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Author Topic:   God created evolution
Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 10 of 118 (572494)
08-06-2010 7:45 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by kanedotca
08-05-2010 7:20 AM


Hi kanedotca
Let me propose the thought that.....god continued with creation in an orderly form and continued to practice.....In the time that it took for the earth to cool and life to spring forth and pass through it’s ages, our god was able to learn and mature.
Evolution through natural selection is an unguided process. All the evidence points to this.
There is no evidence at all that any intelligent entity had any involvement in evolution (certainly no deliberate involvement until humans started such things as breeding animals and genetic engineering).
If there were any evidence that indicated the involvement of an intelligent entity, then you may start to have a case. But you'd then have to define what this "god" is, and provide a link between "god" and evolution, for your proposal to make any sense.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by kanedotca, posted 08-05-2010 7:20 AM kanedotca has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by GDR, posted 08-06-2010 8:03 PM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has replied

  
Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 23 of 118 (572877)
08-08-2010 10:08 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by GDR
08-06-2010 8:03 PM


JUC writes:
Evolution through natural selection is an unguided process. All the evidence points to this.
GDR writes:
What evidence is that?
Maybe this is more of a logical than empirical answer, but the fact that it is a very gradual process for one thing. What would be the point of creating species "A" and then gradually evolving it to "B", "C", "D", etc in order to get to the species you want called "Z"- billions of years later? If you want to create species "Z", why not just start with that species?
If evolution were guided, it would mean that some intelligent entity was deliberately creating the necessary mutations. The very gradual rate of mutations - and selection of the same - does not imply a designer. Also, most mutations do not lead to any advantage. A designer wouldn't waste time on non-advantageous mutations. And a designer would not only dramatically increase the mutation rate, it would introduce the same mutations into each individual of the same generation. Certainly it would do this once it found an advantageous mutation. By normally having a unique mutation in a single individual, you are dramatically reducing the chances of that mutation surviving and being selected to the extent that it finds its way into the general population.

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 Message 11 by GDR, posted 08-06-2010 8:03 PM GDR has replied

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Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 43 of 118 (573005)
08-09-2010 12:07 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by GDR
08-09-2010 11:34 AM


I'd like to try and narrow down your position.
In your OP you indicated that you generally accept the evidence that evolution has occurred over billions of years.
Do you accept that it is a result of Natural Selection acting upon mutations?
If so, presumably the only discrepancy between us would be what causes those mutations: either an unguided process or intelligent intervention.
Even if some intelligent entity were responsible for causing those mutations, that intelligent entity would not be responsible for evolution. Natural selection would still play the critical role in deciding whether or not that mutation prevails. The intelligent entity would simply be saying, "let's sit back and see what happens if I tweak this a bit".
Is that what you mean?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by GDR, posted 08-09-2010 11:34 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by GDR, posted 08-09-2010 2:17 PM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has replied

  
Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


(1)
Message 59 of 118 (573146)
08-10-2010 4:56 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by GDR
08-09-2010 2:17 PM


As far as God being involved in evolution is concerned, It seems to me that there are different possibilities that I could go along with.
Yes. Once you postulate "God", there is an unlimited number of different possibilities that you could go along with, because "God" can be anything your imagination wants it to be.
I'm ok with the idea that God designed the whole process at the get go and allowed it to run its course and only intervened on a non-physical level.
What do you mean "intervened on a non-physical level"? Evolution of species is a physical process.
I favour the position that the process was designed and that God intervened as required...I contend that this makes sense from both a scientific point of view but also from a scriptural point of view as long as you don't try to read the OT as a science text or a newspaper. The most obvious example is the flood in which God essentially starts over. (I'm not arguing here for a literal world wide flood.
No, it doesn't make sense from either a scientific or a scriptural point of view.
You have no definition for what God is or what mechanism he used to intervene in evolution. You have no means of measuring any of those things. Therefore, scientifically, your idea that God created evolution is meaningless and useless.
You have already accepted that evolution has happened over billions of years. So even if you regard The Flood as a metaphor for God starting evolution (if I'm correct in understanding that's what you mean), you must also accept that no human being could have been around at the time. So until we started to uncover the evidence for evolution within the past 200 years, no human being could have known about it to have devised a metaphor for it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by GDR, posted 08-09-2010 2:17 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 60 by GDR, posted 08-10-2010 10:51 AM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has replied

