home school evolution questions

I've posted this elsewhere, but I've never gotten a response from anyone. This seems to be a good place to try again.Quoting myself:

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Of course, evolution should not be expected to be taught in a church or sunday school that finds it to be contrary to their theology.

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But, what I wonder is, should evolution and/or anti-creationism be touched upon in those churches who find it to be compatible with their theology (and find fundimentalist creationism to be contrary to their theology).

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To take this a bit further. Does the non-fundimentalist Christian church have a moral and/or theological obligation to take a stand against an aspect of theology (creationism), that they find destructive to their vision of Christian faith?I am inclined to say "Yes"Moose

truthlover, I'm sorry to have misunderstood your position. You seem to be in basically the same position regarding the subject as I am (as far as it is possible to judge such things through a couple of short texts on a forum such as this).I'd say you've got some good students there. Perhaps the answer to your question is to keep hold of the answers given each year, in a few years time you'd have quite a good collection. You can always come somewhere like this forum to discuss specific responses from your students.Alan

Zephan, I don't normally use my title - but I came here to find my name already taken by somebody expounding views as science that were a load of bunkum. It seemed appropriate at the time to use the title, and now I'm rather stuck with it. It is, however, as Karl has noted a title I have earned.To briefly answer your questions (not quite in the order you asked, but never mind)

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Perhaps your version of evolution is different from mainstream?

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No, my view of evolution would be the same as mainstream science. I believe science can produce the true materialistic picture of the world. I'm not an expert in biological systems and evolution, so I have to trust scientists in relevant fields to be as diligent in their research as I am in my field (and if they ever feel the need to know something about nuclear physics or radiation I hope they'd trust my expertise).

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Yet, if you are the random product of random mutations, what need there be of a God? Or what use would He be? Indeed, what does such a God do?

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What God is doing, in my opinion, is "sustaining all things by his powerful word". Though his hand is hidden from science, as science is concerned solely with the material not the spiritual, doesn't mean that he is absent or inactive.

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There is always the credible counterpart of theistic evolution to fall back on

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Well that depends on how define the nebulous phrase "theistic evolution". I don't believe that God intervened at intervals to push evolution in any particular direction if that's what you mean. Nor that he was directly responsible for every single random mutation (though if he was responsible they wouldn't actually be random, but I guess you know what I mean).I do believe that the way he has chosen to uphold the world has endued the universe with regularity we call the "laws of nature", reliable and steadfast are afterall hallmarks of the God of the Bible. I believe he has chosen to let the world operate with a certain amount of freedom (analogous to letting humans to have a certain amount of free will - not that I wish to imply there is any sort of consciousness, apart from God, in the structure of the material universe), and biological evolution is an example of the physical universe freely exploring possibilities.Alan

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To take this a bit further. Does the non-fundimentalist Christian church have a moral and/or theological obligation to take a stand against an aspect of theology (creationism), that they find destructive to their vision of Christian faith?

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I'm also inclined to say yes too. Creationism is often a symptom of a particular, very narrow, view of the Bible that if held consistently (and it almost has to be) would rob the Church of some true riches of non-literal literature, produce particular stands on moral or ethical issues that can be very harsh in their treatment of others, and perhaps worst of all creates an impression among those on the fringes of the faith (or beyond it entirely) that Christianity is only for those willing to turn their brains off.Alan

T-L,I taught sciences one year at a Christian High School and my principal requested my students to debate myself, playing a hard-Evo. Albeit at the time I really was anti-megaEvo and was sucked into OEC (due to my extreme passion for the old Scofield Bible and C.H. Spurgeon). This was back in the 80's when as yet few convincing YEC hypotheses were tolerated.At the time, I too was not convinced of YEC, because Henry Morris oversimplified (with naive Newtonian thermodynamic science) 24-hour days, specifically one (1), two (2), and three (3). He seriously compromised the scriptural vastness of Genesis 1.1-3. Henry Morris later admits he is not too understanding of "respectable relativistic theories", that are required for a YEC to be viable both scientifically and scripturally.I was blown away by a few of my students. 'Twas these students that effectually discredited the ToE and OECism with YECism, and not OECism, nor theistic-evolution. That's when I jumped the OEC boat. I believe you will discover several of your conscientious students are extremely powerful in this debate, and will perhaps molify your shaky theistic-Evo metaphysics into more stable, credible, and parsimonious creation science-hypotheses, e.g., of the OEC or YEC type:Your theistic evolution is too easy to take out from both sides, OEC/YEC and Evo alike. Debate your students and see for yourself what a few might assert: "fence-straddling between God and nature", "pantheistic", "god-of-the-gaps", "hopeful monster theories", "planned accidents", "ex-nihilo denial", "scientific yet extraordinary abiogenesis" ...Albeit you will form more concrete unique scientific and/or Christian perspectives, more valid cosmic hypotheses, like everyone else on this forum. May your faith grow and abound in Christ's Word and His True Science-Word.

