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Author Topic:   home school evolution questions
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 1 of 74 (32051)
02-12-2003 5:35 PM


I am a teacher in a church home school. I've done some research on the evolution/creation debate, and I am making my science students (ages 14-17) do the same. I wrote the following defense of young earth creationism, and then I asked them to respond to it (from an evolutionist viewpoint). Since I had to give them time in class to respond, my presentation had to be short and thus pretty incomplete. I would like to give them responses from more educated evolutionists to compare with their own, as I'm no expert on this subject. I realize the average evolutionist won't care to address the Bible parts of my paper, but if you could answer the other parts, it would really help me. It's one type written page, which is too long for this format, but I promise not to make a habit of that.
****************
I believe in a young earth, because this is what the Bible teaches. I know many people say the Bible isn’t literal, but if the Bible doesn’t mean what it says, how can we trust it on anything, even on things like You shall not murder.
The Bible says, On the first day... and On the second day..., etc. Therefore, I believe that those things happened on those days.
Also, I believe the creation week happened approximately 6000 years ago. The Bible says Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, and it gives Seth’s age when Enos was born. Why would it give years if it didn’t want you to know the time elapsed?
There are places that aren’t specific (for example, we don’t know exactly how old Terah was when Abram was born), but these only leave room for small amounts of error, a century or so at most.
If the Bible doesn’t mean what it says when it gives dates and times, then it’s whole authority is undermined, for who knows where it’s literal and where it’s not?
I also believe the scientific evidence backs the Bible on a young, created earth, but scientists misinterpret the evidence, because they have not been given eyes for the truth.
One example of the evidence for a young earth is moon dust. If the earth was 4 billion years old, then the moon should be 30 feet deep in dust from space by now. (Hans Petterson, around 1960, measured the incoming dust from space at 14 million tons per year.) NASA even put large pads on the lunar lander in order to prevent it from sinking into the moon’s cosmic dust. As it turned out, the dust on the moon averaged a mere inch thick or so, which is commensurate with a 6000 year old earth.
Evolutionists offer evidence for an old earth, but it is notoriously unreliable. Their strongest evidence is the geologic column, which they say shows a succession of fossils. I do not believe this is true. The geologic column is rarely found complete. Instead, it is created from a hodge-podge of layers found all over the world. They find a fossil, and they declare that layer to be the same as a layer in some other country, because they assume the time of the existence of that fossil. The geologic column is built not of layers of the earth, but of suppositions and assumptions.
Proof of this is found in polystrate fossils, which are fossils large enough to cross several supposed layers. There are trees that would have had to stand for millions of years undamaged while being slowly buried through several ages if the geologic column were true. It’s not.
Further proof comes from living fossils like the Coelecanth. The Coelecanth is a fish presumed extinct for 200 million years and used as an index fossil for an ancient layer, but it turns out it is alive and capable of being fossilized today!
Of course, we have all heard how unreliable radiometric dating is. It must be so. It is based on the presumption that radioactive decay rates have been constant throughout history. Many such assumptions are made by science.
The Bible lets us know, however, that life was much different before the flood. Men regularly lived to 900 years, and animals did not each other. Who can know how different the earth must have been at that time?
This also properly explains the giant fossils that are found. Why aren’t those species alive today? They are! They are simply not as large. Mammals, who grow to maturity and stop, only grew so large, even in the days of long life, but reptiles, which grow throughout their life, reached immense sizes. The dinosaurs of old are the lizards of today in a much less friendly earth.
I don’t have time to answer all the evolutionists’ arguments, but you will find that all are based on the assumption of an old earth. It is the flood that laid the geologic column, since much of the earth’s dirt and rocks rose with the flood, then settled in layers. No, the flood did not sort the fossils, because the fossils are not sorted. The sorting effect is created by the assumptions and labels of evolutionary scientists. The earth, according to the Scriptures, is 6000 years old, and with this true science and the earth’s testimony agree.
********************
Thanks for any help you can offer.
{Edited to add blank lines between paragraphs. The system didn't preserve the authors attempts of indenting the beginings of the paragraphs. Also, my compliments (from the non-admin mode) to the creation and existence of this topic. - Adminnemooseus (minnemooseus)}
[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 02-13-2003]

