Evolution and the Bible. Confirm or contradict?

[Adino]

Hey guys, interesting discussion. I usually by-pass the young earth/old earth/evolution/"how did God create" threads simply because I enjoy the soteriological issues so much more and one only has so much time to devote to pecking away at a keyboard.

Maybe I'll get a chance to join in more next week, but for now I'd like to see some thoughts from anyone who'd care to share concerning the theological implications of the theistic evolution position. An implied world full of death prior to a fall into sin is one issue that would be of interest.

I've also always wondered why the botanical record seems to have been neglected in the whole design debate. Some of the seed dispersal systems of plants are simply amazing.

God bless and keep the posts coming!

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

From a singularity a million times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. Which is, by the way, no bigger than the amount of space that a star 10 -1,000,000,000 times the mass of our own Sun occupies when it collapses in on itself and forms a black hole.

Yup...still don't understand where all the elements came from lol

[Carpenter]

Someone may have mentioned this, but I believe that God could have allowed or designed the evolutionary process concerning the animal and plant kingdoms. I also believe there has been some evolutionary change in humans in terms of adaptation, however there is no way the human species developed from a more simple and less complex set of DNA...no way.

[Praxeas]

[quote=pelathais;302606]Remember Einstein's famous equation? E = mc2

As the expansion progressed things cooled down, just the way an expanding gas will cool your refrigerator. The cooling in the early universe allowed the energy to coalesce and subatomic particles formed. This is unlikely to happen in your refrigerator, however. The subatomic particles (baryons, leptons and stuff) then formed hydrogen and a very small amount of helium (I'm skipping some things for brevity).

The hydrogen then formed along "creases" in the fabric of space and began to clump together to form stars and quasars. The quasars (in a process that we don't have pinned down yet) appeared to draw in more hydrogen to produce the first proto-galaxies. In other cases galaxies appear to have formed in the absence of quasars, or something happened to the quasar. The stars would then fuse the hydrogen into heavier elements and "slough" off the produce (along with unfused hydrogen) into the surrounding space. When they got to the heaviest elements like iron and upward - only the blast of a supernova was needed to create things like uranium.

Are we able to duplicate any of those on any level to prove it? It still is hard for me to grasp where all matter came from, including the differences in elements.

BTW do you believe in ID? It seems to me the arrangement of atomic and sub-atomic particles might be an indication of Intelligent Design.

[Carpenter]

[QUOTE=Praxeas;302798]

Originally Posted by pelathais

Remember Einstein's famous equation? E = mc2


Are we able to duplicate any of those on any level to prove it? It still is hard for me to grasp where all matter came from, including the differences in elements.

BTW do you believe in ID? It seems to me the arrangement of atomic and sub-atomic particles might be an indication of Intelligent Design.

The problem is that people cannot grasp that God is responsible for ALL creation. NO new matter can be created by man, the mass of the universe will and forever will be the same.

HE had to speak in order for things to BE, he did not just THINK them and they appeared. I believe everything that science can prove or produce is/was done so because of the almighty hand of God.

[meBNme]

Originally Posted by Sheltiedad

This discussion brings to light one of my own concerns with religion. It seems that the less intelligent you are, and the less time you spend thinking about things, the more likely you are to get saved and stay saved...

Doesn't it say something about things when being smarter, more intelligent, more street-wise, etc. actually decreases your chances of being saved?

I'm not saying that I am smart, I am just saying that if I was mentally handicapped, I probably would never have questioned certain things and would probably take things more at face value than I do now, therefore would be more likely to be saved.

You are just associating with the wrong people.
Sure, there are uneducated "village idiots" out there who cling to religion as a life vest in a stormy sea.
But there are many others who are highly educated, and very intelligent, who are believers.
Personally the more I study and research, and question, the firmer my faith becomes. Our church alone has people with doctorates, and masters degrees in things like education, cancer research, theology, and even an "atomic physicist". One of the trustees worked for NASA when we sent man to the moon. he was directly involved with the design and building of the craft and launching. These people are very strong believers.

Just look around.

[meBNme]

Originally Posted by pelathais

We observe all these processes going on around us today. The dust from which Adam was formed (and you and me!) was formed from elements synthesized in the stars.

Kinda funny.....

The Bible says......

"The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved..............."

Then God started speaking, "let there be....."

Honestly, it seems to me, that the first "day" was the day of light and darkness.
Genesis 1:5

The second "day" was the day of the heavens
Genesis 1:7-8

The third "day" was the day of the earth.
Genesis 1:9-13

The fourth "day" was the day of the sun, moon and stars.
Genesis 1:14-19
I believe this is time as we know it started.

The fifth "day" is the day of evolution of the creatures.
Genesis 1:20-23
The Bible say the creatures and the birds came forth from the seas. Just as science claims.

The sixth "day" was the day of Man.
Genesis 1:24-31
God created man, in the same era of the "modern" beasts like cattle.
This leads me to believe that the dinosaurs had already died off, as well as many other prehistoric creatures, including the ones that resembled man, but were just mere beasts like the apes.

