The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Son Goku

J C wrote:

Every Human Being has hundreds of lethal or semi-lethal alleles – i.e. heterozygous genes that would be fatal in their homozygous recessive forms......and therefore there was NO risk of inbreeding depression with the immediate generations following Adam and Eve – who is stated to be ”the mother of all living (people)” in Gen 3:20.

Okay, that is weird. You actually gave a detailed response.

Anyway....

………….and before we all start another chorus of “oh yes it did / oh no it didn’t” let me stop you in your tracks with the following devastating evidence that the Big Bang NEVER occurred:-

The Background Radiation of the Big Bang has ‘gone up in smoke’ (amongst Evolutionists) and here is a quote from a recent edition of Science Daily on the matter:-

This is what I find most stupid and disappointing about you. This isn't even a dubious study and why the shadow effect wasn't observed would be a decent question against the Big Bang model of Cosmology. However instead of double checking and waiting for a second analysis or anything you just instantly start with the hyperbola.

For instance why not:
"This study has found effects possibly not explained by the Big Bang model of Cosmic evolution, further analysis may effect the conclusions reached in this paper, but it is an interesting.....blah,blah............"


Instead of
"before we all start another chorus of “oh yes it did / oh no it didn’t” let me stop you in your tracks with the following devastating evidence that the Big Bang NEVER occurred" (Insert industry standard emoticons)

Even when you have some material to work with, you ruin it with stupid overblown language.

OK, so this image of everything starting as a ‘singularity’ and exploding outwards in a Big Bang is all a 'load of Baloney' – that Evolutionists have invented to deny Creation and confuse themselves with!!!!

It's an image that has seeped into the popular mind. The Big Bang is a theory of Cosmic evolution picking up after electroweak Baryogenesis and evolving on a Friedmann-Walker metric(or related solutions).
The Singularity is a known artefact of General Relativity, common to all classical theories on short enough distance scales.
Surely an eminent scientist such as yourself wouldn't criticise a theory based on its popular image. I'm actually cutting you a break here, I'm saying the Big Bang doesn't explain the origin of the universe and you still ruin it by saying:
"a 'load of Baloney' – that Evolutionists have invented to deny Creation and confuse themselves with!!!!"
That isn't very scientific, picking on our views on religion.
(As a side note, Cosmologists work on the Big Bang, not Evolutionists.)



However may I take ask a different question? Let's ignore science that conflicts with the Bible. How are Creationist Scientists doing at tackling big questions in science outside showing evolution is wrong and creation is right.

For instance what's the Creationist progress on Quantum Gravity?

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
Radiometric Dating also doesn’t work in PRACTICE – because erroneous (very large) ages are routinely obtained from rocks of recent KNOWN ages.

Schuhart wrote:

I’m not a scientist, so I’m not going to pretend to have technical knowledge that I don’t have. That said, I thought that it was known and acknowledged that carbon dating was not of great use for recent dates.

JC is not a scientist either, but fortunately he is going to pretend to have the technical knowledge, by rehashing this page at Answers in Genesis.

AiG wrote:

Radio-Carbon Dating IS the most accurate radiometric dating method – and it is reasonably accurate for dating organic matter with ages up to a few thousand years i.e. RECENT dates
....

Actually, it remains accurate for dates up to c 50,000 years. It can be calibrated as far back as we have dendrochrons, or varves, or any of the other things scientists use for dating. The consistency is startling, which is only natural because the trees, rocks, and lake sediments are all in on the global conspiracy. Possibly they are actually the work of the devil.

J C wrote:

My big reservations are however, primarily in relation to radiometric ROCK dating – where very serious dating discrepancies have occurred with many rock samples of known recent ages!!!

Largely because radiometric dating is not particularly reliable for younger rocks...

J C wrote:

ALL radiometric dating methods are based upon the following unproven ASSUMPTIONS:-
1. That the starting conditions are known (for example, that there was no daughter isotope present at the start, or that we know how much daughter isotope was there).

Yes. This assumption is acceptable because the minerals used for dating will only accept the parent isotope in their crystal structure when they form - therefore all daughter isotope found is the result of decay (or penetration by fluids, but that's observable). 'Bulk rock ages' can be very variable.

J C wrote:

2. That decay rates remained constant.

They've not been seen to change, there's no known mechanism for them to change, and the kind of change that collapsing the geological timescale down to 6000 years from 4.6 billion would give the kind of half-lives associated with fissionable material.

J C wrote:

3. That the systems were closed so that no parent or daughter isotopes were added or lost throughout the period that that rock has existed

That assumption is not made. The minerals are taken to be unaltered only if they are unaltered. Some rocks are found to have bulk rock ages identical to their datable mineral ages, and these are thereby determined to have remained closed systems.

J C wrote:

These unproven and unprovable ASSUMPTIONS prevent any reliable dating conclusions being drawn.

Well, no. Only two out of the three are actually true, and those are easily supportable, as above. In fact, the only 'challenge' comes from scriptural assertions.

J C wrote:

Indeed, there are many examples of known recently formed rocks being radiometrically dated at millions of years old.
For example, rock samples taken from submarine lava flows from Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, which are known to have occurred in the 1950’s, have been radiometrically ‘dated’ at 4 million years old.

Equally, the K-Ar ‘dating’ of five historical andesite lava flows from Mt Ngauruhoe in New Zealand during 1949, 1954 and 1975 produced radiometric ages that varied from 0.27 to 3.5 MILLION years old!!

This one is an old chestnut of JC's, but he's trying it on in case you don't care to read back. The 'discoverer' of this amazing fact is one 'Dr' Snelling. It's not actually his work, but the work of another geologist, who devotes a section in his conclusions as to how those incorrect ages came about. Snelling, like JC, ignores these reasonable explanations, and goes straight for "it's not quite right, so that proves the world is only 6000 years old".

J C wrote:

There are numerous other examples including the remains of trees that were radiometrically ‘dated’ at c40 THOUSAND years BP and clearly buried under basalt that flowed over them - which was radiometrically ‘dated’ at c 40 MILLION years BP. Could I remind you that this difference IS 100,000% !!!

This one is Snelling's work. He took a lump of what appears to have been an iron nodule off a mine spoil tip nearby, sent it to a commercial lab for carbon-dating, and assigned the resulting 'date' to the trees.

Since iron nodules always give weird ages, and radiocarbon dating gives entirely erroneous dates outside its 50,000 year maximum, the result demonstrates little other than the lengths Creationists will go to.

J C wrote:

In a study by Dr Steve Austin of the Institute for Creation Research, Basalt rocks from the Uinkaret Plateau of The Grand Canyon (which most Evolutionist Geologists accept as only thousands of years old) had the following DIFFERENT ages ‘established’ by radiometric dating :-

Six Potassium-Argon ages from 10,000 to 117 Million years.
Five Rubidium-Strontium ages from 1.270 Million to 1,390 Million years.
One Rubidium Strontium isochron 1,340 Million years.
One Lead-Lead isochron 2,600 Million years.

