Why do some creationists think evolution = atheism?

[Jenny Collins]

If we are talking about millions of years for these changes to take place, who are these people who live that long to observe them take place?

 

[Jenny Collins]

Most mutations are bad and are not building blocks

 

[Jenny Collins]

Evening and morning are figures of speech for beginning and end

 

[Jenny Collins]

Evening and morning are figures of speech for beginning and end and don't call me an idiot; I don't call you an idiot for thinking the earth is only several thousands of years old when the earth is clearly over 4 billion years old

 

[Jenny Collins]

150 years.[/QUOTE]
Microevolution has been observed

 

[Jenny Collins]

Have I studied evolution after high school! Yes, in my free time, not through schools! You can learn outside of schools! Is my job related to biology? None of your business and it doesn't have to be! There are all kinds of scientists including biologists who reject evolution, and by the way, they don't have to be evolutionary biologists to be entitled to an opinion! That is what you have been spoon fed to believe! Yes, I am entitled to an opinion! And it is not consistent with the Bible, of which I know to be true! No fossil evidence, but you have been spoon fed to believe that

 

[Jenny Collins]

Who says I have anything to do with the ID movement? No fossil evidence by the way, only off base interpretations
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[It Aint Necessarily So]

Actually, there are 3 lines of evidence suggesting they weren't literal:

1)The Bible's own account of the sixth day: too much was going on, and then finished, before it ended. Much more than could be accomplished in 24 hours!

So that would have been too much for an omniscient, omnipotent god to will into existence in one day? OK. How do you know what you know?

Incidentally, I have a hypothesis that accounts for that strange insertion into the creation story of a seventh day in which the creator rested. Are you interested in seeing it? It's off topic.

2) While all the creative days -- 1 thru 6 -- were said to end, the 7th day never had an "evening" to end on. (So it's still going on?).....

That must have been a devastating 6th day to require any rest at all much less ongoing rest.

3) The Apostle Paul, in Hebrews 4, said that God's rest day was continuing on, even in his day, 4,000 years later! Leave it to the "complete" Bible to explain itself! -- 1 Corinthians 13:9-10

1 Corinthians 13:9-10 says, "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away."

I don't see support for your argument in that.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So, I suppose then that you have succumbed to the notion that you, along with the rest of us, are incapable of doing the right thing, incapable of obeying a perfect and just God. It's His fault because He made rules that are just too darn difficult to follow, it's His fault for making such disgustingly weak fallible creatures.

I have succumbed to nothing, especially not faith or religion.

What perfect and just god?

It was just one command that God gave to mankind, and we failed miserably. Do you not suppose for even a moment, that it was God's intention that the human race fail this test? Given the fact that God's plan required that man be given free will, what better circumstance could have transpired than to have the pride of man crushed from the very start. We need God. Without Him, we are nothing at all. And I do believe that it is important to Him that we know this.

Unshared premise. I don't accept that your god exists, but you're telling me what you think it does. It's pretty much an in-one-ear-and-out-the-other proposition. Let's discuss this beginning from common ground - shared premises.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You do not have to believe in God, but you will have to contend with those who do.

I don't have to contend with such people, although I choose to interact with them both here and elsewhere.

Some others might.

 

[gnostic]

Evening and morning are figures of speech for beginning and end and don't call me an idiot; I don't call you an idiot for thinking the earth is only several thousands of years old when the earth is clearly over 4 billion years old

Sorry, my bad.

If you going to read the bible, then you should understand the context of what you are reading. For instance, you say that evening and morning doesn't make up a day, as it is "figure of speech".

But the truth of matter is that YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCES between "literal" or "figure of speech" because you got them backward.

I will give you some real examples of literal and "figure of speech".

5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.

A day is cycle of light and darkness, or cycle of day and night, or of evening and morning. These are all literals, not metaphors.

One day does consist of morning and evening. A cycle of morning and evening doesn't consist of any other timeframe.

Below is example of metaphor of time:

8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

This is not literal; it is a metaphor.

One day isn't "a thousand years". Nor does a thousand year equal to 1 day.

No, Jenny. A thousand years is over 365,000 days. (It is "over" 365,000, because I didn't include all the extra days, when it is a leap year.)

A metaphor is like a simile, when you are compare one thing against something that's very different.

If I say something like "Usain Bolt runs as swift as cheetah".

Am I giving you a metaphor or literal example, Jenny?

This would be a metaphor, not literal, because Bolt is a human, not cheetah.

If I was to write a literal sentence about Usain and cheetah, I would say something like this "Usain Bolt is a cheetah". This, of course, cannot be true.

Bolt cannot even reach the top speed of cheetah, but Bolt can certainly run faster than most people, so that's a metaphor too. Usain's top speed was just over 44 km/h (27.8 mph); a cheetah can run as fast as 120 km/h (75 mph).

Metaphor, simile, motif, figure of speech, is saying or writing something that is not true, but it is use for symbolic or dramatic effect, or in another word, to make it "sounds" interesting.

