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Evolution

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Wilberto
Aug 08 2003
06:54 pm

I know this topic has been beaten to death by Christian groups, but I am still curious. What are your opinions on Evolution? (Do you think it is true or has some truth to it Etc.

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BBC
Aug 09 2003
03:08 am

Okay, I’m game.

The Bible is clear that God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis also gives each created area a day in which it was created. I don’t know that we are talking about six twenty-four hour days or if perhaps that refers to a day to God (which might be a thousand years — or a hundred thousand). What matters is that God was the one who created it all.

It seems to me that God does use natural processes and uses them well. The mountains rise up and are worn down by erosion. Creatures are born as infants and grow, gaining in strength and knowledge, and eventually die. The forest leaves decay and provide soil for additional trees, etc. To know this does not threaten my fiath in any way.

We also know that creatures can change over time. Dogs can be bred to bring out certain traits. Same with plants. This is not a new thing. Humans have been meddling in genetics for hundreds of years.

Did God use evolution to bring about the world we have now? I don’t know. I think Christians ought to be willing to talk about the possibility, though, without shrieking and running scared like we so often do.

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grant
Aug 09 2003
07:56 am

It seems silly for Christians to deny that the world is pretty old and that things do evolve, but I think Christians were right to be concerned when Darwin came out with his theory. They saw the implications it would have on the perception of God’s involvement in creation. And it wasn’t long before evolution started to be adopted by psychologists, political scientists and aspiring world leaders in scary ways. Darwin ought to be defended against differently than with six day creationalism, however. Six day creationalism takes the Bible too literally in places where the Bible asks the reader to remember that poetry and myth are, though not accurate, also TRUE.

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BBC
Aug 09 2003
11:57 am

Well said, Grant. But I think it is important to remember that evolution does not always equal Darwin. Just as there are some people who believe that God created the world but has nothing to do with it now, there are others who believe that God works through natural processes.

Besides, Darwin doesn’t scare me half as much as Skinner does —though I think Darwin was necessary for Skinner to invent behaviorism.

Wilberto, what do you think?

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Wilberto
Aug 09 2003
05:53 pm

Well, since you asked me so nicely.

I think that Evolution is a valid scientific theory. It is a natural process that can be used to explain many things in our world today.

To me that is all it should be. It’s on par with someone looking at a plant and say “That plant is growing because God made it grow.” And I think this would be a true statement. It would also be true for someone to say “This plant is growing becacause it is converting sunlight into energy by photosynthesis.”

The point is that God works through natural processes. If we try to insist that God just sort of waved his hand and poof we appeared, we are trying to keep God inside our realm of understanding. I don’t think God couldn’t have done it like that, but when the evidence points to something else, I think we are kind of being disrespectful to God by insisting that it had to happen a certain way. Our way.

Anyway, this is not to say that evolution is a perfect solution because there are certainly scientific issues with it, like the irreducible complexity of biological cells. I just think it is an issue that deserves honest consideration.

I hope that made sense, it is my first long post on this wonderful board.

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Dave
Oct 31 2003
06:09 pm

Irriducible complexity does more than make the theory of human evolution not a “perfect solution,” it actually makes it unscientific.

As to the concept of an old earth and things taking longer than six 24 hour days, I have no problem with that concept – it seems to make sense looking at the world around us.

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anton
Oct 31 2003
08:34 pm

Even taking the literary qualities of Genesis into account, neither the theory of evolution nor theistic evolution can be reconciled with Scripture. Evolution must be rejected because it positis that humans evolved out of the inorganic world by a process of natural development, by which evolutionists mean natural forces, resident in nature, leading to the development of one species out of another. Also, it cannot explain the origin of life.

Theistic evolution must also be rejected. On this view, man started on a low level as a brute (but God created man from beginning as the crown of creation, at the highest level). Theistic evolutionists would have to deny the Fall; they would have no explanation for sin and corruption in nature.

But by far the most significant reason that evolution must be rejected on Scriptural grounds is that it completely destroys the two Adams scheme, namely, that there was a first Adam and that Christ is the second Adam. This is not an incidental doctrine. If we did not all fall in Adam, can we who believe all have life through Christ? Evolution undermines Biblical teaching on sin and on salvation.

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JabirdV
Nov 01 2003
09:18 am

Found this today…thought it might add to the conversation.

