How can you accept evolution and still have a spiritual reality, and/or a God faith

[Subduction Zone]

Stick with science then and stop telling people who have spent countless hours in scholarly and systematic study of the Bible what the Bible says. Heck, you probably never thought it could be a scholarly and systemic study, let alone did any. You are speaking about that which you know little to nothing. That doesn't help the case for the scientific method, that's for sure.

I know that there is such a study. I also know that your highly biased study makes you no more of an expert than I.

 

[Jose Fly]

Always the claims of "evidence" but no data is ever forthcoming.

That is why it is YOU wholack credibility!
Point goes to whoever says it first!

That, and more deliberate misreading.

I smell yet another who is fixin' to head back
to creoburg with tales of rude atheists all of
whom he argued to a standstill.

We'll see I guess. It is interesting though that on one hand he makes it clear that his "views are based on the Bible", but OTOH cites (anonymous) Christian scientists who "use science as evidence that Darwin was wrong".

If the former is true, then the latter would be irrelevant.

 

[Jose Fly]

I love science

That's rich coming from a person who referred to science as a "giant fraud factory".

 

[Audie]

We'll see I guess. It is interesting though that on one hand he makes it clear that his "views are based on the Bible", but OTOH cites (anonymous) Christian scientists who "use science as evidence that Darwin was wrong".

If the former is true, then the latter would be irrelevant.

If I am wrong, I will treat you to lunch at Luke's Lobster
in NYC.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You are right about the Bible not saying by what process God make all the animals other than they came from the earth. To me that means I don't know the process in detail. That's all. If it were important to know the exact process God would have told us. The Bible says it contains all things that pertain to life and godliness. So if it's not in the Bible it is apparently not necessary to know.

He created everything after it's kind (genus). The feline genus has experienced evolution within the feline genus. Some species in the feline genus have disappeared, some new ones have appeared on the scene. So, yes, cats of today are different than the original cat God created, but they are still all cats of the genus feline.

Yet we know that is not the case. We can find the ancestors of cats and dogs that is neither a cat or a dog.

According to the Bible, an oak seed may over time produce different species of oak trees, but it never made a pine tree. A pine tree, in all it's variety (species) comes only from a pine tree seed.

And posts like this makes your claim of studying biology for two years highly dubious. Change of kinds is a creationist strawman of evolution. The pine tree and oak tree have a common ancestor, that plant was neither a pine nor an oak.

For the record, there is a lot more detail on how God formed and created the animals. Please notice that I just used two different words, formed and created. They are different words that mean different things. He formed their bodies from the earth because all the things necessary to form a body were already created when God created the earth itself. Our body came from dust and that's where it will go when it's all over. Before the animals, God created just the earth which had all the material necessary to form a body. No need to recreate carbon, etc. It had already been created when He created the earth, so He just needed to form it from the dirt.

Really? Where are these details?

If you look closely you will see that when it says God created the animals He did so by breathing the breath of life into them (i.e. soul life), which didn't exist prior to that time. He had to create life because that didn't exist when He created the earth so He had to create something that didn't exist before.

You do realize that there is no evidence for this "breath of life" , don't you? This sounds like animism.Y

Bottom line, God formed the body from the ground and He created the life of that body when He breathed the life into the body. People are a whole other story. God originally created man with spirit. Man's body was formed from the earth (dust), He made man a living creature when He breathed into him the same life He had created for the animals (no need to reinvent the wheel), and He created man in His own image, which the Bible says is spirit. So animals are body and soul, while man is body, soul, and spirit.

It takes a very, very careful reading of the first two chapter of Genesis and a few other verses, but that is all in there. Few take the time to see the detail that's really there. I think it is because everybody already "knows" what the Bible says without actually studying it in depth.

I don't mean to confuse you with all of this. It's like trying to teach someone calculus that is not sure about trigonometry. I can give you more on the subject if you are interested.

You are trying to read into the Bible that which is not there. This is the result of biased study instead of rational study. It is why your supposed expertise is not worth much in a discussion.

 

[Audie]

@rrobs why do you automatically jump to the assumption that others are calling you an idiot? The reason that I specifically mentioned your conscience is because that part of your psyche is associated with the knowledge of right and wrong. My implication was that your conscience knows that you are wrong.

The oh so polite, open minded, and "new" goes Jekel and Hyde.

 

[Jose Fly]

If I am wrong, I will treat you to lunch at Luke's Lobster
in NYC.

Deal!

 

[Subduction Zone]

You do know that there are plenty of Christian scientists, PHDs and all, who use science as evidence that Darwin was wrong, don't you?