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by wj, posted 02-12-2003 5:46 PM truthlover has replied
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 Message 20 by Philip, posted 02-14-2003 1:10 AM truthlover has replied
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 3 of 74 (32054)
02-12-2003 5:55 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by wj
02-12-2003 5:46 PM


wj,
Uh, yeah, I really want my "scientific" evidence supporting yec debunked. As far as finding the evidence following links, I can do that myself, and I have made my students do that. My student's can debunk it, too, but since we're sort of exploring the subject together, I was hoping for a response that they can compare their response to. I think I could write a pretty decent response, too, but I poked around the board here and determined that there's a number of people that could write a better response than me. I could have tried calling a local public high school teacher to help me, but my experience tells me that the average informed evolutionist on a debate board can do a better job than the average high school science teacher.
Thanks.

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Replies to this message:
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 7 of 74 (32059)
02-12-2003 6:38 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Dr Cresswell
02-12-2003 6:07 PM


Alan,
I don't think the idea that the average evolutionist wouldn't care to address the Bible passages was presumptious. That's my experience. Basically, I was apologizing that so much of what I wrote addressed Scripture, but there were reasons for that. One, my students will be facing a debate against a creationist. Two, we are a church, so they are going to face Bible arguments that they can't dismiss as irrelevant in the debate.
Since I seem to have come across completely wrong, let me help you. I am not a young earth creationist. I believe not only in an old earth, but I believe all current forms of life evolved from a common ancestor. Let me give you an example of why I'm looking for help. The following is a response by one of my 15-year-old students who, like the others, has had only three months to address this topic. Please also understand, she only had about an hour to write a response and had to use what references she brought with her to class.
*********************
You say that Hans Petterson measured how much dust should be on the moon if it is very old, and his calculations were an estimated 14 million tons per year, but there really is only a very small layer, so therefore the earth is young. Well, I am here to say this is not true.
Hans Petterson used a device intended for measuring smog levels, climbed up a mountain and tried measuring the amount of moon dust, while he was over a city. He measured the amount of nickel collected and published it and made the assumption that its origin was all from meteors. This assumption caused his estimated 14 million tons to be incorrect. He also said himself that he believed it to be a vast overestimate and that 5 million tons per year was a more likely figure.
Mr. Morris, the creationist you quoted, said, "The best measurements have been made by Hans Petterson, who obtained the figure of 14 million tons per year." He wrote this when several measurements of higher precision were available, such as the measurements of chemical signature of ocean sediments, satellite penetration detectors, and microcratering rate of objects left exposed on the lunar surface. These all give the same approximate value of 20,000 to 40,000 tons per year. With the proper amounts calculated, the expected depth of meteoritic dust on the moon is less than one foot.
The geologic column: You say that the geologic column cannot be found altogether anywhere around the world, the fossils are not in order, and that the flood laid all the sediments.
The geologic column can be found with all the layers intact and in order in 26 basins around the world, the majority of them being in China. As for the fossils not being in order, they happen to appear in precise, unvarying order, with simple organisms appearing at the bottom of the column, and more complex organisms appearing, in order, towards the top. What exactly should the order be? Well, it should start with first invertebrates, then simple vertebrates, then jawed fishes, then amphibians, then reptiles, and finally birds and mammals and that is exactly what we find; and what we would expect from evolutionary descent with modification, with the organisms appearing higher in the geologic column being the modified descendants of those organisms which appear lower in the column.
She ended her report with a note to me that said, "I only addressed what I knew I could write about, such as, I didn't know what I would say about radiometric dating or whatever you said in the beginning [on Scripture] which helps me see what I need to study. So, I'm sorry if this isn't what you were looking for.
Some of her response is quoted from other sources; her scientific vocabulary really isn't as good as it might sound. I can provide her (and already have) with sources on radiometric dating. I just thought that if she and the others could see a well-rounded, informed, response to a speech I threw together to test them, it would be helpful to them.
I'm sorry if it seemed like I was after something else. I certainly didn't mean to offend anybody.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Dr Cresswell, posted 02-12-2003 6:07 PM Dr Cresswell has replied

