How evolutionism destroys SDA theology

[Bravus]

But 'science' is just another way of saying 'reality', at least as it pertains to the physical world around us.

[Guest]

Man's interpretation of the physical world around us.

[Guest]

Have a little humility.

[Bravus]

Fair point - conceded and accepted.

[BobRyan]

Bob, I *could* do a line-by-line response to your OP in this thread, I guess,

[BobRyan]

If understanding science would cost me my faith in God, or cause it to weaken in any way, then I don't need to understand science.

My argument is that science will never cost you your faith in God. But myth and false religion cloaked in junk-science could -

Just because a "science term" is used does not mean you have real science in view.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

See, ascription of bad motives, yet again: 'pride'.

As I've said, for me it's not pride, it's just honesty.

You wrote:

Quote:

Yet you have two sides looking at the same rock and both coming to their own conclusions based upon their bias. You may say the world looks old, but do you know what it looked like at creation? So how can you make such a statement? Lets not forget the world was cursed as well.

Again, really look at the science, really understand the science, and you will see that these comments all make no sense. The evidence is *not* equally interpretable from either perspective. The scientific perspective is a clear, logical, self-consistent system of explanations based on observation. To the extent that the creationist perspective does try to explain the evidence it does it with a mishmash of inconsistent ad hoc fixes and twists, like an accelerated rate of radioactive decay, and then uses the Flood to explain everything else.

I challenge *anyone* to really understand the science properly and still find the explanations of 'creation scientists' at all convincing.

It is only through cherishing ignorance about the science that it is possible to continue to believe the things you have said in the quote above. And that's why education is considered a curse...

That is a negative summary of the Creationist model that does not fit the brilliant science of creation scientists like professor Walter Veith - but does reflect many of the summary conclusions of Dawkins about Creation science.

From that conclusion the reader would never suspect the glaring 11 second flummoxed response of Dawkins to the question about information being added into a single genome.

They would never suspect the fraudulent practices of Darwinist scientists reaching even into our recent history within the past 10 years. They would never suspect that brilliant atheist evolutionists well known in their field have themselves openly lamented the distinctively "religious nature" of the argument for evolutionism.

Evolutionism is simply a "belief" - and as the OP post shows - it is a belief that does not fit well with other beliefs.

in Christ,

Bob

[Bravus]

A little time has freed up, and I'm willing to make the attempt. I've deleted the references to the Fundamentals, just in the interests of space - people can refer back to the opening post of this thread if they want the full text - and just quoted and responded to your points:

Quote:

Evolutionism argues that

1. The Bible is not "the Word of God" - not in written form nor in any other form. Rather it is the "word of fallen and faulty man" who at various stages of ignorance tries to convey some truth via poetry or some other device.

'Evolution' argues no such thing: it is a biological theory about the origins of life and says nothing about the Bible at all. Even 'evolutionism' - the belief that evolution is the best biological explanation for the complexity and diversity of life - says absolutely nothing about the Bible. It is only when the Bible is taken to be a scientific account of the origin of species that it in any way comes into conflict with evolution, and even then only particular readings of the Bible, not the Bible itself. In summary: evolution says nothing, positive or negative, about the Bible.

Quote:

2. As such the Bible is not a "trustworthy record of the acts of God" rather it is merely simply "poetry" or myth or story that illustrates a concept rather than relating accurately historic detail, when it comes to the doctrine of origins.

That's a reasonable statement, but again, it characterises the views of a few people, rather than 'evolutionism' as a whole. Atheistic evolutionists are probably not concerned with the historicity of the Bible at all, but place it alongside the creation myths of all other cultures. Recent creationists claim it is a scientific/historical account. It's true that some mainstream Protestants regard the first chapters of Genesis as an account of meaning and an account of God's dealings with humanity, rather than as a scientific treatise on origins, but it's drawing a very long bow indeed to equate that view with 'evolutionism'.