Actually, none of these dates would be used by geologists. They are another well-known fake. They are scatter points from various graphs, whose originals were rapidly withdrawn from publication, and re-released with only the outlying data points showing.

In addition, that geologists reckon the Grand Canyon (the big hole) as a few thousand years old is true, but that is not a comment on the age of the rocks through which the Grand Canyone feature has been cut. JC's claim here is akin to claiming that he couldn't possibly have just cut a groove in a Greek statue, because the statue is a couple of thousand years old. Also, of course, he may not have anything sharp enough.

JC wrote:

Son Goku
What are perfect genes? What makes them perfect?
Defects from incest are simple consequences of the topological nature of the folding of nearby genes, so what is this perfection and how does it get around this problem?
Saying they had perfect genes is an empty claim without an explanation of how it solves the problem of incest.

Every Human Being has hundreds of lethal or semi-lethal alleles – i.e. heterozygous genes that would be fatal in their homozygous recessive forms.
In other words, damage has occurred to half of the gene – and if this half gets matched with another damaged half during sexual reproduction the resultant offspring will suffer death or serious disability.

Genetic disorders largely arose after Noah’s Flood when background radiation apparently greatly increased the mutation rates (as measured by the rapid collapse in longevity from several hundred years to an average of 70 years) – and a Law was then given by God in Lev 20:17 that siblings shouldn’t marry.
Although not advisable because of our increasing ‘mutation loads’, near cousins may still legally marry – so there shouldn’t be any great wonder about close relatives marrying each other during the immediate subsequent generations from Adam and Eve – and therefore there was NO risk of inbreeding depression with the immediate generations following Adam and Eve – who is stated to be ”the mother of all living (people)” in Gen 3:20.

Son Goku wrote:

Okay, that is weird. You actually gave a detailed response.

He's also given it before, pretty much word for word, on page 8 of the thread. It may be from a book.

Anyway:

JC wrote:

Genetic disorders largely arose after Noah’s Flood when background radiation apparently greatly increased the mutation rates (as measured by the rapid collapse in longevity from several hundred years to an average of 70 years)

Ah. So, we know that the mutation rate increased rapidly after the Flood, because longevity suddenly decreased. And we know that mutation causes longevity collapses, because we now only live for two or three years - on account of all the mutations since then.

No, wait, we live 70-100 years. OK, so we know that mutations cause a collapse in longevity because longevity suddenly collapsed after the Flood. And we know that mutations suddenly increased after the Flood, because that's when longevity collapsed. Great, those two statements clearly support each other, so we'll leave them there leaning together, and build something interesting on top.

JC wrote:

Scofflaw
In order for Creationism to "explain" this, it resorts to bizarre contortions - some sediments are supposed to be pre-Flood, some Flood, animals are sorted by mysterious hydrological processes that never mix human and dinosaur bones, or indeed the bones of any animals supposed to be of different ages, despite their various sizes, the Earth splits in two, continents slide around at the massive speeds only to mysteriously stop just before historical records begin, water is mysteriously boiled off without boiling anything alive - and on and on through a bewildering and contradictory array of mechanisms, not one of which has ever been observed.

One great big ‘Straw Man’!!!!

Could I gently point out that it is the Evolutionists who believe that the continents are drifting about the Globe like crazed dodgem cars !!!!:eek:

You can gently point out anything you like, as long as it's as silly as that statement. You're aware that continental movement has been directly measured repeatedly over the last couple of decades? No, probably not.

As to "crazed dodgem cars" - dodgem cars that moved at c. 1-2cm a year wouldn't be a big seller, I think. Certainly it would be a bit of a stretch to call them 'crazed'.

On the other hand, most Flood theories require the world to have been flat, and the mountains to have formed by whipping the continents about and smashing them together like an epileptic bull in a saucepan shop.

JC wrote:

Each science discipline provides incontrovertible evidence for Creation as follows:-

1. Geology shows that all fossils are less than c. 7,000 years old with the vast majority of fossils dating from Noah’s Flood 5,000 +/- 500 years ago. The assumption that the millions of so-called “annual micro layers” observed in deep sedimentary rock layers such as the Grand Canyon represented millions of years of sedimentary deposition was disproved during the Mount St Helens volcanic eruption in 1980 when hundreds of thousands of “micro layers” were observed to be laid down in newly formed sedimentary rocks in a matter of hours.

Ah, the Grand Canyon. It might almost have been put there just for Creationists - flat rocks, big hole.

Amazingly, people who study rocks all their life, and have the testimony of others who did the same, can tell the difference between different types of layers in rocks!

Not only that, but volcanoes had been studied before Mount St Helens because (hold your breath) there's geology outside Middle America!

As to going from observation of thin ash bands to the assertion that all fossils are were laid down in the Flood - perhaps those two would have been better in separate paragraphs? It's hard to see that one proves the other, unless you want to see it.

JC wrote:

Equally, polystrate tree fossils are observed ‘standing up through’ sedimentary rock layers that supposedly took millions of years to lay down – the logical conclusion is that that these layers were laid down rapidly and not over millions of years. It is ridiculous to postulate that a dead tree stood upright for millions of years while slow deposition of sediment gradually buried it. The fact that the ‘bottom’ of the fossilised tree is observed to be as well preserved as the ‘top’ is also a ‘bit of a giveaway’ that very rapid burial took place. Deep sedimentary rock layers therefore do not indicate ‘long ages’ – only a catastrophic worldwide disaster!!!!

Again, the confusion of two things. Upright trees can be found buried in layered sediment, which was all laid down during the course of a catastrophic event. However, these "catastrophic events" are things like river floods - and no-one but Creationists claim that geologists date the top and bottom of these sediments as millions of years apart.

How can I be so certain - simple. It's almost impossible to date sedimentary rocks, because they're made up of lots of badly altered material from all kinds of places. The likelihood of finding a mineral well-preserved enough to date is minimal - and even if you find it, it doesn't tell you the date the sediment was laid down. Like dating a bric-a-brac stall by dating the old things it sells.

JC wrote:

Radioactive dating of rocks doesn’t work in PRINCIPLE – because we cannot know what the starting levels of radioactivity were or if further radioactivity was added or taken away (for example, by the differential leaching of the radioactive chemicals such as Potassium) during the ‘life’ of the rock. It also doesn’t work in PRACTICE – because erroneous (very large) ages are routinely obtained from rocks of recent KNOWN ages.

See above. Complete moonshine...

JC wrote:

2. Palaeontology shows the sequence in which creatures were killed and buried during Noah’s Flood – seafloor dwelling creatures and flocculated plankton first – all the way up to large land animals and birds, that obviously would be last to ‘succumb to the waves’. The extraction of red blood cells and haemoglobin from (unfossilized) dinosaur bone and the extraction of DNA fragments from insects trapped in supposedly multiple million year old amber indicates that these creatures were alive very recently indeed. If these bones / insects were, in fact, millions of years old, all biological material in them would have completely degenerated by now. The observed rates of biological degeneration under such conditions would give maximal ages of a few thousand years for these bones / insects.

