If God interacts with evolution in a way that is not scientifically detectable (which is tautological for God), then there would be no possible way to distinguish God intervening from God not intervening without some means of detecting God, or without theology. Science cannot detect God, and science is not theology.
ToE says absolutely nothing about how much he is involved, just that we can’t measure how or how much, and that his involvement does not cause measurable deviations from purely probabilistic outcomes.
I see the problem perfectly – it’s that when it comes to the matter of evolution you can’t bring yourself to be scientific. Suddenly you change what science is, ignore math, and can’t see past the errors of ignorant atheists that you’re buying into – it’s why people often think you’re a YECer; when it comes to evolution you sound very much like them.
God uses randomness in the weather, in glaciers, in volcanoes, in ecology – the question “Why can’t God use randomness in evolution?” is really asking, “Why do you stop being scientific when it comes to evolution?”
We have been – everyone but you.
I think that’s pretty much it. And it’s an interesting question because there are ways in which evolution is simpler than meteorology, so plainly it’s not the complexity.
That’s what baffles me: an honest reading of Genesis yields no problems with deep time or with evolution because the opening chapters are the wrong kind of literature. To get a conflict with Genesis you have to ignore what Genesis is and force it to be something else.
In this case it’s Sunday School level dogma, too!
True! Misreading Genesis leads to misreading a lot of other things, though it can be hard to tell if it’s that problem or if it’s just a failure to let the Bible be what it is.
I’m waiting for an answer to the question of why any of the books should be expected to be scientifically accurate – an answer from the scriptures or even the ANE wordview.
Now I’m wondering just where and when the first use of “godless evolution” occurred.
But this is a good observation more generally in that churches not anchored in history have come to function to a very large degree around flashpoints the last forty years.
Nor can the terminal clause there be stated with so much certainty.
That’s beside the fact that the statement rests on a misunderstanding of the text: “image of God” is a vocation, an office we hold, not a body shape or any of that body’s attributes.
I’m surprised “godless psychology” didn’t get pounced on!
Ecology is to evolution as highways are to cars: it’s taken so much for granted that it hardly gets mentioned.
“Chance and survival” is about the most elegant system humans have ever come across; the rules can be written on a file card! That’s why studying evolution has drawn people to conclude there must be a Designer; it’s like having a half-dozen lines of computer code that proceed to write out billions of other functional sets of computer code!
The opposite is true: it puts us in the position that Christ is in, that of being Kinsman-Redeemer, related to animals and related to God. Yes, it’s on a lower level, but it gives dignity, it doesn’t harm it.
I’ve pointed people who think that way to St. Francis’ hymn that starts off “Brother Son, Sister moon”.
Scientifically, there is no way to tell the difference, which means there is no difference.
Besides which ToE may be TE; without a Divinometer there’s no way to know.
Where is your evidence? Or are we switching to metaphysics now?
But ToE doesn’t make any suggestion at all about the degree to which God may be involved, it just recognizes that there’s no way to tell.
It just struck me that of course survival is by design – that’s exactly what the ToE says, it just places the design at the beginning, not individually in many species.
Which is exactly what my atheist university biology professor said, with a PhD behind it.
Taken to the most fundamental level, an event that happens without cause will appear the same as an event that is the immediate effect of an uncaused cause.
Every scientific theory there is “disregards God”. You can’t chop science into pieces and claim they’re different – they aren’t.
No, ToE thinks it can’t detect or measure for God, and that what it can’t measure it can’t include – exactly the same as volcanology or coastal geology or plate tectonics or meteorology or stellar genesis or psychology or glaciology or thermodynamics or anthropology or . . . .
And the elegance and power of the theory has led people to God.
Not mentioning something is not the same as saying it doesn’t matter.
When a plumber fixes your sink, do you chase him out of the house calling him godless because he didn’t mention God?
When a doctor examines you, do you call him godless because he didn’t mention God?
When a salesman sells you his product, do you refuse to pay him, calling him godless because he didn’t mention God?
When a photographer take your picture, do you throw away the pictures, calling him godless because he didn’t mention God?
So your life and work is all about God. Insisting that everyone be the same as you is an attitude that belongs in the middle ages. Religion mongers may look back on the dark ages with fondness because religion had such importance then. Yeah people prayed a lot because there was so little they could do mired in filth and ignorance. But no I will not agree that this actually made the world a better place and wishing this on people is down right insane.
So you don’t have any skills of your own.
Thus you have made yourself and your way of doing things the measure of all people and the things they do. Well I will not do that.
RichardG thinks he can get everything from chanting the word “God”. I don’t.
Since God created the process of evolution He is our creator, full stop end of discussion. The fact the process can be viewed without seeing God doesn’t matter. The Bible says God is the creator and that is all we need to accept.
“ToE excludes any sort of guiding or influence from God, basically because God is invisible to it.”
“It excludes any sort of deign, or outside influence for structure or form. That is contrary to scripture. And that is what you fail to understand. The theory does not pass Paul’s letter to the Romans. It not only excludes God but denies His input. It makes God a spectator not a creator.”
“The golden rule of evolution is that there is no intelligence guiding it Evolution cannot learn, it cannot build, it cannot aim for a goal.”
“I was always taught that ToE has no intelligence controlling it so that ic cannot plan, build (As in pregessively create something like a wing to enable flight) or learn and that random has no parameters guiding it.”
“i am saying that if they want to call it ToE there can be no intelligence.”
“I don’t leave God on the sidelines while I work. I don’t claim that God does not matter. I will not proclaim or support a theory that disregards God.”
“The point about Evolution is that it is used to deny God or userp Him.”
Basically, empirical determination of probabilities is indeed the main option. This can be done through tracking organisms through several generations, or through comparison of corresponding DNA sequences. You can also get a rough idea of the changes in particular factors. For example, over time radiometric decay has decreased the level of radiation; photosynthesis has led to increased oxygen levels and thus an ozone layer that decreases the mutation rate near water surfaces or in air. However, there is a lot of organism-to-organism and gene region-to-gene region variation (which is a significant problem for molecular “clocks”).
Which means that it claims it can achieve humanity without God’s help. Why can’t you understand that?
Yes it does. Because it works without Him.
Yawn,
My skills are god given.
No. these are my beliefs. Nothing more, nothing less
I do not impose my beliefs onto anyone else and I will thank you not to claim different.
I have no idea what you think that means let alone why you think it.
I am a man of faith. It is 100% part of my life, I do not shelve it so that I can do something that contradicts or just ignores it. However I do not impose my beliefs onto anyone else or claim that they are the only ones possible. My relationship with God is between me and Him, no one else.
The ToE claims that observed natural processes are sufficient for producing what we see in nature, the same as all other scientific theories. Previously, you said:
“All I (we?) care about is that he is more involved than ToE would suggest. Maybe setting parameters, but not being so precise.”
If God sets the parameters for the observed natural processes that are a part of the ToE then the ToE is not excluding God. By including natural processes the theory is incorporating God.