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For the record, JerZ isn't a Creationist per se. The argument isn't about that, nvxplorer. I'm not sure what you are missing.
The point is that regardless of what anyone else claims is 'acceptable' within their beliefs, if you invalidate the first Adam, you invalidate the Second Adam. And if you invalidate the Second Adam, there is no Christianity, regardless of what "Theistic evolutionists" websites say. My point in bringing up JerZ was that this isn't rocket science, even a non Christian can see that point. But for some reason, you don't.
Nuff said. You've got your opinion, I've got mine.
Yup, this is something that there is just never going to be agreement on. I just don't see how there will ever be enough evidence from either side to convince the other side. No matter what you believe, it's gonna take a certain amount of faith. Faith in God, faith that the current science is accurate, faith that we're seeing all the facts in one place or what have you. I don't really see a resolution to this. At least on this board.
And you know, it's funny, Alpha, how your argument wasn't even about whether Creationism or Big Bang is "right"--it was as you say above--about how Christianity hinges on the Adam and Eve thing. (Folks, Alpha and I have been discussing this for a little while. He is probably the only Christian here who I can debate such things with and not ending up tearing out all my hair, LOL. Well, maybe dncngrl64 too.) I wasn't planning on getting into a Creationsim debate either...but it does tend to branch off that way whenever one brings up anything from Genesis. Maybe that should be for another thread...also, to anyone who isn't aware, there are lots of Creationism threads...tons and tons of input from every possible angle. Just thought I'd put that in for anyone who wants to see a lot of opinions in one place.
Location: land of quail, bunnies, and red tail hawks
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Originally Posted by nvxplorer
My point had nothing to do with the veracity of the theory of evolution. My point was that, for many, evolution is not contrary to a belief in God. That a majority of Christians accept evolution proves this.
This statement sent me on a search, because all the articles I've read in recent years from a wide variety of sources indicate this claim is simply not true. I found an excellent site that lists many different polls regarding this issue. For argument's sake, I picked the Gallop Poll because it showed results for multiple years:
"Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings? (1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process. (2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process. (3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." [For discussion purposes, I've only listed the results for options #2 and #3.]
2006: 13% - evolution w/o God; 46% - God created (option #3)
2004: 13% - evolution w/o God; 45% - God created
2001: 12% - evolution w/o God; 45% - God created
1999: ..9% - evolution w/o God; 47% - God created
1997: 10% - evolution w/o God; 44% - God created
1993: 11% - evolution w/o God; 47% - God created
1982: ..9% - evolution w/o God; 44% - God created
link: Science and Nature
Those who chose option #1 range from 35-40%, depending upon the year.
Other polls listed at the above link are: Newsweek 2007, CBS 2006-2005-2004, CNN/USA/Gallup 2005, Harris 2005, NBC News 2005, CBS News/New York Times Poll 2005, Gallup 2004, and Fox News 1999. All of the polls had similar questions with similar results.
These polls show a cross-section of America, not just Christians; so I think it's a stretch to say that the majority of Christians accept evolution. I sincerely doubt that the 35-40% who believe in some form of theistic evolution are all Christian since evangelical Christians are 26.3% of the population, Catholics - 22%, Mainline Protestant - 16%. I think it goes without saying that those who believe in naturalistic evolution are definitely not all Christian.
Furthermore, I discovered that anywhere from 55%-80% of people polled would like to see some form of intelligent design taught in the classroom.
The fact is, evolution doesn't have nearly the support, Christian or otherwise, in the U.S. or the world that its adherents would like us to believe!
Location: land of quail, bunnies, and red tail hawks
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[quote=pladecalvo;777678]
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Originally Posted by Blueberry
.....but it isn't for you to come to any conclusion or to interpret your bible as to what you think it means.
"Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy spirit spoke under the influence of god." (2 Peter 20-21 NAB)
I almost agree with you!!! (Now, isn't that shocking?! )
The Scripture you provided talks about personal interpretation; it doesn't say anything about reasonable conclusions! In no way, shape, or form would I ever develop doctrine surrounding my reasonable conclusions. After all, Scripture warns not to add or subtract from the words of prophecy. However, Scripture does instruct me to study to show myself approved so that I may give a defense to everyone who asks a reason for the hope that is within me. Such study first and foremost should be of the Bible. Related study can be culture, history, science, economics, and anything else that can help me to understand scripture better. My intellect and reasoning skills definitely come into play, also. However, my measuring stick is always the Word of God! If my reasonable conclusions don't agree with the Bible, then I have to realize my conclusions are wrong. I am more than willing to agree to disagree when it comes to reasonable conclusions.
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Unless it can be proven, science does not claim that it is the absolute truth, unlike theists!
Excuse me, but the skeptics on this board claim that one of the tenets of science is that scientific hypotheses and theories must be falsifiable. Therefore, science cannot prove anything! Scientists might have millions of pieces of data to support their theories, but just one reproducible counterexample should send the scientist back to the drawing board to rethink his ideas. Since we never know when that one counterexample may arise, science can't prove anything. It can just take a really good guess.
Theists (at least the Christian ones) stand on the Word of God. It's a tenet of faith that the Bible in its original form is inerrant. Most affirm that God has preserved His Word to the current day. The Bible, itself, claims it is true; therefore, Christians don't have to prove the Bible is true. However, Christians can affirm the truths contained in the Bible by any number of means such as (but not limited to) history, science, and archaeology. Christians have one final way to affirm the truth and that is by the Spirit which lives within us; the Bible says that some things are spiritually discerned and foolishness to the world. Since non-Christians can't see or feel or hear the Spirit, I'm not going to build a theology around things that are spiritually discerned nor am I going to argue about them.
If skeptics can use history, science, and archaeology to try to disprove the Bible, why is it not acceptable for Christians to use the same to affirm it? Some things can't be proven; however, reasonable conclusions can be drawn to provide affirmation.
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At least we agree on one thing anyway!
You should; I think I borrowed the phrase from you!
By the way, my dd was reading your response over my shoulder, and she took great exception to you highlighting my words when I had not. She said one should never add emphasis to a quote. She said, the better tactic would be to delete all the words around the part you want to emphasize. (You know, she might be nit-picking, but she's right! At the least, you should say "emphasis added." As it stands, I'm awfully glad to see you agree with the rest of that paragraph, too!
Of course I wasnt there, noone was. But are you going to put your faith in a human guesstimation that the earth and everything as we know it was seriously formed by an explosion in space "billions of years ago"? Puhleeze. Its science fiction. The bible is at least a written account of earth's timeline, you can trace everything back to Adam and Eve, a little over 6,000 years ago. You should watch Dr. Kent Hovind's videos on creation vs. evolution, itll open your eyes, as it did mine.
The Big Bang is a theory of the origins of the universe, not a guesstimation. And no, not everything as we know it was seriously (or comically) formed by this posited explosion. In fact, were we to travel back in time to a time nearer the supposed Big Bang, we would find things quite different. Your statements seem strange, perhaps almost like you're not even sure what this theory entails.
The Bible is a written account of the Earth's timeline, right. That's why we can read chapters that detail the history and spread of *collective* humanity, its religions, cultures, customs and tongues. Oh, and thank God that the Bible neatly explained dinosaurs for us. (I brace myself for several people shouting, "JOB 40:15!!!")
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Im not a scientist (about the furthest thing from it LOL), so bear with me. If you want the facts/info, watch his video series.
How come 2 planets rotate different directions than the others, if indeed the "big bang" was a result of a bunch of atoms spinning and spinning and spinning around until they eventually exploded? There is a physics law that states that if a object is spinning (CW or CCW, doesnt matter), and breaks apart, all resulting matter would have to continue to spin in the same direction.
I don't know the answer to this, because I am, as you say, "not a scientist." More specifically, I have very, very little knowledge of physics. I wish there were someone here who was able to refute what you wrote, though.
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Every year the earth and the moon seperate by a few yards. Its been like this since the beginning of time. If indeed the earth were "billions" of years old, we would have factually collided at one point.
Once again, the demonstration shows a lack of knowledge about what constitutes the so-called beginning of time (whatever that is; perhaps a better term would be conception of the universe). At the conception of the universe, the Earth and its satellite weren't yet formed, nor were they at the points at which they reside today. As for factual collisions, that sounds quite pedantic!
