[_ Old Earth _] The Evolution of Human Beings

[Doulos Iesou]

Since you actually think you have proof, then yes, I would like to know this.

Alright, what aspect would you like to focus on to begin with. The DNA evidence or the fossil evidence?

 

[Gary]

Because a rib is a tiny piece of organic matter that doesn't constitute a person.

Like the tooth of an extinct pig....................right?

 

[Blake]

I have always believed that we are in the image of God as trinitarians -- He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are mind, body, and spirit.

 

[Edward]

This is perhaps the most contentious issue when it comes to Evolution vs Creationism, the idea that Human Beings (Homo Sapiens) came from other apes, and that we are indeed primates.

Much of this notion relies off of a literal interpretation of Genesis, which we disagree on of course (for more read: http://biologos.org/questions/scientific-and-scriptural-truth ) Though this strikes at a theme consistent throughout Scripture, namely the image of God which I will speak briefly on.

The Image of God is conceived by some to God literally fashioning human beings in his own physical likeness. This is actually a bad theological idea, and has more to do with Mormonism than historical Christianity.

"He is our Father in Heaven. We are created in His image (Genesis 1:27). He has a body that looks like ours, but God’s body is immortal, perfected, and has a glory that words can’t describe."
Source: http://www.mormon.org/faq/nature-of-god

Yet Scripture reveals that God is spirit and is invisible and no one has seen him (John 4:24, 1 Timorhy 1:17).

How then are we to understand the Image of God? I personally agree with the scholar N.T. Wright's assessment.

"As such, the “image of God” is not something about us—instead, it is what we do and how we do it. That is, how we reflect God into the world—aptly described by Paul in Colossians 3:9-10: “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (ESV)."
Source: http://biologos.org/blog/nt-wright-on-what-it-means-to-be-an-image-bearer

As to the overall purpose of this thread, we will discuss the evidence for the evolution of humanity, and this will be done primarily through answering questions that anyone has.

This is a good way to approach this issue. i read this article that you linked to, and I can not disagree with it.

"A better response is to reconsider the interpretations on both sides. When we hear a scientific result that seems to conflict with the Bible, we should look at it more closely. How strong is the evidence? Is there a consensus among scientists? Has the theory been tested extensively? What alternate theories are available? At the same time we take a closer look at Biblical interpretation. What did the passage mean to the original audience? What interpretations have been held throughout church history? What are the theological implications? Rather than rejecting one side or the other, we can study both more carefully, remembering that God is speaking to us in both scripture and nature. In this approach, science does not determine which interpretation of scripture is best. Instead, science motivates us to take a closer look at scripture, using good biblical scholarship to determine the best interpretation."/ (from your article that you linked to in the OP)

Now I'll go back and read the rest of the thread to see where we're going with this, and then respond.

 

[Edward]

While I am a creationist, I don't take the image of god to be that He literally has arms and legs.IN jewish thought that image is the attributes of god that is the nature of love and mercy and also the fact that we have spirit being and earthly body. Jews, but not me. believe the Elohim with the plural of us God and angels with the earth making men. While I do believe that we do have the nature of the earth since God spoke us from the earth and formed us from it and breathed life into us, he did so without having literal hands. I could go into the myraids of imagery where jesus is seen as a lamb in heaven.

I'm pretty much with you on that brother. God may be (at times at least), a bipedal being, but that, that has little to do with what in His image actually means.

I have always believed that we are in the image of God as trinitarians -- He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are mind, body, and spirit.

That could very well be...part of it.

I mean, think about it. God thoughts are so much higher than ours, and His ways are so much higher than our ways...that's it's easy to comprehend that in His image, means so much more than what most say it means, a simple biped. Uhh...there's more to it than that.

 

[Edward]

Just from a logical point of view, it's difficult to see what an omnipotent being would have a body that limited sight to one direction, or required moving limbs in order to move about. Creationists, prior to the 20th century, were not locked into the idea of God as a physical being.

Agreed. Scripture even says that God is a spiritual being. We have no clue as to what that all entails.

 

[Edward]

Ok Doulos, since we're discussing evidence in this thread, what do you have for evidence that man came from the sea instead of the dust of the ground?
If Genesis 1-2 is not to be taken literally, but figuratively...then what is the message of said passages, if it's not just a historical account of creation?

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Alright, what aspect would you like to focus on to begin with. The DNA evidence or the fossil evidence?

I have no idea what either one is, so start anywhere.

 

[Doulos Iesou]

I have no idea what either one is, so start anywhere.

Let's begin with the fossils I suppose, as the visual representations speak very strongly about this matter.

Now, when we talk about the evolution of human beings, many people often ask the question, "wait a minute.. are you saying we come from Chimpanzees?!" This of course is inaccurate, as we share a common ancestor with Chimps, who are our closest cousins as it regards species. We don't know exactly which species was the common ancestor, but it seems to have been the Sahelanthropus tchadensis. (Pictured below)

Let's compare to a human and chimp skull.

