Scientific Predictions of the Christian Positions on Origins

[MorningGlory]

Your assumption is obviously false MorningGlory. Lamoreux is another example of why you are wrong. He does believe both in evolution and God. If you had listened to the ending of his talk that fact would have been driven home to you. Or you would have to charge him with lying to everyone about his personal belief.

It's no assumption, Marsh. Denying God or Scripture precludes being an actual believer. This Lamoreux guy is the dullest speaker I've ever heard, as I said.

He explains why his present belief is no contradiction. That would be his opinion. You'd have to listen to him to understand why.

I don't care why. He is a heretic and a liar.

I don't quite understand. Do you think it is impossible to believe in God and the saving power of Christ and believe in evolution?

You can believe in evolution if you're talking about adaptation, sure. Speciation or 'Amoeba to Man'? Total lies. If you buy that stuff you're not a believer. Because Scripture tells us differently.

[MorningGlory]

So MorningGlory, have you been over to any of those blogs to give those heretics what for? It's pretty easy to defend your views on a forum where essentially everyone agrees with you, and those who don't (Lurker) are shouted down with cries of "apostate." Maybe not so easy when you are in the minority.

Have no doubt I can hold my own with anyone and can call them liars and heretics for years on end without any problem at all. However, the interest in interacting with nonbelievers exclusively just isn't there. I may check them out though; any sites you like?

[Guest shiloh357]

So MorningGlory, have you been over to any of those blogs to give those heretics what for? It's pretty easy to defend your views on a forum where essentially everyone agrees with you, and those who don't (Lurker) are shouted down with cries of "apostate." Maybe not so easy when you are in the minority.

Yeah and it's really easy to come to a site like this where you are pretty sure that no advanced research scientists frequent who would be competent to refute your views. Your hypocrisy duly noted.

[Guest shiloh357]

I don't quite understand. Do you think it is impossible to believe in God and the saving power of Christ and believe in evolution? That is, do you think that the act of believing in evolution makes it impossible to believe in God and Jesus? Is that what you think? People DO believe in both.

Yes, but when you get them to come clean about their views of the Bible, it usually ends up with them having a selective approach to the Bible. I have never met a person who claimed to believe both and Evolution and the Bible who didn't end up with a cut-and-paste smorgasboard version of the Bible where they pick and choose the parts of the Bible they think they can accept without having to reconcile it with evolution. Most of the time, they are not intellecutally honest about what the Bible says.

Evolution strikes at the heart of the message of redemption in the Bible. Evolution makes it impossible for a person to accept the Bible as God's word starting at chapter 1. Genesis 1-11 lay the foundation for redemption. That section of the Bible provides the necessary context for why redemption is necessary in the first place and is entirely incompatible with Evolution.

[Hal P]

Shiloh357, if you hadn't noticed I don't spend much time on here, mostly for the reasons you outline. However, it is not true that I don't interact with qualified creationists. I have personally dialogued with two leading creation biologists; Todd Wood, via e-mail, and Joe Francis, on an online blog. It was quite clear from both of them that they have no adequate responses to the basic genomic evidence for common ancestry. Todd Wood's paper is still the most up-to-date creationist research into it. The challenges he laid down to creation biologists in that paper have not been met, not even close. In my recent correspondance with Joe Francis I outlined some particularly compelling pieces of evidence for human-chimpanzee common ancestry and he said;

"Common design is one answer but not a complete answer."

"Like Todd I believe there is data which supports evolution."

"As creationists we believe however that there was an initial discontinuity at creation, therefore that is why I do not believe in chimp-human common ancestry, yet I think the data in support of it is valid."

He then referred me to Wood's paper which I informed him I had already read.

So your accusations of hypocrisy on my part are unfounded.

Edited March 23, 2010 by Hal P

[Guest shiloh357]

Shiloh357, if you hadn't noticed I don't spend much time on here, mostly for the reasons you outline. However, it is not true that I don't interact with qualified creationists. I have personally dialogued with two leading creation biologists; Todd Wood, via e-mail, and Joe Francis, on an online blog. It was quite clear from both of them that they have no adequate responses to the basic genomic evidence for common ancestry. Todd Wood's paper is still the most up-to-date creationist research into it. The challenges he laid down to creation biologists in that paper have not been met, not even close. In my recent correspondance with Joe Francis I outlined some particularly compelling pieces of evidence for human-chimpanzee common ancestry and he said;

"Common design is one answer but not a complete answer."

