Twenty years ago or thereabouts, Christian worldview seminars for young people were all the thing. The erosion of centuries of cultural consensus had become generally apparent, and so a number of organizations and churches threw themselves into the task of helping young people—who were obviously going to be bringing up their children in bizarroworld—to know how to navigate said world. If you could call it a world.
But as time went by, and as things got weirder, a number of the cool kids began to sneer at the term worldview. As though life consisted of a cluster of conservative propositions! “Here, roll this thought around in your head. It will fix everything.”
And of course, as with all effective lies, there was an element of truth in this, as in, a smidgen of truth. A worldview does consist of more than just thoughts. We must include the way we worship, and the way we actually live, the symbols we use, and the non-Darwinian story we tell of our people and how we got here. In other word, everything we are and do is part of our worldview.
The problem was that those who sneered at the term worldview were not in the process of ascending above the truth of biblical propositions, but rather in the decadent process of sinking below them. They were not stretching to apply to the authority of Christ to all the practical details of their lives, now that they had taken every thought captive (2 Cor. 10:5). Not a bit of it.
The spirit of our age is made up of a yearning for pointlessness. If everything is pointless, if there is no fundamental assigned telos, then I can give my lusts free rein. I can go wherever I want. I can be whatever I want. Are you a strapping dude athlete who wants to compete for the women’s long jump gold medal in the next Olympics? No sweat. No absurdity is too great for our blinkered generation to swallow. We are almost at the raggedy denouement, the point when the warden of the asylum is about to come into our ward, tell us all to pipe down, and flick the lights on and off at us. For—let us be frank—letting a guy compete in a women’s athletic event is comparable to letting that same fellow enter himself as a watermelon in the state 4-H competition.
The problem is not the troubled soul who thinks he is a watermelon. The problem is all the judges, who all have responsible lives, who pay their mortgages on time, standing around with solemn looks on their faces, without any earthly idea about where they might go to purchase the horse laugh that is so desperately needed. But the only place where such a thing might be purchased is in a Christian worldview seminar.
I referred to the Darwin thing a moment ago, and here is why. I would identify the ur-culprits of our disintegrating world as Kant and Darwin. Kant sought to put the world as it is, the world God actually gave us dominion over, out of our reach. We cannot know the world as it is. We can only know the thoughts in our heads, and at the end of the day, left alone with the thoughts in my head, detached from things as they actually are, I discover these deep yearnings to be a watermelon.
And don’t try to tell me that I have put too many eggs in the pudding by using absurd examples. Don’t tell me that my personal choices can easily trump the xx/xy chromosomal thing, making biology a stodgy thing of the past, and then go on to tell me that I shouldn’t use watermelon examples. Why can’t my choices trump anything genetic? Why do they just have authority over this part of the genetic strand? And not that part? When Rachel Dolezal made her attempted leap over the racial chasm by this means, she was making a much smaller leap than was attempted by Bruce Jenner. Yesterday, race; today, sex; and tomorrow, tasty specimens from the gourd family. The vistas open up all by themselves. They unfold naturally, leaving aside the fact that there is no such thing as naturally anymore.
Darwin summons us to madness via another route. The bête noire of the Darwinists is purpose, telos, intention, design. This is why they freak out when anyone, even if a fellow atheist like Thomas Nagle, suggests that there has to be a point. For if there is a point in the world, that world outside my ego, then it is conceivable that my lusts might have to submit to something other than their own imperious demands.
But in the blind world of natural selection, where there is no point, where there can be no intention, where goals are only apparent, and where everything is in the process of turning into everything else, what on earth could be wrong with a sex change operation? Knock yourself out. There is no point. There is no natural use of the woman, as that benighted apostle once claimed. There can be no natural use of the man.
So the contemporary world is governed by a deep hatred of telos. And the starting point for identifying the nature of this madness is what we think about it. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).
“With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity” (Rom. 12:1-2, Phillips).
In the next installment, I hope to address all the halfway measures that pomo-influenced Christians adopt in order to let the world push them halfway into the mold. I refer, of course, to tattoos, liturgical dress-ups, eyeliner on guys, metrosexuality, postmodern historical studies, lumbersexuality, and exotic drinks from the Orient. And if anyone reacts to anything on this list, saying that’s not prohibited in the Bible, it only goes to show the need for more Christian worldview seminars.
“pomo-influenced Christians adopt in order to let the world push them halfway into the mold. I refer, of course, to … liturgical dress-ups”. If “liturgical dress-ups” refers to the Pastor wearing a white robe & stoll, then that’s a baloney viewpoint bc reality is that once the Pastoral robe comes off its not long til the rest of the clothes come off & you have a Pastor doing the Lord’s Service in a t-shirt & flip-flops & the Lord’s Supper has become absent. There are obviously other biblical reasons for the white Pastoral robe (see textbook reference below). If “liturgical… Read more »
Great post, but I must pick at a nit. The citation from Proverbs 23:7 is not applied correctly. This text, unlike many Proverbs, has a context. In this case, the context is about a ruler’s deceitfulness, not the genuineness of people who finally get their minds right.
Bro. Steve, I am aware of the original context/application, but think that this application is a reasonable one.
I think you mean Thomas Nagel of “Mind and Cosmos”, not Thomas Nagle of “The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing”.
Are you the same Doug Wilson that was debating Hitchins a few years ago?
It was either him, or his evil twin. ; – )
“Lliturgical dress-ups,” (robes on clergy?) “lumbersexuality,” (macho men?) and “exotic drinks from the Orient” (kambucha?) – what are these things? (My guesses are in parentheses.) I am grateful however that Wilson has no problem with us girls wearing eyeliner.
At one time tea was an exotic drink from the Orient. Hang around long enough and there are no novelties.
I usually have a bit of Earl Grey before I go hunting.
Talley-ho!
I love Kambucha and tattoos. I’m looking forward to when we’re post lumber-sexual though.
How you keep up with the swirl is a marvel.
Propositions are fine and all, but practices are going to be necessary for continued motivation.
Reminds me of this.
A lot of fault also goes to pastors who confuse misguided philosophical propositions with basic knowledge of biology. Thus, the young Christian with half a mind sees that the pastor is wrong on the biology, falsely equivocates the biology with the philosophical claim, and then throws out the baby with the bathwater. I know hundreds of Christians who understand the basic science of natural selection and genetics and Earth history while remaining deeply obedient Christians. Unfortunately, I also know former Christians who thought they had to reject the Bible when they realized they couldn’t deny obvious biological facts anymore. The… Read more »
I question a definition of natural selection which makes it sound like an Alice in Wonderland tea party. It’s a tree today, but it might be a cat tomorrow. It’s proof of the utter pointlessness of everything that an organism with traits that enable it to adapt to its environment has a better chance of surviving long enough to pass on its genes to the next generation?
Let’s be clear: true Darwinianism doesn’t tolerate the existence of God. Without God, passing on your genes is pointless, and existence itself, having been separated from its true giver, becomes meaningless. What’s the point of reproducing specific molecules when all molecules will eventually disintegrate in the heat death of the universe?
Without spirit, matter is meaningless. Without mind, meaning cannot exist. And Darwinianism necessitates a denial of the spiritual.
Darwinianism necessitates a denial of the spiritual.
No it does not. Natural selection can only take place within a world that is already structured.
Darwinianism is far more than just natural selection. Learn your terms.
Thank goodness you were appointed the word czar. I love when Christians with no idea what they are talking about insolently throw around meaningless terminology!
But what if Carson self identifies as the word czar? And what if Darwinism self identifies as an anti Christian pipe dream seeking to make God’s word of no effect?
Plus, I have it on good information, that “The word melon” trumphs “The word czar” in any and all cases.
And I, of course, self identify as the ultimate authority on these things! ; – )
” We can only know the thoughts in our heads, and at the end of the day, left alone with the thoughts in my head, detached from things as they actually are, I discover these deep yearnings to be a watermelon.”
Pfffffff! No word czars for me! I think my skin is getting thicker and greener already! ; – )
I have learned my terms, and you’re being silly. Darwinism “can” be more than that. So rather than arguing about s word that means different things to different people, why not simply be clear on what aspects we do and don’t believe?
Great! You apparently think the way some people making a philosophy out of “Darwinism” is incompatible with Christianity, but that the origin of new species by natural selection is fine. But I think the latter is what Pastor Wilson is objecting to.
It all depends on how you define species, which is actually a bit of a problem in science today. Natural selection is simply the survival of the fittest. Natural selection does not imply, per se, the transformation of the species. That concept has been bundled onto the term natural selection by Darwinists. Whether those two concepts properly belong together is a thorny problem. For example, the Galapagos finch’s beak does respond to environmental pressures over generations. Do you define a bird with a beak longer by a few millimeters than its parents as speciation? Well, okay, I can grant that:… Read more »
The main reason that defining a species is “actually a bit of a problem” in science today is because the differences in DNA are so gradual over different species. It’s the close interrelation of organisms that is making this difficult. Which isn’t a great argument for creationism.
So you mean a Creator who wanted to fill every niche of His creation would be obligated to use entirely novel DNA for every individual organism? Similar DNA just reflects similar design, for the most part. Just like a mountain bike and a street bike look similar, but do different things because they’re designed for different environments. No one argues that we need a completely different design for every single vehicle. They’re all going to work on the same general principles because of their purpose. Assuming that similar DNA just means that the organisms are interrelated, rather than that they… Read more »
But it goes much, much further than that. To quote Michael Bebe, someone who has been quoted positively by many evolution deniers on this blog: “For example, both humans and chimps have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C. … It’s hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans. … Despite some remaining puzzles, there’s no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives.” The Edge of Evolution, pp. 71–72 Do you believe that a DNA… Read more »
Wait…you claim to have put serious study into DNA science, and you’re talking about Junk DNA? That’s a myth, man. You’re spouting junk pop science that’s over a decade out of date. There’s no such thing as junk DNA. Every part of DNA that we thought was junk has, upon further study, been revealed to have more significance than we thought, like regulating other parts of the DNA sequence. You talking about Junk DNA is like a person going around citing geocentrism – except with geocentrism, it actually explained a good amount of data and saved the appearances. Sorry, but… Read more »
Carson, if you are completely unlearned on a topic you should probably keep your mouth shut and learn. Remember your proverbs.
As it is you look like a third grader lecturing a professor.
Also, pretty sure if he produced a block quote he knows the guys name. Typos happen. This is basic charity.
I’ve actually done study. In school and out. Even secular scientists have gravitated away from that myth. Also, my Ph.D. – holding professors also say the same thing. So on what level do I look completely unlearned? I’m citing modern DNA science – if you have a quarrel with what I’m saying, you’re not picking a bone with me, but cutting-edge science. You’re welcome to try, but I doubt you’ll find current DNA scientists readily using the term “Junk DNA,” because that concept has been rather thoroughly debunked in the last decade or so. So no. Your analogy is invalid… Read more »
Carson, while the term “junk DNA” is controversial, the concept that I stated – the DNA discarded during RNA transcription and translation – is still accurate, and is still referred to by many as junk DNA. I did my main academic studies 15-20 years ago and like all aging people tend to use the same terms I first learned, but there are plenty of other scientists who continue to use the term today. And the important thing isn’t the term, but what it represents. There is a great deal of noncoding DNA, some of which has no biological function other… Read more »
Here are two more articles which help to demonstrate who is dealing with the facts as they are and who is basing their absolute claims on press releases and a “pop science narrative”.
http://www.genomicron.evolverzone.com/2007/04/word-about-junk-dna/
https://arstechnica.com/staff/2012/09/most-of-what-you-read-was-wrong-how-press-releases-rewrote-scientific-history/
Side note, Carson Spratt — it just occurred to me that your handle might be a play on two characters from a popular British TV show. Is that what it is, or is it your real name, or something else?
I have been following the argument about junk (or noncoding) DNA like somebody watching a tennis match. But a report published in 2015 in “Nature Genetics”, conducted by the Cold Spring Harbor Lab, said researchers “found that, at most, only about 7% of the letters in the human genome are functionally important.” One of the team, Dr. Adam Siepel, said: “We were impressed with how low that number is…Some analyses of the ENCODE data alone have argued that upwards of 80% of thegenome is functional, but our evolutionary analysis suggests that isn’t the case.” … “We think most of the… Read more »
Carson, if I could write all that and your only response is to note a typo and say you side with the “I don’t like the term junk – please call it noncoding DNA” side of the terminology wars, then it gives me a good idea of how honestly you’re engaging in this discussion.
Considering that I provided an exact quote from Behe and an accurate definition of junk/noncoding DNA that has NOT been discarded by scientific research, your objection just looks like an attempt to score a point and little else.
I read an interesting review of Behe’s The Edge of Evolution (2007). I understood that he accepts common ancestry, age of the earth, and the close relationship between modern humans and primates, but I wanted to know more about ID. I was startled by his statements about malaria: “Malaria was intentionally designed. The molecular machinery with which the parasite invades red blood cells is an exquisitely purposeful arrangement of parts. (…) What sort of designer is that? What sort of “fine-tuning” leads to untold human misery? To countless mothers mourning countless children? Did a hateful, malign being make intelligent life… Read more »
Yeah, I brought up something akin to this four years ago when we discussed why Pastor Wilson was using Behe as an authority and certain commenters were repeatedly proof-texting Behe years ago. Behe is a biochemist. I understand biochemistry about as well as almost anyone commenting here – meaning that at best I’ve taken courses in organic chemistry and microbiology and a participated in one research project involving a bit of biochemistry. When I read Behe’s arguments about the implausibility of certain biochemical processes developing via evolutionary mechanisms, I have to admit that the ability to evaluate his claims is… Read more »
Jonathan wrote:
Perhaps Jonathan can raise this objection once he stops selectively quote mining Augustine for his own purposes? (Augustine, while allegorizing the days of creation, explicitly rejected an ancient earth theory.) If Jonathan were to be judged in the manner by which he judges others, we would find him guilty by his own standard.
No, that’s a perfect way to use Augustine. Also, I like to use Augustine because he’s someone that many people here give significant authority, while literally no one on either side gives Behe meaningful authority except in the narrow statements where he supports their view. Augustine, without even having any scientific evidence, still thought the days of creation in Genesis 1 were allegorical. However, he had no way to know how old the Earth was outside of Egyptian records that went back much further than the patriarchs, which he just assumed might have been faked because he didn’t have the… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: There is absolutely no comparison between that and someone considering Behe an authority in a scientific field they don’t understand, yet rejecting every scientific conclusion he makes but one. No comparison? Does Jonathan accept Augustine’s global flood view, or reject it? Does Jonathan accept Augustine’s dismissal of the Egyptian records as false histories? Does Jonathan accept Augustine’s instantaneous completed creation theory? Does Jonathan accept Augustine’s belief in distinct created kinds? Jonathan epitomizes the very thing he accuses Wilson of. Jonathan wrote: Also, I like to use Augustine because he’s someone that many people here give significant authority, while… Read more »
If “literally no one” credits Behe, the man, with any particular authority (even as a PhD in microbiology), then perhaps Jonathan should cease to accuse Wilson of selective appeal to authority as a motive. Perhaps Jonathan should acknowledge that Wilson has citing Behe because of the particular merit of a particular argument that Behe advanced. Isn’t that much more plausible, since “literally no one” ascribes authority to Behe himself? Behe is a chemist, not a biologist. His Ph.D. is in biochemistry, not microbiology. His claims on evolution are related to specifics of biochemistry. Your use of him as an authority… Read more »
jillybean wrote: Why do Christian fundamentalists think that Behe’s speculations of this nature are so valuable that they want them taught to their children in public schools? Can jillybean provide a citation for the uncritical acceptance and wholesale teaching of Behe that she is bemoaning? What Christian fundamentalists are agitating to have every argument of Behe taught to their children in public schools? Does jillybean (like Jonathan) suppose that recognition of the power of one argument from Behe means total acceptance of every other position of his? Why do jillybean and Jonathan think in such false dichotomies? Is this how… Read more »
I ought to have provided more context for my comment. When I read Behe’s remarks, I remembered that he was the chief witness for the defense in the Dover Kitzmiller ID trial. I further recalled (and I have read the proceedings several times) that two of the schoolboard members had explicitly asked for creationism to accompany evolution in the district’s textbooks. They were told ID might be a good substitute, and were advised by the Thomas More Law Institute that buying textbooks and forcing their biology faculty to include instruction would pass constitutional scrutiny. Later, at their lawyers’ urging, they… Read more »
jillybean wrote: Later, at their lawyers’ urging, they scaled back and settle for a compulsory oral warning and recycled creationist books in the school library. Jillybean’s history lesson regarding the Dover kangaroo trial fails to address my question to her regarding her false dichotomy. What Christian fundamentalists are agitating to have every argument of Behe taught to their children in public schools? The attempt to get creationism (or ID) forced (or smuggled) back into government schools is hardly a blanket endorsement of Behe’s entire body of thought by Christians fundamentalists. jillybean wrote: My problem is how Behe fits malaria into… Read more »
You asked for evidence of wholesale endorsement of Behe being thrust into public schools. I gave you the Dover Kitzmiller trial. Behe was a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute which sent the creationist members of the Dover school board materials about ID. Behe wrote a couple of chapters for the revised textbook “On Pandas and People” which the school board hoped to use as a science text to offset Miller’s “Biology”. Behe was the school board’s chief expert witness at the trial. From reading the trial testimony, I doubt that either Bonsell or Buckingham could have defined natural selection… Read more »
Okay, so let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. So, your argument boils down to… God could have used similar DNA for similar purposes, but instead, we see different DNA for similar purposes. Presumably, you think this points at convergent evolution, rather than design. Now, the unspoken assumption is that God is tied to using the bare minimum amount of effort to design a creature. Where did that assumption come from, and is it warranted? In our telling, God, an infinite and infinitely creative being, made the entire world ex nihilo. That is pretty much the exact opposite of bare minimum… Read more »
No, that’s a false reframing of my argument. Here’s a much better description of my argument. Sisters have extremely similar DNA to each other – in fact, you can prove that they had the same mother, and who that mother is, based on looking at their DNA alone. Cousins have very similar DNA, though not quite as similar – but again, you can prove their common ancestry and even identify their grandmother correctly through their respective DNA. This keeps going back further and further. You can identify a common ancestor a couple centuries back, like whether one was descended from… Read more »
“But in that case, God would have been openly deceiving us to make it “look” for all appearances like common ancestry and a very old Earth was true.”
The moon looks bigger when it’s at the horizon, is that God openly deceiving us about the size of the moon?
How can it be deception if He is simultaneously *telling* you how it happened? Not a moment has gone by when people did not have either the written scriptures or the word of mouth passed down to those who would listen, telling what Adam knew.
