Theistic Evolution

[enoob57]

I mean it's so obvious ... mutations add nothing to the genetics but actually subtract from...

[RV_Wizard]

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Graham accepted evolution, because it is consistent with Christian belief.  

No, only observable speciation is consistent with Christian belief.  The  notion of universal common descent is specifically refuted by the fact that all the fishes and birds were created in one day, all the land dwelling animals were created in one day, and Man was created from the dust of the earth by God in one day.  To claim this to be compatible with universal common descent is to claim a lie ANYONE can see through.  Life cannot be both created by God in a day while evolving over billions of years.  Either one is true or the other is true, but your claim is indisputably false.

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

It's just a fact, shown to be true by genetics.

No, it's a Satanic lie based on genetic similarities that one would expect in life forms created in the same place at the same time using the same elements and the same blueprint for life by the same Creator. 

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Only your revision of it. 

Repeating this lie doesn't give it validity.  My version was released in 1611.  Yours is an 18th century heresy.

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Even Darwin supposed that God might have created any number of original living things.

Not so in the Descent of Man, which was written after On the Origin of the Species.  it is in the latter that he claims common origins.  “In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some apelike creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any definite point where the term 'man' ought to be used.”  Darwin lost all faith in God after death of his daughter Annie in 1851.  He sought to use evolution as a way to give God zero credit for the creation.  

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Everyone here knows better.

Yes, everyone can see that you are taking observable speciation and extrapolating it into an untenable theory of universal common descent.  We ALL see your dishonesty.  Evolution gives credit for the formation of life to time and chance, NOT to the Creator.  

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

It's not evolution you hate; it's science and truth generally.

You couldn't identify truth if it ran you over.  Evolution is not science.  It's a religion.  Science deals with what is provable.  It does not postulate unprovable theories and demand they be accepted as factual.  It does not call for the elimination of the teaching of alternative theories.  Science does not require its proponents to continuously lie and distort the Scriptures to validate its findings.

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Jesus is talking about the beginning of our race, not the beginning of all creation. 

You are the last person I would trust regarding anything in the Bible. 

(Jesus) knew that Genesis says Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day of creation.  According to Jesus, that sixth day of creation was “from the beginning,” a phrase we hear a number of times in the New Testament.  It refers to the beginning of creation as recorded in Genesis 1.

In other words, Jesus is pointing out that Adam and Eve were real people who were created in the beginning to be married only to each other.  He wants to remind His listeners when they were created so they would know it has always been that way; as a result, their pretensions to divorce were against the creation order established at the start of all things.  According to Jesus, Adam and Eve were two real people created to be married at a real time, and his listeners would be wise to understand the importance of that.   source

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

God is very explicit about how He will decide who is saved and who is not:

Indeed.  Jesus said, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

 

[The Barbarian]

Graham accepted evolution, because it is consistent with Christian belief.  

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

No, only observable speciation is consistent with Christian belief.

Comes down to credibility of disagreeing sources.    You lose.

It's just a fact, shown to be true by genetics.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

No, it's a Satanic lie

If you think genetics is "satanic", we've located the problem.

Even Darwin supposed that God might have created any number of original living things.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Not so

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one

Charles Darwin

When he formulated his theory, he was convinced that God created the first living things, possibly any number of them.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Darwin lost all faith in God after death of his daughter Annie in 1851. 

You were misled about that, too. 

"In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-12041.xml

Don't be so gullible.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Evolution gives credit for the formation of life to time and chance, NOT to the Creator.  

Not according to Darwin, who thought that God created the first living things.   C'mon.   You know better.  Everyone here knows better.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Evolution is not science.

Evolution is an observed phenomenon.   Remember what the scientific definition is?   We see it constantly.    Evolutionary theory is a science.    Here's a fellow YE creationist regarding evolutionary theory:

Creationist students, listen to me very carefully: There is evidence for evolution, and evolution is an extremely successful scientific theory. That doesn't make it ultimately true, and it doesn't mean that there could not possibly be viable alternatives. It is my own faith choice to reject evolution, because I believe the Bible reveals true information about the history of the earth that is fundamentally incompatible with evolution. I am motivated to understand God's creation from what I believe to be a biblical, creationist perspective. Evolution itself is not flawed or without evidence. Please don't be duped into thinking that somehow evolution itself is a failure.

https://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

Dr. Wood takes his Christianity seriously, and will not lie to promote his beliefs.    Too bad, so many YE creationists don't take their faith seriously enough to be honest about it.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Science deals with what is provable. 

No.   Science "proves" nothing.    It merely gathers enough evidence to conclude that a particular thing is true.    Science is mostly inductive, and does not deal in logical certainty.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

It does not postulate unprovable theories and demand they be accepted as factual. 

But YE creationists often do.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

It does not call for the elimination of the teaching of alternative theories.

But YE creationists often do.    Evolutionary theory has been refined over the years precisely because evolutionary scientists were open to new research and data.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Science does not require its proponents to continuously lie and distort the Scriptures to validate its findings.

But YE creationists often do just that.    Not all  of them.   Dr. Wood, for example, is honest about the facts.