Quote:

3. Under the religious view of evolutionism - the term "creator" is redefined to mean that God did NOTHING at ALL in creation that could actually be "seen to show that the makER has intelligence" by the objective mind of man. So in essence - Romans 1 is dead wrong when scripture says that even pagans and barbarians can "clearly the see the invisible attributes of God" because they are "clearly seen IN the things that have been MADE". The constant attacks evolutionists make against Intelligent Design (the argument that the design is SEEN IN nature showing intelligence was necessary in the design)

See the list of possible positions within theistic evolution that I posted in another thread earlier today, then add various forms of ancient creationism to the mix. You're making hugely broad statements that in reality only apply to a very small subset of evolutionists. The vast majority of Intelligent Design advocates, for example, *are evolutionists*. Behe certainly is. Yet they believe in an active on-going role for God in evolution and in evidence for design. So your statement is internally inconsistent when it places Intelligent Design as opposed to 'evolutionism'.

Quote:

4. Evolutionism does not value a "restoration" to conditions in the hominid caves of Adam and Eve. Such a thing would be a giant step into disease, starvation, predation and ignorance having no concept at all of science art religion or history as we have today. By comparison - we NOW live in the Garden of Eden.

Redemption is a restoration of relationship with God, and is largely unrelated to our physical surroundings. And, of course, the view of early life as 'nasty, brutish and short' is itself ignorant of history and biology. An unspoiled early earth would in many ways be idyllic... but again, the point of redemption and salvation is the repair of our ruptured relationship with God, not a trip to a holiday resort.

Quote:

5. Evolutionism teaches that we need to divorce literal belief in the Bible account of creation from literal belief in the Bible account of redemption.

Nope - see all the points on evolutionism and the Bible.

Quote:

6. Evolutionism denies every single point of {SDA Fundamental} doctrine 6 for it says;

a. God is not the Creator of all things. At best he created the big bang and then let everything else evolve and create itself over billions and billions of years. Thus the "intelligence" of the Creator cannot be seen in a single thing in nature today unless it is done "by faith alone" believing in spite of seeing nothing.

See the discussion above: this is one tiny minority view and it is unfair to tar everyone with the same brush.

Quote:

b. Scripture does NOT give an authentic account of anything such as the creation of all life on earth in a literal 7 day week. It is myth, poetry and storytelling.

Asked and answered.

Quote:

c. God did not rest on the 7th day of the first week of Creation -- because there was no "week of creation" with a literal day in it such that God could rest in a completed work - with mankind already in Eden on day 7. Simply "no such thing" according to evolutionism.

God has the power and authority to institute a 7 day week as a gift to humankind (recall what Jesus said about the Sabbath) and as a memorial of creation, whether or not it commemorates a literal week of creation. To claim otherwise is to try to limit God's power and authority.

Quote:

d. Thus God could NOT have "established the Sabbath on day 7". No not on "Day 7" nor on the 7 Millionth year nor even the 700 Millionth year!

Asked and answered.

Quote:

e. Since the Christian God is not a violent grunting animal-eating cave-dwelling hominid - the first humans were not in the image of God nor did they even have a language complex enough to understand a 7 day creation week concept much less the notion of "keeping the 7th day holy" or seeing God as the ONE true God creator of all life..

Ignorance of history and biology - this characterisation of the first humans is just nonsense, scientifically speaking. Humans who were capable of knowledge of good and evil are human, not protohominid, and have all the capabilities we have now. They are homo sapiens just like us with all our powers and intelligence. They would have language (since, it has at least been argued, language and thought co-evolved). My scenario in the other thread is only one possibility for reconciling the Biblical account with the evidence, but the assumption was definitely that humans are human.

Quote:

f. The first hominids were of such basic mind that there is no way they could have been given "charge" of the earth to "care for it". They were lucky to even "survive" as day by day they bashed in their ration of monkey brains in their caves.

See above.

Quote:

g. Evolutionism says that by the time mankind came along - the world was ruled by the law of tooth and claw. It was a ruthless and bloody place where "creation" was achieved by virtue of starvation and predation. It was not "good" at all - and humans today should not seek to return to such a bloody death-overall origin.

That is a nonsense view of evolutionary theory and selection: pretty butterflies evolved as well as top predators. Clearly it's *not* predation and violence that lead to evolutionary success, but a wide range of factors in a wide range of niches, and evolution can result in beauty as easily as terror... and both are necessary to a functioning ecosystem. You cannot debunk a theory based on a fundamental misunderstanding of that theory.

