Leaving creationism = leaving Christianity?

[aspen]

SHL, i do not feel hammered. i know we disagree on theology, but we can agree on the love of God. BTW, i am male.

 

[This Vale Of Tears]

Hello Vale,

I was not trying to single you out, sorry if I gave that impression. I agree with most of your post, but many have come before us who have had questions about origins. I do not believe Scofield was right in believing in the gap theory...however....I am unwilling to say he was not a Christian. Are you?

Almost everyone here would be able to tell you that I am a "biblical literalist" and agree with your creation ideas. I am not willing to go that extra step with anyone who says they can not possibly be a christian because of it. I disagree with Aspen on a number of issues, but she has a different set of gifts than I do...she has God's attributes of grace and mercy built deep inside her. Others on here have a burden for God's judgement deep inside. All of us see things slightly different because God needs all to give the whole story. If we only focused on His mercy...liberty would turn to license. If we only focused on His Judgement...He would seem so overbearing no one would ever come to Him. The reality is....He has both of those attributes and many more. It is so hard for the "mercy guy" and "judgement guy" to see eye to eye because of the gifts God has given to each. So, when I run into one of Aspen's posts that just seem "ridiculous" to me...I stop to remember...maybe she is more in tune with an attribute of God than I am....and that is okay...I have my own gifts I try to not mess up.

River...maybe...just maybe...is working through something God has in mind for her....to reach people we never could...we are just part of her process.

SL

Ps. Aspen...I am not trying to "hammer" you in anyway. Just using that example.

I find agreement with that to some extent. I believe that Christianity is defined by our unique beliefs. Others think it's certain personality traits, a wellspring of grace, a quickness to forgive, etc. Still others believe it's actions, how we live out our faith. All of them have merit. I strongly emphasize orthodoxy because I know the Catholic Church has endured many spirited battles against heresies, gnostic written works, and attempts to water down the Trinity. The result of those battles? The Creeds, the Bible, and the deposit of Sacred Tradition that's endured through the ages. The lesson is clear, the tenants of the Christian faith are worth contending for and defending at all costs. And such a defense is needed today as it's ever been because Satan desists not in his effort to undo the Christian faith by defining it down and by compromising it with the doctrine of demons. It's an important fight and I'll keep fighting it.

 

[aspen]

So Vale, the only reason you were interested in my opinion about the Flood was to prove that i really believe the Bible is 'a bunch of horse crap'? And YOU were lecturing Jordan on intellectual honesty?? Oh the irony.....

Apparently, you missed the part of my post when i described the creation story as inspired and a revelation? Um hum.....classic. Unless you are comfortable equating inspired scripture with horse crap, you may what to revise your post.

Also, if you will recall, based on your far superior scriptural knowledge - Jesus was rather fond of speaking in parables, which included people who never existed, in order to make a greater point.

In the meantime i will continue to watch you attempt to have your cake and eat it too by making arrogant statements about peoples Christianity, while crying about how arrogant everyone else is.......carry on

 

[This Vale Of Tears]

So Vale, the only reason you were interested in my opinion about the Flood was to prove that i really believe the Bible is 'a bunch of horse crap'? And YOU were lecturing Jordan on intellectual honesty?? Oh the irony.....

Apparently, you missed the part of my post when i described the creation story as inspired and a revelation? Um hum.....classic. Unless you are comfortable equating inspired scripture with horse crap, you may what to revise your post.

Also, if you will recall, based on your far superior scriptural knowledge - Jesus was rather fond of speaking in parables, which included people who never existed, in order to make a greater point.

In the meantime i will continue to watch you attempt to have your cake and eat it too by making arrogant statements about peoples Christianity, while crying about how arrogant everyone else is.......carry on

So when Jesus promised to avenge Abel's murder, that was just a parable?

Oh, and no I'm not going to revise my post. I meant every word of it.

 

[aspen]

Where did i describe the creation story as a parable?

 

[This Vale Of Tears]

You're not even following your own conversation, Aspen. I can't help you.

 

[aspen]

well, it is for the best, i'd hate to distract you from tilting at windmills, vale. carry on

 

[KingJ]

Nope, just as calling them "facts" does not make them facts. And that's exactly my point...given the subjective nature of what you're talking about, calling your beliefs on this "facts" is pretty arrogant.

As far as natural selection, that is a fact. Why is it a fact? Because we see it happen right in front of our eyes, all the time. It's why we need new antibiotics, new flu vaccines, and new pesticides. Calling it "evil" is as ridiculous as calling erosion or gravity "evil".