In Matthew 25, God is very explicit about who will be saved.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

Indeed.

He says that those who helped others who needed help would be saved.   Those who did not, will not be saved.

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

James 2:24 Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith only?

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

 

[RV_Wizard]

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Comes down to credibility of disagreeing sources.

My source is God's word.  You don't believe it.  Why you pretend you do is  a mystery.  God specifically stated a six day creation and a day of rest.  It is the ONLY established foundation of a week.  Months are seasons of the moon.  Year is an annual change in seasons caused by our rotation around the sun.  Day and night is from the planet rotating.  A week is tied only to the creation week.

God personally said that He created everything in six days.  You refuse to believe Him.  That's on you.

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

If you think genetics is "satanic",

Nice spin, but untrue.  Common descent is a Satanic lie.  Genetics is a field of study.  We all have the same information.  Some interpret it differently based on their assumptions.

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Even Darwin supposed that God might have created any number of original living things.

You continue to misrepresent evolution.  Darwin may have been the inspiration, but even Darwin believed in universal ancestry toward the end of his life.  Evolution leads people away from God's word in the same way Buddhism and Islam does,

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

When he formulated his theory, he was convinced that God created the first living things,

The he wrote the Descent of Man, which you refuse to acknowledge.

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

You were misled about that, too.

From The Autobiography of Charles Darwin: 

"By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, — that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible, do miracles become, — that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us."

"I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."

8 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Dr. Wood takes his Christianity seriously, and will not lie to promote his beliefs. 

You should follow his example.

[The Barbarian]

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

My source is God's word.

You are not God.   I'm just pointing out that your new interpretation disagrees with that of Christians like Billy Graham.

(Genetics shows common descent)
 

10 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

No, it's a Satanic lie

If you think genetics is "satanic", we've located the problem.

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

Genetics is a field of study. 

So now you've confused satanic lies and fields of study.   

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

We all have the same information.

No, we don't.   You, for example, have all sorts of misconceptions about things like genetics.   No satanism required at all.

 Even Darwin supposed that God might have created any number of original living things.

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

You continue to misrepresent evolution.

That's not evolution.   That's just Darwin's religious beliefs at the time.   I showed you what evolutionary theory is.   Go back and look it up.   It's not about the origin of life.  

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

Darwin may have been the inspiration, but even Darwin believed in universal ancestry toward the end of his life. 

Show us that.   Don't remember him being aware of that.   I suspect you made it up just as you made up the story that Darwin became an atheist.

When he formulated his theory, he was convinced that God created the first living things.  C'mon.   You know better.  Everyone here knows better.

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

The he wrote the Descent of Man, which you refuse to acknowledge.

I cited his words in The Descent of Man when I showed you he rejected the idea of eugenics, so beloved by many of the founders of YE creationism.   C'mon.

The book is about the evolution of humans, not the origin of life.   If you had read it, you'd know better.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one

Charles Darwin

When he formulated his theory, he was convinced that God created the first living things, possibly any number of them.

10 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Darwin lost all faith in God after death of his daughter Annie in 1851. 

You were misled about that, too. 

"In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-12041.xml

Don't be so gullible.

[RV_Wizard]

10 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

I'm just pointing out that your new interpretation

If you ever make a post that doesn't start with a lie, please let me know.  By now you're the only person in this forum that doesn't know that with very few exceptions the church taught a six day creation from the beginning.   

10 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

So now you've confused satanic lies and fields of study.  

Only in your mind.  Universal common descent is a Satanic lie.  Genetic commonalities would be expected from life forms created in the same place at the same time using the same elements and the same blueprint for life by the same Creator.  Genetic similarities would further be expected considering the bottleneck that happened with the great flood.  However, if you look at genetics and see a universal common progenitor, you are misinterpreting the evidence.  If you want to call God a liar you can explain to Him one day why you did.

10 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Even Darwin supposed that God might have created any number of original living things.

Darwin claimed that man had ape-like ancestors and shared a genetic history with modern primates.  He was not content with the notion of limited speciation, as you pretend.  Like other evolutionists, he pre-supposed an original progenitor.  He did NOT afford credit for the creation to God.

Before marriage, Charles Darwin had confessed everything to her. That he was in the process of rewriting the history of life. That, according to his convictions, all living things descended from a common ancestor. And that species were not to be attributed to God's endless creativity, but were the product of a blind, mechanical process that altered them over the course of millions of years.   source

Although the title of Darwin's infamous book is often cited as The Origin of Species, the complete title is The Origin of Species of Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life--the favored race being the white race.

Soon-to-be tyrants also grabbed hold of evolution. Karl Marx, the father of atheistic communism, wrote that Darwin's The Origin of Species served as "a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history." What followed were the revolutions of the 20th century and the carnage and oppression of countless human beings.   source

10 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

When he formulated his theory, he was convinced that God created the first living things.

In his autobiography written in 1876 Darwin reviewed questions about Christianity in relation to other religions and how "the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become". Though "very unwilling to give up my belief", he found that "disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct." He noted how "The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered", and how Paley's teleological argument had difficulties with the problem of evil.

