CMI: Dangers Of Theistic Evolution (Or "Evolutionary Creationism")

What point is that? That accepting evolution is a slippery slope that inevitably eats away at faith and probably leads to atheism? Do you believe that is true?

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@Christy @RHernandez @etc.

I have heard of cases where that has happened, but I don’t believe that that happens in every case.

I have first-hand experience with the opposite. Where a church’s insistence on making YEC dogma cardinal has (by appearances, modulo my Calvinsm) caused young people to flee the church as they began see the incompatibility of the YEC view and science. @Christy

EDIT: missing word

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The big risk factor there is not evolution itself, but discovering that what your church has been teaching you about it is untrue. Demonstrably false claims can do far, far, far more damage your credibility than any kind of perceived “compromise” or “slippery slopes.”

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I can see an atheist thinking this.

But the neat thing about our God is, anything that science can show, it shows God did it.

It isn’t like I was sitting here believing in God, and CE came about and I panicked. I must think of a way to explain this or my God doesn’t exist.

It is more of…oh, evolution is real (seeing so many studies on it) hm, cool, that is an even more fascinating way to look at how God created us.

Some YECs against evolution have said take a computer and randomly insert 1’s and 0’s in it, since we can do billions of calculations per second, we should randomly invent Microsoft windows right? Though this is a good argument for that fact that there was a designer/programmer out there, this doesn’t prove evolution wrong, nor understand it. It might prove your (incorrect) understanding of evolution.

I am learning (as a somewhat former YEC as of months ago) how evolution works. It is more like God is a programmer. He wrote a bunch of code (in His brain or wrote it down, doesn’t matter), and when it was completed. He hit the power button in Gen 1:1. The computer started to boot up, that mass of 1’s and 0’s all compiled into an extremely dense program (hot dense singularity) expanded, it began to take effect. The program now has a set of rules that it follows, and things get created within those parameters of the programmer. 1’s and 0’s become stars and supernova’s which create more star. Then you have boot up complete, you are now in windows. That shows me an incredibly brilliant designer. And if someone wrote a memoir of this programmers journey intended to be read boy a 10 year old surrounded by other 10 year olds with their own different programming stories of computers just being there, or codes fighting against other codes and there is no one in charge of coding. or ANE creation stories. They might say, the first day the programmer made a bios, then secondly he ect. Knowing full well, He programmed it all in a second (time doesn’t exist), He hit the power button, and stuff happened how it happened. But if it was written that way, that stuff happened as it happened, it would just be another similar sounding creation story. Instead, it has great intent and clear purpose to contrast all other creation stories.

Maybe @Christy can help me out. A great article (I can’t seem to find) on how the Genesis account was very intentional in its writings at the time compared to the surrounding ANE beliefs. It was a 6 page PDF, I can’t remember where she linked it in the past…

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@jammycakes @Christy @gbrooks9 @etc.

The flood is the YEC explanation for fossils, so they are not a stumbling block for creationists at all. Statements like that make me rather despairing of people here truly understanding the YEC viewpoint, but I am sure you all have had similar sentiments toward me. :wink:

Anyhow, this is the argument I was thinking to get to with that point (because I have found that taking arguments step by step works terribly in online formats):

If you do not believe evolution could have worked without divine intervention, but God does not say he used evolution, then why believe in evolution as opposed to what God actually said he did?

God does not say He uses normal thermodynamics to create rain so are we to conclude that He doesn’t?

God did say why He created man, but He never mentions the how He did it part.

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On a more fundamental level, I don’t believe anything could have worked out without divine intervention. God created everything, including the cosmos itself and all the laws that govern it.

I believe that God does not mention evolution for two main reasons:

  1. The Bible was written by ancient people to ancient people. Evolution was a completely foreign concept.
  2. The “how” is not the message of Genesis, it is the “Who”. God is sovereign creator, and a scientific explanation is not the point.
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@J.E.S, yes… but that is the problem!

