Evolution's Strategy

[sbbqb7n16]

I see evolution as this: a strategy to pull people away from God. Obviously made from the devil.

I don't say this just because I feel like saying it but think about this:
God said "don't eat" the serpent said "eat and you will be like God"
God said "let the little ones come" the enemy says "abortion is fine'
God said "I hate divorce" the enemy says "well... if you have to"

God said "I made man in My image" evolution says "man came from ooze"

You see... evolution is a strategy of the enemy (because we are in a spiritual war) to get you to not believe that what God said was true. And that is what he will continue to do until Christ returns to set the record straight. Satan even has his own doctors and lawyers to argue that evolution not creation is how things happened... but God has His, and God is God making whatever He said automatically true. Here's the thing... evolution, abortion, the Big Bang theory, and the New Age movement all have a common thread running through them: they give reason to not believe in the One True God and thus should easily be recognizable as of the enemy.

IMO theistic evolution should be easily recognized as false. Why didn't God say that He brought man out from among the animals instead of create him from the dust of the earth? Does God lie to cover up what people can't understand at the time in hopes that they will advance and be able to understand later on? Of course not... so why should we entertain the idea that He did?

 

[seebs]

If I were going to look for the devil's influence, I'd try to find something that pits belief in God *against* the evidence of the physical world around us. That would be a way to make it harder and harder for people to believe in God. To really do the worst possible damage, try to blind people entirely to the meaning of a passage by making them think one of the most important truths expressed in the Bible isn't even there, and replace it with a purely irrelevant piece of "history".

God talks down to us a lot, because we're small and sorta dumb by comparison to Him. When He tells us about the important spiritual truths, He likes to use parables, metaphors, and analogies. Christ used parables constantly; why should God the Father not do likewise?

Evolution isn't a reason not to believe in God. Evolution is totally unrelated to spiritual questions.

Young earth creationism, though... That's a *powerful* reason not to believe in God, because it's rooted in a God whose creation is totally unlike ours, and in which the basic evidence of the senses is a lie. That would be a strange God indeed.

 

[wildernesse]

Today at 05:53 AM sbbqb7n16 said this in Post #1 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=657819#post657819)

I see evolution as this: a strategy to pull people away from God. Obviously made from the devil.

Evolution only pulls people away from God when people equate anti-evolution with no God. Once they open their eyes and look at the world around them, they realize that scientists aren't lying about this evolution-thing. Unfortunately, they've had the lie that evolution says there's no God hammered into their heads, so when they find out that evolution is real they conclude that God can't be.

I don't say this just because I feel like saying it but think about this:
God said "don't eat" the serpent said "eat and you will be like God"
God said "let the little ones come" the enemy says "abortion is fine'
God said "I hate divorce" the enemy says "well... if you have to"

God said "I made man in My image" evolution says "man came from ooze"

Only the last one addresses anything dealing with evolution. Do you think God looks like a human? Do you think he has male anatomy? Give me a break!

I think that we are made in the image of God--in our spiritual capacities.

You see... evolution is a strategy of the enemy (because we are in a spiritual war) to get you to not believe that what God said was true.

The Bible says that God created this world and saw it to be good. He spoke this world into existence--who's to say that the form of God's word isn't the way that science has discovered? I don't think that Genesis is the literal word of God.

And that is what he will continue to do until Christ returns to set the record straight. Satan even has his own doctors and lawyers to argue that evolution not creation is how things happened... but God has His, and God is God making whatever He said automatically true. Here's the thing... evolution, abortion, the Big Bang theory, and the New Age movement all have a common thread running through them: they give reason to not believe in the One True God and thus should easily be recognizable as of the enemy.

This part of the board is only about evolution and cosmology really--so I'll only address those parts. I believe in God's existence and I accept evolution as the mechanism that is responsible for the diversity of biological life we see on this planet. I haven't put God in a box somewhere and told him that there's no way on his green earth that he could have allowed evolution to happen.

