So you don’t believe the Bible when it says that God sent a flood to destroy nearly all of mankind? I’ll try to ask questions which expose the peculiarities of your thinking.
I don’t believe that. I thought the majority of us in here viewed that as a mythological tale?
But hey if you don’t want to answer the questions I’m asking , which are directly related to my post you disagreed with, then have fun. I have no reason to participate in this level of immaturity. So feel free to respond. I’m not playing this game though. It’s a waste of my time.
If you want to have a actual discussion and we talk about why I think your concept falls into ID we can. If not, I’m not going to play 20 questions on what I already know I believe as if it supports some sort of argument on your end.
I typically take the median view. I don’t see these stories as some vague metaphor. And “myth” just means the story is from a time before written history passed on in oral traditions and before the specialization of human activities into such things as history, religion, science, law, and entertainment. So Adam and Eve golems of dust and bone created by necromancy with talking animals and magical fruit? No. But real people God talked to? Yes. A flood covering the planet wiping out the human species except for eight people? No. A flood wiping out mankind’s earliest civilization? Yes.
Yes. That fits right in with the way a shepherd does things and the way the Bible describes God. Nothing like intelligent design whatsoever. But do I believe God participated in the creation of life? Yes I do. Design? No. Just an observer? No. Participation? Yes.
So if there was this space rock traveling when did he start to somehow influence it naturally? It would require to have been broken off and sent flying through space. It would take other planets abd other space rocks, and other stars all in place at the right times to get it to where it’s going. Same as all celestial things move now.
If you don’t want to call it ID fine. To me that’s exactly what it is. I guess I have nothing to add. We are coming from completely different positions with different definitions and at the end, even if we talk for an hour, we will disagree on even how to label something. I feel like I’ve clearly stated my position and answered the OP and any of the other posts I engaged with. So I’m going to bounce out of this thread.
But I do think that many weeds can survive any mass extinction!
Indeed. I have an area of Johnson grass that has survived everything but an asteroid strike.
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And don’t count out mosquitos and roaches.
Personally I’ve never thought divine creation (AKA wizardry and gollem making - thank you @mitchellmckain) is all that central to the best part of Christianity. But hey, it’s a tradition. Still I prefer leaving some mystery in the “I am that I am”.
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what is theologically wrong with mass extinction? What is metaphysically wrong with physical death? Death is not our problem, but what comes after it 
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I don’t understand your analogy. Are you saying God guided the evolution of life, pushing it this way and that why, like a shepherd will guide the flock to some desired location?
I guess I may question your analogy in that the shepherd is not the ground of the flock’s being. He is just another product of creation and the universe. God is transcendence and sovereign. Did he not pick the fundamental constants of the universe? Did he not create the fields the sheep walk on, the air they breath, the rain thats falls on them, the very atoms that constitute their bodies and the forces controlling all things etc. You seem to posit the universe as some distinct thing completely independent of God that he just modifies. Did God not ‘create’ the universe in your view?
Despite quantum uncertainly the macroscopic universe very much operates like a watch still.
Vinnie
We can therefore easily know the mind of God in the light of nature.
Such an analogy never entered my head. That is all yours.
I meant only what I said. Living organisms are living things not machines to God and His creation of living things is the way of the shepherd, teacher, and parent who likewise create living things not as as designer but as a participant in their lives. This is confirmed by these mass extinctions which is not a bumbling designer going back to the drawing board but the correction of a shepherd or teacher for those in their responsibility who have strayed and got it wrong. He can be patient hoping they will learn from their mistakes until their habits demonstrate that this simply isn’t going to happen. Evolution is a learning process by which species develop, learning what works and what does not.
I don’t believe in this notion of God as the ground of being. I believe in a God who is a creator. It is only that life is a process of self-organization, so when you are creating living things it is not a matter of design but one of participation in a relationship.
Yes and those are not (or not part of) a living organisms so they can be a product of design.
God created the universe as an independent existence to operate according to these automatic processes which we call the laws of nature. That is what you do when you want an authentic relationship. To have a relationship with a dream or a character in a novel you write is not much of a relationship at all.
