home school evolution questions

Sorry Schraf,I was more concerned that people weren't answering the question than the tone that they were taking with Truthlover. Nearly all of us are guilty of going over the top in our responses. It just bothered me that someone asked a legit question and he got squashed for it. The best part is that Truthlover is an evo just like the people who jumped his case. I guess thats proof that the evos will eat their young...Just kidding...geeze, you guys have no sense of humorSince the issue is in the past, I'm happy to let it stay there. Lets keep the posts on topic so the thread doesn't get shut down.

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It seemsed to be that they simply got scared. They had been convinced that to be a good Christian you weren't allowed to accept modern scientific thought, and when it started to make sense to them intellectually, the congnitive dissonance caused them considerable pain.

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Don't you think your reaching a bit? That's a pretty detailed opinion concidering you lack of extrasensory perception. It's doubtful you or anyone else "scared" a Christian or "caused them considerable pain". Trust me, most of the evos arguments are not that convincing to a creationist. So before you break your arm patting your own back, I feel obligated to set the record straight.

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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.

I read your theistic reasons and appreciate your faith-biases somewhat. You may have alluded to Augustine who stated something like: "God uses natural means (vs. supernatural)" and I appreciate your scripture reference to "His ways are past finding out".Albeit, I was hoping for more gospel-like overtures, like I heard from one theistic-evo, essentially: With many deaths come many rebirths, renewed life, etc., as Christ died and gave birth to new and better life(s), which is irrefutable faith-bias in my view.

Philip,You said, "I read your theistic reasons and appreciate your faith-biases somewhat."I knew when you asked your question about the applications of evolution to faith that our faith basis is very different. You asked about Christ on the cross and heaven and hell. That is almost the only focus of modern Christianity. Our focus is on life and the ability of the Spirit of God to transform a person, step by step, into a completely different person. Instant creation is a great match for the altar call based, instant transformation mentality of most churches.I apologize if this is the wrong thread to bring this up, but the apostle Paul once said, "I am confident that he who has begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Messiah Yeshua." We believe that if we aren't confident of the same thing of every one of our members, and if we can't see it happening across the board, then there's something desperately wrong with us as a church, and we have to find out what it is.We do have that confidence, based on what we see happening, and as we watch it happen, we watch it happen in a very Darwinian way, with a lot of struggle to survive and a lot of trials along the way. We don't focus much on heaven or hell, no matter how important that may seem to everyone else. I can't say I even believe in heaven or hell, except to say that I certainly believe in an afterlife, and we have confidence that to be in Christ is to be in him eternally, if we remain in him.I don't know how much application evolution has to the get saved so that you're guaranteed heaven mindset. It has clear and constant applications to the ongoing transformation we are watching and experiencing in our midst, though.One more quick thing. It's not surprising Augustine would agree with his predecessors, but my knowledge of church history starts getting vague by the time of Augustine, and I've not read much from him or his contemporaries. I was referring to pre-Nicene writers, which used to be an area of expertise for me.

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It seemsed to be that they simply got scared. They had been convinced that to be a good Christian you weren't allowed to accept modern scientific thought, and when it started to make sense to them intellectually, the congnitive dissonance caused them considerable pain.
_____________________________________Can I tell another story along these lines?When I was debating on the CompuServe forums I was not with the church I am with now. I was mostly alone. I debated Christian theologic issues a lot, and with an unusual familiarity with the early fathers and a deep knowledge of very early church history, I won most of the debates. Like I said, I considered myself God's gift to the theological world, although I've recovered from that disease, I hope.I used to print off my debates and bring them home from work to show my wife and the only close friend I had, whom we were sharing a two story house with, he and his wife upstairs, me and my family downstairs. We liked discussing the debates together, and it was pleasant, because I was normally winning.When I started realizing I was being slaughtered in the evolution debates, I started asking sincere questions rather than challenging the evolutionists, but the "cognitive dissonance" you mentioned was so strong that I was scared to show the evolution debates to my friend or my wife.It was only weeks later, when I had checked out eight books from the library, read through most of them, sorted out my thoughts, and prepared a defense for my conversion to evolution that I dared show them the questions I was asking. We were already somewhat "heretics," due to having picked up a lot of early churh theology, but evolution was too heretical for both my wife and my friend, and they about had heart attacks.When I joined the church/village that I am now a part of, my friend was very interested, until I presented my case for evolution the church and we embraced it as at least probably true. Then he used evolution as his excuse for staying alone.I definitely understand the pain of the "cognitive dissonance" you mentioned. Definitely.