Quote:

7. By contrast the doctrines of Evolutionism are that mankind was created as a a violent, base cave-dwelling brute. By comparison to that we NOW enjoy a "high exalted position" rather than falling FROM such. Mankind living in neighborhoods today is far less violent and far more domesticated than the first hominids who had to kill every day as well as defending their caves, friends and family from their fellow hominids as well as the wild beasts.

Asked and answered.

Quote:

8. Evolutionism teaches that life on this planet has been wiped out numerous times even before the first humans arrived and that none of those extinction events has anything to do with "war in heaven". Creation itself is violent and disorderly making progress through a process of chaos and destruction.

Nope, not all life wiped out. Much life, yes, sometimes. Yes, evolution, like life, involves biological death. The First Death. It says nothing about spiritual death/separation from God - the Second Death.

Quote:

9. Evolutionism allows for no literal creation week, no Adam and Eve at the end of that 7 days, and thus no seventh-day Sabbath until the time of Sinai when it was simply "invented" as a nice idea using a story format that would appeal to superstitious slaves newly released from Egypt.

Asked and answered.

Quote:

Hence as Darwin pointed out - he could not continue to hold to any form of Christian faith while faced with the glaring contradictions between the doctrines of evolutionism and the doctrines of the Bible.

'the doctrines of particular interpretations of the Bible'.

A lot of this is going over old ground in our discussions, but I guess at least it's no longer possible to claim that 'the silence is deafening'.

[Bravus]

Another reason I went to the other thread is that your post above is *very* repetitive. There are only about 5 points made in total, and just repeated. Can we try to condense it down a bit? If you respond to my responses to each point the thing will grow like Topsy.

Edit: Sorry, re-reading that it sounds critical. It's not meant to be: I know your original structure was dictated by the project of using the 28 Fundamentals to structure the argument.

[Twilight]

Yeah, sorry about that: I cautioned you about some strong language you used in this thread, acting as a moderator, then realised that although we're talking Origins we're not actually in the Origins forum and I'm not the moderator here, so I withdrew the post. Apologies for the confusion.

May I suggest you were over zealous in your moderation Bravus, the post you are referring to was not referring to a specific person, but a mindset, that God needs "help" figuring out how He created things.

That His Prophets needed people like Darwin and others that worship their own intellect, to clarify the "truth".

Be careful you do not let your own bias colour your moderation would be my advice.

It does not encourage one to use that forum, when this type of reaction is going to be the "mood" of the moderator.

Mark :-)

[Bravus]

Fortunate you didn't question the moderator's call in that forum, or you might have been going on a little holiday from posting. I can only call 'em as I see 'em, and correct that when I get it wrong, but debating moderators' decisions in the public forum is against the Terms and Conditions.

[Twilight]

I challenge *anyone* to really understand the science properly and still find the explanations of 'creation scientists' at all convincing.

It is only through cherishing ignorance about the science that it is possible to continue to believe the things you have said in the quote above. And that's why education is considered a curse...

But the problem with Evolutionary adherents is their automatic assumption of intellectual superiority.

Every "evidence" that has ever been presented to me to "prove" evolution, has massive holes in it.

I have yet to see "ONE" single piece of evidence, that is solid scientifically.

So many times I have seen this mindset, that to believe the bible is to be scientifically ignorant.

Maybe it is a case that people have checked out the "science" and it does not add up?

Maybe they are not "ignorant" but have made and educated assessment and thrown out evolutionary theory because it is just plain nonsense?

Mark :-)

[Twilight]

Fortunate you didn't question the moderator's call in that forum, or you might have been going on a little holiday from posting. I can only call 'em as I see 'em, and correct that when I get it wrong, but debating moderators' decisions in the public forum is against the Terms and Conditions.

So no questioning at all?

A position of ultimate authority?

I am new to the board, so please clarify that for me Bravus.

Mark :-)

[Bravus]

Nope - if you want to question a moderator's decision you should do it with a Private Message (PM) rather than in public. There are mechanisms for appeal to the whole moderator group if you do not get satisfaction that way. It's not despotic, but if everyone spends all their time arguing the umpires calls it's just impossible to get on with the game.

