Has evolutionism become a leading religion?

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by Jason Badejo

Just another clever attempt to marry Biblical creation to evolution. However billions of years remain missing from the Biblical creation account, because despite human philosphy, God still did it in six days, just like He said.

And my explanation allows for a literal 6 day creation just like you want and for the earth to be billions of years old like it is.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Jason Badejo

Just another clever attempt to marry Biblical creation to evolution. However billions of years remain missing from the Biblical creation account, because despite human philosphy, God still did it in six days, just like He said.

Ah! Ah! You have yet to even attempt to prove that your interpretation of Genesis is "Biblical creation."

Rephrase that, "Just another clever attempt to marry Jason's opinion to evolution...."

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Stargate reference

Any answer with the word "Stargate" in it, while kewl, will probably lack something in the area of "hard science." (Just who was that ditz they brought on at the end of the "Atlantis" series? Ugh!).

Originally Posted by jfrog

So the question is how can God create the earth 10,000 years ago but the earth also be billions of years old? It is my opinion that God is not limited to only being able to create objects with the appearance of age. It is my opinion that God is able to create objects with an actual age. What is the difference?

Well the most striking difference is that objects with an appearance of age are lacking some vital history. For example: if God created a woman with the appearance of being 20 years old then that woman would not have parents and thus we could tell that she only appeared to be 20 years old. Another thing we would notice is that she wouldn't have a birthdate since she was never born. There would also be no records of her birth anywhere. She would be quite an abnormal woman with all of the history she was lacking.

Now consider a similar example except this time imagine God created a woman that was actually 20 years old. By actually being 20 years old this woman would have to have parents, a date of birth, a place of birth, a doctor and nurses that delivered her, and also many other things. But if God just created her how would she have these other things like a date of birth and parents? Well, God would have to create those other things at the same moment he created her. Except he would have to literally create them in such a way that things like her parents would have been on earth before her even though he is creating both of them at the same moment.

Thus the difference is that something with actual age has a complete history. Something with an appearance of age will not have a complete history. So God can create an object with a complete history at any time, he just has to go in and create its history at the same time he's creating it.

Would this fictional history include a bellybutton for the lady?

Originally Posted by jfrog

It is my opinion that the earth itself has an actual age. It is my opinoin that it has a complete history. For example: we know the "mother and father" of the hawaiian islands. They were created by volcanoes. However, we don't have a birthdate. The only date we have comes through extrapolation and extrapolation can never tell us whether something is apparent or actual because extrapolation is based only on the appearance of an object. So we can't say conclusively that the hawaiian islands are actually old and not just apparently old. That doesn't mean the hawaiian islands don't have a birthdate though.

I said all that to say this. Given the above reasoning and examples why is it impossible to think that God created a universe 10,000 years ago, but went back and filled in ALL its history over the last few billion years. And if he did that why would it be wrong to say the universe is 4 billion years old even though creation only happented 10,000 years ago?

The "God as a fictional writer" theory troubles me.

We can ponder a lot of issues that end up with us all gazing into our own navels. However, I see this as germane to the question:

1) If I disregard the stop light during rush hour on the road that leads to the Interstate near my home I am LITERALLY road kill. Really, that intersection is crazy.

How have I survived? I have survived because 99.999% of my neighbors agree with me on the meaning of "GREEN" and "RED" lights.

Think about it. What keeps us from calling the green light "red" arbitrarily? And the arrangement? Who says "TOP/DOWN" has any REAL meaning when the surface of the earth at this latitude is so far from the plane of the planet's equatorial spin? AND, the plane of that spin is 23% tilted to plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. AND, who's to say that our arbitrary "NORTH IS 'UP'" has any bearing on the real directions in the cosmos?

Since this conundrum can be sorted out rather quickly when lives are at stake, imagine what sorts of consensus we can arrive at in scientific matters when lives are also at stake.

Our world exists. It has meaning. We can understand our world through careful and objective observation. We can measure it and quantify it in many other ways. It's here. It's real. If it appears to be something that it is not, and if God is the one responsible for the deception, then we will have to reevaluate our doctrines of God's morality and truthfulness. If it comes down to it, I'm willing to give the Almighty the benefit of the doubt and accept the world for what it is.

Giving God the "benefit of the doubt?" That's the first step toward faith for most people.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by jfrog

Stargate reference

So the question is how can God create the earth 10,000 years ago but the earth also be billions of years old? It is my opinion that God is not limited to only being able to create objects with the appearance of age. It is my opinion that God is able to create objects with an actual age. What is the difference?