“Print Article | Close Window
Personal Update > Technical > Creation
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From Personal Update

Part One of a Series:
Why Six Days?

by Chuck Missler

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The Book of Genesis presents a disturbing problem for many Bible-believing Christians. Did God really create the heaven and the earth in just six 24-hour days? How does a serious student of the Torah – the five books of Moses – reconcile the Genesis account with the “billions of years” encountered in the dictums of astronomy, geology, et al?

Many continue to attempt to circumvent the problem by assuming that the six days represent “geological eras,” or that the traditional text is simply a rhetorical “framework” for a literary summary of the creative process. Various forms of “theistic evolution” have been contrived in attempts to reconcile the Biblical text with the various theories and conjectures which dominate our evolution-based society.

However, the sincere student cannot escape the confrontations which result from the straightforward reading of the text with the ostensible declarations of “science.” How can we deal with these fundamental issues?

Why Is It So Critical?

There are four basic questions that confront all of us: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going when I die?

And your eternal destiny will be determined by your “world view” in addressing these issues. And there are really only two world-views: either everything – including you – is the result of some kind of cosmic accident, or this is all the result of a deliberate design by a Designer.

This issue could not be more fundamental to everything. It comes as a shock to many to discover that every major theme and doctrine in the Bible has its roots in this “Book of Beginnings”: sovereign election; salvation, justification by faith, believer’s security, separation, disciplinary chastisement, the Divine Incarnation, the “rapture” of the church, death and resurrection, the priesthoods (both Aaronic and Melchizedekian), the Antichrist, and even the Palestinian Covenant that is being challenged by the continuing tensions throughout the world today all have their roots in this critical foundational book of the Bible. And each of these issues also has its consummation in the Book of (the) Revelation. (Like every good textbook, the answers are always in the back!)

Who Really Wrote the Torah?

There are those who have suggested the books of Moses were actually compilations by a number of redactors over the years – the common “Documentary Hypothesis” being one of the most prevalent theories. Fortunately, these previously popular notions have been thoroughly shredded by competent scholarship. But allow me to save you many hours of boring library research. I know who wrote the Books of Moses: Moses did. How do I know? Jesus Christ Himself said so! Many times.1

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? – John 5:45-47

Jesus quotes from each of the books of the Torah and attributes them each to Moses. The New Testament includes 165 direct quotes (and over 200 allusions) to the Book of Genesis, and over 100 of these are from the first 11 chapters. These include the Creator and the creation, 2 (and allusions3), creation of man and woman,4 the fall of man,5 the Flood of Noah,6 etc. So if you believe in Jesus Christ, you have no problem as to who wrote the Book of Genesis. (And if you don’t believe in Jesus Christ, you have much bigger problems than the authorship of Genesis!)

But “Six Days”?

The account of the creation of the universe in six days still is a “bone in the throat” to many Christians. Many point out that the word for “day” is yom , and is translated to 54 other words; however, 1181 of 1480 occurrences it is “day,” and when used with a number it is always a literal day. But the real problem isn’t the account in Genesis. It is in Exodus. In the middle of the Ten Commandments, the Creator Himself wrote it with His own finger in stone!

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. – Exodus 20:11

It is undeniable that God intended us to understand that it was, indeed, six literal days. So how do we deal with the common understanding that “billions of years” was involved? How do we deal with the astronomical distances of millions of “light years” between the galaxies of the universe? Can anyone familiar with the discoveries of modern science take the Genesis account seriously?

It may come as a pleasant surprise to discover that the more you know about modern science – the real physics, not the mythology and conjectures that masquerade as “science” – the more you can take the Biblical text seriously. The Lord always rewards the diligent. (A recent book includes articles by fifty top scientists – from many different fields of specialization – who declare why they believe in a literal six-day creation. 7)

The Nature of Time

One of the many advantages that 20th century science has given us is that, thanks to Dr. Albert Einstein’s brilliant discoveries, we now know that time is a physical property and is subject to mass, acceleration, and gravity. We have come to realize that we live in a four-dimensional continuum properly known as “space-time.” (This is what Paul seems to imply in his letter to the Ephesians!8) It is interesting that when one takes the apparent 1012 expansion factor involved in the theories of the “expanding universe,” that an assumed 16 billion years reduce to six days!

Furthermore, the astronomical timetables now seem to be entirely overturned with the reluctant acknowledgments that the speed of light is not longer regarded as the constant that the high priests of physics had been previously convinced of.

