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Author Topic:   The TRUE reason for the EvC controversy, and why it can not be resolved.
compmage
Member (Idle past 5153 days)
Posts: 601
From: South Africa
Joined: 08-04-2005


Message 1 of 12 (296721)
03-20-2006 5:54 AM


Christians do not reject science. We do not believe in a flat earth standing on 4 columns, we do not believe the earth is the centre of the universe. We do not doubt that illness is caused by bacteria and viruses, and we are happy to use computers, which use principles of quantum physics.
So, I bet evolusionists must be scratching their heads, asking "Why us?". Why does evolution cause so much contraversy? Why do we still debate creationism 150 years after Darwin?
The reason is that the debate is not really scientific in nature, but it is rather a clash between world views.
Modern Science assume two principles that is in direct conflict with the Christian worldview. These principle are not scientific in nature, but without it, science is not possible. They are naturalism and uniformism.
Acording to this world view, there is nothing beyond the natural world (nature must explain itself), and the principles of nature can be applied to all historic and future events.
In the Christian world view, God created a perfect world, but because of man's disobedience, nature was reduced to a fallen state. It is important to note, the scripture does not restrict this "fallen nature" to mankind alone, but all of nature. The implications of this fallen nature are war, disease, suffering, pain, famon, death and finally, eternal punnishment or hell. Fortunately, God is not only just, but also loving and mercyfull. His holyness demands that the evils of man (that includes christians!) must be punnished, but his love for us wanted to give us a way out. That way out was Jesus Christ, who came to sacrifice Himself to pay for our sins. His sacrifice lead to the salvations of Jews in the Old Testement, and Christians in the New Testemant. One day, he will return and judge the world.
We are all guilty, but those who believed in Him, will be pardoned, to be taken to the new world, where once again, there will be no war, disease, suffering, pain, famon or death. This salvation must not be seen as a right, it is a privilage which no one deserves.
In the christian mind, scientific naturalism and uniformism is only accurate, as long as it is applied to the world in its fallen state. Scientific observations are made in the fallen nature, and it applies only to the fallen nature. We can not make any scientific deductions about the perfect world that existed prior, and will exist after this world, because we have no observations made in that nature.
Evolution is the logical conclusion to make, if you believe in absolute naturalism and uniformism, but this can never be acceptable for the christian. The bible clearly states that God who created nature, can, and did, change the nature of nature. If you're an atheist, I'll accept that you'll write me off as a nut right now, but if you're a christian, you should think twice before doing so. Do you believe you're going to heaven? Have you ever stop to think what heaven will be like? Do you think the scientific principles as we know them today can create an environment as blissful as described in the Bible? Do you expect evolution to continue in heaven as well? If God can create a perfect world after this world, why did He not do so the first time round? If God really did use evolution (which requires death and suffering), why would he promise a New Earth? Why punnish us for evil, because evil is build into evolution. (eg Death, pain, disease) And if we are not going to be held accountable, why did Christ bother? Put simply, evolution, and uniformism which underlies it, is bad theology, and makes no sence in the Christian world view. In a way, this assesment also cast a dark shadow over modern creationism: it too is trying to explain the perfect nature with the science of the fallen nature. Though I would not like to discourage them, I do think there could well be a problem this their approach.
But now you might say that evolution has falsified the entire christian faith. Not so. Remember, evolusionists look at the data through a uniformist and naturalist (Which preassume that God had no/a very limited hand in creation) perspective. These are philosofical assumptions, not scientific ones. For instance, they assume that radio mentric decay was always constant (Always there?), but that assumption is made on observations made in a fallen nature. We have no way of knowing how radio metric decay would work in a non-fallen nature, or if it would even exists there. The origin of the universe, life and macro evolusion is not really a science in the classical sence of the word, as it deals with history. Unlike the laws of physics, history is not repeatable and testable. This is proven by the fact that, dispite our best scietific research tools, innocent people sometimes still end up en jail.
This is the strongest arguement against the death penalty. If science can be so very wrong about something that happened only a few months ago, how can we be so sure about the origins of live? When it comes to history, even science can get it wrong. Science got a lot of historic facts wrong, and there is no way of telling how many of our current scientific ideas are wrong until they're proven to be so.
From this I can make two deductions. First, this debate is pointless. Secondly, it is not going away any time soon. The debate on evolution vs creationism is not scientific in nature, but metaphysical. It is not a disagreement on something you can proof by repetision, as it deals with history. As such, you will never be able to completely disprove the oposing idea.
To allow for a meaningful debate, one need to share a common ground. But in this debate, even the very nature of reality is called into question. With no metaphysical common ground, a meaningful debate on creation\macro evolution is impossible. In the end, it all comes down
to: Does God exist? If so, can He interfere with nature? If so, did he interfere with nature, if not, why do we call him God?
Whether by God's design, or by evolutionary processes, no one can deny that mankind is spiritual in nature, who desires a higher purpose. Worldwide atheist rationalism is loosing ground to monoistic believe systems, because atheism can not provide this higher purpose.
Where Creator/Creation spirituality seperates the creator from the creation, thereby allowing a rational study of nature, monoism sees the spirit and the physical world as interconected.
This believe leads to magic and mystisism. You can take your pick which of the two are more damaging to science. Scientists must acknowledge that the origin of mankind can never be a cold, clinical, purely scientific issue. They, more than in any other field of study, have to be more sensitive to people when they publish their results, and acknowledge the underlying philosofical assumptions of the science they use, rather than to tell people their cherrished believes are ancient myths. It is a simple matter of good P.R.
{Cleaned up the formating some. The original version was a mass of extra line breaks and uncertain paragraph divisions. I put the paragraph breaks where they seemed to have been intended, but such was largely a wild guess on my part. I did absolutely no edits of the content itself. Will submit the edits, and see how the results look. Further edits by the originator will probably be called for. - Adminnemooseus}
This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 03-20-2006 06:25 AM

