Evidence for God from Science

Canuckster1127 wrote:So you determine that he's not a Christian and then claim you're not judging him. You can't have it both ways Adam.

Do you understand our role as witnesses in this world? How are we to decide who to witness to?

How do you choose who to witness to and who not to witness to? I think you're presenting a distorted unbiblical view of judgment. Of course we are to judge rightly. It doesn't mean we have the power of judgment to condemn but we can judge if someone is still lost. The fact is Romans makes it clear that all men are rightly condemned.

Couple that with Jesus charge:

John 20:21-23 wrote:
21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

What does this mean?

I've never felt such a distorted perspective coming from someone I believe is my brother. Bart, could you please share your denominational affiliation with me?

Adam_777 wrote:

Canuckster1127 wrote:So you determine that he's not a Christian and then claim you're not judging him. You can't have it both ways Adam.

Do you understand our role as witnesses in this world? How are we to decide who to witness to?

How do you choose who to witness to and who not to witness to? I think you're presenting a distorted unbiblical view of judgment. Of course we are to judge rightly. It doesn't mean we have the power of judgment to condemn but we can judge if someone is still lost. The fact is Romans makes it clear that all men are rightly condemned.

Couple that with Jesus charge:

John 20:21-23 wrote:
21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

What does this mean?

I've never felt such a distorted perspective coming from someone I believe is my brother. Bart, could you please share your denominational affiliation with me?

Adam,

If you wish to know more about me, I have over 2500 posts on this board including an introduction that gives that information. Feel free to peruse it and then if you wish to weigh in with some more judgments feel free. You might consider giving that information about yourself should you wish, as you have not to this point that I observed

You have yet to provide where Ken Miller denies Christ. Is it because he is a Theistic Evolutionist that you believe he must not be a brother in Christ? Square that with your previous comments.

I am not a theistic evolutionist but I do not believe that those who espouse it are not necessarily Christians. As I'm not making that specific judgment with regard to any individual, I'm not particularly interested in feeding you with more information so you can now continue to attempt to do so with me (assuming of course you're now sticking around after announcing your departure.)

You're the one attempting to claim you're not judging Ken Miller and now you're attempting to justify why you're doing it. There's a lot of cognative dissonance present in your statements.

Which is it? You state Ken Miller is not a brother in Christ based upon comments you attribute to him that you won't quote, or are you indeed judging whether Ken Miller is a Christian or not because he disagrees with you on these issues?

Is it because I disagree with you as well that you'd now like to get some more information so you can turn your "non-judgmental sights on me?"

Regards,

Bart

Adam_777 wrote:That is still there in my own quote! and you're completely grasping at straws because the lie is that Gary Parker said nothing useful (which is also arrogant and wrong because he says many things you should even agree with) and that his accusation was against OEC and it was the usual gibberish that you aren't a Christian which is a total lie, and you know it.

Here is the seminar in dispute if anyone wants to see that byblos is covering up a misrepresentation:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8540143&ei

It's a shame that we can respect and use many of the useful aspects of fellow Christians work, even when they disagree with things we feel strongly as YECs but YECs must be belittled and disregarded as unserious Christians, calling what they say "usual gibberish" maybe you're trying hard to sway an onlookers opinion before they even review the arguments to bolster their presuppositions if they lean in a OEC direction. Oh well, if that's what you have to do to defend a failing theory, so be it.

Hey Adam, guess what, you're absolutely right. An apology is definitely in order. After seeing your initial response to my post I thought I had made 2 separate statement, one about Parker's talk and another about YECers in general. I should have looked back at my post before responding, I didn't and for that I apologize. Looking back at it though, and listening to the link a second time, I stand by my statement. Parker did not offer anything new at all in terms of new evidence for a young earth (a position he clearly espouses). What's more, it is glaringly evident that he thinks if one does not believe in the literal 6 days of creation one is not believing the word of God.

Here are samples of what he said (not quoted verbatim):

- In the first 5 minutes and especially in the 6th minute he describes himself as an evolutionist as well as one who did not believe in God. The clear implication being that evolutionists (including theistic ones) cannot believe in God.

