Title: "Best Critique of Evolution You Will Ever Hear" Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Sep 1, 2017 Author:PNN Post Date:2017-09-01 17:33:27 by A K A Stone Keywords:None Views:14463 Comments:71
Have you observed a chicken egg hatching something besides a chicken?
Have you observed an apple tree changing into a new kind of tree.
Have you witnessed any changes in any plant or animal species? Me neither.
No, but neither have I observed a new life form being created out of nothing, and I'm pretty sure no one else has either.
Have you ever been hypnotized and talked to God?
Can one be so certain that when one speaks, God does not listen, or that when thoughts and understanding enter one's mind, it did not originate from God? So maybe I have talked to God. Maybe everyone has.
Exactly what observations are you talking about?
Everything from physical evidence of life and geology on earth and the stars in the sky to interactions with other people. Everything.
Your own beliefs are also based on observations, are they not? You have observed the Bible and the stories it contains, and believe it.
And if someone, after full consideration, honestly concludes that they do not believe the bible could be the literal "Word of God", is it reasonable to believe that God would punish this person in a lake of fire for all eternity
Yes. Because they have rejected the truth.
But they have not rejected honesty. Would not God cherish one's honesty about lack of academic understanding more than the capacity to understand itself?
If a typical parent would not condemn a child to death for being wrong about something, and parents are far inferior in capacity to love and forgive than God, how much less likely is God to condemn one of his kids for "rejecting the truth"? I say infinitely less so.
One's academic understanding of God is surely not what God cares about most.
Why would god take people who can't even say they are sorry for the wrong they did?
Because he's God.
If mere people are virtuous enough to tolerate and accept others in spite of their imperfections, how much more likely is God to do that? Do you believe God is less tolerant and virtuous than people are?
So why doesn't God make everyone into perfect beings and allow them all into heaven? It would actually be more cruel if God were to do this, since many people prefer hell to the alternative (complete submission to God). All the people who end up going to hell will have done so because they actually prefer hell to being forced into the presence of God for all eternity. People like to live in their favorite sins and answer to no one else. They know that if they accept Jesus as Lord and Savior that God will want them to change their lives and they might have to give up some of their autonomy. http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/hell.html
There is, in my opinion, a much better theological model than the one that says we live once and be judged to enter heaven or hell for all eternity, and the qualities of this model are objectively superior to the standard Christian model (though such analysis of objective superiority is not proof it is correct). The model that includes reincarnation has the following benefits/advantages:
1) We are not limited to a single lifetime that determines our eternal fate.
2) An untimely murder or death does not deprive a victim of opportunities to continue to grow spiritually.
3) We have complete free will in the lives we live, including the choice to live at all.
4) Tragic circumstances, such as the loss of a loved one or being born handicapped serves a deeper, positive & pragmatic good.
5) Our life on earth serves a very real, pragmatic and understandable purpose that is for our direct benefit, and not for an obtuse purpose of "glorifying God" or what ever other descriptive terms Christianity would deem.
6) We all grow at our own pace according to our own desire. Those that grow are rewarded with that growth.
7) We are not penalized for growing up and living full lives in alternate cultures that do not teach what happens to be a "correct" theology.
8) Under this model, it's much easier to forgive others, as we see in a different light that all are on their own paths, and how wrongdoers will eventually voluntarily choose to suffer the same harm they have caused others so they can understand and grow into better souls.
Under Christianity, death is a door we pass through only once, after which free will is gone forever and we get either eternal damnation or bliss. The decision to die is often left to other people, whether murderers or normal people that make mistakes. The length of time we have to decide about God can be limited to less than a few years, in the case of children dying. Those born severely handicapped had no choice in the matter. Spiritual growth is not particularly important. It's far easier to take on the mindset that there is "a special place in hell" for those who have caused great harm and hate them.
Under the model I subscribe to, we have an eternity to grow which reflects the virtues of great love and patience that Christianity itself correctly teaches about God. It works sooooooo much better in just about every way, and is much more consistent with a God that is eternally wise, loving & patient, which are all qualities that even Christianity teaches that God possesses.
And one might ask: If God, being God and being all powerful, wise and loving had a choice on how to design the entire spiritual relationship between him and man, would he not choose a design that is more virtuous over another that is less so? Would he not choose a design that does NOT require him to condemn most of his children to hell for all eternity? If it is true that, "With God, all things are possible" is it then possible for God to allow reincarnation?