The Nature of Light

Not only have recent scientific articles highlighted the discoveries that the speed of light has changed over the centuries (something that Barry Setterfield has been declaring for decades) the very nature of light has ripped open the entire world of quantum physics that has shattered our concepts of reality itself.

The changes in the velocity of light not only impacts our understanding of the astronomical distances and properties, it affects the atomic behavior involved in the red shift of spectra, the reliability of radiological dating, etc. It is the peculiar properties of photons themselves that continue to astonish the quantum physicists wrestling with the very nature of our physical existence. It is now recognized that subatomic particles lack a property known as “locality.” All subatomic particles are now understood to be immediately connected. There is a simultaneity – a “non-locality” – among all photons that has been confirmed in the laboratory. It now appears that our entire universe may actually be a gigantic hologram of some kind. 9

The Fabric of Space

Most of us assume that space is simply an empty vacuum with nothing “in it.” However, it is increasingly evident that even empty space has astonishing properties that have yet to be fully understood. We now know that this “firmament,” (raqia ) which the Scripture presents, possesses electromagnetic properties including dielectric permittivity, magnetic permeability, an intrinsic impedance,10 and has an astonishing “zero-point” energy sufficient to keep all the electrons in the entire universe in their orbits.11 The term “stretching the heavens” appears at least 17 times in the Scriptures.12

According to the Scriptures, the heavens can be “torn,”13 “worn out” like a garment,14 “shaken,”15 “burnt up,”16 “split apart” like a scroll,17 rolled up" like a mantle 18 or a scroll.19 The concept of being “rolled up” carries some additional insights. There must be some dimension in which space is “thin.” If space can be “bent,” there must be a direction it can be bent toward. Thus, this tells us that there must be additional dimensions beyond those of space itself. It is now understood that we live in even more than four dimensions: ten dimensions is the current estimate (which is precisely what Nachmonides concluded in his commentary on Genesis back in the 13th century!) The more we understand from the current perspectives of modern physics, the more comfortable we are with the chronicle in Genesis One.

The Architecture of the Solar System

The more we study our solar system, the more questions get raised. Here, too, the prevailing assumptions that are broadly taught are totally specious. The “Nebular Hypothesis,” that the planets were somehow thrown off by the sun, is mathematically untenable. There is no plausible explanation that would support a solar origin of the planets. The sun contains 99.86% of all the mass of the solar system, and yet contains only 1.9% of the angular momentum. The nine planets contain 98.1%. Furthermore, the outer planets are far larger than the inner ones. (Jupiter is 5,750 times as massive as mercury, 2,958 times as massive as Mars, etc.)

There are many other provocative enigmas concerning our planetary history:

o There are three pairs of rapid-spin rates among our planets: Mars and Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, and Neptune and Uranus, are each within 3% of each other. Why?

o Earth and Mars have virtually identical spin axis tilts (about 23.5?). Why? (From angular momentum and orbital calculations, it would seem that the three pairs of these planets may have been brought here from elsewhere.)

o Why does Mars have 93% of its craters in one hemisphere and only 7% in the other? It would appear that over 80% occurred within a single half-hour!

It’s almost as if God designed it to challenge any naturalistic hypotheses!

“Evening” and “Morning”?

The Hebrew terms, Erev,and Boker, now refer to “evening” and “morning” but their origins remain obscure. Erev designates obscuration, mixture (increasing entropy). The time when encroaching darkness begins to deny the ability to discern forms, shapes, and identities; thus, it becomes a term for twilight or evening.20 This also marks the duration of impurity, when a ceremonially unclean person became clean again,21 and thus, the beginning of the Hebrew day.

Boker is a designation for becoming discernible, distinguishable, visible; perception of order; relief of obscurity (decreasing entropy). It thus is associated with being able to begin to discern forms, shapes, and distinct identities; breaking forth of light; revealing; hence, denotatively, dawn, morning. (As traditional designations for the Hebrew day, technically it would seem to only designate the nighttime hours, but it is used connotatively for the entire calendar day.)

It is noteworthy that neither of these are recorded on the seventh day, and thus their original significance may have been to designate the increments of creation.

Other Issues

There are other questions that arise from the Genesis narrative. When was the earth created? It seems to have preceded the rest of the universe. Surprisingly, there are some cosmologists that are (again) beginning to suspect that the universe may be geocentric after all! How did plants (3rd day) flourish without the sun’s photosynthesis (4th day)? When were the angels created? (They apparently witnessed the events of Genesis 1.) 22 When did Satan fall? He had apparently already fallen by Chapter 3.