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by AdminPhat, posted 03-20-2006 6:29 AM compmage has replied

AdminPhat
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 12 (296728)
03-20-2006 6:29 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by compmage
03-20-2006 5:54 AM


Shorten it up and correct spelling
Hello Gone full circle! (Im calling you GFC for short!) This topic is too long for the average EvC participant to engage in. Is there any way that you can start a shorter topic? Once the topic gets going, you can add ideas in the context of a debate.
  • Shorten topic if possible.
  • Let me know which forum you want to go in.
    Get back to me by March 25th.


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    AdminPhat

  • This message is a reply to:
     Message 1 by compmage, posted 03-20-2006 5:54 AM compmage has replied

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     Message 3 by compmage, posted 03-20-2006 8:56 AM AdminPhat has not replied

    compmage
    Member (Idle past 5153 days)
    Posts: 601
    From: South Africa
    Joined: 08-04-2005


    Message 3 of 12 (296755)
    03-20-2006 8:56 AM
    Reply to: Message 2 by AdminPhat
    03-20-2006 6:29 AM


    Summery of the arguement
    Well, the basic arguement is that a meaningful debate between creationism and evolutionism is impossible, because they have no philosofical common ground.
    Science require that you view the world from a naturalist, uniformist perspective. This assumes that everything has a natural explaination, and that natural laws are eternal. This is the philosofical presumption necesary for science to work. Although this works for our daily life, it can not be proven to always have been the case.
    Christianity, and Creationism holds that the Earth was created in a perfect state, but due to the actions of man, man and nature itself was reduced to a fallen state. Creation would be restored to its original perfect state after the Second Coming. This implies that God can and did change the laws of physics itself, as a world without pain, suffering and death can not be explained by science as we know it today.
    Because of this contrast in world views (Theism vs Naturalism, and non-uniformism vs uniformism) the debate between Creationism and Evolutionism can not be resolved, but it won't go away either.
    I'm not quite sure where you'd put this topic, as this theme underlies all the various aspects of the debate.
    -Radio metric dating depends on the uniformity of isotopic decay
    -Reading of the geological column is based on the uniformity assumption.
    -Macro evolution is the result of observed micro evolution + the uniformity assumption.
    -etc.
    Basically, this arguement explores the philosofical foundation of the science of evolution - as well as all sciences that deals with prehistory.
    PS. I do my best to keep my english to the highest standards, but sometimes spelling mistakes still slip through. Sorry.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 2 by AdminPhat, posted 03-20-2006 6:29 AM AdminPhat has not replied

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     Message 4 by AdminJar, posted 03-20-2006 10:17 AM compmage has replied

    AdminJar
    Inactive Member


    Message 4 of 12 (296767)
    03-20-2006 10:17 AM
    Reply to: Message 3 by compmage
    03-20-2006 8:56 AM


    Before this is promoted...
    do you want to make one correction?
    You imply that there is some conflict between theology, specifically Christian Theology and Science. Since that does not seem to be the case (almost all Christian Sects accept the TOE and BB), do you want to reword it to make it clear that you are speaking of some subset of Christians and not Christianity itself.

