home school evolution questions

What a nicely ambiguous insult. Would you care to use your vast knowledge and refute the reply (thus far ignored by all) contained in message 11 of this thread? If not, I would ask you to reconsider your "faith bashing" accusation - unless you can show that what was discussed in that post "was not science", or that anywhere in that post was any discussion of credentials.It's creationists that provide the "cheap entertainment" most of the time...

It wasn't an ambiguos insult. It was a very overt one. But it really only applies to the people I was referring to. I was careful to qualify my statement and say "most" not all. So why exactly are you taking offense?There were many others who posted after my statment and apologized to Truthlover for being so insulting and began to help him address the question he posed.Your post was not ignored, it simply has not been responded to. I thought yours was a good post and didn't take the combative approach that many of the origianl posts had...so, kudos.I merely presented the fact that most of the people who replied to him did not answer his question, but just went over the top and began critisizing. If I ask you "what is evolution?" and you respond with "God is a fairy tale", are you answering the question?Take a deep breath. Exhale. Let's just keep this thread on track with the question presented, shall we?

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unless you can show that what was discussed in that post "was not science", or that anywhere in that post was any discussion of credentials

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I am not an evolutionist, so I can't answer Truthlover's question. Since you clearly ARE an evolutionist, why not take a stab at the topic at hand rather than sidetracking from the subject as you have done?BTW, thanks for the entertainment[This message has been edited by Arachnid, 02-15-2003][This message has been edited by Arachnid, 02-15-2003]

Quetzal,I went back and looked at your post 11, just to remember what was said there. In it I noticed a question that said, "How detailed would you like the replies?" I never responded to that, because you followed it up by saying that the student reply I posted was occasionally in excruciating detail.At least one of my students addressed the Coelecanth issue very similarly to you, which was completely new to me in the last month. I am almost certain that Richard Dawkins, in _The Blind Watchmaker_, says that the Coelecanth is almost unchanged over the last tens of millions of years. So it was quite a surprise to me to find out that Coelacanth is an order, and that the modern coelecanth genus has no fossil history. It sure seemed like something Dawkins would catch.I can't check Dawkins statement, because one of my students left with my copy of the book on a one week trip.Actually, it's funny that one poster mentioned being asked to take the evolution side in a debate at his (must be Christian) school. We have a couple of our men who are going to take the creation side against our students. Both of them are dads of a student, and both of them work at the business I run. The jabs they throw back and forth as I see them around are a lot of fun. I think the dads are researching the topic themselves, not sure what they're going to find. We have adopted evolution sort of as a creed--it's neat how many spiritual applications there are to the ideas contained in Darwinism--but a lot of the adults are just taking my word for it that the evidence is strong.The debate should be fun. It's happening two weekends from now, probably, or perhaps the third. Last year we debated whether the non-violent methods of Gandhi and M.L. King could successfully have freed the slaves in the 1800's and prevented civil war. There are a lot of approaches you can take to that topic, but what a great way to teach a lot of history all at once.

Andya,Thanks for the welcome. Really, it's pretty presumptious of me to call myself truthlover, but I really wasn't planning to hang around the board long, and, to be honest, (confession time), I thought the name would make people assume I was a yec, especially combined with the post I made. None of the post was untrue, but I did purposely write it in such a way as to make people think I was a yec.I have been told by two or three people in my lifetime that I was the most honest researcher they ever met, so it's not totally presumptious of me. A couple of those people now slander me horribly, because they only liked my honesty when it led me to agree with them. I'm in a village now, a purposefully-gathered village, of about 30 families, and one of those people, who once loved my honesty, told an acquaintance of mine, "Yeah, Paul always wanted to start his own cult, and now he has." Shoot, I neither started nor run this place, and he knows nothing about it to call it a cult or deny it's a cult. Some honesty on his part.Anyway, thanks for the welcome. I can be terrible about rambling needlessly. I generally go by Shammah, even on message boards, by the way, not truthlover.

