A Concern for Applying the Bible to the Natural Sciences

[The Barbarian]

55 minutes ago, Sparks said:

You have the habit of redefining things to fit your needs.  I sense that you don't want Darwin to be revealed as a racist,

Darwin was a typical 19th century Englishman.    He thought that Englishmen were superior to Frenchmen and Germans.   He differed from typical racists like Henry Morris in several important ways.   First, he believed all humans were equal and had the same rights.   He thought that "savagery" was learned, and that "savages" could become civilized people like Englishmen.

Morris, who did much to found the Seventh-Day Adventist doctrine of YE creationism, thought that black people had a genetic character that made them intellectually and spiritually inferior.   He wrote that God made them to be servants of other people.

Morris differed from Hitler in that he hated blacks more than Jews, and of course, he didn't advocate killing all of them.

55 minutes ago, Sparks said:

He should have known better being trained as a pastor that there is no such thing as race.

Actually, he showed how races of organisms differed.    Today, evolutionary theory has shown that there are no biological human races, contrary to the racial beliefs of YE creationists like Henry Morris.

However, we see populations of sub-species (that's what races are called today) in all sorts of species.   If you had read On the Origin of Species, you'd have learned that Darwin made no comment on possible human species therein.

55 minutes ago, Sparks said:

Darwin was no scientist either

He was made a member of the Royal Society, which was at the time the highest honor a scientist could have in England.   I think it was his paper on the origin of Pacific atolls for which he was so honored.   But it could have been his paper on the classification of marine organisms.    One of those.

55 minutes ago, Sparks said:

He was trained as a pastor, only.

If so, he had a remarkable talent for biology, reaching the highest level of British science.    Truth is, a lot of pastors were biologists.   "Natural theology" they called it then.

55 minutes ago, Sparks said:

Very few of the pioneers of evolution theory were actual scientists

That's a testable belief...

Thomas Huxley, one of the first to accept Darwin's theory:

Following a lecture at the Royal Institution on 30 April, the British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley indicated in 1852 that it remained difficult to earn a living as a scientist alone. This occur in a letter written in May 3, 1852, where he states "Science in England does everything—but PAY. You may earn praise but not pudding".[24] However, Huxley effectively resigned from the navy by refusing to return to active service, and in July 1854 he became professor of natural history at the Royal School of Mines and naturalist to the British Geological Survey in the following year. In addition, he was Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution 1855–1858 and 1865–1867; Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons 1863–1869; president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1869–1870; president of the Quekett Microscopical Club 1878; president of the Royal Society 1883–1885; Inspector of Fisheries 1881–1885; and president of the Marine Biological Association 1884–1890.[14] He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1869.[25]

The thirty-one years during which Huxley occupied the chair of natural history at the Royal School of Mines included work on vertebrate palaeontology and on many projects to advance the place of science in British life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Huxley

Alfred Wallace, who co-discovered natural selection shortly after Darwin, was a surveyor and naturalist.    He has several papers before his collaboration with Darwin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace

Asa Gray was a physician and botanist, the first American scientist of note to accept Darwin's theory.

Gray published many of his scientific reports in the influential American Journal of Science, which for some years he also edited. Some of his best writings, often interpretive in character, concern the geographical distribution of plants, and he is considered a pioneer in the field of plant biogeography. His 1856 paper on plant distribution, “Statistics of the Flora of the Northern United States,” was written partly in response to a request by Charles Darwin for a list of American alpine plants. Gray was one of the few persons whom Darwin kept fully informed concerning the publication of his Origin of Species (1859).

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Asa-Gray

Gray was a devout Christian, BTW.

Thomas Morgan, who established the reality of genes and thereby removed an important objection to biological evolution.   Would you like to talk about that?

How many scientists would you like to see?

55 minutes ago, Sparks said:

and the entire theory lacks scientific observation.

This is how I know you never read On the Origin of Species.   It has observations in numbing detail.

