If Evolution was proved beyond doubt...

Why is it a stretch?The text clearly indicates fowl being created from water before man was created, and fowl being created from the ground after man was created.It is either a contradiction, or I am correct on that.Moreover, the implication is indeed that the previous fowl were either extinct or not in large numbers, as why would God create new fowl for man. The text suggests that there was a need to create animals suitable for man. Perhaps the extinction bit is a stretch, but it is not a stretch at all, but a plain reading of the text, that there were 2 creations of 2 different classes of flying animals.This message has been edited by randman, 05-30-2005 01:18 PM

Jar, there are no contradictions. Show them.Genesis 1 unveils the creation story, and Genesis 2 details more on one part of that story.Are you claiming the author or folks who put Genesis together deliberately put 2 contradictory stories back to back?Really, there is nothing in the stories to show a contradiction, and heck, one of the apparent contradictions, the creation of 2 sets of flying creatures, has been cleared up by scientific investigations.It appears you just want to believe the stories contradict. There is certainly nothing in them that, in fact, does contradict.

Appeals to authority within the faith. Well, if you are willing to start accepting what various ministers believe, we've made a good start, but somehow that is not what I think is going on.Jar, you claim they differ, but offer no specifics, or specifics that do not match the texts. Prove that because Genesis 1 says the land animals were created during the same "day" (era) as man, and Genesis 2 says the same thing, that God created the animals which were created "out of the ground" during the time of man's creation. The text totally contradicts what you claim.Furthermore, there is no indication that man was created as an afterthought. In both Genesis 1-2, man is created to be dominant over the creation.Both Genesis 1 and 2 are consistent with each other.Also, what do you constitute as mainstream faith?Are Southern Baptists mainstream faith? They are the single largest denomination in America, although they would claim they are not a denomination.Are Charistmatic/Pentacostals mainstream? They are the largest, and fastest growing segment of Christianity globally.The vast majority of both of these groups believe as I do here on Genesis.Even among denominations such as Anglicans, not all agree with your take or the take of the bishop you quoted.I would argue that most Christians globally accept the harmonious view of Genesis 1 and 2, and thus the "mainstream" agrees with me.

Jar, I showed you where you were incorrect about man:Being an afterthought, andBeing created at different times, eras, from land animals.Both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 indicates man and the land animals being created at the same time.Now, if you want to say these stories are allegorical, and meant to be taken as 2 different stories, fine, but they still don't contradict, and that's the point.Genesis 1, by the way, seems to lend strong evidence for evolution/multiple descent (pretty close to common descent) whereas Genesis 2 is stronger evidence (if you accept the Bible) for special creation, but both accounts are very brief and leave a lot of room for speculation.Since the topic of this thread is just as much about faith as science, I will do you a favor and tell you how I view the Bible in one respect and how many believers also view it. I view the Bible as containing clues when there are areas of vagueness. There are things that are spelled out very clearly such as love your neighbor or Jesus died, was buried, resurrected, as Paul repeatedly insists on, for example.Then, there are things that are not so clear.But rather than assume that something is a contradiction, I find that God, according to my faith, uses seeming contradictions to illustrate truth. Paradoxes are a familiar example of this, but I think when you see 2 accounts that seem to differ, side by side, that the differences are there for a reason.I don't see the differences you see, and argue that they are not there, but I do see the differences in 2 sets of flying animals being created, and had I lived 300 years ago, it might have been harder to reconcile that fact, but with the discovery of prehistoric dino-birds, it makes more sense.That's how my faith works, and in response to this thread topic, I see no reason why any scientific discovery would weaken my faith or anyone's elses.Evidently, many such as yourself it seems feel it would weaken your faith, ir should weaken it if you believed in the Bible. I think that is a mistake and mis-perception on your part.Btw, I accept the Bible as the word of God, but I do think there could be mistakes in the translations we have and probably are some small mistakes, but mostly they are neglible mistakes, and not something to worry about.This message has been edited by randman, 05-30-2005 02:24 PM

AdminAsqara, while I agree some have diverted the thread off-topic, I have been attempting to answer the original thread topic. Well, presumably we are suppossed to be talking about how people of "faith" that accept the Bible as the word of God would accept it.It has been somewhat annoying to see some, like jar, here proclaim that somehow my faith, as someone that is suspicious of evolution and believes in the Bible, is wrong in relevant to this discussion and that the interpretation of the Bible from the believer's perspective is incorrect.I don't mind defending my views on any area of the Bible, and so I was forced to do that, but it seems odd that rather than try to understand my perspective, as someone of faith, on Genesis and these matters, that some here would merely try to argue against them, without imo, even delving into the entire substance of my posts.If one wants to know how people would react if evolution were proven true, I suggest someone talk with people that believe in Genesis as true and leave open the possibility for evolution being true.This message has been edited by randman, 05-30-2005 04:47 PM

Ringo, the OP is what does everyone think about the issue of how would proof of evolution affect people's faith.The point of discussion is not whether some think people of faith are incorrect, but how would they react.Upon my explaining one reaction, some here obviously feel the need to try to pick a fight and claim that somehow my faith is wrong, and although I can defend my beliefs, in light of the OP, one proper reaction to some here would be to be very dismissive of them because they are not attempting to address the topic, but merely cannot restrain themselves to even properly understand why someone of faith might not feel threatened, in terms of their beliefs, even if common descent were inarguably demonstrated as true.I posted a little about that, and about the only responses are to go over old ground, and old arguments, that I and most beleivers find unpersuasive, from the skeptics camp.