You don’t realize that you’re starting to sound like that geocentric guy you were arguing with again? “All other evidence can be denied before the face of my particular interpretation of Scripture.” There are billions of people in the world who don’t have Scripture, many of whom get the chance to learn about DNA and homologous structures and the fossil record long before they ever read Genesis 1-3. To look at how uniformly those lines of evidence, laid down by none other than the Lord God himself, point towards a progression of different species with a common ancestor, and then… Read more »
If I said any of those things, your arguments might or might not deal with them.
But I didn’t. You really have a habit of arguing with the assumptions you make about people instead of what they say — do you realize that?
It wasn’t an assumption – it was the logical conclusion of what you said.
If you meant something different, then explain it. But I made a very detailed point, and you dismissed it with a two-sentence response. I took your response at face value. If you meant something more subtle, then you need to explain what that was.
You still haven’t even said where I have analyzed your logic incorrectly. Do you see anything in your reply that advances the discussion for either of us or anyone else, or are you just fighting?
When dialoguing with these folks, do you ever get the feeling that you’ve wandered into a House of Mirrors? They have painted themselves and the Bible into a corner. The only way out is to discard their reductionist approach to the scriptures. I’m hopeful, but I’m not holding my breath.
What always strikes me as kind of tragic, as Christians we’re supposed to put our faith in Jesus and than go forth and love one another. So what do modern Christians do? Pretty much just step over the least of these, ignore much of the human suffering around us,and proceed to just argue about the fossil record and creationism versus evolution.
Amen. I think what you’ve just described is the result of reducing the Bible to a set of doctrinal positions that end in parsing the hell out of agape.
I agree that the definition of speciation is difficult, and from what I have read, it is not the definition I was taught in school a couple of Ice Ages ago. That definition was that speciation occurs when there is such divergence between two groups that they can no longer mate with each other. The classic example of how this can happen was when a habitat is divided by an impregnable boundary, and members of the species become geographically isolated. When brought back together much later, they have become two distinct species who cannot mate and produce offspring. But DNA,… Read more »
But who gets to define “true Darwinianism”? Certainly there are atheist biologists who say they cannot imagine how anyone who understands evolutionary theory can be dumb enough to believe in God. Certainly there are Christians who say they can’t understand why the literal truth of Genesis isn’t obvious to everyone else. But there are also millions of devout Christians who seemingly have no trouble reconciling their belief in God with their tentative acceptance of natural selection and common ancestry (tentative, because all scientific theory is tentative). Your not understanding how I, and they, can do this does not mean that… Read more »
Indeed. It is, of course, possible that you believe things that are mutually incompatible without realizing it, and that if you thought it through the contradiction would come clear. But to presume the worldview of one’s interlocutor is coherent is a wiser place to start, and certainly better manners.
In my limited experience, it is far more common for people to believe dozens of incompatible things. I never assume the coherence of anyone’s worldview, but I try to drill down and see what the foundations are made of.
Sure, and I grant that. But if you lead with the presumption that you’re talking to someone who can’t think straight, you are likely to ignore a lot of nuance in favor of simple binary judgments. You also tend to discount the possibility that your interlocutor has simply thought the matter through more carefully than you have.
I don’t know that either thing is true in this particular case. But the approach that you outline lends itself to certain drawbacks.
To clarify, I don’t assume people are unreasonable, but neither do I assume that their worldview is fully coherent when the details are filled in.
I test their worldview in the same way I do my own – with the understanding that people’s intellect is fallen.
That’s a perfectly reasonable view to take. But it applies to you as much as anyone else, no?
Yes. That’s why I said, “I test their worldview in the same way I do my own.” Read carefully! ;)
The posture of testing, however, tends to indicate epistemic certainty, as if, having checked your own worldview, you now regard it as sufficiently established to serve as a standard. Otherwise, on what basis do you evaluate someone else?
Yes, I have tested my worldview and found it solid at the foundations. There are many matters which must be built upon that foundation, though. The foundations I am sure of, but there are stories higher up that probably need tinkering with. Everyone should do the same, and no one should take it as an insult when someone tests your worldview for leaks: it’s just sound practice, and the Bereans are good examples of that.
Everyone believes in some form of natural selection. It is Darwinism that is objected to.
Could you tell me (and I ask this in a peaceful spirit of genuine enquiry, not as one looking to start a fight) why people who reject evolutionary theory (defined here as speciation and common ancestry, not simply as change over time) always call it Darwinism? It always suggests to me that Darwin is solely responsible, and that no one else has ever treated, let alone confirmed, any aspect of his theory. And why “Darwinism” and not simply “Darwin’s theory”?
I think it is shorthand. The term has been used by evolutionists. But because accuracy of language is important concerning this issue, it is wordy to specify what one means. Some people just say evolution and then claim that evolution means change thus natural selection is evolution thus evolution is true. This is quite a common response even though creationists agree that natural selection is real (it was described by a creationist prior to Darwin). Other talk of biological evolution and decry the discussion of cosmological evolution even though cosmologists may use that term. Still others exclude the first development… Read more »
Evolutionism is also a good shorthand term encompassing the materialistic and naturalistic paradigm. Most adherents are very coy about where they actually stand, because they really only want to have to answer for natural selection, and nothing else. Theistic evolutionists don’t do anyone any favors by running cover for such materialists.
I understand that you believe a theistic evolutionist is in error. But I don’t think you can say that any particular individual is intellectually insincere in reaching his conclusions, especially when these conclusions don’t run counter to the teachings of his church. A Catholic biologist is almost certain to be a theistic evolutionist. His church teaches him the duty of intellectual honesty and tells him not to generalize beyond his data–in other words, not to present his own religious opinions as “settled science says…” It is unfortunate if his research, improperly understood and subjected to illegitimate extrapolation, tends to run… Read more »
jillybean wrote: But I don’t think you can say that any particular individual is intellectually insincere in reaching his conclusions, especially when these conclusions don’t run counter to the teachings of his church. A Catholic biologist is almost certain to be a theistic evolutionist. It may come as a shock to jillybean, but Roman Catholics are not inoculated against being wrong; even wrong concerning basic Scriptural teaching. Being a sincere Roman Catholic will not shield or excuse jillybean from giving an account to God for disregarding the light that she was given by God, from His Word. Notice that I’m… Read more »
jillybean wrote: But that doesn’t solve the problem of the sincere Christian astronomer who, looking at the available evidence, does not believe all the stars are equally old. Should a scientist who is Christian refrain from publishing any finding that might tend to cast doubt on Genesis for fear of running cover for unbelievers? Publishing observable data is nothing to be afraid of. That’s the power of actual physical science. However, the stories that are told around the actual observable data are another matter. For example, if Adam had chopped down a tree in the garden and counted the rings,… Read more »
Probably because of the near-immediate leap made by non-biologists from the publication of Darwin’s book to confident assertions that SCIENCE! had a sufficient explanation for the origin of life and we can dispense with all that antiquated God and religion stuff. (Meanwhile the actual science of genetics was getting started a few years later by an Augustinian monk named Mendel…)
Very true. But why do you suppose people were able to take Galileo’s heliocentrism in stride without immediately concluding that if our planet has been deposed as the center, then all bets are off when it comes to religion and morality?
jillybean wrote: But why do you suppose people were able to take Galileo’s heliocentrism in stride without immediately concluding that if our planet has been deposed as the center, then all bets are off when it comes to religion and morality? Probably for the same reason that the weather man can tell us when sunrise will occur tomorrow morning without being stoned by the heliocentric science community. They realize that events can be described, consistently and correctly, from an earth-based frame of reference. People in Galileo’s day probably realized that everything in Scripture pertaining to this question could also be… Read more »
For one thing Darwinism describes a specific explanation for the existence of living things for which Charles Darwin receives due credit from scientists who wholly embrace the theory as you have described it. Darwinism also describes more than a scientific theory, it describes a philosophy, a mythos. In a way Darwinism does offer an explanation of the meaning of life, albeit one that dead ends in no real meaning at all. It certainly does offer an explanation of human behavior, one that explicitly rejects both the image of God and sin in favor of the origin of Homo sapiens behavior… Read more »
“Your not understanding how I, and they, can do this does not mean that it cannot be done–”
*You’re. :P
There seems to be a corrolation between accepting common ancestry/natural selection and bad theology. I don’t have enough data to say if the relationship is causitive, or if it is which direction it goes.
It’s ‘your’. The not understanding belongs to you. (See what I did there?)
I was about to explain about gerunds taking possessive pronouns but you beat me to it. I think this is a grammatical rule that is not much observed here. Find me one living person who grasps the shall/will distinction, and I will bow in gratitude before him (or her). Heck, I would be grateful for the proper use of lie and lay. I insisted on teaching usage to my daughter, not trusting her English teachers as far as I could throw them, and the result was that they went through her essays changing every correct “whom” to “who.” My fellow… Read more »
Funny, isn’t it, that grammar is something only other languages have nowadays.
Come to New Zealand, where we don’t do that annoying lie/lay thing. Unless, of course, you dislike people saying then for than!
First I will need to check with my sister who taught in an inner-city Auckland high school. I was startled to learn that New Zealand even had urban blight or poverty. I pictured it as being a kind of sub-tropical Scandinavia, but with sheep.
Sub-tropical is right! We’re having a cyclone at the moment. Parts of Auckland I hear are a bit blighted. I haven’t made an extensive study of poverty in NZ but what I know of it I’d characterise as mainly cultural. That is, many of our poor would not be much helped by receiving more money, or only money. There are homeless people who choose to be homeless because they want to be off the grid and free from the burdens of things like tenancy agreements. There are people raised in violent or negligent homes who have no idea what to… Read more »
I’ve been following Cyclones Debbie and Cook and hoping you are away from the worst of them. For perhaps the fiftieth time in my life, I looked up to see why you get cyclones, China gets typhoons, and the eastern seaboard on the Atlantic gets hurricanes. I think I have it, but don’t ask me next week.
Funny, I’ve seen the same correlation between YEC and bad theology. Of course, they make different mistakes.
Proof of “devolution”.
Somebody should form a band!
Oh wait! ; – )
No, jilly is right.
Paraphrased as “Your refusal to understand this … ”
Not “You are refusal to understand this …”
Edit: Ah, I see Indigo beat me to it.
My rejection of common ancestry is not born out of an intellectual inability to understand how anyone else does it. Rather, it’s founded upon study, observation, and reflection upon the necessary implications of such a belief. It is not a fog of doubt that makes me unable to see how you do it: rather, it is the light of logical necessity that makes me see clearly how incompatible these two are. And while you ask who gets to define “true Darwinism,” I would answer that it should be the Darwinists – who consistently reject the syncretistic attempts of theistic evolutionists.… Read more »
I was married to a biologist for thirty years, and I have known many others. While I have not personally met a biologist who rejected every aspect of evolutionary theory, I have not encountered the kind of zealotry you describe. My ex-husband, who is Jewish, believed in God. He did not reject theistic evolution; he did believe, however, that methodological naturalism precludes assuming theistic explanations for natural phenomena. I think it is important to distinguish between rejecting theism as something incompatible with the scientific method, and rejecting theism overall. But not every evolutionary biologist is a Dawkins. There are numerous… Read more »
Jillybean,
Here’s an anti-evolutionary viewpoint from a self-described atheist.
http://www.unz.com/freed/darwin-unhinged-the-bugs-in-evolution/
In re: the popes saying that Christian belief and evolution are compatible:
I do not believe that the Pope represents the best theology available, nor the best science. And if he wasn’t speaking ex cathedra, he doesn’t really speak authoritatively on behalf of the church, right?
So the pope’s recommendations don’t persuade me as to the actual compatibility of the two doctrines.
You are right that the teachings have not been given infallibly: I don’t think that would ever happen as infallibility is restricted to questions of faith and morals. And even those are given rarely–sometimes less than once in a century. On the other hand, the majority of Catholic teaching is presented with Magisterial authority that a Catholic may not ignore simply because it was not delivered ex cathedra. If I am an obedient Catholic, I won’t get gay-married even though there has been no infallibly delivered rule. It’s important to be clear about what the papal statements about evolutionary theory… Read more »
I took a “science and religion” class that included a book which had 14 different definitions of evolution. Only a couple of them denied the spiritual, though 3-4 others were also false for other reasons.
Well,I am the girl in the blue dress for a reason and we have truly arrived at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
Not too get too cynical here, but people are kind of like these slightly stupid hairless apes, easily taken down by a common house cat. So without Divine intervention, I suspect our ability to pass down our genes would have been severed long ago.
I’m curious what you mean by Divine intervention, and if you could give an example or two.
The birth of Issac and the birth of Samuel.????????????
I’m not sure that’s what ME had in mind. But I am quite certain that our species’ ability to pass down our genes would have continued regardless of the births of Issac or Samuel.
“Divine intervention,” everything from ensuring our survival to correcting our never ending mistakes.
“I am quite certain that our species’ ability to pass down our genes would have continued regardless….”
I am NOT convinced. People have a propensity for self destruction and if our steps were not ordered in some way, I think we would have all died out long ago.
The funny thing is that if you start talking about race and IQ you can find people who are both anti-God materialists and anti-science fundamentalists. ;-)
Oh yeah…that’s one of the biggest holes in “progressive” Christian thought.
Specifically I mean the people who deny the existence of the soul or anything spiritual but still insist that all humans have equal worth or ability.
Perhaps one of those hundreds of Christians could explain the natural process by which non-living matter became the first living thing from which all life evolved.
I don’t think any Christian who accepts evolutionary theory would deny divine intervention. I have no doubt that God created life. I have no doubt that God created the universe.
The question is whether God created all life by solely by natural processes. Its the difference between my own origin in the womb, and that of Mary’s firstborn. Was power outside nature needed at any point from the beginning until now to make all living things? That goes against the naturalism that most scientists assume. Many scientists still assume that there is an as yet unknown natural process to explain the origin of life.
I agree with you, but while every scientist assumes that only natural explanations can be entertained while working in the lab, not every scientist is committed to philosophical materialism in every realm of life. Those who are, like Dawkins, are giving an opinion that is outside their specialty. If there is ever solid evidence that lightning sparks produced amino acids from a soup of atmospheric gases, I will still believe that the sparks, the gases, and the acids were part of God’s creative will. It would be disingenuous for me to pretend that there is no conflict between this view… Read more »
If origins “look” the same (that is, in terms of our thoughts–because obviously no developed human was there to observe and record), regardless of theism or atheism, why believe there is a god acting behind the scenes? How can the answer be the Church or Scripture? ISTM that when the Church deconstructs Genesis 1-11, it invites the deconstruction of 1) the rest of Scripture, and 2) its own recorded origin and history.
That’s quite interesting. So you’re admitting that your beliefs in God feel threatened by knowledge of science, and that you’re afraid that if God isn’t needed as the “explain this crazy magic” excuse-maker, your whole fragile edifice falls apart.
I assure you there is a different faith out there, one that can understand how things in the world work and still be devoted to the God of Jesus Christ in all of it. And there are many millions of people with this faith.
I think that is a little harsh. It seems to me a valid question to ask: if Genesis is not to be taken literally, at what point are we to start being literal in our understanding? Half way through the Old Testament, or can I wait until Matthew 1:1? If the evidence leads me to reject Genesis as history, do I treat every recorded miracle with equal skepticism? These are fair questions.
But it’s based on quite a few false assumptions. We already know not to take a great deal of the Bible “literally”. Jesus’s parables, Daniel’s visions, John’s revelation, the Song of Solomon, are all obvious places where a symbolic story is told but the point of the story is not to relate history, but to elucidate a point about God and how He works and is now working. During the Galileo debates, where he was accused of not taking Scripture literally because Joshua clearly stopped the Sun in the sky thus proving the sun revolves around the Earth, he made… Read more »
What is your position on the supernatural?
I believe in it – thought I made that clear in the nonviolence discussions. I have witnessed it as well, though of course one’s own experience can be faulty and from time to time I can second-guess things I’ve seen with my own eyes or heard with my own ears. I don’t have a firm position on the mechanism. Such as, does God create a plausible natural explanation when He performs the miraculous, so that those who wish to doubt can always maintain “plausible deniability”? Thus, are many things with plausible natural explanations still clearly miraculous events that would not… Read more »
Ah, my faulty memory strikes again. (It’s also difficult to review your earlier remarks, given your Disqus settings.) I agree that the miraculous is not able to be subjected to scientific study. I do not see that a not-scientific book must necessarily be not-historical. I do not see the slightest reason, textually speaking, not to take Genesis as historical. “We already know not to take a great deal of the Bible “literally”. Jesus’s parables, Daniel’s visions, John’s revelation, the Song of Solomon, are all obvious places where a symbolic story is told but the point of the story is not… Read more »
I have a long argument written out, which I’ll post soon. But I realized that I was starting to get off the point in arguing this rather inconsequential subpoint (which only becomes consequential when preachers begin to claim it’s the whole thing). In order to re-orient back to the main point, I recommend looking up these three very short N.T. Wright videos before reading anything I have to say.
N.T. Wright on Genesis
N.T. Wright on Adam and Eve
N.T. Wright – Evolution
He makes three completely different points in those three videos, all three good ones.
Here are some textual reasons not to take Genesis as purely, literally historical. 1. There is a great deal of allegory within the passage. Take the snake, for example. Every Christian I know believes that the snake in Genesis 3 represents Satan, not some physical species of snake that happens to have the power of speech. (Note that there is no indication that God miraculously gives the snake speech – it just has it naturally as it is a very crafty animal. That’s another clear sign the story is allegorical – we’re not dealing with a real snake here.) They… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: They believe that the “offspring of the woman” represents Jesus, and when “he will crush its head”, it represents Jesus’s defeat of Satan. But the literal words of the passage clearly say that the snake is a snake, a wild animal, not Satan. Jonathan is repeating a very common misunderstanding, which leads him to engage in a long string of straw man fallacies. Since Genesis is recorded for us in literary form, none of us has any choice but to take it literally. So the question is not whether it will be taken literally, but what literary intent… Read more »
As N.T. Wright so appropriately quotes in his Genesis video, you appear to be reading an entirely different book than me. If you read Genesis and believe that the main point is to instill historical shackles, give a treatise on exact order of creation and the length of creation days so that we can hold arguments with scientists digging up fossils and radioactively dating rocks 2,000 years later, then I have to say that you haven’t read the book for all its worth yet. You confuse simple metaphors of language and deeper allegory tremendously. Yes, “windows of heaven” is a… Read more »
I think the obvious allegorical content of Genesis 1-3 is the most text-supported reason not to take it literally in every detail. But here are a few other supporting reasons. 2. The structure of Genesis 1 is very uniform and poetic, and then differs a lot from Genesis 2-3. As history, that would be utterly confusing. What order did God do things on each day in Chapter 1? What is Chapter 1’s relationship to Chapter 2, and why so many apparent contradictions without explanation? What span of time do chapters 2-3 cover? Where did Adam and Eve go after they… Read more »
I regret that I don’t have time to do justice to your long post today, but here are some quick points: Any creation account is going to look different from other recorded history, for a number of reasons. One of those is that God was the only eye witness, as you mentioned, and another is that it is describing something supernatural and probably beyond human comprehension except at a basic level. Bible history is not given for its own sake, but to tell the story of God’s work in this world. The fact that Genesis 1-3 doesn’t contain lots of… Read more »
Bless you too Indigo. I agree with basically everything that you said, only disagree that what you have left over after you’ve admitted all those things is still something that can be called “literal history” in the modern Western sense, or why, after admitting so much is clearly unconcerned with order or exact details or time frames and there for the point of allegory or anthropomorphic illustration, it is so hard to see that other details within the same event fit the same pattern.