As we explore these, and other, enigmas that emerge from the Biblical text, let us not confuse the precision of the text with conjectures and mythology that pervades our pagan culture and uninformed classrooms. (It’s tragic that we can’t insist on evidence-based education for our children rather than the foolishness and dogma that continues to strip them of their God-fearing heritage.)

But the more acquainted you become with the amazing discoveries and insights from the frontiers of science – and are able to dismiss the nonsense that prevails among the uninformed – the more comfortable the Genesis text becomes! We plan to continue this series of articles in the unmitigated aspiration of stimulating you to dig ever deeper into God’s inerrant Word!


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We invite you to join us as we go verse by verse through the Book of Genesis. This foundational 24-week study will begin in January, 2004 through our K-Rations tape a week subscription plan as well as through our Berean Online Fellowship.




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Notes:
Matthew 8:4; 19:7,8; 23:2; Mark 1:44; 10:3,4; 7:10; Luke 5:14; 16:19, 31; 20:37; 24:27,44; John 3:14; 5:39,45,46; 6:32; 7:19, 22,23.
Matthew 13:35; Mark 13:19; John 1:3; Acts 4:24; 14:15; Romans 1:20; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:10; 11:3.
Romans 1:25; 16:25; Ephesians 3:9; 1 Timothy 4:4; Hebrews 2:10; 4:10; 9:26; James 3:9; Revelation 3:14; 4:11; 10:6; 14:7.
Matthew 19:4-6, 8; Mark 10:6; Acts 17:26; 1 Corinthians 6:16; 11:8,9; Ephesians 5:31; 1 Timothy 2:13, 14; Revelation 2:7; 22:2, 14.
Romans 5:11, 14, 17, 19; 8:19-20; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; 2 Corinthians 11:3; Revelation 20:2.
Matthew 24:37; Luke 17:26; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5; 3:5-61.
John F. Ashton, In Six Days , Master Books, Green Forest AR, 2001.
Ephesians 3:18.
Cf. “Information in the Holographic Universe,” Scientific American , August 2003.
Any radio ham that has had to tune an antenna array knows about the 377 ohms.
It has been estimated at a staggering 1.071 × 10117 kilowatts per square meter!
2 Samuel 22:10; Job 9:8; 26:7; 37:18; Psalm 18:9; 104:2; 144:5; Isaiah 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; Ezekiel 1:22; Zechariah 12:1.
Isaiah 64:1.
Psalm 102:25.
Hebrews 12:26, Haggai 2:6, Isaiah 13:13.
2 Peter 3:12.
Revelation 6:14.
Hebrews 1:12.
Isaiah 34:4.
Proverbs 7:9; Jeremiah 6:4.
Leviticus 15.
Job 4:7.

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http://www.khouse.org/articles/technical/20031101-492.html

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JabirdV
Nov 03 2003
09:20 am

Did I kill this thread?

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JabirdV
Dec 08 2003
09:43 am

Just an update for those interested…

Part Two of a Series:
Whence Our ‘Reality’?

by Chuck Missler


Most of us take our physical world for granted. To many, our physical world is all that is truly “real.” But the more we learn from modern science, the more illusive and intangible our “reality” becomes.

We understand that the nucleus of a hydrogen atom is on the order of 10-13 cm., and that the radius of its electron’s orbit is on the order of 10-8 cm. – a difference of 100,000 times. (If we were to make a model of that, making the nucleus the size of a pinhead, the electron would be a football field away!) Looking at this volumetrically, for every part of “matter,” there are 1015 parts of “non-matter”! (That’s about the same ratio of one minute to a billion years!) The atoms which make up the molecules of all physical things are more empty than filled!

So if matter is made up of so much “empty space,” it is any wonder that neutrinos routinely pass through our entire world unnoticed? And then it isn’t so difficult for us to imagine how our Lord Jesus Christ, in His resurrection body, was able to pass through walls – even though He was manifestly tangible, not just a “spirit”:

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have . – Luke 24:39

Our Finite Universe

One of the most significant discoveries of 20th century science has been the fact that our universe is not infinite, but finite. It had a beginning. That’s what has led to the many conjectures making up the “Big Bang” models. We are asked to accept the explanation that “first there was nothing, and then it exploded?”

