Adam was the only man. This means you can reconcile Scripture with genetics by regarding Adam as the first member of Homo Sapiens in whom God breathed His Spirit, and whom God formed in His image.
I contend that Romans 5 and Genesis 4 are equally authoritative, and we need to incorporate both into our theology.
Still remembering Father Clement Falter,
Chris
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Based on your hypotheticals, virtually all evolution is devolution. So what?
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It is a bogus category, because we are a long time away from knowing exactly what is gained or lost with each “change” in a population’s genetics.
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If a human population develops a higher propensity for sickle-cell blood, which happens to help mitigate the effects of malaria in the region in which the population lives, is that a loss in information or a gain in information? Nothing imaginary here, Grog; there are real distinctions in the incidence of sickle-cell blood, correlating to the incidence that population experienced chronic malaria.
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How cavalier you are about dog breeding. I you have a dachshund, and you successfully breed a St. Bernard that can bound through snow while carrying supplies, have you lost information or gained it?
Ultimately, Evolution is any change. You and Behe bandy about the term “devolution” as if it really meant something. As far as I’m concerned, you might as well say
o a lizard is a devolved fish (who has lost the ability to swim);
o a bat is a devolved mouse (who has lost the ability to eat grain and be active during the day); and
o a whale is a devolved mammal (who has lost the ability to live on land).
The concept of devolution is meaningless. Evolution goes up, down and sideways … and in no particular order.
devolution suggests that something with complexity and incredible tools within its genetic makeup and ability to adapt and survive becomes something with less complexity and less ability to adapt and survive. Give this a lot of time and you have extinction. Devolution thus demands CREATION of something complex that is running down. Sounds familiar to some of the laws of thermodynamics.
On the other hand, evolution suggests that through the process of time, energy, chance, and selection, complex life was the result. This paradigm not only flies in the face of general principles of thermodynamics but is additionally pitted against any form of experiment that tries to duplicate such in the lab. When the evolutionists suggest that we can assign a numerical probability to such an event, then are admitting that this process was by chance with absolutely no intelligent forces involved in the event otherwise the numbers are a mute point because statistics measures chance and chance cannot have intelligent forces intertwined. So when folks in the theistic evolution camp suggest that the math reveals the potential for such an event of complexity via evolution thus needing 10’s of millions of years yet at the same time suggest that God does it, this is confusing, twisted and illogical. God is NOT the author of confusion nor does He want to be assigned credit for such confusion.
Sometimes genes are lost…sometimes they are gained. Are you going to tell me that after all the discussion on this list, you don’t believe chromosomes ever produce additional genes?
What rule of science are you using that a chromosome has some sort of “gene budget” … where it has to eliminate genes to make room for new ones?
You still haven’t responded to the example of sickle cell blood traits in human populations that are exposed to high chronic levels of Malaria.
How come I get the feeling that anything I say you ignore, and then write what you were going to write before I posted a thing?
You left out God as usual.
As soon as you tell me how to get God to cooperate with an experiement in the lab somebody can make a go of it. Can you tell me why you continually leave God out? Most of us here don’t.
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