[Twilight]

Originally Posted By: Bravus

See, ascription of bad motives, yet again: 'pride'.

As I've said, for me it's not pride, it's just honesty.

You wrote:

Quote:

Yet you have two sides looking at the same rock and both coming to their own conclusions based upon their bias. You may say the world looks old, but do you know what it looked like at creation? So how can you make such a statement? Lets not forget the world was cursed as well.

Again, really look at the science, really understand the science, and you will see that these comments all make no sense. The evidence is *not* equally interpretable from either perspective. The scientific perspective is a clear, logical, self-consistent system of explanations based on observation. To the extent that the creationist perspective does try to explain the evidence it does it with a mishmash of inconsistent ad hoc fixes and twists, like an accelerated rate of radioactive decay, and then uses the Flood to explain everything else.

I challenge *anyone* to really understand the science properly and still find the explanations of 'creation scientists' at all convincing.

It is only through cherishing ignorance about the science that it is possible to continue to believe the things you have said in the quote above. And that's why education is considered a curse...

That is a negative summary of the Creationist model that does not fit the brilliant science of creation scientists like professor Walter Veith - but does reflect many of the summary conclusions of Dawkins about Creation science.

From that conclusion the reader would never suspect the glaring 11 second flummoxed response of Dawkins to the question about information being added into a single genome.

They would never suspect the fraudulent practices of Darwinist scientists reaching even into our recent history within the past 10 years. They would never suspect that brilliant atheist evolutionists well known in their field have themselves openly lamented the distinctively "religious nature" of the argument for evolutionism.

Evolutionism is simply a "belief" - and as the OP post shows - it is a belief that does not fit well with other beliefs.

in Christ,

Bob

I recently saw a BBC documentary, showing Ernst Haekel's false "foetus" pictures.

When was it made?

2007 - 2008

Desperation for evidence?

Mark :-)

[Twilight]

Nope - if you want to question a moderator's decision you should do it with a Private Message (PM) rather than in public. There are mechanisms for appeal to the whole moderator group if you do not get satisfaction that way. It's not despotic, but if everyone spends all their time arguing the umpires calls it's just impossible to get on with the game.

Thank you for clarifying that Bravus. :-)

[BobRyan]

I recently saw a BBC documentary, showing Ernst Haekel's false "fetus" pictures.

When was it made?

2007 - 2008

Desperation for evidence?

Mark :-)

Haekel's fraud was put forward in the late 1800's it continued as a mainstay of evolution's fraudulent history for 50 years. The interesting thing about the frauds in evolution's history is that many of them are put over on the public for decade after decade before truth comes out.

And in every case the one promoting the fraud knows they are doing it.

For example when Haekel was put on trial for his misdeeds his defense was that he would be inclined to be mortified by his antics of simply manufacturing evidence/display if it were not for the fact that "everybody is doing it"!! How telling!

Interesting that the fraudulent horse series presented by Simpson in the 50's has the same lack-luster history of contrived sequencing.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

I want to focus on the way that SDA doctrines themeselves are either downsized or deleted via the avenue of the junk-science religion of evolutionism.

Originally Posted By: SDA 28FB Belief 1

1. Holy Scriptures:

The Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, are the written Word of God, given by divine inspiration through holy men of God who spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In this Word, God has committed to man the knowledge necessary for salvation. The Holy Scriptures are the infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the test of experience, the authoritative revealer of doctrines, and the trustworthy record of God's acts in history. (2 Peter 1:20, 21; 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; Ps. 119:105; Prov. 30:5, 6; Isa. 8:20; John 17:17; 1 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 4:12.)

Evolutionism argues that

1. The Bible is not "the Word of God" - not in written form nor in any other form. Rather it is the "word of fallen and faulty man" who at various stages of ignorance tries to convey some truth via poetry or some other device.

2. As such the Bible is not a "trustworthy record of the acts of God" rather it is merely simply "poetry" or myth or story that illustrates a concept rather than relating accurately historic detail, when it comes to the doctrine of origins.

