[massive screeching hijack of thread]
[with Vin Diesel driving]
Um…whaaaaaat?
[goggles soundlessly at Nolies]
If Jesus taught only the law, and not grace, then what was the POINT of Him dying on the cross?? The whole POINT of Him dying on the cross WAS that He was bringing GRACE into the world.
Your grasp of Christianity 101 is, if anything, even worse than your grasp of the various branches of science. The kids in my First Grade Sunday School class understand this point, Nolies. “Jesus died on the cross so that everyone who believes that He was the Son of God, and that He died for their sins, won’t have to do all that ‘sacrifice’ stuff and follow all those rules that the Pharisees had to follow in order to get right with God.”
As a matter of fact, Jesus went out of His way to make the point that He was not merely “teaching the Law”.
Just off the top of my head:
“Moses allowed divorce for the hardness of your hearts”–that’s the Law, but Jesus didn’t say, “Yep, that’s the Law, do it.” He amplified it, He said, “Here’s the spirit behind the law, the original intent.”
“How many times does the Law say you have to forgive your brother? Seven times? Well, I say forgive him seventy times seven…” That’s not “teaching the law”–that’s amplifying the Law.
“Which is the greatest Commandment? None of the above.” If He was teaching the Law, He would have picked one, and they would have stood around debating it.
Also, if He was teaching the Law, why did the Pharisees have such a hard time with Him? He would have been on THEIR side.
2. If Jesus came only to Israel, then how do you explain the Great Commission?“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Or, alternatively, Matthew 28:19: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost…:
Preach the gospel to “every creature”; teach “all nations”. Not “preach the gospel only to the Jews”. Not “teach only the Jews”.
Sheesh. My Sunday School kids understand this point, too.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Creationist debate.
Re: the “enzyme that runs up and down DNA repairing it.”
Yes, there is such a thing, apparently. Googling “enzyme repair dna” brings up a ton of hits, but it’s all in “.edu” geek-speak, and I have no idea what it means in scientific terms, other than, yes, Nolies has retailed a substantially correct factoid.
You realize that, by revealing yourself to be a hyper-paranoid conspiracy theorist, you have lost what little credibility you might have actually had, don’t you? Organized religion has far more “vested interest” in perpetuating myths than scientists do. Consider the relative wealth and power of the most repected scientists vs., say, televangelists…
Why would he not? Because he has no reason to. Efficiency in manufacturing is entirely a human concept - we make processes similar because it saves time and resources. Neither of those is a limitation for a supposedly omnipotent creator. That all of life has DNA is evidence for common ancestry, not against it. God could very easily have given this creature carbon-based DNA, that creature silicon-based DNA, this other creature DNA based on 15 base pairs instead of four, etc. And certainly, if I can imagine such creatures, God can, too, and he could even make them viable!
And what relevance is the “better” bit? Are you saying that God realized that some of his creations weren’t up to par, so he felt it necessary to improve upon them? Doesn’t sound much like an omniscient creator…
Do you even understand your own blather? Natural selection is dependent on the “number of possibilities of colors and beak shape already inherent in the genes”. Did you not read what has been posted before in this very thread? Do you not understand how scientists (as opposed to creationists) explain the workings of natural selection? Has it not been explained that, based on the prevailing conditions at a given time, some of those variations will prove superior to others, and others will likewise prove [i/]inferior*?
Well, you may not be quite the lost cause you seem to be…you admit that one “type” of finch can become “different types of finches”, and that selection does, indeed, produce new types.
Unfortunately, you then proceed to argue against a strawman regarding finches turning into crows:
They haven’t become dogs, cats, or mooses, either. What they haven’t become is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that one type of finch diversified in to several.
Wow. Just…wow. These four words demonstrate that any discussion about evolution is waaaaay over your head.
Perhaps you’ve heard of this book, written around 150 years ago? By this guy named Chuck? It was called On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It became something of a founding work in the field of evolutionary frickin’ biology!
Sorry, but you’ve already been given definitions that are actually used by scientists. You don’t get to make up new ones to suit your argument. Either use the terms as the people who study the field use them, or don’t use them at all.
Actually, it shows how limited your God is. You do not acknowledge that God could have created life initially, then allowed it to change over time via natural laws? It is utterly impossible, and the Bible even says so?