Replies to this message:
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 8 of 74 (32060)
02-12-2003 6:48 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by shilohproject
02-12-2003 6:17 PM


shilohproject,
The Genesis one and two stories were discussed, including the shift from Elohim to YHWH Elohim, at my house with three or four of the students one night. They actually asked me if that was a pertinent argument. I tend to dismiss the literal interpretation of Genesis one by bringing up the "hard as a cast-metal mirror" sky in Job 37:18 and the firmament (more properly "hardened dome") in Genesis one, so I forgot to bring up Gen one and two. Pretty bad omission, but they caught it, anyway.
I did try the couple ways there are to reconcile those two stories, but since they weren't raised with prejudices toward the Bible being a science book (like I was, but have recovered from), they were rather unimpressed with the attempts.
One of my students wrote, "First of all, if you believe every word of the Bible should be taken literally, then the world should be flat and the sky should be a big brass dome, because in the Bible it says that the firmament is held up by pillars at the "four corners" of the earth. Since we know neither one of thes to be true, then why should we take the whole Genesis story literally."
That was a 14-year-old. The 17-year-olds tended to give me longer answers.

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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 10 of 74 (32065)
02-12-2003 8:31 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Zephan
02-12-2003 7:53 PM


Zephan,
I don't know what exactly to do with your reasoning. The problem I have is that when I used to argue with evolutionists, I used to lose. I've found that the best way to win an argument is to switch to the side that's right, so that's what I did.
So now what does a guy like myself do? I believe in God, for reasons that have nothing to do with science, but that are awful conclusive to me, but scientists seem to have no problem making it seem very likely that natural processes can account for the progress from the big bang to me.
Well, I decided that if God chose to create the universe in a way that allows atheists to chalk up creation to natural laws, then that's how he chose to create it. I may not like it, but for some reason, God didn't consult me before he did it that way, so I'm just stuck.
In fact, one of the reasons I believe in God is because I get stuck a lot, put in situations by him that are molding me into what he wants me to be. So I'm not real surprised that God might make the universe in a way that didn't meet with my approval, either.
Although now that I've accepted it, I like it. It makes my spine tingle to picture a supernova scattering organic molecules across space, molecules that would later become us. I like the idea that we're made of stardust, and I really don't like the idea that those amazing nuclear-powered factories, stars, are working for thousands, millions, and billions of years to manufacture carbon-based molecules, the very molecules we're made of, and it's a coincidence that has nothing to do with the making of us. No, I don't like that idea at all. I think the production of organic molecules is an amazing process, and I attribute it to God with great pleasure, even though I believe it can be explained (because it can) by completely natural processes.
So, no, my version of evolution, as far as I know, is quite mainstream, and where it's not, except insofar as I see the whole process as spiritual, it's due to my ignorance, which I do spend some time on correcting.
Thanks for asking, though. I actually pity the person whose God disappears if the universe arose by natural means. Our God is a lot more involved with our lives than that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Zephan, posted 02-12-2003 7:53 PM Zephan has not replied

  
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 15 of 74 (32132)
02-13-2003 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Karl
02-13-2003 7:58 AM


Thank you, everyone. And I did understand that my post could have been read as suggesting that "the average evolutionist" would not be familiar with the Bible. That's my fault. I made it sound like that, but that is most certainly not what I meant to say.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Arachnid, posted 02-14-2003 12:40 PM truthlover has replied

  
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 22 of 74 (32274)
02-14-2003 3:11 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by Dr Cresswell
02-13-2003 5:51 PM


