Does Charles Darwin approve of “Answers in Genesis”?

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Yehren

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Show me in the Bible where God said that the universe was created ex nihilo (out of nothing).

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.

And show me where God said that "everything else was created naturally,

Most everything else. Not everything else. Our souls, for example were not created naturally.

Life,however, was. God says life was brought forth by previously-created matter.

Genesis 1:24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done.

So, you believe that God made the "goo"--that primordial pool of amino acids that swirled and began to evolve....

It was more basic than that. The earth itself brought forth living things, He tells us. I believe Him. You should, too.

AND SOMEHOW, order NATURALLY resulted from disorder/chaos

There is order in chaos, but in this case, God created the earth to bring forth life as He intended. Creationists apparently think that's beyond God's capabilities, but the Bible says that's what happened. I believe Him.


over a period of millions and millions and millions of years???

So the evidence shows. He didn't say how long; doesn't seem to have mattered to His message to us.

Why not just believe what the Bible says--that the earth brought forth animals? And according to Jesus God has no body. We are like God in knowing good and evil. The likeness is in our minds and souls.
 

Prayer Warrior

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@Yehren You said that "the universe was created ex nihilo" (out of nothing).

Genesis 1:1 doesn't say that God created the universe out of nothing. To the contrary, the Bible says this:

Hebrews 11:3 (HCSB)-- By faith we understand that the universe was created by God’s command, so that what is seen has been made from things that are not visible.

Heb 11:3 (KJV)-- Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

IOW, God created what we see (that which is natural, material) from things that we cannot see, things not visible. "Things that are not visible" are not "nothing." We don't know what God used to create the universe because He doesn't tell us. I believe this verse is saying that God created the material universe out of things that are not material.

Most everything else. Not everything else. Our souls, for example were not created naturally.

Life,however, was. God says life was brought forth by previously-created matter.

Genesis 1:24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done.
You believe that life was brought forth by previously-created matter? You only quoted a small portion of the Genesis Creation account. I quoted an entire section that says that God created every living creature. I'll quote it again for you in case you didn't read my post.

Genesis 1:20-28 (KJV)
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

It was more basic than that. The earth itself brought forth living things, He tells us. I believe Him. You should, too.

But that's not all God said! See the verse above!

There is order in chaos, but in this case, God created the earth to bring forth life as He intended. Creationists apparently think that's beyond God's capabilities, but the Bible says that's what happened. I believe Him.

Not so fast. You changed what I asked, so I'll ask you again.

Are you saying that order naturally results from chaos?? Even in light of the first two laws of thermodynamics?

  • The first law, also known as Law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system.
  • The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of any isolated system always increases.
"As far as we know, all changes are in the direction of increasing entropy, of increasing disorder, of increasing randomness, of running down." —*Isaac Asimov, "Can Decreasing Entropy Exist in the Universe?" in Science Digest, May 1973, p. 78.

"Clausius pointed out that, in any process involving a flow of energy, there is always some loss, so that the entropy of the universe is continually increasing. This continual increase of entropy is the second law of thermodynamics, sometimes referred to as the 'running-down of the universe' or the 'heat-death of the universe.’" —*Isaac Asimov, Asimov's New Guide to Science, (1920), p. 399.

So the evidence shows. He didn't say how long; doesn't seem to have mattered to His message to us.
Lol, this is one thing God SPECIFICALLY tells us!

Gen 2:1-3-- So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. By the seventh day God completed His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it He rested from His work of creation.

Why not just believe what the Bible says--that the earth brought forth animals? And according to Jesus God has no body. We are like God in knowing good and evil. The likeness is in our minds and souls.
I'm the one who takes God at His Word and believes the Bible. Where scientists offer contradictory explanations, I believe the Bible because I know that God is omniscient and omnipotent and tells it like it is. God is not a man that He should lie!
 
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Yehren

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IOW, God created what we see (that which is natural, material) from things that we cannot see, things not visible. "Things that are not visible" are not "nothing." We don't know what God used to create the universe because He doesn't tell us. I believe this verse is saying that God created the material universe out of things that are not material.

I get that you believe it. But God created Heaven and Earth. In Hebrew, an idiomatic expression for all things.

You believe that life was brought forth by previously-created matter?

God says so.

Genesis 1:20-28 (KJV)
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

All of that is previously-created matter.

There is order in chaos, but in this case, God created the earth to bring forth life as He intended. Creationists apparently think that's beyond God's capabilities, but the Bible says that's what happened. I believe Him.

Not so fast. You changed what I asked, so I'll ask you again.

No. You've just misunderstood what order and chaos are. I'll show you.

Are you saying that order naturally results from chaos??

Yep. I actually stumbled across this fact myself, in graduate school, working on simulations based on the Lotke-Volterra prey/predator model. Turns out there is indeed order in chaotic systems.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the mid-1970s, Dr. Feigenbaum, using a programmable calculator, found what seemed at first a mathematical curiosity. A simple equation generated a sequence of numbers, which were initially trivial: the same number over and over. But as a parameter in the equation shifted, the output became more varied. First the numbers bounced back and forth between two values, then they cycled among four values, then eight, and so on, with the rate of the change quickening until the patterns lost all hint of repeating cycles.