View attachment 5428

As you can see, the braincase is even larger on the Chimpanzee, but distinct similarities can be seen from the front of the face such as the brow ridge.

View attachment 5429

The change is much more drastic when compared to a human skull, as our jaws don't need to be as powerful as a chimpanzees, and our braincase far exceeds that of our late 7 million year old ancestor.

Fast forwarding a bit, we have the Australopithecus afarensis, which we know was a bipedal (walked on two legs) primate. The similarities became more distinct as this is an ancestor we do not share with any other living species today.

This is the skull of a female that was 3 years old, which you have to take into account that they didn't develop as slowly as we do, hence the skull and teeth are relatively developed. The braincase is still quite smaller, but the overall shape is distinct from that of other known primates, but certainly couldn't have been human.

Fast forwarding even more, I want to go to one of the most complete fossils we have in human evolution and mention the Turkana Boy, which is a fossil of Homo ergaster or Homo erectus, depending on who you are talking to. This fossil was discovered in 1984 in Kenya, and is remarkable.

The similarities to modern humans now really start to be on display, and some might even mistake this for a Homo sapien if they didn't know any better. There are some distinct differences, such as narrower hips, longer arms and of course a much smaller brain. Here below is a facial reconstruction, to give you some idea of what they would have looked like.

View attachment 5430

Certainly you would conclude that this is not a human, nor did they share any of our distinctiveness as it comes to our ingenuity. Over a period of nearly 2 years and they hardly progressed in terms of technological development or societal structure.

That's a little bit to discuss, and I wanted to keep this simple and show some of the fossils that we have, of which there are many.

 

[Doulos Iesou]

Ok Doulos, since we're discussing evidence in this thread, what do you have for evidence that man came from the sea instead of the dust of the ground?
If Genesis 1-2 is not to be taken literally, but figuratively...then what is the message of said passages, if it's not just a historical account of creation?

Certainly, I am certainly much more well studied on the New Testament, but I can tell you what I think about the passage.

The dust of the ground is distinct among creation stories, many other early creation stories have depictions of mankind being made from the gods, such as the Babylonian creation story where mankind is made from the blood of a god. The dust of the ground represents that we are not divine in origin or substance, but we are earth made, natural.

That's how I understand it.

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Let's begin with the fossils I suppose, as the visual representations speak very strongly about this matter.

Now, when we talk about the evolution of human beings, many people often ask the question, "wait a minute.. are you saying we come from Chimpanzees?!" This of course is inaccurate, as we share a common ancestor with Chimps, who are our closest cousins as it regards species. We don't know exactly which species was the common ancestor, but it seems to have been the Sahelanthropus tchadensis. (Pictured below)

Let's compare to a human and chimp skull.

View attachment 5428

As you can see, the braincase is even larger on the Chimpanzee, but distinct similarities can be seen from the front of the face such as the brow ridge.

View attachment 5429

The change is much more drastic when compared to a human skull, as our jaws don't need to be as powerful as a chimpanzees, and our braincase far exceeds that of our late 7 million year old ancestor.

Fast forwarding a bit, we have the Australopithecus afarensis, which we know was a bipedal (walked on two legs) primate. The similarities became more distinct as this is an ancestor we do not share with any other living species today.

This is the skull of a female that was 3 years old, which you have to take into account that they didn't develop as slowly as we do, hence the skull and teeth are relatively developed. The braincase is still quite smaller, but the overall shape is distinct from that of other known primates, but certainly couldn't have been human.

Fast forwarding even more, I want to go to one of the most complete fossils we have in human evolution and mention the Turkana Boy, which is a fossil of Homo ergaster or Homo erectus, depending on who you are talking to. This fossil was discovered in 1984 in Kenya, and is remarkable.

The similarities to modern humans now really start to be on display, and some might even mistake this for a Homo sapien if they didn't know any better. There are some distinct differences, such as narrower hips, longer arms and of course a much smaller brain. Here below is a facial reconstruction, to give you some idea of what they would have looked like.

View attachment 5430

Certainly you would conclude that this is not a human, nor did they share any of our distinctiveness as it comes to our ingenuity. Over a period of nearly 2 years and they hardly progressed in terms of technological development or societal structure.

That's a little bit to discuss, and I wanted to keep this simple and show some of the fossils that we have, of which there are many.

This is all very interesting, but a 7 million year old ancester?
How do you come to that conclusion?

 

[Doulos Iesou]

This is all very interesting, but a 7 million year old ancester?
How do you come to that conclusion?

The age of the fossil is determined from sediment isotope analysis. See below.