Dr. Cresswell,
No problem with misjudging my position. I was aware that by mentioning that my class is part of a church home school (I am a parent of two of the young people in the class), everyone would assume I was anti-evolution. I actually thought it would help get me a strong, well-worded response to the presentation I threw at my class. My mistake.
Two other comments. I really like the wording of your comment that the natural world is "exploring its freedom," or however you put it. Just a neat thought.
Finally, to address:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To take this a bit further. Does the non-fundimentalist Christian church have a moral and/or theological obligation to take a stand against an aspect of theology (creationism), that they find destructive to their vision of Christian faith?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know what a moral or theological obligation exactly means. Obligated to who? However, where I'm at, our position as a people of God is that when we were literal about the Bible, we were prone towards narrow-mindedness and plain ol' meanness. Not others, us.
We dumped the whole concept of following a book, even though we still consider it Scripture and inspired. We believe it stood in the way of following God and limited him (at least in how he could work with us) greatly. Think about Samuel delivering his message that Saul would be king. He did that at a sacrifice in a place where sacrifices were forbidden (away from the tabernacle and on a high place at that), and he was not a priest, nor even a Levite, so he ought not to have been presiding over it. Yet it was God who told Saul to find Samuel on the way to that completely unscriptural sacrificial feast.
Another example would come from Yeshua (Jesus) himself. David received showbread from Ahimelech which he was not authorized to eat. Of course, the account in the Gospels says that Yeshua said that David and those with him received it, when in fact, according to the account in Samuel, David was alone, but we'llget to that in a moment. Yeshua said David was guiltless, even though he was violating "the Word of God." The reason Yeshua gave is that he himself is the Word of God, not some book, not even such a great collection of books as the Bible is, nor even the Torah.
Like Joseph, Yeshua's father, we are free to be nice! Yeshua could, and scripturally should, have put Miriam (Mary) away publicly to expose her sin and protect Israel from uncleanness. Instead, he was nice and was going to put her away privately, and the Scriptures call this "right," and said he was doing it because he was a good man. In the end, though, God went one step further and sent an angel to tell him not to put her away at all. Joseph wisely chose to obey God and not the Scriptures. He is hardly the only one to be faced with such a choice.
So, I can't say whether we have a moral or theological obligation to speak up, but we want to, because one day everyone who opposes evolution is going to have as much egg on their face as though who opposed a heliocentric solar system, and Christianity has a bad enough reputation is at is.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by Dr Cresswell, posted 02-13-2003 5:51 PM Dr Cresswell has replied

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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 23 of 74 (32280)
02-14-2003 3:33 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Philip
02-14-2003 1:10 AM


Philip,
I don't think you did a good enough job with your students. Henry Morris doesn't oversimplify; he fabricates (to use a nicer word than one I want to use). Let me ask you a question, if a guy goes back to college for a geology degree, then teaches geology for the rest of his life, is he a geologist? And if some other guy says he's not a geologist, gets called on it, but ignores it and reprints his book five times, then is the second guy just mistaken, or is he a liar?
I'm talking, of course, of Morris' untrue assertion that Charles Lyell wasn't a geologist, but a lawyer (Lyell's first career).
Or, what if Morris' organization lists some out of order strata, then says that evolutionists try to dodge the out of order strata by saying that an earthquake folded the strata in that area, then says that there is no evidence for folded strata, then publishes pictures of a different section of strata, claiming it's a picture of the out of order strata, but it's not. If they did that, does that make them mistaken, or liars?
I have a debate in my possession between John Morris, Henry's son, and an evolutionist whose name starts with a Z (can't remember it right off hand). In it Morris says that the flood created great tidal waves that scoured the earth down to pre-cambrian rock, then laid all the layers of the geologic column in a year. He then also says that whales and fresh-water fishes survived in this mud (the ratio of sediment to water would have been one part dirt, sand and rocks to two parts water) because there were calm pockets where the salt water and fresh water didn't mix.
Later, the younger Morris claims that there were super-rich pockets of algae growing in this water. When the scientist asked Morris how the algae grew without sunlight, since there were supposedly massive storms the entire time, Morris ignored the question.
You also mentioned "Newtonian thermodynamic science." I'm not even sure what you mean by that, but I do know that both Morrises are happy to use the 2nd law of thermodynamics to refute evolution. One, even if it had anything to do with evolution, it wouldn't apply to the earth, since the earth is not a closed system, but second, I had my students look up various explanations of what the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and their puzzled response was, "What in the world does any of this have to do with the evolution of life on earth?" Morris didn't oversimplify thermodynamics, he got it wrong.
My students have seen all this, so I doubt anything that someone with a last name of Morris provides to them will be regarded with any trust or respect.
Sorry. I know that's sort of harsh, but I don't think a man's fabrications should be called oversimplifications.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Philip, posted 02-14-2003 1:10 AM Philip has replied

