Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, father of the unifying theory of life sciences and the cause of about half the posts at Little Green Footballs lately (seriously, did some creationist run over Charles Johnson’s dog or something?). Before his death, the guy had a massive beard which doesn’t have anything to do with anything but I can’t help but point it out.
Despite the controversy, a lot of his theories have graduated to the point where we would arrogantly say, “Well, no duh,” about them, like that antibiotics will lead to stronger, more resistant microbes if it doesn’t kill every one. I never really got the controversy about evolution, though. I always believed in God and came from a religious family, yet I can’t remember ever thinking evolution conflicted with that whenever it was I first learned about the theory. I just always took it for granted that God was scientifically unprovable, but whatever was found out in science, God was the ultimate cause of it… so there. Basically, if you did a Venn diagram of the relation of God and science, God would be this giant circle with the science circle would be completely inside it. No matter how big the science circle gets, the God circle would always be a lot bigger and all encompassing. I remember once for about ten minutes in my Sophomore year in high school my scientific understanding of the world caused me to doubt my religious views, but for my entire life minus ten minutes I’ve found the two viewpoints quite complementary.
Apparently, I do not fall within the majority on this, though.
Anyway, I hate the evolution controversy. It’s the biggest waste of time both religiously and scientifically. Religiously it’s a waste of time because I don’t remember Jesus ever lecturing on science or acting like that was something important to salvation. I believe that if you think any science conflicts with your religious views, your putting both science and God into tiny little containers that won’t quite contain them. Scientifically it’s a waste of time because what does it matter to a few scientists in the relevant fields what most people think about the origin of the species? Despite the seeming importance of evolution in how it explains all life on the planet, it’s completely an inconsequential trivial fact to 99.9% of the population. For most people, whether they go through life believing in evolution, creationism, or the flying spaghetti monster will have absolutely no effect on any of their actions. Yet everyone thinks its super duper important than everyone believe whatever is the scientific orthodoxy of the day because otherwise… something. That’s because much of science has become a belief system these days. Everyone is sure its super horrible for someone to believe the earth is flat even if they haven’t spent time to rationalize why. It’s not enough for our world views to be right, they have to be important. There’s probably an evolutionary reasons our brains work that way (and, as a crazy Christian, I’d add a reason why God wanted things to end up that way).
The thing is, science is not belief in certain pieces of data. The data is the unimportant part of science; it’s almost like its excrement. The important part is the process, the ability to analyze and evaluate that data that will keep changing and being added to throughout our lifetime. Being able to recite something you read in a science magazine doesn’t make you scientifically literate, it just makes you plain old literate. In fact, believing in evolution doesn’t make you any more scientifically inclined than someone who believes in in creationism; for most people, those are both just beliefs they read somewhere. Unless you actually apply that knowledge to do something, its not science. For the average person, whether they believe the earth is flat or round will have as much affect on them as whether they believe that black holes have a chewy nougat center. You do want rocket scientists to know the proper shape of the earth, but it’s time to understand what science is and stop acting like its super important what people believe about certain pieces of science when they won’t apply it to anything more than a Trivial Pursuit question.
Of course, that doesn’t answer the question of what should be taught in schools, but that subject just makes me want to go on a rant about how silly it is in a free country to have the government decide what your children should know. I might as well yell and shake my fist at a thunderstorm, though. If you want my view, I think evolution is the only scientific theory and that creationism or intelligent design shouldn’t be taught in schools alongside it, but we’re planning on home schooling and my wife is a creationist so I won’t get my wish. Whatevs. If my currently theoretical children are ever interested in evolution or it actually becomes relevant to something they want to do, the data is there and easily accessible to everyone. Plus, I can prove to them macro-evolution is true; I just need to put some species in an isolated region, wait seventy-million years, and shout “Hah!” when I show everyone the cool new species that arose.
Still, I find evolutionary science fascinating (look at this guy; he looks like a dinosaur, but he’s much more closely related to mammals than lizards)… kind of like I find the Grand Canyon beautiful and fascinating even though I don’t really need it for anything. Since I’m not going to use the science of evolution, it’s just a cute little story to me — like historical science fiction. It’s a neat narrative linking together bits of data, but like my most people I’m never going to go out and verify any of it because it’s not relevant to anything I do. Still, there’s something spiritually I like about it. From a cold rational standpoint, humans are nothing but a random result, just another hodgepodge of pieces originally developed for different animals over billions of years. Our purpose — what God put in us — is completely hidden from this crass, finite world. That makes us all the more special.
Or at least I’m special.
I’m pretty sure you do need the Grand Canyon. Or did, at one point. That’s where you go to meet wives.
The problem I have with Evolution is that it created liberals. They evolved from the primordial ooze. Life magically “poof” existed out of non-life and a single cell was created which then started to divide and then became male and female (?) and these then became fish and then the fish crawled out on land and became mammals which then became apes which then became liberals. Without Evolution we would just have Man, created by God (Adam and Eve) and these would all be Conservatives!
And don’t forget, you’re unique, too. Just like everyone else.
The reason for the argument is that it’s difficult to reconcile Macro-evolution with the claims made by the Bible. One who believes Scripture is inerrant knows that God created man. Man, therefore, could not have evolved over an extended time period from a prehistoric organism, by however many steps, into it’s current incarnation. Micro-evolution, on the other hand, is easily proven, and has happened several times in my own lifetime.
[You assert they are mutually exclusive, but you don’t give an argument for why. -Ed.]
You’ve opened up an evolutionary can of worms, Frank, because topologically, that’s what we are: worms. And liberals are worms with no brains. That’s all.
Well, Ok, we have more orifices than worms. Big worms with holes, then. Why would God do that to us? He (she?) must like worms.
Maybe we’re bait. This is making no sense.
Don’t mince words, Frank, tell us what you really think!
Thanks very much for posting this. I’ve never understood why the Lord couldn’t have intelligently designed an evolutionary world.
Plus, athiests are stupid.
#2 SSJC, I think you may be missing a step in your theory about “liberals”. I believe that somewhere between Life evolving from the ooz and the “evolution into humans”, those that became “liberals” are simply the cast off that didn’t make the cut into real humans, but are rather closer cousins to bacteria and algore.
Evolution requires the cycle of birth and death in order to happen – the process of the weak dying off and the strong surviving and reproducing, thus creating slowly-changing sets of genetic code. There was no death in the Garden of Eden, no death before sin – not for humans, not for animals, not for plants. How could God have used evolution without death?
I’m sure you have now been pre-banned at LGF. Hell, I got banned just for voting some posts up and down!
If God created you, you are His to do with as He will. If you arose accidentally then any claim God makes on you is because He is bigger and a bully. For me that is what the day to day difference.