- In the 10th minute he lumps together and seems to ridicule both theistic evolution as well as progressive creation (of which the majority of us here are). He later calls it 'the theistic evolution trap' since after believing in God it seemed to him like 'the easy way out' to believe in either TE or PC. Normally I would've stopped listening right there and then but I didn't. I wanted to see what he truly had to say, which amounted to nothing more than what ID proponents would argue, which is fine but nothing new.

- In the 11th minute he questions violence and death before the fall, the typical YEC argument we've heard a million times and which we simply disagree with.

- In the 13th minute he calls theistic evolution (lumped together with progressive creation) a 'trap', an 'easy way out', a way for him to have the best of both worlds from which he later woke up.


Yes please, I urge every one who professes to be an OECer, especially a theistic evolutionist or a progressive creationist to listen to Parker's sermon and see what you come away with. What I saw was nothing more than more gibberish from YECers doubting our beliefs, looking at us the same way they look at atheists.

I stand by my original post.

Nice diversion though, Adam. Now back to the topics you haven't bothered to address yet.

jlay,

March 20 said

But if you compared the remains of Lucy to a modern Bonobo, the similarities aren't just close, they are nearly mirror images.

I do not believe in human evolution, but Lucy was not a bononbo or its close relative. She was just a bipedal ape. See skeletons.
http://www.boneclones.com/SC-123.htm
http://www.boneclones.com/SC-036-a.htm

Diferent length arms and different pelvis.

I know I am being ignored , but for the rest of those reading.

THis is in response to the

adam wrote:"can't picture anything but a retarded and wasteful god that needs millions and billions of years and millions and billions of dead and dying creatures to get to the point where he can finally say things are very good."

I do find this amazing considering that we know from scripture that God is a God that works in His own time. He waited thousands of years to bring to fruition His work of salvation through His son. He waited years to bring Joseph out ofprison, and used years to bring Rachel to Jacob, and He certainly uses many years for our sanctification. He uses processes like erosion, water cycles, carbon cycles, and countless others when it would seem wiser or better in our eyes to do things quicker. Or out another way, it seems remarkebly short-sigted to bring our frail human conception of wise (or retarded ) and apply this concept to God.

God can and is in HIs own right to take however long He wants and it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on His powers. He coul have used no time, 6 nanoseconds, 6 minutes, 6 days, 6000years, or 20 billion to accomplish HIs goals and this reflects in no way any limitation on HIs power. If it did, then the fact that He took 6 days should have us shaking our heads, after all, an all-powerful God could certainly do things instantaneously.

As it ha always been here and on other OEC sites/beliefs, the basis for believing an old earth isNOT built upon some misguided notion that we think God HAD to do it, but rather that God CHOSE to do it in that length of time.

Anyway,

I would say this statement too is very dangerous.. For it is God who sets the boundaries of the earth/universe. Death is simply another way to deal with over population of the earth. Like pruning a tree, it is actually helpful for the tree to flourish.. You have to break off the older dead branches in order for the new ones to thrive. The world was set (by God) in a constant state of being recycled.. I believe sometime in the future it will not be this way however..

Darwin and Dawkins had a problem with this too. To them it was inconceivable to think that God would allow suffering.. So what they did was replace God with natural selection. A costly mistake...

"can't picture anything but a retarded and wasteful god that needs millions and billions of years and millions and billions of dead and dying creatures to get to the point where he can finally say things are very good."

That quote really sums it up doesn't it? If anyone doesn't believe that God did creation in 6 literal days then they are in effect questioning God's abilities (which I've frankly never believed as a progressive creationist) which is a complete strawman argument. The real point is the reverse. By impllication what is being said is that if you don't believe and accept the YEC position then you are worshipping something other than the God of YEC and are yourself retarded and wasteful in your beliefs.

My question would be, why stop at 6 days of creation? God exists outside of time and so the needed time argument in this regard is meaningless. God could have done it in one day or one second, or one nano-second.

