RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
Audie
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3502
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:41 am
Christian: No
Sex: Female
Creation Position: I don't believe in creation
Location: USA

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audie »

PaulSacramento wrote:
Skeptics can view evolution as a "god-less process" because their idea of God is a "Sunday School God" in the clouds, an old man with a beard.
Come on Paul, strawmen, esp of a belittling sort about people not present?
We know that God is the creator and sustainer of all, we know that nothing can exist without God and as such,
You do know this?
we know that the process we call evolution, a process that we are learning more and more about each day, a process that is NOT what it was 100 years ago ( and only God knows what it will be 100 years from now, what discoveries we will find about it)
Of course it is better understood now.
, could not come to be without God.
You, 'we" certainly do not know that. Facts not in evidence, my friend.
The degree of autonomy is what, IMO, concerns some Christians.
Too much like deism for some and I agree.
It is an interesting q, for sure. to the extent I might believe in a god
(rather more than a little different from your purported old man) would be one who is behind it all, set it up if you like, AND who had the capacity to make a universe that doesnt require his tinkering and meddling to keep it going.


Thing is, while we have evidence for the randomness of mutations ( or at least the APPEARANCE of randomness), we can't really say that it is unguided since those "random changes" can be "utilised" by the organism via what is called "natural selection", in short a "guided process
"


An odd use of the word "guided" dont you think so? Possibly in the sense that
a stream of water is "guided' downhill by gravity?

of some sort that we still don't fully understand (though there are theories as to who it works but none to WHY it works).
Misusing the word "theory" i believe.

While I am not going to insert the " god of the gaps" here, what I will stay is that God as the sustainer of all IS the driving force of ALL
Um how is it that you have not been doin' god o the gap all along?

Audie
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3502
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:41 am
Christian: No
Sex: Female
Creation Position: I don't believe in creation
Location: USA

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audie »

I sure did not see any "serious problem" with evolution in any of this.
Some questions about abio maybe, but that is not a problem with / for ToE.
PaulSacramento
Board Moderator
Posts: 9224
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:29 pm
Christian: Yes
Sex: Male
Creation Position: Theistic Evolution
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by PaulSacramento »

Come on Paul, strawmen, esp of a belittling sort about people not present?
Hardly a straw man audie, the very definitions that skeptics have of god is a sunday school god.
I have YET to hear ONE skeptic address the Christian notion of God since the vast majority don't know it.
I have heard tons of straw man objections to their own "created" god.
You do know this?
Yes Audie, if you understood what God IS then you would understand how we KNOW this as a fact.
PaulSacramento
Board Moderator
Posts: 9224
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:29 pm
Christian: Yes
Sex: Male
Creation Position: Theistic Evolution
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by PaulSacramento »

Um how is it that you have not been doin' god o the gap all along?
You say that because you don't grasp what God is.

It's like saying that hydrogen being a key element in making water wet is a "hydrogen of the gaps" argument.
Audie
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3502
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:41 am
Christian: No
Sex: Female
Creation Position: I don't believe in creation
Location: USA

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audie »

PaulSacramento wrote:
Um how is it that you have not been doin' god o the gap all along?
You say that because you don't grasp what God is.

It's like saying that hydrogen being a key element in making water wet is a "hydrogen of the gaps" argument.

So, your opinions are correct because you grasp what god is.

Why didnt you just say that in the first place?
PaulSacramento
Board Moderator
Posts: 9224
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:29 pm
Christian: Yes
Sex: Male
Creation Position: Theistic Evolution
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by PaulSacramento »

No, my opinions are correct because of WHAT God IS, not because I can grasp what God is.
User avatar
Philip
Site Owner
Posts: 9405
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 7:45 pm
Christian: Yes
Sex: Male
Creation Position: Day-Age
Location: Betwixt the Sea and the Mountains

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Philip »

Nothing appeared suddenly Phil and no serious person studying these things would agree with you or think so, that is a strawman.
Then you need to read up upon what transpired and came into to being at the moment of the Big Bang beginning! This does not mean that things of greater complexity didn't slowly develop, all the while moving toward a planet that could support and sustain life. But there most certain WERE things that didn't previously, physically exist, that INSTANTLY appeared, and IMMEDIATELY operated with incredible precision. This is what science teaches!