Two more old chestnuts. I can only assume JC is trotting them all out for Schuhart's benefit, because he commented that he wasn't a scientist.

"Hydrological sorting" or "death sorting" has never been observed in the forms suggested - in fact, small creatures will probably survive longer than the large ones. It assumes a perfect sorting process that never mixed up organisms of different dates, anywhere in the world. It sorts same-sized animals neatly into their dated levels, despite the idea that it sorts by size. It sorts even the bits of organisms into the "right" level, despite them being a fraction the size of the actual organism. It never mixes up sea creatures with land creatures. And on and on and on and on and on...until you have an unbelievable range of different processes, none ever observed in nature, working 'together' in contradictory ways to produce a result that looks exactly as if organisms spent billions of years evolving.

The other lie in this is a whopping exaggeration of a scientific fnd of what appeared to be well-preserved but entirely replaced microstructures in the thigh-bone of a T. rex. JC has taken this as far as tendons popping and blood drenching the unfortunate researchers. The original articles are not hard to find, though, and describe something much less dramatic...strange though that might seem to those of us who know his talent for understatement.

JC wrote:

The list of species in the so-called Geological Column represents the order of their catastrophic burial and it is NOT a record of their supposed evolution.

Equally, using collections of animal and plant fossils to ‘date’ a rock on the basis of Evolutionary assumptions in relation to the assumed position of these creatures in the ‘Evolutionary Tree’ is only valid if Evolution (and its Tree) are scientifically valid. It is actually an example of circular reasoning in action.
Strata, which hold the same collection of fossils, could indicate that these creatures were buried during the same stage of the Flood Event for a number of reasons including their physical location in the Biosphere or the place where they gathered together before being drowned. It could also be related to their size, shape or hydrodynamic characteristics.

Not as such. What it does mean is that such collections of fossils could not be used to date rocks if the Flood were correct. In fact, evolution need not be true at all for it to work - pots can be used to date human settlements, but no-one claims they evolve.

By the way, to hold all the organisms we have fossils for, if try to fit them into the years before the Flood, requires us to stack them about half a mile deep, all standing or growing on each other...I can't quite remember whether this feature is mentioned in Genesis.

JC wrote:

3. Taxonomy shows the CURRENT biological relationships among species that have arisen through speciation processes acting on the original created Kinds.
Evolution explains nothing more than the scientifically valid phenomenon of Natural Selection, and this isn’t contested by Creation Scientists.:D

Except when they do, of course. Depends which way the wind is blowing, I think. JC has contested it, and claimed it, on different occasions, depending on whether he thinks it's being used against him or not.

All in all, a rollicking good rehash of nearly every Creationist lie JC has ever used. Schuhart, be flattered!

It's also a nice example of how a Creationist will pull out all the flim-flam the moment they realise they're not talking to a scientist. They know we know better, and they know others don't.

amused,
and unsurprised,
Scofflaw

kongs99

creationism beliefs are so corrupt and full of holes that i can't believe anyone in these modern times with two brain cells to rub together would even consider this as an alternative to PROPER science. any one of there claims are juvenile at best. if there are a god (or a bunch of them) it must be falling about all over the place laughing itself silly at the follies of certain men and women who are trying to fit square blocks into round holes. what cracks me up even more than creationism is that there are actually schools for creation science.
but on a more serious note, they are creating the biggest sin of all time by denying the truth and if they believe in heaven and hell i hope for there sakes they know what they are doing.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

Wicknight said:

No, men always choose freely to do what their heart desires. God does not make them do evil. He directs and constrains their evil desires so that they only do the evil He permits, rather than all the evil they would desire. In that sense, man's actions are controlled by God.

But they are free to love and obey God if they desire to do so - however, that is totally contrary to their desires, so they never do it.

Sorry wolfsbane but you aren't making much sense. Are you claiming that no one has ever loved or obeyed God?

Zombrex

J C wrote:

OK, so this image of everything starting as a ‘singularity’ and exploding outwards in a Big Bang is all a 'load of Baloney'

Groan .. Do you actually understand what a "singularity" is JC?

If you do then stop being dump on purpose. If you don't then go read up on what a singularity is.

J C wrote:

The Background Radiation of the Big Bang has ‘gone up in smoke’ (amongst Evolutionists) and here is a quote from a recent edition of Science Daily on the matter:-

Groan ...

I hope you realise the irony of using the same science you dismiss as nonsense to try and show that the Big Bang didn't happen.

For one to accept the findings of this article you must accept that methods used to determine the findings. You don't, since you have stated a hundred times that you think galaxies are little more than dust not stars and that the universe could not possibly be larger than 6,000 light years across.

So now you find yourself in a bit of a fix. If this article disputes what science originally thought was supportive evidence for the Big Bang theory then that is seeming good for your argument that the Big Bang never happened and that the universe is stationary and not expanding from a single point.

But on the other hand, to actually accept the findings of this article you must accept the methods these scientists used to determine this.

And you can't do that because you have already stated a number of times that such methods are based on "wild assumptions" that have no basis and which probably aren't true because they conflict with Genesis, such as the universe being billions of years old and billions of light years across.

If this article is correct the universe is very big and very old, and Genesis is wrong. If this article is incorrect the universe is very big and very old, and Genesis is wrong.

This is what as known as a "rock and a hard place" JC.

The only question I guess that remains is how much of an idiot are you?

J C wrote:

…..and that is WHY we AVOID sources of mutagenesis – like radioactivity and certain chemicals!!!

It is ... You do realise you are adding support for evolution here ...

J C wrote:

……just like a whack in the head can increase and rearrange the head concerned

Nice non-answer. So you admit that mutation can increase the amount of genetic material in a species, and as such "macro-evolution" as you Creationists like to call the long term change of species to species, is entirely possible.

Thank you JC, now we are getting some where.

J C wrote:

………..just like a whack in the head can bestow the benefit of not having to shave for a while!!!!

Another startling non-answer. So I take it from your lack of ability to dispute this that you accept it. Wow, this is easy. You have pretty much accepted evolution. Nearly there.

J C wrote:

This might work with come kind of simple, uni-dimensional organism where selection rested on one trait only.

You are right, it does.

J C wrote:

However, any complex organism is a combination literally billions of traits, some good, some neutral and some bad as well as many traits masked in the heterozygous state.

That is completely irrelivant. The environment will select the organisms that have the best fitness over the others. If that advantage is based on 1 specific trait, or 100 traits working together it doesn't matter.

A mutation might arise in a organism that gives no great benefit. In a few generations if that mutation is still in some of the children, it might be joined by a second mutation that on its own would not give any great benefit. But the two mutations working together do give a benefit, and as such they are both selected.

There is a reason JC why evolution takes a LONG F**KING TIME and why it has constant restarts.

