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Creationism & Evolutionary Concepts

Huge topic, one that always incites a flame war on the internet. Yet, it's one that is relevant to the faith of billions of people around the world.

Like any war, there are the 2 primary sides: those who take the creation as described in Scripture as a literal account, and another side that holds the naturalist belief that there is no God, no supernatural forces, nothing outside the natural world.

There are even more that hold middle-of-the-fence beliefs. I've talked to several theistic evolutionists recently that hold the idea that evolution is true, but claim the initial creation of life must've come from some extra-natural (or supernatural) power, simply due to the empirical fact that all life comes from other life: biogenesis. Once life was created, theistic evolutionists claim, life started evolving into what we have today. Impaled on the other half of the fence in the middle of the road, there are theists that believe the account in Genesis is more likely an allegory than a literal account; pointing to the fact that many of the accounts in Scripture -- for example, the parables of Jesus -- are allegories. The latter group seems to feel that all the evidences presented by indoctrined evolutionists -- including virtually all the media in the civilized world -- must have some truth to it, and thus, believe some of it, tacking on God somewhere along the line for their conscience's or soul's sake.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that virtually all of us go on the word of others. I haven't personally examined deep layers in the earth's strata. Frequent blog visitor and English rose Ash hasn't personally examined carbon-14 dating and its accuracies. No, we all go on the words of what we're taught, what we hear in the media, and what everyone else believes. Then we argue the hell out of each other as if we all personally knew what the truth was.

One thing is certain for believers in God: the Tenakh/Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, is built on Genesis. Without Genesis, we don't have Abraham (say goodbye, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism). Without Abraham, we don't have Israel, without Israel we don't have David, without David we don't have Jesus Christ. This is just from a genealogical standpoint. From a spiritual standpoint, if one takes Adam out of the picture, we don't have things like original sin. Without sin, the shedding of blood for atonement of sin is pointless, and the shedding of the blood of the perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ, to atone for the sin of mankind is pointless as well. So while one can argue that you can keep faith in God by simply discarding the book of Genesis, you break a chain of events leading to the entire point of Christ, the very plan of God for mankind as laid out in Scripture is rendered meaningless.

I don't want to write a lengthy post on why I believe in a literal creation. I respect those that have differences or even the majority who totally oppose my views. I do, however, want to point all of you to a website I've found very helpful and informative. It's a pro-literal creation site, however, on a surprising and refreshing note, it's also very honest: it points out fallacies in modern creationism (such as the moon dust argument) or the supposed evidences of creation presented by Ron Wyatt, Dr. Carl Baugh, and others), as well as errors in evolutionary concepts (such as the non-existant transitional fossil record). I particularly like the Arguments Creationists Should NOT Use page, I found it very informative as well as embarrassing, as I have used a few of the listed fallacious arguments myself on occassion.

So have a look for yourself: Answers In Genesis. If you're a literal creationist like myself, you'll find a wealth of materials and facts to help you hold your own in the evolutionist onslaught we have today. Or if you're like most who just believes whatever modern science holds, I think it'll be worth your while to investigate what all the fuss is about on the other side of the fence.

10 comments:

  1. Yeah, you got me. I've been meaning to look into carbon-14 dating for ages, and never got round to it. Ah well.
    But on topic, well, I really don't give these things much thought. I guess it's just not something I consider being important. And it makes my brain hurt.

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  2. Ash, you're such a laid back guy. Everyone I talk to has their panties in a bunch over this, but no, not you. :-)

    Most people I've talked to aren't so short of opinion; I've encountered quite a large bit of intolerance and hatred from the secular camp over this. For example, the most recent debate I had was with several guys over at slashdot.org: when some of them realized they couldn't convince me of their view of things, they started cursing, mocking, and telling me how stupid I was for believing in such a myth.

    One guy even went to the extent of changing a website's content that contradicted his view of the world: I pointed him to a wikipedia.org article that contained evidence against his view. Since wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, he quickly navigated to the site, modified the website to support his view, and came back and basically said, "Ha! Now what are you going to do, you stupid creationist!"

    True story.

    Anyways, it's nice to see someone not so opinionated on it. :-)

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  3. Geez, some people can be so stuck with their views! And pretty cruel by the sounds of things, too. I can be incredibly stubborn if I do find something, but things like this I tend to shy away from. As I said, it makes my brain hurt, heh.
    But Snake's 'tache in MGS4? WELL..

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  4. I'm a creationist, and not strictly because the bible says so. I have a hard time believing that a theory is set-in-stone truth unlike most secularists.