And it is absurd to think God kick-started a universe He didn't precisely design and control the end results of - even IF He first created things that were designed to operate as programmed, and not with constant intervention. Although God clearly can and HAS directly overridden the usual way things work, across Scripture. As Paul agrees, WHATEVER the processes and WHATEVER the mechanisms, they are God-created. That's all that is truly important! And I don't care how many vast billions of galaxies there are, the variables and obstacles to life all have key, highly improbable parameters that must be achieved for them to produce and sustain life. God is spirit. The universe is NOT, and is material. He always has existed. The universe had a beginning that only He can explain. The pieces of the puzzle have to 1) be created/they must exist, and 2) they must be assembled and empowered. Some appear to have us believe that if only the pieces exist, life of some kind is inevitable. Either God set a process in motion that He PLANNED for but ONE unique creature, amongst millions of others, whom He would communicate and interact with, and one day come to die for. OR, He created things that "just happened" to culminate in man. The Bible clearly asserts the former!
Audie
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3502
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:41 am
Christian: No
Sex: Female
Creation Position: I don't believe in creation
Location: USA

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audie »

PaulSacramento wrote:No, my opinions are correct because of WHAT God IS, not because I can grasp what God is.
Whatevs.
PaulSacramento
Board Moderator
Posts: 9224
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:29 pm
Christian: Yes
Sex: Male
Creation Position: Theistic Evolution
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by PaulSacramento »

One of the hardest thing for some skeptics and non-believers to grasp is that God is not what they think WE think He is.
I don't blame them since, to be honest, very little mainstream information out there deals with it.
The funny thing is that the more intellectual (albeit open) skeptics I have discussed this DO grasp it and rather quickly.
See, when it is stated that God is Omnipotent and Omniscient and Omnipresent most people don't understand what that actually means ( that is why we get silly question like "can God make a stone so heavy he can't lift it" and other logical inconsistencies).
For God to be GOD it means that He IS existence itself, that God is the source AND sustainer of all and that NOTHING can exist without God.
The simple fact that there is something ( this universe for example) means that there IS God.

Now, some will say that is an opinion and nothing more, and that are right IF they are looking at god as somethinG OTHER than what GOD is.
PaulSacramento
Board Moderator
Posts: 9224
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:29 pm
Christian: Yes
Sex: Male
Creation Position: Theistic Evolution
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by PaulSacramento »

Which brings us back to evolution and the simple reality that if God is the sustainer of all, which He must be if he is God, then evolution is sustained by Him.
Audie
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3502
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:41 am
Christian: No
Sex: Female
Creation Position: I don't believe in creation
Location: USA

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audie »

No "serious problem" nor any problem at all with ToE has been identified.

Still less any problem with evolution, which appears to proceed apace, unhindered and unconcerned.
User avatar
neo-x
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3551
Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:13 am
Christian: Yes
Sex: Male
Contact:

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by neo-x »

Philip wrote:
Nothing appeared suddenly Phil and no serious person studying these things would agree with you or think so, that is a strawman.
Then you need to read up upon what transpired and came into to being at the moment of the Big Bang beginning! This does not mean that things of greater complexity didn't slowly develop, all the while moving toward a planet that could support and sustain life. But there most certain WERE things that didn't previously, physically exist, that INSTANTLY appeared, and IMMEDIATELY operated with incredible precision. This is what science teaches!