One of Darwin's last papers is on the effect of earthworms on soil.    He collected a huge body of information by recruiting others to help him.    And it's a classic of good scientific scholarship.

 

Edited February 5 by The Barbarian

[Sparks]

32 minutes ago, The Barbarian said:

However, we see populations of sub-species (that's what races are called today) in all sorts of species.   If you had read On the Origin of Species, you'd have learned that Darwin made no comment on possible human species therein.

Nothing above changes what I said.

There is no 'race gene' and no subspecies of humans.  If you found a decomposing human hand in the woods and the skin had rotted away, you would not be able to tell what 'race' it was based on genetics, and DNA.  You could tell if it was male or female, but maybe not in this woke world.

A crack team of geneticist could not determine race in my scenario above.  You can tell perhaps where a persons great, great, great (x 10) grandmother was standing on the planet based Mitochondrial DNA and Y haplogroups though it is mostly a big guess, but never race.

[teddyv]

23 hours ago, The_Patriot21 said:

Well, you can believe that but it is contrary to the Bible.

And if it is contrary to the Bible then it is wrong, regardless of your opinion on the matter.

What, specifically, is contrary to the Bible?

About not interpreting the Genesis narrative like you do?

About modern YEC being corrupted by philosophical Modernism?

About AiG? 

Are these matter salvific for to you?

[Mozart's Starling]

9 minutes ago, teddyv said:

What, specifically, is contrary to the Bible?

About not interpreting the Genesis narrative like you do?

About modern YEC being corrupted by philosophical Modernism?

About AiG? 

Are these matter salvific for to you?

Thing is Genesis reads like a history book and uses simple and clear language. It also lists exact ages of death and family lines etc. Not a lot of room for debate. And again, what does 7 days tell us if it is not a literal 7 days? You're telling me God couldn't just had said 7 ages? Why pick a period of time that the world would understand to be 7 24 hour periods yet actually mean ANY number of years? It's ridiculous. Evolution is not compatible with the Bible. There's now way one could read Genesis and arrive at evolution being the origin of man.The term "evolution believing Christian" is oxymoron. You'd either have to be lost to believe it, or deliberately spreading its lie.

Edited February 5 by Mozart's Starling

[teddyv]

22 hours ago, Sparks said:

I mean no offense when I ask this.  I am genuinely interested in knowing how you stumbled into the Christian Camp if you believe what the Bible says is bogus, or suggest that God didn't know what He was talking about when He told you what He did.  How did you arrive at God, at all, if you don't believe what He said in Genesis about what He did?  You speak of hermeneutics, but you cannot possibly understand how hermeneutics works if you arrive at evolution theory when applying those rules, and saying the people who actually do understand them are fundamentally flawed.

Are you sure you are not applying Eisegesis to your interpretation of the Bible, to try to squeeze in evolution because that's what you prefer?  Is there any reason that an all powerful God could not create Earth and the entire universe in literal days?

To be clear, why do you believe in God Almighty if you literally don't believe in the what the Bible has to say about Him, or what He did in creation? 

If, at this point, over the last couple of years you even have to ask this question is remarkable but not surprising considering you usual M.O. If this was anyone else asking I might take the time to respond but I do not believe you are a capable of good-faith discussions around this issue.  Sorry, I do not trust you when you say "no offense" and "genuine interest".

[The Barbarian]

1 hour ago, Sparks said:

There is no 'race gene' and no subspecies of humans. 

As I showed you, evolutionary theory shows that there are no biological human races now.   YE Creationists based their doctrines on the supposed intellectual and spiritual inferiority of black people, but they did that because they opposed evolution and science.

Contrary to the foundational beliefs of YE creationism, there is more variation within any "race" you might define than there is between "races."  

 

[The Barbarian]

7 minutes ago, Mozart's Starling said:

Thing is Genesis reads like a history book and uses simple and clear language.

If that were true, there'd be wide agreement on what it says, among Christians.  But there isn't.  So that assumption fails on the evidence alone. 