    Talk about totally rude secularists, check this out. Boingboing.net trackbacked to this page and the atheists came in droves not only to make fun of the pictures, but to badmouth christians. I tried to point out how rude they were on their comments but its like wispering in a noisy, crowded room.

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  5. Jason, I know the feeling. Say anything -- ANYTHING! -- contrary to what you hear in National Geographic, and a whole mob will break loose with the fury of hell on you, trying best as they can to silence your views, mocking and cursing along the way.

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  6. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I absolutely believe in Genesis as the account of creation. I do not believe life came from no-where. However, evolution is demonstrably a fact, that is, in any group, there will be genetic variation, and some variations will favour survival, strengthening those genes. I don't believe that an ameoba can turn into a horse, but I do believe that a horse can get shorter, or hairier, so long as it visibly remains a horse. Does that make me a fence sitter ? I'm not sure, but it's the only conclusion I can live with - God made everything, and He made it all able to adapt to environmental changes.

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  7. CG, what you mention: intra-specie evolutionary change, also known as speciation, is well accepted in the creationist crowd. In fact, rapid speciation is a critical point in the creationist argument, especially if one is to take the account of the global flood literally.

    Most creationists have problems with the goo-to-you evolution; that is, evolutionary changes that result in new genetic information: the evolution of a specie to the point where it can no longer mate with members of its own specie. This is one assertion of evolution that hasn't been observed, it is often referred to by creationists as macro-evolution.

    On the other hand, speciation and micro-evolution has been observed in labs: for instance, scientists can expose a flea to prolonged periods of radiation and other outside forces that can mutate genetic material. It turns out that the insect will mutate: perhaps change colors, grow thicker layers of skin, and so on, but the flea remains an flea nonetheless, it is still a flea genetically and sexually speaking.

    So I would agree; it would only make sense that if God really did start life, then he would've designed life for survival, and the idea of survival certainly would include the ability to adapt to its surroundings.

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  8. Creationism,which is broughtup against Theory of Evolution,makes a slight shift against traditional jewish and christian belief,i didnt include islam cos unlike Islam,mentioned religions don`t believe in Oneness of God,if you gothr article in Wiki,it mention two kinds of creationism,1)christianity and 2)judaism.

    what do u think,ain`t they against current concept of both beliefs.

    OT:don`t u think that evolution is nothing but another religion?:>,a belief that there is no God:>

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  9. Adnan, we who believe that Jesus is the Messiah believe God is one. Jesus and the Father are one God.

    The people of Israel, whose remnants now are modern Jews, also believe in a single God. I can see why you've been confused though, considering all the "Trinity" talk that comes from modern Christianity (keep in mind, Adnan, that the word "Trinity" is not mentioned a single time in Christian Scripture!). However, I'm not sure where you got the idea that Jews believe in more than one God. Jews most certainly worship only a single God, the God of Abraham. I, as a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, agree with both Jews and Muslims that there exists only one God, and that God is the God of Abraham.

    Maybe you've forgotten that the Christian Bible contains all of the Jewish Bible? It is written (Arabic version here),

    "Hear this, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one."

    God is one God. There exists only one God, don't be confused.

    On the topic of creationism & evolution, evolution isn't a religion. Evolution is a natural process that empirically occurs. I don't see cross-species evolution occurring (that is, evolution of a species such that it can no longer mate with its former species), but speciation and adaptation certainly occur and would make sense in a creation model. For example, if God designed life to be self-sufficient, then undoubtedly God designed life so that it could adapt to its surrounding. Moreover, if one believes that the Earth is relatively young -- thousands of years old, as opposed to the evolutionary millions of years old -- then one has to believe that rapid speciation would've occurred in the last several thousand years, such that we get an array of specie varieties we have today.

    What I am largely against is goo-to-you evolution; that life could magically come from non-life, and that life evolved across species from amoeba to human. These kind of theories that remove God from the picture altogether smack of old humanism, where mankind is exalted and put on a pedestal, and any notion of God is relegated to the weak-minded. That's what I'm against, the outright denial of God. Because if God did create life -- whether the initial life that evolved or all life from the species up -- the denial of God is rendered both false and immoral.

    Now, if I'm wrong, if God doesn't exist, then denial of God would be right, and I would recant. This is why the evolution debate is so heavily fought by believers in God: the argument as it stands today rests largely on whether or not God exists.

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  10. oT:

    IRC version of bible!
    http://twc.sshunet.nl/~djstronk/ircbible/pages/archive.html

    courtesy:CodeProject

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