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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 24 of 74 (32281)
02-14-2003 3:43 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Arachnid
02-14-2003 12:40 PM


Arachnid,
-------------------
The truth is that most of the evolutionists who cared to reply to you only did so to mock your faith rather than any real intention to assist you with the information you were requesting.
-------------------
I, too, thought the responses were a bit harsh and offered no information for me to work with. I have a bit of understanding, though, if you'll bear with a short story.
Back in 1994 I was a cocky young-earther who thought I was God's gift to the world of theology. I got on CompuServe's religious forum expecting to enlighten everyone on the truth as it is in ICR.
Along the way, I demanded a "step-by-step" account of the evolution of the eye from one Bill Piper, a particularly caustic evolutionist. He dodged me and called me names for a while, but when I pressed, he finally capitulated.
What a shock I got, because he had an awful good step-by-step account of the evolution of the eye. The shocks never stopped coming, as I found out that most of what I had been told by ICR was not only wrong, but most of it was purposely deceitful.
A couple months later, after I had converted to evolution (I always try to win debates by joining the side that has the facts), I asked Mr. Piper why he was so caustic. I told him that those with the facts are normally calmer and more confident, not so insulting and rude as he seemed to be. His response was that it was a waste of time to try and inform creationists, because they didn't listen. He said he'd spent a couple years on newsgroups, and I was the first creationist he'd ever met who paid any attention to what he was told. He did offer to rethink his approach now that one person had cared what the facts were.
So, I understand the frustration. Not only is it difficult to talk to religious people, because they're really not free to be open to facts or evidence, but it's particularly maddening when they accuse others of the close-minded partiality or outright conspiracy that they themselves are guilty of, all the while calling themselves examples of God's love. Yikes!

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Replies to this message:
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 33 of 74 (32343)
02-15-2003 7:33 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Quetzal
02-15-2003 11:14 AM


Quetzal,
I went back and looked at your post 11, just to remember what was said there. In it I noticed a question that said, "How detailed would you like the replies?" I never responded to that, because you followed it up by saying that the student reply I posted was occasionally in excruciating detail.
At least one of my students addressed the Coelecanth issue very similarly to you, which was completely new to me in the last month. I am almost certain that Richard Dawkins, in _The Blind Watchmaker_, says that the Coelecanth is almost unchanged over the last tens of millions of years. So it was quite a surprise to me to find out that Coelacanth is an order, and that the modern coelecanth genus has no fossil history. It sure seemed like something Dawkins would catch.
I can't check Dawkins statement, because one of my students left with my copy of the book on a one week trip.
Actually, it's funny that one poster mentioned being asked to take the evolution side in a debate at his (must be Christian) school. We have a couple of our men who are going to take the creation side against our students. Both of them are dads of a student, and both of them work at the business I run. The jabs they throw back and forth as I see them around are a lot of fun. I think the dads are researching the topic themselves, not sure what they're going to find. We have adopted evolution sort of as a creed--it's neat how many spiritual applications there are to the ideas contained in Darwinism--but a lot of the adults are just taking my word for it that the evidence is strong.
The debate should be fun. It's happening two weekends from now, probably, or perhaps the third. Last year we debated whether the non-violent methods of Gandhi and M.L. King could successfully have freed the slaves in the 1800's and prevented civil war. There are a lot of approaches you can take to that topic, but what a great way to teach a lot of history all at once.

