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J. B.

Living Fossils: A Powerful Argument for Creation - 0 views

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    Birds living at same time as dinosaurs?
J. B.

bylogos: The Demolition of Adam - 0 views

  • If humans evolved, they could not have been originally upright. Our sinfulness and selfishness are then due, not to an historical fall, but, rather, to our evolutionary heritage. This undermines the doctrine of original sin, as well as the Reformed notion of Christ's atonement as a payment for human. Dr. Schneider thus favors a universalism where all humans will be saved.
  • Dr. Waltke asserts, "We have to go with the scientific evidence…if Scripture has a collectivity represented as an individual, that doesn't bother me.”
  • The Bible, however, flatly contradicts the dubious notion that Adam and Eve were chiefs of a tribe of 10,000 evolved humans. Genesis 2-3 states: “when there was no man (5)…the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (7)…Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone’(18)…And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman…(22)…The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (3:20).
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  • Note that the text says: “the man became a living creature”, NOT: “the living creature became a man”.
  • After all, if mainstream science is right about the age of things, why should it not also be right about the evolutionary origin of things? If we must listen to the overwhelming majority of geologists, why must we not similarly listen to the overwhelming majority of biologists?
  • Why are so many theologians compromising on Adam? Because they have already given in to mainstream science on other aspects of Gen.1-11, thereby painting themselves into an epistemic corner.
  • We observe, en passant,  that the demand of population genetics for a minimum of 10,000 ancestors at any past time opposes also the biblical account of Noah’s Flood, with its eight survivors from whom all humans today derive (Gen.6-11; 1 Peter 2:5).
  • Using mainstream dating, the fossil record implies that suffering, disease, death, thorns, and earthquakes all existed long before Adam’s fall. These must thus all belong to God’s initial “very good” creation. This means that Adam’s fall caused no physical change in the world. Yet a major Biblical theme is that the entire cosmos was adversely affected by sin (Gen.3:17-18; Rom.8:18-25), from which it must be cleansed (2 Peter 3, Rev.21). The Biblical terms of renewal, redemption, reconciliation all imply the restoration of the world to an original good state, full of joy and harmony.
  • One cannot build an historical gospel on a non-historical Adam. Neither can one build an historical Adam on a largely non-historical Genesis 1-11.
  • In sum, the current pressure on the Biblical Adam is rooted in earlier concessions made regarding the age of the earth. This ushered in a new, flexible hermeneutic that takes its cue from mainstream science, thereby undermining Biblical authority.
  • Historical sciences, such as evolutionary biology and geology, interpret the data in terms of hypothetical past events. Worldview presuppositions play a crucial role in deciding what alleged events are plausible. Mainstream science bans the supernatural. It presumes purely natural events, constant mutation rates, and the like. Mainline science’s population estimate from genetic diversity, for example, is based on statistical arguments that infer a minimum of 10,000 to be most probable; it does not deem an initial couple to be impossible…just very unlikely.
  • It is futile for Christians to solicit credibility by bowing to worldly science. Mainstream science denies miracles. Therefore, such a quest for respectability must culminate with the plight of liberal theologian Rudolph Bultmann. Bultmann, seeking to be credible to modern man, denied all Biblical miracles, including the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Is that really where we want to go? What undermines Christian faith is not Biblical consistency but, rather, unbiblical compromise. The wiser strategy is thus to boldly uphold the Sola Scriptura of the Reformation, proclaiming all that the Bible teaches. And if that causes us to lose credibility in the eyes of the worldly intelligentsia, so be it.
J. B.

Prominent Atheist Professor of Law and Philosophy Thomas Nagel Calls Intelligent Design... - 0 views

  • the data at the crime scene usually can't tell us very much about that intelligence.
  • the tools of natural science are useless to determine the "I.Q." of the intelligence, the efficiency vs. the emotionalism of the intelligence, or the motive of the intelligence. That data, analyzed by only the tools of natural science, often cannot permit the investigator to construct a theory of why the perpetrator acted. The mental and conscious processes going on in the criminal's mind are outside the scope of the sciences of chemistry and physics. Thus it is obvious that scientific methods can lead to the conclusion that an intelligence did something, even if those same methods cannot tell you who specifically did it, or why they did it.
  • "the purposes and intentions of God, if there is a god, and the nature of his will, are not possible subjects of a scientific theory or scientific explanation. But that does not imply that there cannot be scientific evidence for or against the intervention of such a non-law-governed cause in the natural order" (p. 190).
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  • Professor Nagel has read ID-supportive works such as Dr. Behe's Edge of Evolution (p. 192). He reports that based on his examination of their work, ID "does not seem to depend on massive distortions of the evidence and hopeless incoherencies in its interpretation" (pp. 196-197). He reports that ID does not depend on any assumption that ID is "immune to empirical evidence" in the way that believers in biblical literalism believe the bible is immune to disproof by evidence (p. 197). Thus, he says "ID is very different from creation science" (p. 196).
  • He reports that the "presently available evidence" comes "nothing close" to establishing "the sufficiency of standard evolutionary mechanisms to account for the entire evolution of life" (p. 199).
  • He notes that his judgment is supported by two prominent scientists (Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart, writing in the Oct. 2005 book Plausibility of Life), who also recognized that (prior to offering their own theory, at least) the "available evidence" did not "decisively settle[]" whether mutations in DNA "are entirely due to chance" (p. 191). And he cites one Stuart Kauffman, a "complexity theorist who defends a naturalistic theory of emergence," that random mutation "is not sufficient" to explain DNA (p. 192).
  • He does not, however, say that the evidence compels acceptance of ID; instead, some may consider as an alternative to ID that an "as-yet undiscovered, purely naturalistic theory" will supply the deficiency, rather than some form of intelligence (p. 203).
  • Prof. Nagel says that "some part of the high school curriculum" "should" include "a frank discussion of the relation of evolutionary theory to religion" but that this need not occur in biology classes if the biology teachers would find this too much of a "burden" (p. 204)
  • He rejects any rule that well-educated, intelligent laymen such as himself must simply accept the assertions of the leading evolutionary biologists that the evidence in favor of evolution disproves intelligent design. Using his informed judgment, he rejects the claim that the scientific data "decisively" disproves intelligent design. He, an atheist, says that as a matter of science, intelligent design could possibly be correct. And he says it would be constitutional to say as much in a public school science class.
  • The emotionalism which scientists have brought to this issue since before the Scopes Trial, even if directed against a real, rather than imaginary target, has introduced a non-scientific motivation into the hearts of evolutionary biologists that has biased and rendered unreliable their evaluation of the data, especially the relatively recent data concerning DNA and molecular biology. Moreover, those who are convinced that we are not-very-far-descended from troupes of apes that engage in group dominance struggles should monitor themselves for the possibility that they are engaged less in a search for truth than in a search for dominance. An Achilles' Heel of modern science is the satisfying sense of pride that comes from having successfully dominated the people around you. Its origin is from the apes and its goal is to flatter emotion, not to facilitate reason.
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