I get all that. I agree with all that. But, it is easy for me to get all that because I come from a tradition that does not insist on a literal reading of Genesis, does not base its theology on there being no death before the fall, and also teaches that if there is an apparent conflict between scientific discovery and Christian doctrine–be patient, because truth cannot conflict with truth. Ultimately we will understand. I did not grow up with a belief that Christian teaching is being deliberately undercut by wicked and deluded biologists and astronomers and geologists. No… Read more »
Amen to all that Jilly.
So you’re admitting that there is no evidence for God intervening in the world. You’re prepared to say that the Exodus (in the traditional sense) never happened, and that the Jesus Seminar is a helpful pursuit, but that nevertheless you pray, and value the “Jesus of faith.”
Heliocentrism is compatible with the historic Christian faith revealed in the Scriptures. The same cannot be said for other fashionable theories.
No, not at all, I believe absolutely nothing like that. You seem to know nothing about me whatsoever.
You have created a completely made up strawman version of me in your head. Engage with things I’ve actually said.
Perhaps you could extend to me the same courtesy?
You stated: If origins “look” the same (that is, in terms of our thoughts–because obviously no developed human was there to observe and record), regardless of theism or atheism, why believe there is a god acting behind the scenes? How can the answer be the Church or Scripture? ISTM that when the Church deconstructs Genesis 1-11, it invites the deconstruction of 1) the rest of Scripture, and 2) its own recorded origin and history. That implies that faith in God rests on needing to have a theory of origins that science cannot explain. You said that it seems, to you… Read more »
I’m conceding a use of the term “origins” to encompass many things, from the beginning of the universe, even until now (especially from an evolutionary perspective, in which the cosmos continues to evolve). If all “origins” must have, and do have a materialistic explanation, Occam’s razor suggests that to posit a divinity at work invisibly behind the scenes is an unnecessary addition. That’s one reason Darwinian explanations so often foster atheism. And if such materialism applies from the beginning till now, how can we exclude the critical deconstruction of Scripture and the authority of the Church? To recognize this challenge… Read more »
If all “origins” must have, and do have a materialistic explanation, Occam’s razor suggests that to posit a divinity at work invisibly behind the scenes is an unnecessary addition. I don’t see any rationale to argue that the creation and sustenance of existence in a purely materialistic world is “simpler” than the creation and sustenance of existence by a deity. Even the extremely materialistic Stephen Hawking, who has spent his life trying to write God out of everything, is forced to ask, “But what breathes fire into the equations? Why is there a universe for them to describe at all?”… Read more »
I think it might be a more accurate (and fair) statement of the position to say that lab science gives no tools by which we can test or measure God’s intervention in the world.
Hey! They don’t have to be christians! Just ask randman: “How did rocks turn into people all by themselves?” Trust me, it’s quite a ride! ; – )
I actually took an entire class specifically on that exact question, and I’m not convinced it could have happened without divine intervention. Are you interested in the theories or were you just trolling?
It’s not trolling to point out that scientists are not certain on that question. There is at least that one major point about origins that your hundreds of Christians do not as yet know.
Oh, many many points. That’s one thing that science and faith have in common – in both cases there are many many things we do not know.
My question as to whether you were trolling was directed towards whether you actually wanted to hear the explanation you had asked for or not.
I asked for “the natural process by which non-living matter became the first living thing from which all life evolved.” In other words, it was a statement (couched as a suggestion) that there is no agreed scientific position on the subject. Your offer to bring forth a number of possibilities from the classroom simply confirms my statement. How many theories there are, and what they are is not germane. Not wanting to have them told does not mean I was trolling.
I’m struggling to see what you’re trying to get at. Yes, there is no agreed scientific position for the exact mechanism of the start of life some 3.9 billion years ago or whatever. Of course – the field is still young. There are people alive today who were scientists before DNA was even discovered, before we could explain genetics at all. The field is removing remarkably fast. It may be 10 years before a breakthrough that causes the scientific community to unite around a highly plausible theory, or it might be a 100 years, or it might be never. But… Read more »
You referred to Christians who accept evolution as basic science. Yet, the basic science concerning original life and the so-called “last common universal ancestor” is not agreed. I’m not claiming that that disproves evolution. I realize you can accept evolution and hold origination off to the side. Yet it could help a scientist be more willing to entertain evidence against naturalistic evolution. Apparently you accept both God and a naturalistic process of evolution. I don’t know if there is anything that would falsify the process for you, or give you pause. I do find it telling that evolutionists can get… Read more »
You’re saying a lot of different things, and I’m not sure I follow all of them. 1. Yes, how one views the atonement does matter. But I am in fellowship with Christians with almost every view of the atonement imaginable, and yet we’re still Christians. I cannot see how one of those views could be “falsified”, or if it were, if that would affect any of our acceptance of Christianity. We all accept that Christ died for us, even if the most exact details of that one-time event aren’t at all agreed upon for us, and almost certainly won’t really… Read more »
1. It’s not clear to me that “how one views the atonement” really does matter, if, “with almost every view of the atonement imaginable… we’re still Christians.” What are the Christians you fellowship with being taught? If Christ is only a teacher and example in laying down his life, our need for him is reduced to ignorance and moral error. If I see that my need concerns God’s holy wrath coming toward me–a person dead, guilty, and defiled–then Christ’s propitiation, substitution, and resurrection power will be precious to me from the Bible. A sound view of the atonement is not… Read more »
I won’t even get started on an argument of which atonement theory is “correct” or “primary” or “essential”, as I’ve invariably found that they’re the most useless arguments in all of Christiandom. Too many ingrained positions built off of particular cultural assumptions which then cause the person to interpret everything in favor of their understanding, not realizing that the filter they’re looking through completely distorts almost everything they’re looking at. There’s just no way to argue with that. For now I can just suggest caution before declaring most of the historical church, most of the modern church, and virtually all… Read more »
Jonathan, if you “…won’t even get started on an argument of which atonement theory is “correct” or “primary” or “essential” “, is it essential you go on at such length about how much it doesn’t matter? :-) Personally I think it is a worthwhile discussion, although I agree Christian’s have honestly come to differing views. Since we’ve started on the subject, is it necessarily either/or? Are we, or must we, be talking in terms of “this not that”, or could it be a matter of the aspect one sees fit to emphasize more than the others, without denying the others?… Read more »
Jonathan, if you “…won’t even get started on an argument of which atonement theory is “correct” or “primary” or “essential” “, is it essential you go on at such length about how much it doesn’t matter? :-) YES. :) For certain issues, the fact that they shouldn’t divide us, that a large range of views is acceptable, is actually of enormous significance. Personally I think it is a worthwhile discussion, although I agree Christian’s have honestly come to differing views. Since we’ve started on the subject, is it necessarily either/or? Are we, or must we, be talking in terms of… Read more »
Lewis is valued as an apologist for “mere” Christianity, but he did not think anyone was meant to stay a “mere” Christian: I hope no reader will suppose that “mere” Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions—as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall,… Read more »
Personally, I don’t make a big deal about the age of the earth one way or the other. Why not? If you take Genesis as literal in the historical/scientific text, and the text clearly speaks of a series of 24 hour days followed by lifetimes of specific lengths of years, why not insist that a 6,000 year old Earth is just as essential to faith as the denial of other aspect of evolutionary theory? Current views don’t have to be a conspiracy of lies. I’m sure you know the history of error in science. I think comparative anatomy argues against… Read more »
Do you not realize that scholars are consistent when they apply your Genesis standard of interpretation to the Gospels? Marcus Borg: “The central meaning of Easter is not about whether something happened to the corpse of Jesus. Its central meanings are that Jesus continues to be known and that he is Lord. The tomb couldn’t hold him. He’s loose in the world. He’s still here. He’s still recruiting for the kingdom of God.” Dr. Borg values the effects of the empty tomb, while downplaying its historical nature. I’m glad you don’t go that far, but you’ve laid out no basis… Read more »
Marcus Borg is a Jesus Seminar guy. From what I’ve heard he’s certainly not the worst of the bunch, but I’m still certain that I disagree on so many levels that this would be just the tip of the iceberg. As you say, “The problem shows especially in the truth that the Gospels are not history according to modern historigraphical standards. They are theological through and though.” This is absolutely true. However, we have to base on understanding of the truth on the truth, not on what we are scared by. We can’t understand Genesis correctly if we’re just focused… Read more »
It’s not helpful to dismiss someone’s view as motivated by fear, rather than truth. Fear for the cause of the truth is not a dishonorable motivation. I can say with justification that N. T. Wright holds certain views of Genesis because he is scared that science minded folk won’t become believers. I don’t count that as evidence against his view, or his program. In a time when naturalism reigns supreme, the question of whether a non-historical view of Genesis negatively impacts other Biblical narratives is not out of bounds. Bishop Wright believes that the Gospels are more historically reliable than… Read more »
It’s not helpful to dismiss someone’s view as motivated by fear, rather than truth. Fear for the cause of the truth is not a dishonorable motivation. You’re right that it’s usually not helpful, but because people react poorly to hearing it, not because it’s wrong. And the fear is not “dishonorable”, but it won’t lead you to truth. Genesis 1-3 cannot be understood as an attempt at the same kind of history that the Gospels clearly are This quote merely restates that the details of the Gospels correspond to actual events, but the details of Genesis 1-3 do not. Perhaps… Read more »
Hi John, if I can butt in. I’ve had it explained to me what evolutionary biologists would regard as evidence that disproves the theory, in whole or in part. Because the theory has become so much more developed over time, it is hard to find one failed test that would demolish the theory in one go. I’m choosing the ones that I understand clearly and that seem accessible to non-biologists. 1. If there was indisputable evidence that the earth is only a few thousand years old. There would not be enough time to account for so much biodiversity descended from… Read more »
jillybean wrote: Hi John, if I can butt in. I’ve had it explained to me what evolutionary biologists would regard as evidence that disproves the theory, in whole or in part. … I’m choosing the ones that I understand clearly and that seem accessible to non-biologists. I’m afraid jillybean’s list tells us more about her gullibility than about the falsifiability of evolution doctrine itself. jillybean wrote: 1. If there was indisputable evidence that the earth is only a few thousand years old. There would not be enough time to account for so much biodiversity descended from a common ancestor. Evolution… Read more »
It is impossible to discuss this with someone who apparently believes that every evolutionary biologist is lying through his teeth or is under the influence of demonic deception. And not just biologists, of course, but every scientist of every field pertaining to the age of the earth. What is the point of discussing where the evidence leads if you dismiss the methodology, the motives, and the data of every single scholar who disputes that the Genesis creation account as scientifically accurate? You say that I am gullible, and I’m sure that’s true. But my reading comprehension is as good as… Read more »
jillybean wrote: I do not actually mind being called gullible and sentimental. But I have engaged with you without using personal adjectives; One of the things that I’ve really appreciated about jillybean is that she doesn’t tend to take disagreement or correction too personally. That’s highly commendable. However, the subject of evolution seems to be more sensitive and dear to her for some reason. jillybean wrote: You say that I am gullible, and I’m sure that’s true. Does jillybean suppose that the false religion of Islam is a great conspiracy since so many believe it? Or does jillybean acknowledge that… Read more »
You have it back to front. The fact of boys and girls is an obvious one. The subtleties of evolution and the inability (of evolutionists) to agree on vast numbers of specifics, but only agree on the overarching truth of the grand theory, is not nearly so obvious. No creationists are arguing for boys to run in the Girls’ 100 m. Every last trans-affirming person is also an evolutionist. This doesn’t make one right and the other wrong, but I don’t listen to men tell me about the finer points of linear algebra when they think that 2 and 3… Read more »
This puzzles me a little. It seems to me that, if one accepts the most bleakly mechanistic view of the evolution of life on earth, one concludes that DNA is destiny and that the organism’s only function is to survive long enough to reproduce. A futile attempt to change genders seems more like defying this deterministic outlook than acquiescing in it. I understand your second point. But it leaves out the vast numbers of Christians (including all the Catholics if they follow the teaching of their church on this point) who both tend to accept evolutionary theory and reject transgenderism… Read more »
I don’t think that believing evolution makes one a believer in transgenderism. I do think that holding false beliefs, especially willingly, tends to lead one to greater error. But Jonathan was arguing against creationists for being scientifically ignorant. I don’t think they are, and it is notable that they are not getting the obviousness of boys and girls wrong. Evolution is very subtle, and has major lacunae, and isn’t understood by most people who believe it to be true. Even a 3 year old can tell the difference between a boy and a girl. The world is preaching boys are… Read more »
If a creationist (or a three-year-old) can tell the difference between boys and girls but a biologist can’t, your argument holds up. I would agree totally that any biologist who thinks that gender reassignment surgery produces gender change at the DNA level should be viewed with mistrust when he invites us to trust his science. But nobody actually believes that such change is possible. The question is not whether boys can become girls in that sense; the real question is how we view people who want gender reassignment surgery, how tightly or fluidly we view gender identity, whether we think… Read more »
Yes to paragraph one. Which is entirely the point. A girl who thinks she is a boy or a cat is entirely delusional. There is a problem when someone points this out and everyone goes on the attack in defense of the girl whose concept of reality is screwed. Spiritually this is because God deludes men who hate him. So while Doug may say that the concept of genus fluidity aligns with gender fluidity—and that may well be true—I predominantly think that the new sexuality has to do with a society rejecting God and thus God sending them delusions. You… Read more »
Quit digging Jill
Happy and blessed Easter, Eagle-Eyed!
That’s funny bethyada, because it’s quite similar to what Augustine had to say about Christians ignorant in science, only in the opposite direction.
I mean, how recently could you have used that claim in relation to people who believed the sun revolved around the Earth, or in a flat Earth, or that natural explanations for disease were false, because evil spirits or witches?
If you are going to dismiss one belief because those who practice it have other errors, then you see church history as an awful slow process of cleaning up its own house.
Nonsense, it is quite easy to understand that things look different from different reference points. People understood that the earth circling the sun would look like the sun circling the earth. The question was which and the answer was not at all clear. Not like the question of what a boy or girl is. Obviously an evolution believing physicist who designs satellites is more intelliigent than a creationist who did not finish highschool and shelves at the local supermarket. But the fact that the latter knows that a boy who thinks he is a girl is nonsense and the former… Read more »
As Augustine pointed out, for a preacher of God to be obviously wrong on other aspects of the world is certainly consequential if it leads others to reject his message. Again, I know multiple Christians who have left the faith due to such misguided preaching. Often, a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances, … and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a… Read more »
And Augustine was wrong.
the beliefs of the day were somewhat incorrect. So what the non-Christian “knew” was probably incorrect. Which shows that we need not agree with the claims of the day about things that are not certain. Some of his other comments are reasonable, but denying evolution, or the world being 4 billion years old is not reckless.
Denying a boy is a boy is reckless.
Who are these highly intelligent evolution-accepting scientists who think a boy can become a girl in any meaningful biological sense?
If you are going to dismiss one belief because those who practice it have other errors,
Not at all. We all have errors. But we are justified in not listening to grossly immoral people (even if they happen to be right in some areas; which every person is). Further, we are right to disregard those who can’t get the most obvious right.
I listen frequently to my pastor even though he believes in evolution, global warming, and a variety of other concepts that I dispute.
And the “fact of boys and girls” as an absolute is not an obvious one in most of the world. Nearly every culture has a 3rd gender of one sort or another. In Biblical culture they were called eunuchs. They are different in different cultures, but the conclusion that “boy with penis, girl without penis” are the only two options is only “an obvious one” within a very limited set of cultural assumptions. Not even mentioning people who are clearly intersex physically as well as mentally. And it certainly didn’t start with evolutionists. You’re off by thousands of years there.… Read more »
The intersex (physically) is irrelevant. I am not talking about ambiguous cases that even the researchers struggle with. My point was that clearly boys and clearly girls (the majority) are clearly so and even young children can tell them apart. Evolution is far more subtle than that. Taking a pastor to task for denying a questionable complex theory while giving the world a free pass for denying the blindingly obvious is where I mean you have it back to front.
It’s not questioning evolution that can make people grow a little weary of pastoral utterances on the subject. I have heard a few on youtube, and they are too often characterized by misstatements of basic points in conjunction with a whole lot of accusations of bad faith. Before venturing to say that only a fool or a villain can accept evolution, I would make sure I could more or less accurately summarize the basic elements of the theory. As I said earlier, I don’t think anyone believes in the possibility of gender change at the molecular level. It’s unfair to… Read more »
I know that they have high sounding (conflicting) explanations for their beliefs. More so than children. After all, it takes a certain amount of education to think that males can transition to females. But it is still nonsense and foolishness. So Christians cannot be calling out Christians for criticising an admitted difficult theory that evolutionary scientists disagree about in virtually every detail except for the fact that evolution did happen. And then pay attention to otherwise intelligent men holding preposterous positions. I know several people who, in various ways, aid men and women in their attempts at being a different… Read more »
I agree that body dysmorphia, even in so severe a form, should not be treated with surgery etc. Even if I had no other objection to using surgery to treat an emotional disorder, there is no evidence that most people who undergo it end up any happier. The evidence seems to go the other way. Which is what we would expect. I have often been surprised that there is a great deal of vitriol directed against people who have the surgery, but I have seldom read any criticism of the presumably emotionally healthy surgeons who wield the knife. They, more… Read more »
What is it about this case that makes it horrifying? I thought that a woman’s right to autonomy over her own body is sacrosanct, and that whatever she does with her body is between her and her doctor.
Who cares whether it’s a pair of eyeballs or a “clump of cells”?
If I believed the first, it would be harder to condemn the second.
But what I find especially horrifying is that the therapist is presumed to be the sane one in the relationship. She (in this case, it was a she, but not an MD) either lost her clinical objectivity to such an extent that she grew to share her patient’s delusion, or she deliberately failed in her duty to keep her patient safe. In this state–at least for now–a therapist may not legally hand a suicidal patient a loaded gun. Let alone help her pull the trigger.
I’m not saying you believe the first. My point is: When pagans actually do behave in a manner consistent with their “principles”, why is it horrifying in one instance but not the other?
Jilly, just so you know, this isn’t directed at you personally.
I know it isn’t!
I have been lucky enough in my lifetime to have known some very principled “pagan” people. The downside is that it has given me high expectations. I am always surprised when people behave badly. (I am not surprised when I behave badly.)
And this pollyanna jillybean is what endears us.
