No I have similar structures in my wrist as a whale has in his flipper, the similar structures do NOT meant that i am a whale or a whale is like me. that being the case how can you trust similar structures to tell you that one animal is anything like another???
the evidence shows God spoke and NO evolution happened.
Just because you say something is or is not true, does not mean I need to swallow it as truth either. I have been a Christian since 1980 and knowing what I know about the Bible works for me and to me it is 100% accurate. If you have a problem with that view, ask God, who told me how things are to show you the truth as he did meâŚand he will.
science Is the study by man in organized form of what God naturally created. ----- The Perfect definition of science as I see it.and it works.
Obviously. No evolutionist is arguing that you are a whaleâŚ
What evidence? Are you talking biblical textual evidence? Or physical evidence?
Present some evidence!
I have been a Christian since 1976 and also believe the Bible is accurate. But what you mean to say is that your interpretation of the Bible is accurate, and youâre willing to dismiss physical evidence in support of your interpretation.
It doesnât âworkâ when you ignore physical evidence because of a priori assumptions. It also doesnât âworkâ when you respond to âhow does this workâ by âGod made it that way.â The second option isnât wrong, but itâs not science.
âWhy is the sky blue?â God made it that way, but itâs not science. To dismiss questions (no matter how difficult) with âGod made it that wayâ is to lower yourself intellectually and emotionally to the basest understanding. We were not created by God to be stupid. âWhy is there pain and suffering?â God made it that way. I suppose at the most simple level, thatâs true, but itâs just not good enough.
But seriously, if you want to respond to everything with âGod made it that way,â why are you even posting on Biologos?
Hi @Martin, excellent question. Iâll try to provide you off the top of my head with some of the reasons that I personally find the most compelling. Iâll try to give you some everyday examples, basically trying to speak your language.
In the end, it all comes down to the fact that evolution makes sense of a lot of stuff we find in Godâs Creation. God is not a deceiver so we expect His Creation to be in accordance with His Word. Letâs see in what way evolution makes sense.
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All of life looks like a family in terms of anatomy and genetics.
I think this one is often underappreciated because weâre being confronted with it every day everywhere. Itâs so normal that most of us are not fully aware of it. Just taking a look at my own dog, I see four paws, two eyes, one nose, spinal column, one head, similar brain in many ways, even his emotions show correspondence with my own. In his world, punishment is negative and reward is positive. Heâs hungry like me, pees like me and poops like me. Donât get me wrong, humans are made in Godâs image and animals arenât. But besides that, the correspondences are so overwhelming that most people are used to taking them for granted. Iâm a graduate student in brain research and the correspondences in the functioning of the brain are amazing across species. When you look into the DNA, you find even more of such correspondences (ones that follow the tree of life! ). Iâm not an expert on genetics, but Dennis Venema is writing a nice series on the evidence of âold genesâ in the human genome.
The bottom line of this point is that if God did not want us to come to conclusion that weâre all part of the family of life, He could have just made the similarities less extreme. God is not a deceiver. -
We see a progression of species in the geological record.
This one is less in my street, but the way the species are ordered in the earth is just amazing. We see the most ancient species in the lower layers. As we progress from the deepest layers to the surface, we can basically see the complexity of life arising gradually. Hereâs a small picture of the distribution in time, which corresponds with what we find in the earth layers:
The bottom line is, if God really didnât want us to come to the conclusion that life arose gradually on Earth, He could have just avoided placing all lifeforms in order of increasing complexity in the geological column. -
The universe and Earth are unmistakably ancient.
Iâm also a graduate student of astrophysics and am very amazed at the ginormous size of Godâs Creation. Even for distant light to arrive at our Earth it needs billions of years and yet weâre observing that all the time. In my studies, we explored in detail how the current picture we have explains the elements that we have on Earth (metal, gold, oxygen, et cetera). Current models even produce predictions of the concentrations of certain elements that were formed in the Big Bang (especially helium) and guess what⌠it works! Perfect models donât exist, but the current cosmology we have has proven to be astonishingly correct on many different specific predictions. The current Big Bang cosmology agrees with an interesting scriptural truth: Creation as we know it had a definite beginning. Before, scientists like Einstein preferred to belief that the universe was eternally existing and stable. However, later the evidence for a beginning became so strong that most people accepted the Big Bang model. -
There are currently no other models that can answer to the huge mountain of findings that has been piling up (and still growing).
