After reading over Lamoureux’s I Love Jesus & I accept evolution, as well as listening to the lessons in class, I have come to find that I believe in Evolutionary Creation. This is one of the teleological evolutionary approaches which mean it “…is a planned and purposeful natural process that heads toward a final outcome – the intended creation of life.” (3) Evolutionary Creation does this by merging Scripture and science “Together they fulfil each other; alone they are incomplete. Scientific discoveries reveal how the creator made this spectacular design-reflecting world, while the Bible declares precisely who created it – The God of Christianity.” (30)
The messages of the Bible are still relevant for the lessons that are taught using this approach. The Lord teaches us lessons using information and science of our level in order to get his points across. We can see this in a few examples and one of these examples is Mark 4:30-32
“With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for
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it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth; yet it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth larger branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” The lesson is still relevant despite the fact that we now know that Orchid seeds are much smaller than the mustard seed. However, if the Lord had tried to explain this in terms the people of that time did not understand or have knowledge of, then the message would have a chance of not being received. The Lord knows this in his infinite wisdom that despite the fact “He has gifted us with marvelous minds and the ability to investigate the natural world.” (29) We have a level of known knowledge throughout different times and so he explains to us in lessons and words that we know through the science of that time. A second example of the Lord giving us information for us to understand in our ability of knowledge is when “[a]ncient geology assumed that the earth did not move.” (51) This made sense from the information we learned from the Old Testament. Although the Old Testament talked about the earth not being the thing being moved, but instead the sun being moved. “Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon. So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.” Joshua 10:12-13 In this time there was no reason for the people without modern science to expect the earth to be rotating around it’s axis “…at 1,000 miles per hour” (51) and then moving more in relation to it traveling around the sun at 65,000 mph.
God knew the people had noticed a pattern of a sun in the sky during the day and gone at night and so explained this phenomenon in a way that would get his message across in a way that we could see, since we did not have the science to test this.
There is also information presented in the ways that we can study the earth and what is left on our earth that explain evolution in a way that I feel like is undeniable. Examples of evolution can be seen in fossils, of layers deposited on the earth, of radiometric dating, and the Mid-Atlantic ridge. All of these different evidences lead us to believe in an old earth. A earth that has been around roughly 6.5 billion years and has changed and grown while preserving sight into our
history. From fossils we can find a lot of evidence of not only an old earth but also of an earth that has evolutionary evidence. Looking at fossils of fish and seeing the clear transition to amphibian on page 106 by the clear similarities in bone structure of an early amphibian and a Lobe-Finned Fish is striking in itself. However, with our new advanced modern science we are able to not only look at our modern adapted animals to find their distant ancestors through our research of the fossils, but to use genetics to connect how similar certain species are to one another. In chapter 6 it is especially interesting to learn about the genetic similarities between humans and other higher primates really are, as well as to look at the physical similarities in not only our modern world but in preserved fossil records as well. While studying our genes we are able to reveal “…that monkeys are distantly related (93% similar genes), while chimpanzees are our closest “cousins” (99%).” (126) they do stress that while similar in genetics to both of these primates, humans did not descend from either, but rather share a common ancestor similar to how we may share a great-grandparent with a second cousin but we do not descend from our second cousin. With all of this information it’s hard to deny that the earth was not created in a 6 day period with the earth only being a mere 6,000 years old. This doesn’t mean that God lied to us, the information is meant to show us who created us and science shows us how exactly he was able to do this. With his wisdom and great ability he made us through a planned process that would slowly and beautiful naturally transform us into what we are today on this 6.5 billion year old earth.
Humans have asked questions about their origin and their purpose on earth for eons. The Bible tells humans that God created them and explains their purpose. However, since the Renaissance, humanism answers questions about origins by naturalistic means and science has been redefined in the process. Most institutions of higher education and many individuals have adopted the naturalistic theory of evolution to explain human origin without considering its effects on faith. In contrast to prevailing thought at Goshen College, a literal six-day creation is foundational to the Gospel message. Combining evolution and Christianity makes one’s faith less logical and opens one’s science to new quandaries.
Throughout the world there are various cultures with varying religions and creation stories to explain the creation of the Earth and it’s inhabitants. Of these creation stories two with similar and also different characteristics is the Creation story in the book of Genesis which is a part of the 1st Testament in the Hebrew Bible and explains the creation of Earth and humans, and the Theogony which is the greek creation story that describes the origins of the Earth and the Greek Gods. Both the Theogony and the Creation in Genesis show nature as a blessing for humans but it can also affect them negatively, However the myths differ in the ways that the Earth and humans were created and how humans interact with the deities of the creation stories.
These days, most of the textbook only presents evolution theory as a fact to interpret the origin of life and the earth. More and more people get to reject creation unconsciously because they had no opportunity to compare and evaluate both worldview in same degree. I interviewed my three close acquaintances and heard a various responses from many people including my interviewees. Some of them had same belief with me, but some people had significantly different opinion with me. As a consequence of evolution theory’s monopoly in education, non-believers and Christians are unconsciously influenced by this secular worldview.
