AS long as the definition of science excludes any other view of origins except the one the atheists prefers…you do realize that you are firmly planted in the atheist’s camp - with both feet solidly fixed in concrete?
You cannot separate the origins from the biological studies. Someone is always going to ask where life comes from and so far the best answer is NOT abiogenesis but an intelligent agent, i.e. a god or as we believe, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You cannot get away from that. To separate religion from the biological sciences is pure sleight of hand, except for admitting the humanistic religion of Darwinism under a so-called guise of “science”.
You also do realize that allowing only abiogenesis as a “scientific” approach basically cuts people off from the real source of life. How much more fruitful it would be to able to go thru the facts confronting all biologists, systems engineers, information scientists, chemists etc. and coming to a simple conclusion → life can never arise from only naturalistic causes. The information required to set it in motion has to come from an intelligent agent. That much is clear and so the “scientific” endeavor of abiogenesis is doomed to failure.
It is also truly ironic that by forcing abiogenesis down the throat, it basically means opposition to telling people that Jesus is the source of life? How do you reconcile the two? Abiogenesis and JEsus?
You obviously don’t know anything about the case of the modern whales with no teeth.
I think you should read this (link at bottom of post) before you declare the work of thousands of academics as frivolous. Below are 3 important paragraphs:
"Scientists from the University of California suspected a gene called MMP20 might contain the mutation that had been overlooked so far. This gene seemed to be a good candidate, because the MMP20 protein is involved in processing tooth proteins such as enamelin and ameloblastin. A mutation in MMP20 could affect multiple enamel proteins downstream. Moreover, humans and mice that have a defective MMP20 gene develop bad and brittle enamel (amelogenesis imperfecta).
“The family tree of whales, including extinct relatives. Baleen whales (top) and some pygmy sperm whales (bottom) have mutations in their tooth genes. Every orange symbol denotes a mutation; different letters represent different genes.
The team initially screened four different species of baleen whales for mutations in MMP20. They hit the jackpot right away. In all four whales, a stretch of DNA (a SINE) had inserted itself right inside MMP20, splitting the gene in two. When they extended their search to other species, they found that whale after whale had the same DNA insertion inside MMP20. This ubiquity gives a clear message: it is this insertion that rung the death knell for the whale’s teeth.”
“But the researchers discovered that some pygmy sperm whales (Kogia), that belong to the branch of toothed whales, also carry mutations in their MMP20 genes. These pygmy sperm whales are also known to have enamel-less teeth. But whereas baleen whales first lost MMP20 before the other tooth genes mutated, these sperm whales seem to have lost the tooth protein enamelin first, with MMP20 now having mutated secondarily in some individuals.”
“So here are two lineages of whales, caught in the act of evolving on different, but similar paths. Evolution is sometimes criticized for not being amenable to experimental scrutiny in the lab, but the pygmy sperm whales prove these critics wrong. As the authors note, “mammalian diversity presents a unique laboratory, complete with replicated experiments.” Life herself presents us with a multitude of ingenious experiments. It is up to us to interpret them. Personally, I couldn’t imagine a more exciting science.”
Why do you keep calling the BioLogos position on Evolution “Darwinian”?
Can you find any use of the term “Darwinian” in any of BioLogos mission statements? How can it be Darwinian if it includes God in the unfolding of Evolution?
If you continue to use the terms inappropriately, I will do something I rarely do … which is flag the offending post or posts for Moderator review.
I’m trying to make people aware that they are following another god, NOT the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
That God made it clear in His word that He created everything in six literal days that was understandable to everyone human. The language used is exactly that which only applies to human kind - it was evening and it was morning the n-th day ( n going from 1 thru to 6 ). This God did not have any need of evolution to accomplish what He desired.
Hence, anyone making assertions of billions of years for creation is basically saying that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a liar. It’s not even about the personal interpretation because basically none is needed. It’s about the humanistic viewpoint versus what stands so clearly in the bible.
You are totally free to worship at the altar of the atheistic religion that is disguised as “science”, just be aware that it completely contradicts the word of the one true God.
Please GBrooks9, spare us the iron fist which is so nicely disguised under the velvet cloth of civility
Have you not heard that iron sharpens iron? What do you have to fear from someone pointing out that there is simply zero difference between what is supported by Biologos and what the atheist believes?
Are you really so blind as to not see that you cannot separate your evolutionary story from what the atheist preaches?
You cannot somehow invent a new kind of evolutionary theory that somehow sidesteps the origins in Darwinism and suddenly include God in some negligible way. Someone has started a tread on exactly this point - how is God involved in this evolutionary process?
So please put away your sword, it is really not needed here.
Well it depends on what is meant by innocent. Those who are fully knowledgeable of their actions and defends their beliefs in the most vigorous way can hardly be considered to be innocent and unwitting.
I am quite familiar with the tactic of defining what BioLogos presents as Darwinian Evolution … and then… low and behold… all the evils of Atheistic Darwinianism come rolling forward.