IMO theistic evolution should be easily recognized as false. Why didn't God say that He brought man out from among the animals instead of create him from the dust of the earth? Does God lie to cover up what people can't understand at the time in hopes that they will advance and be able to understand later on? Of course not... so why should we entertain the idea that He did?

Re-read seebs post. Very eloquent.

--tibac

 

[Andrew]

Evolution isn't a reason not to believe in God. Evolution is totally unrelated to spiritual questions.

are you kidding!? The whole purpose of evolution was to prove there's no God, no creation, no creator.

gosh theistic evolution. that's sitting on fence and being laughed at by the evolutionists and the creationists. The whole idea of saying God use evolution is the same as mixing law and grace. The 2 are simply contradictory, unless of course you are now coming up with your own version of evolution. but these guys keep changing their theories, so what's new?

 

[wildernesse]

Today at 10:08 AM Andrew said this in Post #4 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=658125#post658125)

are you kidding!? The whole purpose of evolution was to prove there's no God, no creation, no creator.

This is flat-out false. Evolution simply posits a reliable biological mechanism to explain the diversity of life on Earth. It says nothing about God's existence--which is unsurprising. Science can, by definition, say nothing about God's existence. That topic is outside the realm of scientific study.

gosh theistic evolution. that's sitting on fence and being laughed at by the evolutionists and the creationists. The whole idea of saying God use evolution is the same as mixing law and grace. The 2 are simply contradictory, unless of course you are now coming up with your own version of evolution. but these guys keep changing their theories, so what's new?

I find very few evolutionists who laugh at my idea that evolution occurs. I would hope that scientists would modify their hypotheses and theories as new evidence came to light--that way they are more accurate.

--tibac

 

[seebs]

Today at 04:08 AM Andrew said this in Post #4 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=658125#post658125)
are you kidding!? The whole purpose of evolution was to prove there's no God, no creation, no creator.

Where do you get this utter nonsense?

The whole purpose of evolution was to answer the question "why are there finches of different sorts
on these islands, but most of these types don't occur elsewhere, and why are some of them occupying niches that are occupied by birds other than finches elsewhere".

Evolution does not deny the existance of God, or a creator; it only denies that God is a big fairy godmother waving a magic wond.

gosh theistic evolution. that's sitting on fence and being laughed at by the evolutionists and the creationists.

Once again, where do you get this nonsense? "Evolutionists" (this is a stupid word, and moderately offensive in and of itself) as a group don't have an opinion either way on the God thing. Some believe in God. Some don't. Those that believe in God generally believe in theistic evolution, because it's the only way they can reconcile their experiences.

The whole idea of saying God use evolution is the same as mixing law and grace. The 2 are simply contradictory, unless of course you are now coming up with your own version of evolution. but these guys keep changing their theories, so what's new?

They are not contradictory at all. Since the days of Augustine, people have been interpreting Genesis, not as a tawdry history which has no effect on our faith, and is a waste of valuable space that could have been used for things with spiritual meaning, but as a vital stage-setting piece of text which tells us about God.

Understood this way, it tells us a lot about God, and a lot about our relationship to Him, but absolutely nothing about how exactly life came to be.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

The purpose of evolution is to explain how life came to be in the state that it is now in the same way that Newton's theory of gravitation was to explain the motion of the planets. Neither says anything about whether God does things, only how He does things.

 

[sbbqb7n16]

Yesterday at 11:05 AM seebs said this in Post #6

Where do you get this utter nonsense?

The whole purpose of evolution was to answer the question "why are there finches of different sorts
on these islands, but most of these types don't occur elsewhere, and why are some of them occupying niches that are occupied by birds other than finches elsewhere".

Evolution does not deny the existance of God, or a creator; it only denies that God is a big fairy godmother waving a magic wond.

Or that God can't just say something and it happen? The Bible says God formed man from the dust... Eve was made from Adam's rib... God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them...