For me, the well considered answer to these questions is "Yes", and it is consistent with those cases of people who have past life recall.
I will say though that Christianity is not a bad faith at all. While I do see the doctrinal points about sin and judgment to be in error, it is nonetheless a great faith in all it teaches about virtuous living, of loving, forgiving and helping others.
I do understand why it is important for bible-believing Christians that creationism be the explanation for the origin of life
I think that the main reason is that if Genesis is taken as allegory and not as literal fact, then the whole rigidly literalist structure of fundamentalist theology comes crashing to the ground. For if Genesis is allegory, then the Gospels, or Paul's letters, or anything else on which they build their religion may also be allegory, and they lose the ability to insist on the literal application of those things they like that run contrary to sentiments of other Christians.
I think that the main reason is that if Genesis is taken as allegory and not as literal fact, then the whole rigidly literalist structure of fundamentalist theology comes crashing to the ground. For if Genesis is allegory, then the Gospels, or Paul's letters, or anything else on which they build their religion is allegory
I think you lack the perspective of those who know without a doubt that God exists and that he does communicate with believers. God has told us in his word what he wants us to know, he gives us the bare bones, not every detail. Einstein summed it up well; I just want to know the thought of God, everything else is just the details.
Genesis tells us that God was active in creation and specifically had a purpose for man. You can say that is allegory if you want, but don't include Paul and the Apostles in your generalisation. These are people who understood far more than you do because they experienced it, and just maybe you should examine the old testament from the same perspective
I didn't ping you to it but maybe you'd enjoy my favorite new Christian #FakeNews site. It's a hoot. Here's where I posted about it here at LF. Some really funny stuff and not just the low-hanging Pope Frank stuff either.
Loved the Joel Osteen yacht one. Calvinist buddy of mine over at CF posted that one on CF. You would be amazed how many people thought it was real.
My all time fav at the Bee is still the one about a boy became a Calvinist because of vaccines. That one went 3 pages before everyone realized it was fake news.
Loved the Joel Osteen yacht one. Calvinist buddy of mine over at CF posted that one on CF. You would be amazed how many people thought it was real.
I hate to defend him but that is not a good one. Osteen's church was mostly flooded itself and they point out that they were never asked to provide shelter and that their location within the flood would make it very hard to get supplies and people to their mostly-flooded church.
Okay, that's the last time I ever say a word to defend that phony.
I think you lack the perspective of those who know without a doubt that God exists and that he does communicate with believers.
I broke my neck in a lake and was paralyzed and sank to the bottom drowning, alone. God reached down and healed my neck.
Later, God grabbed my face and talked to me.
I have seen the City.
I have had the Holy Dove dive into my face and disappear into my head in an explosion of light to drive off a visible demon that was physically attacking me.
Nobody on this earth has greater certitude of the existence of God than me.
You want to teach me with condescension, but you don't know what you are talking about. You simply believe what other men have told you, and they had no greater direct knowledge of God than I do - probably less.
So, if you want to talk about God, we can. But you just want to tell me what you believe about a book, and I'm not interested in what you believe about a book. I have my own beliefs about that book, and there is not one good reason on earth for ME to substitute MY experience and belief about it for that of anybody who doesn't know God as well as I do.
Now, if you'd like to come up off of your pulpit, way down there in the deep valley, and join me up here on the mountaintop, we can speak as equals. But if you're going to try to speak to me with authority, you are very much mistaken. I have more than you do on this matter.
I hate to defend him but that is not a good one. Osteen's church was mostly flooded itself and they point out that they were never asked to provide shelter and that their location within the flood would make it very hard to get supplies and people to their mostly-flooded church. Okay, that's the last time I ever say a word to defend that phony.
I too defended him at another site, because the facts were in his favor. Soooo...Once I did so I was attacked from both sides. One side telling me "I can take my fake money pastor and shove it." Others saying "you are not a real Pastor Joel believer."
So when you state facts for such a lightning rod as Osteen, expect the haters to hate. :)
You want to teach me with condescension, but you don't know what you are talking about.
...
Now, if you'd like to come up off of your pulpit, way down there in the deep valley, and join me up here on the mountaintop, we can speak as equals. But if you're going to try to speak to me with authority, you are very much mistaken. I have more than you do on this matter.