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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 34 of 74 (32345)
02-15-2003 7:44 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Andya Primanda
02-15-2003 1:58 AM


Andya,
Thanks for the welcome. Really, it's pretty presumptious of me to call myself truthlover, but I really wasn't planning to hang around the board long, and, to be honest, (confession time), I thought the name would make people assume I was a yec, especially combined with the post I made. None of the post was untrue, but I did purposely write it in such a way as to make people think I was a yec.
I have been told by two or three people in my lifetime that I was the most honest researcher they ever met, so it's not totally presumptious of me. A couple of those people now slander me horribly, because they only liked my honesty when it led me to agree with them. I'm in a village now, a purposefully-gathered village, of about 30 families, and one of those people, who once loved my honesty, told an acquaintance of mine, "Yeah, Paul always wanted to start his own cult, and now he has." Shoot, I neither started nor run this place, and he knows nothing about it to call it a cult or deny it's a cult. Some honesty on his part.
Anyway, thanks for the welcome. I can be terrible about rambling needlessly. I generally go by Shammah, even on message boards, by the way, not truthlover.

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Replies to this message:
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 37 of 74 (32363)
02-16-2003 9:55 AM
Reply to: Message 35 by Philip
02-16-2003 12:16 AM


Thank you to Alan for finding that quote.
Philip, one of the things that allowed me to be open to evolution is the belief, that I picked up from reading the writings of the 2nd century church, that God works in nature the same way he works in spiritual things. For example, to them the change from winter to spring was proof of a resurrection, and the phoenix, which they thought was a real bird, was proof of resurrection as well.
I once read a book called "Revolution: the Story of the Early Church" by Gene Edwards. In it, he takes note of the slowness which which the offices of the early church evolved. First, apostles after 3 years of personal training by Yeshua, then "the seven" after about eight years of intense church life. Only after that did elders, servants (deacons), prophets, and others come about. Edwards notes what church life was like at that time and how a disciple must be transformed by Christ before he can be in such an office. Watchman Nee has neat stuff to say as well about the work God puts into one of his (real) ministers.
The work that occurs in a disciple is very Darwinian. It is fed by trials, changes, and the struggle for survival. How, Biblically, will a disciple be matured? According to James, it is by a series of trials, which are to be welcomed by the disciple as the builders of patience and eventually maturity.
As a church, if we were to get together for that purpose, we could spend days recounting events that were phenomenal in our eyes; acts of God that were clearly God's hand guiding events in our lives. Most of them, however, could be discounted as coincidence by men like Richard Dawkins, who simply says that with six billion people on earth there will be a lot of very bizarre-seeming coincidences occurring. We, however, have found that we can live quite confident of God's intervention.
Creation by evolution is so much more like that pattern than instant creation. God usually leaves himself behind the scene, working more covertly than overtly. "The secret of Yahweh is with those who fear him," says the Psalmist. Occasionally, God will work quite overtly, but it is like God to be visible to those that know him, and hidden to those that do not.
I'll give you an example, and atheists will love it, because they will say I'm listing a completely natural event as an act of God. That's okay. I believe it is a completely natural event, but it is so like the God I know, that I know he's responsible for it in the end.
I absolutely love the way large molecules are formed. Stars take hydrogen, once the only element in the universe, and in a giant (from our perspective; small, I guess, from the universe's) nuclear reactor it produces helium. From helium, it then begins to produce carbon. Once carbon is produced, if the star is large enough, it begins to produce the heavier elements. If it begins making iron (I sure hope the book I read this in is right; the guy was an astronomist), iron draws in energy in a fusion reactor, rather than releasing it like other elements. When iron is made, due to this intake of energy, the star collapses in on itself, creating great heat, igniting the corona of the star into a nuclear reaction, and the star blows itself to bits.
Even if I'm not correct about the iron, the process of supernova is correct. Because carbon is at the base of the final stage of such a star, many of the molecules strewn across space are carbon-based, i.e. organic molecules, the ones life are made of.
Call me an ignorant spiritualist if you want, but if those nuclear-powered factories that we call stars are churning out the molecules of life (plus all the heavy metals, etc. that compose a livable planet) for no reason but chance, as atheists say, or if they are churning them out for no reason at all, like creationists say, then I'm going to be real disappointed. I believe God created us in a long, wonderful, caring process that involves exploding nuclear-powered factories, then an awesome process involving gathering those atoms and molecules, sorting them on clay tablets (I understand there's clay that only the twenty amino acids we're made of stick to), then growing them over time, much time, into us.
I do need to say that the fact that we are made of stardust, the molecules stars create, if they're big enough to finish the job, is a pretty compelling argument for evolution, in my opinion. The atheist opinion that because it is those molecules that were made by the stars, therefore life could only evolve from those molecules, is magnitudes more sensible than the belief, which instant creationists must hold, that the stars are churning out the molecules we're made of for no reason at all! What does that say about God?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Philip, posted 02-16-2003 12:16 AM Philip has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by John, posted 02-16-2003 10:18 AM truthlover has replied

