Republican evangelical now voice of reason?

Originally posted by whodey
Are you saying that God should have consulted Darwin beforehand?

I am saying that you were quite right to say that evolution can be accepted alongside a belief in creation, and indeed that was Darwin's own view.

Originally posted by Soothfast
But if you're omnipotent then surely everything comes effortlessly and considerations of economy and efficiency are not germane.

Also I have a hard time envisioning an omniscient being setting up natural laws, including principles of biological evolution, and then saying "Surprise me."

I am not sure how relevant it is that you have a hard time or an easy time envisioning anything whatever.

I am simply pointing out the historical fact that in his book The Descent of Man Darwin expressed a view that creation is more likely to take place in that way and less likely in the other way. He did not for example express the view that creation did not take place or that creation is incompatible with evolution by natural selection.

Economy and efficiency may not be germaine, but the way in which you "envision" creation taking place can have important implications. Our account of creation ought to be at least compatible with the evidence in our material world. Since the evidence strongly supported an account of evolution based on natural selection, then Darwin took the view that this was in conflict with the popular theory of "special creation," but not with the general belief in creation.

So the view that you have a hard time envisioning requires a better refutation than your intellectual limitations. But whether Darwin was right or wrong, what I am pointing out is simply this - that he argued a belief in evolution was consistent with a belief in creation.

Originally posted by finnegan
I am not sure how relevant it is that you have a hard time or an easy time envisioning anything whatever.

I am simply pointing out the historical fact that in his book The Descent of Man Darwin expressed a view that creation is more likely to take place in that way and less likely in the other way. He did not for example express the view that creation d simply this - that he argued a belief in evolution was consistent with a belief in creation.

I am not sure how relevant it is that you have a hard time or an easy time envisioning anything whatever.

You could say the same to Darwin. He had a hard time envisioning a god who creates reality pixel by pixel from one instant to the next, and posited that it makes more sense that god coded a "Cosmic Java Program" at time t=0 and then let it run on its own. Well, I say who's to say what makes more "sense" when the topic of conversation turns to inherent absurdities such as omnipotent beings? If god set the universe up to run on its own, presumably he did so in order to open up time to do other things. So what's he doing? Mowing the lawn? Going to strip clubs? What? If I were a Creator I think I'd just spend all my time Creating. By definition nothing else is going on.

Quantum theory indicates that all events that have a nonzero probability of occurring do in fact occur in parallel universes or some such. If true, then the Cosmic Java Program isn't meaningfully selective, "destiny" is out the window, and Judgement Day starts looking like a mighty tricky proposition for the sitting judge.

The day I chucked God out the window (around age 10) the universe suddenly seemed much simpler.

EDIT: Clearly I'm arguing more with Darwin here, and not you personally. 😉

Originally posted by finnegan
I am saying that you were quite right to say that evolution can be accepted alongside a belief in creation, and indeed that was Darwin's own view.

The problem of course is that there are certain aspects of the so called 'evolutionary
hypothesis', that are acceptable to creationists and aspects which are not. For
example, what is commonly thought of evolution may in fact be adaptation, of which
there is a plethora of empirical evidence, (experiments with bacteria such as e.coli)
What there is scant evidence of is transmutation, put simply that one species or
genus transforms into another. Broadly speaking that fish became amphibians,
amphibians became reptiles, reptiles became birds, birds became mammals. What
is more there are certain scientific realities which can be argued to be strongly
against transmutation, the ability of the DNA code to repair aberration, the
discontinuity of species (one species cannot breed with another and produce fertile
offspring), the vast experiments done with Drosophila melanogaster, fruit fly
experiments, to name one or two and thus what is merely adaptation is often passed
off with little empirical evidence as transmutation, when in fact its nothing of the
sort. Of course evolution does not describe how life arose at its inception, but its
diversity and Darwins book explains nothing of how life originated, rather ironic
considering its title.

If one is to take a literal interpretation that humans were the direct creation of God
then clearly the idea of transmutation is mutually exclusive, for either we were
created or we have evolved, this of course does not rule out the ability to adapt to
ones environment, for the strongest lion may survive, but it does not necessitate
that it will become zebra in the process, merely a strong lion.

Often the creationist is ridiculed because of the prevalent view that the Bible speaks
of creative days, there is of course no reason to assume that they are literal twenty
four hour period and in fact it can be established that they are not biblically (Paul
speaks of being in Gods rest day thousands of years later) and what is often
proffered as empirical science is often nothing but postulation and scientific dogma
masquerading as something else making it difficult for the discerning individual to
get to the heart of the matter.