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Author Topic:   Is Evolution a Radical Idea?
iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 4 of 195 (350262)
09-19-2006 11:02 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by robinrohan
09-19-2006 9:53 AM


My own view is that evolution leads quite naturally to evolutionism and is devastating to religious belief.
Billy Graham on Creation Science writes:
"I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God."
You have often said that you felt the two were irreconcilable (being a Christian and believing in evolution). I can't say I have ever agreed with that notion. If believing in ones need for a saviour and that saviour being Christ is what results in ones being made a Christian, then I cannot see what other beliefs about things such as the flood and evolution have to do with it. The one doesn't influence the other necessarily. Peoples theologies might vary but salvation by ones theology is not a method of salvation I have ever heard mentioned.
Evolution suggests abiogenesis
I cannot see this either. Evolution relies on being evidentially based, abiogenesis not. Even if someone managed to concoct some basic form of self-replicating life in a lab it says nothing at all about it ever having happened in fact. Concluding abiogenesis happened (whether due to evolution or anything else) is total leap of faith.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by robinrohan, posted 09-19-2006 9:53 AM robinrohan has replied

Replies to this message:
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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 50 of 195 (350615)
09-20-2006 8:44 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by robinrohan
09-20-2006 8:10 AM


The theme is development from the simple to the more complex, leading eventually to (perhaps) the most complex thing in the universe: the human body.
A common use of the pursuit of knowledge is the pursuit of God of the fewer gaps. The aim is to exclude God. Now a tower of Babel is hardly a revoltionary idea. Every era needs an apple, the consumption of which is promised to make us like God.
The unmistakable theme is that random accident and chance lead to greater complexity. Greater potential. Like what would happen were water to run uphill.
Life has been thought to arrive from non-life for a long time. That it has in the past been shown not to be the case by the onward march of knowledge might be something that is shown again in the future. Whether it will or won't be is not the point: until then the possibility that it can remains an apple in its adherants eye.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

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 Message 51 by PaulK, posted 09-20-2006 9:33 AM iano has replied

iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 52 of 195 (350636)
09-20-2006 9:40 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by PaulK
09-20-2006 9:33 AM


So you think that it was wrong to discover the role of germs in causing disease because it excluded God ? Do you think that we should rely on prayer instead of antibiotics or vaccinations ?
Robins theme was 'evolutionism': the use of evolution to deny Gods existance. This is not necessary to do as many evolution-believing Christians would testify. I said a common use - not exclusive use.
No, that is not the theme at all. You really need to consider what you are delaying with accurately.
Robin was under the impression that this was the theme. I agree with him that assembly of complexity from lower orders of complexity is the theme in the universe/lifes origin/evolution that the 'evidence' is presented as indicating. Don't you?
Of course the same people who beleived in the old ideas of spontaneous generation beleived in God
Like I said - a common use of the knowledge. Not exclusive.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

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 Message 51 by PaulK, posted 09-20-2006 9:33 AM PaulK has replied

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 57 of 195 (350656)
09-20-2006 11:09 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by robinrohan
09-20-2006 10:26 AM


Re: Simple to Complex Progression

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 Message 56 by robinrohan, posted 09-20-2006 10:26 AM robinrohan has replied

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 61 of 195 (350669)
09-20-2006 12:09 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by NosyNed
09-20-2006 11:32 AM


Re: Simple to Complex Progression
The other point he makes is that the amount of increase we see in maximum complexity (without much change in average complexity is not because there is any direction but the result of a random walk away from a wall of minimum complexity on one side.
The only way is up in other words. Even if biological complexity went down so as to result in life-to-non-life abiogenesis could restart it again. A kind of biological big bang/big crunch thing
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 90 of 195 (351129)
09-21-2006 4:50 PM
Reply to: Message 89 by robinrohan
09-21-2006 4:42 PM


