Question for those who are of religious faith....

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If you take a literal view of Scripture, you're missing out. There is so much more depth and meaning when you accept the passages as the allegory they are. Taken as literal history, the Bible really is just pretty boring and meaningless. But looking at it as allegory and looking for the deeper meaning, Scripture has many profound lessons to teach us.

The observation of Sabbath doesn't imply a literal interpretation of Genesis. Observing the Sabbath is even mandated in the 10 Commandments (dangit, I've broken that one... and a few others). The Sabbath is supposed to be for us to rest and restore ourselves, and to take some time to center ourselves and reaffirm our purpose in life. This is a very useful ritual regardless of how life developed on Earth, and even regardless of one's faith.

I believe in God and that He caused the big bang and guided the creation of the universe and set all the necessary circumstances for life to exist on earth. As for what happened after the earth formed from a ball of dust and after life first formed, I haven't reached any conclusions yet.

I accept the old universe theory because we know how nuclear fusion and we can calculate the mass of stars and determine how long it would take nuclear fusion to burn up all the star's fuel. We can use telescopes to see galaxies that are millions and billions of light years away. However, I question the reliability of radiocarbon dating on objects older than about 3,000 years (I didn't say I don't believe in it at all), I doubt archaeologists can determine what species Lucy and Ardi are from a few bone fragments and I question their peer review methods. Most of what I would think of evolution (God could have used it to create life on earth) and some of what I think about geology depends on the story of Noah and the ark, and all the different cultures' flood myths dating from roughly the same time period.

Time is always screwy in the bible. Matthew says that 1000 years is as one day.

That's what I've noticed as well.

X_Parasite says that evolution is inevitable when and where there is natural selection and mutation.
You have ignored the original conclusion and are treating the premiss as if it were the conclusion.
Some would call this a defense against a man of straw.

I fail to see how this changes my conclusion, which is that there is room to see the hand of God in the process. I know that some feel the process itself precludes the possibility of a God, but I have never read anything in those arguments that I feel supports such a conclusion. There are still points where personal interpretation and belief enter in, and there probably always will be, IMO, regardless of how far science advances. You basically can't disprove something that is taken on faith, and the existance of God is taken on faith by those who believe in it. Which leaves me with the job of putting the pieces together. All I was trying to answer was as to how I put the pieces together. Have I dealt deep into the science to where I can say I am an expert on evolution? No, I have not. I put the pieces together years ago when I was studying science, and I haven't re-visited it much since, except to try to understand the position of creation scientists and to realize that I don't think their science is in the least bit sound (it reached a point I needed to understand where they were coming from because I was confronting it in every day life). Um, yeah, that is my way of saying I can't debate these points in any further detail than I already have, and I don't see a point in boning up enough to do so; I have other priorities in life. I've answered the question that was asked in the first post.

It does not.

1.} God created the world using scientific methods, therefor making God the Original Scientist.

2.} I accept evolution.

3.} N/A

4.} I am perplexed.

100% paradigm and perception - both ways. Theists get that, non-material absolute atheists get that, material absolute atheists though - not so much. Kind of makes the later a special class in the sense that if you utter the words 'epistemic problem' you can hear a pin drop.

i consider myself an unorthodox christian in the sense that i believe in god, but see how people could doubt the creationism theory, as there are a lot of holes in it.

That's how I feel as well.

That's not at all unorthodox. The majority of Christians accept evolution. Even the Catholic Church accepts evolution.

I am a full-on creationist Christian. You can't conduct operational science on the past, but you can make educated guesses. However, these educated guesses are always based on axioms (assumptions). This is not a bad thing - all interaction with science is based off some level of assumption. It comes off as if you believe creationism has been scientifically disproven, I think some specific examples of areas of study might help. I am not of course implying that I have heard no argument - in fact I don't know many other Christians that seek new arguments against creationism as enthusiastically as me.



If you don't believe that your understanding of the world is based off of some form of faith, you're kidding yourself. The faith of the majority of modern scientists is materialism/naturalism - that's just how we've been taught. A repercussion of this is that any form of spiritual interaction is rejected as a possible answer before investigation (doesn't sound very scientific in my opinion, do you disaggree?). As a result, people (including Christians, sadly) are separating science and religion.

Firstly, it is vital that we understand what evolution means on the same terms. I believe in variation within a kind, natural selection, and mutation. I also believe, however, that these elements work against evolution (ie. a generational mechanism that turns microbes into monkeys, ie. creates genetic information). All observed mutations destroy genetic information, natural selection is a destructive process removing unfit individuals, and variation withing a kind attests to a high level of pre-existing genetic information. One of the most basic observable natural laws is that everything becomes less complex over time, unless aided by intelligence and purpose. Evolutionists must deny this. All findings in regards to information theory must be denied.

Even so, there must have been a time before life existed, no mechanisms, nothing to 'climb mount improbable'. A living, self-replicating, viable life-form, which requires a high amount of specific genetic information to exist, would have had to spontaneously assemble unguided, and that is, to put bluntly, just stupid. This is what skeptics of evolution talk about when they say chemical evolution is "improbable". Improbable doesn't even begin to cover it. I suspect this is why the multiple universe theory was devised without any basis in operational science whatsoever, to increase the odds of this happening. Because having just one massive universe ain't doing it for me I'm afraid.