Look, Jenny. If I said you were idiot, then I am sorry. But you must understand that how it is worded in Genesis, it is written as literal, not metaphor, however, I think Genesis creation is a myth or allegory, not history. And I really don't think you understand concept of metaphor or figure of speech.

 

[Thumper]

No evidence in any way, shape or form of evolution, but your professors have convinced you there is and I know how compelling it is to have teachers spoon feed ideas to students

Well my professors, true. But also spending time at the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution in Paris, and the Darwin Museum in London, and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and countless others where one can actually see the plethora of examples that have been collected which support biological evolution.

Baylor University in Waco, Texas, arguably the largest and most prestigious Baptist University in the world has stated:

"Evolution, a foundational principle of modern biology, is supported by overwhelming scientific evidence and is accepted by the vast majority of scientists. Because it is fundamental to the understanding of modern biology, the faculty in the Biology Department at Baylor University, Waco, TX, teach evolution throughout the biology curriculum. We are in accordance with the American Association for Advancement of Science's statement on evolution. We are a science department, so we do not teach alternative hypotheses or philosophically deduced theories that cannot be tested rigorously."

 

[Sonofason]

I have succumbed to nothing, especially not faith or religion.
What perfect and just god?

Unshared premise. I don't accept that your god exists, but you're telling me what you think it does. It's pretty much an in-one-ear-and-out-the-other proposition. Let's discuss this beginning from common ground - shared premises.

You had said, "God should have been there to protect them from the serpent rather than sick it on them while unsupervised. The serpent must have thought that it was Christmas. He decimated the human race that day. Unbelievers know who to blame in that scenario."

You're statement here seems a bit oxymoronic, or even delusional for that matter. You blame God for not being there to protect Adam and Eve. You claim that God decimated the human race. You imply that there exists an entity, a serpent that actually believes in Christmas, and you seem to suggest that those who do not believe in God know that God is to blame.

 

[Sonofason]

I don't have to contend with such people, although I choose to interact with them both here and elsewhere.

Some others might.

Honestly, if you choose to debate with people that believe in God, you must therefore, as I had said, contend with those who believe in God.
contend - to strive in debate : argue

 

[Polymath257]

If we are talking about millions of years for these changes to take place, who are these people who live that long to observe them take place?

You don't have to have lived through it to be able to measure the time periods. That creationists deny this is telling. Some processes (radioactive decay is one collection) occur in a regular way that is independent of the environment and can be used for determining age properly used.

That constitutes *evidence* of millions of years. Whether you subsequently *reject* that evidence is up to you, but there *is* evidence.

Furthermore, using these ages, we can see that the variety of species alive changes over time. Those species alive 30 million years ago were quite different than those alive today. That *is* evolution. And the fossil record *is* evidence for these changes.

Again, you can choose to ignore or deny the relevance of this evidence. But it *is* evidence.

 

[Jenny Collins]

First of all, you call me an idiot, not you talk down to me and treat me like an idiot! Do you really have to explain to me what a metaphor is? I wasn't born yesterday! In fact I am 50 years old! And I never claimed the "thousand years" in "A day to God is as a thousand years" was literally thousand! What this scripture shows is that God has his own timetable, and it is often longer than our own! That was petty to claim that I didn't understand anything because I said "evening and morning" rather than "morning and evening" Do you really think I am confused and think the day starts out with the evening! You are one of those believers that thinks God excuses you for rudeness and attitude! He wants us to "honor men of all sorts" And there are places in the Bible, which use morning and evening in a non literal way, esp in Psalms!

 

[Jenny Collins]

People, including scientists, have also spent time at the places you mention! And guess what? They still reject it! Your interpretations are subjective! If spending time in museums or what not, makes you an expert, then the ones who reject it are experts too! I side with them

 

[Jenny Collins]

No evidence for evolution! Radiocarbon dating, has dated modern things as thousands of years already! Can be off! There is also something I read about the flood possibly interfering with the results of radiocarbon dating! I would need to research it again in order to explain it! Also atmosphere may have been different back then

 

[Jenny Collins]

You do realize that inserting * in between words, doesn't make you right, don't you? I prefer to capitalize words for emphasis myself! But regardless, either a person is right or wrong whether they highlight words or not

 

[Sonofason]

No evidence for evolution! Radiocarbon dating, has dated modern things as thousands of years already! Can be off! There is also something I read about the flood possibly interfering with the results of radiocarbon dating! I would need to research it again in order to explain it! Also atmosphere may have been different back then

I'm with you. Radiocarbon dating is not necessarily a valid science. It could be off, and most likely is very off. Scientists have a knack for making the math work to the variables that they see working in a system. If there are variables that exist that they have not considered, they fit the mathematics to work with the "known" or assumed available information. The earth is expanding and is nearly 4 times larger than it was 200 million years ago, that is 4 times less dense than scientists currently assume that the earth was 200 million years ago, and that is according to their own faulty dating methods which place the age of all of earth's oceans under 200 million years old.