Theistic Evolution

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well maybe you should be addressing that to Nicksten who assures me that it could not possibly be interpreted as anything other than 'dust' and that anything else would render the Bible wrong and he is thus duty bound to not accept it for religious reasons.

Well, I would not accept your idea of a "soup" either. Ha ha 😀

Originally posted by kevcvs57
LOL! for 'clues' see: inconsistencies. Surely you can detect the blatant use of allegory in that passage.

Yes, I understand this. That is why I used it as it relates to the Genesis
account of the creation of man. Just so we are clear on an allegory:

"Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: briefly, an allegory is a device used to present an idea, principle or meaning, which can be presented in literary form, such as a poem or novel, or in visual form, such as in painting or drawing.

As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. As an artistic device, an allegory is a visual symbolic representation. An example of a simple visual allegory is the image of the grim reaper. Viewers understand that the image of the grim reaper is a symbolic representation of death."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory

Originally posted by twhitehead
And approximately when do you date the flood?

I guess around 3000 years ago.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Yes, I would say so.

Just for clarity....

I am sure that God did have some discussion to Adam, Moses, Abraham or someone else about that. If not, Genesis is a total speculation wouldn't you say?

"Yes, I would say so."

Originally posted by twhitehead
Yes, it was wishful thinking on your part. I was merely pointing out that since we are mostly water, we cannot correctly be describes as being made up of 'dust' as opposed to 'soup'. Even if you claim that the 'dust' contained hydrogen and oxygen which were combined to form water when God 'breathed into his nostrils the breath of life' then that would imp ...[text shortened]... pointed several times to him that abiogenesis is not evolution nor required for it.

I never said "no water involved". This is your own assumption. Abiogenesis and evolution are related. Abiogenesis was required before evolution could start.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well maybe you should be addressing that to Nicksten who assures me that it could not possibly be interpreted as anything other than 'dust' and that anything else would render the Bible wrong and he is thus duty bound to not accept it for religious reasons.

The Bible says that God made us from the dust of the earth. If He mixed the dust with water e what the source is of the Bible as previously said. Some Bibles differ a lot on some things.

The Bible says that God made us from the dust of the earth. If He mixed the dust with water and all other sorts of resources, bacteria, sunlight etc, who are we to know. The focus is the dust. There are some other translations of the Bible that says differently but you have to go back to the source (Hebrew) and to be honest, this should be a totally different discussion. Any way, I believe you are putting words in my mouth I never said and meant and you are doing so on purpose. Your assumptions to what I have said is clear of this.

I am bound to believe the word of God. If the Bible says it is dust, why should I believe otherwise? If by using your type of mentality which is that of an evolutionist, I will also question the making of Adam from dust because life originated from some soup. Scientifically to you it makes more sense that we HAD TO be mixed with water for us to have life blown into us. I don't care about the semantics to that, and like I said the focus is the dust, not dust and water. Could we have been made form the "slime of the earth"? I don't know. Maybe we could have. But this technically is a conflict and this is exactly where we need to go and see what the source is of the Bible as previously said. Some Bibles differ a lot on some things.

Originally posted by Nicksten
I never said "no water involved". This is your own assumption. Abiogenesis and evolution are related. Abiogenesis was required before evolution could start.

Yes, life is required before life can begin evolving.

This is trivially true and self evident.

This does not mean that abiogenesis and evolution are talking about the same thing...

Imagine you were going to try to explain to someone about nascar racing and all the
different tactics that the teams employ to win the race.
And then someone objected to your explanations of the different tactics because they
didn't include the entire life story of the motor car and an exact description of how the
cars are manufactured.


Life has to exist before it can evolve... this is true.

However, one life does exist, however it came to exist, that life can then start evolving,
and will inevitably start evolving.
Evolution is a process that life undergoes, you don't have to understand or know where
life came from to understand evolution.

