Is it dangerous to teach evolutionary theory to children?

Faith & Science Conversation
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I am so interested in this topic right now! It is so fascinating. This is more than just a scientific discussion. This is a hugely implicating worldview discussion that I believe can become a cause for human kind down the road to evolve into such humanistic mindsets that the very idea of God may will become treachery against intelligence. That is where the world is heading according the prophecy don’t you know.
I read a bunch of stuff on genetics last night and my thinking on these subjects is evolving more towards creationism and less toward materialistic evolution. Dr. Venema’s testimony and belief system is helping me to grips…Everything from his professor at British Columbia extending “grace” to him and his obscure unintelligent creationist views to him deciding that the materialistic pathway for understanding life is more rational in his mind than God’s miraculous interventions. Here is what Dr. Venema says: “As an aside, as a Christian biologist I would be perfectly fine with the answer being either “natural” or “supernatural”. Both natural and supernatural means are part of the providence of God, and the distinction is not a biblical one in any case. Perhaps God set up the cosmos in a way to allow for abiogenesis to take place. Perhaps he created the first life directly—though, as we will see, there are lines of evidence that I think are suggestive of the former rather than the latter.”

I just totally disagree with ever single bone in my body and no amount of fancy scientific sounding language that appears so smart and astute and impressive will convince me otherwise. What Dr. Venema is suggesting is that amoral powers of energy, time, chance and mutation (that God casually put into place) can intelligently create things like interaction between sexual genders for procreation, eyeballs, and brains that can send a signal to the thigh muscle to relax when the ankle starts to bend sideways (I have done this a few times). He believes that God just placed some bacterium of some sort of perfect environment suitable enough for these to grow all the majesty of complexity by chance, time, energy, mutation. This is unbelievably intellectual suicide not to mention that it goes against the grain of the Bible.

He has so focused himself on the trees of scientific detail that he misses the big picture impossibility that such an occurrence could happen! 20 blocks falling by gravity into a fashion of a square block structure of precise dimensions cannot even be assigned a probability even in a trillion years let alone what he is suggesting!

And his worldview will feed his science.

Dr. Venema is telling us Christians in such a marvelously convincing way that, gosh, he is willing to accept God as the creator and miracle worker in the formulation of all complexity but chooses to side with science that suggests that this is more than likely that God’s miraculous interventions are not true and that He just got the magic ball of naturalism started. That is bold. Only God for sure knows hearts, but this appears to be an issue of the clash between the idol of human intelligence and ability of figuring life out which necessitates naturalism and the Christian God who transcends understanding.

I understand the differences between the naturalism types here Chris. The writing on the wall in these discussions to me suggest that the little bit of theology lipstick on an extreme version of methodological naturalistic evolutionary worldview that can fit many different godless ideas on how we got here is as if a back door into evolving human thinking towards full fledged humanism and philosophical naturalism and not towards God creator. This pushes full force against the precept found in Romans 1:20 where God suggests that his creation reveals his eternal power and divine nature, yet Dr. Venema is offering baby steps towards excusing God away from the scene as He finds aliens and asteroids as His competitors as life seed depositors on this earth.

I find it completely insulting to human intelligence that amoral forces of energy, time, chance mutation can create kinds and create animals with differing genders. It is so mind blowingly obviously silly in every fabric of my being that no amount of fancy sounding jargon about genetics and others can convince me. I am reading and re reading the scientific data and in every line I read, I hear godly reason screaming at the top of its lungs that the science is bolstered by the worldview and not the other way around.

I don’t question theisitic evolutionists hearts as true converts and intentions to reach the world for Christ. I do question if you have considered the potential for the dangerous road that many may take from your beliefs. For me personally, if I were to be willing to subscribe to your views, I would quickly succomb to disinterest in worshipping a God of transcendence and may even gradually find nominalism in my faith and disinterest in the Bible. Science books would become my new Bible. And by God’s grace we hope that it is not true that we become surprised one day how many folks who acted really Christian won’t be found in heaven.

