Dear Richard: I get notifications when you reply to me, and threads with current replies are listed with the most recent on top. It’s hard not to see when you post something.
Maybe you are flattering yourself?
Can we please talk about science or theology, making a clear distinction between them? They can actually coexist in one sentence as they do in the verse in Proverbs, but the distinction is clear:
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33
Why are you so determined to prove that evolution did not create modern mammals? Why should it make a difference how God created mammals as long as God created them?
My understanding of ID is that it says that since they believed God created fish and mammals at the same time, God needed to create them separately.
Since we know that the ecosystem we know as the earth is much older than the ancients thought the question now is. Did God create a Nature, the universe, which is static, which would mean that it must be perfect, or did God create the universe which is limited and changing and thus must be flexible and dynamic?
It seems that ID says God created a static universe, while ecological evolution says that God created a dynamic universe. I do not see how GOD is diminished by making Creation dynamic or complex in this manner. On the contrary it exalts GOD more than ever to see how GOD uses differences to bring things and people together, which seems confound unbelievers.
I am sorry but I disagree with you. God is a central part of my life and I cannot just put it aside to talk about science, besides, you have stated more than once that I do not know enough to talk about science at all.
I will not just accept TOE as it is taught. And I know more about it than you give me credit. Yes, Most of what I learned was 40 years ago but the only real change has been the thrust towards the Microcellular. The basic process has not changed. Neither has the overall assertions on the origins of species. I do have up to collegic qualifications in Biology.
Furthermore, you do not seem to have a grasp of the philosophical side of science and seem to think it irrelevant. You do not seem to see the ramifications of your beliefs or your arguments and how they might impinge on both reality and Christianity
If you deny it then I appolgise, but I can see no way for you to quote me as you do otherwise.(Besides I have it on good authority that you have done it to at least one other member of this Forum)
Whatever. Keep it civil and leave out the accusations of either ignorance or incompetence.
Richard
It’s been suggested by some that if we’re going to terraform Mars – assuming humans can remain healthy in the lower gravity – that we only aim for atmospheric pressure at the ‘zero’ level that matches that in the world’s three highest cities because plainly humans can breathe just fine that high! The suggestion seems to lack recognition of the fact that in the world’s highest city nine out of ten people on the planet would need assistance equipment!
I contend, based on the views in the Old Testament, that there is no “natural” as modern humans claim. “Natural” isn’t a matter of reality, it’s a description of what we can see from below.
That’s kinda funny, but not in a laughable sense. How recently (if ever) have you read my nephrectomy account? How about Maggie’s account. She understood the difference between the accursed initialisms (V_B & V_A… I left out the f-word ; - ).
You are not putting God aside when you are talking about how his creation works. Is the mechanic ignoring and putting aside the designer, engineer and manufacturer when he is talking to you about a particular problem with your Lamborghini? You would both be very aware that you were talking about a Lamborghini(!), but neither of you would have to say anything at all about that fact while you were discussing how a particular mechanism on it worked!
You are if what you are claiming goes against what you believe about God.
Survival of the fittest would work against God’s changes. It would only allow those changes that fit its restrictions.
Therefore either God does not control all the changes, or Survival of the fittest does not exist. But, Survival of the Fittest would seem to exist, so…
IOW, you cannot just separate your science from your faith. They will ultimately meet. It is then a case of merging or collision.
VFA & VFB does not work, I am sorry.
Richard
How does the mechanic claim something against what he believes about Lamborghini unless what he believes about Lamborghini is wrong?
(Natural selection would probably be the preferred terminology) No, that’s how he designed the system to work.
Was anything unnatural in any of the events surrounding Maggie’s rescue? Did God reach down and physically change a stoplight from red to green so that one of the participants in one of those many orchestrated events would be at the right place at the right time? No, no natural laws were broken. That’s the VFB. But we both know (don’t we agree?) it is obvious that God was orchestrating all of the events. That’s the VFA. They are distinct from each other.
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That is someone else talking.
