From: epowers@mccoy (POWERS,  ERIK  LEE )
Subject: Re: Evolution implied by the Bible
Organization: New Mexico State University
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:47:21 GMT

In article <martin.726245480@marsh> martin@cs.curtin.edu.au (Martin Dougiamas)  
writes:
> epowers@mccoy.NMSU.Edu (Erik Powers) writes:
> 
> >martin@cs.curtin.edu.au (Martin Dougiamas) writes:
> >> Do you believe that the ancestors of people as diverse as South
> >> American forest pygmies, Zulus, Europeans and Japanese were the
> >> same as yours only a few thousand years ago?  If you do (and you
> >> must, if you take the Bible at all seriously) then you must believe
> >> a great deal of evolution has occurred since then.  If not, I 
> >> would like to hear your arguments.
> 
> >   Most of the objections from my fellow Christians comes from huge  
> >misunderstandings about evolutionary theory, and therefore an inability to
> >see the real enemy.  Most of the challenges to Christianity from my atheist
> 
> Enemy?  Hmmm.  Interesting way of looking at it.  So what is the
> "real enemy", in your opinion?

			The "real enemy" to Christianity, as far as philosophical ideas are  
concerned, is the idea that all observed phenomena are the result of natural  
occurrences.  This would mean there is no supernatural influence on nature, and  
then the idea of God becoming man is ludicrous.

> 
> >friends (from an evolutionary standpoint) come from the same  
misunderstandings
> >of evolutionary theory.  Evolutionary theory, in and of itself, contains no
> >threat to Christians or anybody else, and it can be freely ignored without
> >effect on anyone's life.
> 
> As can Christianity.  Unless of course a fanatic wants to kill you. :)
> Or possibly I could say that without it you wouldn't even have a life.  :)
> But seriously, you say you can freely ignore evolutionary theory (ie 
> by freely I take you mean in its entirety).  In that case you must
> have an alternate explanation for our regional disparity.  
> Again, I would like to hear your alternate explanation.

			In ecology, life is considered to be made up of events affecting survival,  
growth, and reproduction.  You can survive, grow, and even reproduce without  
ever having heard of evolution.  That's what I mean when I say you can freely  
ignore evolutionary theory without effect on your life.  And, as you say,  
Christianity also fits in here.  
				I have no disagreements with many of the findings of evolutionary theory  
(and I have plenty of exposure, having worked in an evolutionary biology lab  
for three years).  My disagreement is the basic assumptions in current  
evolutionary theory, such as the assumption that everything observed has a  
natural cause.  I can obtain an evolutionary perspective by assuming the  
Christian world view (if you're interested, I can post my thought progression  
on this subject) or from a naturalistic world view, but I find the naturalistic  
view to be self contradictory.

> 
> >                         The challenge to Christianity is not in  
evolutionary
> >theory itself, but in the assumption that all observed phenomena are the
> >result of natural occurrences.  You can arrive at a great deal of  
evolutionary
> >theory from either the Christian viewpoint (as you have stated above) or  
this
> >assumption of science.  It is the basic assumptions that are opposed to each
> >other.
> 
> So are you saying God created the different races of man directly?
> Please be more explicit.

	How directly is directly?  Remember, we view God as having an equal effect on  
all points of time and space simultaneously.  We also see him as affecting  
things over time.  I think what you mean is did God create different races in a  
very short period of time, a period so short that it can not be described by  
current knowledge of rates of mutation and population genetics?  My answer is  
no, I don't.  And I have loads of fun arguing about it with people who call  
themselves creationists.

> 
> Martin

																																								              Erik Powers