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Scientists use carbon dating to "guess" the age of things on earth. It is widely known (even amongst evolutionists) that carbon dating is a hoax. They carbon dated a violin that was 300 years old, carbon dating showed it to be 8,000 years old (or something like that). Heck, even the last mammoth bones they discovered, they carbon dated the body. They found one leg to be 10,000 years old and the other only 4,000. LOL
I think this has been subsequently explained by other posters by now. Carbon dating is not an exact science -- that is, we can't take some long dead organism and date it to the exact minute, day, or year of its death. No one has ever claimed that that is possible with carbon dating. It grows more accurate (or, more accurately, the margin of acceptable dating grows wider) with longer periods, so, yes, dating a 300-year-old violin would be difficult. As for "something like that," something like that could completely invalidate your argument. If you're talking about 800 instead of 8,000, then I think we could perhaps make room for the error in the carbon dating, given the relative modernity of the subject.
I wasn't able to find the disparity in the carbon-dating on the mammoth leg bones, but I only superficially Googled. If you manage to scrounge it up, please post.
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Did you know stalactites and stalagmites can grow to be several feet long in a matter of 5 years? Not "billions" like scientists would have you believe?
Um, okay. What's your point? (I've never heard this, but I'll assume you're correct.) Please reference to us which scientists claim that the formation of a stalactite, a stalagmite, or a column can take "billions" of years. I'd personally draft them a letter stating that, in light of the age of the Earth having been dated by geologists to approximately 4.56 billion years, claiming that the formation of a stalagmite to have taken multiple billions of years is downright foolish.
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Or why is the oldest tree in the world only, gasp, 6,000 years old (its in California)?
Probably because living things, be they bees, tulips, humans or "trees," eventually die. I find it rather amazing that there is a tree alive that has been here six thousand years. That's a long freakin' time!
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A dog has never produced a non-dog. Evolution is a joke and I find it insulting to think that scientists think I crawled out of a primordial sea, as a salamander-ish creature, then developed legs and lungs, then somehow became related to monkeys and BAM! here I am!
How embarrassing, your ignorance of evolutionary theory is showing. "You," being the intellectual, reasonable human being that you are, had very little in common with whatever ancestors you may have had throughout the history of life on Earth -- except, of course, that they are your ancestors. To compare your capacity for learning, loving, and enjoying life to that of a primordial concoction of chemicals is absurd, and, to be blunt, no one has done that except you.
Evolution is a theory which attempts to explain the minute changes that life has experienced during its reign here, which, taken over huge expanses of time produce new species -- even new kingdoms of living things.
Evolution is not a joke, and I find it insulting to think that you think I descend from some person 6,000 years ago who was suddenly put here in the exact same state in which I sit now.
Last edited by jabogitlu; 05-27-2007 at 03:04 AM..
Please remain civil in your discussion. Attacking a poster's source or "expert" is acceptable, but please refrain from slipping into letting it get person, especially on a heated topic like religion....
Of course I wasnt there, noone was. But are you going to put your faith in a human guesstimation that the earth and everything as we know it was seriously formed by an explosion in space "billions of years ago"? Puhleeze. Its science fiction. The bible is at least a written account of earth's timeline, you can trace everything back to Adam and Eve, a little over 6,000 years ago. You should watch Dr. Kent Hovind's videos on creation vs. evolution, itll open your eyes, as it did mine.
Im not a scientist (about the furthest thing from it LOL), so bear with me. If you want the facts/info, watch his video series.
How come 2 planets rotate different directions than the others, if indeed the "big bang" was a result of a bunch of atoms spinning and spinning and spinning around until they eventually exploded? There is a physics law that states that if a object is spinning (CW or CCW, doesnt matter), and breaks apart, all resulting matter would have to continue to spin in the same direction.
Every year the earth and the moon seperate by a few yards. Its been like this since the beginning of time. If indeed the earth were "billions" of years old, we would have factually collided at one point.