Mutually Exclusive:
The Bible states in Romans that first came sin by man, then came death, so the Bible excludes evolution (through death) as a source of any animal before the dawn of man because death did not exist before the Fall.
So we are left with either:
Man came around through death – Evolution
Death came around through man – Creation
Mutually exclusive.
As for the evolutionist or follower of Darwin. Darwin’s “Tree of Life” assumes that species developed slowly over millions of years. Yet, the fossil records dispute this. The Cambrian Explosion or (The Fossil’s Big Bang) shows that almost all life forms appear at the same time. The “Tree of Life” simply does not stand up and has actually been turned upside down!
As for the dilemma of the old earth vs. a young earth. I have a theory that I haven’t seen anywhere else. When God created the earth along with Adam and Eve, he intended for Adam and Eve to be eternal beings. Thus, did time as we know it now exist? Or, did time as we know it begin with Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden when sin entered the world and they became mortal? If time did not exist, they could have communed with God for Billions of our years before the fall…
200 Years Ago Today, Charles Darwin Was Tiny, Beardless, and Covered in Goo
Just like Joseph Biden’s tool today.
Methinks that the world had to be created in order for anything to evolve. Cause and effect in action.
And yes, LGF is off my interweb reading list. Politics is fun, but bashing ID gets really boring after two posts.
I, too, like the myth of magic soup and monkey men. Who cares that its overarching narrative isn’t true or testable? Who wants to bother with tricky insignificant issues like homochirality?
Darwin lets us know that it is not only okay, but imperative, that we shoot wolves from helicopters.
Preferably while laughing in a derisive, superior manner.
[It is testable in that it makes predictions like the existence of transitional fossils.
And don’t put words in Darwin’s mouth to mock him. I hate how people attack the integrity of scientist just because they don’t like the observation they made. -Ed.]
Like Frank, I have never had a problem reconciling the concept of an evolutionary biological process and belief in God. I like to think of a Higher Power as the ultimate artist and story teller, and using evolution as an elegant mechanism for the development of intelligence and to advance the diversity of life. Along with a sense of humor, I wonder if God sets the process in place, and sits back to enjoy the unexpected twists and turns of his Creation. It is the Story of Life, and I think our job is to accept our origins and work every day to transcend our organic nature and develop into enlightened and spiritual beings. Now THAT is a great process and story!
(I am polite, but I think the idea of Creationism Museums showing Adam & Eve walking in tropical bliss with happy dinosaurs looking on approvingly is kind of…well…simple and child-like. It’s Fred Flinstone as the first Apostle.) But to each their own, and I generally kepp my opinions to myself).
Now the only problem with evolution is that it often takes directions for many species that dead end. Take Liberals for example. From the early days of the Platonics, the liberals have become an evolutionary cul de sac. They are an organism that pursues behavior that is self-defeating, damaging to their survival as a species, and destructive to the overall fabric of Life. If we don’t cull these unfortunate evolutionary mutants, we risk our own destruction as an intelligent, spiritual species.
This is where science can come in. We need to use the Genome Project and genetic mapping to create a new species of powerful T-Rex, armored dinosaurs, with expanded muscle configurations to support large missle pods and Vulcan cannon. Of course, we throw in the whole package….10″ teeth, really bad breath, maybe fire breathing capabilities…and program them to incinerate Liberals. Let’s get on this really great idea.
I’m surprised at you Frank, for not thinking of this idea sooner. Sheesh.
I have actually researched this a good bit and figured I throw my opinions out there…
I don’t believe in macro-evolution…there is such thing as speciation, but there are certain genetic boundaries that creatures just cannot cross. I do believe that God created everything ex nihilo and that life as we know it can be no more than c. 15,000 yrs old. I do believe, however, that the earth could be much older, reconciling the differences between the earth’s apparent age and biblical accounts. This can be inferred from the original Hebrew text of Isaiah 45:12 “I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.” “Asah” is the Hebrew word used for “make,” while the word “bara” is used for create. If he created man (ex nihilo), but mad the earth (fashioned out of pre-existing), then it is a perfectly viable theaory according to the Bible that the earth as a physical place existed before the “Creation.”
Just a thought…
P.S. I know I spelled theory wrong…sorry
The idea that there was no death at all before Adam and Eve sinned makes no sense. There’s nothing in the Bible to suggest that animals and plants didn’t die. Death was a punishment for man because of man’s sin. I think animals and plants were always mortal.
Personally, I think it shows God’s love for us more to say he created the universe and waited 14 billion years than to say he threw it together in a week like some DIY Network show to get to the punchline.
What we see on the atheist side is a lot of use of science as a rationalization for philosophical conclusions – which are then used to excuse personal and legislative behavior rooted in nothing but selfish interests. A classic example is Dawkins, who has pinned his entire career on two bag-on-the-side philisophical ideas posing as science (selfish gene, memes) then condemns intelligent design, which is at worst a philisophical bag on the side to science.
Science education is collapsing in the US for two major reasons. The majority of Americans are Christians and do not want to spend 4 plus years getting lectured to by douchebags who mock faith. I have an excellent science aptitude (excess of 99th percentile, and two engineering awards, and I’m not an engineer). I made the decision to go into computers instead. Secondly, engineering jobs are being offshored by people who are more self-interested than neighbor-interested.
Maybe just carbon had to be created. Maybe god is carbon’s self assembling nature. I’m atheist but I am the first to tell you that christians do not bother me. It is the libs who are so rigid in their thinking that they spew nastiness when talking about any subject remotely concerned with religion except when it is some downtroden backwards religion is involved such as islam or the Church of Latter Day Global Warming. Liberals are just people wandering the planet looking for an argument and hoping they can berate someone enough to extort some sort of payment out of the whole deal. I mean really every argument they put forth is 1000 pages of blah blah blah and on the very last page in the last line you will read the same sentence every time: “thus you must pay”.
I make a cake.
I leave it up to you to determine if I said “Let there be cake,” and it was so. Or if I took flour, eggs, milk…
Anyway, I made a cake.
Long post Frank, but one that needed to be said. Thanks.
I’m with those that always wondered why creationism and evolution had to be mutually exclusive, one or the other. Like you and #14 said, I’ve just always accepted that God created everything, but designed it in such a way as to adapt (evolve) to its surroundings. It’s a built-in survival mechanism, our wonderful bodies’ way of protecting ourselves and maintaining homeostasis for internal processes.
It’s why cave-persons were furry – they lived outdoors and needed the insulation – but with a few exceptions like hairy backs, humans today have relatively little body hair.