:)
Thank you! My Snowflake is going to New Orleans tomorrow and I am feeling nervous. In Israel she will have ex-IDF security with her. In New Orleans who knows?? It is most unfair, but I always picture it as a den of iniquity.
Our perceptions of danger often exceed the real risks.
She’s freaking out upstairs because she googled the murder rate. “Snowflake! You grew up in a gang-infested LA neighborhood! Woman up here!”
But I would appreciate it if you would say a prayer for her anyway!
Ay-y-y, getting the Snowflake to the airport is enough penance even for a Catholic on Good Friday. When I have a noon flight, I am at the gate by 9 AM. I leave it only to go ask strangers if they are sure I am in the right terminal and at the right gate, and if are they sure that my plane is going to the right place. Once I have done this half a dozen times, I relax…sort of. The Snowflake appears to think that no flight would ever take off without her. I hope the Israelis will do… Read more »
3 hours! I am annoyed I have to be at the airport 90 minutes before an international flight.
Private Benjamin?
A movie about a very over-indulged girl who is jilted before her wedding and runs across an army recruiter who promises her condos in foreign places if she enlists. It is very funny watching Goldie Hawn deal with basic training. But she perseveres and ends up having unsuspected depths of character and courage.
But now I must go back to obsessively following the Snowflake’s plane on Flight Tracker. Not that I’m over protective or anything like that. Of course not.
If it’s any comfort, my conservative and respectable parents have been several times in the last few years and they adore New Orleans.
Sympathy can be variable. For example the fa’afafine are to be pitied somewhat and the culture that created them rebuked. And it is right to be compassionate to those who struggle, and resist, and are horrified by their sin. Why would anyone hate on a guy that struggles with gay feelings but who knows the feelings are wrong and prays against them. This is (somewhat) similar to alcoholics giving up drink and men staying away from porn. But there is a militancy that Christians seem afraid to confront. Even if there is a background issue that pushed someone to a… Read more »
You’re almost perfectly engaging in exactly what N. T. Wright called out in his short video on Genesis. Trying to argue one question by making a completely unwarranted connection to an unrelated question so that you can then tie it to the culture wars. It is simply never a path to truth.
We generally agree on the Christian response to gender dysmorphia. But for you to keep pushing the idea that you can use that as a culture war bludgeon to attack evolution is ridiculous.
You’re the one who claimed people were leaving the church because pastors deny evolution. Then they join a culture that tells them sodomy is moral, and sex outside commitment is moral, and kids don’t need a dad and a mum, and that boys can be girls. I am sorry, but the issue here is what people are willing to believe. If one has a problem with his pastor’s denial of evolution (something far from obvious), but not a problem with other facts that are far more than obviously incorrect, then his crisis of the faith was not a crisis of… Read more »
I’m leaving aside for now the people who have other mental issues. But are you claiming that someone who isn’t intersex physically can’t be intersex mentally? Not even saying that is what is happening, but even a well-educated child could understand that it could possibly happen, right? Again, this isn’t something new or connected to evolution, but something that has been recognized in most cultures across millennia. Again, not saying that makes it right. But this claim, “even a child knows” is simply not true in the reality of the world, but simply a function of the cultural norms the… Read more »
My claim is that the idea that actual boys are girls is so Emperors New Clothes that the justification for that is usually a sophisticated one, one that intellectuals like to use. But still nonsense. Can a boy have girl feelings? Why not. There are all manner problems in our fallen world. Though the current trend being so big reflects copycat behaviour for many rather than severe gender feelings. But it is still a wrong feeling, much as wanting to steal, or get angry (sinfully), or be attracted to the same sex is a wrong feeling. What we are seeing… Read more »
I believe in gender differences that affect how we think, how we process information, make decisions, and so on. But I think that these differences are so much on a continuum that I don’t think “woman’s in a man’s body” has much meaning.
Society at large no longer imposes rigid gender roles on people. A man who thinks his tastes, interests, and mental processes tend toward the feminine doesn’t have all that many people telling him he can’t study fashion design. I sometimes wonder why this greater tolerance does not seem to have reduced gender dysphoria.
Happy Easter, Jonathan.
Happy Easter Jill!
Jonathan wrote: I know hundreds of Christians who understand the basic science of natural selection and genetics and Earth history while remaining deeply obedient Christians. I also know hundreds of Christians who don’t pretend that natural selection and genetics are at the focus of what is wrong with evolutionism. Theistic evolutionists don’t help their case (let alone the cause of evangelism) when they keep suggesting that creationists are hung up on Mendelian genetics. All it really shows is that evolutionists are still muddying the lines of the debate. Jonathan wrote: Unfortunately, I also know former Christians who thought they had… Read more »
I have no trouble at all accepting the miraculous. When I am told that our Lord turned ordinary water into wine, I believe that. But if I were told I must believe in a kind of miracle science that accounts for water turning into wine–so that it is not a question of my believing that natural laws were suspended, but of my believing that there is a special kind of chemistry with its own laws that are truer than the laws discovered by the vast majority of chemists–then it becomes difficult. The theory of evolution may one day be discarded.… Read more »
I also know hundreds of Christians who don’t pretend that natural selection and genetics are at the focus of what is wrong with evolutionism. Theistic evolutionists don’t help their case (let alone the cause of evangelism) when they keep suggesting that creationists are hung up on Mendelian genetics. All it really shows is that evolutionists are still muddying the lines of the debate…. Again, obvious biological facts are not the problem. Such facts would be the sort that are actually reproducible, rather than the evolutionary stories about the distant past which aren’t reproducible. If any seeker thinks that they have… Read more »
I don’t think that genetics has anywhere near shown what you imply in this comment. The proof across genus and family lines is very speculative, and there is significant disagreement between supposed evolutionary trees from genetic and fossil claims.
So where do you believe the line is, and what is this line? Please, seriously, tell me when you think this “speculative” stuff starts. How is the process by which common ancestry evaluated within a species any different than that within a genus, within a family, and so on?
Frequently what they are actually looking at is different. For example in ancestry they may look at actual conserved domains. So the DNA may be the same between father and daughter, even though historically the gene has mutated (or has natural variants). These may be in areas that are non coding. And we know that humans are the same kind. Across different kinds of animals the assumption (which is an assumption, not evidenced by the actual DNA) is common ancestry. DNA from various genes are compared with the assumption that the original gene in the ancestral organism was the same… Read more »
Frequently what they are actually looking at is different. For example in ancestry they may look at actual conserved domains. So the DNA may be the same between father and daughter, even though historically the gene has mutated (or has natural variants). These may be in areas that are non coding. Not sure completely what you’re getting at. Like you say, it does vary from test to test, and not as in “x relationships are evaluated this way whereas y relationships are evaluated that way”. Sometimes what they are looking at is different, other times what they are looking at… Read more »
Whining and ad hominem aside, Jonathan wrote: What you apparently don’t know is that there’s no line at all – the exact same genetic principles show the common ancestry of two closely related species, two more distant related species, two different genre, different families, etc. Contrast that statement with Jonathan’s claim that: That’s why NO ONE in this discussion is saying, “It would be impossible for God to have specially created all creatures distinctly in the beginning.” Science cannot tell you that. All science can do is look at the evidence and tell you what we can know about the… Read more »
Whining and ad hominem aside :dead: Does Jonathan merely mean hypothetically possible, but historically impossible? Yes, thought that was quite obviously what I said. No one denies that God could have created such a world, but the evidence shows rather clearly that He didn’t. It seems that Jonathan is the one still struggling with his own philosophy on the limits of science. The claimed contradiction isn’t there, and for you to think there was one shows that you not only read me wrong, but that you think there might really be hard boundary lines across the board that were set… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: No one denies that God could have created such a world, but the evidence shows rather clearly that He didn’t. Yet Jonathan also declared: All science can do is look at the evidence and tell you what we can know about the natural world, not how God did it. So how can Jonathan claim to know, by looking only at the physical world, how God did it? He can’t have it both ways. Jonathan seems to be making some rather bold claims about how God did, or didn’t do it. Again, if Jonathan were around in the garden… Read more »
So how can Jonathan claim to know, by looking only at the physical world, how God did it? He can’t have it both ways. Jonathan seems to be making some rather bold claims about how God did, or didn’t do it. Yet again, you continue to refuse to recognize a distinction between what God did and how God did it. Those are two different things. We can look at evidence for what God did. We do not know how God did it. The way you almost constantly reframe my arguments in inappropriate ways to try to create false dilemmas is… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: Yet again, you continue to refuse to recognize a distinction between what God did and how God did it. Those are two different things. We can look at evidence for what God did. We do not know how God did it. Jonathan appears to be making a distinction without a difference. If he claims that God used eons of death and suffering to produce all the animals from a common ancestor, he is not simply claiming that God created, he is asserting how God did it. Not sure why he can’t acknowledge that. Jonathan wrote: And yes, God… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: Since I don’t believe that God would so elaborately deceive us for no discernible purpose, I dismiss that possibility. If God DID do so, then I’m sure that we’ll have a laugh about it when we meet, but I’m not the least concerned about eternal consequences. As with jillybean, Jonathan is choosing in which direction he is willing to be wrong. If God really did create the world in just a week, with the appearance of age, and did so as a pattern for man’s own sabbath rest, then Jonathan thinks this would make God a deceiver, in… Read more »
“Since I don’t believe that God would so elaborately deceive us for no discernible purpose, I dismiss that possibility.”
Why do you insist that either all life evolved from a common ancestor or God is intentionaly deceiving us? You almost sound like you’re getting talking points from Richard Dawkins.
Because the fossil record quite clearly shows a long pattern of descent. Because homologous structures in current animals show obvious signs of common ancestry. Because the DNA record shows that same pattern of descent and common ancestry. Because there is literally no explanation whatsoever for God doing such unless he is trying to trick someone into thinking those things really happened. Let’s say that God suddenly created Christopher Casey as a 19-year-old adult in the year 2016. We could accept that that happened. But let’s say that God also created a school record for Christopher Casey showing that he attended… Read more »
“Because there is literally no explanation whatsoever for God doing such unless he is trying to trick someone into thinking those things really happened.” Because there is no possibility that our perception is flawed in some way? “But let’s say that God also created a school record for Christopher Casey showing that he attended certain schools in 2003-2015, created an arrest record for him showing that he was arrested but not charged in 2014, created a dental record showing he got his wisdom teeth removed in 2015 and took out his wisdom teeth to match it, created medical records showing… Read more »
Of course the possibility is there – but that possibility extends to the perception of Scripture AND the perception of creation. On one hand, we have a rather understandable interpretation of Scripture in Genesis 1-3 that fits the text as well as fitting what we know of creation. On the other hand, we have an inexplicable and pervasive issue in our interpretation of creation that can only be explained by our flawed perception if it is to match with a particular favored interpretation of Scripture. I’m never going to say I can “prove” anything or that I “know” anything perfectly… Read more »
“Again, I haven’t seen you explain why if you apply this logic to the fossil record and DNA and homologous structures of modern organisms, you can’t apply it equally to a geocentric solar system and a flat Earth.” One could do that, but my goal is not to get anyone to deny what their senses tell them about reality. If the plain reading of scripture clashes with our peception of reality than either our reading or our peception is off. If you say that if our peception is wrong than God is deliberately deceiving us what can you say to… Read more »
Because I don’t see any deception in Scripture. Genesis 1-3 is quite obviously composed of two different stories, and they are clearly allegory meant to teach us about our relationship with God. No one thinks that snakes are the wisest of creatures, that they talk, or that now as a curse they eat dust. The way that Genesis 2-3 is framed, it quite strongly recalls the story of Israel’s exile, showing how that cycle of gift and disobedience and loss has been repeated since the beginning of humanity’s relationship with God. Now, I can see how people could easily take… Read more »
11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thess 2:11-12)…gulp!
Dan
So do you agree with the other commentor below in applying that thought to a geocentric solar system? Why or why not?
Of course, you don’t need to, because the actual context is regarding those who follow the anti-Christ and God’s actions in the End of Days, and has absolutely nothing to do with what we see in God’s creation. The perils of proof-texting.
Jonathan wrote: No, you’re quite wrong on multiple levels. First off, “deny the biological fact of death” is a meaningless statement. I’m pretty sure everyone who believes in the resurrection accepts the biological fact of death, because if there wasn’t a biological fact of death the resurrection would be meaningless. The Resurrection is what it is BECAUSE death is omnipresent in this world. Otherwise it wouldn’t have the meaning that it does. Not one for consistency, Jonathan is willing to permit miracles that plainly contradict the biological facts about the permanence of biological death, but he is not willing to… Read more »
Not one for consistency, Jonathan is willing to permit miracles that plainly contradict the biological facts about the permanence of biological death, but he is not willing to permit the miracle of special, direct creation of original kinds, because that would, you know, contradict biological facts about offspring only coming from biological parents. Jonathan’s entire point against the doctrine of creation (being a stumbling block to the science-minded seeker) turns out to be special pleading about which miracles Jonathan has already chosen should be acceptable, on a biological basis, and which are unacceptable. Hard to imagine a finer example of… Read more »
I don’t think the doctrine of special creation is a stumbling block for the science-minded. The stumbling block is the scientific evidence we are asked to believe in order to prove that this miraculous event occurred exactly as Genesis states 6000 years ago and that it explains the physical world as we see it today. The stumbling block is that I have to regard almost every modern scientist as a knave or a fool because some religious teachers have framed the issue as Believe all of it or none of it. I could almost handle “It was a miracle that… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: And your claim that science can only give you information on reproducible things is more creationist mumbo jumbo. Are you claiming that scientific investigations of murder scenes are useless because no one can reproduce the murder? Of course not. Do you believe that scientific study of, say, the Black Death of the 17th century is fruitless because no one can produce that event? Of course not. Science is constantly informing us on past events which we have events for, using principles gained from understanding other events. That’s how all knowledge is built. You make experiments and observations under… Read more »
Unfortunately, he commits a very classic mistake. He doesn’t distinguish observation from extrapolation. He assumes that the authority of science applies equally to both, when it, manifestly, does not. I guess you can call it a “very classic mistake” if by that you mean, “a classic distinction that many centuries ago was shown to be logically false. Even on the most basic level, everything you observe is meaningless without extrapolation. All your brain knows is that some light wavelengths with different amount of a few particular colors have hit the back of your eyes, and that the air outside your… Read more »
Criminologists do tell us, however, that eyewitness testimony is much less credible than forensic evidence.
http://forensicoutreach.com/library/%E2%80%A8do-the-eyes-really-have-it-why-eyewitness-testimony-is-more-fallible-than-you-think/
Jonathan wrote: Science is constantly informing us on past events which we have evidence for (obvious typo corrected), using principles gained from understanding other events. That’s how all knowledge is built. This is false. All knowledge is not built using the scientific method. Science is a particularly limited means of knowledge, which is why it is so persuasive in the situations when it can be applied. Most of our knowledge is by way of faith in testimony, not by way of actual scientific experimentation. If Jonathan believes that George Washington crossed the Delaware, he does not have that knowledge because… Read more »
And it was exactly pre Kantian thought that our Westminster Brothers swallowed before they regurgitated the idea that Mankind’s ruminations on the propositions presented in scripture can offer a sufficient platform of knowledge for salvation.
what else could offer such a platform? As long as we have not the minds of angels, can we do otherwise?
Because we are not minds in vats, an anesthetic experience of God through the creation in which He has situated us provides an entirely sufficient basis for contact with Him.
Anesthetic? I am not familiar with that word in this context. Do you mean “not physical”, hence privileging reason over sense-experience? That doesn’t seem to fit your meaning. Paraphrase, please?
Hah! Beautiful auto-spell correct!
Meant aesthetic.
We experience and can and do and should pursue knowledge of God through means other than mental propositions.
Forms are not just exterior packaging for content.
They are content.
Say, perhaps, a form of content :-). Because a form and its content are distinct things, and may inform each other in a variety of ways. They are both properly subject to interpretation, but in different ways.
That makes a lot more sense!
Are you meaning to exclude mental propositions, or merely to deny them exclusive claims to truth? If the “other means” of knowledge seem to contradict mental propositions, which would you be more inclined to reject?
What God says in his works of art or architecture tend to be more accessible to a wider audience then what he has said in the limited number of propositions he has sporadically enumerated. Even babies in the womb have a whole lot of theology presented to them.
They are also more ambiguous. Every pagan who has every seen the sky knows that its ruler demands our worship. To determine that the Sky God also came to die for our transgressions requires Special Revelation.
I consider nature is informative, but Scripture is necessary. Seeing mountains cannot save us, but a blind man who hears the gospel and repents will be just fine. Would you accept that hierarchy?
Oh but now you’ve gone and jumped in bed with Kant again!
What content God communicates is never ambiguous, unless our hearts are dark.
Then, Scripture will be no more help than a heartbeat.
And Scripture proper has always been preceeded by nature, and cannot be interpreted without it.
So you would argue that the Bible is unnecessary? Or is it your view that the gospel is sufficiently apparent within the bloody scope of fallen nature? You are free to reject my proposed hierarchy, but I would like to know your alternative.
Propositions are not only unnecessary but also ineffective, given the bloody scope of fallen nature, are they not?
Name just one proposition you find in the Bible that is required to understand for the obtaining of salvation!
that Jesus died for my sins?
And awareness plus acceptance of this proposition brought salvation to Abel, Noah, Melchisidec, Abraham, Jethro etc?
I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Yes, knowledge of grace in itself is insufficient. Nevertheless, God makes things known in his word and generally makes knowing them a pre-condition for salvation. “How shall they believe in whom they have not heard?” Do you disagree with that?
I want you to tell me that Abel in fact did not need to be aware of that proposition you had said was indispensable for him to be aware of if he were to be saved.
Hearing must occur, yes.
It is the metaphor for faith.
No human activity, strictly speaking, is necessary for salvation. God saves at his own good pleasure and by his own free will. Nevertheless, God has ordained that the ordinary means by which one comes to faith will be hearing and believing the message of the gospel. I see no reason to imagine that Abel was unfamiliar with this doctrine – the man wasn’t offering blood sacrifices for no reason, after all, and God’s direct revelation of that promise was easily within living memory.
Theoretically, then, you hold that all humans potentially have sufficient memories or histories recording the needed “direct” revelation?
And you are unaware of how Abel could use his noodle plus observations upon the state of God’s created order to “hear” and see that to be saved by the God he knows requires a condition of loyalty and trust that all the provisions He gives are gifts worthy of total submission?
I don’t think everyone’s mom and dad got direct verbal revelation from God, if that is what you are asking. Abel is a special case, for many many reasons. If a man dies without ever hearing of the gospel, my expectation is that he will be damned. Hence the need for missionaries. I am not “unaware” of this idea you seem hold: that Abel could reason his way into salvation by looking at and experiencing the world. I have heard of it before, and I think it false. It is not hard to see how nature teaches us about sin.… Read more »
Ok, you say Abel was a special case.
Noah too?
And Melchisidek, and Abraham and Jethro?