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Don't you think your reaching a bit? That's a pretty detailed opinion concidering you lack of extrasensory perception. It's doubtful you or anyone else "scared" a Christian or "caused them considerable pain".

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Considering that you were not witness to any of the 6 month long series of posts I am referring to, your dismissal of my analysis requires much more in the way of ESP than my opinion as an actual paricipant of the discussion in question.I am fully aware that I am forming an opinion and that I don't actually "know" the truth, but I think I can form some pretty good educated guesses from their reactions and what they wrote.When someone who previously was perfectly level and reasonable and was asking probing, intelligent questions and wasn't initially anti-science at all suddenly starts saying things like, "I don't care what you say, the Bible is true and Evolution is false!" and then runs away from the discussion, I think I have a pretty good idea of their emotional state.

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Trust me, most of the evos arguments are not that convincing to a creationist.

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I don't need you to tell me that, believe me. I have talked to a lot of people over the years, and this situation has only come up a couple of times. Most Creos are true believers and evidence means nothing to them.

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So before you break your arm patting your own back, I feel obligated to set the record straight.

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You are setting nothing straight, sorry.

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The best part is that Truthlover is an evo just like the people who jumped his case. I guess thats proof that the evos will eat their young...Just kidding

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You actually bring up an intersting point here.Science-minded people are not usually much interested in banding together to "defend the faith", but in critical analysis. Even been to a scientific conference or been to a PhD defense in the sciences? It's brutal. The questioning and doubt and trouble shooting is all part and parcel of doing science and being a critical thinker. Science doesn't get done by declaration or edict, but by theories standing up to very stringent critical review. It's the best way to make sure mistakes are caught and only the best information survives.Contrast this with the Creationists, for whom criticism of each other is almost never done.

Thank you! I think you and Dr Bill should meet.?He is a former YEC seminary student who had a similar experience.

Wow, that is quite a story, and I congratulate you on your intellectual honesty and your persuit of knowledge!I am interested in how your wife reacted past her initial heart attack; did she read the books you read, etc.?Also, what was your fear in accepting the evidence, and how do you feel now about having been shielded from evolution?

There's no way my wife has anything resembling the interest to read a book on evolution from any view point. She listened to me over time, but I don't know how settled she was with the whole topic until we adopted a belief in evolution as a church. In fact, there are about 80 adults in our village, and there are probably a few who are still somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of evolution, but my wife is completely settled by now.You asked what my fear was. It embarrasses me a little to say it, but my fear was not that "the Bible would be wrong," but my fear was the reaction of other Christians. I wasn't officially in any church at the time, but my circle of "like-minded" believers, both nearby and more distantly, would have been extreme conservatives. My wife wore a head covering at the time, and so did the wives of most of my friends. I wore only long-sleeve shirts, not short, and I had friends who objected to tapered haircuts as worldly and microwave ovens as too luxurious. One friend asked me to move my encyclopedias (yes, in my house) to a higher shelf so that children would not be able to get to them and see immodest pictures.Sigh...In a circle where people routinely ostracize each other over the length of their shirt sleeves, you can imagine the reaction I expected--and got--to becoming a believer in evolution. Needless to say, I tried not to bring it up.However, one thing did bring it up, which was accusations against the scientific community as liars and conspirators. Such accusations make my blood boil, because they are always leveled by people either ignorant or completely close-minded or by people guilty themselves of lying and conspiracy.As far as being shielded from evolution, I wasn't. I was lied to by the Institute for Creation Research, but I'll take full responsibility for being uninformed and biased enough to believe them.

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Instant creation is a great match for the altar call based, instant transformation mentality of most churches.