Or why frogs are born as fish with tails to survive being born in the water, but lose their tails when they grow up and move to
the suburbsland. God created everything in Nature, from us down to frogs, but designed us to evolve and survive changes to our surroundings.It could even explain how 100 years ago, a simple flu could wipe out a population, but with today’s medical advances, science is keeping alive – often for much longer than nature would – many people who would have died of their particular illness. And who created the scientists, who would go on to in turn create such scientific discoveries?
And seriously, could some random explosion *poof* Create such an Evolutionary and Adaptable species as we? Frankly (sorry), if I had kids, I would much rather teach them (as I was raised on myself) that I was created in the image of a perfect God and Creator, for a purpose…rather than just I was a mass of goo that somehow came to exist.
Or in sum, I believe that God/Intelligent Design created us and all life, but like Darwin said, those who are unable or unwilling to adapt and evolve to their surroundings die off – survival of the fittest. It’s the same principle as…Survivor! Which starts up again tonight! 😉
(Thanks for letting me ramble on…)
Points:
1. Evolution says nothing about abiogenesis, the origins of life itself. Evolution addresses only speciation, the origins of species, which share common descent from earlier species. That a God created original life is a belief not disproved by evolution.
2. The Cambrian Explosion – To infer that too many species exploded into existence at one time is to misunderstand the fossil record from the Cambrian era. What ‘exploded’ during the Cambrain were new species of flora and fauna capable of leaving fossils, that is, species then began evolving hard shells, skeletal structures, and other features capable of leaving fossils for us to find later. Prior to the Cambrian, most species were soft tissue and did not leave many fossils. This doesn’t mean they didn’t exist or that their numbers were so few as compared to Cambrian findings that it constitutes an explosion of new species impossible under evolutionary theory.
3. Macro-micro evolution and observation of same – Micro has been observed many times over. Macro is more difficult because of the vast time spans required as compared to the very short lifespan of modern era science, say, 300 years. Given current lifespans for current existing mammalian species, anywhere from a couple years to over a hundred years, to observe macro evolution seems daunting, impossible even, but not if you choose for laboratory observation a species of life with a very short period of regeneration. Consider the work of Dr. Richard Lenski of Michigan State University. For over twenty years he has been observing the evolution of e coli bacteria in the laboratory, having chosen the e coli bacterium as a life form with a very rapid regeneration rate. By necessity, some scientific endeavors require a very long and slow process.
4. Fact vs. Theory – When Darwin first published, evolution was properly called a theory because of the scientific definition of the term, not to be confused with the casual defintion of theory. Since it took decades to establish the factual nature of evolution’s primary features – speciation via natural selection and common descent of all Earth’s life forms – it remained the theory of evolution. It has long since been established as fact, but science has no formal renaming mechanism for when a scientific theory graduates into scientific fact. That it is still called the theory of evolution is due to cultural inertia, not because there remains any scientific doubts about evolution (though lesser, more localized aspects of the mechanisms remain in research and vulnerable to change). The scientific finding that many diseases are not caused by ‘bad air’ or ‘bad blood’ or ‘demons’, but are caused by infection from bacteria and viruses is called Germ Theory, but no one doubts it or still argues for those old supposed causes. Likewise, no one doubts the theory of relativity for the use of the word theory. It is disingenuous for those who do so to consider evolution to be in doubt because the word ‘theory’ is still used in its description.
Frank: “Since I’m not going to use the science of evolution, it’s just a cute little story to me — like historical science fiction. It’s a neat narrative linking together bits of data, but like my most people I’m never going to go out and verify any of it because it’s not relevant to anything I do.”
With all due respect, if you eat food you bought at the store, you are using the science of evolution. If you eat vegetables or meat, you are using the science of evolution. If you ever take antibiotics, you are using the science of evolution. If you are ever treated for a medical condition, you are using the science of evolution. And so on.
{With all due respect, this is where you fall into the trap of treating evolution as a belief system important for everyone to understand and believe. No, I don’t use evolution to chew food or swallow an anti-biotic pill or sit still for a medical treatment and so on. -Ed.]
The science of evolution hasn’t begun and ended with the determination that species originate via natural selection and that accordingly, all life evolved from a common ancestry. These earth-changing discoveries have been taken to the applied science fields where evolution constituteses the bedrock upon which all biological science is based, and in turn, deeply affects all facets of our daily lives. Were we to remove all the effects of the application of evolutionary findings, remove all the assorted applied sciences in biology that are organized and based upon evolutionary science, we wouldn’t recognize our own lives and most of us would not be alive.
We may hold the credo consolans (consoling belief) that evolution means nothing substantive in one’s life, that evolution is merely an entertaining intellectual construct of no practical use, but we must question whether this clearly erroneous belief is held only to mitigate the cognitive dissonance created by implicative conflict between the fact of evolution and our religious beliefs. But, make no mistake, were evolution science and its practical applications removed from your life, you would not recognize what remained.
No disrespect intended.
Macroevelution would seem to contradict the bible. My argument above was that if God created man, man didn’t come about through a series of small changes eventually leading to the form we know now. Or would you argue that Adam was some pre-evolutionary form of man that eventually, through a series of transitionary species, evolved into the homo-sapiens we all know and love?
[Okay, but you’re telling God what He can and cannot do based on what you think “created” should mean. -Ed.]
Addendum to the Cambrian era – Please note that the Cambrian era lasted over 54 million years, which properly contextualizes the term ‘explosion’. To the geoligist or paleontologist, 54 million years isn’t much, but we mustn’t infer from the word ‘explosion’ that new species emerged overnight.
“The data is the unimportant part of science; it’s almost like its excrement. The important part is the process,…”
A priceless bit of wisdom Frank, LMAO
I don’t think I’m telling God what He can and can’t do. It seems to me that He has told me what he did. God created man. At the time of creation, man was perfect. I suppose that you could argue that the fall resulted in a de-evolution of man, but there’s really no biblical evidence to support that. Man could think and talk at the time of it’s creation, so how could you argue that man was some sort of pre-evolutionary form? In terms of animals, microevolution can be observed and reproduced, and therefore can be established as fact. However, macroevolution can be neither observed nor reproduced, and therefore must continue to exist in the realm of theory.
God IS infinite. But the fact remains that He has given us knowledge through scripture about certain things. Your argument could just as easily been that even though scripture claims that the only way to be saved is through Christ, that is limiting God, therefore there could be other ways to salvation.
[But that’s not about something as frivolous as science. Plus you don’t know enough about science to say for certain anything involving it is truly a contradiction. -Ed.]
“”
Most true thing ever, and probably the best argument for a god. I’m an Atheist, but causation is the only.. possible.. uh, to be crude, “cause”, so nothing is “Random”. In fact, Aristotle, who I respect more than any other man, proposed the existence of a “Primary Mover”, (a lot like the clockmaker Deist god). I disagree of course, else I wouldn’t be much of an atheist, but that is because I use a more abstract view of time.