If you're not in too much of a rush, care to elaborate on the following:
"...it's neat how many spiritual applications there are to the ideas contained in Darwinism--but a lot of the adults are just taking my word for it that the evidence is strong."Verily, I have heard one good gospel spiritual application of Darwinism by a theistic Evo that I was conscientiously forced to applaud as a valid Christian one (Christian in the sense of the "little Christ" definition and not the broad humanistic/Muslim/agnositic/universalist/etc. version, etc.). But, I'd love to here one or two of yours to peradventure ad to my spiritual conscience.E.g., How does your ToE/hypothesis reflect your Christ-and-him-crucified, death burial and resurrection, redemption by sovereign grace of God, hell-hot, heaven-sweet, etc.Note: This is a question for any theistic-Evo of the evangelical breed. Atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Buddists, and other non-Christian theistic-Evos, please refrain rebutals to my inquiry (unless you really care).[This message has been edited by Philip, 02-16-2003]

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I am almost certain that Richard Dawkins, in _The Blind Watchmaker_, says that the Coelecanth is almost unchanged over the last tens of millions of years

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I've just checked my copy of the Blind Watchmaker. This is what he says So, you were right in your recollectionAlan

Thank you to Alan for finding that quote.Philip, one of the things that allowed me to be open to evolution is the belief, that I picked up from reading the writings of the 2nd century church, that God works in nature the same way he works in spiritual things. For example, to them the change from winter to spring was proof of a resurrection, and the phoenix, which they thought was a real bird, was proof of resurrection as well.I once read a book called "Revolution: the Story of the Early Church" by Gene Edwards. In it, he takes note of the slowness which which the offices of the early church evolved. First, apostles after 3 years of personal training by Yeshua, then "the seven" after about eight years of intense church life. Only after that did elders, servants (deacons), prophets, and others come about. Edwards notes what church life was like at that time and how a disciple must be transformed by Christ before he can be in such an office. Watchman Nee has neat stuff to say as well about the work God puts into one of his (real) ministers.The work that occurs in a disciple is very Darwinian. It is fed by trials, changes, and the struggle for survival. How, Biblically, will a disciple be matured? According to James, it is by a series of trials, which are to be welcomed by the disciple as the builders of patience and eventually maturity.As a church, if we were to get together for that purpose, we could spend days recounting events that were phenomenal in our eyes; acts of God that were clearly God's hand guiding events in our lives. Most of them, however, could be discounted as coincidence by men like Richard Dawkins, who simply says that with six billion people on earth there will be a lot of very bizarre-seeming coincidences occurring. We, however, have found that we can live quite confident of God's intervention.Creation by evolution is so much more like that pattern than instant creation. God usually leaves himself behind the scene, working more covertly than overtly. "The secret of Yahweh is with those who fear him," says the Psalmist. Occasionally, God will work quite overtly, but it is like God to be visible to those that know him, and hidden to those that do not.I'll give you an example, and atheists will love it, because they will say I'm listing a completely natural event as an act of God. That's okay. I believe it is a completely natural event, but it is so like the God I know, that I know he's responsible for it in the end.I absolutely love the way large molecules are formed. Stars take hydrogen, once the only element in the universe, and in a giant (from our perspective; small, I guess, from the universe's) nuclear reactor it produces helium. From helium, it then begins to produce carbon. Once carbon is produced, if the star is large enough, it begins to produce the heavier elements. If it begins making iron (I sure hope the book I read this in is right; the guy was an astronomist), iron draws in energy in a fusion reactor, rather than releasing it like other elements. When iron is made, due to this intake of energy, the star collapses in on itself, creating great heat, igniting the corona of the star into a nuclear reaction, and the star blows itself to bits.Even if I'm not correct about the iron, the process of supernova is correct. Because carbon is at the base of the final stage of such a star, many of the molecules strewn across space are carbon-based, i.e. organic molecules, the ones life are made of.Call me an ignorant spiritualist if you want, but if those nuclear-powered factories that we call stars are churning out the molecules of life (plus all the heavy metals, etc. that compose a livable planet) for no reason but chance, as atheists say, or if they are churning them out for no reason at all, like creationists say, then I'm going to be real disappointed. I believe God created us in a long, wonderful, caring process that involves exploding nuclear-powered factories, then an awesome process involving gathering those atoms and molecules, sorting them on clay tablets (I understand there's clay that only the twenty amino acids we're made of stick to), then growing them over time, much time, into us.I do need to say that the fact that we are made of stardust, the molecules stars create, if they're big enough to finish the job, is a pretty compelling argument for evolution, in my opinion. The atheist opinion that because it is those molecules that were made by the stars, therefore life could only evolve from those molecules, is magnitudes more sensible than the belief, which instant creationists must hold, that the stars are churning out the molecules we're made of for no reason at all! What does that say about God?

