Christian Evolutionists: How does that work? A Q&A session

when we were discussing just how poorly written that article is. I will admit though that it was worth a chuckle or two.You can catch up on the discussion at Message 1.But Seven. Most of the people that visit here are aware of all of the propaganda (it would be worthwhile for you to look up where the word propaganda came from) and so bringing us bits and pieces from there is really an exercise in futility.Instead, pick the one thing that YOU KNOW, something that is from your experience, that you believe shows that evolution is not going on right now as we speak. Don't look over on AIG, there is nothing there that hasn't been gone over hundreds and hundreds of times. There is nothing you can find over there that will persuade one single person that stops and looks around for him or her self.The evidence for evolution is all around you. I listed several examples that you can verify are going on right now. And those little changes, tiny little changes, happening over the long period, billions and billions of years, are what brought about the variety, diversity and yes, even the commonality, that is seen in every living thing around us.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Who brought up Jesus ? Im not sure what you are talking about? According to you, this is interpretting, if this is true then your contridictating yourself by saying that evoulutionist are right. Cuause according to what you just pointed out therefore evolutionist do the same.

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Mainstream science interprets ALL of the data. This is why mainstream science claims that the earth is old in the face of your helium argument. Creationists ignore the fact that helium loss through escape velocities, photoionization, and solar wind stripping can rid the earth of helium that is produced by radioactive decay. Sarfati and creationists like yourself only focus on escape velocities and ignore the other mechanisms. This is dishonest.How about an analogy. What if I claimed that the oceans should be increasing in size every year. In doing so, I dismiss the possibility that ocean water evaporates into the air. Would you consider this dishonest? I sure would. This same level of dishonesty is seen throughout creation "science". They claim that they are interpretting the same data, but they are not. They are only interpretting the data that doesn't falsify their position. The FACT of the matter is that a young earth has been falsified by the data, and no amount of interpretation is going to change this fact.

This is typical of the poor quality of so much of YEC "science".First of all, I don't see any detailed computations. Just out-of context quotes and assertions of a final "conclusion".Not only did the botch the calculation of escape rates based on Maxwell distribution (which is a DISTRIBUTION - why do YECs have so much trouble with probability ?), they neglected ionization of helium in the upper atmosphere by the solar wind (ever heard of the aurora borealis ?) and removal by the Earth's magnetic field.I'd like to see a YEC explanation of why there is no Lead-205 found naturally on the Earth, if we are going to talk elements.Thee really are only two conclusions possible when faced with work of such poor quality - gross incompetence, or rampant dishonesty.

How Good are those Young-Earth Arguments: Hovind's 'Proofs'CE001: Not Enough Helium?
CD015: Helium diffusion from zircons*yawns*of course, feel free to check their sources, as always.

for some reason, people who've actually participated in paleontological digs almost always support evolution. i wonder why that is?besides, it's not like dating has much to do with biological evolution. even if the earth were 6,000 years old, and god created everything in media res to look like it was 4.5 billion years old, things would STILL be evolving today...

really really. Observed Instances of Speciation out of context. suppose you have a bone found just below the kt boundary. common sense tells you this bone is about 65 million years old or so. uranium-lead dating confirms this, placing the bone at 66 mya. potassium-argon says it's only 50 million years old in one of a few tests, and all the others say 66 mya.its date is 66 mya. unfortunately, science is based in the real world. this means things can go wrong, get contaminated, etc. and so there are statistical aberations. aberations are called that because they are abnormal, and the vast majority of other things agree, or show a relationship. science throws these out, because they are due to improper examination of the evidence, bad testing, or sometimes just plain old error.creationism throws out the majority of results, and only focuses on the aberations, even if they don't agree with their results. (the helium date hovind gives 175,000 years. that's a lot more than 6)so which is right? the 99%, or the 1%?

i'm gonna go with dishonesty.i saw an essay on the behemoth and leviathan of job 40-41. it examined at great lenght the ugaritic mythological origins of both, the symbolism, the intent of the authors, including that it was meant to describe ONE thing not two. and then after about 5 pages, randomly concluded that these two things were based on dinosaurs the authors had personally seen.i did a doubletake. it didn't follow logically at all from the rest of the essay.i was reading posts by dr. john morris of the icr today. apparently, he has a degree in geological engineering, and yet blatantly mis-describes simple geological concepts like sedimentation and erosion and what a flood plain looks like. this isn't even advanced geology -- anyone in an earth science class can see he's just wrong. he's gotta be lying. i just can't see how someone with a geology degree could not understand those things.