Another point to make: we are either designed or not designed. It has to be one of these. If one is impossible, it has to be the other. I believe evolution, by the common usage of the word, to be impossible. Not just improbable, I mean straight up impossible. I also believe the God of Judaism/Christianity to be the most likely designer, and this is a slightly different issue, at the moment I'd quite like to stick to the broad topic of creation/evolution.


I am with you on this one thing: Theistic evolution is NOT a tenable position, at least if you believe in the God of the Bible. I'm not a wooden literalist, but any honest historian that has studied Genesis and understands the language used will tell you that when the Bible says 7 days, it means 7 days, in a sequential manner indicative of historical (straight-forward) narrative. If you accept its given meaning, but disagree with it, you either don't believe God undertook the task of getting it written, or you believe God is lying, even with foreknowledge that we would find out that he was lying.
One thing to add to that: Someone brought up the quote "a day is as a thousand years". If the word for day (the same word used at the start of Genesis) meant "a thousand years" , then this quote would read "a thousand years is as a thousand years". A little redundant, wouldn't you say?

An argument to the nature of God, if you really believe him to be loving: Can anyone think of a more horrible, inefficient, roundabout way to create someone, that evolution? Especially if you're omnipotent! Meaning you had the ability to do it instantaneously, without millions of years of death and suffering, but didn't, and then called it "very good"?


Anyone interested in the issues I've raised, I highly reccommend this creationist scientist-run website. I don't agree with everything they say (they tend to be a bit right-wing at some points) but none of my objections are to their science or logic; they seem to have a high level of academic integrity (unlike some creation science organizations, *sigh*). If you have problems with my arguments, I'm certain they'll cover them in much greater detail, as well as any other objections to the validity of Genesis. Again, highly recommend this site, especially if you disaggree with it.

We can, however, observe the principles of evolution occurring in real time.


Agreed.


Spiritual interaction is not testable or repeatable. The goal of science is to understand the natural world through natural methods. The issue only comes in when people believe science is the be-all-end-all of knowledge.


This is simply a false statement, though its quite popular among creationists. Mutations quite frequently create genetic information by duplicating a segment of DNA. The duplicated piece or the original may mutate, leaving you now with two different versions. DNA can shuffle itself around like a deck of cards. Transposable elements can have dramatic effects in increasing genetic information, and a mutation can cause introns and exons can be switched, creating entirely new proteins from the same genetic information (proteins, the end result, are probably the most important thing to think of).


Natural selection is indeed a destructive process- it takes the rich variation generated by mutation (and chromosome reshuffling in sexual reproduction) and culls the unworkable combinations.


I may be misinterpreting you, but this seems to me like a strange attempt at restating the common entropy argument. That argument has been demonstrated to be of no merit.


This actually falls entirely outside the scope of evolution. Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life, just its diversification and proliferation. Even so, some scientists have developed plausible ideas on how life might first have developed. Remember that the first life form needn't have arisen all at once, as creationists like to claim, and that it would have been vastly less complicated than almost any modern life form.


Improbable? Your existence is incredibly improbable. So is mine. That both of us would exist simultaneously borders on being statistically impossible. And yet here we are.


The point of the quote was that God does not operate on human timescales, and it's futile to try to constrain Him to such.


I'll take a look. It can't possibly be worse than places like the Discovery Institute.

Whoops, yeah sorry about that one (I was rushing through a bit I guess), there are certainly transpositions, as you said. I'd like a few specific examples of the creation of new proteins if ya don't mind, I'll definitely check them out, see what is happening to the DNA in each instance. I don't believe that the hardware of the organism applies here as much as the software, in terms of the information theory argument.




Demonstrated to be of no merit where? Articles please?



"Vastly less complicated than almost any form of modern life" is still vastly complicated. Yes, here we enter the grounds of chemical evolution. The absolute minimum amount of genetic information the first form of life would require in order to live and reproduce is still enormous:
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Mullan_Prim ... 112302.pdf
All possible theories are bound by these limitations.


I aggree. That was my point, that message is lost when the word for "day" is translated as "a thousand years" (as people attempt to in the first passages of Genesis) and the words for "a thousand years" are also translated as "a thousand years". My point was that it is not appropriate to pick and choose when "day" means "day" and when it doesn't, in this context.

To me, this is very narrow thinking. There is always something beyond, "you're with me or you're against me," and how to read Genesis falls, to me, in between what you've stated. People who think like you definitely get the most air time, and yet people who think like me out number you. Obviously you enjoy the debate on it, so I'm not going to get into with you, but the times I've studied creation science I've found it be very contorted. My heart tells that God doesn't mean for me to believe in it. Perhaps He does mean for you to; I don't claim to understand the "why" of the varied paths He seems to send his followers on, just that He does, at times, send people of good hearts who all follow Him out in what look to us like opposite directions. So I'll stay with mine and leave you to yours But I think mine has a better chance of crossing bridges with the OP.