Monday, November 13, 2006

Evolution debate

I have posted my recent discussion on evolution with Pastor Al on my site at A Debate on Evolution. I include some concluding comments at Conclusion.

14 comments:

beepbeepitsme said...

Ken Miller - On Apes and Humans
http://beepbeepitsme.blogspot.com/2006/11/ken-miller-on-apes-and-humans.html

Merle said...

Ken,

Thanks for sharing that link. I enjoyed the video.

Yes, if God had designed humans from scratch, it is very odd that he would design the DNA in such a way that it looks like two primate chromosomes were fused together to make a human chromosome.

How will creationists answer that? I suppose they will respond the same way they dealt with other evidence here. They will ignore the data, and once more tell us that evolution is based on faith, not evidence.

But some of us find it impossible to ignore such data.

Pastor AL said...

Merle,
You said, "If God designed humans from scratch, it is very odd that he would design the DNA in such a way that it looks like two primate chromosones were fused together..."

Why not? It doesn't make sense to you? OOops, I guess God owes you a personal apology.
You ignore the wisdom that is placed by a superior being in the DNA because time alone can not account for so much wisdom. You ignore the fact that all physical living things breath oxygen through gills or lungs. You ignore the fact that all physical living things need limbs or a body to move about. Yet it is all flesh and will die, however, only humans have been given an eternal spirit. Only humans are expected to choose Christ or reject Christ. Only humans are capable to make such decisions. Because all humans can make choices, there is a God that will soon judge us for such choices.
Did time evolve a conscience in us? Where did it come from? God place it there. There are so many things you have to ignore just to believe in a fairy tale as evolution.

Noogatiger said...

Ha, now that is funny Al.
It is you my friend who has believed the biggest fairy tale of them all.

Your position is that God has deceived us all, that starlight did not take the millions of years to get here that it appears, that the geologic column was not layed down layer upon layer over millions of years as it appears, and now that the DNA sequence was not fused as it appears, but that God simply made it to look like it was done that way.

Hmmmmm, so what else is God deceiving us about AL? How can we be sure his so called word is truthful, or that it is even from him?

Now who is believing fairy tales?

Anonymous said...

There's a lot of debates on creationism and evolution.. and both sides obviously believe their sides are correct.. but i'm just wondering should somehow (hypothetically speaking) new evidence comes out that completely refutes the evolution theory (fact that can be proven wrong from my understanding).. but doesn't prove creationism.. (because how can you right?)would that make you believe in God? not necessarily the Christian God, but any?
of course in many of your articles you argue why christianity is well not true.. but i have to say i found some of your interpretations of the bible (i've only really read two of your articles: when the gospels were written and what happens to nonbelievers) different from what i believe in.. however it is late so i will hopefully be able to continue this some other time.. ooh and also i find your "are you a humanist" quite biased.. but again that will be left for another itme.

Pastor AL said...

Merle,
Humor me. I know you made up your mind and heart not to believe in God but to believe in evolution as if evolution holds all the answers to the reason why matter and life exists. But just humor me. Suppose 30 years go by and you die and you stand before God. Which God? The God that made you and the universe. Just humor me. What would you tell him, Merle?

Merle said...

What would I tell God if I saw him? Gosh, I don't know, Pator Al, but I think I would mostly ask a lot of questions. I would be very interested in hearing his view of things. So I would ask a lot of questions.

Pastor AL said...

Merle,
Thank you for humoring me. I really enjoy discussing our points of view.

Merle, I believe the teachings of evolution...that matter and life arose by itself over time...has caused spiritual emptiness in people's lives. We have more violence and depression. The teachings of evolution has created emptiness in people's hearts because the underlining message is that life has no meaning. How do you feel about this?

Merle said...

Emptiness? Depression? No meaning? Gosh, no. My life has become full of purpose and meaning, and I now have a new joy in my life. There truly is no experience like the peace of setting one's mind free.

Anonymous said...

