evolution?

[Trust & Obey]

The "hopeful monster theory" isn't a straw man of mine.

Yes, it is, since it was a hypothesis that was disproved almost 100 years ago, along with other forms of saltationism.

And, I believe the rest of it has been disproven as well to anyone who has an open mind. But, evolutionists will never give up their "sacred cow" fully.

Enthusiastic laymen always misunderstand who "Mitochondrial Eve" was, and the significance of the finding, especially when they are enthusiastic about the bible.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Please explain to us the true meaning of it's finding.

And, while you're at it, do you believe that a dog can produce a non-dog? What about an elephant producing a non-elephant? If so, please present the evidence you have that supports your belief.

[Trust & Obey]

is it a sin or hipocritical to believe in evolution???  

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There is no such thing as evolution. The Lord is still creating it all.

Actually, God is done creating. He finished His word after 6 days and rested on the 7th.

We do not see any new creating happening as it would violate the 1st law of thermodynamics, conservation of matter and energy.

Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

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I am sorry my friend but you are wrong. You do not know where you are in the plan of GOD. You are quoting scripture told from God's perspective of timeless.

John 5

17But He answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working."

It is Christ who gives God's Spirit rest in the kingdom.

Hebrews 4 "read the whole chapter"

1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.

9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.

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Zhavonay, maybe I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that God is still creating physical/tangible things. This thread is about such things so I assumed that was your point.

God bless.

[Bread_of_Life]

And, I believe the rest of it has been disproven as well to anyone who has an open mind. But, evolutionists will never give up their "sacred cow" fully.

Easy to say, hard to evidence.

Please explain to us the true meaning of it's finding.

That our closest common ancestor by a female only line of descent lived about 150-200 thousand years ago. This is not to be mistaken for our closest common ancestor, nor should it be thought that this person was alone, but rather part of a population.

The interesting thing about the finding is that it's closer than we thought it would be, indicating a bottlenecking in the human population at the beginning of the last glacial period.

And, while you're at it, do you believe that a dog can produce a non-dog? What about an elephant producing a non-elephant?

No, but this isn't how evolution happens. Speciation something that occurs over many generations, and is only really important retrospectively. Elephant A will only give birth to a slightly different elephant B, which will in turn give birth to a slightly different elephant C. Elephant Z though, they could be significantly different from elephant A, and elephant ZZZZZ may be so different from elephant A that it's no longer really an elephant as we'd think of it today - it has evolved into a different species, it can no longer breed with elephant A's generation.

Of course, ZZZZZ is only a slight variant of ZZZZY, and that only a small variant of ZZZZX, but these small changes have accumulated over the generations to make something significantly different from A. It's a strange concept, because ZZZZZ might be able to breed with ZZAAA (even though they'd never meet, because they are seperated by time) and ZZAAA might be able to breed with A, but A cannot breed with ZZZZZ. But it's also a true concept, it's the accumulation of gradual change.

[Guest Samaritan]

If God created the Chinese, why did He not reveal himself to them? They are after all the oldest civilization.

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Samaritan, China has THE LARGEST Christian population of any nation. True, this is likely because of their population. But, to say God has not revealed Himself to China is inaccurate.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wasn't talking about today. I was talking about 4000 years ago before any Christian missionaries had reached China. I'm talking about the millions of people who have died not hearing His word.

[Guest Samaritan]

Samaritan,

This debate is advancing too quickly for me to keep up or hope to respond. I

[Trust & Obey]

And, I believe the rest of it has been disproven as well to anyone who has an open mind. But, evolutionists will never give up their "sacred cow" fully.

Easy to say, hard to evidence.

Please explain to us the true meaning of it's finding.

That our closest common ancestor by a female only line of descent lived about 150-200 thousand years ago. This is not to be mistaken for our closest common ancestor, nor should it be thought that this person was alone, but rather part of a population.

The interesting thing about the finding is that it's closer than we thought it would be, indicating a bottlenecking in the human population at the beginning of the last glacial period.

And, while you're at it, do you believe that a dog can produce a non-dog? What about an elephant producing a non-elephant?

No, but this isn't how evolution happens. Speciation something that occurs over many generations, and is only really important retrospectively. Elephant A will only give birth to a slightly different elephant B, which will in turn give birth to a slightly different elephant C. Elephant Z though, they could be significantly different from elephant A, and elephant ZZZZZ may be so different from elephant A that it's no longer really an elephant as we'd think of it today - it has evolved into a different species, it can no longer breed with elephant A's generation.

Of course, ZZZZZ is only a slight variant of ZZZZY, and that only a small variant of ZZZZX, but these small changes have accumulated over the generations to make something significantly different from A. It's a strange concept, because ZZZZZ might be able to breed with ZZAAA (even though they'd never meet, because they are seperated by time) and ZZAAA might be able to breed with A, but A cannot breed with ZZZZZ. But it's also a true concept, it's the accumulation of gradual change.