River, please just answer the questions. We have dealt with the above. It is not evolution until you can show 'uphill evolution'. Neutral and devolution does not help. No, its not on par with erosion or gravity as already explained.

1. Explain how you see natural selection = good.
2. Explain what happened to the missing scripture of 194k years.
3. Explain why you don't agree with intelligence = accountability.

 

[River Jordan]

The creationist model, as far as this discussion is concerned, is based on the Biblical account which clearly describes life being created as differnt kinds during the time period of six days.

By what mechanism?

I NEVER said that my comment was based on the existence of that specific quote. I base it on memories of being taught in school and in the media that life originated in the sea, or a pond and I think most honest people here recognize that that kind of thing has been going on for decades without the slightest protests from scientists that abiogenesis is not a fact. But sure, we can PRETEND that the scientific community does not assume abiogenesis, if you like!

You said that "life from non-life" is "something that is being published as though it was a scientific fact in textbooks all over the globe". Surely if that were the case, you'd be able to provide even one example of that, right? I mean, from where I sit there is a huge difference between "what I remember from school" and "is in textbooks all over the globe".

Though Christians disagree on certain details of creation, we all believe that God created the heavens and the earth, the plants and animals according to kind, and then as a crowning achievement, man in His own image. All of this is a glaring contradiction to the claims of evolution that says we evolved from crap flinging apes.

Not everyone sees the two as contradictory. In fact, this whole denial of evolution thing is primarily a US Protestant phenomenon.

River, please just answer the questions. We have dealt with the above. It is not evolution until you can show 'uphill evolution'. Neutral and devolution does not help. No, its not on par with erosion or gravity as already explained.

Until you define "uphill evolution", I can't really address it.

1. Explain how you see natural selection = good.
2. Explain what happened to the missing scripture of 194k years.
3. Explain why you don't agree with intelligence = accountability.

1) Natural selection just is, like gravity or erosion. It has no ethical currency.

2) There is no missing scripture.

3) I have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[ChristianJuggarnaut]

River,

Genesis fallacy foul.

Just because you know where a movement is located does not logically negate the central belief of said movement.

 

[River Jordan]

Genesis fallacy foul.

Just because you know where a movement is located does not logically negate the central belief of said movement.

Except I didn't make that argument.

 

[Secondhand Lion]

Not everyone sees the two as contradictory. In fact, this whole denial of evolution thing is primarily a US Protestant phenomenon.

River,

Do you have a source for this? Or is it just your opinion? How much do they discuss it in Gabon?

SL

 

[River Jordan]

SL,

I suggest reading this paper...

Public Acceptance of Evolution (PDF)

The authors looked at survey data across the developed world, and found that evolution denialism is significantly higher in the US than any other developed country (other than Turkey). They hypothesized that...

"the structure and beliefs of American fundamentalism historically differ from those of mainstream Protestantism in both the United States and Europe. The biblical literalist focus of fundamentalism in the United States sees Genesis as a true and accurate account of the creation of human life that supersedes any scientific finding or interpretation. In contrast, mainstream Protestant faiths in Europe (and their U.S. counterparts) have viewed Genesis as metaphorical and—like the Catholic Church—have not seen a major contradiction between their faith and the work of Darwin and other scientists."

They then tested this hypothesis using a statistical model and found that the effect of American fundamentalism was the overwhelming factor in evolution denialism.

They also looked within the US and found that among US Christians, not only is our particular brand of fundamentalism an important factor, but a person's political affiliation is also predictive of their views on evolution. They attributed this to the fact that in the US, the Republican Party has adopted creationism as part of their platform.

The third factor they identified was literacy in genetics. They found that an understanding of genetics was inversely related to evolution denial.

 

[ChristianJuggarnaut]

"This whole denial of evolution thing is primarily a US Protestant phenomenon"

So you think denying evolution is a good thing. If not you are making the Genesis fallacy argument that because you know where and when and who holds a particular belief, that belief must be incorrect.

 

[River Jordan]

"This whole denial of evolution thing is primarily a US Protestant phenomenon"

So you think denying evolution is a good thing. If not you are making the Genesis fallacy argument that because you know where and when and who holds a particular belief, that belief must be incorrect.

Except I'm not making that argument. I didn't point out the fact that denial of evolution is primarily a US Protestant phenomenon as a means to determine the accuracy of either evolution or creationism; I brought it up as a response to the argument that one can't be both a Christian and an "evolutionist".

