Creationism vs Theistic Evolution

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
so is god a bacterium ?

Hi Huck,

I don't follow?

Hi Ben
glad to hear you're not a follower :-)
i just wondered (in a rather flippant way) that if simple bacteria were the first recogniseable lifeforms - were they created in God's image ?

"if simple bacteria were the first recogniseable lifeforms "
Protobionts wouldn't have looked like bacteria. Bacteria are the first life complex enough to leave fossil evidence.

Protobionts would have first been indistinguishable from chemicals, and the protocell would have been something like a phospholipid bilayer with some chemicals in it. Far from a bacterium.

Hi Huck,

Asking the wrong guy, I have no idea tbh. It depends what you take 'God's image' to mean I guess.

not on Facebook then ?

Good afternoon Ben,

It is as i feared. Theistic Evolution is simply Theism restated. An attempt to take the curse of a piece of science that is problematic for some religious beliefs and nothing to do with observations in biology. Although you do note that more often than not theists will contradict themselves when it comes to the principle of uniformity, that is, when they desire their deity to do all manner of interventions. It is so revealing that on one hand they will argue that the consistency we observe is due to their pet deity, yet in the same breath will argue that this consistency doesn't exist really as their deity intervenes constantly by miraculous magical means. Only deists manage to be consistent. I once asked whether theists really do believe the universe is consistent or whether it is chaotic and in constant flux with these observed values of the constants shifting upon a whim of their creator.. i don't recall any consistent logic to the replies.

I view Theistic Evolution as the same as ID. It is difference of degree not kind. As you have articulated quite well the argument shifts from one of design and intent in evolutionary biology (which has been demonstrated to be false) to one of design and intent for the universe instead. I guess you could call it ID Cosmology.

As such it has the same flaws. Nothing that can be considered undesigned to compare the supposedly designed with and until the 'designer', 'architect', or 'creator' is defined there is no way of discerning intent or design. There is no evidence of this 'designer', 'architect', or 'creator' so nothing for it to explain that is not covered by the natural world so far.

-"Thiestic evolutionists often say God accounts for why the orderly universe, readable in scientific and mathematical language exists."

Theists make assertions. It rather comes with the territory. It's because they lack evidence and reasoning and fill that void with their beliefs and wish-thinking. How often will you hear a theist saying 'God is beyond space and time!', or 'God is non-physical!' or 'God is beyond human understanding!', that last is my favourite since it renders *all* statements about this supposed god moot.

As i said before, once we have the answer to *how* the universe came to be, the *why* will be shown to be yet another empty enquiry. Just as it was with human evolution, planetary formation and the solar system - which all were once asserted to be designed - so it will be with the universe. Another gap filled. Superstition replaced with knowledge.

Popper won over Ayer and was [partly] responsible for the paradigm shift away from confirmation of theories and the attendant bias that followed towards a more critical view that looked for means of falsifying hypotheses and testing them to destruction. But what caused a revolution in science was fatal for theology. Since it has no method for falsifying its propositions. Confirmation bias is the very means that it uses for ascertaining its many 'truths'. If you happen to believe in an all-powerful magical being then it is perfectly possible for it to have created the earth and the universe 6000 years ago and to make it appear as if this was an event that occured many billions of years ago, its ways are not our ways etc. It is always quaint to see Christians use the touchstone of the scientific method to refute young-earth creationism completely unaware that the same touchstone undermines their own magical theology of resurrections and miracles.

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Wow Jim, just wow.

If it's not an impolite question... are you currently on medication?

Jim Guest

A Christian can believe in a good god or he can believe in a god who used evolution to produce the variety of life we see on the Earth but I don't see how a Christian can believe in a good god who used evolution.

Alice waves her white flag. :D

Why not?

Jim Guest

Because of the millions of years of suffering and death involved.

Because evolution has given us blind spots in vision, severe back issues, weaker limbs, an appendix; which has no purpose to serve by becoming a time bomb, a multitude of diseases etc.

And what G. said.

Fair enough. But the focus of Christianity is on the harm of bad moral decisions that affect eternal conscience, rather than ephemeral physical bodies. So while many millions of animals have died in fear, their suffering is accounted for in the end result; which is evidently, as the Bible indicates, greater than the human mind can imagine.

'evolution has given us blind spots in vision, severe back issues, weaker limbs, an appendix'

And the means to deal with them. Brains, hands and language.

Jim Guest

In other words the end justifies the means?

It is simply that god could have chosen any way of achieving the same result and chose the method that involved so much suffering in animals and humans. The evidence would suggest very questionable judgement.

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Ok, let's hear it, drum roll please...

Why not Jim?

In your dreams sunny-Jim.

(or should that be delusions?)

the end result is "greater than the human mind can imagine" - that's the worst piece of salesmanship i've ever heard Jimmy

The best, you mean. :)

It's actually your own logic, if you will admit it.

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