J C wrote:

So NS isn’t able to follow some mythical yellow brick road of increasing utility to eventually produce Man.

Please stop being stupid.

Natural selection does not follow any road or any path to a specific goal. You know this because the last 10 times you said "NS isn't able to follow some mythical yellow brick road" this was explained to you.

Natural Selection is a "blind process". It is not aware of where it is going, and it certainly does not have any target in mind.

J C wrote:

It would get bogged down with the first ‘self replicating molecule’ as its ‘descendants’ picked up an ever-increasing load of useless or bad traits

If you honestly believe that then you STILL don't understand what Natural Selection is JC.

I'm running out of different ways to try and explain the same basic concept to you. You are either being dump on purpose or you honestly don't get this. Possibly your brain isn't capable of actually understanding this (how old are you).

Bad traits and useless traits will eventually be lost in the species because they either have 0 fitness advantage, or a negative fitness advantage. Only those mutations that increase fitness make any kind of significant impact on the species.

J C wrote:

– with very few good ones emerging – and these in organisms already gravely afflicted with the useless or bad traits!!!!

The bad or useless ones don't spread to the rest of the species JC. The useless ones are contained in the descents and if the descents don't have any great advantage over the others in the species then they won't overtake anyone. Those descents with bad traits die off very quickly, and as such they don't even exist for that much of a time.

J C wrote:

There are an infinite number of scenarios and possible outcomes – and therefore the process ISN’T ‘directed’

Are you actually this stupid or are you trolling...?

The selection process of me dying because I don't have a coat is directed by the environment. If I had a coat I would not have died.

This is an analogy of how natural selection can select traits caused by mutation based on the environment. If some members of a species develop slightly thicker out fur due to mutation, they are selected over the others without this mutation by natural selection using the environment as direction on who to select and who not to select.

The selection process of me dying because my skull is not strong enough to survive a tree falling on my head is directed by the environment too, but that is a terrible example because falling trees aren't exactly a environment hazard that most humans face a lot and my friend would not have survived a tree falling on his head either. So as an example of natural selection it is largely pointless. You would understand that if you understood natural selection.

JC I'm honestly trying to find examples that even a 5 year old would understand, yet you are still missing the point.

J C wrote:

Yes indeed, the river can change it’s course tomorrow – and it will still be a river.

…..but if a critical process in a living organism underwent, even a minor change, the organism would DIE!!!

Are you being stupid on purpose?

Look at dogs. Dogs today don't look anything like dogs 4000 years ago. Their species has undergone massive change observed by human history, and yet they are still alive.

Even your ridiculous idea that all humans looked like Noah but very quickly developed large changes such as skin colour and height, within a few generations, works on the assumption that organisms can change very quickly and yet not suffer or die. You have species losing entire chromosomes only a few generations after they disembark from the ark.

And before you say "that is all done along Gods design", it doesn't matter. They still change. If it is Gods design or evolution they still change in the same way and don't die. So your idea that even a minor change to the genetic blueprint of a species will result in death of the offspring is nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.

God you are such an idiot. You are contradicting your own theories

This is why Creationism is not taken seriously.

J C wrote:

Amazingly, I find that most people lead normal healthy lives – and I don’t find any particular correlation between ‘physical fitness’ and ‘fecundity’!!!!

STOP BEING STUPID ON PURPOSE

"Fitness" referrs to the fitness of a organism to its environment with regard to if it is or is not selected by natural selection.

You KNOW THIS because we have been talking about natural selection for the last 5 posts.

It has nothing to do with "physical fitness"

J C wrote:

One organism’s abundant ‘waste’ is another organisms abundant food!!!!

So organisms like the club moss have larger DNA structures than humans because some other animal out there needs this DNA structure to eat.

Is that your final answer JC.... :rolleyes:

Zombrex

kongs99 wrote:

creationism beliefs are so corrupt and full of holes that i can't believe anyone in these modern times with two brain cells to rub together would even consider this as an alternative to PROPER science.

Based on the amount of stupidity Creationists on this forum come up with almost every day (such as completely contradicting themselves about their own theories) I doubt they have two brain cells among the lot of them :rolleyes:

Son Goku

Scofflaw wrote:

He's also given it before, pretty much word for word, on page 8 of the thread. It may be from a book.

Heh, I knew it was too good to be true.

Wicknight wrote:

Groan .. Do you actually understand what a "singularity" is JC?

If you do then stop being dump on purpose. If you don't then go read up on what a singularity is.

Actually, this is a fairly easy test of if JC has been actually recieved training in physics.
What is a singularity in physics JC? I suspect you won't give the correct answer, but will only give a GR based one.

Schuhart

Scofflaw wrote:

All in all, a rollicking good rehash of nearly every Creationist lie JC has ever used. Schuhart, be flattered!

I sure I am, but unfortunately after all that I’m still not clear on how the concept of God as ‘maker’ is inconsistent with evolution, or even if JC is still maintaining that it is.

Originally Posted by J C
I think that, if Roman Catholic Evolutionists take the time to reflect on the words CREATOR and MAKER, they will indeed find them to be inconsistent with their belief in God being the EVOLVER of Heaven and Earth!!

Schuhart
Not unless they think it means God personally fathered each of us, and then carried us in Her womb for the full period of gestation.

Both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds confirm that there are three Divine (male) Persons in the One God i.e. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

They also confirm that Jesus Christ was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of a (Human) virgin called Mary.

Finally, could I remind you that God has no womb and He didn’t need a womb because He created the Universe and all life through a fiat act of His divine will i.e. He said but the word ……. and it was done.

The Nicene Creed says

maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

I take it that you and me count as part of ‘all that is’.

If this is the case, then you and me were made by God through a process that he does not control – our parents copulating of their own free will and not a fiat act of divine will. So, in principle, could God not have used similarly indirect methods such as evolution to create everything else that is seeing as how we have clearly established that ‘maker’ in this context does not imply a direct act of creation. Or am I missing something?

Scofflaw

JC wrote:

Both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds confirm that there are three Divine (male) Persons in the One God i.e. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

They also confirm that Jesus Christ was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of a (Human) virgin called Mary.

Finally, could I remind you that God has no womb and He didn’t need a womb because He created the Universe and all life through a fiat act of His divine will i.e. He said but the word ……. and it was done.

Hmm. Insistence on the masculinity of godhead, too. The plot thickens...

cordially,
Scofflaw

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

Based on the amount of stupidity Creationists on this forum come up with almost every day (such as completely contradicting themselves about their own theories) I doubt they have two brain cells among the lot of them :rolleyes:

kongs99 wrote:

creationism beliefs are so corrupt and full of holes that i can't believe anyone in these modern times with two brain cells to rub together would even consider this as an alternative to PROPER science.

Now the two of you, play nice.

Son Goku

BrianCalgary wrote:

Now the two of you, play nice.

Is JC ever going to be warned for talking out of his hole?