Do you understand the difference?

 

[HammerStone]

River, just to clarify a point that's getting glossed over, could you clarify a question for me? (Okay so this makes two questions, sorry...)

Regardless of vehicle, method, or descriptive process, do you agree with the statement that God was the ultimate agent in the process of creation (little "c")?

 

[River Jordan]

Regardless of vehicle, method, or descriptive process, do you agree with the statement that God was the ultimate agent in the process of creation (little "c")?

Yep.

 

[HammerStone]

That's what I figured.

That's placing you outside of generic Deism, and I further don't see a provision about go forth, baptize, and make them believe in literal six-day Creationism in Matthew 28. I understand that it's comfortable to make the argument that Genesis 1 & 2 must be taken literally, but this elevates something to higher importance than it is given. Keep in mind that for all that the Bible says on creation, it was given a relatively small portion falling far shy of the ink about the One who created it.

 

[River Jordan]

That's placing you outside of generic Deism, and I further don't see a provision about go forth, baptize, and make them believe in literal six-day Creationism in Matthew 28.

Yep, I don't see YEC as an "in or out" issue for Christianity.

I understand that it's comfortable to make the argument that Genesis 1 & 2 must be taken literally, but this elevates something to higher importance than it is given. Keep in mind that for all that the Bible says on creation, it was given a relatively small portion falling far shy of the ink about the One who created it.

Agreed.

 

[Secondhand Lion]

SL,

I suggest reading this paper...

Public Acceptance of Evolution (PDF)

The authors looked at survey data across the developed world, and found that evolution denialism is significantly higher in the US than any other developed country (other than Turkey). They hypothesized that...

"the structure and beliefs of American fundamentalism historically differ from those of mainstream Protestantism in both the United States and Europe. The biblical literalist focus of fundamentalism in the United States sees Genesis as a true and accurate account of the creation of human life that supersedes any scientific finding or interpretation. In contrast, mainstream Protestant faiths in Europe (and their U.S. counterparts) have viewed Genesis as metaphorical and—like the Catholic Church—have not seen a major contradiction between their faith and the work of Darwin and other scientists."

They then tested this hypothesis using a statistical model and found that the effect of American fundamentalism was the overwhelming factor in evolution denialism.

They also looked within the US and found that among US Christians, not only is our particular brand of fundamentalism an important factor, but a person's political affiliation is also predictive of their views on evolution. They attributed this to the fact that in the US, the Republican Party has adopted creationism as part of their platform.

The third factor they identified was literacy in genetics. They found that an understanding of genetics was inversely related to evolution denial.

River,

I just basically got finished spending an inordinate amount of my free time today going over the information in that link and chasing down their methodology. Long story made short? They solved for the answer they wanted. The following is a link to method, which they kept referring to in the article. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2006/08/08/313.5788.765.DC1/Miller.SOM.pdf

A couple points of interest:

1. 2005 study, with some of the respondents as far back as 2002 (Japan/parts of Europe[just for chart]), Is it valid to say it is the same today? I do not think so. Other parts of their "analysis" go back 20 years to come to the conclusion?

2. 35,020 respondents out of a global population of 6,500,000,000 (0.0000054%) Is that an accurate sampling? I do not think so.

3. Only 2 countries were represented out of the top 10 population countries in the world. 3 of the top 20? All of the countries represented were in the top 100 (out of 187 not the 196 commonly accepted much less the 230 recognized) in the list of countries by "Human Development". However, some notable countries were left out? Australia? Canada? Israel? Just examples...many more left out of top 20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index

4. It was interesting how they used probabilities "The U. S. data for 2003 were collected online using a sample of 2,066 adults
from a probability-based national panel maintained by Knowledge Networks, Inc." Why use a probability based national panel? Looking for certain people?

5. I find some statements very hard to take seriously like: "Although these data were collected by three different methods over a period of 20 years, comparison of responses to a set of benchmark questions involving demographic
and related characteristics found no systematic mode effect." Seriously? There was no mode effect after a difference in 20 years? Is it unreasonable to say...they are solving for the answer they want?

I could go on and on. This is not compelling to me for a multitude of reasons. I would be willing to discuss it in further detail, but I would just bore everyone else.

One final question...Is this the same kind of "science" done to prove evolution? Cherry pick the info they want and ask loaded questions to get the answers they want?

SL