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Brotjer Greg,

You have just espoused a very, very serious heresy.

You have advocated that forces at work in our universe are not under God’s providential control:

Consequently, you feel that any scientific theory that describes natural processes in terms of those forces is bound to lead the faithful astray into philosophical naturalism.

Since you feel so strongly about this subject, you had better warn your church to stop listening to those godless, amoral scientists who show up on TV every morning. They are so bold as to describe the rain and the wind entirely as the result of amoral energy, time, and randomness. Don’t wait! Make a Facebook post right now to denounce those heathen weather forecasters. They lead the faithful down the path to philosophical naturalism every morning!

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That is not at all what I suggest. Not even close. It is as simple as this: God as He Creates of kinds of species set into a natural environment to function as they will according to how they were designed makes incredible sense. And God is sovereignly in control of this and He is also attributed as CREATOR. This jives with how people, those designed after His own image work where we design, create, build, construct, fabricate things to work in an environment for which they are needed or wanted.

The idea that a seed placed into amoral space, time and energy to develop into complexity without any help from intelligence is counter intuitive not to mention unbiblical in the highest degree. It would be the equivalent of my placing 400 2x4’s on a construction site and expecting a house in a year…or in a million years. Anyway, this also hints of little need for a Creator for those philosophical naturalists have called the seed planter an asteroid or alien pushing the idea of God so far down the road that He becomes invisible. And I believe that apostacy is more dangerous than downright heresy because apostacy gives the appearance that everything is good when it is very much not, where downright heresy in a day in age of information transmission gets displaced more quickly. Satan comes in the form of an angel of light. That is why I believe the seeker church movement is so dangerous.

All that this resembles is an attempt to fit the mainstream mold developed on the back of philosophical naturalism as you call it and I would dare say not always for god honoring reasons but for worldly and selfish ones.

I sense that you are such a strong believer in Christ that you want to honor Him in seeking truth. This is a complex issue of a clash of worldviews Chris that must be very carefully analyzed because I believe that satan is poking his head into the argument for the purposes of deceiving the elect (as if this were possible Paul would say)

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Ken and his family are paid about $500,000 per year in salary (public info). And this is for a ministry that is currently losing money. Addi in merchandise sales and who knows how high the actual figure would be.

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Can you forward your source? I literally read that he was getting a $170k salary recently. This is a very important area of concern. And I don’t know about AIG’s financial problems. I just talked to a friend on staff with AIG who wants to build a house in KY capable for housing his family and his in-laws. They don’t seem concerned about moving on anytime soon apparently.

But there is a movement right now that is confronting pastors and teachers from profiteering on the back of God’s truth. Even some of my favorite Bible teachers were tending to accept huge book proceeds in the millions while the layperson, if they are implementing true Biblical principle from those books may suffer financial loss in a world hostile to Christ. This disconnect between shepherd and sheep is spoken against strongly by our Savior and is just yet another form of apostacy that has hurt the church significantly. Leaders will be judged more strictly because reason has it, where the leader wants to go so will the sheep.

If I am going to take what appears to be historical narrative in the Bible lightly and as if poetry however, then why would any of us be concerned about the exacting precepts that suggest the importance of Christian leaders towards servant minded financial integrity as they lead the fold? Just sayin’

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That link about “kinds” is one of my favorites! Glad you found it! :slight_smile:

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I would just like to take a moment and state that I greatly appreciate the step toward peaceful dialogue that these sentences represent. “Only God for sure knows hearts,” Greg admits, and he goes on to say, “but this appears to be X.” Later, “For me personally, if I were to subscribe to your views…” This shows a recognition of the subjective nature of his statements, and a willingness to understand that the rationale that he imagines drives others may be just that, and may not be the actual rationale that drives them. I dunno… for me, that’s a pretty big step in a positive direction.

In all sincerity,
AMW

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I couldn’t make it through the first 30 min. of that movie. Does that call my salvation into doubt? haha

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Google “is ken ham rich” His total compensation package is reaching nearly $200,000.