But I see no information or evidence that BioLogos has anything to do with Darwinian Evolution as you describe it.
So… once again… either get with the program, or avoid using the term Darwinian, okay?
You don’t have to accept the BioLogos position… but you cannot willy-nilly give it a name you know doesn’t apply and then criticize the BioLogos position from thereon out …
EDIT > P.S. My view of God’s involvement in Evolution is 100% complete. It is not a minor role. There is nothing random about Evolution, in my view, from God’s perspective. It is all part of His plan, and He uses it as He uses other sets of natural law.
AND He performs the necessary miracle (as a break in the chain of natural causation) as His plan requires. I can’t see anything about my views being Darwinian at all… other than he (Darwin) got the whole area of study rolling.
I’d really like to understand where you get this statement from? What exactly is the source of this information that this is how God operates. I have not come across it in the bible so where does it come from? Please do enlighten me.
So how else can one then describe an adherence to the Darwinian way of thinking except to use the words Darwinian and Darwinism? I struggle to comprehend why you’d want to deny that the thought pattern has its roots there and is currently STILL of the same root? How do you break away from it? Is there a new definition of common descent that I do not know of?
NO, but he did perform what we would consider miracles in 6 days. Fact of the matter is that my viewpoint is supported by actual words found in the bible. Your viewpoint of billions of years and an evolutionary process doesn’t have any leg to stand on from that perspective.
To be clear, the book of Job does describe a lot about the water cycle but it certainly does not describe the abiogentic origins of life and certainly does not describe any evolutionary process that includes common descent.
Yep. And this is where we have to question your reading comprehension skills or assume, more likely, you have put no effort at all into familiarizing yourself with what “BioLogos believes.” Here is the “What We Believe” statement, again. The Work of BioLogos - BioLogos
One can discuss actual mechanisms instead of using forms of “Darwin” as a way of avoiding them.
Do you realize that there are NON-Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms? How could those “adhering to the Darwinian way of thinking” have even discovered them?
[quote=“Prode, post:41, topic:23502, full:true”]
NO I’m not shifting anything here. I’m pointing out why there’s opposition to ID at all - [/quote]
You are indeed. The opposition is because ID is pseudoscience. No one has the faith to test an ID hypothesis empirically. You could be the first! You could quit depending on hearsay and go right to producing new evidence!
It’s murky and we have hypotheses, not theories.
[quote] That is pure religion if ever there was any. So why are you not railing against IT? Why is abiogenesis acceptable and ID not?
[/quote]You do realize that the Bible mentions abiogenesis, right?
In answer to your question, because real scientists studying abiogenesis test their hypotheses, something no ID advocate has the faith to do. The ID movement falsely describes themselves as “theorists,” knowing full well that “theory” means a scientific hypothesis that has made many successful predictions, while they refuse to articulate and test a single scientific hypothesis. They pretend that science is about internet debates that only look backward to existing data.
Science is about testing hypotheses (right or wrong) to generate new knowledge about our world. ID doesn’t do that.
I just came across this quote and thought it might be relevant here:
A reminder: reality doesn’t accommodate itself to your thinking, whether you’re a peon, president, pope, or partisan. The sun won’t change its relative position because you read the Bible a certain way. The cosmos won’t become uncaused just because you don’t like the alternative. Morality doesn’t care what your conscience, formed or unformed, thinks. You can question reality all you want but in the end reality wins in any contest.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, and let me quickly add that I have never gotten any sense from you personally that you harbor any loathing for ID theory. And since you qualified your reply by confessing you did not have time to give it the detail it warrants, I will resist an in depth rebuttal to the g-o-g charge. Obviously I disagree that ID gets any capital from exploiting gaps in knowledge, and I do think a conversation between you and I on this subject could bear fruit. But as ID is primarily an OOL theory, it is not necessarily anti-evolution. I realize that ID proponents (to include myself) see many problems with the TOE from a scientific standpoint, and that many debates focus on such problems, but at the end of the day, an ID opponent will have to produce an OOL narrative that is better supported than that of intelligent agency. Outside of the realm of “its true becuase it must be true” speculation, no naturalistic OOL theory is as well supported as ID.
And this brings me to the crux of my personal passion: the origin of life is directly related to worldviews. It is not possible to separate one from the other. A naturalistic OOL narrative is a narrative of the worldview of naturalism. And naturalism is the necessary worldview of atheism. This is why anti-ID activism among Christians troubles me. I see it as harmful to faith. I can confidently testify that this was the case with me. I personally know others with the same testimony and I know of many, many others who I do not know personally, who have the same testimony. Some, such as the late Wil Provine, unfortunately offer their testimony from atheism. Even now, there is an active post right here by a young lady who it seems fears such a destiny for herself.
If nothing else, perhaps this helps explain the passion I bring to this issue, and the reasons I feel compelled to take issue with brothers and sisters.