The dynamics had, in the terminology of physics, passed into the realm of deterministic chaos. That is, each number of the sequence could be computed precisely, but the resulting pattern appeared to be complex and random.


Dr. Feigenbaum looked at another simple equation, and it exhibited the same behavior, known as period doubling. More startling, the number that characterized the rate of doubling was the same: As the periods multiplied, each doubling occurred about 4.669 times as quickly as the previous one.


This number is now known as the Feigenbaum constant. Dr. Feigenbaum was able to prove why it is a universal mathematical value, much as pi — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — is the same for all circles.


“There aren’t too many fundamental constants,” said Kenneth Brecher, an emeritus professor of astronomy at Boston University, who met Dr. Feigenbaum when both were graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “And he was the only living person that had one.”

Mitchell Feigenbaum, Physicist Who Made Sense of Chaos, Dies at 74

I noticed the issue about the same time, but not having the mathematical interest, didn't pay much attention to it. Turns out,it's a big deal.

Even in light of the first two laws of thermodynamics?

Yep. Especially in light of thermodynamics. Let me ask you, is there more entropy in liquid water or in ice? Which one has more order? Which one has less entropy?

"Clausius pointed out that, in any process involving a flow of energy, there is always some loss, so that the entropy of the universe is continually increasing. This continual increase of entropy is the second law of thermodynamics, sometimes referred to as the 'running-down of the universe' or the 'heat-death of the universe.’"

It appears that the net energy of the Universe is zero. So that would make some sense. Unless we don't know everything about the universe. Hint: Energy is never created, nor is it ever destroyed.
 

Yehren

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Lol, this is one thing God SPECIFICALLY tells us!

No. The text itself shows us that the "days" are not literal ones, since it's absurd to imagine mornings and evenings with no sun to have them.
 

Prayer Warrior

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But God created Heaven and Earth. In Hebrew, an idiomatic expression for all things.
What? Is Gen. 2:7 an idiomatic expression? No, clearly man did not naturally "come forth from the earth," or evolve. God fashioned him and then fashioned the woman from the man's rib....

Genesis 2:7--Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

All of that is previously-created matter.

Hmm, it doesn't say previously-created matter. You're reading this into the scriptures to fit your evolutionist bias. No surprise there!

No. You've just misunderstood what order and chaos are. I'll show you.
I'm a mom. I think I understand what order and chaos are! :D

Seriously, this is not rocket science. When we observe nature, we do NOT see order NATURALLY coming from chaos or disorder. Back to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Are you saying that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is invalid??

God can bring order out of chaos SUPERNATURALLY. And man can intervene to bring order where there is disorder. Just ask any housewife.

Yep. I actually stumbled across this fact myself, in graduate school, working on simulations based on the Lotke-Volterra prey/predator model. Turns out there is indeed order in chaotic systems.

Here again, you're sidestepping the issue, which is not whether order can exist in chaos. The issue is can entropy in an isolated system ever decrease NATURALLY. No, it cannot.
.
 

Yehren

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What? Is Gen. 2:7 an idiomatic expression? No, clearly man did not naturally "come forth from the earth,"


God says that life was brought forth by the earth. I believe Him. Man is unique in that he also was from the earth but God also directly gave him a living soul.


Hmm, it doesn't say previously-created matter.

It does. It specifically says God created the earth, and only later was life brought forth from that previously-created material.

You're ignoring the scriptures to fit your creationist bias. No surprise there.

No. You've just misunderstood what order and chaos are. I'll show you.

(How order emerges

from chaos)
Mitchell Feigenbaum, Physicist Who Made Sense of Chaos, Dies at 74

I think I understand what order and chaos are!

Apparently not. See the link.

Seriously, this is not rocket science.

It's a bit more complex than rocket science. Feigenbaum opened an entirely new dimension of complexity and useful approaches to previously-intractable problems:

Chaos Theory reversed the narrow specialization trend by looking at phenomena rather than components. It sought to understand emergent behavior, which meant studying systems rather than particles.

So, in a manner of speaking, Chaos Theory “saved” science from itself by reversing the relentless trend of reductionism, which had all but exhausted itself, and moved in the opposite direction towards holism.

Rather than take things apart, Chaos Theory focused on putting things together, and in so doing, found whole new worlds to explore.
...
Feigenbaum also found time to make real breakthroughs in the field. One of his major contributions to Chaos Theory was the discovery of the Feigenbaum Constant, an exceedingly strange number with infinite decimal places that rounds to roughly 4.6692.

The Feigenbaum Constant has useful applications across biology, physics, chemistry, and meteorology in respect to fluidity and flow measures. Like Chaos Theory itself, fluidity and flow are “go everywhere” type concepts. The Feigenbaum Constant acted as a bridge by which the disciplines could talk to each other.
...
Chaos Theory itself, along with its sibling discipline of Complexity Science, has contributed greatly to a more realistic understanding of how markets work. Chaotic behavior within a system shows us why we need to have respect for the inherent risk in markets, and why market forces, like the ocean, cannot be controlled or tamed.

