You are obviously a man of great faith. And so you no doubt have great confidence in the chronology of the Old Testament, right?
So… most bible commentators place the time of the Great Flood somewhere in the middle of the first 10 dynasties of ancient Egypt.
And yet… Egypt’s history is not cut short. There is no interruption of its writings and carvings. There is no vast destruction in any of the 10 dynasties. And the Egyptian dynasties just keep rolling forward without interruption.
So… do you Reject all that history… as an eyewitness testimony to the history of the Earth… in favor of Hebrew genealogy that was written before they knew anything about the natural sciences and the true origins of human civillization?
We have caveman DNA older than 6000 years … how did THAT show up?
I think we should start making you respond to our topics… instead of letting you choose your own topics… either way you won’t listen … and frankly I’m starting to think you don’t understand this material.
Perhaps you would be interested in an article written in 1890 that demonstrates, purely from Scripture, that the genealogies of Genesis do not give us either the date of creation or of the flood? W.H. Green, “Primeval Chronology”. You can also find it here at Reasons to Believe.
Or, perhaps you would be interested in an article written by conservative scholar Meredith Kline, Because it had not rained, which demonstrates from Scripture (Gen. 2:5) that ordinary providence was in operation from the beginning of God’s creation until the creation of man.
Both of these biblical scholars hold to the highest form of inerrancy and authority of Scripture.
I don’t understand how people can refuse to acknowledge that the empirical predictions made by a hypothesis can easily be about something that happened in the past–all that matters is that the person using the hypothesis doesn’t know the data.
Your hypothesis is a tool to gain knowledge. You gain knowledge by trying to falsify (attacking) your own hypothesis, not by defending it. The more faith you have in your hypothesis, the more eager you should be to test it!
I see all the time in my own self that tendency to assume something then interpret life based upon the assumption. I have read countless models that theorize how we arrived and have sorted through them to try to discern why indeed we find such divisiveness in the church. There is the young earth movement, some of which are literalists and then there is Sailhammer’s view which I believe carries some more weight and might help to appease the old earth camp. What I cannot buy is the thought that natural processes that we see in nature today can be called “God’s supernatural process of the evolution of the species from a single cell to complexity” I don’t buy it because it has never been duplicated in the lab and it simply pastes God’s name upon secular naturalism taught in ivy leagues.
Where does this leave me? I believe that the earth is older than 6000 years and perhaps not billions because the idea of time is becoming understood differently today. I am not a literalist of Scripture interpretation, but will lean to literally interpreting what seems plain and principled. I do not see how early Genesis is poetry…sorry Mr. Keller. I believe in evolution, but only evolution that occurs from kinds that God directly designed and placed on this earth and not the typeo of evolution from the naturalism camp that necessarily avoids this possibility of God because they are secularly bent.
I have the benefit of not having been indoctrinated by a single worldview and from this benefit I have challenged those who have to consider exactly what they assume has to be for the idea of naturalistic evolution in the guise of theistic evolution to be true. In the same light, I have challenged friends at AIG for example their views as well. But as far as theistic evolutionist are concerned, they must assume that matter and energy can take a single alive cell and magically transform it on its own into complexity we see today. This is exactly what naturalistic evolution HAS to stand on and this view, to me is deeply flawed based on even simple science and rational logic.
So I have for the first time ever in my 30 years as a believer have began to investigate the ideas from this theistic evolution camp and have found that the terms are almost identical to the naturalistic camp and they seemingly suggest that these naturalistic ideas that can attributed to God my mere relabeling. Am I wrong? This is exactly what I have been learning from many who have responded to me on this subject. I hear semantics similar to “Nature is God’s miracle of how he created” etc. So from this I must assume that this person would agree that energy and matter can take a single cell (that is miraculous in and of itself) and transform it to complexity and this unscientific hypothesis can be justified to the Christian by placing the word “theistic” in front of “evolutionism” and nothing more. That is not scientific and in my mind borders absurd. Am I off my rocker in this?
So, when in my introspective mind considered that the impossible task of neutrally moral forces of energy taking a small particle and producing utter complexity to be remedied through the theories that perhaps God interjected into the process by MIRACLE along the way in this process that is absolutely nothing relatable to naturalistic science in every single sense, this must take into account that He be available to do just this throughout the evolutionary processes up until now…which then causes one to have to consider that naturalistic based observations of our past will be impossible. Am I foolish here? Has anyone thought about this in this way?
So from this, I believe that God creating kinds of plants and animals and placing them into the ecosystem that He also created instantaneously is completely reasonable. This supports Biblical principle and highlights the God given ability to study His masterpiece through science. Could this have occurred millions of years ago, thousands, or perhaps billions I will not say because the idea of time as it hinges on how the universe functions is so mysterious and we are scratching the surface of understanding it. I am just dumbfounded that theistic evolutionists are so adamantly against the idea proposed by creationist that God created the kinds… God created the earth didn’t He. He created water. He created the stars and galaxies. . Why do theistic evolutionists find it so fashionable to call creationists idiots for suggesting that God also creation “kinds” Do they fear the reprocusions from ivy league? My mind might be dull, but it sure seems that satan is pulling a fast one in such confusion.