As far as I am concerned a miracle is unusual and can break any law that humans have decreed. It may be that God knows of a loophole that humans have not discovered, or it may be that God uses knowledge that is not yet known. But I do not have a problem with God overriding the control of a set of traffic lights if it serves His purpose. However I do have a problem with God guiding every lightning bolt like a missile. Or HIm not sending rain to certain areas of the world that need it. Or starting raging fires in North America or Australia, or… I could go on.
You seem to be unable to distinguish between a miracle and the common or garden. You cite miracles as if they are not extraordinary. You claim a control that all evidence would suggest does not exist. Why?
I can only think it has something to do with your definition of Providence.
IMHO providing does not entail minute control or manipulation. If you provide for your family does that mean you control all that they do? Or does it mean that you give them the facilities to live…As the provider, you cannot tell them who they must see, or even exactly what they must eat. You give them the means to live their own lives.
Yes God provides. But not in the manner that you are insisting.
Richard
I don’t know what you mean.
Natural laws are what God decreed. He can perform miracles of timing and placing of green traffic lights and mutations in DNA without breaking any of those physical laws he has instituted.
Why does he need to? We have evidence he does not. I think you are demonstrating your impulse to conflate A & B unnecessarily and looking for a way to connect them physically. You need a divine-o-meter for that!
He rescues people miraculously, providentially, without breaking any natural laws. You don’t think he can ‘rescue’ his intent in nature the same way, overriding, even incorporating the natural laws of ‘godless’ probability and randomness that he established?
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33
I’m not determined to prove that evolution did not create modern mammals … or any organism.
News to me. Which ID advocate believes that?
Perhaps you’re confusing ID with YEC.
No doubt I am. My bad. I think they are closely related.
If you do not accept evolution, do you accept separate creation?
They are related at least in the sense that both reject the theory of evolution (ToE) … but for different reasons.
The only ID advocates I’m familiar with are those at evolutionnews.org (Discovery Institute), who reject ToE on scientific grounds and none of whom support YEC.
I accept that ToE is the best scientific explanation for the history of life on earth, as revealed by the fossil record. However I don’t accept ToE as a fact.
I accept that life on earth has “evolved” (ie, become more diversified and complex over time) … however I don’t accept that science can know what process produced that evolution - it’s a mystery that cannot ever be solved.
I don’t believe science can even know what happened, let alone explain how it happened.
that sounds like gibberish to me.
You claim
But then declare that God is directly in control rather than using mechanisms. Make your mind up!
Either the world runs on preset principles or God is controlling the minutia directly. \ You can’t have both.
Or are you claimiing thqt the storms etc are pre-ordained? That the whole thing is just a computer style program!
I guess that would explain an awful lot and justify the pointless killing. Its not God’s faut if someone wanders into a storm that was always going to be there. Or decide to live in an area that is never going to have enough rain because it was not part of the program.
And Evolution? A preset set of events planned over 6 million years? (Natural Selection is still nullified)
What a wonderful invention. But it is completely soulless and manipulative.
Richard
Me too, but that’s what you want, somehow for God to control evolution directly. And to detect his direct physical interventions, you need to find a wholesaler so you can stock a gross of those meters in your hardware store because there is going to be a huge demand! 
But he already does control evolution miraculously through providence (like he miraculously controlled the evolution of events to rescue Maggie in her distress… undetectably, without breaking a single natural law).
Maggie would disagree.
Maybe, but there are litterall billions of people through history who would not.
Why don’t you just quote Ecclesiastes 3?
It would be much quicker and easier than all this obtuse providence malarky
Richard.
The whole book of Ecclesiastes, with exceptions in a few places, is written from a worldly perspective (aka the VFB).
The Bible is saturated with God’s providential interventions, like an earthquake in Philippi releasing some men from prison.
I suggest you read it more carefully. Read it as a whole. but especially the first and last chapters. It is one complete treatise. I won’t try and tell you what it’s supposed to mean. You won’t believe me if I do. Suffice it to say, your view is not the orthodox one.
Richard
aw come on, now you are just ruining the day…and i was just beginning to think ToE was a tenet! 
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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