The Bible also says that Adam and Eve had children : Cain, Abel, and Seth (plus others not mentioned). It says that Cain killed Abel. It lists a geneology of the race from Adam to Noah. And down to Abraham. It tells how Abraham had Issac and Yshmael which today causes problems between Jews and Arabs. So which of these stories do you want to believe? Or can you just pick and choose which parts were literal and which parts were figurative? Come on surely you must know...

Once again, where do you get this nonsense? "Evolutionists" (this is a stupid word, and moderately offensive in and of itself) as a group don't have an opinion either way on the God thing. Some believe in God. Some don't. Those that believe in God generally believe in theistic evolution, because it's the only way they can reconcile their experiences.

So they are lukewarm... meaning God wants to spit them out of His mouth? Great job stickin up for em there...

They are not contradictory at all. Since the days of Augustine, people have been interpreting Genesis, not as a tawdry history which has no effect on our faith, and is a waste of valuable space that could have been used for things with spiritual meaning, but as a vital stage-setting piece of text which tells us about God.

Oh really... Augustine you say? What about everyone else from Adam to Augustine? Augustine was when? I'm sure when Paul explained to Timothy that Eve was the one who was decieved and that's why he wouldn't let women teach that Paul was basing that all off some make-believe event, right? Didn't Jesus say "In the beginning He created them male and female?" If you say that evolution is true, you make Jesus out to be a liar because He said that God created it that way in the beginning. NOT that it gradually became that way...

And FOD.. gravity is a law you can test. Drop something and it falls... Evolution is a speculatory theory based off broad generalizations. How do you test evolution again?

Understood this way, it tells us a lot about God, and a lot about our relationship to Him, but absolutely nothing about how exactly life came to be.

And understood Biblically, you see that God created man to join Him in a relationship. Why haven't any other animals evolved to that level yet? Did evolution just kinda stop at man? Surely after these billions of years at least one other species must have evolved to that level right?

 

[wblastyn]

Or that God can't just say something and it happen? The Bible says God formed man from the dust... Eve was made from Adam's rib... God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them...

No one said God can't zap everything into existance, just that he chose to use evolution, as the evidence shows us. If Genesis is literal then He also did not create man out of nothing, He used dust and similarity, He used a rib to create eve.

So they are lukewarm... meaning God wants to spit them out of His mouth? Great job stickin up for em there...

Ahh, out comes the "my interpretation is the only correct one, believe it or be thrown into hell".

And understood Biblically, you see that God created man to join Him in a relationship. Why haven't any other animals evolved to that level yet? Did evolution just kinda stop at man? Surely after these billions of years at least one other species must have evolved to that level right?

How do you know you aren't blaspheming God by attacking evolution?

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Today at 06:35 PM sbbqb7n16 said this in Post #8 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=661451#post661451)

And FOD.. gravity is a law you can test. Drop something and it falls... Evolution is a speculatory theory based off broad generalizations. How do you test evolution again?

Put a group of organisms into an environment where there is one group is significantly better at reproducing and one will observe evolution in the same way that one observes gravity by dropping something.

 

[Patricco]

17th February 2003 at 06:30 AM seebs said this in Post #2 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=657860#post657860)

Young earth creationism, though... That's a *powerful* reason not to believe in God, because it's rooted in a God whose creation is totally unlike ours, and in which the basic evidence of the senses is a lie. That would be a strange God indeed.

How is a young earth a *powerful* reason not to believe in God? You have me curious about this...

19th February 2003 at 12:55 AM wblastyn said this in Post #10 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=661498#post661498)

No one said God can't zap everything into existance, just that he chose to use evolution, as the evidence shows us.

Why would an all powerful God need to use evolution? He has the power to make it right the first time. I do not agree that God used evolution to bring us about.

19th February 2003 at 01:26 AM fragmentsofdreams said this in Post #13 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=661565#post661565)

Put a group of organisms into an environment where there is one group [that] is significantly better at reproducing and one will observe evolution in the same way that one observes gravity by dropping something.