Wow, I almost fell into one of the classic blunders.
The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, only slightly less well known is never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line. But only slightly less known is, “Never get into an Internet conversation on religion or abortion”.
A ha ha ha, ha ha ha. erk
(thud).
or Apples
(thud, again)
[But that’s not about something as frivolous as science. Plus you don’t know enough about science to say for certain anything involving it is truly a contradiction. -Ed.]
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. If the God of creation took His time to to tell us something, I would say it’s not frivolous. I guess I’ve fallen into a classic discussion faux paus, I.E. never laid my pre-suppositions on the table. See, I’m a literalist, and believe that everything that was placed into scripture is there for a reason. How can science be frivolous when we’re called upon to be stewards of the earth? One of the very first commands given to us calls for us to be scientists.
[You’re not literally interpreting, you’re making assumptions. The creation of the earth and people is a huge process. The bible describes it in a couple of pages. There’s nothing there scientifically testable to either prove or disprove it without making huge assumptions about the processes used. Are you really saying that if somehow someone could prove evolution (let’s say takes you back in a time machine) you’d have to admit the bible is false and give up your religion? -Ed.]
It’s not the theory I have a problem with. It’s the application of it where public education is concerned. It’s taught as a doctrine there. Like many, I don’t believe that the theory runs afoul of creationism, and in fact I think that there may be a GUT between them (think “Let there be light”/Big Bang). I believe that the story in the Old Testament telling about how God created all things in 6 days is more allegorical than literal; how long is a “day” to a being that is beyond what we perceive as time? It was an overview of what happened, not a play by play with timestamps.
There are aspect of evolutionary theory I can’t get on board with. I think that there a cellular systems that are indeed irreducibly complex, so to think that they randomly mutated into something better from a previous model doesn’t really go along with reality IMO; most of the time, a mutation results in something less functional, not more. How does it explain eyes, and if light sensitive cells became eyes, why do all mammals, birds and fish only have two apiece? Wouldn’t a couple more be even better? How about just one more in the back or on top of the head? That would be useful in self preservation. Why on the head at all?
Steven Jay Gould postulated “punctuated equilibrium” to try to reconcile certain aspect of evolutionary theory, but that makes less sense to me. A species developing into something better or very different almost overnight (in the scheme of things) seems like a bit of a stretch.
The idea that a bear, which evolved all the way back from a fish, evolved into a warm blooded whale due to repeated incursions into the ocean in search of food just doesn’t sit well with me for some reason. To make the transition from a single-celled organism to a multi-celled one, then a fish, then a fish with appendages, then one with feet & an eye for dry food on land, then an amphibian, then a lizard, then a mammal that eventually became the dog-like animal that eventually became the bear-like animal that, in a way, returned to the ocean as a warm-blooded fish or sorts, that evolved from there to several different types of warm blooded fish…believing that takes more time than evolution over time could possibly allow, and more faith that most Christians have in God.
Ed.: “{With all due respect, this is where you fall into the trap of treating evolution as a belief system important for everyone to understand and believe. No, I don’t use evolution to chew food or swallow an anti-biotic pill or sit still for a medical treatment and so on. -Ed.]
A straw man argument avails you nothing. I did not say that evolutionary science allows you to chew food or swallow a pill or sit still for a medical treatment, whatever that means. Evolutionary science informs the biological sciences which create the foods and pills you swallow and the medical standards you enjoy. The sciences of agriculture, pharmacology, and medicine are all based upon evolutionary science as their foundation. Your refusal to accept the engrossing impact of evolutionary science on your life does not render the fact untrue.
[Well thanks for knocking down the straw man who was refusing to accept the engrossing impact of evolutionary science. As for me, I was just saying I don’t personally need to understand it to do anything and neither does the majority of people so we should stop acting like its super duper important _everyone_ believe and accepts it. -Ed.]
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.~Einstein
i believe in some aspects of evolution but ultimately i believe creation.
i didn’t come from a silly stupid monkey…only liberals do.
[Just be certain you’re not putting your spiritual worth on aesthetics. -Ed.]
In any case, I wish my typing skills would evolve…
And my cats. If my stupid f**king cats would just evolve some thumbs, then they could let their own damn selves out at 3:00 in the %$*& morning.
[You’re not literally interpreting, you’re making assumptions. The creation of the earth and people is a huge process. The bible describes it in a couple of pages. There’s nothing there scientifically testable to either prove or disprove it without making huge assumptions about the processes used. Are you really saying that if somehow someone could prove evolution (let’s say takes you back in a time machine) you’d have to admit the bible is false and give up your religion? -Ed.]
Wait, now it seems you’re the one limiting God. Why must creation be a huge proccess? God spoke creation into existence, a literal interpretation would have to be that it wasn’t a huge proccess. “God said let there be light, and there was”. For an infinite God, creation wouldn’t be that big a deal now would it?
Little Green Footballs? You mean the most overrated blog out there? That guy is so full of himself, you can barely call that site a blog. It’s more like a, link to other sites, say a sentence and ban anyone who says something intelligent against you.
“4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground- 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. ” – Genesis 2:4-7
“1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” – Genesis 9:1-3
Seems fairly clear cut to me. Things weren’t in a position for evolution to happen and man was created completely separate from other animals. Now you are right that for every day life it doesn’t really matter too much though the most murderous regimes in human history have used evolution as a justification but obviously since most evolutionists don’t go slaughtering millions upon millions of people there has to be other factors but I do submit that that is one. But back to the point I was making the real issue isn’t how it affects our lives so much as what’s true or not. That’s what I care about. If you want something that does affect people’s lives and politics might as well throw in a freebie.
” 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man. ” – Genesis 9:6
There’s the beginning of biblical evidence for the death penalty. Then there’s you know a good chunk of Leviticus.
[Just to be clear, if one could prove the evolution of man from apes to you, you’d stop believing in God? -Ed.]
I would think if one is a scientist, there would be little doubt of God. Looking to the skies, how amazing is the vastness of it? And the micro world…how could anything that small function? The way everything in the word works together…..it’s just too amazing to have happened accidently.
No, of course it’s not scientifically testable. That’s the crux of my arguement: neither is macroevolution. Assumptions are, unfortunately, an integral part of the scientific method. You postulate, then look for evidence for and against. There’s tons of evidence suggesting an intelligent designer. As much, anyway, as there is suggesting a lack thereof. But none of it is testable, therefore both are equally plausible. How can you then justify teaching one as assumed fact, and the other as ravings of the faithfull?
[Just to be clear, if one could prove the evolution of man from apes to you, you’d stop believing in God? -Ed.]