  
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 39 of 74 (32374)
02-16-2003 11:57 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by John
02-16-2003 10:18 AM


John,
Actually I hardly portrayed any chain of events, unless you are addressing Gene Edwards' book and not what I said. I said the offices of the early church developed slowly, and the evidence for that is Acts. That's not tons of evidence or anything, but that the offices of the church developed slowly makes so much sense that one hardly needs tons of firsthand accounts to establish that.
As far as saying that the early church was a mess of rival sects, that is more simplistic than traditional Christians suggest, where they ignore gnosticism and other sects. Overall, there was a very large main chain of churches, and they had a basic unity and cooperation, and there is a lot of evidence from at least the second century, and enough from the first to reconstruct the a general lineage.
Yes, there were gnostic sects in and out of early Christianity, as well as a few other sects. But to call early Christianity a chaotic mess of rival sects from the earliest periods is way more than I could agree with.
Finally, I have no idea what "neat process" you are referring to that I supposedly suggested. Again, all I said was that the offices of the early church developed over time. I don't know what you read into my post--again, maybe you are answering Gene Edwards, not me, but I don't know that Gene Edwards paints a picture of a "neat process," either.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by John, posted 02-16-2003 10:18 AM John has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by John, posted 02-16-2003 12:33 PM truthlover has replied

  
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 42 of 74 (32385)
02-16-2003 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by John
02-16-2003 12:33 PM


John,
Oh, thanks. If you were talking about Edwards' book, then I probably wouldn't disagree with you much, anyway. My post seemed to be very positive about Edwards' book, but I didn't mean it to be. I did like it; he's a good writer, but most people I know would agree with you that it's not very good history.
And after I thought about it, the terms you used about "chaotic mess" may be subject to a lot of interpretation. In other words, what you call a chaotic mess, I may not call a chaotic mess, and we may not necessarily even be disagreeing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by John, posted 02-16-2003 12:33 PM John has not replied

  
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 48 of 74 (32462)
02-17-2003 2:57 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by nator
02-16-2003 11:35 PM


-----------------------
the cognitive dissonance caused them considerable pain.
-----------------------
That's one of the coolest sentences I've ever heard. Not only that, I know exactly what that pain is like. Maybe there's no better definition of honesty than the ability to bear that sort of pain for the sake of truth.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by nator, posted 02-16-2003 11:35 PM nator has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by Philip, posted 02-17-2003 9:22 PM truthlover has replied
 Message 54 by nator, posted 02-18-2003 8:45 AM truthlover has not replied

  
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