Yet at the same time, the presence of surprising universal truths — like the usefulness of Feigenbaum’s Constant across disciplines — shows how patterns exist within chaos that can be detected and exploited.
A Curious Father of Chaos Theory | Tradestops

Here again, you're sidestepping the issue, which is not whether order can exist in chaos.

You thought not. I'm just showing you that the universe can produce order out of chaos. God created it that way. It is a problem for creationism,but that's not God's problem.


The issue is can entropy in an isolated system ever decrease NATURALLY. No, it cannot.

Fortunately, the Earth is not an isolated system,so plants can grow from seeds, weather can continue to be, and evolution happens constantly around us.



 

Yehren

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@Yehren Surely you understand that the wrong opinions of creationists don't change the facts of how God CREATED all that exists.

Right. So when God tells us that previously-created things brought forth life, we know that it was done using nature, which is His creation.

How many evolutionists have held the erroneous idea that blacks are less highly-evolved human animals???

Many fewer than creationists who believed God created black people to be inferior to whites. Even Darwin argued that if you took "primitive people" to England, in a few generations,they'd be exactly like Englishmen. This infuriated many creationists, but of course, Darwin was correct. He attributed inferiority to environment, not some innate qualities in different humans.

I haven't had time to research this, but I have no doubt that there have been quite a few since evolution was accepted as science. This is the very definition of racism--the belief that lighter-skinned people are superior to darker-skinned people....

You'd have a hard time finding a racist evolutionist today, because evolutionary theory shows that there are no biological human races. But even into the 1990s, creationists like ICR founder Henry Morris were claiming that blacks were intellectually and spiritually inferior to other people, because of their innate characteristics. This is one of the main differences between creationism and science.

The Bible certainly doesn't teach this, and I don't buy into it.

Most creationists have now rejected that idea, just as most of them now accept speciation and even a limited amount of common descent.

And really, how God created the universe is the main issue. What do you believe about this specifically?

That was the miracle, wasn't it? God created nature ex nihilo, and made it to work according to His will, from which everything else appeared. And that is the part that science can't get. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan explains that the Witch knows the magic from the beginning, but she has no idea of the deep magic just before the beginning. Science is like that. It can comprehend nature, but not how nature began.
 

Yehren

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What? Is Gen. 2:7 an idiomatic expression? No, clearly man did not naturally "come forth from the earth," or evolve. God fashioned him and then fashioned the woman from the man's rib....

Genesis 2:7--Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.[
/QUOTE]

We know this is a figurative parable, not a literal account. If God had done this, Eve would have been male, with Y chromosomes.
 

Truman

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Hi. I read somewhere that Darwin renounced his theory and turned to Christ. I've never heard anything else. There is a very good chance that those who promote his theory have covered up his change of heart. Shalom.
 

Ronald Nolette

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Answers in Genesis is an organization founded and led by Ken Ham that is dedicated to proving that the Bible’s account of creation recorded in Genesis is true and can be supported scientifically. It has aroused a great deal of controversy. It is strongly supported by many Bible believers. It is disliked by unbelievers who accept the popular idea that life evolved over millions of years and even by some Christians who also accept this belief. (For a long time I was in this group. I was a Christian but I also believed that the theory of evolution had been scientifically proven. If I had known of Answers in Genesis I would probably have believed that what it was teaching was false. In the last few years I have come to realized that in fact there is no evidence supporting evolution.)

Recently a thought occurred to me. What is Charles Darwin’s opinion of Answers in Genesis? Darwin died in 1882, but his soul still exists. How have his views changed since his death?

In his early life Darwin believed in God and even majored in theology in college. Later he lost his faith and became an agnostic. There are accounts that claim he was converted to Christianity before he died but there seems to be no evidence that any of those accounts are true. But it is possible that he was converted before his death and simply didn’t have a chance to tell anyone about it. If this is the case then he is in heaven now. He realizes that he was wrong in what he wrote and that his writings have misled many people. If so, he approves of Answers in Genesis and its efforts to refute his errors and lead people to a knowledge of the truth.

It is also possible that Darwin persisted in his unbelief and is now in Hades waiting for the final judgment when he will be condemned to the Lake of Fire. He realizes the error of his teaching and how harmful it is to others. Jesus once reported the words of a man who was in Hades.

And he said, “Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.”
Luke 16:27,28 ESV

This shows that those in Hades are still concerned about the state of the living and don’t want them to share their suffering. If this is so, then Darwin surely supports Answers in Genesis.

We won’t know whether or not Darwin is saved until we get to heaven and find out whether he is there, but is seems likely that whether he is saved of lost he approves of the work of creationist organizations such as Answers in Genesis.

Well unless He accepted Christ near his death, He wishes that He had accepted the Bible as written! For if he didn't then He is in torment awaiting the Lake of fire.
 
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