Can you please explain what you are trying to prove by these examples? Are these people supposed to represent saints who did not have the benefit of special revelation, or what? You proposed champions fall into two categories: those of whom we are almost entirely ignorant, and those to whom God talked directly. Neither of those proves what I suppose to be your case.
Your answer has dodged your own previous requirement that the proposition “Jesus died to save” must be understood or accepted.
Why don’t you be consistent and simply state that while the text is not explicit, you believe it must have been that that was somehow exactly what was propositionally communicated by special revelation to all those old testament figures?
That’s the only way they can be saved according to your paradigm: by mentally agreeing with some abstract proposition!
That isn’t my paradigm, and I have said as much up thread. Don’t put words in my mouth.
Is it conceivable for someone to be saved without assenting to some set of propositions? I’d like you to explain how that works, if you can. Granted, God is free to do as he pleases. But I cannot imagine what it would look like for a rational human soul to be forgiven his sins without obtaining something that pretty closely resembles the knowledge I get from reading Scripture.
Let’s cut to the chase … Once you have whatever info you think is required, then what do you think happens to get a “rational human soul” saved? I gather you think the devil and his crew have a pretty good bead on that info and aren’t confused as to its meaning. So you probably don’t think acquisition of correct info is sufficient, since those bad angels aren’t saved with it. So what happens to the humanoids once they’ve been enlightened as to the propositional content you hold so indispensable as groundwork? Does the Spirit then use the info as… Read more »
Men are ordinarily saved by ordinary means. So when one hears the message of the gospel (information), the Spirit uses that information to work conviction in the heart of the about-to-be believer, whence spring repentance and faith as a response. I don’t see how anyone can repent of sin without knowing what sin is. And that information is propositional.
the Spirit uses propositions to work conviction in the heart — wait:
How did conviction get introduced into the picture?
By the Spirit, like I said…
Ok then — you say the Spirit adds a new element into the picture = conviction!
Would you define conviction as a disposition?
Would you go so far as to say it is an orientation towards God that is one of love?
Yeah, sure. The information is used by the spirit to produce a change of heart, resulting in repentance and faith. Where’s the problem in that?
The problem with that is that you’ve demanded that a change of heart be preceded by by mental acuity and intellectual acceptance of an argument.
Can’t change the heart without logic first being exercised, right?
You’re making faith wait for works by brain.
Not an argument, a fact: that one is a sinner.
I’m doing my best to answer your questions. I’d appreciate it if you had a go at mine.
Is it possible to repent of my sins and put my faith in Christ without knowing certain propositions that are contained in Scripture? If it is possible, how are those actions (repentance and faith) meaningful?
Repent of sins without knowing certain (I presume you’d say fundamental) propositions?! — Yes it is not only entirely possible, but in almost all cases (well I’d strike that almost and just go with always) there is hardly any propositional knowing actually really going on anyway. Who do you know that really understands those propositions? These are the deep things of God, and knowing much of what they mean is beyond the ability of even the subtlest minds. Besides, it isn’t the understanding of propositions + accepting them that gets one saved. Repenting of sins — now that’s a different… Read more »
“In all cases there is hardly any propositional knowledge going on”…
so is Paul mistaken when he says that the Law brings about conviction of sins? Do you have any evidence for this point of view?
What can it mean to repent of sin when you don’t know what sin is? How can I put my faith in Christ without knowing who he is? That doesn’t make sense.
Your explanation refers to something (pre-natal repentance) that has never happened, so far as can be known by men. That’s not very convincing.
Paul is not mistaken. the Law brought conviction of sin to Abel, for example — before the Israelite “law” was even written. So where was the Law in Abel’s day? It was and is throughout all creation. Of course, the Law then also required the Spirit to bring a happy outcome. And this is universally the case, whether in the womb or in the old man. What can it mean to repent of sin when you don’t know what sin is? — You’ve already precluded in your own head that “knowing what sin is” = a mental cognitive capability for… Read more »
The Law in Abel’s day had been directly delivered to Adam and Eve. I don’t know why it is so difficult for you to concede that. At the time, with the world newly cursed by sin from their lawbreaking, I daresay it was sufficiently obvious. I have concluded “in my own head” – your head being presently in use, and unavailable – that knowing means “knowing”. Yes, guilty as charged. It is not exclusively a mental activity, but neither can it be exclusive of our minds. I have no earthly idea what children or disabled people know, or do not… Read more »
What Law in Abel’s day had been delivered directly to Adam?!!
Go forth, multiply & subdue?! >> that’s what you call a tidy summary of God’s law?!
No, more like “Don’t eat from the tree or you shall surely die”.
Hmm — a bit problematic wouldn’t you say?
Abel is supposed to be convicted by a Law he had no opportunity to obey or disobey?
No, remarkably, I wouldn’t. That’s why I used it as an example.
Adam’s transgression of that primal law is the basis of the original sin with which Abel, like the rest of us, was cursed. The effects of the fall were all around him. This was readily available information.
Okay — therefore that Law that Paul says was given is on display and can be known propositionally by observation of its effects when disobeyed?
Noah, Melchisidek, Abraham all had access via observation to this form of special revelation, even before they heard or saw a word from God?
Absolutely – the world abounds in evidence for sin. What is harder to derive from mere observation is the possibility of salvation. That is why the world is generally pagan, and why we are commanded to tell people of our faith, not wait for them to figure it out for themselves.
The question is, is this abounding evidence for sin an example of propositions of special revelation? You said Paul’s statement that the Law convicts = a reference to the historic special revelation placement of propositions given way back even to Adam. You said Abel observed those propositions in the effects in the world. Therefore the effects in the world are a record of special revelation, you say. Now you appear to be trying to say that even those specific special revelations are not going to be effective agents for the Spirit to bring salvation, because they do not encompass the… Read more »
You asked about which Law Abel would have been familiar with. The special revelation needed for grace would be God’s subsequent promise of a redeemer, the Seed of the Woman. My contention remains the same: faith must have a content, and the way we understand content is in terms of propositions.
So your position demands that, because Abel was saved, then Adam &/or Eve MUST HAVE communicated this verbal special revelation promise (unavailable to discover in the natural world) to Abel (stipulating that he could have otherwise been saved in an unordinary means)?
Faith is definitely full of content.
The best content there is.
Faith is the heart & soul of what we need to hope for: love & loyalty to God.
“The way we understand content is in terms of propositions?” — yep.
I’m just saying we don’t need to understand it to have it.
That is my assumption. I don’t say it “needed” to happen that way, but that seems the simplest account to me. And I actually agree, to a point, that we don’t need to understand the content of faith perfectly. I would say that one needs to have some clue, so as to distinguish faith from a meaningless gesture, but I don’t think I can stipulate the precise degree required. Like a parachute, perhaps. To say that I “trust” my parachute implies that I know certain things: jumping out of a plane is dangerous, my chute is meant to stop me,… Read more »
Thanks for the engagement.
I benefited from the exercise.
I respect your opinions.
I’m glad you’re thinking about such things.
No one can figure it out for themselves, of that we agree.
I’m not sure I agree that the world is generally pagan.
Maybe.
You would say that it is mostly Christian? I find that surprising. Or is there a third option?
Remember the guy crying “I’m all alone in believing you, Lord!”
God: “I’ve got so many you have no idea about”
To take a stand proclaiming you know the state of most of the world’s hearts is, however, in logical keeping with someone who has first required them to do some thinking then mental accepting of those propositions before you’ll identify them as saved.
No, it actually just requires that I read the Bible: many are called, but few are chosen. God’s people are always in the minority wherever they find themselves.
I won’t fight you on that one.
There is a school of thought, however, that finds that billions and billions of believers are still the chosen few.
I would not call the evidence from nature “special revelation”. That’s general revelation.
And you’ve said that not just any special revelation comprises the requisite informational content sufficient to be usable by the Spirit to enable & bring salvation.
Not only will general revelation do.
Even the parts of special revelation that we call the Law will not do.
You’ve said it has to be parts about a promised salvation.
Now that’s something the Spirit can use!
The rest, probably just helpful context, right?
But to get right down to it, a few cryptic words about a coming seed crushing a snake’s head — that’s all we need!
I deny that they were so cryptic. I understand them, and Adam was far smarter than me. And he talked with God directly! What makes you think he didn’t know what it meant?
I see you now allow exceptions to God’s ways!
Of course, you must be at an impasse to find anything anywhere in Scripture for this idea that God makes exceptions to anything He demands!
Your logic so far allows God to let reprobates into heaven as is — after all, He’s God and He can do whatever He likes, right?!
You’re not even trying. If you have any response to what I actually said, feel free to post it.
Your have no earthly idea what children know?!
For all you know, a 2 day old zygote does have the requisite mental capacity to ascertain & assent to those abstract propositions you demand?
I have no idea at what pace embryonic children develop intellectual capacities, or anything that could be described as will. Nor do you.
Therefore, they may be capable of knowing and accepting those propositions?
And, in fact, if God will be saving them by what you call “ordinary means”, this must be the case?!
Your hyperbolic punctuation does not lend your argument any additional urgency, in case you were wondering.
“Ordinary” is not the word I would use to describe the salvation of a fetus.
Is that something you think happens very frequently?
Almost universally.
So will you take to the stand and agree you’re unsure if a 1 day old zygote is capable of ruminating on those propositions?
Are you so sure that he can’t? Who appointed you pre-natal expert to the nations, anyway? I repeat my question: do you regard the repentance and faith of a zygote as normal or exceptional?
I like where you’re going with this! You’re saying one doesn’t actually need a brain to consider abstract propositions! I myself do not regard the repentance and faith of zygotes as in any way exceptional. I consider it not only the norm, but the correct expectation of every set of believing parents with regard to these kiddos. We believe these immediately conceived ones have been given faith. You’ve now said that even you can imagine that those first cells might be capable of having all the equipment needed to enable them to encounter, and, with the work of the Spirit,… Read more »
Sorry, but I think that’s nuts. I gave you an inch and you’re trying to take a mile. As if something being miraculously possible – and not even certain, then, merely within God’s possible range of action- were enough to demonstrate that it is probable. You haven’t got any theological argument, or even a coherent theory of how this might work. You have got one possible case, John the Baptist, who is a glaring exception to almost every natural rule, and you have inexplicably decided to make him the model of conversion. It’s like making an argument about the surface… Read more »
Abel did not reason his way to salvation.
There you go accepting Cartesian categories again.
What do they teach these boys in Sunday school nowadays?
Cain thought as straight as Abel.
But he chose to flaunt self-sufficency.
But you and Cain pretend to be nonplussed at God’s reaction, so inscrutable you find nature as He presents it.
I have asked you several straightforward questions, and it begins to seem that you are playing games. Abel is nearly the worst possible example for the thesis that we don’t need direct revelation to be saved – his mom talked with God, and received the promise of the gospel directly. It’s hard to get much more special than the revelation he had.
Answer me this, or let’s have done: what, in your opinion, is the relationship of the sixty-six books of the Bible, to the rest of creation?
I’m sorry to se see wear out so quickly.
I would go with words of comparison like further, examples, more abstract and analytical than, when differentiating Bible from other created things.
Those books are a gift from God that He expects us to use for teaching us helpful things about how to live.
They provide further models of how to live and how not to live, and also very encouraging info on some if the specific things we can expect.
If Scripture is merely an extension of what we see lying around in creation, would you say that it is unnecessary for salvation?
Scripture, by itself, just “lying around”, is totally unnecessary for salvation.
And so is any and all of the rest of any created things.
That is not to say it is irrelevant to salvation, however.
A surgeon (the Spirit of God) can pick up any old scalpel he has handy and work wonders.
If he’s clever enough (and He is) he can use his bare hands.
And He has.
I would say that the word of God is pretty effective “just lying around”. That is, a man can pick it up and read it and come to faith. I don’t see that happening with cranberries, mountains, or maple trees.
“a man can pick it up and read it and come to faith” — well, only if you include that tiny little detail about that other little thing — you know, the Holy Spirit of Almighty God walking into your picture and doing open heart surgery.
Note, He doesn’t do open brain surgery.
Not at first.
The thinking comes later, as a result of getting a new heart / being born again.
Not according to Paul. “How shall they believe in whom they have not heard.” Hearing, hence knowledge, precedes faith. That knowledge won’t do anything without divine action. But your soteriology is simply unbiblical on this point.
I agree — hearing & knowing precedes faith.
Hearing, you agree, doesn’t involve physical ears, does it!
Same with knowing, you know — it’s not a physical cranial brain thing!
By analogy I am willing to include “reading” within the definition of hearing, yes, particularly as Paul likely didn’t distinguish between the two – letters in his day were commonly consumed audibly, and letter-writing was considered a species of oratory. I do not know what alternative to “knowledge” you have in mind, and would like you to clarify.
To know God or other folks is a way to describe disposition and orientation.
There’s a world of difference between hearing Him or, as you propose, hearing about Him.
To have know God, to hear Him, to see Him, means to have faith, to love Him.
Your position requires some unspecified threshold of intellectual development plus physical aptitudes including auditory or visual abilities.
It is therefore quasi-gnostic in nature, dependent upon some human attainment, before which others (infants, for example, but also older folks with cognitive disabilities) should be excluded unless an exception is somehow granted.
Are you trying to posit a person incapable of thinking who nonetheless possesses will? Are you talking about someone legally braindead, or what? Because infants think. Demented, crazy people think, too, although not with great clarity. So I don’t know whom you are trying to protect by denying the role of intellection. But I am happy for God to make exceptions for such people, presumably by direct revelation.
If propositions are unnecessary and ineffective, why did God give so many?
They are ever so useful – “useful”: isn’t that the word the Bible itself uses to describe its own character? Useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness?
So something can be useful and ineffective at the same time?
John — I’ve found hammers extremely useful for pounding nails.
Darn if they aren’t ineffective refrigerators, though.
I think that nature alone leads to some very unpleasant theology. Sunsets and starry nights are all very well, but earthquakes, volcanoes, and the dining habits of vultures might produce some horrifying beliefs about God.
How do you determine unequivocally what God says in His works of art or architecture?
Your question reveals a quest for certainty, does it not?
This question reveals that the questioner has at least temporarily accepted a Kantian poison that you will stand as at least one of the arbiters of truth.
But to be fair, your question must then be asked of any interpretation you apply to Scripture, does it not?
So are you a follower of Peter Gabriel? or Soren Kirkegaard? or Erwin Schrodinger? John 8:31-32: So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 1 John 5:13: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. We should all be on a quest for certainty. If that makes us *sort of* agree with Kant, in part, and if… Read more »
You’ll have to dumb down that question for me a bit, sorry.
It seems your quest for certainty allows for the possibility that we don’t already know the truth.
I’m saying we can’t not know.
If you want to see a great analysis of how we got HERE while at the same time witnessing the proof of Romans 1, you should watch this https://youtu.be/WqFo32lwY_g
I found myself saying to myself “and now if only you draw the next conclusion … Oh Romans 1” frequently. Its very relevant, I think to this post
The idea that natural selection is incompatible with teleology is hotly contested, to say the least. Natural selection can only take place within a world that is already structured. It is not random.
Au contraire. Randomness (in genetic and subsequent structural changes) is the heart of the theory of natural selection. Thus Einstein’s comment about God playing dice with the universe.
I agree. Theistic evolutionists are trying to bridge an unbridgeable gap, one which denies the core of Darwinianism (random genetic mutation, acted upon by natural selection), and explains away the straightforward meaning of Genesis.
If one is a Christian, one cannot reconcile a God who says death is the penalty for sin, yet uses it to the infinite power to make the biological world, including us.
Psuedo-randomness possibly, but not true randomness. All Darwinian mechanisms depend on an entirely structured and logical world.
Darwinian randomness is similar to the randomness of a die roll. It’s only random because the complexity is too large for us to understanding or predict, but it isn’t truly random. If you could perfectly simulate all the forces on the roll of a die, then you could perfectly predict what number it would fall on. Genetic mutations work the same way.
Darwinian randomness = Hocus Pocus. Evolutionary theory depends on chance alone. The structure of physical “laws” is the result of chance in this universe, one of many in the multi-verse, according to this theory. Evolutionists are much better than Christians at tolerating no other God.
The whole multiverse stuff has absolutely nothing to do with Darwinian evolution.
The randomness in Darwinian theory has to do with genetic copying errors, commonly referred to as mutations. They are called random because we can’t predict them, not because they are truly stochastic by nature.
They are related. Extrapolating the purely mechanistic means of evolution to a cosmology means ultimate randomness in the physical world as well. You can’t ascribe chance to biology and then stop at the physical laws (as Einstein did) and say this realm is solid, immovable and therefore “god.” Be consistent.
We want the randomness to a point. But when it tells us we mean nothing, our pride balks at that.
They are both extrapolations of naturalism/materialism, but the multiverse is not an extrapolation of darwinian evolution. They are totally different theories with totally different mechanisms of action.
Your statement “It’s only random because the complexity is too large for us to understanding or predict, but it isn’t truly random” doesn’t fit the theories of natural selection or evolution. Every moment is a fork in the road, like whether I step on an ant or miss him by a fraction and change the future of millions of ants, ant predators and ant prey down the road. You have variability introduced every millisecond which makes the list of possible outcomes infinite. Thus, random.
Those aren’t random events, though. Under a naturalistic worldview, they are deterministic.
Determined by what or whom?
By the laws of physics.
But what about the “choices” made by animals and humans?
A naturalist would see choices as, in the end, nothing more than the result of deterministic chemical reactions in the brain.
Well, that’s depressing.
I agree completely.
So, my typing this response was a pre-determined result of the laws of physics from the beginning of the universe?
From the beginning of the universe? Possibly not because of the inherent randomness found in the quantum mechanics in the extremely early universe, but definitely determined since shortly after the start.
So, to be clear, you are saying that in natural selection, there is no true variability nor randomness, just a pre-determined outcome based on the laws of physics? Do you ascribe to this theory?
That sounds like the Matrix, which brings us full-circle to Doug’s post as both of the Wachowskis now want us to call them sisters.
I often wonder about animals and choice. People who know much more about it than I do tell me that it looks as if my cats are making choices, but they’re not. What looks like choice is pure instinct. Then why do they have second thoughts about scratching the furniture when I walk into the room?
But a consistent worldview.
I don’t think that is actually true. But if every biologist in the world was an atheist (which is untrue), you would still have to show that their atheism invalidated their science. You would need to show that their atheism led them to cherry pick the evidence, to misstate their findings, and to engage in mass conscious deception. Whether Einstein’s relativity theory is valid doesn’t depend on his personal religious beliefs, his being pretty much a socialist, and his not being very nice to his wife.
Huh? Never said every biologist was an atheist, just almost all of the ones who taught me. The debate point is randomness and chance which are ENCASED in evolutionary theory and natural selection as they are taught currently by the majority, not as some would like them to be taught or changed. We’re not debating the theory itself. That’s a whole other topic.
