We appear to have overlapped. 
1 Like
Blech, and you can quote me. 
You would do well to read the whole post:
Especially since you believe in the antiquity of the earth.
2 Likes
Sorry, Jerry, but you don’t have that quite clear and so Richard missed the point. So please go back and read the opening post in my thread – it was evolution itself that brought them to conclude there must be a Designer.
He’s of course talking about presenting science – and he apparently doesn’t grasp that until he provides us with a divine-o-meter then no one can “make seeing God’s Providence clearer” because while in some specific stretch of DNA God may have introduced one of a dozen mutations, so far we have no way to identify which one is His handiwork by . . . .
Oh, wait: under divine providence, it’s all His handiwork – but Richard denies that God is in actual control.
Astronomy is not showing God creating anything. It is Nature building itself.
Chemistry is not showing God creating anything. It is Nature building itself.
Cosmology is not showing God creating anything. It is Nature building itself.
Geology is not showing God creating anything. It is Nature building itself.
Science is not showing God creating anything, and that is what we should expect – He is, after all, a God Who hides Himself.
2 Likes
I know how you feel, Richard … I cop that too.
None of the doubters at evolutionnews.org are YEC either.
1 Like
We do have factual evidence of his M.O., though, in his providential interventions into the lives of his children (depending on your level of gullibility ; - ), frequently cited by me and yet again: Factual evidence for Christians to rejoice in, remember and recount, and for true seekers to ponder
(Does anyone think Maggie or Rich Stearns were gullible?)
Yeah, but they believe ID is scientific, and that is mistaken! I used to be one of them too (an advocate of ID anyway), mostly, pretty much entirely, out of incredulity, not knowing about neutral drift and the neutral theory of evolution, the seminal paper on the same not dropping until after I had had 7th grade biology (in fact, not until after I had graduated from high school).
I don’t get how Michael Behe can teach evolution and still be an ID-er. Like I said, I was too, but while I still believe in intelligent design, it’s providential and not provable, so it’s lower case ‘id’ until @St.Roymond patents his divine-o-meter.
It has to be about Christ, since as John says–
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that has been made.
… which is something that Paul agrees with in several places.
“Any thing that has been made” includes mutations and all the things that trigger them. So when one human about twelve thousand years ago was suddenly able to digest cow’s milk, Jesus did that, and when northern Europeans suddenly started having blue eyes, Jesus did that. Indeed when some humans are born with an extra finger, or with fingers fused together by the skin, Jesus did that.
And when that ranger in the American west started with a batch of bacteria that barely survived moderate arsenic levels in a stream and ended up with bacteria that metabolize arsenic, Jesus did that, too.
And by declaring that there is no room for Jesus in evolution, a person declares that Jesus is not Lord of all – and it’s when that declaration comes from a Christian that people’s faith gets destroyed.
It never mattered whether a professor was a Christian or something else, no handout or course material in a university biology course describing evolutionary theory said, “God didn’t do any of it”; and it never mattered if the professor was an atheist or something else, if asked if evolution excluded God, all the ones I knew answered essentially what I’ve been saying: we can’t measure for God, so we can’t include God.
Yep – if that had happened to be on a test . . . No, scratch that; none of the professors where I attended would have wasted exam space on such an obvious question because everyone understood that no one had yet invented a divine-o-meter.
3 Likes
Shall we talk about kidney cancer and sovereignly orchestrated storms.
It would have been fine with me if I had died. For my wife? Not so much.1 
Metastasis and associated symptoms and therapies would have been distinctly uncomfortable though, so I’m not complaining!
1 She has said that she would say “Good for him!”
To make a distinction:
If you start with scripture, then evolution is about Christ because every step in it is Jesus at work.
If you start with science, then nothing in evolution is about Christ because we can’t test for divine intervention.
I’m teaching Knox “Find the truck!” Once he has that down, maybe I should start teaching him, “Find God!”
2 Likes
I don’t understand how attributing the history of life on earth to a natural, mechanical, understood process would inspire anyone to believe in a Creator God.
However, I do understand how attributing the history of life on earth to a natural, mechanical, understood process would inspire someone to believe that no Creator God was necessary, thus opening the door to atheism.
1 Like
Because it is such a fantastic (and fascinating ; - ) way of producing incredibly complex, beautiful and even awe inspiring diversity?
It’s not a huge leap from Psalm 19.
1 Like
If you ask me, it’s nowhere near as awe-inspiring as God creating life ex nihlio.
Miracle vs Mechanical Process … no contest.
A storm. On the Sea of Galilee. Men in a boat. Several of them said something. The storm ended. No natural laws were broken – it was just ‘Mechanical Processes’. NOT!
I don’t think you’re getting the big picture of God’s sovereignty.
Not if he created it through providence. Then your awe would be misplaced and mistaken. The diversity, complexity and beauty of the biological realm is more awe-inspiring to me than how life got started, ‘poof’ or providence. I think I would pick the latter, knowing how cool it is firsthand. And it’s pretty amazing.
1 Like
I should say, in the context of this thread, that I am not disputing the science of biological evolution, of which the core has been well established by the vast majority of credible Biologists.
At issue to me is the existence of true altruism among non-human animals, and any theological implications of that. I admit that this may be mostly unknowable, as I don’t even fully know when I truly act in an altruistic way. Further, non-human animals don’t have languages to document their thoughts in a way that we humans can understand.
The case of the chimpanzee adopting a non-related chimpanzee, documented by Jane Goodall, appeared in her book “Reason for Hope” in the chapter titled “Compassion and Love”. Yes, the case could be made that it was kin selection, since they were likely at least distantly related. Maybe the adopter/adoptee relationship could be better described as friendship in that case, since we don’t see the adopter making supreme sacrifices like a parent.
I expect that any anecdotes that I have read could be classed as being at least partly reciprocal, even with the benefit received being friendship for social animals.
I still find the question of altruism in animals interesting. I will do some further research on it and perhaps report back. I should use a PM for that, as we are really on a tangent from the main discussion (or perhaps argument ).
1 Like
Yes, certainly, feel free to PM. It’s an interesting subject!
The last 16 or so responses have been very interesting. Instead of just mocking and insulting they have been attempting to confront the problem of extolling evolution from a Christian standpoint.
If you are talking scientifically it cannot be done but that doesn’t stop (most) of you just talking scientifically and thinking you are still talking as a Christian. you are not.
But you cannot see that by arguing pure science you are hiding God.
[quote=“JerryN, post:309, topic:51646”]
Many people have been trying to tell you that evolution is not about God at al
[/quote].
No, I have been saying that. All I am hearing is that science must be right. And if science is right
This statement becomes absolutely wrong. It does not show anything about God at all
This shows you have never understood me at all.
It was never about making evolutionary theory into theistic evolution…So instead of me looking foolish…
Oh dear.
My criticisms of evolution are not related to God and never have been.
Is you admitting what I have been arguing about…
Why can’t you understand that if scientific evolutionary theory is complete it does leave God out?
No.
Science is without God because science cannot recognise God.
Trying to justify excluding God because God gave us a godless science is unbelievable circular reasoning!
That you cannot see that arguing science is excluding God is what is reallyy sad. You have tried to justify it and failed. A Divinometer? what absolute… (I will not lower myself to speaking a Latin insult)
Then don’t do it!
Richard
abiogenesis = science = intelligent design
What a pity you can’t prove that that “pretty amazing” feat even happened.
It’s like saying “it’s pretty amazing” that there are Little Green Men on Mars and that aliens fly around in UFOs.