[_ Old Earth _] Darwinism

[willow the wip]

One of the biggest things I see in error with nearly every anti-science web site is the theory. Many of these Christian websites make it sound like scientists think that theories are 100% true. This is false, in fact it's the complete opposite of the truth. This next statement is very important... No scientist thinks that a theory is 100% true. Not a one. A theory is not a law, but it cannot be easily discarded because there is some evidence. But to say that any scientist thinks or teaches a theory is fact is nothing more than a lie.

There is one thing that creationists do that is really irritating to me, yet many people never really notice the problem with it. How many times have you heard a creationist say "either lifeless matter created the earth or God did, and since lifeless matter cannot create, that means that God did". Do you see the problem?
Okay, for those who didn't see the problem, here it is. There is no reason that there are only those two possibilities. With something as broad as the creation of the universe, I really doubt we can limit the possibilites to being two, for the most part, impossible choices. I wonder what these creationists would put in the following questions on a test

1. 2+5=
a. 34
b. 2,983,203,992,823,881,873,988,388,293,884,377,328,289

2. Ice is ________
a. a blend of fingernail clippings and toothpaste
b. a synthetic material used to line microwave ovens

3. George Washington was ________
a. the first man in space
b. the goalie for the Calgary Flames in 1995

Now do you see the problem? This is a pretty clever way of deception. Not too many people think right away that when given a multiple choice problem that the correct answer is not one of the choices. If you had seen the questions above on an important exam, would you have questioned the examiner? Or thought "well, I'm no hockey expert, maybe the Flames goalie was named George Washington" or "Who knows what the lingo at microwave assembly lines is, maybe there is ice in the oven." I hope, for the world and the future of humanity's sake that you would question the exam. So why not a creationist?


These words are all very funny to me. Mainly because I never see them anywhere except on Christian based anti-science web sites and publications. But lets take a good look at these.

Evolutionism- This term has an interesting origin. After a Christian group's attempt to get Biblical creation taught in public school's science classes failed, they took a new angle. They changed their tactic from adding the Bible to taking out science. They said that since the theory of evolution cannot be proven, it's a faith. Therefore it's a religion, and should not be taught in public schools. They called it evolutionism to give it a religious sound. The problem here is that evolution is not a religion, it's a scientific theory. To say a scientific theory is a religion is wrong, a theory is an educated guess, put through experiments and for the most part have inconclusive evidence. Religion on the other hand is faith, there is no scientific testing. It's just believed.

Darwinism- Another attempt to make science look like a religion. This term is used to label those who believe in Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Due to the fact that DNA testing has proven Darwin's theory wrong (Homo Sapiens are not related to Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, etc.) there are no true Darwinist Scientists. Darwinism has absolutely nothing to do with modern science.

Creation Science- The exact opposite of Darwinism and Evolutionism. This is from a Christian attempt to having the Bible taught in science classes. They simply took the biblical story of creation and put the word science after it. Their argument was "creation science is a science, thus it should be taught in science class." The flaw is that there is nothing scientific about the Bible's story of creation. It's all just pulled from one source which cannot be verified for accuracy.

Charles Darwin

As most people know, Charles Darwin wrote the book "Origin of Species". This is the book that brought forth his theory of evolution. As a great deal of Christian based anti-science sites like to point out, Charles Darwin is treated as close to a God that a scientific community could treat a man. This is wrong.

The truth is that scientists have already proven his theory as being wrong. They did this by giving each "step" of man a DNA test. Does this mean that Charles Darwin is now a laughing stock? By all means no. If it wasn't for Charles Darwin bringing up this theory, we may never have thought about this option. Charles Darwin came up with a good foundation on which to build a new branch of science.

One thing that makes me think that these "creation scientists" have never even studied Darwin's theories is the fact that on the very first couple of pages, in the introduction, of Origin of Species Charles Darwin says the following quotes.

"My work now (1859) is nearly finished, but it will take me many years to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract."
As we know an Abstract is not much more than an outline, or introduction. To take this book as fact is in great error, for it's not completed work.

"This Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. No doubt some errors have crept in, though I hope I have always been cautious in trusting good authorities alone."
In other words, this book isn't complete, the theory hasn't been fully researched, and there is a great deal more work left. Not to mention there may be false leads that have yet to be weeded out. In other words... not even Darwin himself was confident of his works on evolution.

Not only did Darwin think he was right, but neither did scientists, they furthered his studies and continued to do so with the help of technology, until they disproved it. So never was there a time that a true scientist said "Darwin's theory of evolution is right, without a doubt." So if a creation scientist tells you this, you know that they are lying to you.