You call less than one percent "plenty".

You have empirical evidence on that? I would think that most everybody acknowledges the difference between the biblical and scientific approach. Isn't that the crux of this whole thread?

Have I hidden my reliance on scripture? To make it clear, my views are based on the Bible. There, now it's in the open.

Or the problem arise when scientists argue against the Bible, even though their position is scientific.

No, the problem is that those very few scientists that oppose the theory of evolution do not use science to oppose that idea. In fact most of them work for sites and organizations that require them to promise to not to use the scientific method.

 

[Audie]

You call less than one percent "plenty".



No, the problem is that those very few scientists that oppose the theory of evolution do not use science to oppose that idea. In fact most of them work for sites and organizations that require them to promise to not to use the scientific method.

Opinions about the bible beat data any time.

Try picking one (1) clesr falsehood snd stick with it.

I predict another Code 3, ss he heads off to anothrr topic
then another, aka thro' the treetops.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The oh so polite, open minded, and "new" goes Jekel and Hyde.

I tried to quote him where he accused me of calling him an idiot, but ironically he does messed up using the reply button. His answer was buried in my quote so it vanished when I hit reply to that post. It was post 307.

I failed at linking the post

 

[Audie]

I see it as the opposite. The "fuzzy thinking of surface appearances" are explained when science actually looks at the mechanisms that drive life on planet Earth. But how are they evaluating what they see? I observe science as contemplating what "might be" or "could be" an explanation for these things, and then testing their ideas with pre-conceived ideas about how they should interpret their findings to fit neatly into the box that they created with their 'toothpicks'. It doesn't seem to matter that their foundation is full of holes.

What they have built on those 'toothpicks' is impressive, by sheer volume alone, but if their first premise is flawed, then to my way of thinking, I would never buy an impressive looking mansion built on such a flimsy foundation. I love science and its excursions into natural systems, but when it goes outside of what is real and ventures into pure unsubstantiated speculation, then that is a different story. You can't use what is, to mask suggestions for what isn't.

Interpretation is everything in any belief system.....evolutionists deny that they have one, but when you understand how much in this theory rests on pure assertion and suggestion and faith in the way scientists interpret their evidence, then that should be enough to seriously question the foundation of it. We also have to accept that science is the first to tell us that they have no proof for anything they assert. If they have no proof then that requires belief.

That, to my way of thinking, leads us all to accept either one 'belief system' or another. That is the real choice IMO, but scientists will strongly refute that and still maintain that evolution has to be true.....not because they can actually prove what they teach, but because the alternative is unthinkable.

Re your last line, I wonder how you can feel
comfortable in your own skin, making up
this profundly insulting charge against the
integrity of so many people all around the world,

You could not possibly know them, or this about them.
How can you possibly get yourself to post such a
blatant and rather mean spirited falsehood??

Tell us you dont mean it!

 

[Audie]

I tried to quote him where he accused me of calling him an idiot, but ironically he does messed up using the reply button. His answer was buried in my quote so it vanished when I hit reply to that post. It was post 307.

I failed at linking the post

They will come thick and fast now.
You will grt one. Just avoid 'flock shooting"!

 

[Audie]

Yet we know that is not the case. We can find the ancestors of cats and dogs that is neither a cat or a dog.



And posts like this makes your claim of studying biology for two years highly dubious. Change of kinds is a creationist strawman of evolution. The pine tree and oak tree have a common ancestor, that plant was neither a pine nor an oak.



Really? Where are these details?



You do realize that there is no evidence for this "breath of life" , don't you? This sounds like animism.Y


You are trying to read into the Bible that which is not there. This is the result of biased study instead of rational study. It is why your supposed expertise is not worth much in a discussion.

Now, now, if I said I had spent two years studying
Basketball, then started talking about the goalie
and strike three,

I would be just as believable!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Now, now, if I said I had spent two years studying
Basketball, then started talking about the goalie
and strike three,

I would be just as believable!

I keep hearing variations on that. A poster on the Noah's Flood myth thread claimed to have four engineering degrees and then spewed several of the worst creationist PRATT's as if that made a point.

 

[Audie]

I keep hearing variations on that. A poster on the Noah's Flood myth thread claimed to have four engineering degrees and then spewed several of the worst creationist PRATT's as if that made a point.

Variations include: I used to be an atheist so I know how you think; I am
ahead of you on the path.

Or

For lo, yes, I, I was the worst of sinners,
verily so, yes, but now I am freed, as you too
can be!

(Now gimme a hundred dollars that
I will pass on to Gawd!!)