Scientists use carbon dating to "guess" the age of things on earth. It is widely known (even amongst evolutionists) that carbon dating is a hoax. They carbon dated a violin that was 300 years old, carbon dating showed it to be 8,000 years old (or something like that). Heck, even the last mammoth bones they discovered, they carbon dated the body. They found one leg to be 10,000 years old and the other only 4,000. LOL
Did you know stalactites and stalagmites can grow to be several feet long in a matter of 5 years? Not "billions" like scientists would have you believe?
Or why is the oldest tree in the world only, gasp, 6,000 years old (its in California)?
A dog has never produced a non-dog. Evolution is a joke and I find it insulting to think that scientists think I crawled out of a primordial sea, as a salamander-ish creature, then developed legs and lungs, then somehow became related to monkeys and BAM! here I am!
Like I said, Im only an average Joe, so if you want more facts, visit Creation Science Evangelism - Creation, Evolution, Dinosaurs, and the Bible., or if you really want alot of valuable info, watch his video series, its amazing. He can dispell any myths regarding evolution, and has done so at MANY universities, in debates.
The video you watched may have opened your eyes but the only reason it do so is to back up your own beliefs. You probably already assumed the earth was 6000 years old because that is what you hear in church. So when someone with a PhD makes a flick about it you automatically are happy to hear it because it supports your own belief structure. That's why it makes so much sense to you.
I don't believe anyone is born believing or not believing in God. I think it's something that is instilled in children through their parents or primary caretaker. Some people grow up in a religious background and stay that way. Some people grow up religious and become persuaded against it for certain reasons. Some people grow up non-religious and become religious. And some people grow up non-religious and stay that way. The thing is, and I'll use myself as the example, I am one of those people who was brought up in a semi-religious household. I wasn't forced to go to church or Sunday school but I did go up until about 4th or 5th grade. After that I generally lost interest because it didn't make much sense to me but I was too young to realize why.
As I grew older my curiosity for science grew and I found myself studying biology and other sciences in my own free time. I made the decision to deem myself an atheist (or antitheist) because that is what made the most sense to me. I had a working knowledge of the Bible and religion and I also had a pretty good knowledge of evolution. Evolution made so much more sense to me that I just couldn't see how I had ever believed in any God.
I didn't pick to become an atheist because that's the way I was raised. I didn't do it to P*ss off the local christian church. I didn't do it so people would look at me weirdly when I said I didn't believe in God. I didn't do it so that people could come up to me in a bookstore and tell me that I should read the Bible instead of a book on evolution. I didn't do it to be different. I did it because it made the most logical sense to me.
The fundamental Christian right wing is typically those that have been brought up so closed-minded about the possibilities of anything else that I cannot blame them for not seeing how science really works. They are not attuned to it. They have been brought up and molded that way. So, let's keep it simple and say: I'll believe what I want to believe and you believe what you want to believe and one day we'll find out who's right. The difference is you think you're gonna tell me "I told ya so" and I think I'm not going to be doing much of anything because I'm dead.
This statement sent me on a search, because all the articles I've read in recent years from a wide variety of sources indicate this claim is simply not true.
Thank you for the research, but I've not disputed that the US is a "creationist country."
As I've admitted, my claim on the worldwide acceptance of evolution is from memory. I'll concede the claim "majority of." Change "majority of" to "many," in my post (which the polls support), and my base claim that evolution != atheism holds true.
The Big Bang is a theory of the origins of the universe, not a guesstimation. And no, not everything as we know it was seriously (or comically) formed by this posited explosion. In fact, were we to travel back in time to a time nearer the supposed Big Bang, we would find things quite different. Your statements seem strange, perhaps almost like you're not even sure what this theory entails.
The Bible is a written account of the Earth's timeline, right. That's why we can read chapters that detail the history and spread of *collective* humanity, its religions, cultures, customs and tongues. Oh, and thank God that the Bible neatly explained dinosaurs for us. (I brace myself for several people shouting, "JOB 40:15!!!")
I don't know the answer to this, because I am, as you say, "not a scientist." More specifically, I have very, very little knowledge of physics. I wish there were someone here who was able to refute what you wrote, though.
Once again, the demonstration shows a lack of knowledge about what constitutes the so-called beginning of time (whatever that is; perhaps a better term would be conception of the universe). At the conception of the universe, the Earth and its satellite weren't yet formed, nor were they at the points at which they reside today. As for factual collisions, that sounds quite pedantic!
