Perhaps you are right when you say that those that oppose common descend do so
based on religious belief than on commonsensical scientific grounds. I
can not accept micro-evolution unless I'm shown (call me doubting Thomas). It
is a lot more easy for me to accept special creation through time than evolution
through time. Why? Because I know, I affirm, that Science in not the only source
of truth, it only applies to nature (submit the earth!), it is not applicable
to the total reality of creation which also include the spiritual realm. I
don't know much about this realm other than what I trust from the Bible
(faith!), and from the Bible we can conclude that the spiritual mingles with
the natural "naturally" and "continuously". If I'm shown that microevolution is
true, then I would return to the sacred text and find my interpretation
faults (faith can not be destroyed in my opinion. I can certainly and easily
understand why people would choose evolution (common descend), I don't
particularly oppose the idea as a concept to be taught and discussed, but I can
not "rationally" accepted given the "nature" of it and given the biblical claims.
I've been reading Darwin's BB by Behe. He uses the word "machines" to
describe proteins. Take a look at the definition of this word in the
dictionary. Now that you have read the definition and I must appeal to the same
commonsensical argument that evolutionists use:
does it not seem to you that things were carefully put together?
A common designer is to me a much powerful concept than evolution (common
descend).
I know that one does not necessarily exclude the other, but I "necessarily" do
exclude them based on reason and my sources of truth.......at least for as
long as the
data shows unmistakenly otherwise.
Salu2, Eduardo.
>
> To the evolution group:
>
> Let's keep this dialogue about Romans 1 going with the following observation:
>
> The state of all people, apart from saving faith, is the suppression of the
> truth of God. The point of this passage, in the fuller context of Paul's
> argument in Romans, is not to legitimize an argument from design. Rather,
> despite the evidence from creation and from within, evidence that leaves
> all mankind without excuse, the only thing that unbelieving humans do is
> deny the true and living God and worship and serve some god rooted in
> creation or their own imagination.
>
> It is not only atheistic "methodological naturalists" that commit this
> heinous affront on God's being and prerogative, but anyone outside the
> Biblical faith. The conclusion of this argument is in Romans 3:10-18.
> "There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands,
> there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside..." It is only
> through the redemption that is found in Christ and by faith in him that the
> true knowledge of God comes. This includes the knowledge of his activity
> in creation. You see, Dawkins and company, the scientists and the
> philosophers at the AAAS who are unbelievers, cannot see the evidence of
> God in creation by virtue of their religious condition. They are blinded
> by their own futile speculations, by their wicked exchange of the truth of
> God for a lie, and by God's giving them over to the immorality that flows
> from such false religion.
>
> Confession of design in creation is rooted in a prior faith commitment. In
> order to recognize design, you must recognize a designer, and only those
> who have been, by the grace of God, rescued from this blindness described
> in Romans 1, do that. As I have said over and over, those of us who are
> believers who share the dominant scientific perspective of the day find the
> anti-religion of many spokespersons of science as reprehensible as Phil
> Johnson does. I think that we have striven to point out such problems.
> Howard Van Till has given as much time arguing against atheistic
> evolutionism has he has arguing against recent creationism and the
> "intelligent design" hypothesis.
>
> My point is always that this is unavoidable. Dawkins "needs" (religiously,
> epistemologically, and I dare say, psychologically) every bit of ammunition
> in the atheist arsenal to deny the reality of God's existence and his own
> pending appearance before the judgment throne. At its most fundamental
> level, life is religion. We either worship and serve the true and living
> God who has, by his mercy, raised us out of the miry condition common to
> all of humanity, or we deny him and commit idolatry by worshiping and
> serving some god of our own vain imaginations. This antithesis runs
> through all of life and epistemologically it precedes any human enterprise.
>
> As for myself, I despise the term "methodological naturalism". However, in
> practice, I probably look very much like one. My "naturalism" is not
> rooted in some neutrality of science or in some naturalistic worldview, but
> rather in a view of God's creative and governing work in this created world
> that leads me to expect order, causality, regularity, etc: all the things
> necessary for the doing of science. No doubt all of us who are Christians
> who are also scientists share this view when it comes to so-called
> "operation science". Why geology, cosmogeny, and evolution are such
> stumbling blocks always bewilders me. It is easy to see in the case of
> recent creationism whose starting point is a particular interpretation of
> the Genesis text and, while I disagree, at least I understand the line of
> reasoning. It is much more bewildering to me in the case of those who
> don't share that particular interpretation.
>
> To those of the group who don't always appreciate it, sorry about the
> return to theology. However, because life is religion, such a return is
> unavoidable.
>
> Terry G.