"Having demonstrated that the two prerequisites necessary to apply the radioactive decay dating method are met in the studied area, we measured authigenic 10Be/9Be ratio of 32 samples from the TM 254 and TM 266 sections. By using the previously discussed initial ratio and the recently reevaluated 10Be half-life of (1.36 ± 0.07) × 106 years (33), these ratios yielded ages ranging from 5.39 ± 0.92 to 8.67 ± 1.11 Ma. Weighted mean 10Be ages were then calculated by using an inverse-variance weighted mean. Associated uncertainties are fully discussed in Materials and Methods. More specifically, the TM 254 lacustrine facies yielded a weighted mean authigenic 10Be/9Be age of 6.26 ± 0.41 Ma (Table 2 and Fig. 1). The section of the A.U. above the ash tuff layer at TM 254 yielded a weighted mean authigenic 10Be/9Be age of 6.88 ± 0.40 Ma, whereas the section of this layer below the ash tuff layer yielded a weighted mean authigenic10Be/9Be age of 7.24 ± 0.38 Ma. In section TM 266, ages calculated for the two levels bracketing theSahelanthropus tchadensis cranium level were 6.83 ± 0.45 Ma for the overlying level and 7.12 ± 0.31 Ma for the underlying level.

Because these data demonstrate that the deposition of the A.U. from which Toumaï was unearthed is synchronous and geologically instantaneous (considering the uncertainties associated to the dating methods) in both TM 266 and TM 254, all of the 28 samples from the A.U. were used to determine the inverse-variance weighted mean age of this sedimentary unit, the associated mean square of weighted deviates being 0.36 (see Materials and Methods). This yields an age of 7.04 ± 0.18 Ma for Sahelanthropus tchadensis."
Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3226.full

Regarding the relationship to chimpanzees and mankind, this is due to the fossil and also what we know from DNA sequencing, which shows that we have an ancestor about 7 million years back. However, I don't want to overstate what we know regarding the Sahelanthropus tchadensis, and this particular relationship is still be studied and analyzed, but there is evidence that this may be that ancestor. Even if it wasn't, then our ancestor is very similar and existed at the same time.

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

The age of the fossil is determined from sediment isotope analysis. See below.

"Having demonstrated that the two prerequisites necessary to apply the radioactive decay dating method are met in the studied area, we measured authigenic 10Be/9Be ratio of 32 samples from the TM 254 and TM 266 sections. By using the previously discussed initial ratio and the recently reevaluated 10Be half-life of (1.36 ± 0.07) × 106 years (33), these ratios yielded ages ranging from 5.39 ± 0.92 to 8.67 ± 1.11 Ma. Weighted mean 10Be ages were then calculated by using an inverse-variance weighted mean. Associated uncertainties are fully discussed in Materials and Methods. More specifically, the TM 254 lacustrine facies yielded a weighted mean authigenic 10Be/9Be age of 6.26 ± 0.41 Ma (Table 2 and Fig. 1). The section of the A.U. above the ash tuff layer at TM 254 yielded a weighted mean authigenic 10Be/9Be age of 6.88 ± 0.40 Ma, whereas the section of this layer below the ash tuff layer yielded a weighted mean authigenic10Be/9Be age of 7.24 ± 0.38 Ma. In section TM 266, ages calculated for the two levels bracketing theSahelanthropus tchadensis cranium level were 6.83 ± 0.45 Ma for the overlying level and 7.12 ± 0.31 Ma for the underlying level.

Because these data demonstrate that the deposition of the A.U. from which Toumaï was unearthed is synchronous and geologically instantaneous (considering the uncertainties associated to the dating methods) in both TM 266 and TM 254, all of the 28 samples from the A.U. were used to determine the inverse-variance weighted mean age of this sedimentary unit, the associated mean square of weighted deviates being 0.36 (see Materials and Methods). This yields an age of 7.04 ± 0.18 Ma for Sahelanthropus tchadensis."
Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3226.full

Regarding the relationship to chimpanzees and mankind, this is due to the fossil and also what we know from DNA sequencing, which shows that we have an ancestor about 7 million years back. However, I don't want to overstate what we know regarding the Sahelanthropus tchadensis, and this particular relationship is still be studied and analyzed, but there is evidence that this may be that ancestor. Even if it wasn't, then our ancestor is very similar and existed at the same time.

Debating dating methods is fruitless.
I either except what you say is true or not.
Now, if I except what you say is true, how does that build up my faith in Christ?

 

[Doulos Iesou]

Debating dating methods is fruitless.
I either except what you say is true or not.

I was just providing you the information for how the age was obtained. If anyone wanted to date it, they should take it up with the scientists who I cited in my source who provided very thorough calculations to their work.

One can ignore the evidence and believe whatever they want about the fossil, the problem is that they won't have any evidential basis for doing so.

Now, if I except what you say is true, how does that build up my faith in Christ?

It informs you more about how God actually worked in his creative process, which was through natural causes. Much like he does today.