Faith must be rational, or it’s delusional. I may as well say that if one could prove that gravity doesn’t exist, would you stop falling? My belief is based on rationalization. The evidence, to me, points to a creator God. I don’t twist the evidence to my beliefs, rather I let the evidence lead me to my beliefs. Man evolving from apes is sheer postulation, with little supporting evidence.
Yikes, the ongoing refusal to understand even the basics of evolution is mindboggling, not to mention it creates totally unnecessary confusion and animosity.
Ed: “[You’re not literally interpreting, you’re making assumptions. The creation of the earth and people is a huge process. The bible describes it in a couple of pages. There’s nothing there scientifically testable to either prove or disprove it without making huge assumptions about the processes used. Are you really saying that if somehow someone could prove evolution (let’s say takes you back in a time machine) you’d have to admit the bible is false and give up your religion? -Ed.]”
Altogether now, everybody… Evolution says nothing about the creation of Earth or of life, only of speciation.
[We were talking about something different there. You don’t need to jump at everything in full attack mode; that also creates animosity. -Ed.]
Ed.: “[…….There’s certainly room in science for the earth to simple appear in an instance……]
There is no room in science for the earth to simply appear in an instant. How the earth was formed is already known. (None of which has anything to do with evolution).
[Now you’re putting limits on science when all we’ve studied is one ice cube on the tip of an ice berg. -Ed.]
Ed.” [Just to be clear, if one could prove the evolution of man from apes to you, you’d stop believing in God? -Ed.]
Evolution does not say man evolved from apes and never has. Evolution, by way of DNA mapping, proves man and apes had a common ancestor.
Actually, there is truly random data that can be used to construct a one-time pad. The decay of radioactive isotopes, while following strict physical laws, is often used for this purpose. At any given time increment, either an isotope has decayed or it has not. Half life curves are not predictive, only representative of the process (i.e., if you have 3 molecules of the isotope, one half-life later you do not have 1.5 molecules). Another source of truly random data is leakage current across a diode. Again, the physics is well understood, but the resultant curve is not predictive. Both of these I can neither confirm nor deny are used by the military to construct one-time pads.
Sorry for the thread-jack…I was having flashbacks to my previous life as Crypto officer on a submarine.
[Everything has a cause and effect; it’s hard to believe that’s truly random and not just currently beyond our understand to predict. -Ed.]
I’m sorry, but DNA mapping proves no such thing. It would certainly suggest that, but suggestion is not proof. Evidence is just that, evidence. Proof can only come when something can be both observed and reproduced. man and apes having a common ancestor can be neither.
You know, if you wanted ten thousand comments, you could have gone after Ron Paul.
If you wanted to write 10 thousand words, you could be finishing Hellbender.
#47 FTW!
Ed.”[Now you’re putting limits on science when all we’ve studied is one ice cube on the tip of an ice berg. -Ed.]”
Are you questioning/denying the scientific awareness of how the earth was formed? If so, based on what?
Ed.”[We were talking about something different there. You don’t need to jump at everything in full attack mode; that also creates animosity. -Ed.]”
Full attack mode? Hmmm. I can only go by the words written, and the words written spoke of the creation of earth and people, then went on a few sentences later to ask if evolution were proved would it impact religious belief. To mention again that evolution has nothing to do with the origins of the earth or of man is entirely apropos and is hardly a ‘full attack’. If I attributed the creation of the universe to Deuteronomy instead of Genesis and you corrected me, would I be justified in considering that a full attack?
Ed.””
The ‘overall argument’ seems to change as and if you need it to change.
@Revelation: “I’m sorry, but DNA mapping proves no such thing. It would certainly suggest that, but suggestion is not proof. Evidence is just that, evidence.”
DNA mapping is but one of a thousand converging evidence streams proving that man and apes evolved from a common ancestor. Other streams include the fossil record and how it informs us about evolving skeletal structures, braincase size, transitional species, etc., etc. No man is an island and neither is a single evidential datum; all must be taken comprehensively and any scientific conclusion must include the entirety of the evidence. What emerges is proof that man and apes evolved from a common ancestor.
Overarching this is the fact that all scientific knowledge is tentatively held, always vulnerable to any new evidence that may emerge. While some decry this as the greatest fault of science, it is actually its greatest asset that it has its own mechanisms for self-correction. All science is therefore held on a scale of probability where some findings are still suggested rather than proved, but those considered ‘proved’, like that the sun is the center of our solar system, that the earth revolves around the sun, etc., are so well evidenced and placed so highly on that scale of probability of being true, that only an extraordinary amount of evidence could overturn it. But, faced with extraordinary evidence, science would reverse its findings accordingly. As for evolution, it enjoys a wealth of confirmatory evidence that places it just as high on that scientific scale of ‘fact’, so high, that for the person who grasps basic scientific principles cannot reasonably deny it. The key word here is “reasonably”. It may be easily denied for any number of reasons, with having a conflicting credo consolans chief among them. If one remains ignorant of science, or understands but refuses to accept science, or surgically denies science where it creates internal conflicts, then anything may be denied – or believed.
Revelation: “Proof can only come when something can be both observed and reproduced.”
Not so. We have neither observed nor replicated atoms, but proof of their existence is not reasonably deniable. Other examples abound. Gravity has never been observed, nor replicated, but we know it exists. The point is that all these things have been indirectly observed, that is, their effects are observable, allowing hypotheses, then predictions, which prompt experiments, prompting theories, then replications of experimental results, and ultimately the idea in hand is proved or abandoned. But it is not necessary to directly observe and replicate a process or thing in order to prove scientifically it exists.
good show Frank! glad to hear you are considering homeschooling. I was educated at home since gr3 and now am a freshman in college. It will be hard, but definitely worth it.
The crux of the argument for ME is that evolution (or at least the modern definition, which includes more than the development of different species) is being used as a bludgeon against religious thought – particularly Christianity. And there is a decidedly atheistic evangelism to the way it is taught in schools, the premise being that evolution’s acceptance as scientific fact disproves God. Granted, for those of us of greater mental and/or spiritual maturity, such a conclusion is absurd and does nothing to shake our faith. But every day, Science (as a belief system) destroys the faith of young people and puts up barriers within their minds that make them hostile to the gospel. As a servant of God given the directives to defend the faith and spread the good news, such a thing stands as a tremendous stronghold against God’s truth.
I think us older folks, having grown up in a U.S. more aware of its Judeo-Christian heritage, have taken for granted how different the world was when it was accetable to believe God created the universe. It used to be cute when 2nd graders gave God as an answer to a teacher’s question. Teachers used to chuckle and simply clarify they were looking for a more specific answer. Now, kids are LAUGHED at, and told that such notions are unquestionably wrong.
