Creation AND Evolution?

Originally posted by @suzianne
But saying "God made" or "He created" doesn't tell us how. Science tells us "how". The purpose of a religious text is to tell us "why". In Genesis, the "why" of creation is always a bigger deal than the "how". We can now see the evidence and put together the "how".

Science doesn't tell us how, it doesn't explain why, it doesn't know when. Evidence for
what do you think you see?

Originally posted by @suzianne
But saying "God made" or "He created" doesn't tell us how. Science tells us "how". The purpose of a religious text is to tell us "why". In Genesis, the "why" of creation is always a bigger deal than the "how". We can now see the evidence and put together the "how".

Just so I know, How did everything come from nothing?

Originally posted by @suzianne
What about the cosmological theory of the origin of the universe, AKA the 'Big Bang'?

I notice you left that out. Is there room for it, in your ideology?

Yes, there is room for it. I didn't intentionally leave it out.

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
No.

Not if the creation account is anchored on two fully formed humans in a garden.


Edit: Your use of the word 'basic' isn't helpful here as it merely opens the door to a wishy-washy understanding of evolution.

I had to say "basic" because Evolution Theory is fine and can work with the bible, except for the part about mankind evolving directly--and without any outside interference--from apes.

Originally posted by @tom-wolsey
I had to say "basic" because Evolution Theory is fine and can work with the bible, except for the part about mankind evolving directly--and without any outside interference--from apes.

From apes or anything else.

Originally posted by @tom-wolsey
Can the basic theory of Evolution and the Creation account both be true?

I guess, in answer to the inevitable "You tell us first what you think," and to remove any suspicion of this being a gotcha question, I'll answer with my opinion: Yes.

Yes they can.

And yet neither is as acurate as the real truth to the rise of humans on this planet

Originally posted by @kellyjay
God had His reasons, maybe it was nothing more than a work day pattern for us.

I agree with you here ._.

Originally posted by @tom-wolsey
Yes, there is room for it. I didn't intentionally leave it out.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your OP's premise. And KJ, I'll write more later, I'm at work right now.

Originally posted by @suzianne
Don't get me wrong, I agree with your OP's premise. And KJ, I'll write more later, I'm at work right now.

No worries suzianne when you can get to it!

Originally posted by @kellyjay
Science doesn't tell us how, it doesn't explain why, it doesn't know when. Evidence for
what do you think you see?

Science DOES say how. And it DOES know when. No, of course it doesn't explain why, I said that is what religion does better.

First off, for evolution and the rise of certain plants and animals on this earth, we have the fossil record. Certain animals and plants are found at certain layers. This dates when they lived. This is how we know that all the dinosaurs died out cataclysmically 65 million years ago. No dinosaur remains are found above that level, meaning they all died out for some reason. The leading theory is a meteor impact because of all the iridium (common in meteors, not so common on earth) found at that layer which was deposited 65 million years ago. And sometime in the '90s they also found what they believe to be the impact crater near Chicxulub in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. What we have is the physical evidence. This is what Science is good at.

The fossil record also points to evolution as the leading theory behind how the variety of plants and animals came to be on earth. Studies by Darwin of finches in the Galapagos Islands seems to confirm the idea of natural selection as determining which animals died out and which survived to pass on their genes to the next generation, as well as the idea of specialization of species' characteristics which enable a species to flourish in their niche ecosystem. The biologists' phylogenetic tree shows the relationships between species and exactly which species evolved from which others, current with our present understanding.

Cosmologically, we have evidence of the Big Bang in the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Analysis of this radiation and frequency studies and sky mapping and black body spectrum fluctuations have confirmed the Big Bang theory as the best explanation of what we see in the CMB. NASA's COBE mission confirmed a number of predictions, and then the WMAP probe confirmed several more, followed by the Planck spacecraft launched by the ESA in 2009. The Big Bang theory is now known as the Standard Cosmological Model, also known as the Lambda cold dark matter model.

The point is that science DOES now know the "how" of the universe. This is not in question, and no, God did not just "poof" it into existence as we see it today, fully formed. The universe is 13.77 billion years old. This is the correct amount of time needed for all of the natural processes to run their course to produce what we see today. I believe God created a universe made for man, meaning all of the physics, and all of the biology and chemistry to bring man precisely to this point in space and time are all natural. Given its start, the universe could have gone in any number of directions, according to the laws of physics, biology and chemistry, but it has proceeded in the direction it has under the hand of God. In a way, it is a kind of clockwork device, wound up and started at one point in the past, and it has been pushed and prodded by the hand of God to move in the precise manner and direction it has in order to come to this moment. On one hand, it IS "creation", in the strict sense of the word, because God has formed the material and shaped it according to his plan and yet it needs to have been a natural progression, from its genesis until today, so that it could appear to anyone watching (the scientists) as a natural progression so that the free will of man, to choose God or not-God, is not abridged. Of course, this natural progression absolutely means that yes, it has taken 13.77 billion years, but I ask you, what is time to God?