"Like Todd I believe there is data which supports evolution."

"As creationists we believe however that there was an initial discontinuity at creation, therefore that is why I do not believe in chimp-human common ancestry, yet I think the data in support of it is valid."

He then referred me to Wood's paper which I informed him I had already read.

So your accusations of hypocrisy on my part are unfounded.

Then maybe you should just stay over there and cease from plaguing us with your evoutionary nonsense.

[enoob57]

I couldn't get your links to work, but I Googled Denis Lamoreux and found the following: Denis Lamoureux - The Sin-Death Problem: Toward an Evolutionary Creationist Solution. It is a very interesting audio talk by Lamoreux. Anyone who thinks you cannot be an Evangelical Christian and an evolutionist needs to listen to it. Since coming to this forum it is the 2nd Evangelical Christian / Evolutionist I have come across. I found his talk interesting because its focus was something I debated recently with a friend at another forum.

Thanks Hal for the post.

It was so INTENSELY dull that I don't see how anyone could get through it.

Maybe I have a deeper interest in the subject matter being discussed than you and so found it more interesting? As I said earlier, I had a recent discussion with someone about the same material. Though I am surprised you found it boring. Maybe you were not interested in hearing what he had to say.

You CAN'T be an evolutionist and a believer....there is no way to do it.

More easily said, I suppose, if you don't listen to what he has to say. Your assumption is obviously false MorningGlory. Lamoreux is another example of why you are wrong. He does believe both in evolution and God. If you had listened to the ending of his talk that fact would have been driven home to you. Or you would have to charge him with lying to everyone about his personal belief.

He explains why his present belief is no contradiction. That would be his opinion. You'd have to listen to him to understand why. There wouldn't be much sense in myself trying to explain his position when all you have to do is listen to what he has to say.

I don't quite understand. Do you think it is impossible to believe in God and the saving power of Christ and believe in evolution? That is, do you think that the act of believing in evolution makes it impossible to believe in God and Jesus? Is that what you think? People DO believe in both.

People are not Christian because they say so! People are Christian when God says so! Another words they are in line with God's Word and therefore are God's examples of the Words that He spoke! 6 days God created all- Gen. Anything outside of this is a lie and the truth is not in them. They might as well claim to be monkies. Love Steven

[~candice~]

Then maybe you should just stay over there and cease from plaguing us with your evoutionary nonsense.

I think it's telling that we keep seeing this theme of "you shouldn't post here" instead of dealing with points raised in the posts themselves.

Lurker

What's telling is your loud and proud declaration of Christ and what He has done for you. Your website is just riddled it with!

[~candice~]

What's telling is your loud and proud declaration of Christ and what He has done for you. Your website is just riddled it with!

That's simply not what that is designed to do, sorry. It's more of an archive for things I've grown tired of re-writing. Again, why are you so focused on declarations as if this is synonymous with faith? I find wonder in the beauty of Creation, isn't understanding the universe, then, a way of declaring what God has done for us? And if we are to understand what we can of the universe, shouldn't we be able to strive for learning as much as we can about it without worrying whether or not it will allign with scripture? After all, if both have the same author shouldn't we simply expect the predictions of one to match up with the predictions of the other? If not, why?

Lurker

OK, so point me to your declaration of faith, anywhere? What separates you from an atheist evolutionist?

Evolution does not line up with the scriptures. Evolution and the bible do not have the same Author and do not line up. The only way to make it so is to devalue the Word. I have yet to hear from you adequately on how you can reconcile the two, other than half hearted remarks dismissing the issue by claiming "they must add up if they have the same author".

If you believe evolution and the bible have the same author (which they don't, but I'll ask anyway) then why do you read one of the authors works and completely ignore the other?

You focus so much on evolution that you have missed the message of the Author. Studying CREATION is fine, but being single focused on evolution is not.

Mat 6:33 (MKJV)

33a But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness;

[Hal P]

Well Denis Lamoureux's approach is that the Bible teaches an ancient science, not that it is wrong or that "God lied" - in the same way that poetry is not "wrong." He simply says that it was the best science the people at that time had, and may have been influenced by other cultures. He still believes God inspired the Bible, he just disagrees with you about what that means.

You insist that he can't be a Christian, despite the fact that he quite clearly is. He is trained to the PhD level in both biology and theology - with his dissertation being on the early chapters of Genesis. So not only is he a Christian, he knows far more about both the science and theology involved than anyone else on here.

Edited March 27, 2010 by Hal P