You don’t believe the Bible’s chronology is correct… “because the idea is becoming understood differently today”? I think the more accurate comment would be: “because the Bible’s scribes didn’t understand the reality of Billions of years” - - right?
Greg, So you think God was really counting days in the first six days - - even though the sun, the benchmark of Earth days, didn’t even exist until Day 4?
This is the clearest example that the Creation account is figurative.
Greg, you fail to grasp that even a single change in the sex chromosome of an individual could render the individual unable to produce fertile offspring with any peer of its gene pool - - except its own offspring. This would rapidly create a new offshoot population, with genetic drift and different ecological factors influencing the unique path of the new population.
[quote=“grog, post:46, topic:25927”]
What I cannot buy is the thought that natural processes that we see in nature today can be called “God’s supernatural process of the evolution of the species from a single cell to complexity” [/quote]
Instead of invoking the straw man fallacy, perhaps you should consider that most abiogenesis hypotheses don’t start with cellularity.
[quote]I don’t buy it because it has never been duplicated in the lab and it simply pastes God’s name upon secular naturalism taught in ivy leagues.
[/quote]There’s the silly Ivy League resentment thing again. Do you really think that biologists at Texas A&M don’t accept evolutionary theory? Do you realize that Harvard was started by Congregationalists?
P.S. @grog, It’s a super-busy season at work for me just now, and I don’t want to fire off quick replies because it takes emotional effort and no small amount of time to write the kind of measured, gracious replies that this discussion calls for. So long as this doesn’t spiral out of control to the point that Brad has to shut 'er down, I’ll reply to you another day or (ideally) next week. Until then, peace and blessings to you for your next few days of Advent.
I propose a discussion “reset” of sorts here. Long lists of accusations and questions accomplish nothing except frustrating everyone involved.
Keep your posts short and focused. Keep replies equally focused. Don’t ask people to answer 25 questions about their perspective that aren’t related to the immediate point(s) of discussion.
You are obviously a man of great faith. And so you no doubt have great confidence in the chronology of the Old Testament. So… most bible commentators place the time of the Great Flood somewhere in the middle of the first 10 dynasties of ancient Egypt.
And yet… Egypt’s history is not cut short. There is no interruption of its writings and carvings. There is no vast destruction in any of the 10 dynasties. And the Egyptian dynasties just keep rolling forward without interruption.
So… I assume you have to Reject all that Egyptian history… leaving a tangible and traceable record … involving hundreds and thousands of data points… you have to reject all this eyewitness testimony to the history of the Earth - - that was not affected by a global flood!
My question is: How do you justify a belief in a Global Flood when there doesn’t seem to be any trace of it in one of the grandest and closest civilizations which would have been completely wiped out by the flood.
Today’s science seems on different terms when it comes to evolution anyway. Since God is no longer allowed in the secular labratory, the law was pronounced first that we must have evolved billions of years ago from a seed planted by aliens because God who created kinds is not allowed, then millions and millions of dollars worth of research and testing is molded to conform to what has already been stated to be true. This, I believe is exactly what happened when It comes to this issue. If it were the other way around and for a long time it was cool to believe that God created kinds and then millions went into research to prove this, I believe wholeheartedly that this conversation would be polar opposite different even when the truth of how we came to be was the same in both scenarios.
The recent finding of soft tissue in dino fossils made some scientists squirm for a minute, but then they quickly concluded that this must therefore mean that the soft tissue can survive that long encased in rock for hundred of millions of years.
Finding a human skull 200 million years old will soon have some research molded to what is already believed about human kind as well. There are many others.
Some presuppose that God created kinds and others presuppose molecules to man evolution and then both fit the evidence to the supposition. When it comes to the idea of presupposing, isn’t that the reason Christians are Christians…they have faith (supposition) and faith comes from hearing the Word? rabbit trail.
God creating dna out of mud you say? I say hallelujia! This paradigm of God creating out of nothing is the principle that should grab the headlines of our hearts. You are not going to hear this from secular schools and more and more Christians are unfortunately following their lead. I just don’t see honest concrete scientific conclusions coming from any secular sources that truly demand that evolution from very very simple organisms planted on earth to evolve into brilliant complexity by the powers of energy to be true. I don’t see any logic whatsoever of a dino gaining useless feathers leading to flight by the power of the simple existence of energy. I don’t see how natural selection sees a half useful eye or a partially feathered arms to be tantamount for the amplified fitness of the individual animal more necessary for survival. I see a lot of attempts to make it seem true and rational but these attempts less science and more belief. I have chose to believe that God created kinds that then evolve within the the boundaries from which they were designed and He placed these into nature to be studied.
