:D:D:D
So you’re saying God adds new stuff on to humans over time. So you do believe in evolution, just deity-guided evolution. I don’t really understand why some people take that halfway stance - if God is making evolution ‘go’, why didn’t he just make the humans right the first time?
So the guppies were put there as a lesson for us? That doesn’t make sense - the individual guppies aren’t being ‘oppressed’ and they won’t ‘shine’ when predation is removed. Their offspring will be slightly more colourful, then the offspring of those individuals will be even more colourful, etc. This reflects a shift in allele frequencies (and we can sequence DNA to prove that allele frequencies *have *changed, it’s not theoretical). The original guppies never ‘reach their full potential’ as you put it, they are just subject to selection. Only generations later will the population be noticeably more colourful. What lesson is that meant to teach us?
They are trying to split the difference between openly contradicting the facts by claiming evolution isn’t real, and admitting that gods had nothing to do with the matter. So they come up with a version of divinely ordained creation that just happens to look exactly like a universe with no gods at all.
I do believe in a spiritual evolution, not really sure what to make of the physical one though have some theories. As for your last question, God gave us imperfect bodies so we can try things out before we get our eternal ones.
The pattern can span generations in one example, yet be for a time in someone’s life in another. It’s the pattern that is repeating on many levels.
In scriptures the above can be expressed in terms of generation curses and blessings. Once a oppressed people are freed it may take time for people to really shine. Likewise when oppression comes it is a gradual process.
This is also reflective in our own individual lives and can apply to a oppressive work situation draining the live out of you, and a change to a better work environment causes one to excel over time
By looking at animal sociatal behavior we can see human comparisons on a macro and micro level
Just a comment on the whole God-in-the-schools thing:
If you believe in an omnipresent god, then that being can neither be put into a school’s curriculum or prayer time nor taken out of the school. People can pray any time they want to any deity they choose, silently (since said being is also omniscient) and no one would be the wiser.
Yeah, I guess I can see that. It just seems odd because it requires you to essentially say that when God made us he had no idea what the hell he was doing.
The change in the guppies isn’t social behaviour, it’s genetic change. Are you saying that God is trying to inspire us to change our genetics?
Hmm. So in 30,000 years, neo-modern human will be imperfect?
How boring being perfect must be!
(Don’t agree with him. Just the perfect/imperfect thing.)
Of course humans in 30,000 years will be imperfect - for one thing, there is only so much material to work with (only what is available as extant variations or future mutations), for another, there is no such thing as ‘perfect’ in the evolutionary sense.
I’m not really sure what your point is to be honest.
“Perfection” is a biologically meaningless word which is neither here nor there. The point is that evolution often results in adapations which are less than ideal. The eyeball, for instance, could have been a hell of a lot better “designed.” It doesn’t look like it was designed by anyone who know what the hell they were doing. It looks a hell of a lot like something which just kind of ended up that way after a lot of unguided, mindless, natural mutations and adaptations
Most likely either they will be primitives just as imperfect as us and living atop the ruins of our civilization; or they’ll be extinct. Either in a global disaster, or having transformed themselves into something not human at all.
Every generation thinks it evolved. So that’s the point.
Every generation of every living thing HAS evolved. You seem to think that that implies some kind of target for evolution, and if so, you’re mistaken.
No.
When people say, “Well it doesn’t make sense that God created things so imperfectly, does it?” it just falls weakly.
I’m saying that it doesn’t matter to point here. Also a aside IMHO genetic codes are just a reflection of that organism’s spiritual condition, it is the spiritual that determines such traits, the genetics just reflect that (which breaks cause and effect as it’s currently understood by science).
Repeating patterns are written throughout creation and go through many levels.
In this instance you have guppies at first free to do as they please, basically in a lesser form of God’s paradise. Then you place them in a instance where there are other ‘gods’, these other fish who will eat the guppies. The guppies no longer swim free but follow ‘rules’ that keep them alive (don’t travel in open water, stay close to rocks), rules that suck the life out of them making them live in fear. Over generations in this case the guppies are conformed by these gods. A new societal order is formed and a new normal is obtained, at the expense of the guppies freedom. Though the guppies of the oppressed generation don’t know what they are missing, and don’t feel oppressed. This BTW is the state of our world after the fall, and gives some hints of our eternal body once we are removed from these ‘hostile waters’.
It makes perfect sense to make that argument, if you are debating someone who denies evolution happens.
This may be perhaps what I may consider a immature theistic view. To me it is at first we notice random squiggles. Science looks to what the squiggles are made of and theorize how they came about, theists (with God’s help) see that these squiggles form letters and words with messages written by the hand of God for us to read and learn about us and Him. As scientist look at their work and come up with new discoveries theists look for God’s message.
This describes the differing points of views, differing starting premises, how God can use even atheists in His plan, and the value and necessity of theism and spiritual studies are for the advancement of humanity.
I really don’t think it does. If God created man and woman in his own image, as Genesis says, then we should be perfect, or nearly so. If you want to say that God made humans as we are with all our extremely obvious faults or that God has been guiding evolution along, then you are admitting that either God didn’t know what he was doing, or that he’s just been messing around for the last several million years. Either of these interpretations goes directly against Genesis, which suggests that God made us just as we are because it was a reflection of his perfection. If you’re going to go against Genesis to that extent, why not just go the whole way and admit that it’s just a story that was written long before people knew how evolution really worked.
The issue with the creationist viewpoint is that any gap in their theory can be filled with “God did it”. Why do we have such poorly designed eyes, knees, spines, etc? Don’t know, God did it. Why are we so susceptible to diseases that cause the innocent to die agonizing deaths? Don’t know, God did it. Why are there so many homologous traits between humans and other mammals? Don’t know, God did it.
Eventually you’re plugging so many holes with “God did it” that you don’t really have an actual theory anymore, just faith. The underlying problem with creationism is that it starts from an unprovable base - the existence of God - and requires everyone to agree to accept that. Evolutionary theory does not require the acceptance of unproven and unprovable articles of faith, we can provide ample evidence for all of the mechanisms of evolution. Sure, there is still controversy over some of the specific relationships between some species (and between fossils), but those don’t impact the underlying theory. And despite your claims, evolution does not require you to declare that there is no God - it is mute on the subject.
Perhaps the problem is that we tend to use the misleading term ‘believe’, as in “I believe in evolution”. Evolution is not something I need to believe in any more than gravity is something I need to believe in, it is just a scientific fact. Most theists I know will admit that their belief in God is an article of faith, something they must find within and trust in with no real external evidence. I don’t believe in God, so I cannot believe in creationism, but whether or not I believe in God has nothing to do with whether I understand and accept evolution. Maybe if we stop using ‘believe’ for scientific findings, we could get rid of this strange idea that evolutionary biology flies in the face of Christianity.
This may appear as such on the surface, but in many ways it is like science, but the question is why did God do it this way? What was He trying to tell us? Is it a search for the truth, not just accepting that God did it and that is it. It is a cornerstone of philosophy, why things are set as they are.
As one searches they find the truth along with other questions, much like science there are many Aha and Erika moments of enlightenment.
Actually my claim is if you prove evolution you prove the existence of God.
That is exactly what science is not. Science deals in facts, not “truth”.
Nonsense. You are starting out with the assumption that only God can change things, so you are simply defining yourself into a winning argument. It’s a completely vacuous claim.
Yes this is the fundamental difference. Thank you