The idea of evolution by Darwin indicated that the world is not created by God, but through some kind of modification. This controversial idea is strongly objected by most of the religions, such as Catholic, Christian, and Islam etc. These religions sturdily believe that God is the creator of the world, the creator of everything. However, to some extent, Buddhism does teach the similar theory to Darwin’s idea, which Buddhism does not include the idea of God. Also, like the way Darwin talks about “Natural Selection”, Buddhism says that if a person wants to have improvement, he or she must do the good things and undo the bad things. Therefore, as a Buddhist, the idea of evolution shown a positive affect on my beliefs, and it emphasizes and truly proves the teaching of Buddha in a scientific way.
Different types of religion have existed almost as long as mankind has. Many people believe in the institute of religion, but what constitutes religion is still highly debated today. This is largely due to the fact that religion continues to evolve based on cultural norms of the world. Each religion has a set of beliefs that go along with it, and often these beliefs differ from those of another religion. These differences often lead to heated debate and contention as to which religion will best allow people to lead virtuous lives. This confusion leads people to have distorted views about their faith and what it actually means to them. This debate even occurs within different subdivisions of a single religion. Harriet Beecher Stowe 's novel,
The arguments that many Young Earth Creationists make for their belief and against evolution are that fossils were created through the great Flood, the literal belief in Genesis, and that radiocarbon dating used in Evolution is too imprecise to prove that the Earth is older than 10,000 years.
Evolutionists often come with the argument that fossil findings can serve as a proof of the evolutionary process; bones of such creatures as dinosaurs, or the remains of even more ancient beings found by archaeologists are much older than the age of our world according to the Bible. Therefore, claim the evolutionists, creationists are wrong. Creationists, however, came up with a strong counter argument. They say that all fossil findings are already fully formed, and appear to have not changed much over time; in other words, they remained in a so-called stasis condition (Geological Society of America). This means that there are no intermediate links between simpler and more complex life forms, which witnesses in favor of the claim that each species had been created.
“Reality as described by Albert Einstein is just a theory; continental drift is just a theory, atomic theory" from National geographic. As of the theory of evolution we don’t have proof it occurred. With so many bones found and the extinction of animals, we can't really determine if older supposed human bones aren't just extinct ape species. Even today we fight extinction of animals so couldn’t other prehistoric species after the dinosaurs went extinct? The answer would be yes because of new species being found even
The Comparison of the Creation of the Universe and Origin of Man and New Species
The Bible Student will have more knowledge of how to interpret God’s Word when finished with the work. Fee and Stuart achieve their goal of helping the reader not only with interpretation, but with application.
Evolution views life to be a process by which organisms diversified from earlier forms, whereas creation illustrates that life was created by a supernatural being. Creation and evolution both agree on the existence of microevolution and the resemblance of apes and humans but vary in terms of interpreting the origins of the life from a historical standpoint. A concept known as Faith Vs Fact comprehensively summarizes the tone of this debate, which leads to the question of how life began. While creation represents a religious understanding of life, evolution acknowledges a scientific interpretation of the origins of life. The theory is illustrated as the process by which organisms change species over time.
...d the word of God that is written in the Bible but with this information it is possible for a Christian to look to mathematics in the justification of faith.
With the advent of the printing press and the protestant reformation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Word of God became available to the common believer. Now, in the twenty first century, people all over the world, can read for themselves the scriptures in their own languages. Consider the Bible studies going on in any given country on any given evening, where people are encouraged to interact with the sacred scriptures. As encouraging as this may be, it may present a problem. Could discussions of what a scripture ‘means to me’ cloud out what the scripture originally meant? Is it even possible to know the author’s intent? Even if we could understand a first century text as its author intended, can we also grasp what it’s supposed to mean to us?
After wisdom is turned on, a lot of people start thinking about human origins. Many great people have tried to explain the origin of human, they also proposed a variety of unusual ideas and explains, but most people are not accepted their idea. However, the first part of the Bible have a good explanation of the origin of human. There are two different theory about the origins of humanity in the Bible. God according to his own image to create a human, designed to allow humans to communicate with him, to respond to his love, and to serve as managing the affairs responsibilities.
Without evolution, and the constant ever changing environment, the complexity of living organisms would not be as it is. Evolution is defined as a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations (8).Scientists believe in the theory of evolution. This belief is based on scientific evidence that corroborates the theory of evolution. In Figure 1 the pictures of the skulls depict the sequence of the evolution of Homo-sapiens. As the figure shows, man has evolved from our common ancestor that is shared by homo-sapiens. The change of diet of homo-sapiens over time has thought to contribute to the change in jaw structure and overall skull shape.