The laws of thermodynamics are probably the most common, and most distorted part of science that these web sites and publications use. I am guessing that this is so because thermodynamics is not commonly discussed nor is it easy to understand. Those are the two things that make it easy to misrepresent. Unfortunately I have heard and seen creation scientists and their writings distort and misrepresent the laws to extremes, then they end it by saying that they have degrees in a scientific field. I personally had a gentleman talk to me and say that the law of thermodynamics makes it impossible for evolution to happen. Then he said "and I have my masters in biology, so I know this is how it really works." Naturally when I asked him which law of thermo dynamics, and why he'd be such an expert in physics if he's a biology major, and so on. He turned red faced and referred to me as a devil's worker. So here it all come in layman's terms.

The Zero Law of Thermodynamics

This law is simple, it states that there is no energy exchange between two objects that are the same temperature. So if you have a pot of water that is 80 degrees, and drop an 80 degree rock into the water, there will be no energy exchange. The reason it is called the zero law is because it was formulated after the first law but is needed for the first law as well.

The First Law of Thermodynamics

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy is conserved. It has nothing to do with the possibility of evolution. The first law of thermodynamics is actually about energy may be made and used but there is no change in the amount of energy in the system. Okay, so what does this mean to you? It means that if you heat up a pot of water, drop a cold rock into it, the water will cool and the rock will heat up. No energy is lost nor gained by the rock. The water and rock will eventually be the same temperature, but it will be the midway point between the two temperatures. So energy is conserved.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics still has nothing to do with evolution, instead it deals with entropy. Entropy is disorder, and the second law states that in order for a reaction to occur entropy must increase. This is saying that if water is heated, the molecular structure becomes more disorderly. When we take ice in it's most orderly form, ice, and heat it up, it becomes less orderly (water). When we heat water up even more, it turns to a greater state of disorder (steam). Now when we refreeze the water the energy is conserved but the disorder is not. And that is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

The Third Law of Thermodynamics

The third law of thermodynamics, states that the entropy of a perfect crystal and absolute zero is zero. How can this be applied to evolution? It can't. But what does it mean? It means when you take a temperature of something down to absolute zero (-459F/-273C), since there is no thermal heat, there is no disorder.

So there you have it, now when you hear somebody equate thermodynamics with the impossibility of evolution you know that they are either in error or flat out lying. And in the words of the old GI Joe cartoon... "Now you know, and knowing is half the battle".

 

[willow the wip]

The reason why you believe in Dawin came directly from the pope Designed by Chance?

Gould is comfortable with his colleagues believing in God, but when they suggest that God used evolution, he is the first to object. "You don't understand evolution," he says. "Evolution is by chance, not design."

Why the Pope is Wrong about Theistic Evolution

There's no reason to marry evolution to creation, because evolution is false. With all due respect, the Pope is wrong. Here's how I know.

January/February 1997

Dear Friend,
Many were stunned to read the opening sentence of an article on the front page of San Diego's Union-Tribune: "In his most comprehensive statement yet on evolution," it read, "Pope John Paul II insisted that faith and science can co-exist, telling scientists that Charles Darwin's theories are sound as long as they take into account that creation was the work of God."[1]

In his message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope said that faith and science can co-exist. I agree with this wholeheartedly, but not for some of the reasons Pope John Paul gives.[2]

I think the facts of science and the teaching of Genesis are not at odds, but that scientists have let their philosophy distort their conclusions. The Pope disagrees. He thinks the biblical literalists have erred, not the scientists, and that Darwin's theories are "sound as long as they take into account that creation was the work of God."

Think about this statement for a moment. Isn't it odd to say that a scientific theory is sound only if we acknowledge God's involvement? A bad scientific theory can't be transformed into a good one by baptizing it with God words. And a good scientific theory--one that adequately explains the facts--stands on its own merits and doesn't need the baptism. In adherence to Ockham's Razor, why complicate the equation by adding God, when a simpler solution is adequate?

Charles Darwin's theory either does the job or it doesn't. Invoking God works no magic one way or the other. He's superfluous, which is exactly the point of evolution.


The Pope's unlikely amalgam of evolution and the Bible is called theistic evolution--the view that God used evolution to "create" all the life-forms of the world, including man. At some point during the evolution of the human animal, God infused it with a rational soul.