I'll be glad to post on other topics, if appropiate and am already engaged in a number of discussions.The following is the first post of mine on this thread, which may be helpful to put some later points on the thread in context."In such a situation, how would faith stand up to it?"Faith stands up to it quite easily. In fact, if look at science overall, particularly the discoveries in quantum physics such as entanglement, links between consciousness and matter, fundamentals of all things being information (In the beginning was the Word), the Big Bang, etc,....you actually find science confirms the basic biblical view of reality, and incidentally the view of reality found in many spiritual traditions. The old Newtonian paradigm is falling. It's probably incorrect, for example, to claim that the energy of thoughts are different than the energy that forms the core of physical things. It's all more or less energy, and it all interacts. "You reap what you sow" is an old saying that science is beginning to develop a factual basis for demonstrating.So what about evolution and the creation story?Well, first off, to think the theory of common descent which is what people are thinking of disproves the Bible is to assume that the past is static. Personally, I think that is a huge and erroneous assumption, especially in light of modern physics.Vedral and Bukner, for example, have shown that particles can be entangled over segments of time. I "caught it" at first, but maybe one of the more scientifically trained people here can explain how they show that better.But regardless of what science has begun to show, it is an assumption that time flows linearly only, and not "spatially" as well. (Edit to add the term "flow" is an illustration for the basic concept in everyday terms, but not really meant to convey that time itself "flows") In other words, common descent is based on the idea that causal events only affect things forward in time.Is that correct though?The principle of entanglement demonstrates information being transferred superluminally, and thus at a different time-flow than the surrounding world.Wave/particle duality demonstrates in double-split experiments that consciousness mysteriously is necessary for matter to take on a definite form, that consciousness somehow is connected to and has a determinative role in the formation of matter. (added: There are other alternative explanations, but consciousness-based interpretations have held a lot of water among quantum physicists, and from what I have read, consciousness-based models are the dominant interpretation of what we observe).Where am I going?Well, we know when man fell that the Bible says God cursed the earth, and later the Bible suggests perhaps the whole universe, or at least parts of "the heavens themselves" were changed.Hmmm.....So death enters, and all sorts of changes occur, even perhaps changes in physical laws. That's what the Bible suggests or states happened.So God changed the universe as a result of the consciousness of man falling? Did he do that from time forward, or did He do that from the beginning forward?In other words, look at the creation and development of the universe or multi-verse, as a movie with God as the Director and Producer.Maybe instead of changing things as if by magic, poof, from that time forward, maybe the fall of man's consiouscess affected the entire universe backwards and forwards in time, and incidentally the reserruction of man's consciousness might one day do the same.I think if you read the Bible closely and think about God's ways, that it makes sense that God changed the universe by changing it from the foundation forward. God is not limited by time.In that context, it is possible for both special creation and common descent to have occured, and it is possible, imo, for any combination of the 2.Heck, it's completely possible, and I believe we will discover this, that the past is changing and not static even today. That may be a revolutionary concept, but I think because the changes are slow, we are slow to detect it, but will one day see that both the past, present, and future are affected by actions and changes.Certainly, the linear changes are more easily seen, and dominant, but that does not mean that non-linear action is not occuring and changing the time-line gradually and those changes add up over time.

Thor, the past not being static comment is not really about origins directly, but does touch on the concept of uniformatarianism, which evolutionary theory resides on. The assumptions of uniformatarianism are just that, assumptions based on limited observations.What we are finding with increases in technology along with increases in math and theory, over the past 100 years, is that sometimes such "everyday" assumptions and observables lead to incorrect conclusions, and even incorrect concepts of physical and scientific laws.I like to use the principle of quantum tunneling to illustrate this. If one were to claim, for instance, that they saw a ball thrown against a wall, and it went right through it without ever seeming to make contact with the wall, most would have at one time said that could not happen since it is against the laws of physical reality or some such. It would be considered impossible based on classical physics.But quantum physics states the opposite, that in fact it is a physical law that there is always the possibility that the ball could tunnel right through the wall without damaging the ball or the wall in anyway. Admittedly, this is a highly unlikely event and one could question the observer if it actually happened based on it being so unlikely.But for illustration, the point remains the same. A basic assumption built upon all of the observable and empirical evidence, upon the laws of classical physics, has now been proven wrong when technology enabled us to gather new perspectives on physical reality.In fact, I suspect if someone did an experiment and threw a ball at a wall 10 million times or some absurdly high number, the ball would always bounce back or break the wall, and the logic of uniformatarian and classical thought, or the logic of "linear" thought for lack of a better term, would make someone "believe beyond a shadow of a doubt" as you put it concerning evolution, that a ball could not magically tunnel through, say, a wooden wall, but they would nonetheless be wrong.What quantum physics does is turn some basic concepts of what constitutes material and even logic upside down.Unfortunately, science has not yet tested my idea that the past changes. I do think we will discover and test for that in science one day, but what we are doing sufficiently upsets the apple-cart that we would be wise to reexamine the logic we use in considering whether something is true.Heck, take the concept that something can only be in one place at one time. That seems so logical based on everyday experience, but there are things that can be in 2 places at once, and then only occupy one space and back again, and seem to defy what we see normally in everyday life.I submit that the basic tenet of uniformatarianism has been challenged by the discoveries mentioned above, and needs revision.This message has been edited by randman, 05-31-2005 03:01 AM