It is demonstrable that the DNA showing heredity is there. The reason isn’t to show anything. The reason is because it was used in our evolutionary past. There was no designer removing portions not needed, Mutations for turning off the portions we no longer use is simpler than mutations removing them – one little off switch compared to cutting out all the DNA for those features.
The DNA for common ancestors with other living things is not the same as redundant DNA, and we can measure what portions are used in development. 92% is never used and that is good because they are not for human features. 98.8% of our DNA are from our common ancestors with chimpanzees including the DNA for tails. 70% are from our common ancestors with zebra fish (400 million years ago) including DNA for gills. Since we only use 8% of our DNA, clearly we are not using the vast majority of that DNA. The genetic data just doesn’t agree with your designer ideology and only agrees with the fact of common ancestry.
P.S. Yeah I know… chimps don’t have tails. I didn’t say they did! Some common ancestors with chimps 25-33 million years ago (not the most recent, 8 million years ago) did have tails.
P.P.S. Very rarely humans are born with tails. It is not because all the DNA for making tails appeared from nowhere just in them. It is because a mutation turned that genetic switch to activate the DNA we all have already.
P.P.P.S. This tail DNA is only one of many many examples. Another is a rare whale that is born with legs. Of course you can always pull the unfalsifiable God card and say God wanted the occasional human born with tails or the occasional whale born with legs. But that gives God not only a sick sense of humor but makes Him a deceiver.
It really is. Where did you get the idea? Scientific reality has no proofs in mind because it has no mind. If someone did say that here, I missed it, and if they did, they too are conflating science with non-science nonsensically.
I have often stated that we as humans make mistakes (be it science or theology) and have on occasion referred to errors in Orthodox (Patristic) writings, particularly those dealing with philosophical and old ideas on science within their theological discussions. So, I cannot understand why you make the inference that I may think otherwise.
You are welcomed to your opinion, as indeed are all of us. Just for the record, I claim I am a Christian because I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God sent to us by the Father for our salvation. Long after scientific theories are clarified and we cease our silly debates, Jesus will still be our truth and way to life with God.
No… I was just thinking of slot machines. I am not so familiar with lotteries – never having purchased a lottery ticket and living in a state which doesn’t do that.
Slot machines have a bias to allow the house to make a profit. No problem.
The Lottery is supposed to be completely uncontrolled. “Anyone” (who buys a ticket) can win
@Dale if God did rig the lottery for this Maggie of yours it does not prove He does it every time in every lottery. Judging by the disaster winning often has it would be poor providence anyway.
There you are being funny again. How about this Maggie of mine in her own words that I just repeat, lo these many times: Maggie’s testimony.
We are talking about God’s providence for his children, Richard. Winning 1.5 G$ is certainly not necessarily a blessing and in most cases probably not. We agree.
It is not in the least bit funny. Your view is sick.
Yes, you are talking about prejudice. You are talking one rule for Maggie and another for the children in Ethiopia or the residents of the Ukraine, or the millions suffering from debilitating or cruel diseases. That is what you are talking, and you just cannot see it.
The providence in the Bible is for Israel. it is not for the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Babylonians, the Philistines or any other group or Nation the Bible talks about. Uness you are a Jew, providence in the form you are believing does not exist.
There you go, not paying attention, not reading well or taking something out of context… or all of those. I was referring to your ‘this Maggie of yours’. She is your sister as well. Please think before you speak… isn’t there a verse or several in Proverbs advising to that effect?
You should know better.
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 1:20
That means many, many OT promises to Israel can now be applied and appropriated by Christians individually, including most about his providence.
No I don’t think God devises our sufferings. Much of our suffering is the fault of things which people did. But God made the rules by which our lives work. And that includes suffering. The struggle with suffering and death is at the heart of what life is and how it works. You take these away and life doesn’t exist (and I am not just talking about evolution). So God made suffering a part of how it works for a reason. But clearly it is not all planned and arranged by God. But Richard, living organisms are the same. It is all of a piece – same pattern.