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It is easy to make something so incredibly complex sound so incredibly simple in writing. A turned to B turned to X turnex to ZZZZ, etc. The only thing we are missing is:

a) any evidence

b) any observation

c) and current examples that are in the process

I still maintain that a genetic mutation is the equivalent to a bug/corrupt file error in a computer program. You know, the thing that makes your computer freeze or show the "BSOD" (Blue screen of death).

One error shuts the system down from functioning, yet evolution maintains that millions upon millions of successful mutations occured to form a different kind, in the face of all of the countless harmful mutations that were sure to abound.

My opinion is that Darwinian evolution does not have the capacity to explain the formation of complex systems, made up of multiple sub-systems, by natural selection over long periods of time.

Let's take a look at the visual system. Let's pretend that millions of years ago a worm-type creature was spawned with a mutation on its face which was later to develop into an eye. Or, since everything has 2 eyes we need to take it a step further. Let's assume that out of nowhere a worm was spawned with 2 perfectly pigmented spots that were later to become fully working eyes. There is no presence of a lens, iris, cornea, pupil, etc.

Question: Can the worm see?

Answer: No, the worm cannot see.

So, please explain to me how natural selection would have favored this completely useles mutation of 2 perfectly symmetrical pigmentation specs on this worm since it would do absolutely nothing to increase the survivability of the worm.

[Trust & Obey]

is it a sin or hipocritical to believe in evolution???  

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There is no such thing as evolution. The Lord is still creating it all.

Actually, God is done creating. He finished His word after 6 days and rested on the 7th.

We do not see any new creating happening as it would violate the 1st law of thermodynamics, conservation of matter and energy.

Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you are trying to discredit or disprove scientific theory with the bible then stop using scientific theory to make your case, it makes you look like a huge hypocrit.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fog, the Bible is scientifcally accurate.

That post wasn't directed at anything other than confirming the law of Conservation of Matter and Energy.

The Bible confirms that scientific law, it does not discredit it. Read the thread before isolating a post for rebuttal.

[fenwar]

Hi again,

Because evolution teaches that "all kinds" evolved from "one kind," notably a single-celled organism like an amoeba. The bible clearly teaches that God created the plant and animal kingdom after their own kind.

I'm no Hebrew scholar, but what does the phrase "after their own kind" actually mean anyway? Is it really so specific as to rule out the slightest possibility of speciation? It doesn't feel like that's the writer's intent to me.

Speciation doesn't say that one day "dog + dog = horse" or anything crazy like that. But (for example) if we have a population of dogs who can all interbreed, and then split them into two groups for a million years or so, they may have evolved in different directions. As a result they may still be able to interbreed - but if they can't, they will continue to evolve in different directions and the differences will become more pronounced.

This means that God created elephants, horses, etc. He created them complete and intact. As a matter of fact, they were more perfect then they are today due to a lack of sin in the world. Evolution teaches the exact opposite of this. Evolution teaches that "things are getting better and more advanced." The bible teaches that things are decaying, just as the law of entropy details.

I'm not sure I agree about this "decay" - surely this is talking about spiritual and moral decay rather than biological optimisation? Certainly there are physical effects of mankind's sin (e.g. over-farming, pollution, global warming etc.) but this has about as much relevance to evolution as it does to any other branch of science (e.g. the laws of physics are still just as reliable as they ever were - they're not "decaying"...)

Evolution teaches that man is getting better, whereas the Bible teaches that we started out perfect and have gotten worse, genetically, over time.

What the Bible says about decay has nothing to do with genetics. Species always become better adapted to suit their environments, through inherited learning as well as genetic traits. However our particular species are now destroying those environments, and doing emotional and physical damage to ourselves through our behaviour (e.g. alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity), which is exactly the kind of decay the Bible talks about.

Well, obviously you are coming to the table with the assumption that the thumbs evolved.

Yeah, sorry, that wasn't much of an argument was it...

How many transitional-forms would have walked/crawled around with this little unusable stub on the end of the hand, thereby making the transition-form clumsy and unsophisticated in the use of their hands?

You're assuming that the first "thumb" was a "little unusable stub" though... we have the same number of fingers and toes, so surely it's more likely that the last digit gradually became more flexible... In any case, if I walk on my hands, I walk on the flat of my palms, and my thumb doesn't give me any particular disadvantage. But when I'm trying to climb a tree to reach the juiciest fruit, all of a sudden it's advantage...

Let's take another example. It is commonly argued by evolutionists that birds evolved from reptiles. Let's picture it. A reptiles forelimbs would have to evolve into wings. The scales on the reptile would have to evolve into feathers. Imagine this transitional form halfway through the process. You have a half-lizard/half-bird creature that has half-wings that cannot yet fly, but now he can't hardly run either since they are not usable feet. Don't you think this transitional being would be LUNCH to a predator due to its inability to successfully evade predators?