And it is absurd to think God kick-started a universe He didn't precisely design and control the end results of - even IF He first created things that were designed to operate as programmed, and not with constant intervention. Although God clearly can and HAS directly overridden the usual way things work, across Scripture. As Paul agrees, WHATEVER the processes and WHATEVER the mechanisms, they are God-created. That's all that is truly important! And I don't care how many vast billions of galaxies there are, the variables and obstacles to life all have key, highly improbable parameters that must be achieved for them to produce and sustain life. God is spirit. The universe is NOT, and is material. He always has existed. The universe had a beginning that only He can explain. The pieces of the puzzle have to 1) be created/they must exist, and 2) they must be assembled and empowered. Some appear to have us believe that if only the pieces exist, life of some kind is inevitable. Either God set a process in motion that He PLANNED for but ONE unique creature, amongst millions of others, whom He would communicate and interact with, and one day come to die for. OR, He created things that "just happened" to culminate in man. The Bible clearly asserts the former!
Life didn't appear instantly Phil. Yes elements did when they fused in the big bang and later among stars. And for the idea of incredible precision, try the quantum level, at that place even the laws of physics get bent and crazy unpredictable things happen.
And it is absurd to think God kick-started a universe He didn't precisely design and control the end results of - even IF He first created things that were designed to operate as programmed, and not with constant intervention.
Not at all, it just depends on how do you perceive God that he might or might not do. Really to me this constant trying on your side to insert God at interventions, really undermines God in my opinion. It makes him petty and really not a good planner at all. It shows that he didn't foresee enough so that he'd have to intervene later to fix things or add a touch here or there. Really that is what irks me. I do not see God as that at all.
Although God clearly can and HAS directly overridden the usual way things work, across Scripture. As Paul agrees, WHATEVER the processes and WHATEVER the mechanisms, they are God-created.
Yes that is our belief...end of story. For a non-beleiver it's not clear why the Christian God should be the one creating it...really try to understand that please. It's not clear at all.
And I don't care how many vast billions of galaxies there are, the variables and obstacles to life all have key, highly improbable parameters that must be achieved for them to produce and sustain life.
You keep using words like improbable but they have zero effect really. The universe may not have a beginning at all either. The kalam argument might fail. But there are evidence like the paper I cited that things change Phil, they do. The process is not without promise either and it explains a lot.
Either God set a process in motion that He PLANNED for but ONE unique creature, amongst millions of others, whom He would communicate and interact with, and one day come to die for. OR, He created things that "just happened" to culminate in man. The Bible clearly asserts the former!
It also clearly asserts that everything was made in six days right there on page one of that same Bible, but obviously you don't accept it when it comes to that so not sure what you are doing...cherry picking I guess?
Either God set a process in motion that He PLANNED for but ONE unique creature, amongst millions of others
Phil take a telescope sometimes and look out in the universe, to observe the vastness that exists out there is a humbling experience. This self-congratulatory notion of being the center of everything is strange to me. That was the same thing people thought when they thought that everything revolved around the earth precisely because they thought they were the one special creature.

To me when I look out there I only wonder, but why God? And I think about that.

Here is my challenge to you, If we were so special and God chose and fine tuned this world for us to live in, to make it our little home. Then why is there so much physical mass and planets and suns and stars and novas and black holes and dark energy and matter out there? What function does that have? What is that for? God just accidently created a lot rather than just our little planet and the sun and moon and a few stars in the night sky? Because believe me that is all that it would take and it will be your perfect little universe. Sin, death, redemption all happening here. Really the end would come anyway so no space or star traveling is needed. God made us here and here the armageddon is happening and here the new Jerusalem is going to be, on this Earth, as you said, it clearly asserts everything is here...so why do you need 200 billion galaxies, trillions and trillions of uncountable stars and planets out there? what was God thinking when he made them? Not for just our amusement I hope because we won't be here for long anyway but the universe is brewing here for 14 billion years atleast and I wonder why. Why go to such lengths when all God was interested in creating was on earth and earth alone? If god would have intervened, the universe would have looked really different because there would be form and function and purpose. If you look now the Andromeda galaxy is racing towards our milky way, it's on a collision course. Is that an oversight by God? Or that's part of the perfect plan, the incredible precision? Becuase his unique creature is going to be obliterated in what would ensue. I am not sure what kind of plan is that. I really don't.