  
Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 61 of 118 (573204)
08-10-2010 11:31 AM
Reply to: Message 60 by GDR
08-10-2010 10:51 AM


Circular argument
GDR writes:
Just because I don't believe that the Bible should be read literally doesn't mean that I don't believe it to be true. C S Lewis puts it best in the following quote.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just as, on the factual side, a long preparation culminates in God’s becoming incarnate as Man, so, on the documentary side, the truth first appears in mythical form and then by a long process of condensing or focusing finally becomes incarnate as History. This involves the belief that Myth is ... a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination. The Hebrews, like other peoples, had mythology: but as they were the chosen people so their mythology was the chosen mythology — the mythology chosen by God to be the vehicle of the earliest sacred truths, the first step in that process which ends in the New Testament where truth has become completely historical.
Miracles Ch 15 CS Lewis
That's a classic circular argument by Mr Lewis. He's using one claim of the Bible - that the Hebrews were God's chosen people - to support his own claim that the myths of The Bible must also have been chosen by God and must therefore be truths.
All these claims come out of the same book and there is no evidence to support any of them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by GDR, posted 08-10-2010 10:51 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 62 by GDR, posted 08-10-2010 1:53 PM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has replied

  
Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 65 of 118 (573362)
08-11-2010 4:19 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by GDR
08-10-2010 1:53 PM


Re: Circular argument
it is my view that Chrsitianity makes sense of the world, and my life in a way that nothing else that I know of does
OK. Would you like to start a new topic giving your explanation on how Christianity or religion in general provides some sort of sense, meaning or purpose in life? Because whenever I ask any relgious person what this great "meaning" is that religion is supposed to provide, I always hit a brick wall.

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 Message 62 by GDR, posted 08-10-2010 1:53 PM GDR has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by archaeologist, posted 08-15-2010 7:22 PM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has replied

  
Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 66 of 118 (573364)
08-11-2010 4:23 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by GDR
08-10-2010 1:53 PM


Don't worry, I'll do it!
Further to my last post, I may as well launch the new topic from my own perspective.

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Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


(1)
Message 70 of 118 (574462)
08-16-2010 4:40 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by archaeologist
08-15-2010 7:22 PM


Circular argument
1. sense--everything has an order, there are boundaries for reproduction, behavior, direction, etc. and they are not subjective nor subject to the changing whims of man or human leadership. in other words, there is an ultimate rule that trumps man.
I don't see how the order you describe above has anything to do with proving the existence of a creator, or provides any "sense".
2. meaning-- we are put here for a reason, we are wanted...
Evidence?
...whereas evolution does not want nor cares about the creatures it supposedly guides developement...
I never said it did care, nor did I claim it "guides development". Anyway, you claimed that God created evolution. That's the title of your topic. Are you now saying that God doesn't care for us or guide evolution?
...even when we are rejected by men and women we know that God accepts us as we are...
Again, evidence? And for what reason or purpose does he accept us?
...(but that doesn't mean we get to continue to live in and practice sin)
Ah, so in fact, he doesn't accept us for what we are.
3. purpose-- for the glory of God.
So God is a vaccuous, egotistical bully - everything he apparently thinks is sinful. Interesting...
So we give him a big round of applause, an Oscar, a Nobel prize, all the chocolate he can eat. Then what? He just wants more and more of the same for eternity? That's the great purpose of the universe? And this is why he created billions of years of evolution, the dinosaurs, the dodo, neanderthals, the Tasmanian devil, Princess Diana, your dead pets, all came and went just so we can say how glorious God is?

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 Message 69 by archaeologist, posted 08-15-2010 7:22 PM archaeologist has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by Huntard, posted 08-16-2010 5:01 AM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has replied

  
Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 72 of 118 (574473)
08-16-2010 5:52 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by Huntard
08-16-2010 5:01 AM


Re: Circular argument
I think you have him confused. He never claims this, nor is this his topic. It's Kanedotca's topic. You are responding to archaeologist.
Duly noted.
I know all is well in the world when the 'Tard is looking out for me.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Huntard, posted 08-16-2010 5:01 AM Huntard has not replied

  
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