Theistic evolution was birthed by two impulses. The first was a desire to cling to the Bible as a source of truth about the world. The second was intimidation by the ruling paradigm in modern biological science: evolution.

Christians, cowed by what they were told was growing scientific evidence for evolution, yet unwilling to sacrifice their commitment to the Scriptures, naively declared that both must be true.

Those, like Pope John Paul II, who are tempted to marry Darwinian evolution with some form of biblical creationism would do well to consider the words of Richard Dawkins, Oxford zoologist, and author of The Blind Watchmaker. He said, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

These are no idle words. Dawkins is one of the world's foremost apologists for evolution. His point is the same as mine. If Darwin's theories are sound (as the Pope said) and explain the full development of life without any need for a divine creator, then any further appeal to God is fictional, wishful thinking.

Dawkins understands this, and so does the rest of the scientific world. Stephen Jay Gould, the famous Harvard paleontologist and popular writer on evolution put it this way:

No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature, although Newton's clock-winding God might have set up this machinery at the beginning of time and then let it run. No 'vital forces' propel evolutionary change, and whatever we think of God, His existence is not manifest in the products of nature.[3] [emphasis added]

Douglas Futuyma, author of the most widely used college evolutionary biology textbook,[4] writes, "If the world and its creatures developed purely by material, physical forces, it could not have been designed and has no purpose or goal....Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms--but this seems to be the message of evolution."[5] [emphasis added]

George Gaylord Simpson, author of The Meaning of Evolution, and one of the leading founding figures in the modern neo-Darwinian synthesis wrote, "Although many details remain to be worked out, it is already evident that all the objective phenomena of the history of life can be explained by purely naturalistic or materialistic factors....Therefore, mankind is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind."[6] [emphasis added]

If Darwinism can easily be baptized, why do these men speak this way? If evolution can co-exist with creation, then why is Dawkins so confident that Darwin has given intellectual credibility to atheism?

Darwin's theory seized the day for one reason and one reason only. It wasn't because of scientific data. The fossil record was virtually untouched at the time, and little was known about the complexity of life. Indeed, the science of genetics was completely unknown in 1859 when Darwin published The Origin of Species. Instead, Darwin shook the world because he offered a plausible, atheistic explanation for the existence and development of life. Evolution was appealing precisely because the need for God was eliminated.

Evolutionists like Gould are willing to concede that many scientists believe in God. Believe whatever you want behind the closed doors of your churches, they say. Practice your religious alchemy in the privacy of your own homes if you want. Just don't suggest your God has anything to do with the real world. When it comes to the real world, the fact of the matter is life evolved without God.

Gould is comfortable with his colleagues believing in God, but when they suggest that God used evolution, he is the first to object. "You don't understand evolution," he says. "Evolution is by chance, not design."

Gould is right on this point. Theistic evolutionists are fond of saying, "The Bible doesn't say how God created, just that God created. God could have used evolution." This shows a misunderstanding of both evolution and the Genesis account.

First, the Bible does say how God created. The first 56 verses of Genesis are devoted to a tremendous amount of detail that would be unnecessary if God simply "used" evolution. The first two chapters tell us God created in specific stages by fiat acts and not by gradualism. The human species began with a miracle, producing a fully formed adult man and woman. Further, what does it mean that God "rested" if the evolution God "worked" with is still occurring?

Second, there's an equivocation with the word "evolution." In general, evolution simply means change over time. If this general notion was the only issue, there would be no debate. We see radical change over the creation "week" starting with simple life and graduating to more complex forms in the biosphere. It wouldn't matter how God accomplished that change, as long as He was the one causing the changes.

What's at issue here is not evolution in this modest sense, but Darwinian evolution. The neo-Darwinian synthesis necessarily entails a particular mechanism that determines (an important word) which changes are reproduced in the next generation. This mechanism is called natural selection. Without it there is no evolution in the Darwinian sense.

In natural selection, specific circumstances in the environment allow a particular individual to survive and reproduce, passing its mutated genes on to the next generation. Serendipitous conditions in nature make the "choice," not God. If nature is selecting, then God is not selecting. The two are at odds with each other. What could be more obvious?

Suppose I wanted a straight flush for a hand of poker. I could either pull the cards out of the deck individually and "design" the hand, or I could shuffle the cards randomly and see if the flush is dealt to me. It wouldn't make any sense, though, to "design" the hand by shuffling the deck and dealing. There's no way to insure the results.

