You Can't Believe in Both Creationism & Evolution
Read the following and see if you can guess who teaches this (hints: He is a best-selling author; this man is a well-known scientist who claims to be an “evangelical Christian”; he was a keynote speaker at the U.S. National Prayer Breakfast in 2007):
Belief in a supernatural creator always leaves open the possibility that human beings are a fully-intended part of creation. If the Creator chooses to interact with creation, he could very well influence the evolutionary process to ensure the arrival of his intended result . . . . Furthermore, an omniscient creator could easily create the universe in such a way that physical and natural laws would result in human evolution . . . .
God planned for humans to evolve to the point of attaining these characteristics . . . . For example, in order to reflect God’s Image by engaging in meaningful relationships, the human brain had to evolve to the point where an understanding of love and relationship could be grasped and lived out. God’s intention for humans to have relationships is illustrated in the opening chapters of Genesis, where many fundamental truths about God and humankind are communicated through the imagery of a creation story. After placing Adam in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 2 describes God’s decision to provide Adam with a partner . . . . The Image of God also includes moral consciousness and responsibility. Humans did not have a fully formed moral consciousness prior to the time of Adam and Eve . . . . However, general consciousness must have already evolved so that a moral consciousness and the associated responsibility were possible . . . . When Adam and Eve received God’s image, they had evolved to where they could understand the difference between right and wrong. It seems that Adam and Eve first demonstrated their new moral prowess when, using their free will, they chose wrong by eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve then knew the difference between right and wrong in a more personal way than before, having experienced the guilt and shame that accompanied their decision (see Genesis 3:1-13) . . . . When Did Humans Receive the Image of God? . . .
We cannot know the exact time that humans attained God’s image. In fact, it may be that the image of God emerged gradually over a period of time. Estimates of the historical time of Adam and Eve are varied . . . . While some literalist interpreters of Genesis argue that God created Adam and Eve in their present form, the evidence of DNA and the fossil record establishes that humans were also participants in the long evolutionary continuum, and God used this process as his means of creation . . . .
We also do not know if humanity received the image of God by the immediate onset of a relationship with God or by a slower evolutionary process. In either case, this development occurred before the fall of Adam and Eve, since moral responsibility and a broken relationship with God are both involved in the story of the fall. Perhaps God used the evolutionary process to equip humankind with language, free will and culture, and then revealed God’s will to individuals or a community so that they might then enter into meaningful relationship with God through obedience, prayer and worship. In this scenario, the evolutionary process is necessary but not sufficient to encompass the biblical teaching on the image of God . . . .
The person who teaches this is Dr. Francis Collins, the scientist well known for his leadership in the Human Genome project. Dr. Collins is a member of the BioLogos team, which is described on their website as:
. . . a team of believing scientists who are committed to promoting a perspective of both theological and scientific soundness, which takes seriously the claims of theism and of evolution, and finds compelling evidence for their compatibility.
The BioLogos website received a grant from the liberal (though relatively morally conservative) John Templeton Foundation (by the way, such a foundation would never support an organization like Answers in Genesis that stands uncompromisingly on the authority of God’s Word). The above quotes come from the BioLogos.org website.
An article in Time magazine about Collins and this new website said that Collins received many emails after the publication of his book about the human genome project (and his belief in evolution) asking numerous questions—many about Genesis—the same sorts of questions we receive at Answers in Genesis. Sadly, Collins and his group are destructive to biblical authority and are leading so many people astray. The Time magazine article stated:
After his best-selling The Language of God came out three years ago, Collins began receiving thousands of e-mails—primarily from other Evangelicals—asking questions about how to reconcile scriptural teachings with scientific evidence.
“Many of these Christians have been taught that evolution is wrong,” Collins explains. “They go to college and get exposed to data, and then they’re thrust into personal crises of great intensity. If the church was wrong about the origins of life, was it wrong about everything? Some of them walk away from science or faith—or both.”
Actually we find exactly the opposite. It is compromisers like Colllins who cause people to doubt and disbelieve the Bible—causing them to walk away from the church. In fact, in a new book to be released in three weeks (entitled: Already Gone), we report on well documented research that confirms this.
The Time magazine article continues:
Collins . . . decided to gather a group of theologians and scientists to create the BioLogos Foundation in order to foster dialogue between the two sides. The name—combining bios (Greek for “life”) and logos (“the word”)—is also what Collins calls his blended theory of evolution and creation, an approach he hopes can replace intelligent design, which he derides as “not a scientific proposal” and “not good theology either.”
. . . As he read through the thousands of e-mails he received from readers of his book, the former NIH scientist noticed that there were 25 or so common questions that his mostly Evangelical correspondents raised. How should Christians respond to Darwin? If God created the universe, who or what created God? Does believing in science mean one can’t believe in miracles? What is up with Noah’s Ark and the flood? The new website offers answers to these vexing questions and, through those responses lays out the BioLogos theory that God chose to create the world by way of evolution.
It is so sad to note that according to Time magazine, “Collins plans to build on that work by developing a home-schooling curriculum that can serve as an alternative to the literalist creationism materials widely used by many conservative Evangelical parents.” If the home schooling movement adopts such a curriculum, they will certainly lose the next generation they are attempting to train up for the Lord.
It is also no surprise that as the Time magazine article states:
A large slice of the questions deal with Genesis, the first book in both Christian and Jewish Scriptures, and the text that explains the creation and population of Earth, and well as the relationship between God and man. Some answers are straightforward, as with the mystery of where Cain’s wife came from. “The scientific evidence suggests a dramatically larger population at this point in history,” conclude Collins . . . .
