Sher
June 15th 2003, 03:14 AM
Excellent post Soc :thumb: AND you picked some of my favorite scripture :yipee:
Originally posted (http://theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=123510&action=showthread) by Socrates in the thread How bad is evolution? (http://theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=5656)
Romans 1:18-25—
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth.
19 ¶ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse;
21 for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
This passage clearly teaches that unbelievers won't have the slightest excuse for unbelief, because God's power and deity can be "clearly seen" from nature. This seems to be a strong support for the argument from design.
Atheists like Hume, whom Zeus adulates, made some facile attacks against this argument, but never really addressed it properly because they had no alternative explanation for the complexity of life. Paley, writing 30 years after Hume, had shown up the pathetic nature of his special pleading.
However, according to Gould, one of Darwin's main motivations was to counteract the argument from design, especially as expressed by Paley—see Darwin’s real message: Have you missed it? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1347.asp) So if evolution were true, where is the clear evidence for God's power from what has been made? This is a major reason atheists are so keen to promote evolution -- without it, they realise they have no excuse for their anti-God religious beliefs. No wonder ardent atheists like Richard Dawkins, Ian Plimer Jerry Coyne, Scott Page etc. have to cling to evolution so desperately and fulminate against creationists who threaten their faith. Once more, compromise with evolution has far more consequences that just Genesis 1.
Furthermore, many theistic evolutionists are very naive about evolution, thinking that it means some sort of progress, so there must be a guiding force behind it. But Gould made it very clear that real evolutionists believe no such thing; rather, they believe that that evolution is contingent, so if the clock was rewound we would never see humans evolve again. Far from seeing evidence for a divine hand, all they see is ‘there’s nothing else going on out there — just organisms struggling to pass their genes on to the next generation. That’s it.’ So once again, if evolution were true, there is no evidence for a God from what has been made, but evidence only for ruthless struggle for existence. Evolution and the Apostle Paul cannot both be right!
Also, if God's attributes can be seen in nature, what attributes are revealed by a god who uses a process of survival of the fittest to create? They are contradictory to the true God revealed in Christ, who said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." In evolution, the meek do not inherit the earth but are crushed by the strong. So once again, the attributes revealed by a theistic evolutionary "god" are diametrically opposed to those of Christ, fully God and fully man.
Yet another attribute about God in the Bible is that He regards death as "the last enemy", and originally created animals to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:30), and will restore them to that state in the future (Isaiah chs. 11,65). He is even concerned for a single sparrow. But this is totally opposite to a god who would use millions of years of death and suffering to create things, and declare all this to be "very good" (Genesis 1:31).
In reality, what is plain from creation is that we live in a world of great beauty and ingenuity, but this is marred somehow. The attributes of God revealed in creation are His immense intelligence and sense of beauty far unimaginably beyond our own, but one who has cursed His creation because of sin (Genesis 3:19, Romans 8:20-22).
Originally posted (http://theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=123510&action=showthread) by Socrates in the thread How bad is evolution? (http://theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=5656)
Romans 1:18-25—
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth.
19 ¶ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse;
21 for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
This passage clearly teaches that unbelievers won't have the slightest excuse for unbelief, because God's power and deity can be "clearly seen" from nature. This seems to be a strong support for the argument from design.
Atheists like Hume, whom Zeus adulates, made some facile attacks against this argument, but never really addressed it properly because they had no alternative explanation for the complexity of life. Paley, writing 30 years after Hume, had shown up the pathetic nature of his special pleading.
However, according to Gould, one of Darwin's main motivations was to counteract the argument from design, especially as expressed by Paley—see Darwin’s real message: Have you missed it? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1347.asp) So if evolution were true, where is the clear evidence for God's power from what has been made? This is a major reason atheists are so keen to promote evolution -- without it, they realise they have no excuse for their anti-God religious beliefs. No wonder ardent atheists like Richard Dawkins, Ian Plimer Jerry Coyne, Scott Page etc. have to cling to evolution so desperately and fulminate against creationists who threaten their faith. Once more, compromise with evolution has far more consequences that just Genesis 1.
Furthermore, many theistic evolutionists are very naive about evolution, thinking that it means some sort of progress, so there must be a guiding force behind it. But Gould made it very clear that real evolutionists believe no such thing; rather, they believe that that evolution is contingent, so if the clock was rewound we would never see humans evolve again. Far from seeing evidence for a divine hand, all they see is ‘there’s nothing else going on out there — just organisms struggling to pass their genes on to the next generation. That’s it.’ So once again, if evolution were true, there is no evidence for a God from what has been made, but evidence only for ruthless struggle for existence. Evolution and the Apostle Paul cannot both be right!
Also, if God's attributes can be seen in nature, what attributes are revealed by a god who uses a process of survival of the fittest to create? They are contradictory to the true God revealed in Christ, who said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." In evolution, the meek do not inherit the earth but are crushed by the strong. So once again, the attributes revealed by a theistic evolutionary "god" are diametrically opposed to those of Christ, fully God and fully man.
Yet another attribute about God in the Bible is that He regards death as "the last enemy", and originally created animals to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:30), and will restore them to that state in the future (Isaiah chs. 11,65). He is even concerned for a single sparrow. But this is totally opposite to a god who would use millions of years of death and suffering to create things, and declare all this to be "very good" (Genesis 1:31).
In reality, what is plain from creation is that we live in a world of great beauty and ingenuity, but this is marred somehow. The attributes of God revealed in creation are His immense intelligence and sense of beauty far unimaginably beyond our own, but one who has cursed His creation because of sin (Genesis 3:19, Romans 8:20-22).