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That's something I've never thought of, but it has the ring of truth to it. Thanks for the interesting idea.Alan

Theistic evolutionists may find consoling views in rebutting instant salvation, an ex-nihilo rebirth experience, etc., since they will often prefer liberalist interpretations, papacies, and/or broad interpretations of the what the gospel and the Bible is.The Bible warns of evangelicals who don't grow in faith after a supposed instant rebirth, deliverance, etc. (e.g., "Lake of Fire", "eternal torment", "worm that never dies", etc.)But to chide against instant Salvation, ex-nihilo re-birth, etc., (as you, Doc, myself, and T-L have stupidly done) is both anti-redemptive and anti-Christ. Fact is, you and I are born nothing and will take nothing out; our dogmatic absolutist opinions of the Bible merely darken the metaphysical facts of apparent redemptive events going on around us; observable redemptive events that we don't understand via the ToE alone.Salvation is not by works of empirical phenomena; it is a gift, period.Albeit there are scientist-evangelicals who are also theistic Evos due to their rather extreme empirical thought processes, if you will. I know one such loving and veritable rocket scientist who is weak in relativistic theory and thus erroneously equates atomic time with diurnal (e.g., planatary) time ...i.e., really stinky relativistic problems of our radiometric dating methods (i.e., that Schraf has yet to respond to ...hint, hint).In other words, my corrupt inner-teacher and your corrupt inner-teacher have a lot to learn and suffer. A delightful bash against us hypocritical evangelicals and my bashing of you "little Christs" (if you call yourself by the name Christian), is unprofitable.Bluntly speaking: guilt has you and I by the b?lls. Thus, we post to soothe our reprobate consciences, etc. Yes? No? Arbitrary?, Futile? Spam?(Note, I go to Haiti tomorrow for a few days; 'hope to pick up with any of you, later). Forgive, any undue crudeness or sloppiness of my methods.Philip[This message has been edited by Philip, 02-19-2003]

Maybe some more experienced internet forum participants can help me, as it is possible I completely misunderstood Philip's post. For example, I haven't the foggiest idea what an ex-nihilo rebirth experience is.What I thought I read is that Alan, myself, both of us, or all "theistic evolutionists" (if this means evolutionists who believe in God, then it encompasses at least 42% of the US population, after counting out about 50% that tell pollsters they believe in the Genesis account literally and 8% that are atheist) just prefer "liberalist interpretations" and that's why we rebut instant salvation and that ex-nihilo rebirth thing.Then he includes himself as one who has chided against instant salvation, and says we're all stupid for doing so. In fact, no one really knows anything, not even Schraf the rocket scientist, who doesn't even really understand relativistic theory.Then after including himself among us stupid people, he then tells us all the things he knows, including understanding the theory of relativity better than Schraf, so that we can all change our opinions to his.Did I read it wrong? I admit it was pretty difficult for a dummy like me to understand. For example, I can't rebut or agree with his statement that salvation is not by works of empirical phenomena, because I'm not certain what works of empirical phenomena are, nor whether he's suggesting that theistic evolutionists try to do works of empirical phenomena (wow, now that's a deep thought) or that theistic evolutionists trying to believe the "works of empirical phenomena" that they see in the universe.Finally, as my children have asked before, if someone dropped a penny off the Empire State Building, would that be an empirical phenomenon or would it be a work of empirical phenomena?

Wow, TL, all I can say is wow.I have only met a few folks like you who have gone through the changes you have. I can't really say that I have gone through the same kind of thing, but I did have a particularly iuncomfortable couple of discussions about my Agnosticism with my Catholic sister. She was quite patronizing and insulting, and I was shocked.I hope you don't mind me asking you these somewhat personal questions. It is so rare to be able to communicate with someone who has lived in both "lives" so to speak that I am anxious to learn more about your previous mindset.I was recently talking with someone here about the dark side of Christian history. I made the point that any "ideology of utter certainty", religious or otherwise, was what made atrocities like the 9/11 attacks and the Holocaust possible.What is your opinion?Also, I am wondering what the nature of your church's "belief" in evolution is? Is it something you accept provisionally, due to the evidence, or is it something that you believe because you have all decided to believe it?