Re: evolution and the Fall
If there was no man around to consider animals slaying each other then there would be no cruelty. Cruelty begins with man. What goes before that is not. Certainly the animals do not consider eating each other as cruel. If evolution, then nothing that went before man is cruel.
Its a bit like man being naked being considered shameful. It is shameful only as a result of the fall. It wasn't necessarily so beforehand.
Everyone smoked in pubs in Ireland - for years. Then a law came out that said smoking was against the law. Now nobody smokes in pubs. But no-one gets worked up about it being terrible to have smoked in a pub 5 years ago. The law brings shame. No shame before it.
{AbE} In other words, Christianity doesn't require that you don't bellieve in evolution. All a Christian is is a person who recognises need of a saviour and admits to God as such. I know Christians who believe in evolution, some who can't decide either way and some (like Faith) who do not. Its a woods and trees issue
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by robinrohan, posted 09-21-2006 4:42 PM robinrohan has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by robinrohan, posted 09-21-2006 4:56 PM iano has replied
 Message 130 by Faith, posted 09-22-2006 3:51 PM iano has not replied

iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 92 of 195 (351131)
09-21-2006 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by robinrohan
09-21-2006 4:56 PM


Re: evolution and the Fall
It is not cruel for animals to slay each other without man around to consider it so. Nor cruel for God to use the device of evolution to arrive at where he arrives at. Cruelty is mans construct and only arrives with man.
I know people who baulk at a lobster thrown in a pot and wonder. Its cruel to throw a man into a pot - not a lobster.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by robinrohan, posted 09-21-2006 4:56 PM robinrohan has replied

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 Message 93 by robinrohan, posted 09-21-2006 5:05 PM iano has replied

iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 95 of 195 (351142)
09-21-2006 6:00 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by robinrohan
09-21-2006 5:05 PM


Re: evolution and the Fall
There is no such thing as innocent without a sense of right and wrong. The two are entwined.
Lobsters innocent?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by robinrohan, posted 09-21-2006 5:05 PM robinrohan has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 97 by robinrohan, posted 09-21-2006 6:16 PM iano has replied

iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 100 of 195 (351149)
09-21-2006 6:34 PM
Reply to: Message 97 by robinrohan
09-21-2006 6:16 PM


Re: evolution and the Fall
I meant animals are morally innocent, iano. They are not capable of sin.
If they are not capable of sin then innocence and morality are irrelevant notions - much as one might be inclined to feel otherwise. It is a common occurance for humans to project humanity onto their animals. But inappropriate all the same.
They are dumb.. dumb... dumb. The "we are 95% chimp" brigade
notwithstanding
Think about it from the other foot/claw for a minute. Does not 5% of the genome not have a very big canyon to brigde. Thats some fine tuning. Evolution of the gaps
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by robinrohan, posted 09-21-2006 6:16 PM robinrohan has replied

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 102 of 195 (351164)
09-21-2006 7:12 PM
Reply to: Message 101 by GDR
09-21-2006 7:05 PM


Re: evolution and the Fall
To be honest I usually, when possible, will carry a bug out of the house rather than kill it.
Me too - since I became a Christian. Purely out of respect for the engineer who put all those tiny mechanisms together though. The engineer in me must bow to a genius. Not that its the only part of me that pays homage
{AbE} And I don't give a monkeys how he arrived at it: creation as is or by a process of evolution. Either are jaw droppingly astonishingly mind boggling
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

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 Message 103 by nator, posted 09-21-2006 9:52 PM iano has replied

iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 111 of 195 (351277)
09-22-2006 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by nator
09-21-2006 9:52 PM


Re: evolution and the Fall
I care. It's really wonderful to understand how things work.
Seeing hows its all going to be junked in the end renders a prime interest in that somewhat silly (from my perspective). Much more fun to find out the workings of something that goes on forever. The workings of the gospel and that which it talks of in the future is rivetting stuff to investigate in comparison
But I like figuring out how things work in a general sense. Kind of idle hobbying on the side in relation to the gospel.

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 Message 103 by nator, posted 09-21-2006 9:52 PM nator has replied

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 172 of 195 (351653)
09-23-2006 6:19 PM
Reply to: Message 171 by Faith
09-23-2006 6:15 PM


Re: evolution and Christianity
Scripture is clear that what creation does say to those who are tuned in
I think it goes a little further than that. It says that the evidence from nature and conscience is sufficient to render a man who refuses to acknowledge the God who created both without excuse.
You got mail btw
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 190 of 195 (351870)
09-24-2006 6:14 PM
Reply to: Message 189 by anglagard
09-24-2006 5:38 PM


Re: Still Awaiting Response
utilizing the Earth's resources
Now THAT is an amusing way to look at it!

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 194 of 195 (352155)
09-25-2006 3:03 PM
Reply to: Message 193 by Faith
09-25-2006 2:55 PM


Re: the term "evolutionism"
Yeah, like scientism.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 193 by Faith, posted 09-25-2006 2:55 PM Faith has not replied

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