I am always nervous about the role of world view in establishing truth. I realize that our perceptions and thoughts are filtered through our world view, and that one of the purposes of the scientific method is to test for this. But I think a major creationist argument has been either that their world view has blinded most biologists to truth, or that acceptance of the theory of evolution should not depend on whether there is evidence but rather on whether it is bad for society in general. I think that in general this is a risky argument because, once… Read more »
Again, I’m not talking about worldview. I’m saying that evolutionary theory and natural selection, as they are currently taught in the universities, both have at their core the idea of events that are random and by chance, both genetic mutations and the natural forces that work on biological entities.
It’s all rather silly anyway as natural selection does a lousy job of explaining the fossil record.
Perhaps we are not meaning the same thing by “random”. And what I mean by it might not be what a biologist means by it.
Have a blessed Good Friday and Easter.
Christ is risen indeed :)
And, in fact, randomness is NOT an essential feature of evolutionary theory. It is part of the theory believed by some, not by others, and that has never been experimentally proven. It is one of the places in which I believe certain evolutionists have added their philosophy beyond that which is warranted by the scientific evidence.
I think 99% of the current pool of biology professors teaching in universities would disagree with your definition of their theory.
I disagree with your assertion and believe you should test it with 100 university biology professors, then get back to me. But even if it were true, it would not be an argument against my claim. Randomness has never been experimentally shown to be essential to evolution. It is one of the places where certain evolutionists have added their philosophy beyond that which is warranted by the evidence. Once you get in touch with those 100 university biology professors, ask them what experiment or fossil evidence demonstrated that randomness was essential to the evolutionary process. There is a strong current… Read more »
Okay. I’ll listen to N.T. Wright. Your homework is to study random genetic drift, random allele segregation, and population statistics.
haha – what gives you the slightest impression that I don’t know what those words mean or what their implications are?
Have you ever read any of the following papers?
“Interaction-based evolution: how natural selection and nonrandom mutation work together”
“Climbing Mount Probable: Mutation as a Cause of Nonrandomness in Evolution”
“Evolution: are the monkeys’ typewriters rigged?”
“A Biochemical Mechanism for Nonrandom Mutations and Evolution”
“Nonrandomness of point mutation as reflected in nucleotide substitutions in pseudogenes and its evolutionary implications”
I have not.
Ginny, I don’t want to be unpleasantly argumentative, but it doesn’t. Mutations are random, but they are sorted out by natural selection which is the very opposite of chance. Genetic variation is random (why my siblings and I who share the same genetic material don’t look alike), but the variations which are beneficial to a particular environment are selected. Even the arrangement of atoms and molecules is directed by their chemical properties, not by chance. If anything, natural selection seems to me to be brutally deterministic.
Indeed, even the mutations, genetic drift, genetic editing, etc. aren’t random. But the observer often has a limited understanding of the inputs. God does not play dice is quiet right. The cosmos and everything in it operates according to physical constants. There is no random.
My math is lousy, and I don’t understand the inputs. What I found helpful was learning that the chance of any particular sequence resulting from shuffling a deck of cards is 52 factorial–roughly 8 X 10 to the 67th power. This number, if written out, would convince me that such an event is impossible–yet it happens every time we play cards.
Even if your numbers are correct, your conclusion “yet it happens every time we play cards” is wrong. The event would have to be specific, such as the cards after the shuffle being aligned in numerical order by suit, something that does NOT happen every time we play cards. Now apply the same math to the number of atoms in the universe instead of a deck of 52 and see where your random takes you.
Whoever explained this to you has no understanding of statistics. That is not how it works. The chance of having a sequence is 1. The change of a predetermined specific sequence is tiny. You don’t get to choose the sequence after laying down the cards.
No good ever comes of my mentioning anything mathematical. Delete it from the record. Let me go back where I belong.
Your math is fine, and correct. Your interlocutors didn’t understand the point (it appears you didn’t either…).
The analogy made sense to me, but I I don’t have much faith in my understanding once I move outside my own field. It is one of the problems of this kind of debate that people use arguments they do not fully understand.
I am very puzzled about something. When I first became aware of the debate a few decades ago, no creationists were discussing “information” as a vital requirement for speciation. I do read quite a few biology boards, and I don’t encounter any discussion of “information” other than as a spurious demand from creationists. Is “information” a concept recognized by biologists, and is there an accepted definition? Is there a way to detect and measure it?
I will mostly have to claim ignorance of information theory. I think it came to prominence in the YEC community through Dembski (not a YEC!).
This might be useful (don’t take this as a recommendation, I haven’t read it):
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/infotheory.html
On a tangential point, some of the most interesting challenges to modern synthesis are mathmatical, such as Granville Sewell’s work. Of course these arguments are no help to YECs as they have mostly adopted super hyper fast evolution from baramids.
I think there are very few biologists with the math chops to wade into the math debate.
I read “baramid” as “barmaid” and thought “Well, this is a novel criticism.”
You gain no information. If there is sorting then the information gained is imposed from outside. If you randomly alter a key until it fits the lock then the final shape of the key is determined by the shape of the lock you are fitting it to. The gain in information of a blank key to a key that fits the lock is no more than the information contained in the lock.
Natural selection cannot generate information that does not already exist.
Random is random. Darwinian randomness is nonsensical. Natural selection is the end result, according to evolutionists, of random processes that result from random physical phenomenon. There is no “selection” by a higher intelligence. Evolution has ALWAYS been an attempt to describe the natural world as arising by natural means with NO GOD ALLOWED, either in the biological processes or the physical ones. Trying to meld evolution and theism is trying to have your cake and eat it too. Survival of the fittest fits with Romans 8:20–frustration and futility, but as a Christian I do not believe this is the natural… Read more »
Evolution need not be random. Some evolutionists use the term “random” when describing the theory, some do not. There is no particular evidence for the driving factors being totally random other than that “some” mutations of the genetic code appear random.
Again, every evolutionist I was ever taught by, and every textbook I ever read spoke of purely mechanistic processes, depending on chance for their occurence.
Not sure what you are getting at, Jonathan. Are you saying a creator God used evolution to create the biological world as we know it?
I’m saying that there’s a difference between the aspects of evolutionary theory that we have evidence for (from the fossil record, analogous organs, embryonic development, DNA structure, laboratory experiments with bacteria, natural observations, etc.) and the aspects of evolutionary theories that are just philosophical gloss added to that we actually know. Whether you want to hypothesize the intervention of God, or the ability of organisms to self-regulate and even alter their own DNA to some degree, there is no scientific evidence that convincingly demonstrates that truly “random” mutations have to be the driver of evolutionary change. And you might have… Read more »
You didn’t answer my question. Do you believe a creator God used evolution to create the biological world as we know it?
Yes, in a sense. I believe that the creator God created the world, that the fossil record shows a general progression of species and those species are related to each other, and that natural selection appears to be part of the process at some level. I believe that the creator God is the one who chose to make a world where that would happen and that God had a pretty clear idea where it would all go. I didn’t use the word “evolution” in that answer because “evolution” can mean different things to different people, and I wanted to stick… Read more »
How do you reconcile this with “through one man sin entered the world and death through sin” Rom 5:12, as well as Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death?”
Happy Easter Ginny! I think my answer might be highlighted best by my asking a series of questions instead. I’d love if you could answer them, briefly or in detail. 1. What do those verses mean to you? At the deepest, most significant level, what do you believe that Paul is trying to get across to the Roman congregation for the benefit of their lives, and hopefully for the benefit of yours as well? 2. How many times do you believe sin entered the world? 3. Do you feel personally responsible to some degree for your own sin? While another,… Read more »
6. Jesus Christ died once for all (Heb 7:27, I Pet 3:18, Rom 6:10) 5. Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2). He paid the penalty for our sins which is death (Rom 3:24, 6:23). 4. Spiritual death was instant as was physical death. Adam’s body began its anti-nascent. We have no record of animal death until after Adam’s sin. Also, Romans 8 says creation was subjected to futility and slavery to corruption. This implies animal death was part of the fall. Plants don’t “give up the ghost” kind of die. Who cares about bacteria?… Read more »
Dang, I was honestly thinking that we would be on the same page and I was simply going to say, “See, I agree with you on every single fundamental”, and instead you wrote something quite different than I expected. 1. What do those verses mean to you? At the deepest, most significant level, what do you believe that Paul is trying to get across to the Roman congregation for the benefit of their lives, and hopefully for the benefit of yours as well? Notice, Jonathan, how many times you frame the questions subjectively. God’s personal communication to us as individuals… Read more »
My presupposition is simple: the Word of God is to be given the benefit of the doubt over and above the inductive process of science. Where they seem to conflict, I assume the straightforward meaning of scripture and assume that science doesn’t have the whole picture yet. Few questions… If the death resulting from sin wasn’t physical, then why did Jesus die a physical death to pay for our sins? Why do you call physical death a trial if it was part of how God made the world, calling it good? I’m not going to die on the animal-death hill,… Read more »
My presupposition is simple: the Word of God is to be given the benefit of the doubt over and above the inductive process of science. Where they seem to conflict, I assume the straightforward meaning of scripture and assume that science doesn’t have the whole picture yet. While that’s a good presupposition if you had perfect insight into God’s word and had perfect confidence in your own interpretation, it doesn’t make the same kind of sense when you see that what you’re comparing science to is your INTERPRETATION of God’s word, which is certain to be faulty in places, as… Read more »
No doubt there are errors in my interpretation of God’s word. That’s why I rely greatly on teachers who have come before me, whose life mission has been to study the scriptures and who have more knowledge than I. I also pray that God would show me the correct interpretation. However, I can guarantee you that there are profound errors in scientific theories of origins. A quick survey of science history shows both a multitude of errors in theories, and often a corresponding hubris, not unlike what we see today. I do hold strongly to this rubric, with the idea… Read more »
However, I can guarantee you that there are profound errors in scientific theories of origins. A quick survey of science history shows both a multitude of errors in theories, and often a corresponding hubris, not unlike what we see today. Yes, neither theologians nor scientists are immune from human error. That is why we need to do our best to be humble and keep deepening our understanding in both pursuits, rather than sitting on one “truth” claim and saying that you will then ignore all outside evidence to the contrary. And be careful how much you ascribe hubris to the… Read more »
When I look at pictures of a T-Rex’s fearsome teeth, with serrations for shredding it prey to ribbons, I can’t imagine how it coped with a vegetarian diet. Ate grass? And how could it have lumbered around without crushing every rabbit or kitten in its path?
You forgot that the early humans were riding on the top, directing them in a safe manner.
Ken Ham states that dinosaurs died out in a flood 4,300 years ago. Which would have made them contemporary not only with the early Israelites, but with quite a few well-documented global civilizations….none of which mention the tragedy (or blessing) of a bunch of dinosaurs getting killed off by the flood.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/24/article-2638115-1E29BF6F00000578-28_634x419.jpg
http://www.sacredearthlings.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Jesus-With-Dinosaurs-012.jpg
http://68.media.tumblr.com/83a7688a7bca45c4e93c3dfc9f1b9355/tumblr_nc5u8fFZEI1r7lkbmo1_1280.jpg
Why do I get the feeling you want to win an argument, rather than find the truth (which, by the way, will set you free)? This could go on forever as you refuse to concede any points, and you seem determined to conquer, rather than to gain knowledge.
God speed, Jonathan.
Probably because you have a very certain view of what you think the right interpretation is, and have already decided that anyone who doesn’t concede that you are correct must either be ignorant or dishonest. If you note, I have conceded several things that you’ve said were true. But I guess by this reply that you’re saying that unless I give up my basic position, any smaller agreements are meaningless. I spoke very honestly about what I believe and how I get there from the Scripture and Creation. These are topics I’ve spent approximately 18 years studying, including writing papers… Read more »
No doubt you have spent lots of time pondering these things and honest answers are always good and appreciated. Of course I don’t expect you to switch to my point of view. I have pondered some of your points and these discussions can certainly help sharpen our thinking in both directions. But your method of arguing is, in my opinion, myopic. You assume I condemn all who disagree as ignorant or dishonest. You picked apart the minor points above–like the rotational velocity of the earth not being relative or how did those speckled sheep arise–and ignore the major ones–like all… Read more »
I know we don’t agree, but I do like how well and how kindly you express yourself.
Thanks for those kind words.
That (atonement) especially is a big deal. You are willing to take the opinion of experts in science but not theology? Are you currently dialoguing with a creation scientist about some of these points? Are you dialoguing with your pastor? Your theological arguments have scents of Gnosticism, post-modern relativism and deconstructionism, and intellectual elitism. “I think it’s ridiculous to claim that there’s some simple “right theory” that God could just explain to us and we could understand perfectly.” You are just wrong here. Jesus spoke in terms that all can understand because He made us with a spectrum of intelligences.… Read more »
Jonathan, I really don’t want to get into a long detailed discussion. You are welcome to respond of course. You and Ginny have different levels of knowledge on different things. So the debate will go as far as what you know, or what she knows. She has given some responses that you dismiss but they are summaries of far more thorough perspectives. So to give you a couple of examples, not to completely prove creationism, but to see how this could go from a creationist perspective. The concept about geocentricism that Ginny may have been getting at is not about… Read more »
Thank you for that thoughtful response. You are correct that the limits in the understanding of the participants often shortchanges discussion. There are many times when I am thinking of an argument the discussion participant should be using but isn’t, or see a weakness in my own position that they should be exploiting but aren’t. (I usually have an answer for that weakness, otherwise it wouldn’t be my position anymore, but sometimes the answer is harder to explain or carries less rhetorical weight than the simpler argument that’s in play.) And I’m sure that happens in the other direction as… Read more »
I was just pointing out what I thought Ginny was getting at. The point being if relativity is true the debate about which is moving is somewhat moot. But I don’t have a problem with the earth moving. Where do you think that the Bible says God acts on the sun? Creation or Joshua? I have no problem with God doing any miracle and it being described from our perspective. To be sure, there are somethings that seem to us to be designed that way, but I am not certain it is as obvious if thought about in more depth.… Read more »
To be sure, there are somethings that seem to us to be designed that way, but I am not certain it is as obvious if thought about in more depth. Clearly all the cats (for example) came from a single created kind. They are fast but that does not preclude them getting somewhat faster or slower. That cats can survive on a vegetarian diet is consistent with them starting that way. I don’t think God created cheetah’s and lions and tigers and tabbies. I think these are new variants. Likewise the species of bats came from many fewer types of… Read more »
And this is partly why I didn’t want to go there. We deal with cats and bats and you go off to snakes and sloths to prove your point. And if I give a reasonable response to that you will be talking jellyfish and radiodating. Of course all these are interesting a legitimate topics, but the expansion is never ending. Pretty much everything you mention I have read about, and creationists have tried to address. There are areas where it difficult to know what the situation is, but then there is in every subject. Ginny was concerned that you do… Read more »
Your second line is, to the silly, utterly irresistible:
There were cats and bats and elephants,
As sure as you’re born,
But the loveliest of all
Was the unicorn.
We deal with cats and bats and you go off to snakes and sloths to prove your point. And if I give a reasonable response to that you will be talking jellyfish and radiodating. Of course all these are interesting a legitimate topics, but the expansion is never ending. I didn’t use a different example because you had “dealt with” the precious ones, there’s just only so many times one can repeat themselves before it seems pointless to keep repeating the same point. Everything about a cheetah’s body is oriented to a world of predators and prey. And we know… Read more »
I can accept many claims by evolutionists without agreeing with every claim that they make. As I can as well. As I have pointed out, I reject claims made by many evolutionists (naturalism, purposelessness, the idea that evolution proceeded largely through random mutation), and also recognize there are plenty of questions of science. The basic claims that I believe are beyond argument are an Earth far more than 10,000 years old, a descent of species over time from earlier forms many of which no longer exist, and a clear biological relationship between all species. Those are the three issues which,… Read more »
“In fact, one of the most frustrating issues was that those few scientists who get behind the Creationist movement, the ones who publish on the well-known websites, were frequently dishonest. (Another commenter, I forgot who, brought up this same point two-three weeks ago.) They frame things in such ways that they KNOW someone with scientific understanding would see through as rubbish, but claim them anyway because they assume their audience doesn’t know any better.” The other commenter was “D” and both of you are impugning the integrity of Christian men and women who, unlike you, are publishing their full names… Read more »
That doesn’t look like a quote of mine, but I’m admittedly not always careful with the rhetoric. Regardless, I have given examples where respected creation science groups have behaved badly or haven’t even attempted to understand the underlying claims. For instance here is Ken Ham spouting nonsense about bristlecone pines: https://answersingenesis.org/media/audio/answers-with-ken-ham/volume-121/trees-are-they-really-that-old/ Read the links he posted for support FROM HIS OWN SITE! They conclude the opposite of what he says. He either hasnt read his own citations or is misrepresenting them completely, neither is a good look for an educator. Here is AIG posting a sermon by Spurgeon: https://answersingenesis.org/education/spurgeon-sermons/30-the-power-of-the-holy-ghost/ In… Read more »
Here is your quote: “Also, look at the way ICR has interacted with Joel Duff (Naturalis Historia). He points out problems in their work, so they correct it (without attribution) he points out more problems, they correct it again (still no attribution, or even acknowledgement that they changed things), he points out more problems and they ban him…. Also, some of the stuff these people write must embarrass them. Andrew Snelling is clearly a pretty bright guy with a good scientific training, but you read his posts on coal and oil formation, for instance (all formed from flood deposits, of… Read more »
Ginny, My rhetoric can get ahead of me sometimes. The blackmail quote was meant as a joke. However, I have no problem criticizing these guys work as they are being paid for their efforts – this is their job. And in many cases it is extremely renumerative. I am indeed critical of much evolutionary speculation especially in the common press where the nuance level is low and the bluster is high. And I am very critical of scientists who use their platform to push incredibly poor philosophy and epistemology (think PZ Myer and Dawkins). I rarely say much about evolution… Read more »
Are you referring to Ken Ham’s statement that bristlecomb pines can produce more than one ring per year, then citing as evidence John Woodmorappe’s saying that they cannot? That was a bit of a head scratcher.
Not only did Woodmorappe say that there is no evidence that BC pines can produce multiple rings per year, he said that to align with the evidence they would have to produce 5 rings per year, every year, for 1,000 years after the flood!
Clearly Ham either didn’t read it, or skimmed it for confirmation. I am frankly surprised that a piece as reasonable and uncertain as the first Woodmorappe piece was allowed on AIG in the first place.
See above
D, the problem that Ginny is reacting to are the claims that creationists are lying. That is that they are spreading information that is both false and that they know to be false. This is a very serious matter. If they believe something but they are wrong that is a serious matter as they are teaching others, but the accusation that they are lying is just as serious. Now the term lie can be used rhetorically meaning that a claim is untrue. But the accusation that a specific person is lying for their cause when they are not is sinful.
