GR>>The obvious point being that when we attempt to attach humanness to
GR>>Neanderthal we must also be willing to accept the God-breathed spirit
GR>>and personal relationship that God created with and in man (Adam). To be
GR>>human is to be a personal, rational, and moral being holding the
GR>>knowledge of God. Anything short of this is simply not human in my
GR>>opinion. Do you disagree?
GR>>
GR>I fully agree, and for the record, I beleive Adam was a special creation
GR>albeit in a different way than you.
Hmmm.. on your web page you attach humanness to evidence of activity and
do not mention how to correlate this with the above.
"Before we exclude some of the fossil men from humanity, we
need to have a very, very clear definition of what humanity is. There
was a time, not too long ago in this country, when Africans were not
viewed as human since they were so different in appearance from
the Europeans. God judges what is inside of us, not what we look
like. Thus I would define man as any being who engages in human
activities."
Leaving the dating aside, I tend to agree with you on this approach and
argument. I'd like to see a stronger link to the relationship with God
and resulting evidence that should be found for that... something oddly
missing in the anthropology. Why do we not find the cultural artifacts
and evidence of a people who held a relationship with God, the center of
their life and world, from whom they gained their substance, the
knowledge of whom has been around since their creation? Perhaps it was
because the keeping of that faith was through an oral tradition. This
requires Adam to possess the mental capacity to keep, understand,
communicate, and know the value of the Genesis story from generation to
generation. By your model, Australopithecines would have had to
accomplish this.
GR>You were gone when I finally found the web site for the Neanderthal flute.
GR>is http://www.zrc-sazu.si/www/iza/piscal.html . Now, can we seriously belie
GR>that an ape or non-spiritual being made and played the flute? In otherwords
GR>do you believe in a mute, brute, who plays the flute?
Just a flutin' human.
GR>Time is not irrelevant. This is the origins issue after all. If a spiritual
GR>being was on earth prior to the appearance of anatomically modern humans, th
GR>is an important piece of knowledge and needs to be incorporated into theolog
Actually, when God did it is not as important as what he did.
Personally, I see your model of the image of man arising from a
miraculously revived chromosomally fused still born animal 5.5 million
years ago as an attempt to satisfy two pre-assumptions... that gene
similarities are proof of evolution and that man thus evolved
genetically from apes. God miraculously fashioning man out of clay and
then breathing his life into him at a single point in time is at least
as rational and possible according to the evidence.
Paul
to: IN:GRMorton@gnn.com
cc: IN:evolution@calvin.edu