Out of curiosity, do you deny that natural processes such as erosion and uplifting as a result of, among other things, plate movements occur today? These are processes which are used in scientific circles to describe how assorted landforms were created. However, if the earth is only ~6,000 years old, then these processes did not create mountains – God did it, right? And yet, uplifting and erosion *are[i/] happening today.
It is therefore not necessary to explain the ultimate origins of a “thing” in order to determine if natural processes are acting upon that “thing” now. Whether God created life, or it arose as a result of abiogenetic processes, matters not one bit with respect to whether natural selection and other evolutionary mechanisms are operating now.
Abiogenesis remains a red herring in discussions about the validity of evolution. You want to debate ultimate origins, great; then, abiogenesis figures prominently. If you want to debate proximate origins or evolutionary theory, abiogenesis is irrelevant.
Nolies, my faith is strong enough it quite literally saved my life. The only reason I’m alive, sane, and posting on this message board is because Christ saw fit to have mercy on me and save me when nothing else could penetrate. I was then and am now a Christian. Then and now I accepted and accept evolution as the most likely explanation of how the world as it is came to be. If a better one comes along, I’ll change. Creationism is not a better one.
You say you’re interpretation of the Bible is coherent, yet Genesis directly contradicts itself within the first two chapters. As for your interpretation in the Bible, I’ve been a Bible-believing Christian for over 30 years, and I see extremely little to support it. By saying those of us who accept evolution are not proper Christians, you have directly insulted me, Polycarp, Tomndebb, Duck Duck Goose, and countless other Christians. How do you reconcile that with Christ’s Commandment to love your neighbor as yourself? By deliberately and willfully overlooking the evidence which supports evolution and reducing the glorious complexity of the events which created this world to the wave of a divine magick wand, I say you are disobeying the first and greatest Commandment, to love God with all your mind. By saying you and you alone know the will of God, you are placing yourself on a level with God. By insisting that unless I give up my acceptance of evolution, I am not a true Christian, you are asking me to disregard what God has shown me through a lifetime of faith and service simply because you say so. I follow Christ’s authority, not yours.
Please understand one thing. While I assume your intention is good, witnessing of the kind you’ve done here will only drive people further from your form of Christianity because, in the minds of people here, it furthers ignorance and we are interested in fighting it. If you want to drive people away, that’s your privilege, just as it’s my privilege to respond accordingly.
Well you have driven another nail in the coffin you are building for your argument.
Read carefully because I’m only going to say this once. In the quote above you have said that the Galapgos finches could easily have come from just two birds. In other words, all of the various species of finches were not originally created but rather evolved from just one pair.
You are in the same boat as the author John Woodmarappe who wrote a book titled, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study. He insisted that species were immuatable and that all had been created as described in Genesis. In his argument he faced the problem of how to get all of those different species on the boat. In the case of the ducks, geese, swans, merganser, etc. he stated that there had been just one pair, or maybe it was seven pairs, of the family Anatidae and all of the different species; ducks, geese, etc. had come from that pair. And he didn’t even seem to realize what he had said.
All that is required for life is one, count them, one, molecule that can replicate itself in an environment of the materials needed for its assembly. Once that molecule exists, mutation, whether by mistakes in copying or environmental factors, and natural selection will take care of all the rest. How that first molecule arose is still unknown but for all of “the rest,” mutation, which is a fact, and natural selection, which even creationists agree results in different varieties, are sufficient.
Actually, if you’ll pardon the hijack, I’m curious as to where Nolies gets his or her justification for predestination. While I know Mr. Calvin was a fan of it, I have a hard time finding any justification for it and it seems to me it’s a doctrine full of hazards. It denies the free will my Christian beliefs tell me God deliberately gaves us. It also makes a mockery of life and faith itself. If my ultimate salvation or damnation is already determined by God, it makes no difference whether I continue to go to church on Sundays, follow the teachings of Christ, and generally continue to observe the vows I’ve sworn or plunge into a life of decadent heathenism, and I do know some decadent heathens (or at least Wiccans!;)) who’d be willing to indulge me. If one believes one is also predestined for heaven, it also smacks of arrogance to me. I have lived the best life I know how to and served Christ as best I can, yet I will not presume to tell anyone that he or she will burn in hell while I will go to heaven; for all I know, it may well be the opposite and, in that telling someone they’re going to burn in hell, especially without providing them an alternative, which predestination does not allow for, doing so violates the Commandment Christ gave us, to love our neighbors as ourselves. I’m sorry, but I find predestination a foolish and potentially cruel doctrine and it’s not one I hold to, nor does the Episcopal church.