"During these two years I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, & I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come, by this time, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, rainbow as a sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian."  source

"I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God" - Charles Darwin

11 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

You were misled about that, too.

Nope.  Not at all.

After his daughter’s death, Darwin put the notion of a loving God behind him. The Creator he now found in nature was, in Keynes’s words, “a shadowy, inscrutable and ruthless figure.”  source

The death of his daughter Annie in 1851 at age 10 proved a severe challenge to Darwin's faith; he could not ascribe such tragedies to the will of a Christian God. Eventually, he called himself an agnostic.

Thus, even though Darwin had sympathy with a religious view of life, he struggled to reconcile both his theory and the reality of human suffering with the theology of his day.   source

[The Barbarian]

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

If you ever make a post that doesn't start with a lie, please let me know.

Every time you get stuck, you toss out the same accusation.   You're very predictable.

(Genetics shows common descent)

On 9/23/2024 at 7:55 PM, RV_Wizard said:

No, it's a Satanic lie

If you think genetics is "satanic", we've located the problem.

(claims that Darwin, long after he discovered evolution, "lost all faith in God")

You were misled about that, too.

"In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-12041.xml

Don't be so gullible.

[The Barbarian]

12 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

Like other evolutionists, he pre-supposed an original progenitor.  He did NOT afford credit for the creation to God.

Well, let's take a look...

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Charles Darwin, last sentence of On the Origin of Species

I showed you this before.   Both of your claims are manifestly false.   I'll assume you just forgot and are not intentionally lying.

12 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

Although the title of Darwin's infamous book is often cited as The Origin of Species, the complete title is The Origin of Species of Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life--the favored race being the white race.

Even groups like Answers in Genesis urge creationists not to dishonestly pretend that Darwin meant human races.  "Race" back then, meant something like "subspecies."

Which is not to say that people who rejected Darwinian theory did not try to pretend that there are human races, with some inferior to others.   Nazis rejected Darwinian geneticists who showed that eugenics was scientifically unsupportable and YE creationists like ICR founder Henry Morris and his associate William Tinkel as late as the 1990s were blathering about the supposed racial inferiority of blacks and other "genetic inferiors."

"Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they have eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites."

YE creationist Henry Morris The Beginning Of the World, Second Edition (1991)

Much more troubling, however, are Tinkle’s opinions of almost 30 years later, in his book “Heredity. A study in science and the Bible” published in 1967, while Tinkle was the Secretary of the Creation Research Society. In its chapter “The prospect for eugenics”, far from having abandoned his support for the practice, Tinkle sounds more radical about it. He writes positively about sterilization for the “feeble-minded” (carefully classified as “morons”, “imbeciles” and “idiots”) and people with other hereditary conditions. Sterilization in a male, he says “is a simple operation”, and “in a girl or woman, [it] is as serious as removal of the vermiform appendix” [11, p. 139]. While he admits that it is impractical to sterilize all “defectives”, he still thinks it’s worth a shot when possible:

"At the present time there are in the United States more than a million people with serious hereditary defects, and to reduce their numbers by even a few thousand would reduce the amount of discomfort and hardship in the future. Unfortunate births are reduced by segregation also but there are not enough institutions to house nearly all the ones who have unfortunate genes. Institutional care is expensive but as compared to total government expenditure it is small.

Sterilization is sometimes employed with the consent of the patient for non-eugenic purposes. An example is a woman who has borne three children by Caesarean section and could not stand another birth. Persons who are on the borderline of normal mentality may be able to marry and care for themselves but would not be good parents. Their children might be normal or might be defective, and at any rate would have poor home discipline. Such persons sometimes are prevailed upon to submit to sterilization, to their own advantage."

William J Tinkle Heredity: A Study in Science and the Bible,

13 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

"I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God" - Charles Darwin

Interesting to note that Isaac Newton, often touted by YE creationists, also rejected the Trinity, asserting that it was a fraud involving a corruption of the Bible.

 

[RV_Wizard]

2 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Every time you get stuck, you toss out the same accusation.  

No, more like every time you lie and call belief in Genesis as written a new doctrine.  It’s a lie.  Everyone knows better.  When you write something untrue it’s an error, but when you KNOW it’s untrue, it’s a lie.

On 9/23/2024 at 10:53 PM, The Barbarian said:

Don't be so gullible

Darwin began as an aspiring theologian and ended up not believing in the Bible at all.  From an early diest he became a full agnostic.  Deal with it.

[The Barbarian]

3 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

Darwin began as an aspiring theologian and ended up not believing in the Bible at all.  From an early diest he became a full agnostic.  Deal with it.

That's a lot of backtracking, except of course your own link says he was an orthodox Anglican who cited the Bible.   Did you even read it?

On 9/23/2024 at 7:55 PM, RV_Wizard said:

Darwin lost all faith in God after death of his daughter Annie in 1851. 

Even late in life he never became an atheist. Want me to show you again?

BTW, Isaac Newton rejected the divinity of Christ.    Does that mean we should doubt gravitation?

Don't be so gullible.