Evolution (was: "Dr Dino arrested")

[larry gilman]

[LucyPevensie]

[larry gilman]

Dear Lucy,

As far as I understand the term "Gap Theory," it would not apply to me. I gather that Gap Theorists imagine a long "gap" in time (not mentioned in Genesis) to reconcile the age of the world as determined by counting up Old Testament generations with the age of the world as we physically find it to be (on the order of 14 billion years).

I don't hold any theory at all to reconcile the exact details of Scripture with the history of the world as reconstructed by modern science, because, like C. S. Lewis, I don't think that Scripture is perfect in science, history, or even morals. (He talks about his view of the Bible in the book Reflections on the Psalms.) My belief is that just as God works today through imperfect people, he has always done so---including the people who wrote the books of the Bible. Jesus chose the most spectacularly fallible disciple of all to be the "rock" of the Church---Peter. As if he were saying, "This is the kind of material I'm going to work with. And even so . . .!"

So I don't believe in Biblical inerrancy (perfection) and don't make up theories to reconcile my Bible with science. However, you should know that there are people who believe in Biblical inerrancy and also believe in evolution. They have various theories for why the terms of Genesis agree with those of science. But it's my impression that most people who believe in Biblical inerrancy reject evolution because it seems to them to be in outright contradiction of the seven days of creation, Eve from the rib, and so forth.

Sincerely,

Larry

[LucyPevensie]

ok thanks. What do you believe God's purpose is in our world. At the beginning and at present. And do you believe he created anything? dust etcetera. And about Darwin's book, I don't think I'll check it out. It looks really long and dull. BTW did you know Skander Keynes is like the great-great-great-great grandson of Darwin and is an atheist? Just an interesting fact I dug up. My mom is saying I'm spending way to much time on this site.

[larry gilman]

God's purpose? Wow, big question!

I'm a Christian. So I guess I believe that God makes a world so that He can love it. And He makes it the sort of world that brings forth creatures, like us, that are both perfectly with God---he is at the center of our being, we spring from him---and yet also apart from him, so that we can love him back, so that love can arise between God and us. Together, one; yet not together, not one. Basically, on this deep stuff, I'm a mystic. No matter how true our doctrines are, they're not going to catch God or say everything that's important---like even the best net can't catch the ocean.

As to how God "makes," I have no idea. I'm as sure as I can be about anything that he doesn't make the world like an engineer makes a computer or a cook makes a cake. We can call God "maker" or "creator" but any image we put on the word (on any words about God) is bound to be too crude, too simple, to be a completely true one. In other words, I believe that creation is a mystery. And not the kind that a detective solves, either.

Darwin's book is big. I admit that. Dull---well, that's a matter of taste, eh? I thought it was great. But there's no arguing taste! Plus, tastes change. Plus, if you want to kick butt in any discussion, you gotta do the homework!

I'm spending too much time on this too---aaargh

L

[robsia]

[alecto]

Here's the deal. Let's start with God creating the Universe as a given. God creates the Universe. He puts a lot of stuff in it, all organized in a rather complex way which we see. Then, some people (inspired or not, it doesn't matter) write a book, the Bible, which is just a tiny part of what God created. Now, a bunch of people look at the Universe, which God made, and based on the intrinsic order of it, which God made, conclude that it is billions of years old and evolution caused multiple species to exist. A bunch of other folks conclude on the basis of the Bivle that the Earth is thousands of years old and species were created simultaneously. Who's more likely to be right - the folks who are reading directly from creation or those who read from the intermediary text of the Bible?

Creationism is Idolatry. It is placing a man-made book above a God-made Universe in order to show that God is a man-like creator who makes the world the way we make a house - from a set of unconnected pieces. That's not the way it looks. The tragic thing is that the real world (as opposed to the one creationists imagine) is probably much better evidence for a Creator because it doesn't work like man-made stuff works.

As for this never having observed any of it nonsense as an attack on evolution, let's face it: none of us have ever seen the Bible. We've seen copies of it, but we've never seen it. We've never seen Christ. We've never seen the Resurrection. We've never seen Christopher Columbus. We've never seen Darwin. We've never seen Paul or the other apostles. We're always working on the basis of secondhand evidence for everything. We have to use reason to ever believe anything we ourselves did not witness.

Here's one of the biggest most irritating thing some creationists do, which really feeds the fire of irritating evolutionists like Richard Dawkins. They claim to want us to understand God and Christ and our place in the world. They want us to read the Bible and become literate about their faith, but they claim outright that they have not read what Darwin really said, and that they don't want to learn anything else about evolution. These are children saying "I'm right" and refusing to reconcile. They are not evangelists. I got the inspiration for my first paragraph here from Scripture, from Paul. The Bible is not actually friendly to Creationism. It damns it.

So many modern Christians are simply lost, and being lost, they will lead no one anywhere. In the ancient days the evangelists were brilliant, versed in the philosophy and science of their day as much as the philosophers and scientists themselves. They saw a great Cosmos of man and God and wove a tapestry of it in the minds of men. They won the hearts of an empire that was bent on their destruction, while today they lose the hearts of people within a nation of Christians. They have become the Pharisees of the modern age, making God into a law book written in human language. They make God out to be a petty ruler of a petty kingdom, so much so that atheism in the vast real world brings greater comfort, simply on the basis of the created majesty which the Creationists refuse to see.

[LucyPevensie]

[robsia]

[LucyPevensie]

I was just thinking that if I read through Darwin's origin of species this topic would be over before I finished. I admit I know next to nothing on this subject. But I don't care and if you guys are into a deep deep deep discussion I'm gonna leave because I get on this site to have fun. (Not to do more "science"homework)

LP

[robsia]

[jo]

[David Jack]

[LucyPevensie]

I just re read my post and it sounded awful. sorry. I really didn't mean it to come across that way. It's so hard to mean what you say when you're typing. And since you can't read facial expressions you can never tell what a person's attitude is toward you. thanks. And I'm quite a young person but not as young as some.
LP

[jo]