Honestly, Vicomte, you come off as extremely condescending with this rebuke. I don't doubt the sincerity of your experience or the strength of your conviction. But this is nonetheless quite condescending, and frankly, arrogant. People are allowed to be wrong, even about you, and being wrong does not make one deserving of such a response.
I think that the main reason is that if Genesis is taken as allegory and not as literal fact, then the whole rigidly literalist structure of fundamentalist theology comes crashing to the ground. For if Genesis is allegory, then the Gospels, or Paul's letters, or anything else on which they build their religion may also be allegory, and they lose the ability to insist on the literal application of those things they like that run contrary to sentiments of other Christians.
Key words, "may be".
Certainly it's easier, mentally, to be able to embrace the bible as the literal "Word of God" than it is to subject it to scrutiny in which parts of it should be taken allegorically and which parts literally. That does open up a possible pandora's box of context, understanding of the day, the history and experience of the individual authors and so on. I think someone told me once that taking the bible as 100% divinely inspired is warranted because it's essentially the only road map we have, and with the element of faith that God most certainly would not have left mankind ignorant without some book that shows the way to salvation. Ergo, the bible must be the word of God.
Certainly it's easier, mentally, to be able to embrace the bible as the literal "Word of God" than it is to subject it to scrutiny in which parts of it should be taken allegorically and which parts literally. That does open up a possible pandora's box of context, understanding of the day, the history and experience of the individual authors and so on.
The Catholic Church chooses to do it the harder, more intellectually rigorous way, which requires scholarship and historical knowledge, as opposed to feelings and simple (and erroneous) shortcuts. The problem with the easy way is that then the Bible collapses into a welter of contradictions and other problems, such as "What's in the Bible". Each of those decisions then has to be made by short-cut (to defend the whole original logic), and it all then collapses into a "You just gotta BELIEEEVE" argument, asserting that one has to believe in what the critical eye observes is essentially unbelievable BECAUSE OF the contradictions. Which is why the Catholic approach, which is a lot harder, is nevertheless what you have to do if you want to arrive at a theology that is internally consistent and can stand up to the obvious problems with the text. Pretending the problems are not there doesn't do anything but alienate thinking people and render the whole thing unbelievable.
Honestly, Vicomte, you come off as extremely condescending with this rebuke. I don't doubt the sincerity of your experience or the strength of your conviction. But this is nonetheless quite condescending, and frankly, arrogant. People are allowed to be wrong, even about you, and being wrong does not make one deserving of such a response.
Did you read the condescension in the original message to which I was responding?
I was spoken to with condescension. I replied in kind, but more effectively.
It was this: "I think you lack the perspective of those who know without a doubt that God exists and that he does communicate with believers."
My response demonstrated my perspective, and why I do indeed know - WITHOUT A DOUBT - that God exists, and that he communicates with believers. He also communicates with unbelievers, and that can make believers out of them.
I expressed that clearly and sharply - as a rebuke to a condescending statement.
Also we only reproduce after like kind. For example bananas never turn into people.
The absence of evidence is not evidence.
A horse and a donkey produce neither a horse nor a donkey, but a mule or a hinny.
Centuries of inbreeding produce... uhhh... royalty.
I can neither prove the Theory of Evolution absolutely correct or incorrect based on scientific evidence. Nature offers oddities such as dolphins and whales being mammals.
The Catholic Church chooses to do it the harder, more intellectually rigorous way, which requires scholarship and historical knowledge, as opposed to feelings and simple (and erroneous) shortcuts.
In the middle ages I think it was heresy for laypeople to read the bible for that exact reason.
The problem with the easy way is that then the Bible collapses into a welter of contradictions and other problems, such as "What's in the Bible".
Without a doubt, bible-believing fundamentalists would contest this, saying there are no contradictions. One I remember is whether Jesus, at the last supper, served bread before wine or vice versa. The gospels are not consistent on that point. But... maybe he served wine or bread twice.
The Catholic Church chooses to do it the harder, more intellectually rigorous way, which requires scholarship and historical knowledge, as opposed to feelings and simple (and erroneous) shortcuts
Yet Jesus did the opposite and chose ordinary people. It is the spirit that reveals not some foolish Catholic usurper.