Originally posted by Nicksten
I am bound to believe the word of God. If the Bible says it is dust, why should I believe otherwise?
If by using your type of mentality which is that of an evolutionist,
I will also question the making of Adam from dust because life originated from some soup.
Scientifically to you it makes more sense that we HAD TO be mixed with water for us to have life blown into us.

"I am bound to believe the word of God. If the Bible says it is dust, why should I believe otherwise?"

Well I could question your being bound to believe the word of god, but, even assuming that there is a god and that
you are required to believe that god...

How can you tell that the bible, out of all the worlds holy books and given all its flaws and inconsistencies, is the
word of god?

Even if the bible is the word of god, How can you tell that you have interpreted the poetic language (as translated
by some person) correctly and found the correct meaning?
(This given that there is no consensus among Christians in general or Christian scholars about what the bible actually
says or means. It's almost a case of you name it, I can find a Christian who disagrees with what you think the bible
means on a particular point.)

If you care at all about what is true, then you need a way to determine what the word of god is (again assuming that there
is a word of god) so that you are believing in the right word of god.
If you don't accept evidence and reason then there is no justification for believing in anything.

"If by using your type of mentality which is that of an evolutionist,
I will also question the making of Adam from dust because life originated from some soup."

First, there is no such thing as an evolutionist.

Second, Evolution (the scientific explanation of the diversity of life) doesn't speak to the existence of life only it's diversity.
Abiogenesis is the term for life coming from non life and it's not part of evolutionary theory.

Third, Science doesn't think that people were made from dust, they evolved from earlier life forms which themselves
evolved from yet earlier life forms going back through time till we get to the very primitive first life forms which formed
spontaneously in the environment around 3.5~4 billion years ago (assuming that it didn't form on another planet and
travel here by meteorite, but in that case it formed spontaneously on that other planet).
Only religion thinks that modern day advanced life forms were created spontaneously out of some chemical soup.

"Scientifically to you it makes more sense that we HAD TO be mixed with water for us to have life blown into us"


No scientifically this makes no sense, you are trying to mix your creation myths of how life formed with science and are getting
all mixed up in the process... Try asking more what scientists and science literate people actually think rather than making it up.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Well, I would not accept your idea of a "soup" either. Ha ha 😀

You have no idea what my idea of "soup" is anyway. That was Nicksten strawman not mine. So I guess you would reject any ideas of mine on principle because I am not Christian?

Originally posted by Nicksten
I never said "no water involved".

You said 'dust' not 'soup'. What did you mean by that if not to imply a lack of water?

Originally posted by Nicksten
This is your own assumption. Abiogenesis and evolution are related. Abiogenesis was required before evolution could start.

They are related only in as far as they both talk about the history of life on earth. By you are wrong, abiogenesis was not required before evolution could start. Only life was required. Whether life got here via abiogenesis, aliens, magic or God, evolution can, and does, take place as long as there is life. And neither of us dispute the existence of life. Your insistence that abiogenesis is required actually suggests you think it is the only reasonable explanation for the origin of life - yet you yourself deny it.

Originally posted by Nicksten
The Bible says that God made us from the dust of the earth. If He mixed the dust with water and all other sorts of resources, bacteria, sunlight etc, who are we to know. The focus is the dust.

Whatever the 'focus', your new statement admits that God could have mixed dust with water and other stuff to make soup before creating life out of it. You even admit the possibility that he created bacteria first and used that bacteria to make man. So far there is no discrepancy between your account and that of abiogenesis and evolution.

There are some other translations of the Bible that says differently but you have to go back to the source (Hebrew) and to be honest, this should be a totally different discussion.
Not long ago you said there could be no misunderstanding of the word and that going back to the source (Hebrew) was not required. Now you have changed your stance and are repeating what I said (and you denied).

Any way, I believe you are putting words in my mouth I never said and meant and you are doing so on purpose. Your assumptions to what I have said is clear of this.
I cant fully understand that sentence. What did I say that you said that you didn't mean? What did you really mean?
You originally said

He created man from dust, not from the muddy soap .