8 minutes ago, Mozart's Starling said:

Evolution is not compatible with the Bible.

That would be unfortunate, since we see evolution everywhere we look in populations.   Even in "living fossils" we see evolution.   The two living species of coelacanths, for example, are very much evolved from their fossil relatives.    The apple maggot fly did not exist when Europeans first visited America.   It evolved since then from the hawthorn maggot fly.  

So you're telling us that reality is incompatible with the Bible.   Which is an affront to God, IMO.

12 minutes ago, Mozart's Starling said:

The term "evolution believing Christian" is oxymoron.

In fact, most of the world's Christians belong to denominations that have not rejected the fact of evolution.   For that matter, most of them belong to denominations that are O.K. with common descent.

 

 

[teddyv]

 

3 minutes ago, Mozart's Starling said:

Thing is Genesis reads like a history book and uses simple and clear language. It also lists exact ages of death and family lines etc. Not a lot of room for debate. And again, what does 7 days tell us if it is not a literal 7 days? You're telling me God couldn't just had said 7 ages? Why pick a period of time that the world would understand to be 7 24 hour periods yet actually mean ANY number of years? It's ridiculous. Evolution is not compatible with the Bible. There's now way one could read Genesis and arrive at evolution being the origin of man.The term "evolution believing Christian" is oxymoron. You'd either have to be lost to believe it, or deliberately spreading its lie.

These contentions are very debatable by both conservative and more liberal theologians. I was literally reading a blog by Dr. Todd Wood (not a theologian, but a YEC creationist Ph.D.) about the genealogies earlier. Few view the genealogies as absolute except for people who hold to a hard YEC position.

YEC organizations like AiG and ICR and CMI are all pretty committed to evolutionary processes (I think ICR may be rethinking this position). For example, they posit that wolves and foxes were not on the ark, but a common ancestor from which they descended after the Flood. I think it is well-established that neither of these species interbreed. There are also other varieties like jackals, wild dogs, and dingos that would have speciated from the common canid ancestor. Therefore this would represent a speciation within the last 3500 years. And this is proposed for a lot of created "kinds". (this is literally shown on their displays at the Ark Encounter, and elsewhere).

Would you contend that AiG is spreading a lie?

 

[The Barbarian]

13 minutes ago, teddyv said:

 If this was anyone else asking I might take the time to respond but I do not believe you are a capable of good-faith discussions around this issue.  Sorry, I do not trust you when you say "no offense" and "genuine interest".

Maybe I'm naive, but I suspect that Sparks is entirely sincere.    I've had a lot of exposure to creationists, and it's easy to underestimate the indoctrination they get from an early age.

[Mozart's Starling]

7 minutes ago, teddyv said:

 

These contentions are very debatable by both conservative and more liberal theologians. I was literally reading a blog by Dr. Todd Wood (not a theologian, but a YEC creationist Ph.D.) about the genealogies earlier. Few view the genealogies as absolute except for people who hold to a hard YEC position.

YEC organizations like AiG and ICR and CMI are all pretty committed to evolutionary processes (I think ICR may be rethinking this position). For example, they posit that wolves and foxes were not on the ark, but a common ancestor from which they descended after the Flood. I think it is well-established that neither of these species interbreed. There are also other varieties like jackals, wild dogs, and dingos that would have speciated from the common canid ancestor. Therefore this would represent a speciation within the last 3500 years. And this is proposed for a lot of created "kinds". (this is literally shown on their displays at the Ark Encounter, and elsewhere).

Would you contend that AiG is spreading a lie?

 

Not sure who AiG is but if they're promoting the actual origins of man to be primordial goo or us descending from apes then yes, they are lying. And again why would an all powerful God not realize what the implications of what the word "day" means? I don't care what other orginizations say, if it contradicts scripture it is a lie. We have the same text. I don't need to be a scientist or a popular Christian orginization to understand the clear and direct language found in Genesis. So answer my question please.

Edited February 5 by Mozart's Starling