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I once read a book called "Revolution: the Story of the Early Church" by Gene Edwards. In it, he takes note of the slowness which which the offices of the early church evolved.

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I have several issues with this account, as you portray it. First off, the information needed to draw up such a chain of events doesn't exist. There isn't any real evidence of what went on in the very early church, say from inception to 70 or 100 years into the process. And secondly, the church was a chaotic mess of rival sects from the earliest periods we do know about, so this neat process is just plain false.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

John,Actually I hardly portrayed any chain of events, unless you are addressing Gene Edwards' book and not what I said. I said the offices of the early church developed slowly, and the evidence for that is Acts. That's not tons of evidence or anything, but that the offices of the church developed slowly makes so much sense that one hardly needs tons of firsthand accounts to establish that.As far as saying that the early church was a mess of rival sects, that is more simplistic than traditional Christians suggest, where they ignore gnosticism and other sects. Overall, there was a very large main chain of churches, and they had a basic unity and cooperation, and there is a lot of evidence from at least the second century, and enough from the first to reconstruct the a general lineage.Yes, there were gnostic sects in and out of early Christianity, as well as a few other sects. But to call early Christianity a chaotic mess of rival sects from the earliest periods is way more than I could agree with.Finally, I have no idea what "neat process" you are referring to that I supposedly suggested. Again, all I said was that the offices of the early church developed over time. I don't know what you read into my post--again, maybe you are answering Gene Edwards, not me, but I don't know that Gene Edwards paints a picture of a "neat process," either.

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Actually I hardly portrayed any chain of events, unless you are addressing Gene Edwards' book and not what I said.

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The book as you summarized it. I was talking about the Edwards book, though talking to you.This is off topic so I'm going to drop it. If you want, we can take it up in another thread.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

I'm a Christian who believes in evolution (i.e. RM&NS, abiogenesis, and common descent), though I hesitate to pidgeon-hole myself as a "theistic evolutionist."I find it interesting that an otherwise blind, selfish process like RM&NS gives rise to things like kin selection, altruism, and cooperation. That is, having shared genes promotes a kind of universal utilitarianism. In fact, we can as humans can and do sacrifice ourselves in situations where we derive little or no genetic benefit.And as for the "dark side" of RM&NS? Well, I guess the Zen side of me realizes that (in this world anyway) suffering is inevitable.-Neil

John,Oh, thanks. If you were talking about Edwards' book, then I probably wouldn't disagree with you much, anyway. My post seemed to be very positive about Edwards' book, but I didn't mean it to be. I did like it; he's a good writer, but most people I know would agree with you that it's not very good history.And after I thought about it, the terms you used about "chaotic mess" may be subject to a lot of interpretation. In other words, what you call a chaotic mess, I may not call a chaotic mess, and we may not necessarily even be disagreeing.

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ask a yes or no question and you'll get a paragragh..

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Did you ever think that the question you asked wasn't actually answerable by a simplistic binary answer?

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His response was that it was a waste of time to try and inform creationists, because they didn't listen. He said he'd spent a couple years on newsgroups, and I was the first creationist he'd ever met who paid any attention to what he was told. He did offer to rethink his approach now that one person had cared what the facts were.

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In the past, I have noted several Creationists who were participating in these forums who were otherwise quite bright and started out wanting to simply understand the "other side", end up getting very upset and agitated and angry at a certain point in the debate. That point would come pretty soon after all of their objections, mostly due to lack of information and unfamiliarity with science and it's methods, had been solved/explained.It seemsed to be that they simply got scared. They had been convinced that to be a good Christian you weren't allowed to accept modern scientific thought, and when it started to make sense to them intellectually, the congnitive dissonance caused them considerable pain.

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I merely presented the fact that most of the people who replied to him did not answer his question, but just went over the top and began critisizing.

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I find it rather overpoweringly ironic that you should be pointing out a bit of curtness of some our evo's posts when posters like jdean and Zephan have been, nearly without exception, abusive, offensive and obviously intended to annoy, yet you have not seen fit to rebuke them in the least.