What you state here is microevolution, which is adaptation. You started with that group of organisms and you... are given the same group of organisms back. This is not to be confused with macroevolution, which has not been observed to happen and is therefore not valid to this point.


An excellent site to go to would be http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles
It has several articles about evolution for those of you who are interested.

Also, I would recommend checking out these videos http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=products&grp=2
I have found them enlightening, perhaps you will too

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Yesterday at 10:57 PM Patricco said this in Post #14 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=682930#post682930)

How is a young earth a *powerful* reason not to believe in God? You have me curious about this...

If someone tells you that one has to believe in a young earth to believe in God and you see evidence for an old earth, this will push you from God.

Why would an all powerful God need to use evolution? He has the power to make it right the first time. I do not agree that God used evolution to bring us about.

God has the power to create however He wishes. It is not our place to say that a certain method is beneath Him. I would probably never guess beforehand that God would save the world by dying on a cross, but that is how He chose to act.

What you state here is microevolution, which is adaptation. You started with that group of organisms and you... are given the same group of organisms back. This is not to be confused with macroevolution, which has not been observed to happen and is therefore not valid to this point.


An excellent site to go to would be http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles
It has several articles about evolution for those of you who are interested.

Also, I would recommend checking out these videos http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=products&grp=2
I have found them enlightening, perhaps you will too

No one has seen a star form, mature, and die, but does that mean that we cannot infer that stars go through a series of stages by observing various stars in various points in their lives. In the same way, evolution connects the dots between a series of snapshots that we observe.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Yesterday at 08:57 PM Patricco said this in Post #14 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=682930#post682930)

How is a young earth a *powerful* reason not to believe in God? You have me curious about this...

Well, I can't speak for Seebs or Wblastyn or FOD, but here is my take...

All around us we see evidence for an old earth and an even older universe. Since I believe in God and that He did create this universe I have to assume that it is either old or that God is lying. If God is lying to us about the age of the universe than how can I trust that He is not lying to us about the afterlife?

Why would an all powerful God need to use evolution? He has the power to make it right the first time. I do not agree that God used evolution to bring us about.

We can only guess about what God intended whether we are YEC, OEC or theistic evolutionists, and all our guesses are likely to be wrong in one way or another. That said, here is my best guess for what it is worth...

Yes God could have created us perfectly if he wanted, but free will seems to be important to God for whatever reason and free will seems to be directly tied into our imperfection. Since God is perfect, making a direct creation that is less than perfect might just be a little hard. A simple solution would be to make a universe that could make itself, this would allow for free will and also show the power of God.

What you state here is microevolution, which is adaptation. You started with that group of organisms and you... are given the same group of organisms back. This is not to be confused with macroevolution, which has not been observed to happen and is therefore not valid to this point.

Scientifically there is no difference between macro and micro evolution, all the processes that cause one are the same that cause the other. There is so little genetic difference between humans and apes that the human-ape transformation is a case of micro-evolution even in terms creationists use.

There is no magic barrier that stops things from evolving into different "kinds".

An excellent site to go to would be http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles
It has several articles about evolution for those of you who are interested.

Also, I would recommend checking out these videos http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=products&grp=2
I have found them enlightening, perhaps you will too

"Dr. Dino" is not a good source, almost every one of his arguments have been discredited by even other creationists.

His PhD is dubious at best, and some of his financial dealings such as transferring property through his church to his son to avoid taxes, his blatant disregard for building codes and getting proper permits put his moral character in question too.

There are three strikes against him, he is not educated in the areas he debates in, he uses outdated and false information, and his morals seem to be less than one should expect from a Christian leader.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

I don't know what good it does to call someone who disagrees with you the enemy, or to demonize them. Besides, doesn't Jesus teach us to love our enemies? What has the theory of evolution got to do with abortioIt seems like a desperate debating manuver to begin a debate like this. I would suggest that you actually learn something about evolution before attempting to discredit it. Don't make up stuff, use examples of what evolutionary theory actually says - then cirticize that. Take a lesson from Psalms, and understand what you are talking about before opening your mouth.