I think this has been subsequently explained by other posters by now. Carbon dating is not an exact science -- that is, we can't take some long dead organism and date it to the exact minute, day, or year of its death. No one has ever claimed that that is possible with carbon dating. It grows more accurate (or, more accurately, the margin of acceptable dating grows wider) with longer periods, so, yes, dating a 300-year-old violin would be difficult. As for "something like that," something like that could completely invalidate your argument. If you're talking about 800 instead of 8,000, then I think we could perhaps make room for the error in the carbon dating, given the relative modernity of the subject.
I wasn't able to find the disparity in the carbon-dating on the mammoth leg bones, but I only superficially Googled. If you manage to scrounge it up, please post.
Um, okay. What's your point? (I've never heard this, but I'll assume you're correct.) Please reference to us which scientists claim that the formation of a stalactite, a stalagmite, or a column can take "billions" of years. I'd personally draft them a letter stating that, in light of the age of the Earth having been dated by geologists to approximately 4.56 billion years, claiming that the formation of a stalagmite to have taken multiple billions of years is downright foolish.
Probably because living things, be they bees, tulips, humans or "trees," eventually die. I find it rather amazing that there is a tree alive that has been here six thousand years. That's a long freakin' time!
How embarrassing, your ignorance of evolutionary theory is showing. "You," being the intellectual, reasonable human being that you are, had very little in common with whatever ancestors you may have had throughout the history of life on Earth -- except, of course, that they are your ancestors. To compare your capacity for learning, loving, and enjoying life to that of a primordial concoction of chemicals is absurd, and, to be blunt, no one has done that except you.
Evolution is a theory which attempts to explain the minute changes that life has experienced during its reign here, which, taken over huge expanses of time produce new species -- even new kingdoms of living things.
Evolution is not a joke, and I find it insulting to think that you think I descend from some person 6,000 years ago who was suddenly put here in the exact same state in which I sit now.
Every site I visit shows stalactites/stalagmites to grow over "millions" of years:
Howe Caverns: Year Round Adventure (http://www.howecaverns.com/kids_stuff/cavegeo.php - broken link)
Here is the evolutionist theory showing how we crawled out of a primordial ocean as bacteria(scroll down to the simple chart if you dont want to read).
Yep, according to them, I came from a sea of crap, basically: Gould: The Evolution of Life on the Earth
If you think its insulting to be made in God's image, but yet think its ok for mankind to GUESS our origins, suggesting we came from bacteria, then hey, I wont go any further with this. We all have our own opinions, and I have faith in what the bible says. I do NOT have faith in mankind, because all its done is lead us down the wrong paths. All I want is simple proof that a dog has produced a non-dog. It doesnt happen, never has, never will.
Every site I visit shows stalactites/stalagmites to grow over "millions" of years:
Howe Caverns: Year Round Adventure (http://www.howecaverns.com/kids_stuff/cavegeo.php - broken link)
How stalactites/stalagmites form is irrelevant to the age of the earth. Scientists do not use their formation in dating the earth.
Quote:
Here is the evolutionist theory showing how we crawled out of a primordial ocean as bacteria(scroll down to the simple chart if you dont want to read).
Yep, according to them, I came from a sea of crap, basically: Gould: The Evolution of Life on the Earth
No, you came from your mother and father, not bacteria.
Using the word "crap" is not persuasive.
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If you think its insulting to be made in God's image, but yet think its ok for mankind to GUESS our origins, suggesting we came from bacteria, then hey, I wont go any further with this.
Science does not "guess." That would be the domain of tourists in my city of Reno. Scientific theory is a result of the scientific method, which is not guesswork.
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We all have our own opinions, and I have faith in what the bible says. I do NOT have faith in mankind, because all its done is lead us down the wrong paths. All I want is simple proof that a dog has produced a non-dog. It doesnt happen, never has, never will.
If a dog ever gave birth to a non-dog, that would falsify the theory of evolution. It appears that you've been presented with a strawman of evolution.
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Heck, even the last mammoth bones they discovered, they carbon dated the body. They found one leg to be 10,000 years old and the other only 4,000. LOL