The birds would have evolved from the smaller, lighter dinosaurs. These had strong hind limbs so they could run, and gradually they would be able to jump. The "wings" might simply be webbing of skin under their forelimbs allowing the creatures to glide - and eventually this gliding becomes the default type of movement, and before you know it you've got longer forelimbs and wings. Feathers would have been a later development, probably due to climate change.

I'm no biologist, but I don't think this kind of argument from improbability holds much water. It's incredible how much the earth has changed in the last six thousand years. I can't imagine 4 billion years, it's silly to try and say what could and couldn't have happened in that kind of timeframe.

But what I want to get across is that "random" mutations aren't where I'm coming from. I don't think God plays dice. He designed this process and knew the outcome before the very first self-replicating molecule was formed.

Kind of like David's first shot at Goliath being a perfect kill, or Saul's spear missing David by a whisker - to a casual observer these would look like "random" events, yet they end up having a great deal of significance in God's relationship with Israel (and thus the whole of mankind). Likewise, God knew what mutations would happen at every step along the way to form the diverse and beautiful array of species we see today.

He planned it so that the pinnacle of his creation was the species capable of knowing him, capable of reflecting his love and righteousness. (And also capable of choosing not to.) He had set them apart as his chosen people, before time began.

Anyway a little digression there.

The Bible was never intended as a scientific reference book.

Absolutely.

But, the Bible is scientifically accurate.

I don't think "accurate" is the best word. For example, you don't use the measurements in 1 Kings 7.23 to calculate the value of pi!

The many different books of the Bible often use generalisations where details are not important. Genesis 1 does not need to tell us about abiogenesis, proteins and enzymes - it would have blown Moses' mind, let alone any chance of the whole of Israel understanding it all. The point is that every single thing was created by God.

[Trust & Obey]

Hi again,

Because evolution teaches that "all kinds" evolved from "one kind," notably a single-celled organism like an amoeba. The bible clearly teaches that God created the plant and animal kingdom after their own kind.

I'm no Hebrew scholar, but what does the phrase "after their own kind" actually mean anyway? Is it really so specific as to rule out the slightest possibility of speciation? It doesn't feel like that's the writer's intent to me.

Speciation doesn't say that one day "dog + dog = horse" or anything crazy like that. But (for example) if we have a population of dogs who can all interbreed, and then split them into two groups for a million years or so, they may have evolved in different directions. As a result they may still be able to interbreed - but if they can't, they will continue to evolve in different directions and the differences will become more pronounced.

The word "science" means knowledge. It is that which we know. If you call evolution science, then why are you using the terms "may have" and "may still?"

This means that God created elephants, horses, etc. He created them complete and intact. As a matter of fact, they were more perfect then they are today due to a lack of sin in the world. Evolution teaches the exact opposite of this. Evolution teaches that "things are getting better and more advanced." The bible teaches that things are decaying, just as the law of entropy details.

I'm not sure I agree about this "decay" - surely this is talking about spiritual and moral decay rather than biological optimisation? Certainly there are physical effects of mankind's sin (e.g. over-farming, pollution, global warming etc.) but this has about as much relevance to evolution as it does to any other branch of science (e.g. the laws of physics are still just as reliable as they ever were - they're not "decaying"...)

Actually, it is quite physical and biolgical. If you examine the geneologies in Genesis you'll find that Adam lived to be approx 900 yrs old. Then, each successive generation lived a less lengthy life.

I'm running out right now, but will try and pick the discussion back up later on.

God bless.

[Trust & Obey]

Micro-evolution is evolution. Mutations which are not all harmful, not all beneficial, leading to small changes. That's why its called evolution.

The difference between blonde and brunette is genetic, an inherited trait. Racial differences are just an accumulation of these small genetic mutations.

Species are a human construct, which nature does not recognise. Plants and animals interbred (mules are a famous example).

If God created the Chinese, why did He not reveal himself to them? They are after all the oldest civilization.

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Samaritan, China has THE LARGEST Christian population of any nation. True, this is likely because of their population. But, to say God has not revealed Himself to China is inaccurate.

The term "species" can be a tricky discussion and that is why I prefer to use the biblical term "kind." The Bible says that God created animals after their kind, not after their species.

So, if you some evidence of a dog producing a non-dog, or an elephant producing a non-elephant, by all means share it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So now you'd rather not use the scientific terms because they don't help your case as well as a word written about 1700 years ago? It's amazing the things people will say in order to make something fit their particular belief.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Totally incorrect. The Bible says that God creating animals after their kind, not after their species. Species is a man-made categorization of the animal and plant kingdom. It isn't God's definition.

So, I'm saying evolution does not happen according to the Bible. You are saying it does. Therefore, the burden of proof lies on you to prove the Bible wrong. Pretty straight-forward, no?

Again, what evidence do you have that a dog has ever produced a non-dog? What about an elephant producing a non-elephant?

If you don't have any evidence then you must resing evolution to a belief system, which is exactly what it is. You are free to have your beliefs, but do not call it science, which is that which we know.