Now, me, Audie, I used to be a defensive end, and look
at me now!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Variations include: I used to be an atheist so I know how you think; I am
ahead of you on the path.

Or

For lo, yes, I, I was the worst of sinners,
verily so, yes, but now I am freed, as you too
can be!

(Now gimme a hundred dollars that
I will pass on to Gawd!!)

Now, me, Audie, I used to be a defensive end, and look
at me now!

It is possible that he had two years of biology in high school. Some U.S. high school biology is, and I hope you forgive me, God awful. It is taught by teachers that do not understand it themselves or even worse do not accept it.

 

[Deeje]

Nope, you are just the one who sort of chooses how you choose
to see things. Wherever did you get that "arbiter" thing? Not
from me; its your choice.

You mentioned "outsiders looking in" so I was just explaining why this situation exists. What makes someone an "outsider" as opposed to an "insider"?

As messengers, Christians seem a most unreliable
group, dont you think? 30,000 sects all calling
forth, lo here, and lo there.

I was born into that fractured system.....I left it decades ago.
JW's are not part of the church system. We hold no beliefs in common, despite the fact that we are Christians.

You make a most fundamental mistake in your
notion about me. I do not, and cannot choose
what I believe. I am not into deliberate self deception.

I make no assumptions about anyone. I stated that, from the Bible's perspective, we are all in one of two categories. Its that simple. By our 'natural' response to the Christian message we place ourselves in either one category or the other. There is nothing in between...its one or the other. Cut and dried....pure and simple.

We are free to believe it or not. It hasn't got much to do with "self deception" (although that is true of some people) as much as it has to do with the test that we believe this life is, and whether we pass it.

If you apply for a job that demands specific qualifications and you feel you have enough to do the job, but the recruiter identifies many areas where your qualifications are lacking, you have two choices. Either go back to school and refine your qualifications in order to get that sort of job, or try for a job that uses what you already have with no extra effort. The salary for the first job is 10 times what the second one pays. What will you do?

 

[Audie]

It is possible that he had two years of biology in high school. Some U.S. high school biology is, and I hope you forgive me, God awful. It is taught by teachers that do not understand it themselves or even worse do not accept it.

Awful? you said awful??

When it is so much worse than that!

Outside of some private academy, or the
occasional exceptional teacher, I dont think
they teach science at all.

They do teach that you gotta memorize for the
tests.

It is a shame but industrial scale teaching and
Quality hardly go together.

Show me a kid who understands any of it
and i will show you a rare exception.

That creos are so mixed up is hardly a
surprise. I bet most "evos" on the street
get it just as mixed up.

 

[Audie]

You mentioned "outsiders looking in" so I was just explaining why this situation exists. What makes someone an "outsider" as opposed to an "insider"?



I was born into that fractured system.....I left it decades ago.
JW's are not part of the church system. We hold no beliefs in common, despite the fact that we are Christians.



I make no assumptions about anyone. I stated that, from the Bible's perspective, we are all in one of two categories. Its that simple. By our 'natural' response to the Christian message we place ourselves in either one category or the other. There is nothing in between...its one or the other. Cut and dried....pure and simple.

We are free to believe it or not. It hasn't got much to do with "self deception" (although that is true of some people) as much as it has to do with the test that we believe this life is, and whether we pass it.

If you apply for a job that demands specific qualifications and you feel you have enough to do the job, but the recruiter identifies many areas where your qualifications are lacking, you have two choices. Either go back to school and refine your qualifications in order to get that sort of job, or try for a job that uses what you already have with no extra effort. The salary for the first job is 10 times what the second one pays. What will you do?

I am starting to enjoy our talks. I am going to have
to get some work done, and I want to take time for
a thoughtful reply.

Take care, see you later.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Awful? you said awful??

When it is so much worse than that!

Outside of some private academy, or the
occasional exceptional teacher, I dont think
they teach science at all.

They do teach that you gotta memorize for the
tests.

It is a shame but industrial scale teaching and
Quality hardly go together.

Show me a kid who understands any of it
and i will show you a rare exception.

That creos are so mixed up is hardly a
surprise. I bet most "evos" on the street
get it just as mixed up.

That is why I said God awful:

Definition of GOD-AWFUL

When I look at schools today I wonder if I was just lucky or if they did go straight downhill over the last forty years. The science teachers that I had did have degrees in the subjects that they taught. Switching from high school science to majors level science courses in college presented no difficulties. All of my high school science courses had significant lab work. So that was nothing new in college. I have a feeling that it is not in the budget for many schools these days.