I also believe that just because time started in the 4th "day" that doesnt mean the next three were 24 hr periods. They were just era's in time that were described as "days".
Could God have done it all instantly with just his word? Yes, I believe so, but that he chose to create it all with care and a "line upon line" type process. Besides, Time is nothing to God right?

[meBNme]

Originally Posted by Carpenter

Someone may have mentioned this, but I believe that God could have allowed or designed the evolutionary process concerning the animal and plant kingdoms. I also believe there has been some evolutionary change in humans in terms of adaptation, however there is no way the human species developed from a more simple and less complex set of DNA...no way.

I agree, and I also believe the Bible backs this opinion up.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Are we able to duplicate any of those on any level to prove it? It still is hard for me to grasp where all matter came from, including the differences in elements.

BTW do you believe in ID? It seems to me the arrangement of atomic and sub-atomic particles might be an indication of Intelligent Design.

Yes, though obviously not on the scale of a star.

At the particle accelerator in Brookhaven, NY, gold atoms were accelerated up to near light speeds and then crashed them into gold atoms coming from the opposite direction. Gold was chosen because it is one of the heavier nonradioactive elements. Some people feared that the "post Big Bang plasma" that would be produced would destroy the planet or even cause the entire universe to collapse. Though the odds of this happening were near 0% - they weren't 0%. LOL. They went ahead it did the experiment. The result confirmed the Standard Model theory.

At the European nuke research center, CERN they are constructing the largest accelerator to date- the Large Hadron Collider (a Hadron is the particle composed of quarks). This experiment will contribute to our understanding of how the elementary particles aquired mass as the universe cooled. Most scientists favor the "Higgs boson" (also known as the "God particle") for being responsible. Barring an unfortunate disaster like the collapse of all creation into a singularity centered in the French Alps, we should know a lot more about the early universe and the relationship between "space," "energy" and "matter" after 2008.

Of course if the universe does collapse as a result of these experiments, it won't be the first time the French have dragged us all into ... well, never mind.

Coupled with the QED and QCD models of Richard Feynman we have good experimental data to back up the theoretical musings. On that note- Prax I think you'd really like Feynman's popular lecture series. It's readily available on cassette or CD in most bookstores- and available on Direct Connect and Bit Torrent file sharing networks. Quantum Electro-Dynamics and Quantum Chromo-Dynamics. These deal with the photovoltaic effect discovered by Einstein. Basically, it how energy is absorbed into matter and released. "Every atom has a baseball bag filled with an infinite number of baseballs..." R. Feynman. The "baseballs" are protons.

And on the subject of Feynman, if you ever find his audio book or the text version of "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" grab it! That is one of the most touching love stories I've ever heard. I would rank the agnostic Feynman as a paragon of virtue on the same level as some of our greatest saints. Just listen (or read) of his courtship and then marriage to his first wife (she dies at the end and leaves him widowed). They married while he was working on the Manhattan Project during WW2. Some people will flippantly quote the Apostle Paul, "It's better to marry than to burn..." Read about how Feynman married. Pure love.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by pelathais

Yes, though obviously not on the scale of a star.

At the particle accelerator in Brookhaven, NY, gold atoms were accelerated up to near light speeds and then crashed them into gold atoms coming from the opposite direction. Gold was chosen because it is one of the heavier nonradioactive elements. Some people feared that the "post Big Bang plasma" that would be produced would destroy the planet or even cause the entire universe to collapse. Though the odds of this happening were near 0% - they weren't 0%. LOL. They went ahead it did the experiment. The result confirmed the Standard Model theory.

At the European nuke research center, CERN they are constructing the largest accelerator to date- the Large Hadron Collider (a Hadron is the particle composed of quarks). This experiment will contribute to our understanding of how the elementary particles aquired mass as the universe cooled. Most scientists favor the "Higgs boson" (also known as the "God particle") for being responsible. Barring an unfortunate disaster like the collapse of all creation into a singularity centered in the French Alps, we should know a lot more about the early universe and the relationship between "space," "energy" and "matter" after 2008.

Of course if the universe does collapse as a result of these experiments, it won't be the first time the French have dragged us all into ... well, never mind.

Coupled with the QED and QCD models of Richard Feynman we have good experimental data to back up the theoretical musings. On that note- Prax I think you'd really like Feynman's popular lecture series. It's readily available on cassette or CD in most bookstores- and available on Direct Connect and Bit Torrent file sharing networks.

And on the subject of Feynman, if you ever find his audio book or the text version of "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" grab it! That is one of the most touching love stories I've ever heard. I would rank the agnostic Feynman as a paragon of virtue on the same level as some of our greatest saints. Just listen (or read) of his courtship and then marriage to his first wife (she dies at the end and leaves him widowed). They married while he was working on the Manhattan Project during WW2. Some people will flippantly quote the Apostle Paul, "It's better to marry than to burn..." Read about how Feynman married. Pure love.

Thank you. BTW as for the universe sinking back into that singularity....you ever wonder if this has all been done before? :-)

That the Universe is like the ocean tide receding then returning