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

Sorry wolfsbane but you aren't making much sense. Are you claiming that no one has ever loved or obeyed God?

I see how you might think I'm saying that, but No. I was deliberately dealing with man's natural abilities.

To love and obey God, God must intervene and change one's nature. The Bible speaks of this as the New Birth or being given a New Heart. That 'born-again' person then exercises his freewill according to his new nature, to love and obey God.

robindch

> To love and obey God, God must intervene and change one's nature.

...and if god doesn't change one's nature, then you won't love and obey god, and you will be sent to hell? Is that how it works? Doesn't sound very fair to me as it's written above, I must say.

wolfsbane

robindch said:

So, it looks like you believe that all opinions are equally valid and that evidence, trustworthiness and reason play no part in your decision process.

Not at all. I was just pointing out that equally well-qualified scientists disagree with Scofflaw's conclusions.

Risking running foul of Godwin's Law, does David Irving's dismissal of the Holocaust suggest to you that the Holocaust may not have happened?

He is a leading historian, so his assertions deserve careful examination. Having listened to several (hostile) interviews of him, I find that he holds that the Holocaust did happen, albeit maybe not as high as the 6 million figure. His position seems to be that Heydrich and Himmler ran extermination camps and the extermination squads in Russia. The other camps (like Auschwitz?) were concentration camps.

Irving's offensiveness seems to relate to his exposure of some embarrassing facts (e.g, the ovens in Auschwitz that the tourists are shown were built by the Polish authorities in 1948) and to his (seems to me) keeness to absolve Hitler from any blame for the genocide. He makes the case for this on the basis of there being no incriminating orders or memos from or to Hitler on the Final Solution. If he is correct - and I heard no one contradicting him about the lack of evidence - then it is a possibility. One would have to ask oneself however if it is credible that such a big operation could have been kept from Hitler.

To apply this to our debate, Irving is not a poorly trained or suedo-historian. His allegations therefore deserve respectful consideration. Whatever of them is found factual must be accepted, even if it embarrasses us or is used to support political positions we would deplore. If the established facts force us to change our view of history, so be it. If they merely leave the current consensus open to question, then we should not treat that theory as 'rubbish history' (read 'rubbish science').

bus77

robindch wrote:

> To love and obey God, God must intervene and change one's nature.

...and if god doesn't change one's nature, then you won't love and obey god, and you will be sent to hell? Is that how it works? Doesn't sound very fair to me as it's written above, I must say.

Welcome to the state. Love, obey or go to jail. Keeps the punters happy.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

I see how you might think I'm saying that, but No. I was deliberately dealing with man's natural abilities.

Natural abilities that were decided by God...

wolfsbane wrote:

To love and obey God, God must intervene and change one's nature.

Ok, now I'm more confused (makes me glad I'm an atheist)

If a human cannot love and obey God without God first intervening to change this persons physical nature, then what exactly are we punished for by not obeying God? We are punished by God because God has not got around to altering us so that we can love him?

As Robin points out that isn't fair, but I also don't think it actually makes an logical sense. Why would God create us unable to obey him without him first intervening in each and every one of us, and yet set up this rather elaborate system of punishment for not obeying him.

And where does the choice come in if those who are condemned to hell simply have not had God intervene?

This is nonsense, literally in that it makes no sense.

wolfsbane wrote:

The Bible speaks of this as the New Birth or being given a New Heart. That 'born-again' person then exercises his freewill according to his new nature, to love and obey God.

Yes but you choose to be baptised (or at least someone like your parents chooses for you), which is when you are born again.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." John 3:5

The modern evangelical idea of being literally "born again" due to an intense convertion (often described as the spirit entering you and filling you with happiness) is largely modern invention, from the 1960 on wards, that isn't really associated with the Bible or with traditional Christianity.

wolfsbane

robindch said:

...and if god doesn't change one's nature, then you won't love and obey god, and you will be sent to hell? Is that how it works? Doesn't sound very fair to me as it's written above, I must say.

Yes, that's how it works. Guilty, God-hating sinners are sent to hell, to their just deserts. Seems very fair to me. All mankind is guilty before God. The amazing thing is that this holy God would love any of them and send His Son to bear their punishment instead. So there is both justice and mercy with God. Both Christians and unbelievers were equally guilty; but God in His sovereignty has had mercy on some and justly punishes the others.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

Natural abilities that were decided by God...

Natural abilities that were inherited from Adam.

Ok, now I'm more confused (makes me glad I'm an atheist)

That's OK, I'm here to bring you light.

If a human cannot love and obey God without God first intervening to change this persons physical nature, then what exactly are we punished for by not obeying God? We are punished by God because God has not got around to altering us so that we can love him?

No, those who die unrepentant are punished because there are sinners. You wrongly assume that their corrupt nature (and hence their inability to love and obey God) is not blameworthy. It is. Even though one does not decide to be born a sinner, one is nevertheless a sinner - one who hates God.

As Robin points out that isn't fair, but I also don't think it actually makes an logical sense. Why would God create us unable to obey him without him first intervening in each and every one of us, and yet set up this rather elaborate system of punishment for not obeying him.

God created man sinless. When our first ancestor fell into sin, all his descendants were born with his corrupted nature. Why would God allow this to continue? He doesn't say. He is God, the One who made all things, so He is wiser than I.

And where does the choice come in if those who are condemned to hell simply have not had God intervene?

Their choice comes from them freely choosing what they desire.

Yes but you choose to be baptised (or at least someone like your parents chooses for you), which is when you are born again.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." John 3:5

The modern evangelical idea of being literally "born again" due to an intense convertion (often described as the spirit entering you and filling you with happiness) is largely modern invention, from the 1960 on wards, that isn't really associated with the Bible or with traditional Christianity.

Yes, Roman Catholicism teaches something like that. And Arminians on the Protestant side hold that God first enables the sinner to believe (Prevenient Grace) and then he is free to believe or not. But both they and Reformed Protestantism point to the Spirit-birth as the 'born-again' bit.

You are also confusing the 'Baptism of the Spirit' which the Pentecostals and Charismatics talk about with being born again. They (rightly) distinguish between the two.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

Ah. I take your point. Yes, it's pretty hard for the Theistic Evolutionist, but certainly not impossible.

Assume for a moment that souls evolved as well as bodies. That everything, if you like, has a spark from God in it - even the bacterium. However, in non-humans, this spark is very simple, and buried very deeply in an uncomprehending material shell. As you come closer to true humanity, that spark burns brighter, and the 'veiling' effect of the material is less.

Humans, then, are the first to evolve sufficiently to speak with God. Adam and Eve were the first humans to do so - the first to be truly in His image. As more of humanity has evolved spiritually, the Word of God has spread. As his early dealings with Israel show, the earliest of God's people were balky and spiritually quite undeveloped - they had to be led by prophets like Moses, or brought to heel by blunt, and destructive, interventions.