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And we’re asked to believe that some of his employees have to hunt deer for food. LOL!!!

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No, it wouldn’t. 2x4s don’t reproduce. You really don’t seem to have the slightest clue about evolution, Greg.

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[quote=“grog, post:185, topic:35076”]
the piles of evidence are just as fitting to adaptation of created species or kinds as they are fitting of common decent evolution.[/quote]
No, they aren’t. There are no discontinuities in the nested hierarchies that would be produced by creation of kinds.

You forgot selection. And it’s frankly hilarious that you try to claim that your beliefs about evidence are equivalent to real evidence.

News flash, Greg: your worldview makes you afraid of evidence and causes you to falsely equivocate between hearsay and evidence. My worldview makes me not only interpret the evidence, but use it to formulate hypotheses that PREDICT new evidence before I’ve seen it.

Which worldview has created more knowledge in the world?

Note also that no matter how hard you try, my worldview is not incompatible with Christianity.

Greg, you can’t base claims about the evidence on others’ interpretations. That’s hearsay, not evidence.

[quote]I don’t see mountains of evidence, I see mountains of interpretations of evidence based upon a pre set worldview.
[/quote]You can’t see any evidence if you limit yourself to hearsay.

You can’t honestly make any claims about evidence if you limit yourself to hearsay either.

What if I was one of your customers and refused to pay you based entirely on hearsay, while you show me the blueprints and photographs of how your work was done correctly, and I just ignore them?

Would putting yourself in the shoes of another help to you to see what you are doing?

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Well, it would not surprise me that some (most?) of the AiG staff are not living high on the hog, as it were. I suspect that the average employee is not making a great deal of money from the operation.

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I don’t claim to know anything specific to Ken Ham (other than AIG’s 501c3 reports) but speaking in general of what I know about ministry compensation, I would point out a few compensation techniques which SOME 501c3 ministries utilize:

(1) There are often a number of “affiliated” ministries. The same people can be drawing simultaneous salaries from all of them.

(2) The same individuals can be owners of corporations which are “subcontractors” of those various ministries.

(3) There are also corporations which exist only at key intervals for handling particular projects, transactions, campaigns, or events. For example, I could name one very very famous Christian ministry which purchased a major tract of land—and a 7% broker’s fee was paid to the President’s son for handling the real estate transaction. The fact that there was no need for expensive advertising to bring together the buyer and seller didn’t seem to lower the commission. You see, the real estate transaction was between two affiliate ministries!

(4) I’ve often been astounded at the many ways in which ministry money can be used to finance major business projects in which the stock was owned almost entirely by the President of the ministry and various familiy members. The best known example of that made one famous TV broadcaster a zillionaire when his TV network was sold.

(5) I’ve also been amazed at the money-losing companies that can be spun off and eventually go bankrupt—but on the way to bankruptcy major “consultancy fees” were paid to the President of the ministry. The most famous example of #4 made millions of dollars in that manner also. (And just before the bankruptcy, lucrative assets are stripped and sold off to, you guessed it, a corporation owned by the ministry president or family members.)

(6) Books are another huge salary supplement. The President of the ministry doesn’t even have to write them. Most are written by ghost-writers. They are sure-sellers and the profits are huge. Their “royalties” or even net-profits can be paid directly to the “author”.

I could list many other methods of enrichment I’ve personally observed over the years. So when I see a salary listed in a 501c3 report, I make too assumptions: (1) It is probably accurate. (2) It is also irrelevant. Total salary and total compensation are two very different things.

Yes, these things depressed me a lot over the years. Thankfully, there are many wonderful ministries which do NONE of these things because they work for the Lord!

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I’ve known plenty of non-profit organizations (including 501c3 ministries) where many average employees are getting food stamps (i.e., WIC cards nowadays) and regularly “shop” at food pantries for the poor. There is often a major disconnect between the board members and the people doing the rank-and-file work. So it always amazes me when people say “I know it is a wonderful organization because the employees aren’t making much money.” I usually ask them how much the children, son-in-laws, daughter-in-laws, uncles, and cousins are making—and whether they are on the board of directors.