The Catholics teach evolution contrary to scripture. But you already sussed out of that on another thread. When I get back on a regular keyboard I'm planing on blasting you for it. 😁
Contradictions. Is that the shit they teach in the Catholic cult. Trust the shithead popes who have a history of murder and covering up for pedophiles. No thanks. The Bible that you dont believe says you shall know them bh their fruits. The catholic church has some stinky rotten fruit.
Did you read the condescension in the original message to which I was responding?
I did, and it was noted prior to my reply.
I was spoken to with condescension. I replied in kind, but more effectively.
My response demonstrated my perspective, and why I do indeed know - WITHOUT A DOUBT - that God exists, and that he communicates with believers. He also communicates with unbelievers, and that can make believers out of them.
I expressed that clearly and sharply - as a rebuke to a condescending statement.
Well, the bit about telling him to come down from his pulpit and joining you on the mountain top certainly struck me as coming from a much bigger pulpit that his post was. You called it "in-kind, but more effectively". Seems to me it was about 5x louder in volume.
By my playbook, responding "in-kind" in such situations is inferior to more graceful and constructive responses which serve well enough, by their very nature, to demonstrate one's true altitude on said mountain. hehe...
But I pass no judgment on either of you. Carry on as you see fit. I'll say no more.
Wouldn't the observation that we only see creating like things be evidence that things don't change into an entirely new creature, plant etc.
Short answer, no, it would not.
#1) Evolution doesn't teach that a newly evolved creature is "entirely new", but rather carries a strong majority of the characteristics of it's parents. It would be very similar to the species from which it descended, but somewhat different. For example, evolution does not teach that an ostrich can lay an egg from which a squid could hatch.
#2) But more to the point, in order to show that evolution can't happen by observing a lack of cases where offspring qualify as a new species, one would need to qualify what percentage of reproductions are expected to be a new species in nature, and then apply sound math statistics to show that it is mathematically improbably for evolution to be true. For example, if evolution should occur in 1 out of 20,000 reproductions and 500,000 were observed with no new species generated, then one could possibly argue that THAT is mathematical evidence that evolution does not occur, at least at a rate of 1/20,000.
But even then, it's possible that environmental factors could play a role that, by some un-theorized or unknown mechanism, increases the odds of evolution occurring.
Wouldn't the observation that we only see creating like things be evidence that things don't change into an entirely new creature, plant etc.
Couldn't Let there be light, etc.... be an entirely apt description of the Big Bang? There was no perceived light... and then there was. How would an advanced or superior being have described the Big Bang thousands of years ago?
The lack of a complete fossil record is not proof that evolution is wrong. That is why is is called a theory. It is but an attempt to explain available observed phenonema.
We cannot observe higher creatures evolving as the process is so very gradual that it is not perceivable in a lifetime. Einstein showed that time itself is relative and all do not experience it the same. There is even the vexxing question, what is time? How is time experienced in the additional dimensions put forward by Einstein (space-time) and quantum physics.
It is an oddity that a donkey and a horse produce a mule (or a hinny).
A horse has 64 chromosomes. A donkey has 62. A mule has 63. They are definitely distinct creatures.
Normally, mules are incapable of breeding. The problem is that Mother Nature generally requires an even number of chromosomes for pairing. And yet, there are recorded, yet rare, cases of mules giving birth.
Mule’s foal fools genetics with “impossible” birth
By Nancy Lofholm | The Denver Post PUBLISHED: July 25, 2007 at 3:12 pm UPDATED: June 22, 2016 at 1:58 pm
[excerpt]
Ryder said that tests in the Nebraska case showed there was no evidence the mother passed along any genetic markers from her father – a donkey that was also the father of the foals. The phenomenon is called “hemiclonal transmission,” which in simple terms means that the mare’s genes canceled out the male’s genes as if they didn’t even exist.
That phenomenon has been observed in amphibians but not in mammals.
“No recombinations took place. There was no reassortment. We looked at markers on every chromosome,” Ryder said. “This was an extremely unexpected finding.”
And the Lutheran Church burnt 50,000 people as "witches" in Germany during Luther's period of rule. Also slaughtered Anabaptist peasants in great numbers.
And the Presbyterian Church burnt 20,000 people as "witches" in Scotland during the same period. Also slaughtered tens of thousands of Irish peasants to take their land.
And the Church of England executed convents and religious people and lay people who would not agree that the King of England was the head of the Church, presided over centuries in which Catholics were deprived of all civil rights, and unleashed armies into Ireland to kill the Irish for being Catholics.