Hey truthlover,The truth is that most of the evolutionists who cared to reply to you only did so to mock your faith rather than any real intention to assist you with the information you were requesting. You may notice that there was more of a desire to contend with with your assertions, presumptions, and reasonings than to answer the question. I'm afraid its a pack dog mentality that the evos have...not ALL of them, but most of them.Ask them for science and they'll give you indignation and tell you about their many years of college...perhaps believing they can seduce you with their many words. It kills me some times...ask a yes or no question and you'll get a paragragh...try it, it's cheap entertainment on a friday night

Dr. Cresswell,No problem with misjudging my position. I was aware that by mentioning that my class is part of a church home school (I am a parent of two of the young people in the class), everyone would assume I was anti-evolution. I actually thought it would help get me a strong, well-worded response to the presentation I threw at my class. My mistake.Two other comments. I really like the wording of your comment that the natural world is "exploring its freedom," or however you put it. Just a neat thought.Finally, to address:quote:
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To take this a bit further. Does the non-fundimentalist Christian church have a moral and/or theological obligation to take a stand against an aspect of theology (creationism), that they find destructive to their vision of Christian faith?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------I don't know what a moral or theological obligation exactly means. Obligated to who? However, where I'm at, our position as a people of God is that when we were literal about the Bible, we were prone towards narrow-mindedness and plain ol' meanness. Not others, us.We dumped the whole concept of following a book, even though we still consider it Scripture and inspired. We believe it stood in the way of following God and limited him (at least in how he could work with us) greatly. Think about Samuel delivering his message that Saul would be king. He did that at a sacrifice in a place where sacrifices were forbidden (away from the tabernacle and on a high place at that), and he was not a priest, nor even a Levite, so he ought not to have been presiding over it. Yet it was God who told Saul to find Samuel on the way to that completely unscriptural sacrificial feast.Another example would come from Yeshua (Jesus) himself. David received showbread from Ahimelech which he was not authorized to eat. Of course, the account in the Gospels says that Yeshua said that David and those with him received it, when in fact, according to the account in Samuel, David was alone, but we'llget to that in a moment. Yeshua said David was guiltless, even though he was violating "the Word of God." The reason Yeshua gave is that he himself is the Word of God, not some book, not even such a great collection of books as the Bible is, nor even the Torah.Like Joseph, Yeshua's father, we are free to be nice! Yeshua could, and scripturally should, have put Miriam (Mary) away publicly to expose her sin and protect Israel from uncleanness. Instead, he was nice and was going to put her away privately, and the Scriptures call this "right," and said he was doing it because he was a good man. In the end, though, God went one step further and sent an angel to tell him not to put her away at all. Joseph wisely chose to obey God and not the Scriptures. He is hardly the only one to be faced with such a choice.So, I can't say whether we have a moral or theological obligation to speak up, but we want to, because one day everyone who opposes evolution is going to have as much egg on their face as though who opposed a heliocentric solar system, and Christianity has a bad enough reputation is at is.

Philip,I don't think you did a good enough job with your students. Henry Morris doesn't oversimplify; he fabricates (to use a nicer word than one I want to use). Let me ask you a question, if a guy goes back to college for a geology degree, then teaches geology for the rest of his life, is he a geologist? And if some other guy says he's not a geologist, gets called on it, but ignores it and reprints his book five times, then is the second guy just mistaken, or is he a liar?I'm talking, of course, of Morris' untrue assertion that Charles Lyell wasn't a geologist, but a lawyer (Lyell's first career).Or, what if Morris' organization lists some out of order strata, then says that evolutionists try to dodge the out of order strata by saying that an earthquake folded the strata in that area, then says that there is no evidence for folded strata, then publishes pictures of a different section of strata, claiming it's a picture of the out of order strata, but it's not. If they did that, does that make them mistaken, or liars?I have a debate in my possession between John Morris, Henry's son, and an evolutionist whose name starts with a Z (can't remember it right off hand). In it Morris says that the flood created great tidal waves that scoured the earth down to pre-cambrian rock, then laid all the layers of the geologic column in a year. He then also says that whales and fresh-water fishes survived in this mud (the ratio of sediment to water would have been one part dirt, sand and rocks to two parts water) because there were calm pockets where the salt water and fresh water didn't mix.Later, the younger Morris claims that there were super-rich pockets of algae growing in this water. When the scientist asked Morris how the algae grew without sunlight, since there were supposedly massive storms the entire time, Morris ignored the question.You also mentioned "Newtonian thermodynamic science." I'm not even sure what you mean by that, but I do know that both Morrises are happy to use the 2nd law of thermodynamics to refute evolution. One, even if it had anything to do with evolution, it wouldn't apply to the earth, since the earth is not a closed system, but second, I had my students look up various explanations of what the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and their puzzled response was, "What in the world does any of this have to do with the evolution of life on earth?" Morris didn't oversimplify thermodynamics, he got it wrong.My students have seen all this, so I doubt anything that someone with a last name of Morris provides to them will be regarded with any trust or respect.Sorry. I know that's sort of harsh, but I don't think a man's fabrications should be called oversimplifications.