Nolies, if you believe that God “created” us–as opposed to us evolving from primates–do you believe that He created us with free will, or as beings individually predestined to either be saved or not be saved?
might as well continue the hijack, there sure ain’t nothin’ else goin’ on in this thread, Nolies has his mind made up.
Although it is nice hearing DF expound upon scientific verities…
To be fair, it ain’t just me. David Simmons has probably done a better job at explaining the misconceptions regarding my namesake than I have, as just one example of many.
And if you are teaching the kids they are in for a tough hoe when someone challenges their beliefs…
I’ll ask you a simple question. Now Jesus never mentioned publicly that he was going to be crucified he only told his disciples and in private, and told them not to tell anyone. So when he sent them out to preach the gospel to only Israel what did they preach? I noticed that in your definition you didn’t mention that you must believe God raised him from the dead.
Isn’t that the Gospel in a nut shell that God raised Jesus from the dead. If they were told not to say that this was not going to happen then what did they preach when they preached the gospel?
You are an immature or fake Christian aren’t you…?
You answer the question that you ask and you get it wrong. Tsk Tsk…
He came to fulfill the law…
His death on the cross didn’t do away with the law. Peter was still following the law and so were all of those in the first 7 chapters of acts…
You don’t even know that…
Who, since you are a Sunday school teacher was the first person whom God’s grace was poured out on? Do you know? LOL
I bet you think that the whole bible is an allegory…
If you care to start another thread on any of this go ahead, since these time + chance = complexity guys are a lost cause they will find out what their eyes tell them now on judgment day.
varieties:
Now in a futile attempt varieties, is the subsituted for change from one from of life to another. Variety that is just inherent in the rich genentic code of all animals who reproduce after their own kind. In all the generations since the begining of recorded history which by the way is 6000 years are we still human or are we something else… All that variety doesn’t change a cat to a dog nomatter how much time you add… Get it!!!
Er, no…of course a cat isn’t going to change into a dog; they are divergent branches in the evolutionary tree, which only goes in one direction. It might be (theoretically) possible to deliberately modify the code of a dog into a cat by backtracking down down to their common ancestor adn then back up the other branch, but species/types/whathaveyou aren’t going to change into each other; they are going to evolve into new forms that will eventually be so divergent from other populations to be considered speciated.
The traditional deliniation of species is based (largely) upon cladistic evaluation, but there’s no set boundary between a creature that is of one species or another. It happens, most of the time, that the creatures that might fall in the intervening varieties–say, the bridge between human and common chimpanzee–are all extinct, having been less fit for conditions than their surviving brethren, but any argument based on creatures not “jumping” from one species to another suggests a gross lack of understanding of the mechanics of taxinomy.
Nice. Your god sounds like a real charmer. I don’t think I’d care to spend eternity with him.
I’ve never done a full-bore witness on this board before, but it becomes my obligation at this time to hijack this thread to do one.
Nolies, God loved the world (i.e., the oikumene, the peoples of the world taken as one) so much that He sent His only Son. He did this, not to condemn, but so that the world through Him might be healed and made whole. That Son, Jesus the Christ, came into the world so that we might have life, and that life abundantly. He taught that the greatest commandment of all was that one should love God with all that is in oneself, and the second commandment, like unto it, was that one should love all one’s fellow man as oneself. He said that we should do unto each other as we would have others do unto us. He classed these three things as summarizing all the Law and the Prophets. He did not teach all this stuff merely to the Jews, but to give them “first refusal” as He had promised them. He most emphatically did not teach all this stuff so that it could be forgotten a few years later when Paul started teaching the Gentiles. In fact, Paul Himself says that if anybody preaches another Gospel, let him be anathema.
You have proceeded to insult a fair selection the Christians on this board individually, threaten everybody else with Hellfire for not believing your opinions about so-called Scientific Creationism, and generally shown the farthest thing from the Spirit of Christ. We are told to test the spirits in one of the Epistles, and we are told that the way we will know that someone is Jesus’s disciple, is that he shows Jesus’s love to others.
You fail the test miserably.
For the sake of your own future happiness and that of those with whom you come into contact, I urge you to repent, ask Jesus’s forgiveness for your offenses against God (for whom you are supposed to be an effective witness) and your fellow man in this very thread, and attempt to show God’s love to others.
May His peace and lovingkindness suffuse your being and bring you to closer communion with Him.