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  • This message is a reply to:
     Message 3 by compmage, posted 03-20-2006 8:56 AM compmage has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 5 by compmage, posted 03-22-2006 3:55 AM AdminJar has replied

    compmage
    Member (Idle past 5153 days)
    Posts: 601
    From: South Africa
    Joined: 08-04-2005


    Message 5 of 12 (297202)
    03-22-2006 3:55 AM
    Reply to: Message 4 by AdminJar
    03-20-2006 10:17 AM


    Re: Before this is promoted...
    I'm not saying there is a conflict between theology and sciece, as so far as science is applied to the fallen nature, that is, from the start of sin, to the second comming.
    However, anyone who believes in the concept of "going to heaven" must admit that the principles of science are subject to change, and that God has the power and the will to do just that.
    If you asume, as science requires, that the nature is not "fallen", but has always existed in its current state, and will always exist the same way, then evolution is the only possible conclusion. However, if you believe in this, does that mean that evolution, and therefore death, will continue to exist in heaven as well? From this it should be clear that our findings on prehistory could also be wrong due to Gods interference with the laws of physics.
    Obviously, this discussion would only be meaningfull between people who share the believe in God and the hereafter. To someone who do not believe these things, the discussion will be pointless.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 4 by AdminJar, posted 03-20-2006 10:17 AM AdminJar has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 6 by AdminJar, posted 03-22-2006 11:27 AM compmage has replied

    AdminJar
    Inactive Member


    Message 6 of 12 (297283)
    03-22-2006 11:27 AM
    Reply to: Message 5 by compmage
    03-22-2006 3:55 AM


    Admins are not here to debate.
    We can only make suggestions that might help make your opening post better or more focused.
    It is then up to you whether you wish to follow their suggestions or not.
    If you do not want to make the suggested changes I have no problems with its promotion.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 5 by compmage, posted 03-22-2006 3:55 AM compmage has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 7 by compmage, posted 03-23-2006 3:05 AM AdminJar has not replied

    compmage
    Member (Idle past 5153 days)
    Posts: 601
    From: South Africa
    Joined: 08-04-2005


    Message 7 of 12 (297484)
    03-23-2006 3:05 AM
    Reply to: Message 6 by AdminJar
    03-22-2006 11:27 AM


    Re: Admins are not here to debate.
    I'll take your word for it. I've been here before, and I know this place can be ruthless.
    I'll try again.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 6 by AdminJar, posted 03-22-2006 11:27 AM AdminJar has not replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 8 by compmage, posted 03-23-2006 4:47 AM compmage has not replied

    compmage
    Member (Idle past 5153 days)
    Posts: 601
    From: South Africa
    Joined: 08-04-2005


    Message 8 of 12 (297487)
    03-23-2006 4:47 AM
    Reply to: Message 7 by compmage
    03-23-2006 3:05 AM