In the same way, either God designs the details, or nature shuffles the deck and natural selection chooses the winning hand. The mechanism is either conscious and intentional (design), or unconscious and unintentional (natural selection). Creation is teleological; it has a purpose, a goal, an end. Evolution is accidental, like a straight flush dealt to a poker rookie.

Theistic evolution means design by chance. That's like a square circle--there is no such thing. Blending evolution with creation is like putting a square peg in a round hole. It just doesn't fit.

And there's no reason to make it fit, because the general theory of evolution is false. With all due respect, the Pope is wrong. Here's how I know.

 

[evanman]

Ok, so you're a christian/evolutionist that does not believe God created the world as told in the Bible?
Correct?

Nope. I believe what He says in the Bible. The problem is that you don't accept it.

God says in Genesis that He created life by natural means. This rules out "ex nihilo" creation entirely.

Could you please quote me the scriptures in Genesis where God is recorded as saying that He created life by natural means?

 

[Barbarian]

The reason why you believe in Dawin came directly from the pope Designed by Chance?

This seems very confused.

Gould is comfortable with his colleagues believing in God, but when they suggest that God used evolution, he is the first to object. "You don't understand evolution," he says. "Evolution is by chance, not design."

Gould recognizes that natural selection is not a matter of chance. I think you have been misled by a website that faked this quote. I've seen it myself.

There's no reason to marry evolution to creation, because evolution is false.

It is directly observed. Even most creationists now admit that new species evolve.

(assertion that athiests and creationists agree that God can't be behind evoluiton)

Probably, they do. But they have agendae to push, many of them. Fact is, God does almost everything in this world by natural means.

No intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature, although Newton's clock-winding God might have set up this machinery at the beginning of time and then let it run. No 'vital forces' propel evolutionary change, and whatever we think of God, His existence is not manifest in the products of nature.[3] [emphasis added]

This is not theistic evolution, but deism. Christians who accept God's creation are theistic evolutionists, not deists.

Darwin's theory seized the day for one reason and one reason only. It wasn't because of scientific data. The fossil record was virtually untouched at the time, and little was known about the complexity of life. Indeed, the science of genetics was completely unknown in 1859 when Darwin published The Origin of Species. Instead, Darwin shook the world because he offered a plausible, atheistic explanation for the existence and development of life. Evolution was appealing precisely because the need for God was eliminated.

Darwin wrote the book as a Christian, and never was an atheist. You've been misled.

Suppose I wanted a straight flush for a hand of poker. I could either pull the cards out of the deck individually and "design" the hand, or I could shuffle the cards randomly and see if the flush is dealt to me. It wouldn't make any sense, though, to "design" the hand by shuffling the deck and dealing. There's no way to insure the results.

You've obviously never played poker with a card shark. :o

In the same way, either God designs the details, or nature shuffles the deck and natural selection chooses the winning hand. The mechanism is either conscious and intentional (design), or unconscious and unintentional (natural selection). Creation is teleological; it has a purpose, a goal, an end. Evolution is accidental, like a straight flush dealt to a poker rookie.

Unless God knows more than we do. In that case, maybe He's set the initital conditions to the outcome He wants. Or maybe Behe is right, and He gives it a little nudge in the right direction now and then.

Theistic evolution means design by chance.

Nope. It means that God uses evolution in his creation. Why not? He is the author of nature, and it serves His purposes.

And there's no reason to make it fit, because the general theory of evolution is false.

There is the evidence. We know, unless God is a deceiver, that evolution is a fact.

It must be unfortunate to be a Christian, and to be so disconnected from His creation. That was never a Christian doctrine; even St. Augustine understood at the beginning of the Christian era.

BTW, it is customary, when copying material written by others, to acknowledge it.

 

[Barbarian]

Could you please quote me the scriptures in Genesis where God is recorded as saying that He created life by natural means?

Gen. 1:24 "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so."

 

[willow the wip]

you see people did not evolove yes maybe in knowledge never in a human did we evolve from a nother creature

God picked up the dert from the ground and made man his name is adam then from adams rib he created women.

he called her eve.

In schools in the uk it teaches that darwin was an athest that Creation was by chance.

In the musium that they teach that man came from monkey`s

or apes this denighs creation.

Evolution denighs God

Cant you just acept the basic simple creation in Genersis why do you have to add to it

 

[4runner]

I've always heard that Darwin becme a christian before he died. Does anybody know anything about that?

 

[willow the wip]

If so before he became a christian he stated that we came from monkeys acording to Museums

 

[Barbarian]

Darwin was a Christian when he wrote "The Origin of Species". Late in life, he once said that he had become more of an agnostic. He did not say that people evolved from monkeys, however.