I am bound to believe the word of God. If the Bible says it is dust, why should I believe otherwise?
Because you apparently can interpret 'dust' to mean many different things including 'dust and water and bacteria', and even then if you don't know the original Hebrew you are just guessing.

Scientifically to you it makes more sense that we HAD TO be mixed with water for us to have life blown into us. I don't care about the semantics to that, and like I said the focus is the dust, not dust and water. Could we have been made form the "slime of the earth"? I don't know. Maybe we could have.
So why couldn't we have been made from the 'slime of the earth' via abiogenesis and evolution? Or even from dust and water via abiogenesis and evolution?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Whatever the 'focus', your new statement admits that God could have mixed dust with water and other stuff to make soup before creating life out of it. You even admit the possibility that he created bacteria first and used that bacteria to make man. So far there is no discrepancy between your account and that of abiogenesis and evolution.

[b]There are s ...[text shortened]... genesis and evolution? Or even from dust and water via abiogenesis and evolution?

When a Potter is molding his objects from the clay, I don't believe anyone
would say that it was molded from "soup" because he also used water.

When God created all His life forms, He included within them a program
to allow for reproduction and adaptation. This adaptation allows for small
changes in subsequent offsprings to adjust to changing conditions. Darwin
misunderstood this to be "naturally selected evolution", for he had no idea
that God had included this program within the life forms. So he reasoned
that this same process happened on a much larger scale that resulted in
the change or "evolution" of a "common ancestor" into different kinds of
plants and animals. But he was wrong. There is genetic changes because
of adaptation during the reproduction or "mating" process, but these changes
are limited by the creator's program. And according to the Holy Bible, He has
limited it within "kinds". In othere words, these changes or adaptations take
place within "kinds" and one "kind" cannot change to another entirely different
"kind". So there is actually no "evolution" taking place at all.

Originally posted by RJHinds
When a Potter is molding his objects from the clay, I don't believe anyone
would say that it was molded from "soup" because he also used water.

And a potter ends up with a rather hard substance which contains only a very small amount of water. Humans however are on average about 60% water. So God must have at some point used something that could more accurately be described as 'soup' than 'dust'.

When God created all His life forms, He included within them a program
to allow for reproduction and adaptation. This adaptation allows for small
changes in subsequent offsprings to adjust to changing conditions. Darwin
misunderstood this to be "naturally selected evolution", for he had no idea
that God had included this program within the life forms. So he reasoned
that this same process happened on a much larger scale that resulted in
the change or "evolution" of a "common ancestor" into different kinds of
plants and animals. But he was wrong.
First of all, although Darwin is credited with the first well thought out work on evolution, he is hardly the only person to study it. You talk as if he was the only person and the only person to 'get it wrong' when in reality most biologists and most people who have studied biology, not only understand it but agree with it based on the evidence, not on the authority of Darwin. So you are actually suggesting that hundreds of thousands of people made the exact same mistakes.

Worst of all is the fact that you think you know what errors we have all made even though you don't understand the subject in question.

There is genetic changes because
of adaptation during the reproduction or "mating" process, but these changes
are limited by the creator's program. And according to the Holy Bible, He has
limited it within "kinds". In othere words, these changes or adaptations take
place within "kinds" and one "kind" cannot change to another entirely different
"kind". So there is actually no "evolution" taking place at all.
The problem with this claim is that the word "kind" is not well defined. In fact I challenge you to give me a rigorous definition for "kind". If it is not defined rigorously then it is impossible to give an rigorous claim about it. Creationists often make the same mistake when making claims about species - another word that does not have a rigorous definition.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
[b]I believe that humans and animals can not mate.

They can mate, they won't be able to 'breed'. Neanderthals and us though shared 99% of our DNA, we had a relatively recent common ancestor so our genetic lines hadn't diverged that much. As a result we were still able breed.[/b]

Humans were the last of of God's creation, that is why our common ancestors
are relatively recent. They were Adam and Eve. 😏