That's where the other people in Genesis come from - no mystery. It's why the rules on marriage outwith Israel. People didn't get the Word of God until they had evolved enough to understand it. And atheists? We're just throwbacks.

A thoughtful resonse. One that certainly accommodates a Monotheistic God and Evolution.

It does not however accommodate the God revealed in the Bible, and that was the specific type of Theistic Evolution I was thinking of, one that says the Bible and Evolution are compatible.

The difficulties with your scenario and the Bible are:
1. Genesis portrays the creation of man-as-spirit as not something that happened naturally, but was an instantaneous event that distinguished man from the other living creatures.
2. If Adam and Eve are not the parents of all mankind, then the Bible is mistaken when it says, 'In Adam all die'. The concept of sin is a fundamental one in the Bible. If you say it applied only to Adam, where did the sin and death come from that everyone partakes of?
3. Israel was not in existence from the beginning. God dealt with individuals and families. Noah was not an Israelite, not restricted in whom he could marry. And after the Flood, only Noah's descendants lived on. So Israel and all its contempories - with whom it was forbidden to intermarry - came from the same stock. To make your version work, you have to turn Noah and his family into a metaphor too.

That's what it comes down to - abandon the Biblical accounts in the Old Testament and the appeals to them in the New.

In your 4586 post you said:

And works equally well if the whole passage is metaphorical, and exists only to enforce that moral imperative.

How would a metaphor enforce a moral imperative like this? Do you really think a man would put up with a nagging, overweight wife with whom he no longer felt 'in love', on the basis of an non-literal example thousands of years before? I mean, would you base the propriety of removal of privileges in prison on the basis of 'Santa doesn't bring gifts to bad boys'?

No, the disciples were troubled by Christ's words because they knew He meant God had established marriage with our first parents and meant us to uphold that sancity. Real history enforcing present moral imperatives.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

Natural abilities that were inherited from Adam.

Which were determined by God. Are you dodging?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

Wicknight said:

Natural abilities that were inherited from Adam.

But God decided what Adam's nature would be. Adam disobeyed God because of his nature. Since Adam was created by God that was surely how God wanted Adam, and therefore the rest of humanity to be.

wolfsbane wrote:

That's OK, I'm here to bring you light.

Well no, you seem to be contradicting yourself which is leading to the confusion.

You seem to be saying that the natural state of man is to disobey God, just as Adam did when he took the apple that God told him not to. God punished Adam for this. But why, since God created Adam in that form in the first place.

wolfsbane wrote:

No, those who die unrepentant are punished because there are sinners.

But they are sinners because that is the way God wanted it to be. We had no choice to be sinners, we were made that way (according to you). So what are we being punished for. If we are made sinners, and we cannot repent for that sin unless God helps us, why are we punished?

wolfsbane wrote:

You wrongly assume that their corrupt nature (and hence their inability to love and obey God) is not blameworthy. It is.

What was the blame? If we have no choice in how we are made (we don't) and we have no choice in if we can turn towards God and obey him (which you claim we don't) then what exactly are we being blamed for And don't say we are being blamed for our sinful nature. I am asking you why is our sinful nature our fault

wolfsbane wrote:

Even though one does not decide to be born a sinner, one is nevertheless a sinner - one who hates God.

If we don't decide to be a sinner but we were created that way by God, and we don't have a choice not to be sinner we must wait for God to turn us away from this, why are we being blamed for that? Why is it our fault. It can't be our fault if we aren't the ones who have control over it. You wouldn't blame a disabled child for being born disabled.

Also why did God create creatures who's natural state is to hate him?

Does this actually make sense in your head Wolfsbane? Seriously?

wolfsbane wrote:

God created man sinless.

No he didn't. Adam sinned, so clearly Adam had the ability to disobey God that you claim we all have as our natural state. This ability was present from the moment God created him, so clearly it is how God wished him to be.

God also created Adam knowing that he would do this, so it is in direct result of the state God created Adam in.

It is illogical to say God made Adam sinless because time is irrelevant to God. God created Adam future at the same time as he created Adam's present. Adam's future cannot be separate from his moment of creation as far as God is concerned. They are one existence.

If at any point on Adam's time line of life he sinned then you cannot say that God created Adam sinless because he didn't, since Adam's entire life is direct response to the moment of his creation.

wolfsbane wrote:

When our first ancestor fell into sin, all his descendants were born with his corrupted nature.

Only because that is how God wanted it to be.

Remember God makes the rules of the universe. God knew Adam would sin when he created him. God also knew that when Adam sinned that God would curse all mankind for that sin. He knew this would happen when he created Adam. In fact God knew this before he created the universe.

This is how God wished it to be.

wolfsbane wrote:

Their choice comes from them freely choosing what they desire.

But you have just said they don't freely choose what they desire, that they cannot in fact not choose to not follow that that they desire unless God intervenes. That is not a choice Wolfsbane.

wolfsbane wrote:

But both they and Reformed Protestantism point to the Spirit-birth as the 'born-again' bit.

But that is something humans choose for themselves. Jesus points the direction, but one must choose to follow the path.

But you claim that one cannot choose to follow the path unless God makes them follow the path. That is illogical, because if that were the case then no one could be punished for not following the path and obeying God because it is up to God to decide if you do or not. You cannot punish someone for something God has to decide Himself.

No offense Wolfsbane but you seem to hold to a very bizarre and rather illogical form of Christianity.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

A thoughtful resonse. One that certainly accommodates a Monotheistic God and Evolution.

It does not however accommodate the God revealed in the Bible, and that was the specific type of Theistic Evolution I was thinking of, one that says the Bible and Evolution are compatible.

Ah, wolfsbane - it's hardly going to accommodate your view of the Bible, now is it?

wolfsbane wrote:

The difficulties with your scenario and the Bible are:
1. Genesis portrays the creation of man-as-spirit as not something that happened naturally, but was an instantaneous event that distinguished man from the other living creatures.

If you read it that way. Personally, I think this is your interpretation - you are still taking the literal view!

wolfsbane wrote:

2. If Adam and Eve are not the parents of all mankind, then the Bible is mistaken when it says, 'In Adam all die'. The concept of sin is a fundamental one in the Bible. If you say it applied only to Adam, where did the sin and death come from that everyone partakes of?

This is a better point. However, death would actually be a physical consequence of being an organism, without spiritual relevance. Nevertheless, those who have heard the Word are Adam's inheritors - we still inherit his sin, we inherit the breach of the trust God first chose to put in a mortal, we are all potentially betrayers of God, flawed in the same way.

wolfsbane wrote:

3. Israel was not in existence from the beginning. God dealt with individuals and families. Noah was not an Israelite, not restricted in whom he could marry. And after the Flood, only Noah's descendants lived on. So Israel and all its contempories - with whom it was forbidden to intermarry - came from the same stock. To make your version work, you have to turn Noah and his family into a metaphor too.