Arachnid,-------------------
The truth is that most of the evolutionists who cared to reply to you only did so to mock your faith rather than any real intention to assist you with the information you were requesting.
-------------------I, too, thought the responses were a bit harsh and offered no information for me to work with. I have a bit of understanding, though, if you'll bear with a short story.Back in 1994 I was a cocky young-earther who thought I was God's gift to the world of theology. I got on CompuServe's religious forum expecting to enlighten everyone on the truth as it is in ICR.Along the way, I demanded a "step-by-step" account of the evolution of the eye from one Bill Piper, a particularly caustic evolutionist. He dodged me and called me names for a while, but when I pressed, he finally capitulated.What a shock I got, because he had an awful good step-by-step account of the evolution of the eye. The shocks never stopped coming, as I found out that most of what I had been told by ICR was not only wrong, but most of it was purposely deceitful.A couple months later, after I had converted to evolution (I always try to win debates by joining the side that has the facts), I asked Mr. Piper why he was so caustic. I told him that those with the facts are normally calmer and more confident, not so insulting and rude as he seemed to be. 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.So, I understand the frustration. Not only is it difficult to talk to religious people, because they're really not free to be open to facts or evidence, but it's particularly maddening when they accuse others of the close-minded partiality or outright conspiracy that they themselves are guilty of, all the while calling themselves examples of God's love. Yikes!

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I really like the wording of your comment that the natural world is "exploring its freedom," or however you put it. Just a neat thought.

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To be honest, it isn't my idea. The wording was mine, but derived more or less from somethings John Polkinghorne wrote.Alan(PS Alan is fine, as I mentioned earlier I don't normally use the 'Dr')

truthlover, I see that you can understand how I misunderstood your actual position.The reference to homeschooling initially set off alarm bells because, in my experience, that usually indicates that those involved hold unorthodox views (usually related to theological implications for science) which the participants don't want exposed to the full range of scientific knowledge and scientific methodology. The most common example are YEC beliefs. That, and your following essay, led me to believe that you were simply another YEC doing a bit of homework to shore up your YEC arguments.The other significant factor in my misidentification of your position was that the arguments you presented for YEC are so typical of the true YEC believers, even including the usual deficiencies. Therefore, I suppose I should compliment you on creating such an accurate representation of a YEC piece. In fact, if you search diligently, you will probably find most of the arguments and assertions from your essay have already been made previously on this board by people who actually believe them.My hostility towards your initial post was because I am sick and tired of the way in which YEC advocates in particular show careless and reckless disregard for the truth. Misrepresentation, out of context quotations, superceded, out of date data and arguments are the stock in trade for the creationist writers and their acolytes. I think they view it as lying for god. And your essay included the necessary quote of such. In such circumstances I need to test the bona fides of the YEC poster as I don't want to waste time and effort on a drive-by preacher who only wants an audience rather than real enlightenment. The latter are those whom I would prefer to spend my time on.I'm sure your kids could hold their own in any argument on the science issues associated with YEC as those followers can offer only ignorance and/or deception.

I agree; I was shocked by the frequent know-it-all Evo-sarcasms for this gentle new-comer. I hope TL finds grace in his conscience to continue with us after such an outbreak. I wouldn't recommend any timid students of his to debate here (without due warning at least).

No, please forgive the crudeness of my terms ("oversimplification", etc.). I'm used to being rebuked, reproved, rebutted, and rarely exhorted here.I've been disappointed with Morris, nonetheless. He's always been unconvincingly dogmatic, in my less-than-meager opinion.As for his reliance on Newtonian science, I got the distinct impression he was and probably continues to be totally ignorant of relativistic science. In fact, he prompted me to believe OEC (gap-theories, etc.) vs. YEC, due to his limited scope of understanding. (The thing that really discredited the ToE for me was the structural changes of old-world-monkeys --> human beings)Yet for all Morris's failures, he came in at a time of Evo and OEC giants, a dark age for creationism per se. Kind of like a Martin Luther did during the dark ages of the church.Although a thoroughly convinced YEC at present, I highly respect your quickly ripening logic as few theistic and/or (supposed) agnostic evo's aforetime have laid much convincing with me.Hope to discuss and probe your science-logic more later.

Truthlover, (gee that persona suits you )Maybe it's late, but welcome to EvC. As I remember, there were others who had the guts to check the evidence and reconsider their opinion. Delshad & Funkmasterfreaky comes to mind. We always welcome every kind of mind here: open, closed, half-open, naive, and even evasive.

Andya, you can keep the evasive ones.