Liberals, intent on removing God from America and replacing Him with the State, have changed the landscape of the spiritual battlefield. If we don’t adapt and meet them where they are, we’ll simply shrug our way to an even more depraved nation. The point of continuing the argument is to make room for the idea that some people have trouble reconciling God and their observations – in this particular case, of the scientific type. While I’ve seen caustic orthodoxy on both sides, in many ways the discussion is healthy. The moment one side becomes silent, the other side can claim victory. If Christians are to have any hope of shaping the hearts and minds of the next generation of America’s leadership, we better keep talking.
I’m a Christian. To me the biggest problem with ID is theological (which I think means I agree with you, Ed) – it limits God to filling in gaps in our existing knowledge. If it turns out tomorrow that macroevolutionary theory is absolutely proved, that won’t change a thing about my beliefs (merely my interpretation of certain passages). It won’t be in its current form, though. The theory itself has evolved quite a bit since Darwin’s time and I assume it will continue to do so as long as the water fleas keep coming out with new pointy helmets. 🙂
[Just to be clear, if one could prove the evolution of man from apes to you, you’d stop believing in God? -Ed.]
Certainly not. I’ve seen and experienced too much to not believe. The crux of the matter is honestly I don’t think it’s possible to prove that. People like to talk about how there’s only a 1% difference in the DNA of man and chimps but watermelons, lettuce, and jellyfish are all 99% water but they’re certainly all very different things. Humans and the Earth are both about 75% water. Again are very different things. Just because we look similar to chimps and have similar DNA doesn’t prove descendancy. I always some what jokingly ask the question: If we’re descended from apes than why can’t I rip your arm off like a gorilla can? I would imagine having that kind of strength would be a useful trait. Even chimps, which are smaller than a human adult, are substantially stronger than your average human adult. Why wouldn’t we have muscle like that? Think of what we could do with that. There’s just a lot of things that don’t add up and when the Bible specifically says that man was made separately from animals I have to believe it. This isn’t meant to be an attack but an honest question: Where’s your faith when the Bible specifically says one thing but “science” says some thing else might be true so you go to try and make them fit? I’m not talking blind faith but trusting that what God says is actually right. There was a group of people (Forget which one off the top of my head) mentioned in the Bible that there was no evidence of for a long time and people used that to try to show that the Bible was wrong. Well then they found Babylonian inscriptions that proved their existence and since then have found sites of the actual civilization. It looked bad but when the dust settled and the facts came out the Bible was right. I have full faith that the same thing will happen here. When we have the full evidence we’ll find the Biblical accounts to be true. Had some other points but forgot them in the ramblings. Ha ha.
Oh right. About heredity. We have yet to observe any useful mutations and, in fact, most transitional forms would be unable to survive. New information doesn’t just show up though some times it gets corrupted. You have traits from your parents and that’s it. There’s no new information but between different species there is different pieces of code. If say a lizard were to start becoming a bird growing wings would be quite problematic since as they were developing over generations they’d get more and more cumbersome until they started working and that’s simplifying the process terribly.
” 24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” ” – Genesis 1:24-26
” 35But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[e]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we[f] bear the likeness of the man from heaven. ” – 1 Corinthians 15:35-49
“50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” – 1 Corinthians 15:50
Now if flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God and man came from animals that are nothing but flesh and blood how can man be spiritual? Man, however, was created separately and was always meant to be immortal and thus is simply being restored not improved. Furthermore if man was not a living creature until God breathed spirit into him (Genesis 2:4-7) than how could he have come from animals that God clearly called living creatures?
“3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” – 2 Timothy 4:3-5
Something is definitely amiss at LGF when Charles devotes that much space to an issue that is only slightly above “global warming” in its significance.
The treatment of Christians posting on this issue is similar to the treatment they receive from Kos Kidz and DUmmies. Those who disagree with the theory of evolution are labeled as “trolls” by some newer people who post there. It’s so wrong.
The Islamofascists coming to kill us will not spare our lives because we are strongly on either side of this debate. Covert or die.
Revelation: “Proof can only come when something can be both observed and reproduced.”
Cuddy Joe: Not so. We have neither observed nor replicated atoms, but proof of their existence is not reasonably deniable. Other examples abound. Gravity has never been observed, nor replicated, but we know it exists. The point is that all these things have been indirectly observed, that is, their effects are observable, allowing hypotheses, then predictions, which prompt experiments, prompting theories, then replications of experimental results, and ultimately the idea in hand is proved or abandoned. But it is not necessary to directly observe and replicate a process or thing in order to prove scientifically it exists.
And this is why both atomic theory and gravity are still considered theory. We can assume their existence because of the effect they have on other, observable objects. But we cannot prove their existence. At least not yet. It is the same with macroevolution. We may assume it exists because of numerous forms of evidence, and because we simply have no better explanation. But given the lack of proof, ie, observed transitional species, It is still theory. And however compelling, theory must be treated as such. “we’re not sure how this has occured, but here’s some ways it could have:” I would argue that creationinsm (or ID if that term feels better) is just as valid a theory. The truth is that we just can’t prove one way or the other.
Well stated. I liked the Venn diagram comment.
I could never really understand why some religious people feel threatened by the theory of evolution. If it’s that way, it’s because God made it that way. Learning about the way the world works doesn’t conflict with religion.
I remember reading a book called “The Origin of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind”. Fascinating stuff, but no doubt anathema to people of the same mind set.
As pointed out previously, the conflict comes from biblical interpretation. I once had an acquaintance tell me that the bible talked about laser battlestations. I read the same passage and found something about eagles’ nests and the sun glinting off swords.
But I did find the section on flying saucers.
I’m so not reading everything I missed, but I still want to contribute more to the discussion so:
I saw someone saying that no one ever said man descended from apes, but instead a non-ape common ancestor, but, and correct me if I’m wrong, Homo Sapiens are classified as apes aren’t they?
I have almost no understanding of Cryptography or Radioactive Decay, but yah, what Frank said, ultimately everything is cause and effect
There is an interdisciplinary field of science called Emergence, and in a lot (or at least what I’ve read) of the literature it discusses how a bunch of simple factors can come together in a way that the final result that is irreducibly complex without watching it form. (Emergence studies how complex systems form from simpler processes)
There have been computer programs that actually evolve through random mutation and adapt successfully to an artificial environment where solving complex formulas provides an advantage.
Finally, no a belief in evolution does not really influence the everyday life of most people, and while it would be just super if everybody knew the truth, there are far more important problems then trying convince people of evolution. Like, personally, I could be doing an Ethogram on ant behavior for Comparative Psych class, but no, instead I’m to busy discussing religion on the internet!