From thermodynamics we know that heat flows from warm bodies toward colder bodies. If the universe was infinitely old, it would be at a uniform temperature; it isn’t. It is still cooling. It had a beginning. And it will have an end.

But it is in the microcosm that we find the most disturbing discoveries. You would think that if we take any length, we could cut it in half, and then take a remainder and cut it in half, etc. At least theoretically, we assume this process could go on forever. However, we now discover that when we get down to 10-33 cm., it loses its “locality.” We now understand that all matter, energy, and even time are made up of “quanta”: indivisible units. (That’s why they call this arena of study “quantum physics.”) The “Planck length” is 10-33 cm.; the “Planck time,” 10-43 sec.

So the astonishing discovery is that we exist within a finite boundary between the macrocosm of astronomy and the microcosm of quantum physics. In fact, we are in a digital simulation!1 The eminent atheist Paul Davies has admitted that “it seems that the entire universe may be nothing more than a thought in the mind of God.”

There are some scholars that suspect that the original Creation was fractured as a result of the curse in Genesis 3, and that the four dimensions presently available to us which we call the “physical world” (three physical dimensions, plus time) are only a subset of a more comprehensive reality: the “spiritual” world.

Furthermore, the Second Law of Thermodynamics – the Law of Entropy – may be what Paul refers to as the “Bondage of Decay” 2 that the whole creation groans to be delivered from, which was also a result of the curse in Genesis 3. (Everything we know about the Creation is, of course, limited from our post-curse point of view.)

The Architecture of Man

It is significant that the real personality of man – both Mr. and Mrs. Man – call it “soul,” “spirit,” or whatever – is “software,” not “hardware.” The “real” you and I are simply resident in temporary bodies and are, hopefully, destined for an upgrade!

Just as the architecture of the software inside a computer cannot be inferred from observing its external behavior, neither can the architecture of our own internal software be adequately inferred from observing our behavior. The only way to comprehend the internal architecture is by consulting the Designer’s handbook.3

If I take a blank computer disk and weight it on a scale, it will weigh about 0.7 oz. If I spend hundreds of dollars and load it with over a million bytes of software, it will still weigh 0.7 oz. Software has no mass. Although it may be resident in a physical system, it has no mass of its own. It can even be transmitted through the airwaves.

(The mass of my current residence has a bit too much mass, but that’s another problem altogether?)

As we pointed out in our article last month, time is a physical property: it varies with mass, acceleration, and gravity. Therefore, since software has no mass, it has no time dimension of its own. The real “you” – call it soul, spirit, or whatever – is eternal whether you are saved or not. That’s the problem. Where will you spend your eternity?

Will you be qualified to spend your eternity in the presence of God? Or denied the presence of a Holy God?

The Reality of Hell

We don’t like to think about the dark side of the “afterlife.” But Jesus spoke more about hell than He did about heaven. He was emphatic that we really understand that we each have a very unpleasant destiny unless we respond to His instruction. And there will be a Final Judgment that will include an accounting of every detail of our entire lives:

But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. – Matthew 12:36

Preparing for the Ultimate Adventure

If we were anticipating being transferred to a foreign assignment, our desk would be littered with brochures, books, and all the reliable information that we could find out about our anticipated destination. Yet you and I have an appointment that is more certain than any other fact of our existence.4 Have you done your homework on this most important assignment of your life?

We will definitely need special credentials for our forthcoming trip to avoid certain disaster – and the visas we will need are only granted on this side of the border! Are you ready to pass through that inevitable portal? There is no other priority in your life more urgent than this one.

The first act of religion was man’s attempt to cover himself, but God taught him that he would be covered by the shedding of innocent blood.5 So this isn’t about “church” or “religion.” It is about a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.6

Don’t spend your eternity counting the “if only’s.” Don’t gamble your eternal destiny on the premise that the Bible is wrong. These issues and many more are covered in our briefing, Heaven and Hell: What Happens When You Die?. The topics of creation, reality, and the nature of time are also explored in our verse-by-verse commentary of the Book of Genesis, beginning January 19th. Sign up for K-Rations or our Berean Online Fellowship subscription plans to receive the Genesis study.

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Notes:
This is exemplified in some of the science fiction stories such as the movie, The Thirteenth Floor, in which a group of scientists create a virtual world populated with virtual people, only to discover that they themselves are in precisely the same predicament.
Romans 8:21,22.
Hebrews 4:12.
Hebrews 9:27.
Genesis 3:7, 21.
Matthew 7:21-23.