[BobRyan]

Originally Posted By: SDA 28FB Belief 3

3. Father:

God the eternal Father is the Creator, Source, Sustainer, and Sovereign of all creation. He is just and holy, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The qualities and powers exhibited in the Son and the Holy Spirit are also revelations of the Father. (Gen. 1:1; Rev. 4:11; 1 Cor. 15:28; John 3:16; 1 John 4:8; 1 Tim. 1:17; Ex. 34:6, 7; John 14:9.)

Under the religious view of evolutionism - the term "creator" is redefined to mean that God did NOTHING at ALL in creation that could actually be "seen to show that the makER has intelligence" by the objective mind of man. So in essence - Romans 1 is dead wrong when scripture says that even pagans and barbarians can "clearly the see the invisible attributes of God" because they are "clearly seen IN the things that have been MADE". The constant attacks evolutionists make against Intelligent Design (the argument that the design is SEEN IN nature showing intelligence was necessary in the design)

[BobRyan]

We seem to have found far more agreement on those first two points raised than some may have at first guessed would be the case.

[BobRyan]

Originally Posted By: SDA 28FB Belief 4

4. Son:

God the eternal Son became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Through Him all things were created, the character of God is revealed, the salvation of humanity is accomplished, and the world is judged. Forever truly God, He became also truly man, Jesus the Christ. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived and experienced temptation as a human being, but perfectly exemplified the righteousness and love of God. By His miracles He manifested God's power and was attested as God's promised Messiah. He suffered and died voluntarily on the cross for our sins and in our place, was raised from the dead, and ascended to minister in the heavenly sanctuary in our behalf. He will come again in glory for the final deliverance of His people and the restoration of all things. (John 1:1-3, 14; Col. 1:15-19; John 10:30; 14:9; Rom. 6:23; 2 Cor. 5:17-19; John 5:22; Luke 1:35; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 2:9-18; 1 Cor. 15:3, 4; Heb. 8:1, 2; John 14:1-3.)

Evolutionism does not value a "restoration" to conditions in the hominid caves of Adam and Eve. Such a thing would be a giant step into disease, starvation, predation and ignorance having no concept at all of science art religion or history as we have today. By comparison - we NOW live in the Garden of Eden.

[Bravus]

'Raw monkey brain breakfasts', as I pointed out, is your caricature that is unrelated to anything evolutionists think or talk about. Amuse yourself with it if you like, but don't pretend it's an argument.

[BobRyan]

Originally Posted By: SDA 28FB Belief 5

5. Holy Spirit:

God the eternal Spirit was active with the Father and the Son in Creation, incarnation, and redemption . He inspired the writers of Scripture. He filled Christ's life with power. He draws and convicts human beings; and those who respond He renews and transforms into the image of God. Sent by the Father and the Son to be always with His children, He extends spiritual gifts to the church, empowers it to bear witness to Christ, and in harmony with the Scriptures leads it into all truth. (Gen. 1:1, 2; Luke 1:35; 4:18; Acts 10:38; 2 Peter 1:21; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 4:11, 12; Acts 1:8; John 14:16-18, 26; 15:26, 27; 16:7-13.)

Doctrine 5 connects Origins - Creation to redemption.

Evolutionism teaches that we need to divorce literal belief in the Bible account of creation from literal belief in the Bible account of redemption.

[BobRyan]

'Raw monkey brain breakfasts', as I pointed out, is your caricature that is unrelated to anything evolutionists think or talk about. Amuse yourself with it if you like, but don't pretend it's an argument.

On the contrary - paleontologist still today admit to finding large stashes of monkey skulls in what they suppose to be hominid caves or dwellings. I don't know why you are focused on this detail as if scientists today think that hominids were all vegetarians or were you arguing that they had backyard grills? If the argument is that they never ate raw meat the way some people still do today - I have not seen that in the literature.

But scientist do typically claim that they did eat what we call "unclean food" -- maybe that was what caused the fall of mankind?

in Christ,

Bob

[Bravus]

Look, if you can narrow down the exact kind of evolutionists you're talking about (to one subset of the 4 or more I listed earlier), and if you can define the literal Biblical account as historical, and if you can define every term and the whole framework, then...

Yes, you are absolutely right, and I concede.

On the other hand, when you'd like to discuss the actual beliefs of some actual people, get back to me.