“I would argue that creationinsm (or ID if that term feels better) is just as valid a theory.”
It’s about as legitimate as the whole “The world started yesterday” theory, sure it technically works, but it completely ignores Occam’s Razor as far as fossil records are concerned in the case of creationism, and memories of a week ago for the world started yesterday theory.
In fact, I could postulate that there are no laws of nature whatsoever, and cause and effect is just a massive coincidence in an infinite and completely random universe. I wouldn’t because that is preposterous, but it explains literally everything, and it even seems simpler then any other explanation.
I made a cake too. With materials that existed. But would you believe me if I said it just appeared with no creator?
Did yal know that Mr. Darwin himself was planning to enter the clergy early in his career?
This site is based on the idea of poking fun at or making fun of those we disagree with based on our belief in certain values that others deny. In this post, and comments, it seems that Frank has taken some offense at some quips by others that mock the apparently Sainted Scientist, Darwin. Interesting turn of events I guess.
Evolution is an interesting and entertaining theory, but is no more a proven fact than the theory of life in distant galaxies.
Why is it funny to make fun of Algore for his religious zealotry in Global Warming, but not funny or allowed to make fun of the many “enlightened” elite who would like nothing more than to force all to accept the doctrine of evolution as fact in the wider effort to cheapen life and weaken spirits?
To accept the existence of God requires belief, or faith – because, for now, no one can decisively prove his existence.
To accept the theory of evolution require belief, or faith as well – as it can not be proven at this point.
Even if scientists, or zealots, find a verifiable proven specimen of an intermediary link between men and liberals, it still won’t settle the argument for all.
Rightjabs, Islam makes a distinction between Christians/Jews (and possibly Hindus, depending on who you ask) and all others, including atheists. Only “People of the Book” are accorded the choice, and it is actually a choice between 3 things: conversion, subjugation, or death. Anyone in the second group does not get the choice – death is commanded. The aHadith are very clear on this. In order to be “invited” to convert to Islam, you must first profess a belief in God. Islam was considered to be the completion (or possibly perfection, as the ancient Arabic word could be translated either way) of the Bible. Mohammad thought the Christians and Jews had lost their way and it was his job to bring them back, so to speak. So if you weren’t at least partway on the path, he commanded that you be killed outright.
It;s funny that I’m having an easier time getting through to people on the mainstream science sites where this same discusion is occuring.
Frank,
My one thought on this is that you fell into the trap of confusing Darwinism with evolution. Darwinism requires much more faith and looks a lot like the ‘Great Pumpkin’ as opposed to creationism with an understanding of evolution. Darwin is kind of like the L Ron Hubbard of his time. We know that species adapt, overcome and improvise. That’s living. Where Darwin goes off the charts (and takes evolution with him as a religion) is that he suggests that every stage becomes more useful, therefore develops through natural selection.
At this point I will ask the true believers to pierce their eyeballs with a needle to verify that there is in fact fluid in them, and then ask at what point that fluid was added after to make them an asset…PST after you reproduce in that condition.
Mike
I agree totally with 51Gabe. I studied evolution in school but not for one minute did I doubt that God made us all, by whatever process he chose. It is the religious fervor used by the anti-religious to convince the religious of their anti-religious belief (belief is an odd term for an atheist to use actually) that bothers me about the whole creationism vs. evolution. If a person chooses not to believe in God, a Christian prays for his salvation and a turn around in his life. He is open and listens to theories brought forth by the atheist, even when he doesn’t agree. If an atheist, such as Charles on LGF (or any other rabid atheist) chooses not to believe in God, then everything to do with God is ridiculed, berated and blasphemed, and somehow people that believe are put into the stupid, unintelligent, moron category. If I don’t force you to believe in God, why do you want to shove your disbelief down my throat?
Frank, this was a great writing of yours and I like the way you put everything into perspective. I had to read all the comments by a (thankfully) intelligent group of young people, including the atheists.
LGF has suddenly shown the same mentality as liberals. Believe the way we do or die! I used to read this blog daily but now I go there only to see if the aliens have gone and the investigative guy is back.
“”
And it was hardly all that innovative, Aristotle proposed the idea of survival of the fittest:
“Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been if they had come to be for an end, such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish” -Aristotle
His view of mutation is a bit silly in that it is “organized spontaneously”, but it’s not like he was aware of genetics.
so… are you for or against?
#19 – Swamper,
‘And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; and you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
– Genesis 1:29-30
I always liked this part of the creation story because it seems to me that in the beginning not even plants had to die.
Seeds, fruit, leaves, grass … they all grow back.
As long as the roots and trunk are left alone, the plants aren’t permanently harmed.
I think that’s a nice touch and it connects to the moral lesson that death didn’t enter the world until after man sinned.
It also offers an explaination of why mankind has a universal sense that, “Something’s Not Right About This!”
My beef* with evolution (*in Eden that would be soy-burger) is not with the science but the myth.
“The drama proper is preceded (do not forget the Rheingold here) by the most austere of all preludes; the infinite void and matter endlessly, aimlessly moving to bring forth it knows not what. Then by some millionth, millionth chance – what tragic irony! – the conditions at one point of space and time bubble up into that tiny fermentation which we call organic life. At first everything seems to be against the infant hero of our drama; just as everything always was against the seventh son or ill-used step-daughter in a fairy tale. But life somehow wins through. With incalculable sufferings (the Sorrows of the Volsungs were nothing to it), against all but insuperable obstacles, it spreads, it breeds, it complicates itself; from the amoeba up to the reptile, up to the mammal. Life (here comes our first climax ) ‘wantons as in her prime’. This is the age of monsters: dragons prowl the earth, devour one another, and die.
Then the old irresistible theme of the Younger Son or the Ugly Duckling is repeated. As the weak, tiny spark of life herself began, amidst the beasts that are far larger and stronger than he, there comes forth a little, naked, shivering, cowering biped, shuffling, not yet fully erect, promising nothing: the product of another millionth, millionth chance. His name in this Myth is Man: elsewhere he has been the young Beowulf whom men at first thought a dastard, or the stripling David armed only with a sling against mail-clad Goliath, or Jack the Giant-Killer himself, or even Hop-o’-my-Thumb. He thrives. He begins killing his giants. He becomes the Cave Man with his flints and his club, muttering and growling over his enemies’ bones, almost a brute yet somehow able to invent art, pottery, language, weapons, cookery and nearly everything else (his name in another story is Robinson Crusoe), dragging his screaming mate by her hair (I do not exactly know why), tearing his children to pieces in fierce jealousy until they are old enough to tear him, and cowering before the terrible gods whom he has invented in his own image.