My biggest disagreement with RJHinds was that he always said that creation took six 24-hour days, just as said in the Bible and he always scoffed at me for not having faith that God could do that. I always countered that it was he that had no faith that while God COULD do it in six 24-hour days, he could also do it in one moment, or he could take his sweet time and take as long as he wanted. So, faced with the idea that God could take as long as he wanted, IF he did it in one second, there would have to be undeniable proof laying around everywhere that indeed, God had taken the shortcut. This would be satisfactory proof of God, and this destroys free will, since what choice would anyone have to decide to follow God on their own if there was undeniable proof? No, there can NOT be "undeniable proof" of God, in order for man to justify his disbelief in God. A 13.77 billion year old universe preserves man's free will by giving him an "out" to choose NOT to believe. Logic suggests that no, Creation took far more than six 24-hour days. God presented it as such in order to maintain the additional idea "to keep the Sabbath holy" as presented in Exodus 20 (the "ten commandments" ).

So yes, Science does know How, and it does know When.

What we cannot have figured on our own is Why, and that is the purpose of the Bible and all the other religious texts on the planet.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
Just so I know, How did everything come from nothing?

Remember, you're asking a believer this.

"How did everything come from nothing?"

The current theory is that everything was contained in an immensely dense singularity which expanded rapidly to its pre-ordained size, which has grown over time and is now expanding again under a new dynamic, known as "dark matter/dark energy". It is unknown if this singularity already existed in some form, such as a previous universe undergoing a "Big Crunch", or whether it was something new. The thing is that when it expands, space expands with it, theoretically possibly creating new rules of physics. So every new "universe wave" is its own entity. Some have theorized that this process is ongoing, creating many "bubble universes" which could possibly exist in the same space, but in different dimensions.

My answer to "How did everything come from nothing?" is that it was the hand of God. He's the Creator.

"By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth." -- Psalms 33:6, NIV

But how, exactly, did he do it?

We call it the "Big Bang", or as I said above, the Standard Cosmological Model.

Originally posted by @suzianne
Remember, you're asking a believer this.

[b]"How did everything come from nothing?"

The current theory is that everything was contained in an immensely dense singularity which expanded rapidly to its pre-ordained size, which has grown over time and is now expanding again under a new dynamic, known as "dark matter/dark energy". It is unknown if t ...[text shortened]... did he do it?

We call it the "Big Bang", or as I said above, the Standard Cosmological Model.[/b]

You realize that you have acknowledged that you and science do not know where everything came from, you just said everything was in a dense singularity. That doesn’t address where it comes from or even where it was regardless of what direction light is moving now or anything else in the present we can look at or measure.

God created the universe we can agree, I just believe in what scripture says in how He did it.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
You realize that you have acknowledged that you and science do not know where everything came from, you just said everything was in a dense singularity. That doesn’t address where it comes from or even where it was regardless of what direction light is moving now or anything else in the present we can look at or measure.

God created the universe we can agree, I just believe in what scripture says in how He did it.

Perhaps you missed this from my post:

Originally posted by @suzianne
Remember, you're asking a believer this.

My answer to "How did everything come from nothing?" is that it was the hand of God. He's the Creator.

"By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth." -- Psalms 33:6, NIV


If you're asking about evidence in the here and now that we can measure, I answered that in a rather detailed way above the post you replied to. We DO know how (and when) the universe was formed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_cosmology

Originally posted by @kellyjay
God created the universe we can agree, I just believe in what scripture says in how He did it.

That's just not good enough.

What is written regarding the creation of the universe in Genesis was written about 3500 years ago by Moses. Almost all of our current understanding of how the universe was created has come about in the last 100 years.

What you are experiencing here is the conflict between writing the truth for man of 3500 years ago and writing the truth for man today.

I'm pretty sure God knew that by now we'd figure it out and by now we'd know it wasn't just six 24-hour days. Again, it's not the How that is important, but the Why. It's the Bible, not a science textbook. It doesn't have to stay up to date.

Originally posted by @suzianne
Science DOES say how. And it DOES know when. No, of course it doesn't explain why, I said that is what religion does better.

First off, for evolution and the rise of certain plants and animals on this earth, we have the fossil record. Certain animals and plants are found at certain layers. This dates when they lived. This is how we know that all th ...[text shortened]... wn is Why, and that is the purpose of the Bible and all the other religious texts on the planet.

I realize that people have theories about ages, ansestors, causes and so on. Popular beliefs about most of them are still matters of faith since they are all about the distant past. They therefore are beyond real validation, the truthfulness of these theories only reside in our explanations, our tests might give us the proper mathematical results we seek, yet may not still not give us the truth we seek, since we are speculating on why we see the results before us. So on faith it is expected and through peer presure it taught us as undeniable truth.