It is true that in this era of history, people are asking questions about Genesis, as they recognize that if Genesis is not true, how can one trust any of God’s Word? Collins is offering them answers that will only further undermine biblical authority—AiG is giving answers that stand on biblical authority, and, as a result, so many have testified they became Christians or rededicated their lives.
AiG stands unapologetically on the authority of the Word of God. How we need to pray that Collins and his group will repent of their compromise and return to biblical authority. They honor man’s fallible ideas instead of God’s infallible Word.
The Time magazine article can be found at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1895284,00.html
As we have often said over the years, the compromising Christians are much more of a problem in the culture than the atheists. No wonder the church is in big trouble in this nation.
Devotion:
Not ashamed to be called their God
(Hebrews 11:16) But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
Having the reputation as being a Christian, we are concerned that nothing we do should ever make the Lord Jesus Christ be ashamed to be called our God.
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A day to God is like a million or more years to man.
In the book of Genesis, the earth began as water and it was formless and void. Hypocrites think that it rotated one time every 24 hours because they have no COMMON sense.
Enough space trash gathered in the water and after a few billion years it penetrated the surface of the water.
500 tons of meteorites and 40,000 tons of comet debre gathers on earth each year according to the scientists.
The moon also grows larger and the gravity pull is increasing due to thier size. The stronger the gravity pull the sooner they will pull toward each other and crash into each other which may be tomorrow.
Parably speaking, everyone needs to put on thier asbestos suits, named Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, the MANY have no asbestos suit but FEW of us do according to Genesis 7:1, Matthew 7:14, 9:37, 22:14, Luke 12:32 and 13:23-24 and more.
The HYPOCRITES wear PRIDEFUL suits topped off with a Judas noose. PRIDE is the DEADLIEST of the 7 DEADLIEST SINS.
Luke 6:20 Blessed are the poor, yours is the kingdom of God.
"The moon also grows larger and the gravity pull is increasing due to thier size. The stronger the gravity pull the sooner they will pull toward each other and crash into each other which may be tomorrow."
Actually the moon is getting further away from the Earth at a rate of ~3.82cm per year.
Prove it.
The distance to the moon has been measured to a high degree of accuracy since the Apollo Missions, when a reflector was left there.
Since that time lasers have been used to accurately measure the distance between the earth and the moon.
These things can happily coexist if the human brain is as good as scientists would like it to be.
http://www.atotalawareness.com
http://www.answersincreation.org/genesis1.htm
You need to have FAITH to believe in CREATIONISM because - like all superstitions - it is not supported by any verifiable and testable evidence for it whatsoever.
In contrast, you should ACCEPT EVOLUTION because it is a fact supported by mountains of evidence and new evidence is discovered every day.
GodDidIt, creationism and intelligent design - its WMD (words of mass deception) in contrast do not explain anything at all.
Bottom-line you can believe in creationism or any other fairy tale but belief and evolution do not belong in the same sentence.
I've read more than one of your comments, and while yours is a stance which my atheist friends hold, it doesn't make logical sense.
In your comments concerning the golden rule, you say yes to it. Like all other atheists I've known, you believe that we should be good to one another, not out of a misguided attempt to please God, but out of a sense of common decency. Yet here you maintain that we must all accept evolution .
But the theory of Natural Selection knows no virtue. It is pure competition at the most basic level. Even now, in your body, war is taking place between your immune system and any foreigners inside of you. Natural Selection is war. And for some reason, the most secular of countries, the EU and the US, seem to have the highest numbers of bleeding hearts for poorer countries. But if secularism is your faith, if evolution is the end all and be all of life, then the fact that rich countries are powerful because they stand on the back of poor countries should not be so bothersome. The strong survive, the weak do not - this is natural selection. Common decency doesn't enter into it.
Each human has about 10 trillion cells. 90% of the cells in our body are bacteria and 99% of the genes in our body are bacteria genes. Depending on how you look at it, we are only between 1% and 10% human.
Most bacteria are good for us. They live in our skin to protect us, they break down our food , produce the vitamins we need, ...
There is a lot more cooperation going on than you may think from the "survival of the fittest" slogan.
We have adapted through evolution to use the benefits of the bacteria that are part of us and bacteria see us as their survival machine.
I've read the Selfish Gene, as well as The Origins of Virtue, which follows along the same sort of reasoning. But being virtuous because it benefits you is very different from altruism, something I've seen, rarely, in some humans.
If I were asked what the best way of survival is on this planet, I would be forced to reply with biotrophic parasitism. More than half of the species on this planet do it, yet for some reason humans detest social parasitism greatly, even though it is the most successful form of living.
Whenever I see groups of people gallantly encouraging the rest of mankind to save starving children in Africa or endangered species I become frustrated in the extreme. These groups are typically associated more with environmentalists or humanitarian groups than they are with religious groups. If the EU and US survives primarily out of exploiting less fortunate countries then why would secularists care about the plight of Africa? Altruism in a secularist makes as much sense as religious holy wars. I know it happens, but it shouldn't.
Also, biologists have a tendency to wail about endangered species non stop. In the last week I've seen no fewer than four advertisements persuading people to contribute money to programs based on keeping the Great Panda from going extinct (and I don't even have a telly). Biologists should know that a carnivore who only eats a plant that mutates constantly and dies when it blossoms "has it coming."
So you're right when you say that secularists have reasons to be virtuous. But not altruistic. Never altruistic.