Well the most striking difference is that objects with an appearance of age are lacking some vital history. For example: if God created a woman with the appearance of being 20 years old then that woman would not have parents and thus we could tell that she only appeared to be 20 years old. Another thing we would notice is that she wouldn't have a birthdate since she was never born. There would also be no records of her birth anywhere. She would be quite an abnormal woman with all of the history she was lacking.

Now consider a similar example except this time imagine God created a woman that was actually 20 years old. By actually being 20 years old this woman would have to have parents, a date of birth, a place of birth, a doctor and nurses that delivered her, and also many other things. But if God just created her how would she have these other things like a date of birth and parents? Well, God would have to create those other things at the same moment he created her. Except he would have to literally create them in such a way that things like her parents would have been on earth before her even though he is creating both of them at the same moment.

Thus the difference is that something with actual age has a complete history. Something with an appearance of age will not have a complete history. So God can create an object with a complete history at any time, he just has to go in and create its history at the same time he's creating it.

It is my opinion that the earth itself has an actual age. It is my opinoin that it has a complete history. For example: we know the "mother and father" of the hawaiian islands. They were created by volcanoes. However, we don't have a birthdate. The only date we have comes through extrapolation and extrapolation can never tell us whether something is apparent or actual because extrapolation is based only on the appearance of an object. So we can't say conclusively that the hawaiian islands are actually old and not just apparently old. That doesn't mean the hawaiian islands don't have a birthdate though.

I said all that to say this. Given the above reasoning and examples why is it impossible to think that God created a universe 10,000 years ago, but went back and filled in ALL its history over the last few billion years. And if he did that why would it be wrong to say the universe is 4 billion years old even though creation only happented 10,000 years ago?

Why WOULD He do that or need to?

[coadie]

Did evolution just stop?" Beck asked rhetorically. "I haven't seen the half-monkey/half-person yet. ... There's no other species that's developing into half-people."

"I don't know how God creates. I don't know how we got here," he continued, wondering what God might tell him after he dies. "If God's like, 'Yup, you were a monkey once,' I'll be shocked, but I'll be cool with it."

Beck explained, "If God didn't create, if things evolve, then your rights evolve. You're not endowed by your Creator.

Even Glenn Becks religion has space to consider a Creator.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by coadie

Quote:
Did evolution just stop?" Beck asked rhetorically. "I haven't seen the half-monkey/half-person yet. ... There's no other species that's developing into half-people."

"I don't know how God creates. I don't know how we got here," he continued, wondering what God might tell him after he dies. "If God's like, 'Yup, you were a monkey once,' I'll be shocked, but I'll be cool with it."

Beck explained, "If God didn't create, if things evolve, then your rights evolve. You're not endowed by your Creator.

Even Glenn Becks religion has space to consider a Creator.

Even though I like him in many ways, in many other ways Beck's a meathead. His "religion" says very emphatically that an Iron Age civilization flourished in the Ohio River Valley region over 2,000 years ago. This civilization had large cities with fortified stone walls and towers. The warring sides were able to field armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The soldiers all wore armor and carried iron swords.

Yet we find no cities - and Joseph Smith pointed out the exact locations where many of these cities supposedly stood. No stone walls. No foundations for buildings, towers or walls. No Iron artifacts have ever been found in the Ohio River Valley dating to any time before the arrival of Europeans. In fact, no bronze, tin or copper either. Copper bells have been found much further south, but these were trade goods received from Meso-America.

Much of Glenn Beck's "faith" is in things that clearly never happened.

The "your rights evolved..." argument is specious. Perhaps the "rights" of some line of hominids "evolved" - but just try and tell that to the leopards and lions. Also, these "rights" are NOT something that the Bible teaches us:

1 Timothy 6:1 (NIV)

"All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered."

Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22; Colossians 4:1 and Titus 2:9.

You confound your own position every time you stray from the Word of God.

From a purely historical viewpoint, our rights DID EVOLVE. In the days of the Bible the rights of many persons were severely restricted or even nonexistent. The Bible clearly reports that fact.

Today, things are different. Things are generally a bit better - in large part because the message of the Bible took root in the hearts of many slave owners.

Philemon 1:10-22.

The concept of being "endowed with certain unalienable rights" was a product of the English Enlightenment and its affect upon the American colonists from England. I suppose both coadie and Glenn Beck use the Jefferson Bible in their devotions, don't they? No "miracles." No "resurrection from the dead;" just "certain unalienable rights." It was Thomas Jefferson who penned those words, "unalienable rights" - quoting the English humanist John Locke.