Don't worry about this I was just trying to find the message I saw that was "tombstonish" and misquoted. Found it. I'll give it to you correctly if you like. "But you have to ask nicely Danny".... what's that one from oh quoter sideline? -Z

In my opinion, SOME of Genesis HAS to be literal in order for the reasoning behind Jesus Christ as God Incarnate, why He needed to come, and what our role is. The Fall is a good example. If it never happened, there is no need for Jesus to save anyone.This message has been edited by Phatboy, 10-22-2004 08:36 PM

To paraphase Steve Martin,"Enough of this Original Sin, bring me some New Sin!"There is no need to believe in Original Sin, and in fact, most Judaic based sects have pretty much dropped the whole idea. Just plain folk can sin more than enough on their own, both through Ommission and Comission.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

ok. i'll bite.number one. the two creation stories in the bible (gen 1 and 2) disagree on the order of creation. read it.number two. the creation story (number 2) rather resembles the babylonian myth (in which marduk forms man from mud made by dirt and the blood of another god. see dirt and divine ingredient.)based on these two reasons-and a few others-i see the creation story as a common early-civ myth. the rest of the old testament is a big political document saying how great judah is and how lousy everyone else in the middle east is. i discount almost every word that paul says because jesus said the foundation of the church would be peter. where'd this paul guy come from?! so. needless to say i don't give the bible much credence as anything but a nice story with a few useful guides and a touch on the story of this one really nifty character who went around talking about peace and proper respect of the temple. so. it's easy for me to like evolution which does have demonstrated proof and dislike a silly story that does little but describe maybe how special we are.basically, i believe in the god described in the bible but not much in the bible itself... it tells us more about a people group than about anything else.so. yeah.

doubtful. the fall is a more general idea of the general horridness of people (met any?) it's not describing a certain event, just giving a "just so stor[y]" for it. ever read "how the lepard got it's spots"? nice story. it even explains it really well. but is it true? no. i like the idea of jesus' saving being based on my own sins than on the sins of some guy some too long ago years.

actually, number one strongly resembles a babylonian creation myth as well.

the bible up until the time of christ does not hold that we are born into sin. it simply doesn't talk at all about original sin, ever. this idea seems to be a loose framework at the time of paul, but only solidified in writings of st augustine.what was the fall, exactly?adam and eve are kicked out of the garden eden, away from the tree of life. many people say that sin brought death into the world, but examine the text more closely. god is condemning them to eventual death, but only because they will never eat of the tree of life and be gods. there is no evidence in the text that they were immortal before sinning, or before punishment.the punishments were no legs for the snake, various reproductive curses for the woman, and the man is to till unfruitful soil. while it does appear to be a "just so" story explaining the reasons for certain things, the only part of these curses that literally applies to the next generation is the enmity between the snake and woman's child.indeed, even at his worst, god only claims to pass sin down the family tree four generations, reading literally. and just before the time of noah, enoch is apparently so good that he doesn't even die -- god just takes him. this would be totally impossible if he was tainted by original sin. indeed, most of the tanakh seems to indicate that man can, in fact, be perfect in the eyes of god, even after sinning. david is called perfect, even after bathsheba. similarly, we are all condemned to a place called sheol ("hell") after death, although a literal reading suggests this to a physical grave.one of the greatest problems i've had recently, the biggest question of my faith, is why then did we need christ? he doesn't even fit the levitical definitions of sacrifice. if he's a passover lamb, nobody roasted him and ate him with bitter herbs and unlevened bread. if he's a guilt offering or a sin offering, i didn't lay my hand on his head and slit his throat, draining him of blood. i never owned him, and just believing isn't a sacrifice. and you can't make sacrifices for things that haven't happened yet.i think early christians had this problem too. there were some sects that even tried to get themselves martyred in order to get to heaven, apparently.i have some answers, but not all of them, and all are just my opinions. i think that he was not a sacrifice in the traditional sense, a sacrifice to god. i think he was a sacrifice for us, god showing that even he would give up something for us. i don't think anyone needed him to die, just as god doesn't need us to slaughter animals. i do however think we needed him to live. in his life he said wise things, good advice. i think these are more important than believing he existed, that he was the son of god, or how he died.

damn double posts.This message has been edited by brennakimi, 10-23-2004 10:43 AM