Especially the website Naturalis Historia of Joel Duff has been very useful for me in understanding the blatant inconsistencies of the young earth paradigm. Heâs a biology professor but also explores archaeological issues. For example, we find gazillions of stone tools in Africa, which canât be placed in a short timeframe of 10,000 years. Even if every single human being in Africa would have produced one million stone tools during his or her lifetime you would fall short of the actual number: 15-150 trillion stonetools (!!!). -
Important one: I donât find evolutionary theory (as a scientific framework) to be in contradiction with the Christian faith and the teachings of the Bible.
We have to look at what the Bible aims to teach, not at the ancient cosmology that the writers were familiar with. One interesting observation is that even the writer of Genesis was comfortable with the idea that God gave the Earth the ability to bring forth life. In Genesis 1:24 it is written:
And God said, âLet the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kindsâŚ"
The final bottom line is⌠If Godâs Creation speaks to us, we do well to respect what itâs telling us. Since it isnât contradicting what God revealed through the Scriptures, we can rest assured that there are no risks involved if we remain critical of the science.
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The sky is blue indeed,I know that man can explain the fact as to why the sky is blue, however the sky was blue before man even knew how to describe why it is blue.The fact that man can explain or describe the reason that some feature of the earth exist in itâs form is does not mean that God did not make it that way in the first place. the sky was blue when paul was alive and man had no reason to ask why.
Thank you very much for that very kind and sincere reply, I will certainly study it and give it a lot of thought friend and consideration.your kindness and thoughts are very respected on that issue:relaxed:
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Casper Hesp the only thing i do not understand is this: when I go to the web site {Answers in Genesis} and look through it carefully they give many reasons why that evolution could not be true, why would you think just tacking on âGod as creator of evolutionâ would serve a purpose or would make evolution more true. to me God spoke and it happened could well be just as true. this is NOT an argument I am just attempting to understand your justification for it. that is the very question that I have been asking ever since i got on this web site.
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Exactly! Nobody is suggesting otherwiseâŚ
Conceivably, God just âmade it that wayâ instantaneously.
That is a legitimate position, but it does open up all kinds of cans of worms. If God just âmade it that wayâ why did he make it look like something elseâe.g., the long timeline, fossils, etc.
I donât believe God to be a deceiver. I think that role is reserved forâŚsomeone else.
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then why invoke evolution at all?if the sky is blue God could have spoke it be that way with evolution having not a thing to do with it?
I think to get to the bottom of that, you need to seriously look at the claims of both sides before you land on a position.
Why is the sky blue?
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God made it that way.
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A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colours because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight. (Why is the sky blue?)
Both of those answers are correct and they are mutually compatible. The second one is science.
Why evolution? Because investigating physical evidence reveals that to be the best model of origins.
SoâŚhow did we come to be?
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God made it that way.
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Evolution.
Both of those answers are correct and they are mutually compatible. The second one is science.
@martin, I agree with you that âtacking God onto somethingâ can never serve a good purpose. My aim is to have God as the foundation of everything I think and believe. So tacking God onto anything cannot work if He is supposed to be my foundation. Therefore you donât have to worry about that. Evolutionary theory will never be a guiding foundation for my life. So I do not need to âmakeâ evolution true in any way and my faith is not in any way dependent on the scientific theory of evolution. Personally, it wouldnât be any problem for me if sometime in the future there would be a number of huge breakthroughs that would show that thousands of scientists were seriously mistaken and evolutionary theory would turn out to be based on one humongous chain of errors. No problem.
I personally believe as strongly in âGod spoke and it happenedâ as you. Godâs Creation is unfolding according to His divine plan. So everything He declares to happen, will happen.