To your claims here, you are being unreasonable. Ham is giving a short talk which is transcribed after the fact. There is not a reference to the actual claim but links for further reading. The first link states that Woodmorappe thinks the overlaps between different samples may be in error and that he is unaware of any current evidence for multiple rings in one year though he thinks this is possible. The second link is to a forester who claims to have seen more than one ring per year (and Woodmorappe disagreeing with him). Perhaps a little sloppy (though the… Read more »
I wouldn’t claim dishonesty, but the juxtaposition of Ham’s post and the first paper is misleading. I think most readers would interpret Ham as suggesting that there is now evidence to support that BCPs can produce more than one ring a year, and that he is basing his claim is based on the articles he cites. I have no idea whether the BCP can produce more than one ring a year, but if I read only Ham’s blog, I would assume he was announcing a scientific discovery and that the linked articles backed it up.
This is a transcript of an audio. Ham claims that the tree ring data does not exclude a young earth, possibly at a talk, on at an interview. The transcript is on his website so they link to more definitive data. I read that Woodmorappe says that there is no evidence for a specific species having multiple rings in the context of a dataset from that same species. I also read that Woodmorappe thinks that multiple rings are still possible even though undocumented at this stage, and that he thinks the dataset has been complied incorrectly (the overlaps are not… Read more »
Fair enough, this comment here should be rewritten
You seem to be misreading the same way Ham is. Woodmorappe says, in both articles “there is no evidence that bristlecone pines can put on more than one ring per year.” (First article) And “Finally, to reiterate, while there are many kinds of trees that grow more than one ring per year, there is no evidence that adult bristlecone pines can ever do this.” (Second article) The second article has embedded text talking about pines manager for harvest in the southeast US. not BC pines and certainly not alpine BC pines. I realize that some other creationists have claimed that… Read more »
Ginny, you are commenting on a website that regularly casts aspersions on the integrity of a great number of Christian men and women. If someone does something to cast doubt on their integrity, that deserves to be called out. I gave a very specific example, if you want to I can start citing individuals and organizations that were guilty of that particular example. If you want to deal with that example, then please deal with it. If you just want to assert that certain Christians are beyond critique simply because they are on your side, then we will get nowhere.… Read more »
Now I know you are full of beans. You just tried to re-write your comment that is right there in front of us. How much more do you do this to everything else? Calling YEC’s “frequently dishonest” and “lying” is not one specific example–it is a generalized slander and throwing in a tu quoque doesn’t help.
Ginny, your response is quite confusing. I quite clearly gave a very specific example to back up my charges, and could point out others. I did NOT “rewrite” anything. Right now I can only assume that you misread something in the above comment. This is was EXACT example that I gave: One example I remember were websites that claimed that the moon was moving away from the Earth (it is, slightly under 4cm/year), and that if you multiplied the annual distance it as moving away by years, you would find that the moon could not possibly be as ancient as… Read more »
Hi Jonathan I didn’t see anything from the moon onwards when I read this earlier. I was reading on a phone thru the disqus site. Have read the rest now. This is getting off topic a little. You need to assess what someone is trying to do. Is he putting up a claim that contradicts a common interpretation. Yeah, sure, the evolutionist may come up with an auxiliary theory to save the main theory, but a creationist is welcome to do the same thing. If a fact calls into question the evolutionary consensus, and a creationist shows how this fact… Read more »
And the move away from the earth is not linear. I know that. You know that. So do you really believe that Dr. Thomas G. Barnes of the Institute of Creation Research, one of the most prominent purveyors of the “Creationism matches the science” mantra, and someone who claimed three degrees in physics, did not know that? Yet here is an exact quote: There is an easily understood physical proof that the moon is too young for the presumed evolutionary age. From the laws of physics one can show that the moon should be receding from the earth. From the… Read more »
Other examples of poor uses of the Earth-moon recession claim: Dr. Jason Lisle, who holds both Master’s and Ph.D.’s in Astrophysics, made this claim in 2006: The moon moves about an inch and a half further away from the earth every year due to this tidal interaction. Thus, the moon would have been closer to the earth in the past. Six thousand years ago, the moon would have been about 800 feet (250 m) closer to the earth (which is not much of a change considering the moon is a quarter of a million miles, or 400,000 km, away). So… Read more »
Hovind and his Ph.D.-issuing Patriot University refused to make his doctoral dissertation public, so it got released on Wikileaks.
AIG distanced themselves from Hovind a while back. Whatever his dissertation is about, it can’t be worse than Michelle Obama’s. As Chrisopher Hitchens said, that was little more than rambling about “what it’s like being me at this college.”
I took a look at the material on creation.com on the moon recession argument specifically. While they are much more detailed than the ones with the issues I have already noted, I still feel they are being deceptive. Their version is written by Jonathan Henry, who has a Ph.D. in astrophysics. First, he works out an equation that appears quite similar to the one Dr. Lisle used, with some differences that I don’t really care to figure out the source of. Importantly, he comes up with a similar “upper limit” for the Moon’s age of 1.3 billion years (again, incredibly… Read more »
Jonathan, I have read you 3 responses. Note how antagonistic you are. I read Henry’s paper. tiny footnotes The article is in standard format with superscript footnote references and footnotes at the bottom in a smaller font, which is standard for an article. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, it is just antagonistic on your behalf. The “recently” in the text actually refers to a 1964 paper that was “recent” when quoted in 1965 but is quite obsolete now. But Henry is not saying “recently” he is quoting Baldwin. It is not about how recent or not, it is… Read more »
Jonathan, I have read you 3 responses. Note how antagonistic you are. Yes, I definitely admit that those responses were antagonistic. Of course, the original papers I was quoting, especially Henry’s, were as antagonistic or more. So if my reply was too antagonistic for a comment on an internet messageboard, I am quite surprised that you are happy with the same sort of antagonistic approach in published papers. Henry quotes different opinions, footnotes them, and tells us where he disagrees. And he gives 3 different calculations. Now you are free to disagree with Henry and say that you do not… Read more »
On to the other points: tiny footnotes The article is in standard format with superscript footnote references and footnotes at the bottom in a smaller font, which is standard for an article. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, it is just antagonistic on your behalf. You missed the point entirely. The issue was not the choice of footnote size in the formatting of the paper. Footnotes are usually tiny. The issue was choosing to push such pertinent information into those tiny footnotes, knowing the vast majority of people who read your paper are not going to read the footnotes.… Read more »
I don’t disagree that they are inaccurate. I am happy for that to be pointed out. As I said, even CMI quote arguments that they think creationists should not use. I am trying to say that you jump to quick to the dishonesty charge. You, an evolutionist despite millions of children raised on propaganda we now know to be fraudulent (and something that they should be called out on). But disagreeing with a creationist does not make him dishonest. I pointed out some issues with what you wrote. Even if you are saying the issue is that they are footnotes… Read more »
If even you and I know that they are inaccurate, yet the person who wrote it claims to be a scientist with more credentials than you or I, and CERTAINLY the inaccuracies have been pointed out to them before in 34 years that the paper has been up, then why are they still promoting such inaccuracies? And yes, I used some “unnecessary rhetoric” in my comment. Of all the places where I’d expect to be called out for unnecessary rhetoric, Pastor Doug Wilsons’s blog is not exactly the one I had in mind. But all you can call me out… Read more »
Are you talking about haeckel drawings, or something else?
I’m curious.
Last paragraph: I was thinking more along the lines of junk DNA, but there are other examples.
I was referring to the fradulent propoganda claim. Sorry I was unclear.
By junk DNA do you mean the idea that much of an organisms genetic material is non-coding, or doesn’t otherwise lead to physiological manifestation? I am far from an expert in genetics, but it seems like that has been a topic of much interest that has been hashed out very publicly in the scientific press.
This kind of stuff:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hidden-treasures-in-junk-dna/
Yes, but the creationists were saying this years before all this research materialised.
I am not familiar with the history. But the oldest creationist claims I can find are from about 2000. After the human genome project had started kicking out interesting stuff.
This article is the earliesr substantial treatment I could find. https://answersingenesis.org/bios/linda-walkup/?gcbc_level=&gcbc_count=24&gcbc_contribution_type=642,,articles,&gcbc_sort=-last_published&gcbc_visibility=1&gcbc_start=-1&gcbc_template=db/related-content-nodes/post-list-stacked-item
(Sorry for the gnarly link)
The author states that there is some junk DNA – so it certainly is a more nuanced, less wholesale, critique. It is well worth a read down to the heading AGEing theory after which it becomes and exercise in esoteric reasoning and wild speculation.
I thought Einstein’s comment reflected his problems with the Uncertainty Principle and his rejection of quantum mechanics. He didn’t believe in God, but he believed that the behavior of subatomic particles could not be truly random. But, nearly a century on, hasn’t the theory of their randommness prevailed against the competing theories of the time?
Einstein wasn’t exactly an atheist. I believed in “spinoza’s God” which is a big improvement over our current crop incoherent atheists.
“I believe” should be “he believed.” We regret the error.
“I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind…”
-Albert
You are correct. He wasn’t talking about natural selection.
It’s interesting, however, that he was resisting the idea of total randomness at the most basic level of matter/energy.
Sorry, you don’t know what randomness means in this context.
Randomness is the problem, isn’t it? I know what it means in the context of every atheistic biology professor I was ever instructed by (10+), which is RANDOM, i.e. chance, lots, dice, etc, etc.
You still don’t know what it means.
“I’d like to buy an argument. No, no that’s contradiction.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMRgmmnIrDU
Seriously, you need to study up on the philosophy of randomness.
Hey Thursday1, you used the word without defining it, not I. If you want to use a specialized, theorized version of the word, it’s your responsibility, in this context of a layman’s blog, to define it.
Honestly, you used the word carelessly, without making any effort to understand how it has been used, nor whether the sense in which you used it applies in this case. It’s time for you to do some reading, hun.
Condescension and Begging the Question work well in shutting down discourse but are ineffective if your goals are clarity and persuasion. I’ll go first. Random: lacking a definite plan, purpose or pattern; or, elements that have an equal probability of occurrence (Mirriam-Webster). This word is ubiquitous in my textbooks that discuss natural selection, allele frequencies, genetic drift, population ecology statistics, etc. You said, “The idea that natural selection is incompatible with teleology is hotly contested, to say the least. Natural selection can only take place within a world that is already structured. It is not random.” Are you saying “not… Read more »
Can you show the experiment that showed that species-level evolution lacks a definite plan, purpose, or pattern, or that different outcomes had an equal probability of occurring? And maybe you haven’t seen my reply to your earlier statement yet, but I showed you that “random” or “chance” are NOT ubiquitous in the 24,000 word wikipedia entry on evolution, nor in the 339 sources for that article. So it might be that you’re looking both at older textbooks and books with a strong ideological slant. I’m not going to deny that certain evolutionists get hung up on the philosophical ideas of… Read more »
First off, I was trying to get Thursday1 to define “random.” But he just wanted to pat me on the head and told me to go back to my knitting. Let’s take one aspect of natural selection: allele segregation. This is random in the sense that four haploid gametes have a 1 in 2 chance of getting an X or Y gene. It follows the rules of statistics–thus human populations are roughly half female and half male. As a Christian, I have no problem with this as the God of the Bible is the Lord of Statistics (casting lots and… Read more »
While it appears that gender selection is reasonably close to 50-50 (though not exactly), that does not mean it is random. In fact, scientists have uncovered several ways in which gender selection is non-random. For example, certain meiosis errors and differences in genetically-carried diseases make the birth of boys more likely that the birth of girls, so there are more boys than girls in the newborn population. Certain genetic and environmental factors may also make certain men more likely to produce boys, and other men more likely to produce girls. Or certain women’s bodies may have attributes which make the… Read more »
So, to backtrack a bit, perhaps in my original responses, I could have been more specific. There is random segregation of alleles in meiosis (otherwise, why do we do punnett squares?:). According to naturalists/materialists, the physical events that select certain traits and that cause mutations are random in that there is no supernatural plan. In the middle, the selection by nature part, there is non-randomness in that one outcome is favored over another by environmental conditions. So random (statistically) at the beginning, random (no plan) at the end, and selection in the middle. To me, that means the end result… Read more »
Yes, pure materialists deny any supernatural influence in evolution, and often state the theory as such in order to propagate their beliefs. But they have no evidence for that claim and it is in no way an essential part of the theory. More careful scientists, even among the materialists, avoid such claims. Like I showed you, it isn’t anywhere in the entire Wikipedia entry, which suggests that the crowd abandons it when they’re paying attention.
Evolution is no more materialist than Newton’s Laws or the Big Bang or any other scientific theory.
Some leading evolutionary biologists have theistic views which do not stop them from being hired at top universities. They probably don’t discuss their religious views in class, but they don’t keep them secret. Francis Collins, who directed the Human Genome Research Project and is now head of the National Institutes of Health, is a devout Catholic. The point is that the scientific method rules out the supernatural as an explanation for any material phenomenon. I can believe that my lab is full of invisible angels hovering over my head, but I can’t say these angels are responsible for plate tectonics… Read more »
The divorce of God and science is a recent (last 100 years) phenomenon. The journals of scientists in the late middle ages into the modern era used to be full of praise to God. I used to think that science drove this, because I was taught science and the history of science by materialists. But after reading Schaffer’s book, How Shall We Then Live, as well as some histories of modern science written by Christians, I now think philosphers framed the mental boxes from which scientists view the world, constructed to exclude God. Science is the tail and philosophy is… Read more »
And you got the Einstein reference wrong. He was objecting to quantum mechanics.
Correct
Darwinianism is more than natural selection, and Pastor Wilson is here using “natural selection” as a shorthand for Darwinianism – which he mentioned in the previous paragraph.
The idea that Darwin is compatible with an intentional universe is only available to those who gloss over deep and foundational differences between the two worldviews.
That blending of two very different terms is one of the reasons Christians have such a hard time getting young scientifically minded people to listen to them. Everyone, including Christians ought to believe in natural selection. We see it happen all the time. Bacteria developing resistances to medications are a clear example. When a Christian says that they don’t believe in natural selection, it betrays a total ignorance of clear science.
Darwinian evolution requires natural selection, but natural selection is not nearly the entirety of Darwinian evolution.
If we’re going to play at pedantry, I submit that the term “natural selection” is itself already freighted with questionable assumptions. By representing nature as an active, even conscious entity, the metaphor tends to eliminate God from consideration, strongly hinting at the divorce between natural science and theology that has caused so many problems in the last few centuries.
This is what I mean… it’s not just pedantry. It’s just a false conflation of terms that mean different things.
Both terms are wrong, and for more or less the same reason.
This is where we encounter the limits of language. Have you noticed how difficult it is to describe the movement of atomic orbitals without suggesting there is some kind of intentionality?
That’s why I have no problem ascribing them intentionality, either inherent or externally imposed. Materialism is boring: my stars sing, to those with ears to hear them.
Exactly. I was fortunate to be taught as a child that scientifically-observable evolution via natural selection, sexual selection, etc implied nothing about origins of life or species; the conflict between belief in a literal six-day creation and meaningful use of modern biology and genetics is entirely illusory.
True enough. I think in context, it was quite clear that Mr. Wilson understands that, since he used the phrase “the world of natural selection,” using it as Darwinians do, implying that it is the guiding and shaping force of the world.
That may be the case, but using one term to mean something different doesn’t help with clarity. Doug said: “But in the blind world of natural selection, where there is no point, where there can be no intention, where goals are only apparent, and where everything is in the process of turning into everything else, what on earth could be wrong with a sex change operation?” The statement only works if the phrase “natural selection” doesn’t actual mean ‘natural selection,’ but instead means ‘Darwinian evolution,’ or even materialism/scientism. It would be very easy to conclude that Doug doesn’t really understand… Read more »
I think the surrounding context is important. Evolutionists commonly describe natural selection as blind, indicating that he’s using it in a Darwinian context. He also uses the phrase “blind world of natural selection,” indicating a view where natural selection is the highest formative mechanism, just like you could say “the intentional world of God.”
Shortly, it would be easy to think Doug doesn’t understand the words if you read woodenly, without nuance.
You apparently think the way some people making a philosophy out of “Darwinism” is incompatible with Christianity, but that the origin of new species by natural selection is fine. But I think the latter is what Pastor Wilson is objecting to.
As if on queue, the latest from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/health/monogamy-sex-kerner/index.html
It occured to me the other day that a corollary to the moral argument is that Naturalism implies nothing is “unnatural”. GMO’s, DDT, super sized cokes, antibotic and hormone enhanced chickens and cows, all the way up to rape, murder, and nuclear war – all those things are natural in an “atoms banging around” sense.
Yep. There ain’t no such thing as unnatural if nature is all there is.
I’m gonna print out some “All Natural” stickers and stick them on packages of peeps at the grocery store.
Naturally…sodium chloride is natural, as is methylchloroisothyazolinone. God made–er–natural selection evolved all the particles that comprise both compounds. Synthetic oil is just as natural as crude-derived oil, which is as natural as ethanol, which is just as natural as corn-on-the-cob, mashed taters, chick peas, and sizzling BLTs with a glass of sweet tea.
Yet pecan pie remains an undisputed monument to intelligent design!????????☀️????
I can say “methylchloroisothyazolinone”. Just gotta take a breath and go syllable by syllable.
Why a watermelon, and not some flavorful gourd without all the guilt-inducing stereotype associations? I’m so triggered, as I sit here contemplating my RC-Cola-and-Moon-Pie reassignment surgery.
What about the Popeye’s Fried Chicken??
I would also lump in Copernicus as an ur-culprit. He began the process of making our place in the kosmos small and insignificant, tucked away in some unimportant place in the universe. The perfect place for a rebel to hide and fulfill his lusts. And why should God care about something so unimportant?
Just curious: do you accept Copernicus’ cosmology, generally speaking?
I would be more curious to know whether, if he accepts that cosmology, he believes Copernicus had a duty to suppress his findings.
Actually, I don’t. I think the Earth is the center, as the Bible declares, and as science cannot disprove, though it has tried.
By the way, Copernicus’s cosmology had a lot of fudge factors in it, just like Ptolemy’s. It took Kepler (using geocentrist Tycho Brahe’s data) and Newton to come up with a more or less consistent heliocentric cosmology. I only bring up Copernicus because he got the revolution rolling.
Science has disproved it by successfully sending men to the moon under heliocentric assumptions. It would not have worked to use heliocentric assumptions to send a man to the moon, if geocentricity were true.
Sure it would. Just solve the problem in a heliocentric frame of reference. Mach’s Principle days it’s okay.
From day one of high school physics you’re taught to find the appropriate reference to solve a problem simply.
All of Newton’s and Kepler’s math is useful. Just, in the grand scheme of things, pin the Earth down and watch the rest of the solar system, operating under Newtonian mechanics, spin around it. How do you pin the Earth down? With the rest of the stars of the Universe.
Okay, that’s not clear to me. But a clearer example is the Mercury Messenger. You can’t send something toward the sun, have it get where you want and expect it to be, and have it be irrelevant whether the sun is moving or stationary. There’s too much solar gravity involved for that to work.