The issue is not the ability of God. The issue is just simply how He did it as a matter of truth and to an extent the implications that that has in terms of the reliability of the Bible.

dayage wrote:jlay,

March 20 said

But if you compared the remains of Lucy to a modern Bonobo, the similarities aren't just close, they are nearly mirror images.

I do not believe in human evolution, but Lucy was not a bononbo or its close relative. She was just a bipedal ape. See skeletons.
http://www.boneclones.com/SC-123.htm
http://www.boneclones.com/SC-036-a.htm

Diferent length arms and different pelvis.

[flash=]What???!!!!!![/flash]
This is the real Lucy skeleton.

The others put in human like fake feet and fake skulls, and the bones were positioned to give it a human look. That is not science my friend. That is imagination. They were doctored to make them look more human. Surely you knew that????

Oh, and if you guys want to start a thread on judging I'll be glad to participate. But I see some attempts to derail, instead of dealing with some real points that have been brought up.
We are TO judge as Christains. That is why Paul and Jesus give us instruction on discipling those who stray from the faith. Warnings to stay away from false teachers. warnings about the Pharisees, and all kinds of warnings to avoid certain folk. How, please tell, is one to do this without making a judgment??? We are warned not to judge hypocritically. When someone plays the "don't judge" card, they have only demonstrated to me an infantile understanding.

Care to site your sources?

And the issue was whether Lucy and the Bonobo skeletons are similar, not whether they added to Lucy. CLearly there are differences, as dayage pointed out.

Just for anyone's edification here

http://www.allianceforscience.org/Lucy/ ... ticle.html

ofr clarification ab out Lucy's reconstruction

Let's remember that Johansen did not set out to find a Bonobo, Guess what he went to find?

Look at the very pictures that Dayage provided



Were there feet and hands with Lucy?
Look at the quote:

We reconstructed this skeleton by using bones from the disarticulated version, which were based on the original find. By extrapolating from several sources, we created brass parts to indicate missing skeletal elements.

Imagination.

Regardless let us not miss the mountain for the mole hill. Bonobos show us that there are apes today that have BIPEDAL characteristics, just as there are one's who don't.

jlay,

Do you believe taking an OEC position or even a theistic evolutionist position strays from the faith or that someone who took such a position would no longer qualify to be called your brother or sister in Christi on the basis of that position?

blessings,

bart

That is a much broader question than you think. First we'd have to define evolution, which depending on who you are talking to has different definitions. Technically I could say I believe in evolution. But I don't believe in Darwinism. So am I a theistic evolutionist? We claim to trust the bible in that God is the creator. Can we understand the creation? No. But many would like to say they truly understand the age of the earth.

There are so many factions and sub factions of what people have reconciled to their personal beliefs. I mean there are likely those who believe YEC who are not saved.

I couldn't and wouldn't say, someone can NOT be saved and believe in theistic evolution or OEC.

I do believe that some branches off those two trees can lead to beliefs that undermine the basics of the creation account. (Particularly anything that includes Darwinism, a religion.) In undermining God's specific creation of man in His image, one undermines the doctrines of sin, God's holiness and ultimately the need for a savior. And if we take too loose a hold on the scriptures, then inevitably falsehoods will creep into our theology. Resulting in humans shaping a God in their own mind to suit themselves, and not THE God as He chose to reveal Himself in the scriptures.

We must not be tossed around like a wave on the sea. Science is always right, until it finds out it is wrong. Theories are amended and discarded. So, we should not manipulate our theology every time the scientific community declares something as fact.

When Lucy was discovered it was proclaimed from the rooftops. This was it. And now, well, it's not it so much. In fact Johanson is reviled by some in the scientific community because of his methods. But that hasn't stopped statues of Lucy that are imagination based from circulating through our museums as "science." I mean we see it right here on this thread.

"technically I could say I believe in evolution"

Care to elaborate?

I would guess accept it as a possibility (as I do), but not as empirical science..