There is a fundamental difference. Perhaps the difference is a bit subtle for some people. The watch does the same thing every time. The universe does not. The behavior of the watch depends only on the previous state. The universe does not. Some people think that the motion of heavenly bodies is like clockwork. But they are wrong. That is only the case with two gravitational bodies interacting, but with three or more this is no longer the case. Non linear equations make the behavior depend on the initial conditions to an infinite degree of precision and that brings it to quantum physics where there are no hidden variable to determine the course of events.
What difference does this make? It means that unlike a novel or a movie the future is a superposition of possibilities rather than an already written script. Instead of characters in a novel or film simply doing what the writer has decided the characters decide what to do for themselves.
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There is much theologically wrong with a mass extinction caused by man, and many scientist believe we are in the midst of one. Preventable death really is our problem.
Dinasours learning from their mistakes? First I can’t see them having mental capacity, second what would that mistake be? Having too small brain and eating too much food? That can be said for a lot of people as well, so perhaps there is an asteroid already on the way for us too?
Why not use gentler method of correction, like manipulate few DNA strands instead? Asteroid seems like such a brutal way…I admit I have always been struggling with this one.
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No. Evolution is also a learning process. We also learn as a species what works and what doesn’t work as the species explore different survival strategies.
Survival is the only measure of success in this learning process.
So the analogy for teachers would be to use machines to zap our brains into the correct patterns instead of giving their students failing grades. Right?
Life is pretty brutal isn’t it? Sigh…
It would be easy to call down an asteroid strike to kill that grass–you just have to remove the tag from a mattress or pillow.
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@KZiemian, Kamil, good question. Thank you for raising it.
The problem is death. At first blush it would seem that death is evil, because death was part of the curse on humanity as a result of the Fall. However, closer examination indicates that the curse in Genesis 3 is spiritual death, not physical death, which is part of the human condition as a result of us being finite beings.
However something strange happened when Jewish based Christianity became integrated with Greek philosophy. Humans were given an immortal soul, which means that they are immortal and will spend eternity in either heaven or hell, so physical death is devalued.
YHWH gave (life.) YHWH takes (life) away, Blessed be YHWH. Job 1:21
This attitude of Job is not fatalism, it is faith, meaning that Job trusts that whatever YHWH does, He does for good reason. What upset him in the book is that his friends told him that YHWH was punishing him because of his sins. He knew that this was not right, and it wasn’t.
God gives life. God, as well as no one else, can take it for no legitimate reason. Evolution as God’s method of creating lifeforms for God’s creation is a legitimate reason.
I have been saying that the extinction of the dinosaurs is proof positive that ecology, the environment, is the way that God guides evolution through natural selection. Extinctions are not accidents as Dawkins might say. Extinctions were the results of natural changes designed by God to change the earth from a big barren rock to what it is now.
Either God created life and evolution or no one did. Either God created the ecological conditions that caused extinctions and allowed change, or life is without purpose or meaning. Either death is a challenge that God uses to test us or it is the end of life.
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delighted to find someone who thinks along my lines. The whole sin control business by the church has left lasting damage, thus my question above to challenge people to explain what is wrong about death. Where does it say that death is Gods punishment for sin that Jesus has to die so that he could forgive us our sins? Does Jesus death put and murder right - let alone now make it a permitted offense because we already have been forgiven? Jesus died so our sin can be forgiven as in making us change our mind and accept Gods will - including his will for our life to end, even if it is painful. It is about going back under the authority of God, e.g. become one with his will again and accept to live in his heart again - like Jesus gave up himself to live in our hearts.
As you said correctly, death is no accident of nature but part of life, to give the life we have been given back to God. After all, he did not create life, he just gave it to us and to him it returns so he can give it to others over and over.
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This seems be factualy wrong. Deism has is “golden age” rather in XVIII century and was in full sway before even Laplace was born. Of course we shouldn’t overempheside figure of Laplace, who mechanical theories was developed when newtonian mechanics was quite advanced.
Wikipedia Deism
Wikipedia Deism in England and France in the 18th century
In Our Time Deism This podcast has rich bibliography at the bottom of the page.
For me this is not an argument, but a statement of faith. If you disagre, I will be glad to hear why I’m wrong.
Do you have arguments to supports your calims? For the first point, you need at least to argue that Noah’s flood is not a story about extinction, which is plausible view. Is it your postion?