About âhowâ it happened, I consider it extremely probable that it occurred through evolution given what we know today. I could be wrong on that point, but given the evidence currently available in Godâs Creation, I consider this a very safe position. Acknowledging this could have positive outcomes for the Church too. Most notably, if worldly people see that Christians are wise about earthly matters it can help them to trust us more regarding the important spiritual matters: salvation in Jesus Christ.
You see, I also believe that Godâs character is to be coherent, honest, straightforward. His Creation is understandable, thatâs a miracle in itself. God made the laws of nature and is upholding them as He wishes. Currently, the picture of a young earth does not correspond with all those logical principles that God upholds. If evolution and deep time would be wrong, God seems to have made a huge effort to make those things seem true. Such deceit just doesnât seem to fit with Godâs character as revealed in the Bible.
The most important problem I have with AiG is that they proudly claim to start with the conclusion that their specific interpretation of the Bible is absolute truth. Such perfect interpretation skills almost lifts them up to the level of God Himself⌠They start with their conclusions and then try to find reasons to uphold them. This is not how science works. They are different from you Martin. You have the openness to say âit could be true but Iâm fine with just knowing that God spoke and it happenedâ. Maybe it helps you to be more critical towards AiG to know that here are many, many Christian scientists who completely see through the arguments they present.
Once I asked a young-earth creationist the following question:
âImagine you end up in Heaven and God tells you that you were mistaken. Imagine that He tells you that the Earth is old and that He created mankind through evolution. He kindly explains you that the Scriptures were meant to transmit spiritual teachings, not cosmology⌠In that case, would you call God a liar for having inspired Genesis 1-3?â
The man in question was completely unable to answer this question. It appeared he was actually of the opinion of considering God a liar but couldnât bring himself to say it out loud.
When AiG writers criticize any field of study in science, itâs very obvious to any expert that their claims are faulty. I know this from experience in my own field, astrophysics. Look I can imagine that for any non-expert reader it is difficult to assess those things. I guess it would help for you to focus very strongly on a single topic, instead of trying to grasp everything at once. Start with one claim of AiG and try to get to the bottom of it. Especially, read the arguments presented by actual scientists regarding that issue.
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I do and it has come to my understanding as this:man is selfish can not simply Just trust God And if man does not understand or somehow put himself in understanding{the drivers seat of knowledge as to how things were accomplished} so to speak,man thinks himself as lacking intelligence for some reason. And so to gain that understanding man must invoke âevolutionâ as true because man can not simply accept the idea that âGod did it.â That is the reason for Bio logos. and even if you claim that God did it through "evolution"that is still a form of Humanism.and humanism is of manâs selfish desire to know and of the 
in the end. And thatâs my conclusion. believe it or not?.
I do believe that is your conclusion. And youâre welcome to it.
But if you want to talk science, then"God did it" is never a conclusion. Itâs a starting point.
Of course, God did it! But how?
But here you are accusing me and others like me of a âselfish desire to know.â
You type this. On your computer. Based on very mysterious science that you probably know very little of and which, upon investigating it, would probably dismiss. Why do we have these computers, the internet, etc.? Because of our âselfish desire to know.â A creative God created us to strive, to learn, and to create.
But if God intended for man to fly, he would have given us wingsâŚright?
yes can surly can know certain things But i would rather know things correctly"How the earth was made" than just assume and make up stories and then in the end hope that God approves them because we simply used his name as doing it. and some things we may NEVER know because {The secret things belong to God}[ Deuteronomy 29;29] and you know what THAT is OK with me. I am content with that.
But you have assumed somethingâyour literal interpretation of Genesis 1!
That might be a legitimate assumption, but you shouldnât have to ignore physical evidence to make it âworkâ (e.g., apparent age of the universe, fossils of extinct animals that reveal evolutionary progression, fossils in geological strata, DNA evidence, etc.).
yes can surly can know certain things But i would rather know things correctly"How the earth was made" than just assume and make up stories and then in the end hope that God approves âŚ
You never really addressed my earlier question about John Calvin, who clearly believed that the Bible taught gencentrism. YOU believe that the Bible teaches young-earth creation.
Science has shown there is significant evidence against both.
Why is it OK to accept the scientific consensus on gencentrism, but not about the age of the earth? I sincerely do not see the difference.