Maybe you haven’t quite figured in the incredible speed of evolution that would be required to fit this model. If evolution is really so unlikely even given lots of time, how is it easily imaginable in a few hundred years. Joel Duff has lots of articles on the science and math involved:
I believe that human sinful tendency is to desire to push God away. I sense that as this nation has pushed God away, it is no longer appealing to include God in conversations about anything let alone how we came to exist. Evolution was a go to that thus appealing to the masses and does indeed appeal to the sinful flesh because it can easily escape the idea of a moral God exists who demands our allegiance.
I wish we could go back in time and change the dynamics of human thinking and education in this country all the while assuming that the true truth about how we came to be stayed constant.
In the case that educators and students alike found the concept that God created the kinds to be groovy and helpful and appealing to the superego… Doesn’t make sense but go with me here… I would love to now see conclusionary communications spoken by the majority of the educators from the millions of dollars of research on the topic. I am talking 100’s of millions in research and examination…I can almost guarantee that the conclusions would point to the appealing terms to that generation about God being Creator.
Okay, so it is strawman…but could this strawman be revealing our educators’ strawman arguments today?
Christian organizations in your country which reject evolution, have hundreds of millions of dollars which they could spend on this. But they have decided not to. Instead they spend it on on huge church buildings, TV programs asking people to send them more money, and great big wooden boats. They give a good impression of people who don’t want to spend money to discover what the facts really are. But even those organizations which reject evolution and have spent millions in their goal to find scientific evidence for their case and proselytize their beliefs, have made no scientific progress.
So … you write this excruciatingly off-point essay … and you STILL don’t answer my question? I’ll give you another chance. My question is right above the post I’m responding to… My Post #51 !
…and let’s not forget the far-and-away most numerous class of flying animal, insects! No feathers there…
And let’s give credit where it’s due. Last time around we spent a while debunking the idea of wing stubs as a transitional stage between reptiles and birds. It actually is progress in this discussion that that’s not coming up again, and that this time we’re talking insulating feathers instead.
Objection by objection, we’ll eventually manage to convince him that evolutionary scientists actually have brains and not just giddy hearts that get all twitterpated every time a Harvard professor looks their way.
I think we all need to take a step back here and look at where Greg is coming from. It’s clear to me that he has a lot of very fundamental misconceptions about how science actually works that are very, very common in YECs.
For starters, YECs view evolution and the age of the earth as being based entirely on presupposition rather than evidence. They believe it’s motivated entirely by a desire to disprove God, and accordingly just throwing facts and evidence at them isn’t going to get anywhere. We need to address that specific misconception first. That’s why I always harp on about oil exploration – it refutes this particular misconception because the only thing that matters about evolutionary models to a petroleum geologist is that they should be able to tell you where the oil is. They have to be right, not ideologically convenient.
Their exposure to science also tends to be limited to what they read in the newspapers and the popular press – in other words, science journalism. This, as, we all know (and as they know as well), can be unreliable at best and flat-out lies at worst. As such, they very often view science itself – or at least, “historical science” – as a sub-discipline of journalism. As one of my YEC friends put it to me recently, “They science it all up a bit to make it sound convincing.” As such, they need to have it explained to them that science is based on strict rules and protocols to ensure stringent standards of quality control, and to be given an understanding of the role of such things as measurement, calculation of errors and confidence levels, and the necessity and role of peer review and replication of results. Unfortunately, unless they’ve worked in an environment that has stringent quality control requirements of its own, they may have a hard time appreciating this.
Finally, they’re almost certainly put off by the concept of “scientific scepticism.” This is a rather unfortunate term because to most Christians (myself included, admittedly) it sounds at first glance like “unbelief.” It needs to be explained to them that it isn’t about unbelief at all, but about quality control, and that in fact it is actually a Biblical principle. 1 John 4:1 – “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
Just because you don’t see some things, though, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Have you ever heard of ‘eyespots?’ “Half useful eye” is a bit of a misnomer, but the very existence and widespread success of eyespots should be all the clue that’s needed to rebut the ‘what use is half an eye’ argument, yet it keeps getting repeated by people who have never actually looked up what science says about the evolution of the eye.
Nor is flight the only purpose of feathers (warmth, camouflage and mating displays come to mind off the top of my head) and neither is partial flight useless, or there would be no flying fish or flying squirrels.
I may never understand the argument that complexity cannot grow naturally or organically. Truly complex systems, it seems to me, all go through a process of evolution that starts simple. Nobody sits down and invents a computer from scratch; you build on generations of previous computers, and technological innovation, that have all been tested for workability at each stage.
I’m by no means Christian, though I want to understand where others are coming from. But are you sure that your interpretation of ‘according to kind’ was meant to bear the weight you are putting on it? It seems to me perfectly reasonable as a description of evolution: each generation comes from the one before it. Mice do not give birth to giraffes. But that is not to rule out slow and subtle changes with profound potential for kinds to grow into different branches of animal.
Food for thought—which I have failed to keep to a bite-size portion, my apologies, mods!