Like Jac said earlier, you can't have it both ways. You want God to intervene but you also want and affirm automated processes happeneing just the same.

So what is it? Is God a poor planner?...or I can say that he created the way any thinking wise being would create, automating things so that nature balances itself out so that everything has a start and end. E.g an earth that looks like a paradise but has devastating earthquakes and meteor impacts as well? Supernovas and birthing stars to black holes. A universe following the laws of physics on its own and shaping itself out of chaos into order and along the way we happened (God would obviously know about since he knows all). That is why there is so much out there, it has to be that way. Nothing else makes sense at all.

So why and how do you think that is?
It would be a blessing if they missed the cairns and got lost on the way back. Or if
the Thing on the ice got them tonight.

I could only turn and stare in horror at the chief surgeon.
Death by starvation is a terrible thing, Goodsir, continued Stanley.
And with that we went below to the flame-flickering Darkness of the lower deck
and to a cold almost the equal of the Dante-esque Ninth Circle Arctic Night
without.


//johnadavid.wordpress.com
Audie
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3502
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:41 am
Christian: No
Sex: Female
Creation Position: I don't believe in creation
Location: USA

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audie »

Interesting, neo, that I see it exactly the same way other than that I find the existence of any god to be rather on the hypothetical side.

Assertions of certain knowledge about God, or anything else for that matter seem to me no more than displays of vanity.

(which is said to be Satan's favourite vice)
User avatar
neo-x
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3551
Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:13 am
Christian: Yes
Sex: Male
Contact:

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by neo-x »

Audie wrote:Interesting, neo, that I see it exactly the same way other than that I find the existence of any god to be rather on the hypothetical side.

Assertions of certain knowledge about God, or anything else for that matter seem to me no more than displays of vanity.

(which is said to be Satan's favourite vice)
And I can respect that. You don't have to just believe in God because it's just logical (no one believes ib the Christian god for being just logical) or has to be. It has to be more than that. God is a personal experience. That is what debates like these usually forget.

Other than that we agree.
It would be a blessing if they missed the cairns and got lost on the way back. Or if
the Thing on the ice got them tonight.

I could only turn and stare in horror at the chief surgeon.
Death by starvation is a terrible thing, Goodsir, continued Stanley.
And with that we went below to the flame-flickering Darkness of the lower deck
and to a cold almost the equal of the Dante-esque Ninth Circle Arctic Night
without.


//johnadavid.wordpress.com
Audie
Ultimate Member
Posts: 3502
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 6:41 am
Christian: No
Sex: Female
Creation Position: I don't believe in creation
Location: USA

Re: RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

Post by Audie »

neo-x wrote:
Audie wrote:Interesting, neo, that I see it exactly the same way other than that I find the existence of any god to be rather on the hypothetical side.

Assertions of certain knowledge about God, or anything else for that matter seem to me no more than displays of vanity.

(which is said to be Satan's favourite vice)
And I can respect that. You don't have to just believe in God because it's just logical (no one believes ib the Christian god for being just logical) or has to be. It has to be more than that. God is a personal experience. That is what debates like these usually forget.

Other than that we agree.
Not that I think "God" is logical but personal experience wise, should that come
along, it would make all the difference.

To me, it seems roughly as possible that there is or is not any sort of god.

Not especially probable that the Christian god is it, should there be one.

A q. I ask myself: IF someone, thro' logic perfected, powerful scientific instruments or any other means detected that there IS a god..

Then what? I mean, that is cool and amazing and no doubt of profound importance, but what is one to do about it? What response if any is called for?

"We", people, have tried putting up wonderful buildings, torture, trying to talk to the god, spinning prayer wheels, eating fish on Friday or going without food, etc. Those all seem rather weird and inept.

IS there even anything that one is in any way called on to do?

Like, if an ant detected New York City, say from the Jersey side, now what?
Post Reply