Still Alive Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 4 Topic Count: 13 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 3,024 Content Per Day: 1.34 Reputation: 1,224 Days Won: 3 Joined: 02/05/2018 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 This is my take on "seems to suggest" a creator: In a Scientific American article on DNA research published in the 1990ish time frame, one of the researches said something like this regarding DNA: The more we know about it, the more it looks like somebody designed it. Believing there is a personality as designer is not religion. Only when you give that personality a name does it begin to border on "religion". Ad a computer programming developer, the more I personally know about DNA, the more it looks like a programming language, complete with safeguards, parity bits, etc. The idea that such a thing could have simply "happened" through chance is not supportable by science. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Adams Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 26 Topic Count: 61 Topics Per Day: 0.03 Content Count: 9,604 Content Per Day: 3.98 Reputation: 7,795 Days Won: 21 Joined: 09/11/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 (edited) Whichever way you care to stir it, Evolution is a theory and has so many pitfalls that I do not see its adherents as being so easily misdirected since most seem intelligent. Forget scripture in this discussion. The scriptures are NOT a scientific treatise and to treat them as such is a gross misunderstanding of their function. Scripture is theological and so if we want to answer scripture with science it will fail miserably. It is what is is. No more and no less. Theology. Added: Augustine's theology is not so good. Do not use him. Edited August 22, 2019 by Justin Adams add Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one.opinion Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 6 Topic Count: 29 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 5,240 Content Per Day: 2.11 Reputation: 1,356 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/03/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 9 minutes ago, Justin Adams said: Evolution is a theory and has so many pitfalls that I do not see its adherents as being so easily misdirected since most seem intelligent. Are you open to genuine discussion about these hypothetical pitfalls? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Still Alive Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 4 Topic Count: 13 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 3,024 Content Per Day: 1.34 Reputation: 1,224 Days Won: 3 Joined: 02/05/2018 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 "Evolution" is a terribly misunderstood word. The Corvette has "evolved". The Rolling Stones' music "evolved". Heck, the spotted moth population "evolved", just as the US population evolved. Yet, in neither case did any individual member of the population evolve. That being said, there are "mutations" in DNA. So evolution theory is "possibe", in the same way that the earth being destroyed by a massive meteor is "possible", or winning the lotto is "possible". But it is not even equally improbable as those examples. It is millions of times less "probable" than those examples. Just because something is theoretically possible, it doesn't mean it is a good foundation for any kind of theory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one.opinion Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 6 Topic Count: 29 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 5,240 Content Per Day: 2.11 Reputation: 1,356 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/03/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 57 minutes ago, Abby-Joy said: The Word of God states that we were created by God in His image. The text of the Bible strongly suggest that "His image" should be used in a spiritual context, rather than physical. John 4:24 tells us that God is Spirit and we must worship Him in spirit. Physically, there is very little that separates us from animals. 1 hour ago, Abby-Joy said: He formed man, indicates He created man with His own hands I would argue that his formation of humanity was through a mechanism that is not specified. The Bible does not claim that He literally formed humans with physical hands. I believe that His special creation of humanity was an act of imbuing spirit, not the corporeal formation of a physical body. The spirit it what truly separates us from the animals that God created. 1 hour ago, Abby-Joy said: There was no evolutionary process mentioned. It doesn't say He created an ape and then told it to evolve into a man. This is not really a relevant argument. The Bible also does not mention cell division and differentiation in the formation of a human baby from a zygote, that does not mean that this process does not occur. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one.opinion Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 6 Topic Count: 29 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 5,240 Content Per Day: 2.11 Reputation: 1,356 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/03/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 2 minutes ago, maryjayne said: What manner of creature do you think God gave this spirit to? the spirit you mention? a sort of semi human ape? a Neanderthal? a gorilla? what form did this creature take and at what stage of evolution do you think it happened? I think this special imbuing of "His image" occurred roughly 6000 years ago in two members of Homo sapiens that were virtually identical biologically to you and I. The tracing of the ancestry of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke goes all the way back to Adam, which strongly suggests to me that Adam and Eve were two real people and not simply archetype figures. I cannot explain how this "new humanity" was passed from Adam and Eve to other humans, but I believe this was also a spiritual event, so there is no reason to think that all moderns humans must be biological descendants of Adam and Eve. Instead, I think there exists a spiritual tie that goes back to that first couple. From that tie, we have the spiritual potential to commune with our Creator, but all of us have sinned and have broken that tie. The Good News is that the tie to our Creator can be reformed through the grace of Jesus Christ and His sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection - provided we accept this gift and commit to a relationship with Him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one.opinion Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 6 Topic Count: 29 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 5,240 Content Per Day: 2.11 Reputation: 1,356 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/03/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 3 minutes ago, maryjayne said: Interesting. Thank you for your response. Do you have any thoughts on what the fate of those other homo sapiens, not Adam and Eve, but the erest of them alive at that time was? I can see two possibilities IF my thoughts on this are correct. One, the compatriots of Adam and Eve did not receive an imbuing of God's image and thus, no spirit with no eternal destination after the physical life expired. Second, these compatriots of Adam and Eve receive an imbuing of God's image at some point after Adam and Eve did. The spirits of these individuals would have had the same potential outcomes as any other prior to the arrival of Jesus Christ - the Bible-based theology is very murky on what happened to individuals prior to the days of Moses. I believe there is fairly strong evidence in the first few chapters of Genesis that there were indeed other humans living at the time of Adam and Eve. For example, Cain fled for his safety to the land of Nod, which appears to have been settled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChessPlayer Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Members Followers: 1 Topic Count: 3 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 53 Content Per Day: 0.03 Reputation: 30 Days Won: 0 Joined: 08/15/2019 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 3 hours ago, maryjayne said: Would you mind just clarifying for me: do you believe that God created Adam and Eve as Neaderthals? No. I merely brought up Neanderthals in response to a point regarding evolutionary biology, speciation and reproduction. I felt that dhchristian had a slightly inaccurate view on the subject and provided Neanderthals as a counterexample. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChessPlayer Posted August 22, 2019 Group: Members Followers: 1 Topic Count: 3 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 53 Content Per Day: 0.03 Reputation: 30 Days Won: 0 Joined: 08/15/2019 Status: Offline Share Posted August 22, 2019 3 hours ago, Justin Adams said: Whichever way you care to stir it, Evolution is a theory and has so many pitfalls that I do not see its adherents as being so easily misdirected since most seem intelligent. Forget scripture in this discussion. The scriptures are NOT a scientific treatise and to treat them as such is a gross misunderstanding of their function. Scripture is theological and so if we want to answer scripture with science it will fail miserably. It is what is is. No more and no less. Theology. Added: Augustine's theology is not so good. Do not use him. I agree with parts of this and some parts less so. What I think you get correct is that the Bible was never intended as a scientific treatise nor does it give any answers as to the exact manner in which God created. That is why we have theistic evolutionists, old earth creationists and young earth creationist each with a different view on how the creative work of God came to pass. The important recognition of all of these views is that God is the Uncaused Cause or Prime Mover as Aquinas put it. I'm curious what pitfalls you see in evolution. Would you care to elaborate? Additionally, although I agree that Augustine is certainly not infallible, there is no denying his influence over the modern church (especially in the West - in Orthodoxy he is viewed differently). I would say that referring to all of his theological writings as bad is probably an overstatement. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one.opinion Posted August 23, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 6 Topic Count: 29 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 5,240 Content Per Day: 2.11 Reputation: 1,356 Days Won: 4 Joined: 07/03/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted August 23, 2019 3 hours ago, maryjayne said: May I ask what led you to theses ideas? Much of what I believe is based on the Bible itself - the book of God’s Word. Some of what I believe is based on scientific evidence - the book of God’s works. I believe both are true, so any perceived incompatibility is due to either a misunderstanding of His Word or a misunderstand of His works. Both must fit together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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