Anyway, I guess we should get back to evolutionary theology and “dangers”—though I suppose these are some of the dangers!

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John Piper has written a few articles on the subject which I find agreement with. There is more written about Jesus talking about the love of money and general earthly material issues than there is about Him talking about prayer in the Bible and I have always said, the reason this is, is because He wants us to pray more! Stuff is temporary, God is eternal. And I am not a poverty theologian either…I have stuff and nothing wrong with it. It is the high and mighties who call themselves Christian leaders living in 10,000 sq foot mansions and flying in private jets that either give folks a sour taste in their mouths towards Christ or offer some of the others to choose to follow their lead towards a false image of Christ which is worse.

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I knew that I would get a response like this one.

Here is what I read from you all as a generalization: since a bacteria can adapt to the form of a type that can absorb nylon and you combine this with the fact that there are millions of years to work with, we can know that, even though we have NEVER SEEN bacteria change to something other than bacteria, we can still have faith in unseen long amounts of time to know that it did indeed change to something else other than bacteria that could indeed change into all of the complexity of life today including eyes, brains, sexual organs, etc I have heard more from you all about your apparent faith in timescales giving rise to the creation of complexity by energy than anything else.

I have heard you also say, well God is sovereign over this therefore we can still believe in God etc. That is, I am very sorry, but that is about the silliest idea I have ever heard in my entire life. If I were God, I would be insulted. As a person myself who builds things, it is comparable to a couple of scenarios: 1. my launching a project for a customer and laying out the materials, leaving them lay there to build themselves into an intelligent design, then for the customer to find them still laying there a month later then for me to then with odd gladness claim sovereignty over the whole scene. 2.Or if there was a structure that was built from those materials by someone else, I would be blushing and lying to claim sovereignty then. 3. Of if I claimed that the structure was not built by me or my subs, but by the powers of time, chance, energy…I’d be fired and never hired again and maybe put in a straight jacket.

I really believe that God is disinterested to uphold your claim that He is sovereign over the amoral forces of time energy and mutation that have never demonstrated the ability to create an intelligent anything or create some highly complex something from a common decent or seed either…same thing. God’s creation can adapt intelligently, but energy, time and mutation cannot.

The worldview espoused by theistic evolution is not only bad but it is worse than naturalistic evolution because it sticks God’s name as “sovereign” onto a picture of a confusing, godless process of development of life by amoral powers that cannot do anything. The trust and faith factor this model clings to is not faith in God but faith in time, mutation, energy. And this model does no good service to attract seekers because it does not steer them to the treasure the gospel offers in God himself but towards other things like rescue from a bad conscience and others.

So now take the first paragraph about the bacteria changing in form to adapt combined with FAITH that it could indeed develop into complexity we see today because of UNSEEN large amounts of time one claims and contrast this to Biblical Faith as described in Hebrews 11: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things NOT SEEN. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By Faith we understand that the universe was CREATED by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

Theistic evolution literally turns this verse on its head and transfers Biblical faith in an unseen God who we can know created us and places it instead on unseen timeframes and places it as well upon unseen fuzzy theories that confound statistical reason that a single group of cells can duplicate on the back of this unseen time along with energy to sexual organs for reproducing!! God is not the author of this confusion and that is confusing to say the least. It does not work.