Including the flood within the YEC scenario causes the YEC scenario more problems than it solves.

If large mammals and dinosaurs shared the Earth prior to the flood… then we would find at least hundreds/thousands of large mammal fossils under the K-T boundary… and we do not … not even Whales, who allegedly shared the oceans with giant marine reptiles.

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@gbrooks9

Do you have some (I can’t believe I’m actually saying this) links so that I can learn more about this K-T boundary?

He does, however, say that he created the universe in 6 days.

P.S: What other problems does the flood cause, @gbrooks9?

If you list the things you learn from Genesis 1 that make a difference in how you live and relate to God, I suspect that the “length of time it took God to create stuff” does not make the list.

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The problem is that we have contradictory statements, even from you. At one point, you claimed that rocks appeared to be old because they were created with the appearance of age. The problem was that fossils are found in sedimentary rock BELOW the rocks you say were created with the appearance of age. This would require God to also create those fossils in the same way he created the rocks.

If you are now saying that fossils were created by the flood, then you no longer have any explanation for why rocks associated with fossils date to millions of years old.[quote=“J.E.S, post:47, topic:36732”]
If you do not believe evolution could have worked without divine intervention, but God does not say he used evolution, then why believe in evolution as opposed to what God actually said he did?
[/quote]

In my time in Sunday School I was taught that God didn’t dictate the Bible, he inspired it. Surely this could include sections where God inspired human authors to use allegory and metaphors instead of directly describing historical events.

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How are the rocks dated?

It is now called the K-Pg boundary, but lots of people still refer to it as the K-T boundary.

Igneous rocks associated with the boundary consistently date to 65 million years old by numerous different and independent methods (e.g. K/Ar, U/Pb, Rb/Sr). The layer is also associated with tektites which are pieces of rock that solidified in the atmosphere after molten rock was ejected from the Earth due to a massive meteor strike. The boundary also contains relatively large amounts of iridium which is rare in Earth rocks but much more abundant in meteors. Below the K-Pg boundary you find dinosaurs. Above the K-Pg boundary you do not. Most scientists conclude that the K-Pg boundary and other evidence (e.g. Chicxulub crater) is consistent with a 5 mile wide meteor striking the Earth and causing a massive extinction even that wiped out the dinosaurs and many other species.

Jesus also spoke in parables.

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Rocks are dated by the buildup of elements produced by radioactive decay that are trapped in rock after it solidifies. For example, when rock is molten it outgasses argon (Ar). When it solidifies it contains potassium-40 which is radioactive and has a half life of 1.2 billion years, meaning that it takes 1.2 billion years for half of the potassium-40 to decay into argon-40. Since argon-40 can only build up in solid rock you can determine how long it has been since the rock solidified by measuring the ratio of potassium-40 to argon-40.

Other radiometric dating techniques use different elements with different half lives, such as U/Pb dating that measures the ratio of uranium and lead in zircons. What is interesting is that dfferent elements with different half lives consistently give the same date for the same geologic layer, even though they are completely independent of each other. This is what gives scientists confidence that radiometric dating works.

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Exactamente!

This is why I asked of Jonathan

I think that it is telling that he did not answer.

Put another way, has anyone come to Jesus Christ because of belief in a young earth, or do they come because of what Jesus Christ teaches us?

Jonathan? Which is more central?

They are a huge stumbling block for you. If it was not a stumbling block, why are you asking about the K-T boundary and measurement of ages of rocks?

I think we understand your viewpoint very well.

I might add that long before radiometric dating was developed, geologists realized the earth was ancient, they just did not have a way to tell how ancient. They knew that rock layers needed time to form, and thought it had to be in the millions of years long before Darwin.

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If I remember correctly, you aren’t a big fan of Wiki, so I found another source for you. There is a LOT of information about the K-T boundary and mass extinction in a series of 3 web pages that start here: The KT extinction

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