How does "Intelligent Design" account for ...

Great Debates
141

:Sigh: I give up. Bible man, your arguments are far too complicated for this simple Anglican. Suffice it to say I am content to see the Hand of God in evolution as surely as I do in the sunrises which greet me as I post, the colors the leaves will be turning soon, or my infant niece’s smile. Ultimately, how they came about is far less important to me than that they came about and, while I do enjoy plunging into these arguments as much as anyone, I sometimes suspect theologically they’re the 21st century equivalent of “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” I concede that what you teach my niece in school is a different, somewhat more relevant matter.

Peace be with you.
CJ

142

No, contrary to what you might think, the Bible isn’t in conflict with any science, only as certain sciences have embraced false theories (Evolution for example) and acts in opposition to the revealed Truth of the Bible is there any conflict. When scientists believed the earth was flat, the Bible proclaimed otherwise - rejection of the Bible leads to scientific errors, not the opposite. These false theories even affect the sciences which should not be in the debate - for example, in the field of geology, a science which is not even a part of Darwin’s theory (his theory dealt exclusively with living organisms), conflict results from interpretation of data by those scientists who have been influenced by the Evolutionists: The same data gained by observation of stratification for example, supports the Biblical Flood, which happened in a very short time, while an evolution-influenced scientist will incorrectly interpret the same data to support an exponential time period spanning billions of years because it supports his evolutionary beliefs.
Our scientific methods are incapable of analyzing such a supernatural event as the Creation. That first week, God created many things in their final mature form including Adam, animals, trees, rocks etc. Even if we went back in time, no matter what scientific method of observation that is employed to analyze them, it would not yield the correct age of between 1-7 days. God supernaturally bypassed all the natural development processes in order to give a complete, functioning planet to our first parents. Would you give a new car to your daughter that’s missing a door or steering wheel, or make her wait while the engine is being assembled? And now to accuse God, as some do, of being deceptive by creating things in a complete condition simply because His supernatural creative ability frustrates investigation by our natural tools, is amazingly ungrateful and insulting to Him (God is Truth).
The Bible verses that deal directly with the issue of seeking God and His ways using natural means is 1Cor1:18-31 in which God declares that no human, natural means of understanding Him will be successful - we must come to Him through Christ who is the Wisdom of God and the Power of God. There is no other Way to know Him. The only way that science can ever succeed in its quest for Truth is if it reaches a point that it can create something out of nothing. If you think that will ever happen then keep putting your faith in it. If not, you need to stop re-arranging the deck chairs and find your way off the rapidly sinking ship.

143

As far as geology being influenced by “evolutionists”, you’ve got it precisely backwards: Geologists had begun to realize that the Earth is far more ancient than a literal reading of Genesis suggests before Darwin. The realization of the world’s great age was one of several scientific advances which helped lead Darwin (and Wallace) to discover biological evolution.

144

This statement is false in its entirety. “Scientists” have known that the world was spherical for a very long time. Eratosthenes even provided a fairly accurate measurement of it around 200 B.C.E.

In contrast, the Bible speaks of the “circumference” of the Earth (which indicates a circle on a flat plane) and has Satan take Jesus to a high mountain from which he could see all the nations of the Earth–physically impossible on a sphere.

The Creation story also presents the Earth as land suspended between the waters above the heavens and the waters below the earth in a way that is only possible if the cosmos is located in a plane.

Now, I do not claim that the Bible taught that the Earth was flat, only noting that the myths and stories used were based on the assumptions of the people living in Judaea and Israel at the times the stories were written. But your claim will only be supported by twisting some verse out of character in order to pretend that the bible said something it never did.

I am amazed that you consistently and repeatedly portray your version of God as a liar. What is the purpose of creating inanimate objects in a way that all the evidence points to great age unless God was trying to trick us into unbelief?

145

Right on.

Besides the “flat vs. round” debate, there was also the “geocentric vs. heliocentric” debate:

If we go by a literal interpretation of Scripture, then the Bible has been a horrible, horrible science textbook for thousands of years.Psalm 104:5 says that the Earth is fixed - “it can never be moved”. Joshua 10:13 says that the Sun stopped around the Earth, not that the Earth stopped rotating.

Literal interpretation of these verses suggest the Bible says the Sun rotates around the Earth – and for centuries, the Church fought evil heretic scientists who proclaimed otherwise. The Church was wrong then, and the Church is wrong now, in advocating such a literal interpretation.

There is no reason to believe that the Bible was written with any scientific accuracy in mind. This doesn’t diminish from the value of the Bible - it just stresses how important it is to understand the culture and tradition from which the Bible was born. The story being told in Joshua is not that the Sun revolves around the Earth - the story is that God cared enough about his people that he intervened supernaturally to come to their aid. Whether God stopped the rotation of the Earth on its axis or whether he stopped the revolution of Sun around the Earth is irrelevant - the main point is that, from the perspective of the author, the Sun stopped in the sky.

Likewise, the story in Genesis is not meant to display scientific accuracy, to provide a chronology for dating the universe - the story is meant to convey that God is the originator of the universe (that is, he is a creator, not a created), that creation is separate from him (that is, he did not “give birth” to the Earth as in many other creation stories), and that he did it in several distinct steps.

The similarity between Genesis 1 and modern cosmology should definitely raise some eyebrows, even among the most skeptical atheists. The Big Bang Theory predicts that, when the universe was smaller, the energy density was higher, and that radiation (light!), not matter, dominated the universe. As the universe expanded and cooled, radiation condensed into subatomic particles, and subatomic particles condensed into matter (gases, liquids, and solids). If anything, the first two days of creation supports Big Bang Theory and modern cosmology, not refutes it.

It isn’t anti-Biblical to believe in a literal 6-day creation with a 6,000 year Earth (the Bible does not rule it out) - but it is aBiblical (the Bible does not support it).

146

I see no reason to think that the Bible was written with the thought of any kind of accuracy in mind, not just scientific accuracy.

As I understand things the tribal legends on which the Bible is based were told to maintain tribal identity for which purpose factual accuracy isn’t needed. And what became the Bible was first collected in written form during the Babylonian Exile in order to maintain Israelite cohesion while captive in an alien society. Factual accuracy isn’t a requirement for the latter purpose either.

147

Some people want to believe in a cruel and deceitful god, I suppose. I was born with an inquiring and curious mind which was reinforced at my Baptism. (I swear the priest stuttered and I got a double dose!:wink: ) The way God shaped my mind leads me to wonder about how things came to be, and find evolution to be a far more satisfactory explanation than the notion that God is out to set deliberate traps for us. If what Bible man says is true, and the evidence which supports evolution and cosmology was set up by God to test our faith, then all I can assume is he made me as I am only so that he could condemn me for being what I am. The reason I didn’t capitalize “he” in the last sentence is a god who would do such a thing is a god I have no intention of worshipping.

CJ

148

I wouldn’t put it past him. He put Job through the ringer just to prove a point to Satan.