    Re: Admins are not here to debate.
    Why do so many christians reject evolution on theological grounds? Why are there so many people trying to find the science behind Genesis? Why do we accept a round earth, a non geocentric universe, but not evolution? (When I say evolution, I mean Macro Evolution) More importantly, how is it possible for anyone to go against the rationality of science?
    I have finally awnsered this question for myself. Dispite popular believe, there is no absulute guarentee that scientific findings are true, aspecially when it deals with "what happened", as past events are not repeatable. Science is based on two philosofical believe systems: Naturalism, which do not believe in any supernatural interferance in the natural world, and uniformism, which believes that the laws of nature are unchanging.
    To the Christian, these principles are mostly acceptable. We believe that God created order in the universe, so naturalism and uniformism makes sense, but only up to a point. For instance, the resurrection of Christ clearly goes against the uniformist and naturalist foundation of science. To try and use science to explain it, will be a fruitless endevour. We believe that God is above science, and therefore is not bound by the laws of science. We believe that he did interfere in them in the past, (called miracles) and will do so again in the future. When God created the universe, or at least, the earth, he made it good. But, because of mankinds disobedience, nature was reduced to a fallen state: death, disease, famon and other hardships became the order of the day. The bible is clear that it is not just man, but all of nature that was reduced to this fallen state. I believe that this indicates that the laws of nature themselves had changed, and that science, which assumes that these laws are unchanging, can not make any accurate conclusions about the time prior to this event. It is my believe that this change happened slowly, and was completed round about the time after the flood of Noah, when the age of people reduced to what it is today.
    God promises to change the laws of nature again after the Second Comming of Christ. On the New Earth, God promises that death, disease, famon and other hardships will no longer exists. Countless times the Bible refers to the old, decaying earth that will be replaced by a new, permanent earth. Surely, science as we know it today, can not make any predictions on what this new earth will be like. That is because science is based on observations made in nature in its "fallen state". Science can only make predictions in the time period between Man's disobedieance, and the Second Comming.
    For this reason, creation science itself is a folly. Creationism can never be science, because you can't explain the perfect world with the science of the imperfect. Creationism can be compared with the scientific study of heaven or hell.
    Evolution is based on the assumption of uniformism and naturalism. Science do not recognise the that we're living in a fallen state, and assume death and hardship to be normal. Based on this worldview, evolution is the only possible conclusion that one can make. But this clearly contradicts the Bible, and can't be proven one way or the other. Because the evolutionist and the creationist do not share the same philosofical worldview, any debate between them will be fruitless, because both base their arguements on different assumptions. The disagreement goes much deeper that just the origin of life, but to the very nature of nature, which is a philosofical question, not a scientific one.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 7 by compmage, posted 03-23-2006 3:05 AM compmage has not replied

    compmage
    Member (Idle past 5153 days)
    Posts: 601
    From: South Africa
    Joined: 08-04-2005


    Message 9 of 12 (297490)
    03-23-2006 4:51 AM


    Better?
    I hope my arguement is clearer this time?

    Replies to this message:
     Message 10 by AdminPhat, posted 03-23-2006 9:42 AM compmage has not replied
     Message 11 by AdminModulous, posted 03-23-2006 10:02 AM compmage has not replied

    AdminPhat
    Inactive Member


    Message 10 of 12 (297531)
    03-23-2006 9:42 AM
    Reply to: Message 9 by compmage
    03-23-2006 4:51 AM


    Re: Better?
    GFC writes:
    I hope my arguement is clearer this time?
    Not really. I have a hard time understanding what you are attempting to show us. Perhaps it would be better for you to participate in other threads for now, and by debate and discussion with other members you may find a more concise way to express your beliefs.
    People come to forums such as this for a variety of reasons.
  • Some wish to learn. Others wish to "preach."
  • Some gradually develop a more mature worldview without losing their basic faith and/or religion.
    Others find their faith changing and growing.
    I can't see promoting this topic as it now reads, but I want to encourage you to participate in the forums and interact with views different from your own. Just as iron sharpens iron, debate either helps a person to articulate their worldview more effectively, or it exposes the lack of understanding in an argument.

  • This message is a reply to:
     Message 9 by compmage, posted 03-23-2006 4:51 AM compmage has not replied

    AdminModulous
    Administrator
    Posts: 897
    Joined: 03-02-2006


    Message 11 of 12 (297542)
    03-23-2006 10:02 AM
    Reply to: Message 9 by compmage
    03-23-2006 4:51 AM


    Yes, better
    It looks like AdminPhat is not promoting this because he isn't sure what you are trying to communicate. I think I do. To me it looks like you are suggesting that the reason there is any debate is because of varying reliance on the axioms upon which science sits (which you have described as naturalism and uniformism).
    As such (and also because there is some interest in the topic - see Message 133), I'm promoting this topic.

    New Members should start HERE to get an understanding of what makes great posts.
    Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to:
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    Other useful links:
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    This message is a reply to:
     Message 9 by compmage, posted 03-23-2006 4:51 AM compmage has not replied

    AdminModulous
    Administrator
    Posts: 897
    Joined: 03-02-2006


    Message 12 of 12 (297543)
    03-23-2006 10:02 AM


    Thread copied to the The TRUE reason for the EvC controversy, and why it can not be resolved. thread in the Miscellaneous Topics in Creation/Evolution forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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