Yep. Human rights have "evolved." Actually reading the Bible will be a big help when you start talking about the Bible.

You lose yet another round, coadie.

[Jason B]

I will respond to the two newest posts of Praxeas, however, as a genreal rule, I notice these reoccouring themes.


1)You are attempting to interpret scripture through science. You are not and have not posted any SCRIPTURAL evidence for an earth and creation that is billions of years old.

2)I asked for an exegesis of Genesis 1 from a theistic evolutionist, and was told that was a red herring. No, what that is called is a cop out.

3)You posts on this subject are full of assumptions. You speak of dating methods as if they are fact, when in reality they cannot be proven.

When God created Adam (if you accept there was a literal Adam, since when I asked about Him, and 28 other Old Testament events, you claimed it was aRed Herring)-- He didn't create Him as a single cell who evolved, he didn't create him as a child or a teenager, but as a fully matured man capable of logic, language, and procreation. Yet if we showed up on day 9 Adam would appear to us to be perhaps a 30 year old man, yet in reality, only 3 days old. When God created the stars on day 4, no doubt if measured on day 5 they would measure thousands of light years, yet they were only 1 day old. If we saw a tree on day 6 with fruit on it, we would assume its been there many years. If we cut it down we would likely find many rings in it, however the tree itself would only be 3 days old. Again, the theories that you have decided to accept are not fact, they don't take into account the power of God or catastrophic events, and are largely based on uniformitarianism.


All in all its is TE's whose arguments revolve around science, and not scripture. Perhaps you all should call yourselves Rossites?

PS- why did coadie get banned?

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Jason Badejo

1)You are attempting to interpret scripture through science. You are not and have not posted any SCRIPTURAL evidence for an earth and creation that is billions of years old.

There is no scriptural evidence for any specific age of the earth

2)I asked for an exegesis of Genesis 1 from a theistic evolutionist, and was told that was a red herring. No, what that is called is a cop out.

I am not a theistic evolutionist. I am an honest person who has to admit there is a lot of factual data for the universe being much much much older than 10,000 years. Many of your responses to what I posted were red herrings.

3)You posts on this subject are full of assumptions. You speak of dating methods as if they are fact, when in reality they cannot be proven.

You have said, over and over "when in reality they can not be proven" and the fact is it is very easy to prove dating methods. Just date something we already know the age of.

My posts are usually in response to yours. In fact that was where I jumped in, when you made the assumption that an evolutionist can't believe in the bible or the genesis account. I argued an evolutionist can believe in God and in the bible and infact Christian evolutionists see God as the cause of evolution and merely see Genesis 1 interpretationally different than you do.

So Im usually responding to your assertions, like the one above that says dating methods "in reality they cannot be proven" and yet not one shred of data to back that assertion up.

As I pointed out before, biblical archeologist use these dating methods to date biblical finds

It's very easy to see that a certain dig dates to the bronze age by what they find in those digs. But to compound matters for you, they also radio date the things they find TO the bronze age.

Forensic pathologists use dating methods too and our legal system recognizes the validity of these sciences

Other issues is, in those digs there are no fossil records of dinosaurs nor is there a biblical accounting of them. You believe in the flood...I don't know if that is global or local, but do you really think there was enough room on the ark for all animals including dinosaurs?

And if so, why did all the dinosaurs die out and why don't we find them all in the same layers we find remains of early man from Noah's time on up?

What does the bible say about that?

Dating methods. Just how far do you think those stars are? See that's the problem, your view means the furthest star has to be no more than 10k light years away. The furthest star! There are billions of stars. If they are all that close the solar systems would probably collapse due to their gravitational pull and the close proximity. We would see a lot more stars in the night sky....it would be light up very brightly.

Here is a page that gives several methods for determining the distance of stars. Many involve Trig

So, here was my point I made once before. Astronomers and mathematicians have all scientifically, mathematically calculated many starts to be much further than a mere 10k light years away...the more and more further away you get from that point the less and less a literal day view of Genesis makes sense

And as I have already done, with no rebuttle, I have proven that the hebrew word for day used there can mean an unspecified period of time and that our system of time, literal days, are based on the rotation of the earth as it orbits the Sun and that did not happen till a few days after the text says "the first day"

When God created Adam (if you accept there was a literal Adam, since when I asked about Him, and 28 other Old Testament events, you claimed it was aRed Herring)

Do you know what a red herring is? It means we are on an issue, I made a point on that issue and you ignored my point and redirected the topic to something that is totally irrelevant to the discussion of Evolution or even the thread topic of it being a religion

-- He didn't create Him as a single cell who evolved, he didn't create him as a child or a teenager, but as a fully matured man capable of logic, language, and procreation.