 

[Featherbop]

I don't think when God said let the earth bring forth.... That he was talking about evolution. The earth harbors and supports life, yes, is what I think was meant.

 

[Barbarian]

It's more than that: God is telling you that He used nature to produce all the living things.

 

[willow the wip]

Schools and museums teach that dawin taught that we came from monkeys


DARWIN, in his "Descent of Man", specifically states that man is,descended from "Old World monkeys". You will find the statement in next to the last Paragraph of Chapter Six. His precise language is worth remembering :

a quote from one of the books "The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World Monkeys; and from the latter at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the universe, proceeded."

There are men who, because of a peculiar twist of temperament, or because they believe they are children of God, revolt at the idea that men are descended from monkeys. Henry Fairfield Osborn was one of them. Yet he got over it in time and lived to see the day when he could write: "the ancestors of man, namely, the Lemurs, Monkeys, and Apes." You will find these words on page 274 of his "Origin and Evolution of Life". If the late President of the American Museum
of Natural History could do it, maybe there is yet hope for the archaeologist at the Rochester Museum.


Darwin castigated those who, admitting our descent from savages, balk at our monkey descent. "For my own part," said he, "I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrades from a crowd of astonished dogs -- as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up
bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions."

Another artical states that :-

March 2, 1996 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - I have a Ph.D. in zoology and was an evolutionist till the age of thirty-two. My delay in becoming a creationist I attribute largely to the fact that everything I read of an anti-evolutionary nature was written by people who displayed ignorance of the subject and made obvious factual mistakes. But evolutionists also can display ignorance and be unwilling to acknowledge error when corrected. For example, it has been in print not infrequently that Darwin never said we evolved from monkeys or apes. Whenever I came across this I sent the author a copy of the first two statements printed below, written by Darwin in the sixth chapter of his Descent of Man, Revised Edition, and I never received an acknowledgment.

"But a naturalist would undoubtedly have ranked as an ape or a monkey, an ancient form which possessed many characters common to the Catarrhine and Platyrrhine monkeys, other characters in an intermediate condition, and some few, perhaps, distinct from those now found in either group. And as man from a genealogical point of view belongs to the Catarrhine or Old World stock, we must conclude, however much the conclusion may revolt our pride, that our early progenitors would have been properly thus designated" (Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, Revised Edition, Hurst and Co., p. 181).

"The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded" (Darwin, ibid., p. 181).

Further, Darwin wrote in the same chapter:

"There can ... hardly be a doubt that man is an off-shoot from the Old World Simian stem, and that under a genealogical point of view, he must be classed with the Catarrhine division" (Darwin, ibid., p. 169).

"We may infer that some ancient member of the anthropomorphous sub-group [referring to the Catarrhine] gave birth to man" (Darwin, ibid., p. 170).

"We are far from knowing how long ago it was when man first diverged from the Catarrhine stock; but it may have occurred at an epoch as remote as the Eocene period. ..." (Darwin, ibid., p. 172).

"We have seen that man appears to have diverged from the Catarrhine Old World division of the Simiadae, after these had diverged from the New World division" (Darwin, ibid., p. 173).

One of my sons came home from junior college and said the head of the History Department told the class Darwin never said we came from monkeys or apes and he would give ten dollars to anyone who could show that Darwin did. I supplied the first two of these quotations and when I asked about the outcome I was told the teacher refused to accept them. Wondering why a person of that academic standing would not accept Darwin's own words, I wrote a letter of inquiry. No reply. I really wanted to know, so I took the drastic procedure of sending another inquiry, this time by certified mail. (I never mentioned the ten dollars.) After some uncomplimentary remarks about me personally, his reply was, "I am not interested in convincing you, your son, or anyone else, of anything. I simply present the facts and hope the logical, intelligent mind will reach it's [sic] own conclusion. I do not attempt to unlock closed minds." What stupid creationist could have displayed greater ignorance or bigotry?

with is correct out of the 2 when they came partly from his books.

 

[evanman]

Could you please quote me the scriptures in Genesis where God is recorded as saying that He created life by natural means?

Gen. 1:24 "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so."

God used the materials of the Earth to create everything, just as adam was made from the dirt of the ground!

This does not inferr that creation was a "natural process".

 

[Barbarian]

Notice that God says that the earth and waters brought forth living things. He used nature to do it. It was a natural process. God uses nature for almost everything in this world.

The YE creationist doctrine of "creation ex nihilo" is directly contradicted by Genesis.