No. Israel represented, perhaps, the first 'nation' that together was spiritually 'evolved' enough to be treated in this way. I was not assuming that spiritual evolution only goes 'up'. Those who were outside Israel would have been, in the main, spiritually degenerate considering their descent from Noah. In fact, that is what determines their being outside Israel.

Actually, it is rather more the standard interpretation that suffers from the problem you mention - if it's just physical bloodlines, where is the distinction between Israel and non-Israel, given the common descent from Noah?

wolfsbane wrote:

That's what it comes down to - abandon the Biblical accounts in the Old Testament and the appeals to them in the New.

Hmm. I hardly set out to reconcile your current interpretation with evolution.

wolfsbane wrote:

In your 4586 post you said:

How would a metaphor enforce a moral imperative like this? Do you really think a man would put up with a nagging, overweight wife with whom he no longer felt 'in love', on the basis of an non-literal example thousands of years before? I mean, would you base the propriety of removal of privileges in prison on the basis of 'Santa doesn't bring gifts to bad boys'?

No, the disciples were troubled by Christ's words because they knew He meant God had established marriage with our first parents and meant us to uphold that sancity. Real history enforcing present moral imperatives.

Feh. If there's one lesson we learn from history, it's that we learn nothing from history. Actually a good metaphor is better, since it's not dependent on specific circumstances.

However, again, you are placing too much weight on our physical descent from Adam, rather than our spiritual descent. If Christ was saying that those to whom God first spoke were married in the sight of God, and this is a Godly thing to do, that I would take to have more weight than simply stating that your common ancestor did it. After all, our ancestors did all sorts of reprehensible things, and no-one is suggesting that we emulate them today.

cordially,
Scofflaw

J C

Schuhart
I was thinking some more on this, and apologies if this line has already been explored. Each one of us is meant to be individually created by God. But we’re a product of a process that he does not control – i.e. he can’t tell our parents ‘Get it on, I’ve a new soul burning a hole in my pocket’. He has to wait until our parents, of their own free will, get it together and then create and pop a soul in at the right moment.

But God DOESN’T stand around like some kind of ‘celestial midwife’ waiting to ‘pop a soul’ in at the moment of conception.

Human sexual reproduction involves the production of children who have both physical bodies and spiritual souls.

Our sexual powers to physical conceive AND spiritually ensoul children are directly inherited from Adam and Eve (whom God created as physical AND spiritual beings).

Could I remind you that God ceased His DIRECT involvement in the Creation of life during Creation Week, about 7,000 years ago (with the one exception of the conception of Jesus Christ)!!!

God created Mankind in His own image and likeness and He gave us the power to conceive children (complete with bodies AND souls) – and that is why Human Sexual reproduction is literally a Divinely Ordained activity.
…….and Gen 27-28a confirms this fact “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,”


Schuhart
This suggests that all theists who believe that we have free will already accept that God may make use of a process directed by something or someone other than him when creating life.

God has devolved the power of Human sexual reproduction to Humans – and we do have autonomy to use this power - to generate the bodies and souls of children.


Schuhart
So what’s the problem in principle with accepting evolution as the process through which humans were created?

1. God SAID that He Created all life.

2. All of the available evidence and all logic indicates that life was created.

3. God DIDN’T say that He Evolved life.

4. There is no evidence for ‘muck to man’ Evolution.

5. Evolution was originally invented by Atheists (and continues to be used by Atheists) to eliminate God as the originator of life.

6. There is no ‘role’ for a Transcendent God in the creation of life within an Evolutionary scenario !!!

7. It would be a rather perverse God who would use billions of years of suffering and death to ‘perfect’ His Creation - when He could create all life perfectly through a fiat act of His Divine omnipotence.
As God isn’t perverse, He didn’t use Evolution, but Created life perfectly, just like He said He did in Gen 1-2.


Schuhart
God can put ingredients into the cosmic cooking pot in such a way as to make the appearance of human life inevitable.

……and did He then ‘cook the pot’ until the ‘pips squeaked’???:D

…….while telling us that He created all life in a single week – and without any ‘cooking’!!!!!

……so WHY would God say the latter - IF He did the former????


Where is the promise of free will in the Bible?

Firstly, in order to deserve punishment for our sins we must be in a position to freely reject or accept God’s salvation. If we don’t have free will, then a just God couldn’t punish us for actions over which we don't have autonomy.
A sovereign God could do so - but it would lack justice.

Secondly, Adam and Eve enjoyed complete free will and used it to test and defy God - and suffered the consequences (that had already been outlined by God).

Thirdly, the Bible is replete with examples of our autonomy :-
Gen 1:28 confirms that Mankind was given complete dominion (i.e. free will) over the Earth and it’s creatures:-
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (KJV)

……..and Deut 30:19 tells us that God has set before us the choice of life or death – and He has given us the free will to choose between them:-
“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:” (KJV)

Deut 30:19 does indicate that people, even in their fallen state, are capable of choosing to follow God - and the decision to believe on Jesus Christ and be saved is therefore one that every person is capable of making. Some people choose to do so - and others don't.
I personally believe that God's justice will save the 'righteous dead' who have never had the opportunity to make a belief commitment to Jesus Christ, because they never heard the Gospel.
People in this category would include those who died before Jesus came on Earth or those who were unable to make the decision to believe on Jesus Christ, through mental or physical incapacity (young children and the unborn, for example). It would also apply to people who lived in times and places where the Gospel was never preached.
The exact judgement on this issue will be up to Jesus Christ - and I believe that He will make a just decision in every case.

That said, our free will is neither 'full' or 'complete' - our intellects are dulled by sin and we have many physical limitations on the exercise of our free will, the most obvious being death. Equally, without God's prompting through His Word in the Bible and / or His Holy Spirit, we probably wouldn't make the decision to be saved by believing on Jesus Christ.

........so we not only must totally rely on Jesus Christ to save us - but even our decision to ask for salvation is also dependent on God's invitation!!!

Wicknight
Therefore God only had direct influence at the very start, and as such if he wished for something to happen then it must have happened through natural processes (ie evolution), since God directly influencing things after the Big Bang would be contrary to his promise that we have complete free will.

God DIDN’T promise ‘free will’ to natural processes.
Indeed God retains the right to use natural processes to chasten Humanity and He has done so in the past – with Noah’s Flood being the most obvious example.
Death is also another ‘natural process’ that God continues to allow to occur.

In any event, free will can only be exercised by intelligent autonomous beings like ourselves!!!!

Basically we have free will – but we have to live with the physical and spiritual consequences of our actions and decisions.


Schuhart
Just to clear, what I’m trying to do is reconcile JC’s apparent belief on the one hand that evolution is not consistent with a god described as maker and creator us all, with his other contention that free will implies no divine interference with our relationships.

There are two separate issues here.
Evolution ‘from muck to Man’ OVER BILLIONS OF YEARS is objectively not consistent with the Genesis account of the Creation of perfect life forms IN ONE WEEK.

We have the autonomous free will to do as we please – but we must live with the temporal consequences of our actions - although God can save us from the eternal consequences, when we believe on Jesus Christ to do so!!!