Pastor Al,

Evolution definitely didn't create a void in ppl's heart. Not everyone who is not a Christian is amoral & immoral. Likewise, not every Chritian is moral.

In fact, 'my mind was set free' (borrowing a quote from Merle) because there is no longer a barrier between me and my love ones (they are not Christians) and I do not have to worry anymore about them being cast to Hell as ONLY CHRISTIANS can go to Heaven.

Now my motto in life is to enjoy my life now as much as I can. :)

--julnee

Pastor AL said...

Merle,
If you only believe in evolution and in a world where God does not exist, what meaning for living is there? You only live for the moment? If nothing what you do or say matters because there is no God or eternal life, then what is the point of living? It would not matter if you live today and die tomorrow. It would not matter if you die today. Oblivion is your destiny.

Do you believe that your point for living is refuting Jesus Christ and setting minds free from faith? If nothing matters why do you bother? You believe you are setting people free? How do you know what it is to be free and what it is to be blind and who told you? To be free or to be blind, who cares if oblivion is your destiny?

You say your life is full of purpose and destiny and even joy? What purpose, what destiny, and what joy if oblivion looms over you; with the constant underlying suspicion that you might be eternally wrong? You say you have joy...you only have moments of happiness.

You can fool some people some of the time but you cannot fool all people all of the time. Joy is a spiritual force within the heart that only comes from submitting our inward being to Jesus Christ. You only have a mental dilusion of joy. Your heart is a stone that only accepts what it wants to believe. No Merle, you are not full of joy. Joy is still a mystery to you just like the origin of life and matter.

Pastor AL said...

To be truly free is to be free from the love of ones flesh, desires, and opinions. To be really free is to be spiritual, to love God more than yourself and to love your fellow man.

Your life will truly have purpose and meaning if you become spiritual and teach others how.

Anonymous said...

Ok I just had a look at the beepbeepitsme.blogspot.link on the first comment.

Here was my reply at the site.

Will someone please explain to me the significance of this revelation? Did anyone miss the fact that man was created on the same day as the animals? Doesn’t God leave in that alone a little hint that there are similarities, yet he doesn’t pick out an ape to carry his seed, he creates something unique, if all it took was a fused chromosome then it made his job easy I guess. Or wait! Maybe the fused chromosome isn’t what makes us different from the apes? Does anyone know? Maybe our fused chromosome is unique to humans through an accident passed on from Noah, like someone born with 4 fingers, and the significant differences are from elsewhere in the DNA. So I guess the challenge is out there to all the evolutionists now. Can you fuse a chromosome, and does that make a human? Was this an accident or was this intentional? He refers to a deception on God’s part? Really, what a joke. What is the actual deception he is referring to? I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where it says God is accountable to man, or where he gave man the plans for the human make up and “look, here is the difference between what he gave us and the facts”. No wonder no one said anything. There was nothing to say.

Maybe you have an answer for me Merle. Oh wait, you said "if God designed humans from scratch". Now He may have made them from the dust of the earth, but I wouldn't call His design knowledge 'scratch'. The fact still remains in light of this discovery, that we are obliviously different to the animals. Really this is just another demonstration of one of the differences. If this wasn't directed pointedly at Creationists I would applaud the scientific discovery. Unfortunately the greatness of the discovery was overshadowed for me by foolish flailing.

Honey

Merle said...

You don't get it, do you "Honey"? Suppose you were to find a book that had two volumes combined in one volume. And suppose you were to find the back cover of volume 1 and the front cover of volume 2 in the middle of that book. You would know then that the book in your hand was most likely made by stiching together what had originally been two separate books, complete with two sets of covers.

That is the problem with your view of evolution. In the middle of a human gene we find the "back cover" of one gene followed by the "front cover" of another gene. And these out of place "covers" are exactly as evolution would predict them, for to get from an ape to a human 2 genes had to be stitched together somewhere. The data fits perfectly with evolution, but is very hard to explain from creationism. Why would God insert two unneeded "covers" in the middle of the human data?

You have no explanation for this, do you?