And the Baptist Church upheld slavery and segregation, because blacks wore the "Mark of Cain" and bore the "Curse of Ham".
None are clean. None are without terrible sin. Not one.
Except maybe the Quakers. If we all agree that our historical churches did great evil - because they ALL did, every single one except the Quakers - and then, for that reason, we all agree to abandon the historical churches and join the Quakers, that is an acceptable solution for shutting down all of the old churches for all of their old evils. None is clean. All are killers - except the Quakers.
So, if the standard of judgment is "Your church once killed people and therefore is invalid", the entirety of Christianity that predates the late 20th Century is invalid, except for the Quakers.
You will know them by their fruit? Then we should all be Quakers, as they have no bad fruit.
Amid the evil, the Catholics do have the virtue of having the largest global network of charity, orphanages, schools, hospitals and irrigration projects of any religion, and larger on an international scale than any national government either. So on those grounds, charity in the present, we can see a lot of fruit in the Catholic Church. More than the Quakers, who have fine words and clean hands, but no ability to structure actual human organizations that provide relief for people on a permanent basis. Quakers are clean, and had a good run in the anti- slavery and women's suffrage movement. But today they are largely inert.
Catholicism is not clean historically, as people are not individually, but it has admitted to and repented of those sins of the past, and does great charity work today.
The Lutheran Church, Anglican Church, Presbyterian Church and Baptist Church still do not own up to the sins of their church pasts. They excuse it by "the times" as opposed to frankly admitting, as the Catholics do, those were sins and great evils done by my Church. We were wrong. And then today building vast charitable networks across the poor areas of the world, foreign and domestic. The Catholic Church formally acknowledges its historical sins, and seeks to make amends for them in the present.
Which of the Catholic enemies does that?
They don't. They don't confess their institutional sins. They still point at the Catholics and say "they were worse", but it isn't true. In the period where the Presbyterians burnt 20,000 people alive as "witches" in Scotland, precisely zero people were burnt as witches in Catholic Ireland. While Lutheran Germany was burning witches everywhere, Catholic Germany burnt none. The Catholics had gotten over that centuries before.
We certainly can talk about the sins of the Catholic Church. There were many. They are acknowledged and repented. Let's also talk about the murders and tortures and horrors perpetrated by all of the old Protestant Churches as well. We Catholics talk about sins of our Church, and you Protestants talk about the sins of our Church too. You don't admit to the sins of your own.
What are sinners to do? Repent and do better. Catholicism has done that. Protestantism has never formally and publicly repented its sins.
Yet Jesus did the opposite and chose ordinary people.
And he taught them with spoken words, and made apostles and disciples and gave them authority to go speak words. And he never wrote a word - not one single word. He left nothing written. He left no Bible. He left a church, of men, speaking what he spoke, and carrying out a simple ritual he taught them.
You worship a book. Jesus left a Church, not a Bible dispensary. You are an idolator.
You want to teach me with condescension, but you don't know what you are talking about. You simply believe what other men have told you, and they had no greater direct knowledge of God than I do - probably less.
You don't post as one who knows God personally so you want to know what I know, read my book Revival ~ a different perspective. I speak from personal experience and perspective, not from what men have told me
As to authority, let us study the Scriptures together and ask God to put it in perspective for us
As to authority, let us study the Scriptures together and ask God to put it in perspective for us
The Scriptures are not the supreme authority. God is.
Somebody who has talked to God would know that instinctively.
I will study the Scriptures with you, if you want to, but there is no point in doing so if the pretense is going to be that the Scriptures are God. They are not. Certain of the Scriptures record the specific things that God said. THOSE are the authoritative parts of Scripture.
So, if we're going to study the Scriptures, let's cut to the chase and go specifically to the words spoken forth out of the mouth of God.
We can further telescope down to the essence of it all by noting that God said from Heaven, for everybody to hear: "This is my beloved son, listen to HIM." And he then said "Follow ME. I am the way and the truth and the light..."
So we needn't muck around with the parts of Scripture that are not spoken by God, and thanks to God's succinct command, we need only really focus on what Jesus said. He is the designated leader.
Truth is, if a theological position cannot be demonstrated by quoting Jesus directly, it's not worth bothering with. You can believe it if you want to, but I'm not interested.
We can fruitfully study the Scriptures together if we focus on Jesus. I'll do that. Anything else is a waste of time.
