From: u9264442@cc.uow.edu.au (Andrew William Easton)
Newsgroups: aus.religion
Subject: Re: Is evolution contrary to creation?
Date: 25 Aug 92 02:58:45 GMT
Distribution: aus
Organization: University Of Wollongong

psm@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Phil Malin) writes:

>Hi Andrew.  I have a couple of thoughts on this subject as I was only thining
>about it not long ago.

>u9264442@cc.uow.edu.au (Andrew William Easton) writes:

>>I have asked most of my christian friends and church leaders about this, and
>>the best answer that I have recieved is that it is also stated in the bible
>>that it is not supposed to be a scientific book (ie it answers "why?", not 
>>"how?"). Can anybody present even a shred of SCIENTIFIC evidence (ie not from
>>the bible, or some jerk's theory) against evolution? Can anybody explain why
>            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>			I hope you don't lump me into this category.  I think you
>			could look at my thoughts as my theory.

I should have specified. The jerks I refer to are people who dismiss evolution
for no better reason than that they believe the world was created, and they
can't be bothered changing thier mind. You have an argument, which sets you
above this level, whether I agree with you or not.

>>the Lord would not use evolution to create everything? If not, then I'm afraid
>>that science has sucked me in, because I will have to believe that the Lord
>>used an evolutionary process to create what we see today.

>>The Bearded One..... 

>First of all I must state that I find evolution a bit hard to swallow.  God
>created man differently to the other animals - man has a soul.  It seems strange
>that God would evolve humans from another species and then place a soul into
>it.

The Lord can do what he likes. I used to find it hard to believe that the Lord
changed the refractive index of water (to make rainbows) after the flood. If
you can accept that, you should be able to accept the addition of a soul to
man.

>Also, there is evidence about prehistoric animals before man was evolved.
>Some of these were obviously carnivores - therefore they killed.  But God
>created the world perfect, without death.  i.e. nothing died.

Good point. I don't know enough evolution to argue it, but are you sure that
carnivores existed before man (although I suppose that would be a requirement
of evolution, seeing as man is a carnivore, and also of creation, since man
was created last. Maybe the carnivores were herbivores before sin entered the
world).

>Now comes my theory...

>If God created the world perfect there would be no death.  Everything would
>be perfect.  But if man sinned, suddenly imperfection would enter and permeate
>all of creation.  To me this is like a discontinuity on the time line of man.
>That is why I don't trust the theories modern day scientists have to offer
>about the origins of man.  How can they predict back to a time when a
>discontinuity blocks their path?  They can't.  Their predictions will be
>false.  It's difficult to explain without a graph.  Consider;


>	   ____________






>	   ************------------------------------------------------
>       ^														  ^
>	   beginning                                                  now

>	   If we look at the graph, the top line represents the world when
>	   created - perfect.  The disconinuity describes when sin entered the
>	   world.  From that point until now science can predict (I assume)
>	   quite accurately what happened.  If they try to predict further
>	   back they will be entering into a region which science can't possibly
>	   know about.  I will even go so far as to say that modern physics
>	   wouldn't even describe that time.  The world was in a totally alien
>	   state to what it is now.

I can see your argument on the discontinuity, and I agree with that. I can't 
see how this discontinuity would stop science understanding that a certain
animal must have existed to create a certain fossil. Surely this would be the
case no matter how perfect or imperfect the world was.

>I hope this helps.  I don't know if you agree or not, but to me it really
>rests on one's faith.  To me this seems logical, even though it's not
>answering the question on *how* God created the world.

We don't need to know how, we need to know that he did. The point of this 
thread is to try to convince evolutionists that creation is at least possible.
Whether or not this is a realistic goal I don't know. I get the feeling, 
however, that I may be on the wrong newsgroup (as most of you out there in
aus.religion would be creationists anyway I imagine).

>If anyone has any thoughts or criticisms about this I'd be glad to hear.

Well there's mine. I am glad that some positive feedback has been recieved.
This could turn out to be a good thread, so let's keep it going.

The Bearded One..... 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| u9264442@wampyr.cc.uow.edu.au | "I've had enough of Irish Americans who... |
| 				| talk about the resistance, the revolution  |
| You've all seen a disclaimer  | back home, and the glory of the revolution,|
| before. Mine's the same.      | and the glory of dyin' for the revolution. |
|				| _FUCK_ THE REVOLUTION!!!"  	- Bono       |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------