So if my faith banks on the FACT that God is transcendent and powerful and omniscient and so much infinitely greater than me more than the universe is big compared to the size of this office, then Jesus taking rotting human flesh of a man dead 3 days and making him alive again is very much possible. Jesus taking a couple of fish and bread pieces and multiplying them is possible. Jesus turning water into wine is possible. Jesus taking nothing and making it something is possible. (miracle of all miracles) Jesus controlling the weather patterns is possible. Jesus keeping the flames off of shadrack and the boys possible. Jesus parting the Red Sea possible. Jesus calling animals onto the ark possible. Jesus distributing those animals and duplicating them in a way for speedy diversity possible. etc etc etc

If another’s faith is based on time, matter and energy (and maybe casually pasting God’s name on the concept) then they will look at the guy above as a loon…if not outwardly, they will at least pity them for their foolishness. Am I right? Especially about the history about Noah’s ark. Am I more right? Yet the irony is that the idea that things like male/ female sexuality for procreation came from the powers of time, matter and energy is more loony. And I don’t even say this without help from the Word of God either as in Romans 1:20 the apostle Paul essentially says that we are all responsible for our destiny that may or may not lead to hell because our common sense deep in our souls tells us that where there is order, design, life, beauty, male and female sexes, this declares an intelligent Creator behind it all. Paul’s reasoning here goes on to suggest that this Creator must be so incredible that it could only take Him forgiving us of our sin against Him by His own actions to bring us to Himself because even avenues for boasting for our trying to achieving Him on our own is not good.

Theistic evolution according to the articles I have read not only all too easily shares God as a seed planter on the earth with aliens and asteroids by the naturalism camp but it additionally kicks the can of consciousness of God potentially so far down the road in peoples minds that even if they happen to subscribe to some of the Christian behavioral worldviews they may indeed fail to understand the gospel that saves them from God’s wrath and saves them to the greatest treasure of all, God Himself and He loves us more than we love our own children!

Sorry, the more I entrench myself in these discussions, the more appealing God as Creator of kinds becomes to me. I am finding Him more lovely and the idea of evolution from a common decent with a little God lipstick repulsive. And even though I may not subscribe to all of the views of groups like ICR and AIG, they become much better friends to me as I trust in the God of the Bible than the ideas swirling around in the theistic evolution circles.

Just food for thought here to munch on. I care for you all and enough so to give counters to the commonality of feeding each other’s like views amongst each other.

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So, when you build things, do you give credit to God for his provision of the lumber, the time, the workmen, and the ability God gave you to put it together, or do you just say, “Look what I did!”
If someone were to build you a house to keep you out of the rain, would you thank God for his provision?
I know you would, and I think that is what some are saying that God is sovereign over the process of evolution. He may use processes we call natural, but he is using it to achieve his purpose. If you say, but what about the evolutionary dead ends etc., it is really not that much different than how he used Jacob and Isaac, and Joseph and the host of others in the Bible to achieve his purpose, despite their faults and sin.

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Again, I spent too many years long ago basing my truth claims upon myself and my perceptions about life. Now I base it upon the precepts, principles and truth claims from the Word that were written by men who wrote with such sincerity, God centeredness and care for fellow man.

You think that theistic evolution is just combining a little bit of science with a little bit of God, but instead are not coming to grips with how scientific claims about the past much engage faith and engage worldviews that are statistically unreasonable.

Read your articles. Things like bacteria adapting although not changing into non-bacteria combined with time proves evolution of bacteria to non bacteria must be true. How is this scientific? how is this logical flow of determination. That is the kind of stuff you literally write. I just read them last night! How do you see any statistical honesty in the suggestion that time energy chance and mutation can develop a few cells into male and female sexual organs where they need to interact for procreation? This is so beyond unreasonable yet I hear your scientists suggest that the evidence about how messenger RNA does this and DNA does this is evidence that the material universe causes this and not miracles! It is almost as if you want to destroy the idea of human common sense and destroy the idea of God as a miracle worker on purpose…according to Ro 1 the two ingredients important in the gospel. Sot these ideas I believe to be treasonous towards God and towards people who have a desire to seek Him to say the least. It is comparable to straining out a gnat by a focus on how DNA adapts and then swallowing a camel of ignoring how silly it is to assume that energy can create very specified design that is purposed for pointing to the nature of God and His relation to His bride, the church.
.

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Why don’t you respond to what we actually write instead of nakedly evading with a ridiculous straw man like “Here is what I read from you all…”?

You didn’t respond to me at all, and you know it.

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