Schuhart
If, as JC says, we have free will over who we love, then clearly God has no control over who becomes parents and hence no control over who gets born.

Yes, the fact that God granted us free will means that He DOESN’T control what we do.
If God DID control what we do, we couldn't commit sins, like murder, for example - but we wouldn't have free will either.:cool:

We do indeed have sexual autonomy and we have the power to conceive or not to conceive children (complete with bodies and souls) as we may determine. However, God is omnipotent and He works all things for His own purposes - while respecting our free will. God is a Loving, Concerned and Just God who ISN'T a 'control freak'!!!:D


Schuhart
All that happens is God presumably ‘validates’ each conception by giving it a soul. Clearly, in principle, the same process could happen in evolution. God waits until whatever threshold is passed that makes him say ‘that’s human’, and starts supplying souls.

As I have said before, God doesn’t 'validate' each conception – God has given Humans the power to produce BOTH the bodies and the souls of their children at the moment of conception - while working all things (including the conception of children) for His own purposes.

In principle the same process COULD happen IF Evolution was TRUE – but God has said that He directly CREATED all life, and all of the observable evidence supports this contention.

....so God wasn’t some kind of ‘celestial soul supplier’ waiting patiently for billions of years, until some putative Ape started to grunt in order to ‘pop a soul’ into it!!!!:D


Schuhart
If, on the other hand, if you contend that God in fact determines who we love and when we copulate in advance, then you would seem to at least have a logically consistent position. The only problem I can see with that view is the question of sin, as pointed out already. For example, how can adultery be sinful if it produces a child that, presumably, God wanted to create anyway?

Neither God nor the child so conceived, are active consenting parties to an adulterous union.

Equally, God doesn't 'want' to create any PARTICULAR genetic combinations or number of children. As I have already said, we have complete autonomy from God on the issue of whom we copulate with – and we can use our free will and sexual powers to conceive a child, in an adulterous union, for example, if we so desire.

The nature of Human sexuality is that there are an effectively infinite number of genetic combinations - so parents can NEVER produce all of the different children that they are capable of producing.
God has created a system of sexual reproduction that doesn't pre-determine the genetic make-up of each individual or the number of children which we can conceive - and He has granted us autonomy over whom we may have sex with.

God has told us to be 'fruitful and multiply' - exactly how 'fruitful' (and with whom) He leaves to our own discretion!!!!:cool:

Scofflaw

JC wrote:

Schuhart wrote:

Just to clear, what I’m trying to do is reconcile JC’s apparent belief on the one hand that evolution is not consistent with a god described as maker and creator us all, with his other contention that free will implies no divine interference with our relationships.

There are two separate issues here.
Evolution ‘from muck to Man’ OVER BILLIONS OF YEARS is objectively not consistent with the Genesis account of the Creation of perfect life forms IN ONE WEEK.

We have the autonomous free will to do as we please – but we must live with the consequences of our actions.

Schuhart, are you trying to make JC see that the logic of one of his beliefs conflicts with the logic of another?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Schuhart

J C wrote:

God has devolved the power of Human sexual reproduction to Humans – and we do have full autonomy to decide to use or abuse this power - to produce the bodies and souls of children.

I think this is the key point of significance. What you are saying is that God is not the maker of all things in an individual sense.

Now, that looks to be to be fine as a mechanism to get out of this particular hole. But it does away with any direct divine involvement in our creation. So you, and I, are here by cosmic accident. That's fine by me, its a core value in my outlook. But many theists seem unsatisified with this outlook, preferring the idea that they are individuals put here by a God who has a personal relationship with them.

I just wonder if you are breaking new theological ground here for the creationist perspective.

Schuhart

Scofflaw wrote:

Schuhart, are you trying to make JC see that the logic of one of his beliefs conflicts with the logic of another?

Absolutely not. I'm simply trying to understand the divine three card trick approach to free will.

wolfsbane

bonkey said:

Such a gene does not exist. If it did, it would not be human as we know humanity.

I agree. But it did exist in our first parents. They were once perfect, not like they became and what we are now.

Also...what is the perfect height? The perfect BMI? The perfect eye colour? These would all be defined by your allegedly-perfect genes. As would the perfect skin colour....a very dangerous road to start treading.

The perfect gene was one from which all variations have arisen. That would mean Adam and Eve were light brown in colour, I imagine. From that we can get all the variations from black to white. None are superior to others, all come from the same source. Some are more helpful in certain conditions than others, enabling vitamin production or limiting the harmful effects of the sun.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

I think his point is that there is not much point discussing science while rejecting the core principles of science, that being the rationalisation that we can be wrong in what we originally think. One of the core principles of religion is the dogma that we cannot be wrong. So this leads to incompatability. If one is not prepared to change ones initial views on a subject matter then there is no much point entering the process of scientific discovery.

Your error is in imagining spiritual reality is measurable by science. Science, in the sense you use it, is the knowledge of the material world. Our knowledge of it is open to revision. Spiritual truths may be revealed with an absolute and unquestionable certainty.

Yes but you are working on the assumption that it is true from the very start. That is ultimately unscientific. You are starting at a conclusion that you want, and then working backwards trying to fit the evidence around that conclusion. Even if you are totally correct that is still a unscientific way to go about it. So ultimately what is the point of using science at all if you have already made up your mind and are not open to proper scientific discovery?

As I said above, you are confusing the spiritual reality with the material one. But you are right to think I have no need of science to validate my spiritual knowledge. Creationists work with science for all the usual practical purposes - to increase our understanding of the material world so that we may help mankind - and just to appreciate the wonderful works of God. But they also to use science to overthrow the false scientific arguments that deny God's revelation given in the Bible.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

What does that even mean? He spoke to you? He appeared before you? He gave you a funny feeling?

He gave me the certainty that this was truth, in my spirit/heart/conscience.

According to who? The apostles themselves?

Yes. And by His Spirit confirming that in my heart.

Again that is only what they claim. They would hardly claim otherwise would they

Being honest men, led of the Spirit, they could say nothing else.

And Noah?

Noah did not have perfect genes.

God didn't say it did. People who claim to speak for God said it did. But then every religion is full of people who claim to speak for their gods. Some of them must be wrong.

Most of them are wrong. So are you. God's people read the words of the apostles and prophets and God confirms in their hearts that this is the truth, that these men spoke what God told them to say.

You suppress His voice in your conscience and the witness you see around you. If you continue to do so, one day you will hear it, when it will be too late to repent. That is why JC, myself and others warn you of your madness and point you to the Saviour of sinners.

Son Goku

wolfsbane wrote:

Your error is in imagining spiritual reality is measurable by science. Science, in the sense you use it, is the knowledge of the material world. Our knowledge of it is open to revision. Spiritual truths may be revealed with an absolute and unquestionable certainty.

Did God personally tell you Genesis is correct and that it is actually what happened? Or did you conclude it from a reading of the Bible?