But these were only growing pains. In the next act he has become true Man. He learns to master Nature. Science arises and dissipates the superstitions of his infancy. More and more he becomes the controller of his own fate. Passing hastily over the historical period (In it the upward and onward movement gets in places a little indistinct, but it is a mere nothing by the time-scale we are using) we follow our hero on into the future. See him in the last act, though not the last scene, of this great mystery. A race of demi-gods now rule the planet (in some versions, the galaxy). Eugenics have made certain that only demi-gods will now be born: psychoanalysis that none of them shall lose or smirch his divinity: economics that they shall have to hand all that demi-gods require. Man has ascended his throne. Man has become God. All is a blaze of glory.
And now, mark well the final stroke of mythopoeic genius. It is only the more debased versions of the Myth that end here. For to end here is a little bathetic, even a little vulgar. If we stopped at this point the story would lack the highest grandeur. Therefore, in the best versions, the last scene reverses all. Arthur died: Siegfried died: Roland died at Roncesvaux. Dusk steals darkly over the gods. All this time we have forgotten Mordred, Hagen, Ganilon. All this time Nature, the old enemy who only seemed to be defeated, has been gnawing away, silently, unceasingly, out of the reach of human power. The Sun will cool – all suns will cool – the whole universe will run down. Life (every form of life) will be banished without hope of return from every cubic inch of infinite space. All ends in nothingness. ‘Universal darkness covers all.’ True to the shape of Elizabethan tragedy, the hero has swiftly fallen from the glory to which he slowly climbed: we are dismissed ‘in calm of mind, all passion spent’. It is indeed much better than an Elizabethan tragedy, for it has a more complete finality. It brings us to the end not of a story, but of all possible stories: enden sah ich die welt.
… Let no one say we are an unimaginative age: neither the Greeks nor the Norsemen ever invented a better story.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Funeral of a Great Myth, Christian Reflections.
(I’d wanted to submit this selection before when evolution was discussed but refrained because it was so long; but this post seems dedicated to long comments so I figured, “What the heck!”)
I guess I’ll add the snarky to this discussion.
Let’s say evolution, as defined by the theory, was proven to be absolutely true, factual & all that: so what? What exactly does that do for us? “So we’ll know where we came from.” The same for Creation science/ID.
Big. F**king. Deal. We are undeniably here now (existentialists notwithstanding), so let’s go from there.
I’m more interested in where we’re going, and-
with the quasi-scientific attack on religious faith, the near-total indoctrination of children from the time they can sit in public schools, the ever present demands for tolerance (except for conservatives & Christians), the constant act of using scientific facts only where they dispute a creator, and the threats of lawsuits against anything to that merely suggests Jud./Christ. ideology or ID in schools and court & gov’t buildings,
-I’d say we’re headed someplace in a hand basket.
Unfortunately, certain types of fundies & ID proponents often act the same way toward the Darwiniacs. It’s too easy for some of them to glean certain tested facts about the origins of life while culling other facts that don’t support their claims or that might vindicate the “other side”. They, too, tend to latch onto a couple of supporting arguements & inflate them to seem as though they dwarf all other evidence to the contrary.
I think it’s too bad that it’s become polarized by quasi-science vs. religious pragmatism. That really just gets in the way of going forward. A wise old Jewish dude once said that, “God does not throw dice.”
But even if he did, I’m pretty sure he could rig the game to a favorable outcome.
I agree with this (in the context you wrote it):
But disagree with this:
It’s all to easy to claim randomness when it’s much more likely that we just fail to understand. On the other hand, the total absence of randomness negates free will, something I can’t buy either. If everything is predictable, then how can I truly make a choice?
Interesting post there, 4 of 7. My basis for the belief that there was plant/animal death before the fall comes mainly from this article:
http://godandscience.org/youngearth/millions_years.html
Also, to Frank: A serious discussion on IMAO? The world must be coming to an end!!!!!
Rightjabs, try addressing the issue of Christianity or Evolution from a Christian perspective at any other board, even a conservative one like Hot Air… The other posters will tear you to pieces as an uneducated rube of the highest degree. We have certainly de-evolved here in America!
Swamper-
I thought so, too. But then I became saddened that, of all the debate & dispute over this subject, it was turned into a pissing contest. As it always seems to…whenever these things are brought up.
I need to sleep for a bit. Someone let me know if things have changed either way while I snooze.
If nothing else, people everywhere on the spectrum of this topic may very well learn something new. That’s the way I try to take all this. If I come away from a discussion having said to myself at one point, “Hey… I never heard that before…” be it a logical line of thinking or a substantial new piece of data, I think it was worth while.
But through it all, my main concern is that the Gospel can continue to be preached with the same strength and authority as it has been in decades and centuries past. Enemies of the Gospel have chosen a new weapon to persecute the church, but I, for one, don’t plan on entering this fight unarmed or unprepared.
#69 – Swamper,
Good article. I’ll visit that site again. Thanks!
As to How it all began, what it means, and what I can do about it?
Then Job answered the LORD;
“Behold, I am of small account;
what shall I answer thee?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but I will proceed no further.”
– Job 40:3-5
Good discussion!
I quit LGF long ago for exactly that reason. I don’t think I have missed much.
People of science like to believe they don’t have a religion. Every single human being on this earth has a religion. He does too. His seems to be evolutionary science. The giant gaping holes in it don’t dissuade him. The mathmatical impossibilities of creating something from nothing don’t deter him. When you get down to biological processes genetically speaking evolution requires such vast odds that all the time in the world (heh) couldn’t account for what we observe today. He persists. This is called faith. He has faith in science. That is religion. Yet to him people like me are extremists. He needs a mirror.
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“I remember once for about ten minutes in my Sophomore year in high school my scientific understanding of the world caused me to doubt my religious views…”
You came so close. You almost took your first step into a larger, more fascinating world than you can imagine, but instead you chose provincialism. How sad.
“You are free in our time to say that God does not exist; you are free to say that He exists and is evil; you are free to say (like poor old Renan) that He would like to exist if He could. You may talk of God as a metaphor or mystification; you may water Him down with gallons of long words, or boil Him to the rags of metaphysics; and it is not merely that nobody punishes, but nobody protests.
But if you speak of God as a fact, as a thing like a tiger, as a reason for changing one’s conduct, then the modern world will stop you somehow if it can. We are long past talking about whether an unbeliver should be punished for being irreverent. It is now thought irreverent to be a beliver.”
…
“The whole secret of mysticism is this; that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everthing lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. the mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything becomes lucid. The determinist make the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say “if you please” to the housemaid. the Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health.
As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. … For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed forever in size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.”
– GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Faith and Reason are the shoes on your feet. You’ll get further along with both of them than just one.