Im sure Pel would say Adam represents mankind or some such but let's assume God created Adam in one day and literally took a rib to make a woman after a period of time that is unspecified. Adam could have been living for many many years according to most Christian accounts, because he would not have died had he not sinned. He could have lived for a long long time, then him and Eve could have lived even longer.

Do you know what Neanderthal is? We have fossil records of modern man (Adam) and they lived along side Neanderthal for quite some time in Europe. Can you explain all the man like fossils that predate modern man?

Anyways, maybe God made Adam that does not mean He could not have also made other humanoid like beings or even those that evolved into modern man outside of the garden.

It would also answer the question as to who the females where that the sons of Adam procreated with

Yet if we showed up on day 9 Adam would appear to us to be perhaps a 30 year old man, yet in reality, only 3 days old. When God created the stars on day 4, no doubt if measured on day 5 they would measure thousands of light years, yet they were only 1 day old.

The problem is that light is still hitting the earth today and needs to travel thousands and hundred of thousands of light years before doing so.

So the fact that the distance of a star is calculated to be 20k light years from us means the light we are seeing from that star left that star 20 thousand years ago. Next week the light we see from the same start left that start 20 thousand years ago. etc etc

If we saw a tree on day 6 with fruit on it, we would assume its been there many years. If we cut it down we would likely find many rings in it, however the tree itself would only be 3 days old. Again, the theories that you have decided to accept are not fact, they don't take into account the power of God or catastrophic events, and are largely based on uniformitarianism.

There would be no rings because rings are growth rings. They represent years of bark shedding and production. It would be a tree with no rings.

Second, I have accepted no theories. I'm discussing dates, history. Pel and Coadie are discussing speciation. Evolution is what you keep calling a theory. Dating methods are not theories

Definition of a theory:
a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena

Half life decay of radio isotopes is not a theory. It's an observable event. Trigonometry is not a theory either.

[Jason B]

CONTINUED....

Originally Posted by Praxeas

I have already shown the hebrew word for Day can mean simply a period of time not specific.

Divorced from all context in Genesis. The only place that I can think of where a number and a day appear together and are not literal days in in Hosea (2 days he cast us off, the third day he will gather us). Everywhere the days of creation are referred to in scripture, cheifly in the 10 commandments of Exodus 20:11, the days are set out as literal days.

Originally Posted by Praxeas

And Pel made a good point regarding the table of nations...where is China? China has been around as a culture for a long long LONG time.

I don't know I'd have to study it more. Thats what I do when I don't know the answer. Admit it, and go study it. I'm confident there is a reasonable explanation, and I am confident of that because I believe the Bible is infallible and inerrant. I don't have all knowledge, but I don't use my imperfect knowledge on a subject as a means of tearing down the scripture. IOW because an argument is presented I'm not familiar with I don't take the attitude of "nope, no china, obviously the Bible missed it on this one". You admission about China and Genesis 10 seems to indicate you are not only questioning the literal interpretation of Genesis 1, but are INDEED doubting the reliability of other scriptures. Again, the issue isn't the years of creation, it is Biblical inerrancy, authority, reliability, and inspiration.

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Again hermeneutics says we have to consider history and culture when examining the bible. There is scientific historical data that suggests Genesis 1 is not a literal 24 hour/6 day account. The Sun and Moon were not even created until days after the 1st "day"

Again "science" not scripture.

And again, I say then you have to harmonize your theory with the fact that if the days are long ages of time you have 3 "days" without any sun, thus translating into thousands, or more accurately millions or billons of years without a sun.

[Jason B]

All 3 of you guys willing dismiss my point about the stars. Taking Genesis 1 as literal (just assume it is for a moment) when the stars were created on day 4, how old did they appear to Adam on day 6? Would you say they were 2 light days old? No, according to your theories, at the very least the stars which were two days old would appear to Adam as 20,000 years old.

Because God created everything mature. Its not that complex of an argument. All your arguments are based on stars, rocks, strata, and the like. You guys are not providing scriptural support for your position, and expect me to bow the knee.

I'm not against you saying you believe the earth is billions of years old, believe anything you want. But just don't act like the Bible teaches it, when you know that it DOESN'T, which is precisely the reason you guys ignore my requests for scripture teaching an earth which is billions of years old, and why you will not take the Genesis 1 text verse by verse and show where the billions of years come into play.