In Six Days? (continued)
April 6 2008
(Mike Purrington's has written another response to me, which I have posted here. Once more, I respond to him.)
Mike,
I asked you, "Can you explain to me how a God who can do all of these miracles is not able to evolve a horse from a Hyracotherium? I can't understand why your God is capable of doing all these repeated acts of creation, but finds himself unable to create by evolution.." In response to my question you write:
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Here is the problem as I see it having read most of your articles, you could not defend creation against evolution and therefore lost your faith. I on the other hand after reading and looking at the evidence has only increased my faith in the creation account. You say we can't discuss God and evolution but I beg to differ for they are one and the same. |
It would appear that you bypassed the question. You have been writing as though evolution was scientifically impossible. But do you not agree that the convoluted method of creation you have suggested here is definitely impossible without the direct intervention of God? And if you invoke God to allow your otherwise impossible scenario to happen, why cannot the theistic evolutionist claim the same thing for evolution? You completely ignore that question don't you? Your view of creation is in no sense more scientific than the theistic evolutionist's view of creation, is it? If so, how? You have no argument from science to bring to the table to show that your view of creation is more scientific than that of the theistic evolutionist, do you? So your argument is not one of science, but one of theology. So why even pretend to be science?
And no, I never said that I cannot discuss God. What I said is that this debate is a discussion of evolution, not of God. I have discussed the subject of God many times.
If you could agree that evolution happened, we could then discuss whether evolution could have happened without God. But as long as you deny evolution, in spite of the evidence for it, I don't see how we could possibly make any headway into a discussion of whether God was involved in evolution.
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Let me ask you a question, putting aside everything we have discussed, answer me this question. Why would God use evolution to create when he has the power to speak it into existance? When I look at that question I have to answer it this way, If he were a scientist he would be interested in it for experimentation and to see the result over time. If he were an illusionist it would be to impress, but in any case it would just that, an illusion and a fake. |
You believe God created you, don't you? How did he do it? Did he create you from thin air in an instantaneous burst of life as an adult, or did he allow your body to grow from an egg and a sperm? Aha, so you believe that God created you, and that he did this by allowing you to slowly evolve into an adult from a fertilized egg? Since God, in your view, created you and me thusly, are we to assume from your paragraph above that we are all illusions and fakes?
Sorry, but I do not believe that things that got here through the process of slow change are illusions and fakes. Your logic doesn't make sense to me.
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SO WHY IS EVOLUTION SO IMPORTANT? ANSWER - BECAUSE IT DENIES THE EXISTANCE OF GOD. God could have used evolution, but the problem with that is this, it denies who he is. To make a case for evolution SOMETHING MUST DIE! God said after creating that all was Good, and it did indicate death was involved. |
I have explained this to you several times. Once more, your argument is easily refuted by pointing out to you that there are many Christians who believe in evolution, not because they deny the existence of God, but because they are convinced by the evidence. In fact, about 50% of Americans believe in evolution, even though about 85% believe in God. That shows that there are vast numbers of theists who believe in evolution. And so far you seem to completely ignore that point. It is not only atheists who believe in evolution.
Elsewhere you say that it is a straight shot from Dinohippus to the modern horse. In context you seem to be admitting that the modern horse evolved from the Dinohippus. But it is also a straight shot from Dinohippus to the donkey and zebra. Do you therefore agree that the zebra and donkey also evolved from Dinohippus? If you can accept that the horse, zebra, and donkey evolved from Dinohippus and still be a theist, why cannot somebody else believe that the horse, zebra, donkey, and rhinoceros evolved from Hyrocatherium and still be a theist? Where do you draw the line that says if you believe in more evolution than this, then you are an atheist? And if you cannot draw that firm line in the sand, then is it possible that some people believe in much more evolution then you, and yet are still theists?
So your argument that evolution is all about atheism is not valid, is it?
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Let me ask you this, if the basis of an argument are on facts that seem right and look right, does it make them right? |
No, of course not. The fact that an argument looks and seems right, that does not prove it is right. We certainly agree on that.
In fact, the very foundation of the scientific method is to admit that ideas that seem true may not be true. The scientific method is specifically designed to address the very issue you point out. The purpose of science is to find out if ideas that seem right really are right. Science has done a phenomenal job of discerning truth form error.
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Science has changed its stand on many things over the years because of new evidence. Theories come and go, some right some wrong. But scripture has not changed. I look at science and its discoveries every day. I do not deny that a lot of what science say is true for I worked in that field for many years as a Computer specialist and later as a bio-med engineer. |
You turn to an attack on science. Yes, science has changed with time, but do you not acknowledge that facts of science that have been repeatedly confirmed in many ways are extremely reliable? Although there may be modification of the details, the basic confirmed facts are highly reliable as truth. So don't expect that you will read in the paper tomorrow that water is no longer H2O or that gravity does not exist. These facts have been confirmed so often, they are reliably true.
So you cannot attack evolution by making a generic attack against all of science. That won't fly. If you want to prove evolution is wrong, you must show us why, in spite of the highly reliable methods of scientists, you think scientists have the facts wrong on this point. And that means you need to discuss the talking points of science. You will not resolve this issue by making a blanket attack on the value of science itself.
You see that science has got some things right. Great! How did science get those things right? Did science come to the right answers because the scientific method is reliable, or did science just get lucky? If you say science just got lucky, you really are no fan of science. But if you say the scientific method is at least somewhat reliable, your argument of attacking evolution by attacking all of science is invalid.
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The debate will continue for as long as time allows. No disresect, but you have chosen to place your faith in a false hope, in the end it is not science that will come to the rescue when you face the unknown but a faith in God that cannot be moved no matter how much circumstanial evidence is produced |
You make a statement about the value of a faith in God. Your statement may seem right to you. But as you have pointed out, statements that seem right are not necessarily right. So could it be that your statement is wrong?
You value a "faith in God that cannot be moved no matter how much circumstantial evidence is produced". Your words indicate that you consider faith to be better than evidence. But how can you know that your faith is right? If you simply turn to faith to prove that your way is right, what is the difference between your faith, and the faith of Iesha in Islam as she expressed at this site? Her words indicate that God will torture you for all eternity, Mike, because you deny Islam. That is her faith. You and Iesha both have faith that the other is wrong in his or her faith. If faith resolves the issue, why is it that you and Iesha so fervently disagree on the answer?
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