 

[Barbarian]

Humans evolved from other apes, not monkeys. I know of no scientist who thinks so. Darwin has suggested that the hypothetical common ancestor of apes and monkeys might have been classified as one or the other. We know from fossil evidence that is not so.

I would not have expected a history prof to know this. I once pointed out to one of them that no one told Columbus that the world was flat, and he was astonished and skeptical until I showed him the documentation. Historians are not the best scientists, as a rule.

You have, however, confused "man-like primate" (monkeys and apes) with "ape".

Monkeys and apes (including humans) have a common ancestor, but neither evolved from the other.

 

[willow the wip]

Humans evolved from other apes, not monkeys. I know of no scientist who thinks so. Darwin has suggested that the hypothetical common ancestor of apes and monkeys might have been classified as one or the other. We know from fossil evidence that is not so.

Darwin has suggested that the hypothetical common ancestor of apes and monkeys might have been classified as one or the other.

to even sugesst such a thing is false this is how people use this asumption on creation where man came from ect.

I love the simple bible and accept it that we came from adam and God has created all things.

I know the truth of the fact that man never came from apes the education system states other wise they teach this as a beliefe to Children I had some one i used to service his computer for believed infactically that Darwin had tught we have our common ancestors the ape this is how we are evolved from.

This is a religion taught to disprove God by athests and agnostics base there faith in this theory.

 

[Pearly Gator]

Humans evolved from other apes, not monkeys. I know of no scientist who thinks so. Darwin has suggested that the hypothetical common ancestor of apes and monkeys might have been classified as one or the other. We know from fossil evidence that is not so.

I would not have expected a history prof to know this. I once pointed out to one of them that no one told Columbus that the world was flat, and he was astonished and skeptical until I showed him the documentation. Historians are not the best scientists, as a rule.

You have, however, confused "man-like primate" (monkeys and apes) with "ape".

Monkeys and apes (including humans) have a common ancestor, but neither evolved from the other.

Okay, okay. Show me a valid transitional creature (The 'missing link') and I'll believe your statement.

 

[xsearnold]

"Evolution" and Man

Having recently joined this forum, I note with interest much of the discussion. Barabarian, it would be helpful to understand how you define "Evolution" and on what basis you make the claim that "most Christians believe in evolution."

I disagree with your interpretation of Genesis. You cannot, on the one hand, use the text "let the earth bring forth..." to subscribe "natural process" to the "evolution" of all living things and justify the evolution of man from apes. Genesis specifically states that God said, "Let us make man in our image..." The words are not the same and the meaning is not the same. Genesis supports the special creation of man, not evolution from apes. I can understand your usage of "evolution" in application of the other forms of life (vegetation, non-human creatures), but I don't think this necessarily provides proof of an evolutionary view.

I was once an adamant "young-earth" creationist. I still believe in creation (perhaps not in the Aquinas mode), but now am convinced in an old earth of ~15 billion years. I came to this belief through researching the writings of Dr. Hugh Ross. I highly recommend his web-site, http://www.reasons.org. Dr. Ross is an astronomer who came to faith, being raised with no faith background, by studying the Cosmos and the major works of most religions. He reasoned that the revelation of God in nature would be consistent with His revelation in the "scriptures" of the one true religion. Typically, Dr. Ross was able to discard the primary works of most religions within a week, due to the internal inconsistencies, as well as the inconsistency with the evidence from his knowledge of astronomy. However, when he read the Bible, 18 months of study convinced him that, not only were there no inconsistencies (internally or with nature), but Christianity was the truth, leading him to faith in Christ.

The testimony, and the articles on this site, is very compelling.

I look forward to future discussion.

 

[Pearly Gator]

Hi, xsearnold!

Welcome to the board!

PG

 

[Barbarian]

I love the simple bible and accept it that we came from adam and God has created all things.

So do orthodox Christians. But we also accept how it was done.

I know the truth of the fact that man never came from apes the education system states other wise they teach this as a beliefe to Children I had some one i used to service his computer for believed infactically that Darwin had tught we have our common ancestors the ape this is how we are evolved from.

Yep. We are apes, in fact. Even the creationist Carol Linneaus, who first classified things in the system we use today, admitted:

"I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character ... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. I wish somebody would indicate one to me. But, if I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I would have fallen under the ban of all ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I ought to have done so. "

This a religion taught to disprove God by athests and agnostics base there faith in this theory.

Most of the evolutionists I know are theists. You've been misled on that one.