Romans 8:28 We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, Revised Standard
It is God who works for good, not all things which work for good.
And none of the other passages say that our suffering comes direct from God. Nevertheless, I would say it is all a gift from God because it is all a part of the same gift of life.
I agree in the sense that God created a world with basic rules that cause suffering.
One key decision was giving some amount of free will to humans. Free will can be used for good and bad, and many use it for bad. That causes suffering.
Some of the suffering is caused by natural laws governing the physical world. For example, an earthquake or eruption of a volcano cause suffering for people that are too close.
Some suffering seems to be related to factors that are generally beneficial for humans but may cause suffering if something goes wrong. For example, cancers can be caused by mechanisms that mainly work for the benefit of life.
I would not say that suffering is at the heart of what life is. Rather, suffering is the ‘side effect’ of the interaction between our nervous system and what happens in this world.
That verse from Colossians indicates that, just as Christ’s suffering resulted in the benefit of others, the suffering of his followers can also benefit others. Thus, each Christian, in his suffering, can become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.
Sharing Christ’s suffering for the sake of others is alluded to elsewhere in the NT:
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
2Cor 4:8-11
“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation.”
2Cor 1:5
“that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings”
Phil 3:10-11
“and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
Romans 8:17-18
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
1Peter 4:12-13.
The nervous system is mostly just a long distance communication system for multicellular organisms to inform parts of the organism about what is happening in another part of the organism. The interaction with the environment is part of what life is. Without that there is no life. And suffering is the part of this which gets the organism to respond and to learn. That is also a central part of what life is. Without it there is no motivation and learning and without that it is not life.
I am reminded of the Buddhist teaching that life is suffering. That much is correct. But then they make it their goal to escape this, and that is where I will never agree. It is choosing death over life. I seek just the opposite… MORE life! As Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” That is a promise I can see as worthwhile. And so I reject the vision of heaven as an escape to bliss like some kind of druggie high. I hardly see a difference from what the atheists promise – nonexistence, which is certainly an end to all suffering.
I cannot see any relevence here. It is about Jesus praying for His disciples. His disciples were Jews. Jesus came for the Jews. Dispensation is the belief that that was transferred from the Jews because they did not believe
matthew 16
But Jesus did not answer a word. So His disciples came and urged Him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Whereas Jonah is specifically about God wanting to forgive non-Jews becasue He cares for all of His creation.
You made a claim. I corrected that claim.
You then threw out a mantra that is unrelated.
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Good point. If someone asks how I got from Indianapolis to Baltimore, I don’t have to list every gas station, restaurant, and rest stop along the way; I can in fact just say, “I drove”, and possibly, “Mostly I took I-70”. I also don’t need to add how much wear there was on my tires or whether I had to pull over to let my service dog pee or how many phone calls I got, or what lane changes I made, or whether I used a Garmin GPS navigator or Google Maps or whatever.
Wow – talk about a total failure to know just the basics of things!
If volcanology isn’t about explaining why eruptions occur, then what was David Johnstone doing on that ridge six miles from Mount Saint Helens that fateful morning??!?
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A Psalm of the Designer
Evolution declares the glory of God, and the chromosomes in cells proclaim His handiwork! Day to day pours out research, and night to night reveals studies. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them, yet their message has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world. He has set a tent for DNA, which sends its messengers out from its chamber like strong men they run their course with joy. Its reach is from the birth of the Earth, its circuit all around it, and there is no life apart from that reach. selah
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory within the cell. When I look at all life, the work of your fingers, the nucleus and the mitochondria§, which you have set in place – What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,
*the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, * all that swim the paths of the seas. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Actually it comes from the scriptures: God declares that all wholeness comes from Him and that all catastrophe comes from Him – and that covers the entire range of events except perhaps moral evil.
It’s just that for the most part He controls everything in accordance with the rules He chose.
And
“Count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials…”
– James 1
The early church considered all suffering as sharing in the suffering of Christ.