The rest of the stars in the Universe are exerting a gravitational force on the Solar System. Geocentricity postulates that they do so in such a way as to pin the Earth down so that it doesn’t move. However, there’s still the gravity of the elements of the Solar System to deal with. This will still cause the Solar System to move in the Keplerian/Newtonian way we learned in high school/college, if we view it in a Heliocentric reference frame. If we view it in a Geocentric reference frame, it looks like stuff (except the Earth) is spinning around a… Read more »
I actually appreciate how John Warren is illustrating this point, so that others who make other similar points can get an idea for how they look.
I agree. Of course, “similar points” would require statements about observable and measurable things that can be disproved by observable, measurable methods. Statements about how an omnipotent God chose to do things in the past before any but He was present to observe, aren’t really in the same category.
I really have spent serious time studying this stuff, and honestly, unless you go with the theory that God is openly trying to mess with us and fool us, the facts that the earth is far more than a few thousand years old, there is an ancient fossil record of animals and lifeforms which are extraordinarily different from the animals and lifeforms around today, and all life on Earth is closely related to each other with very measurable degrees of difference between them, are all observerable and measureable on the same level as astronomical phenomena. You need different tools and… Read more »
Yet just like careful observation can solve a murder case, even when no one else was around to observe it, careful observation can give you information about what happened in the past as long as evidence still exists. That, of course, means that one can come to informed conclusions about certain things, get general ideas about other things, and have no clue at all about some things for which there just plain is no evidence trail. Pastor Wilson has shown in the past that he’s willing to fully accept and even promote the conclusions of anthropology and paleontology, even regarding… Read more »
“The problem is not the troubled soul who thinks he is a watermelon.”
True. The problem is with the watermelon ideas that always try to fit themselves inside a pea brain ,and so we spend all our time navel gazing the origins of existence and arguing over communion wine, and very little time actually living as Jesus Christ has called us to live.
Ummm…I’d say the problem still lies with the judges.
Psalm 2
1 Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.”
4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.
5 He rebukes them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 “I have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain.”
Man, this Psalm keeps getting better and better! (Though it does not inspire “melon-oma”! ; – )
How exactly does natural selection have anything to do with a lack of purpose? The fact that bacteria natural select towards resistances to medications, a clear case of natural selection, has just about zero effect on whether I have God given purpose.
J’, is organisim survival “natural” or “designed”?
I suggest asking both God, and a watermelon or a banana! ; – )
It’s natural in the same sense that gravity is natural, or our digestive system is natural, or any other “natural” system is natural, as in it follows the laws of physics and can be predicted.
If you aren’t willing to call “natural selection” natural, then the word doesn’t have any meaning at all.
I don’t have a problem with the definitions of “natural” or “selection.” I have a problem with putting those two words together in a phrase and saying it means “fish morph into birds.” This is neither natural nor selection, an obvious fact seemingly lost on the droves of people who continually toss out the phrase.
“Fish morph into birds” is not a necessary conclusion from natural selection. Natural selection simply means that certain traits are “selected,” or increase, based on natural pressures (like a need to survive or mate). So bacteria get more resistant to medications, certain bugs change colors over time based on their surroundings, etc. These are examples of clear and unavoidable natural selection. This is what I mean by being clear with terms. What you’re saying would be like saying that I can’t accept Jesus because I can’t believe in the Assumption of Mary. Obviously, the assumption of Mary isn’t a requirement… Read more »
If you aren’t willing to call “design” design, then the word has lots of meaning that you don’t understand.
Not unlike the vocabulary limits most watermelons! ; – )
I honestly don’t get what point you’re trying to make. Is the digestive system designed? Yes. Is it also natural? Yes. They aren’t mutually exclusive terms.
John: “The fact that bacteria natural select towards resistances to medications, a clear case of natural selection, has just about zero effect on whether I have God given purpose.” God: 20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God… Read more »
So what is your definition of the word “natural?”
Romans 2:13-15 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) The “nature” of a thing… Read more »
Natural selection isn’t random, though, in any sense of the term. There’s nothing random about it. It doesn’t even include the randomness of gene mutations.
Natural selection refers to the mechanism by which already existing phenotypes increase or decrease in prevalence based on environmental factors.
So, is that your full explaination on how bacteria become medication resistant? And if the alleged natural selection process is not “random” in any sense of the term, would it not be systematic, or planned?
For instance, in the Simpsons when some string of unlikely events happens, doesn’t Mr. Burns say “All part of my plan Smithers!” ? ; – )
You keep drawing this false binary dichotomy between things that are within the plan of God and things that are natural. Natural simply means that it is fully explainable by the laws of nature. It doesn’t mean it’s somehow separate or above God’s plan.
John:
“The randomness in Darwinian theory has to do with genetic copying errors, commonly referred to as mutations. They are called random because we can’t predict them, not because they are truly stochastic by nature.
John:
Natural simply means that it is fully explainable by the laws of nature.
Well, let’s just say God is less of a dichotomy than you,
or me even! ; – )
Darwinian evolution isn’t the same thing as natural selection…
U.C. Berkeley definition of “natural selection”:
“Natural selection is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution, along with mutation, migration and genetic drift.”
Yes, John, yes it is. ????
Natural selection is one necessary mechanism of evolution. Evolution depends upon natural selection. This doesn’t mean they are the same thing. Evolution ALSO requires random mutation, genetic drift, etc, but none of those things are required for natural selection.
Evolution does not require random mutation.
Yes it does. Genetic mutations provides the large majority of new genetic material that allows speciation.
Wow!
Name one genetic mutation that changed one species into another.
(?)
Kevin Costner in “Water World” does not count!????
I don’t think you understand me. I’m not arguing for the truth of Darwinian evolution. I’m simply explaining the theory as it stands.
So, Jonathan seems to be saying that Darwinian evolution is not a three legged stool, and you are saying that it is, correct?
Beyond that, I am saying that a real time transition from one species to another, has not been observed.
My how our conversation has evolved!????
I never said it had been observed…?
You keep switching back and forth between evolution and natural selection. It’s hard to keep up.
No, you never did say new species had been observed, I was adding that point to the topic. Sound to me like we don’t have much disagreement, but do express similar ideas in very different terms!
First off, we don’t know that for certain. Few if any speciation events have been observed at the molecular level, so to claim that you “know” how the large majority of new genetic material for those events arose is pretty high on the speculation side. Second of all, the fact that a genetic shift occurs does not necessitate that the shift was random. Of course God could have directed that, but even going outside the God level for a second, what if there are self-directing mechanisms within the organisms’ own structures that direct it? What if speciation-level mutations are not… Read more »
Octopuses don’t edit their DNA. They edit their RNA, which has no effect on DNA. There’s zero reason to think this has anything to do with providing new genetic information.
You’re asking a lot of “what if” questions, but they useless unless you actually have a reason to think it’s happening. So far, we don’t have any reasons to think those things happen, but we do have extremely good proof that mutations are a real thing.
I didn’t say that octopuses edit their DNA. But they certainly do mess with their genes quite extravagently, via their RNA. And this is a relatively new discovery. That makes it plausible that mechanisms could exist for messing with DNA as well. And you can’t start claiming that evolution is random just because we don’t know that it’s nonrandom. Yes, genetic mutations are real. We do not know that they are always random, or that the ones that are random are the primary drivers of evolution as opposed to potential non-random ones. We already know that these mutations are NOT… Read more »
J’, evolution, or Darwinian evolution, is a three legged stool.
The legs are:
Natural selection
Genetic drift / mutation
And migration.
If you don’t have one of the legs, you don’t have the stool.
Even with all three “legs”, evolution can’t predict rocks turning into people, over time.
Also, I would say that natural selection is ultimately expressed by genetic indicators. ????
Sure, but that says nothing about natural selection being true or false. Natural selection can be true while Darwinian evolution is false. My point is that we need to recognize these distinctions so that we don’t sound totally ignorant when speaking about them.
I don’t think anyone was being ignorant.
“Natural selection”, is for many, a synonym for “evolution”.
African elephants compared to Indian elephants might be an example of natural selection, but not an example evolution.
It’s only a synonym for people who don’t understand the difference. It would be like someone saying that the Trinitarian belief is a synonym for Catholicism because Catholics are trinitarian.
Natural selection is a real thing that exists. Christians can’t deny it while also being scientifically informed, yet MANY do because they think it’s the same thing as evolution.
I don’t think any biologist has ever suggested that rocks turn into people. I think scientists are pretty clear about how rocks are formed.
Jilly, back in the day, our buddy Randman referred me to the UC Berkeley evolution web site, where they start at the Big Bang and project out to the evolution of people. So if the Big Bang started out as a rock so Big that it exploded, “rocks” evolved into people, in a manner of speaking! ????The illustrations on the site somehow end up being very “Far side” like, so the whole deal gets even more funny!????
“Laws of nature”?
Who made those babys? ????
“A” Dad, I don’t think most creationists reject natural selection. I have read on a creationist site that the response to natural selection is a design feature front-loaded by God. I think the dispute is with whether natural selection implies common ancestry and millions of years.
We agree Jilly. As i noted elsewhere, what some call “natural” selection, may have more “design” to it, than some would care to admit!????????????
That is true. While we may disagree, you represent your opponents truthfully. Thanks!
That’s one creationist site. Of course creationists (which all Christians are) can accept natural selection, most of us just do not find the kind of results posited by Darwinism plausible. Nor do we have need of that hypothesis.
Yes, we are all creationists!
I understand him to mean that design has a telos to it. It was designed with and for a purpose.
In a restrictive sense, as Wilson has described, Darwinian nature has no telos.
Darwinian, yes, I agree, but I’m not talking about darwinian nature. I’m talking specifically about natural selection as a mechanism that exists.
Bananas are definitely unnatural.
I think bananas are repulsive. Far more appalling than labor pains was watching my two-year-old mangle one through her fingers and her hair.
The bananas you eat were designed by man. To some degree the watermelon too, probably.
The first was a mistake.
The men that “designed” the bananas where designed by God!????????☀️
“The spirit of our age is made up of a yearning for pointlessness. If everything is pointless, if there is no fundamental assigned telos, then I can give my lusts free rein”
Along those same lines, David Wood gives us a rather horrifying peek into where that all leads.
https://youtu.be/DakEcY7Z5GU
#keepdarwinweird
The whole age of the earth question really makes my head hurt. The fact that many (most?) in the conservative reformed community consider the position of Spurgeon, both Hodges, Warfield, and Machen to be beyond the pail, while promoting the inane rambling of Seventh Day Adventists and their disciples is disheartening.
If something goes beyond the pail, is that because it kicked the bucket?
The post above does not mention the age of the earth issue, although that is certainly a component of a worldview. Is your concern the difficulty of details of the discussion, or the very fact that some hold a young earth view? Since most conservative reformed communions allow liberty on the issue, stopping short of macroevolution, we are asked to tolerate some disheartening inanity in a brotherly fashion.
B.B. Warfield:
“I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Genesis 1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution”
Spurgeon:
“We know not how remote the period of the creation of this globe may be—certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam.”
Doug wouldn’t want these guys teaching in his schools, much less his pulpit.
I’m fine with YECers teaching I just think they should up their game.
The B.B. Warfield quote is said to be from his lectures dating first from 1888. The citations I found online continue the quote:
“The sole passage which appears to bar the way is the very detailed account of the creation of Eve … We may as well admit that the account of the creation of Eve is a very serious bar in the way of a doctrine of creation by evolution.”
Warfield’s position is extremely nuanced. It was not, “Evolution? No problem!”
“Warfield’s position is extremely nuanced. It was not, “Evolution? No problem!” If course it was. He was thinking through the issue carefully. However, his position certainly was not “stopping short of macroevolution,” nor was it in any way making a denunciation of certain scientfic theories, when “confined to its own sphere as a suggested account of the method of the divine providence.” It isn’t people disagreeing with certain findings that troubles me (except when they operate in bad faith, which is frequently the case with YEC “science” organizations). It is making a rejection of well founded theories an article of… Read more »
Were the ACCS teachers asked to affirm their orthodoxy on those points, or to refrain from teaching a different position to their students? I don’t much like either, but I can see a justification for the second. In my time as a teacher in Catholic schools, I was never asked to sign a statement of faith. But, it was also understood that if I found myself doubting a core Catholic doctrine, I was not to share those doubts with my students. And “core” meant really core, not whether I have private misgivings about whether St. Joseph of Cupertino could really… Read more »
I’m particularly refering to Doug’s list of “I Believe” affirmations, which included a lot of nonsense positions (including positions rejected by Calvin, Aquinus, and Augustine, not to mention Charles Hodge, Spurgeon, Warfield, and Machen; apparently they would be disallowed as educators).
I don’t know exactly what the purpose of that document is, but it is poorly conceived regardless.
D wrote: … called for all ACCS teachers to sign a statement of faith codifying it (along with related problematic beliefs such as the absence of all animal death prior to the fall. That is wrongheaded. What is problematic about the absence of animal death prior to the fall? Why is it wrongheaded to affirm, in a statement of faith, that death came upon creation through Adam and Eve’s sin, and not prior? Such a statement does not condemn others for believing differently (or even call them “wrongheaded”), but simply sets the expectations for what will be taught, authoritatively, to… Read more »
I didn’t understand D to be saying that the Christian schools are operating in bad faith; I thought he was referring to some YEC science organizations. Most parents would, I think, want to know how a Christian school’s science and religion departments will handle such issues. Nonetheless, I would rather ask teachers to commit that they will neither teach doctrines the school considers heretical, nor undermine their students’ belief in doctrines the school considers orthodox, than to ask them to promise in writing that they have never entertained a doubt about animal death pre-Fall. I could not conscientiously sign a… Read more »
There are two primary problems. The first is binding the conscience of your instructors on a matter that is clearly adiaphora. Additionally, a group that claims affinity with the historical reformed church that adopts standards for teachers that would exclude Calvin, Spurgeon and Warfield is making itself a farce. The second problem is that teaching clearly wrong information at your school IS wrongheaded. I would say the same about a statement requiring all teachers to affirm a futurist dispensational eschatology, or affirming that blacks are to be subjugated due to the curse of Ham, or that the Pythagorean theorem is… Read more »
D wrote:
Perhaps D feels that anyone who teaches creation (the sort which the vast majority of Christians throughout history have believed) is teaching error. However, among his fallacies of guilt by association (including lizardmen conspiracies, no less), D didn’t actually offer any examples of false information that ACCS schools are teaching.
He seems to just disagree that parents should be able to find a school where they can opt out of having evolutionism taught to their children as fact.
A brief, very incomplete list from my kids science this year at an ACCS school: *The oldest bristlecone pine is 4600 years old (false), began growing immediately after the flood (who knows), and the fact that the oldest tree is ~4600 years old “proves the flood killed all living things.” *it never rained prior to the flood (vapor canopy theory). Windows of heaven opening was the destruction of old firmament. *The grand canyon shows no weathering between layers (false) * The geologic column is only consistent with a single catastrophic flood *Dragon narratives are proof (proof!) that dinosaurs existed after… Read more »
D wrote: *The oldest bristlecone pine is 4600 years old (false), began growing immediately after the flood (who knows), and the fact that the oldest tree is ~4600 years old “proves the flood killed all living things.” Citation needed. Who is D quoting to say that the age of the oldest tree “proves the flood killed all living things”? Who says that the flood killed all the sea life, for example? This quote from D is highly suspicious. Is D quoting from a curriculum endorsed by the ACCS, or an unverifiable comment from a specific teacher? As far as the… Read more »
And, no. I don’t think the schools, or Doug, are operating in bad faith. They are just incorrect have been poorly taught, and are perpetuating their error. Sometimes the creationist organizations do act in bad faith. AIG posting a Spurgeon sermon and removing his reference to millions of years was bad faith. When called on it, they put the millions of years statement back in, in brackets, with the footnote “Bracketed text indicates that as brilliant as Spurgeon was, even he did not understand the age of the earth issue.” Still bad faith. Impugning great Christian geologists’ (such as Buckland… Read more »
D wrote:
What error are the ACCS schools perpetuating?
I think that sometimes it is not so much bad faith as a complete and unbridgeable gap between what they and mainstream scientists define as science. Ken Ham’s website, which I often find interesting, says that AiG does real science. But AiG requires its research staff to commit to the following: “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record.” This is a science-stopper, if science is defined as testing a hypothesis and abandoning it if the evidence goes the other way. People can see… Read more »
Sometimes it is just people talking past each other; however, removing portions of quotes that disagree with you, and casting aspersions on people’s character and faith in order to discredit their work is not ok. Also, look at the way ICR has interacted with Joel Duff (Naturalis Historia). He points out problems in their work, so they correct it (without attribution) he points out more problems, they correct it again (still no attribution, or even acknowledgement that they changed things), he points out more problems and they ban him…. Also, some of the stuff these people write must embarrass them.… Read more »
Blackmail. Wow.
I don’t think it’s blackmail in any form. I do think, however, that when science is done in conscious service of an agenda, the science is likely to suffer. No matter who is doing it or what the topic is, you end up with apologetics and cherry-picked data. I am always disheartened by people who say, “So what? Doesn’t the restoration of faith in Biblical faith and morality justify desperate measures? Is the preservation of your academic integrity really more important than not undermining the faith of millions who couldn’t give a toss about science in the first place? If… Read more »
I was joking about blackmail. Should have had sarcasm font darker.
I think so. I have a very hard time recognizing sarcasm in posts, but seldom in real life or in literature. I wonder if that is because we get used to such diversity of opinion that nothing strikes us as out of the way!
Do you consider biological macroevolution a well founded theory?
It’s good to have more context to go with Warfield’s statement. Although, there are several other passages that “bar the way” besides that one, including the definition of “day” given in Genesis 1:5, and the problem of death prior to Adam. Theistic evolutionists tend to shuffle past these problems by simply turning the Genesis account into a broad, generic metaphor that doesn’t require any particular targets or sources for the individual details and characters. It’s good to see that Warfield at least felt some responsibility to try to grapple with the details as if they were actually important to what… Read more »
My history is a whole lot better than my math! Catherine the Great established a territory in western Russia called The Pale of Settlement where Jews were allowed to live. A few were allowed to go, as a special favor, “beyond The Pale.” There was also a Pale in Ireland that was controlled by the British. And a Pale in Calais that was controlled by English monarchs after the Battle of Crecy.
Thank you, Jilly. Always understand your idioms, right? Another possible source appears to be beyond the pale of a palisade, basically beyond the wall.
Bizarro World a cube! Oionly stoopid worlds is round. Oh, no bizarro World is perfect cube Auuuugggh! Okay who is old enough to remember Bizarro World! For those who read Superman comics in 50s-70s here is your comic relief.
EARTH HAS SIMULTANEOUSLY 4 DAYS EACH ROTATION, etc
I can’t believe so many people know that one. The traction he got off that was incredible. :)
Hey, there’s a lot more people interested in the truth than you might think.