Edited for content
Admin

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

I was just providing you the information for how the age was obtained. If anyone wanted to date it, they should take it up with the scientists who I cited in my source who provided very thorough calculations to their work.

One can ignore the evidence and believe whatever they want about the fossil, the problem is that they won't have any evidential basis for doing so.


It informs you more about how God actually worked in his creative process, which was through natural causes. Much like he does today.

Edited for content
Admin

I don't dispute your evidence except that it is based on human understanding.
Where in the Bible has human understanding brought a person closer to God?
I'm not saying it's not there, just that I can't recall any such thing.
I think it is in the Spirit where we find God.

I believe God does work through natural causes, I question man's ability to understand it.
Since everything has to do with God, tell me more how God fits in with all you are saying.
I'm listening.
Teach me.

 

[Gary]

 

[Doulos Iesou]

I don't dispute your evidence except that it is based on human understanding.

I am always puzzled at what this means. Everything we have is a human understanding, indeed we can only have human understanding of spiritual matters.. because we're human. Scripture must be interpreted, and that is susceptible to our fallible minds.

The evidence doesn't just require interpretation though in some instances, many observations are objective and are not subject to differing opinions. Such as the age of the fossils, that isn't just an understanding that people came to an opinion about, it's a formula that is used to analyze the age of the sedimentary isotopes that is well founded.

Where in the Bible has human understanding brought a person closer to God?
I'm not saying it's not there, just that I can't recall any such thing.
I think it is in the Spirit where we find God.

All truth is God's truth, regardless of the source. (1 Corinthians 3:22-23; notice how the "world," is offered as a source in that text)

I believe God does work through natural causes, I question man's ability to understand it.

On what basis do you question man's ability to understand it? Is it because you don't like the outcome of their observations, or is it because there are notable observations that they leave out? If the latter, please elaborate. Or if it is some other reason then please elaborate as well.

Since everything has to do with God, tell me more how God fits in with all you are saying.

I'm just presenting the evidence for how God worked through natural causes to adapt life on this planet to it's modern form.

If you expect me to understand all the intents and purpose of God for why he does certain things a certain way then I could only offer my human and fallible response.

I'm not some great sage who has acquired that knowledge, I can only speak to what I know and what I believe.

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Human understanding.
The Bible says that God created everything and on the 6th day he created man.
Now I believe that "by faith".
I don't need or have human understanding to believe "by faith".
It is in my spirit that I believe what God says.

Now a very educated man comes along and says, "no, that's not the way it is. I have proof.
I having accurate dating methods and a large number of scientists that state otherwise.
What you are believing the Bible says is wrong".

What this very educated man is saying is "stop believing by faith and start believing by human understanding".
I just don't agree with that because I don't see how God is glorified in my life by believing it.

 

[Gary]

 

[Doulos Iesou]

Human understanding.
The Bible says that God created everything and on the 6th day he created man.
Now I believe that "by faith".

Your underlying assumption is that this text is to be interpreted literally. There are millions of Christians who take issue with that.

Is it possible your understanding of this text is wrong?

I don't need or have human understanding to believe "by faith".
It is in my spirit that I believe what God says.

Being a Christian myself I know it's not that simple, my own mind must be engaged to consider what the text means. I have to consider the original author and intent of the message as well as to whom it is written, in additional to other factors such as genre, etc. The correct interpretation isn't just downloaded into our brains, or else it would be really odd how so many different Christians can come to so many different conclusions about the meaning of a text.

Now a very educated man comes along and says, "no, that's not the way it is. I have proof.
I having accurate dating methods and a large number of scientists that state otherwise.
What you are believing the Bible says is wrong".

I am saying that I disagree with your understanding of the Bible, and my understanding does not conflict with the findings of modern science.

What this very educated man is saying is "stop believing by faith and start believing by human understanding".
I just don't agree with that because I don't see how God is glorified in my life by believing it.

What we're talking about now is Epistemology, and we have a difference in that regard. I think that if we claim to know something, then I should have sufficient justification for that claim. For instance, why do I believe in Jesus, but not in Allah.. why not just believe in Allah on the basis of "faith?" Why not accept the Book of Mormon on faith? The truth of the matter is that you apply certain critical methods to other belief systems that you do not apply to your own, and shrouding one's position in faith basically means it's not subject to contradiction or falsification.

How then would you respond to people of differing faiths? If there were not some measure by which truth and falsehood could be distinguished? I do not believe in God simply as a leap of faith, I trust in God because I am convinced that he exists and came to earth as a man who died for my sins and rose from the dead.

Scrutiny and skepticism is found in Scripture in several places, such as the Boreans, or testing prophecy, or testing the spirits, even Jesus not rebuking Thomas for needing to see the scars. God is not afraid of being investigated, and if he is, then he probably isn't God.