Aye sir. Tis further ironic that if inerrantists can accuse scientists of God blindness, scientists can equally accuse innerantists of evolution blindness. The most prominent religious beliefs in the 21st century have a surprisingly high degree of physical fitness. That is to say, popular religions respond to (and some might say exploit) their various landscapes rather well. The message is well molded to the proclivities of the people, almost uncannily so. Since the people's tastes have changed over the centuries, old time religion must have changed alongside to remain in vogue. How did that old time message become so versatile and durable? One could say it evolved... or that it was the benefit of a high natural selection quotient in the first place. For example John Edwards'* famous sermon, "Sinners in the hands of an angry God," was well suited to the fitness landscape of the times -- austere, severe, harsh. That is what suited the puritan times best, and so that is why the Edwards model spread. *the dead theologian, not the live politician. On the other hand, today's culture is softer, less intellectual, certainly less pain-oriented and more self-centered... and thus the 'Seeker Sensitive' model waxes even as the Edwards model wanes. Self flagellation and hard-edged sacrifice is out; needs fulfillment and positive affirmation is the new order of the day. Popular religions of all stripe and hue (not just protestant Christianity) have optimized themselves to the current generations through the inevitable process of natural selection. The very popularity of a belief system speaks to its physical fitness in relation to the minds and hearts it inhabits.** **ironically enough, veracity and physical fitness do not necessarily correlate. what is true and what is popular need not cross paths. How useful then that religion contains so many opposing aspects within itself (severity / softness, sacrifice / self-centeredness, intellectual rigor / emotional existentialism), with the wonderful proviso that each aspect can be dialed up or dialed down as appropriate, net result being that a skilled pied piper can fine tune his or her message to an audience with all the precision and acoustic fidelity of a yamaha soundboard. How impressive. How versatile. What a wonderful example of evolution and natural selection at work.
In the unlikelihood of you being able to do any of those things jem, just some well grounded argument on your behalf might help. And here..I admit I was wrong..once! I thought you were interested in genuine debate. How wrong could I be!
you can see this evolution in the bible itself. the god of the old testament was depicted as a cruel vindictive monster,just like the kings who ruled in that time would have been. the god of the new testament is depicted in a much softer light. man makes gods in his image, not the other way around.
You mean like a well grounded argument with every scholar on the subject explaining to you that you are incorrect or some other type of well grounded argument.
Belief in God, and belief in a Godless evolution are not compatible. Concept of random ignorant Godless chance are not within the realm of a theist when it comes to the origin of human chance. The point is that no matter what the process, or the mechanics, a theist ultimately gives credit to The Creator of the process and the mechanics as a result of an initial creation by God, where an atheistic Darwinist gives no credit to God. The belief system of an atheistic Darwinist is that there is no God either pulling the strings, or having set the strings in motion in the first place. Yes, it is certainly possible, and preferable for a scientist to have no opinion pro or con to the involvment or non involvement of God, but that is really not what is being taught. Need I remind you, that if the following drawing were descriptive of the actuality of the origin of life, this would either be a product of design, flowing from the initial creation by God....or from the product of ignorant random Godless chance.... <img src=http://aboutfacts.net/Ancient/Ancient12/ape-man-line-up.jpg> If there is a program that is running, there was a programmer..... A computer that generates random numbers does so only as a result of a programmer.....
What is random? What is chance? Causal Determinists (students of LaPlace) do not believe that randomness and chance actually exist. They are mere mental heuristics, anthropomorphic terms designed to aid the discussion of certain outcomes which only appear uncertain due to our limited frames of reference. Whether you accept Laplace or not is moot; the point is you cannot speak with certainty or authority on who is allowed to believe what when your terms are not even universally accepted as meaningful. An atheist darwinist cannot believe in God or accept the possibiliity of God by definition (this is tautology), but an agnostic darwinist or a theistic / deistic darwinist certainly can. The fact that agnostic and theistic and deistic darwinists exist, and that they can demonstrate their basic position to be logically consistent, belies your odd claim. Evolution and theistic belief are not like matter and anti-matter that need explode when they come into contact with each other. Evolutionists might openly question how much we can know of the Who or What on the backside of the big bang, but that is another debate entirely. As is the question of which is more perplexing: the existence of an eternal being wholly outside of space-time or the existence of an eternally expanding and collapsing universe. Which assertion has more intuitive weight (and even those are not the only two options) is a matter of subjective opinion.
God could have easily set evolution in motion and then just sat back and watched -- just as a programmer can write software and then set it in motion and watch the program continue on its own. Furthermore, God could have expressly intended randomness to be a part of the process, i.e., He could have simply known that something intelligent would appear after sufficient time, and not have cared that it look like or act like homo sapiens. A computer programmer can connect a computer to a true random number generator (this is done routinely with casino machines, which continuously generate random number strings, and don't select a number from a string until the moment that the gambler pulls the handle/pushes the spin button). So, it does not follow that evolution and theism must be mutually exclusive ideas. Unless, you insist that homo sapians must appear in a certain form in order to satisfy God's plan -- which is where Science and Genesis conflict (notably, however, the Bible has no photographs, so I don't know why we insist that God's creating Man in His image necessarily means that this means that Man's form and shape is literally the form and shape of God). If you try to force the square peg of Genesis into the Round hole of Science, it doesn't fit very well. But, that's just a problem for the fundamentalist who needs Genesis to be correct. It doesn't prevent God and Evolution from comfortably coexisting.
I am not saying God did or did not set nature in motion (evolution is of course a natural process). I believe nature as we know it is a product of God, but that is my opinion and faith only. Randomness? God could have programmed randomness, but such perceived randomness would then be part of God's plan and God's creation, a consequence of God's programming. Some people think God takes Himself out of the picture, but where does God, God who is omnipresent, then go? Outside of His own universe? God is everywhere, there is no outside or inside for God. (Perceived randomness is of course a crucial factor, as what is perceived as random by one person, can be seen as a pattern by another. We really don't know if "mutations" are random or not, we can only say we don't see a pattern, but we cannot say a pattern or programming didn't create these "mutations.") Evolution as a process is not known to be a result of God's handiwork, or some non God accidental unplanned unprogrammed phenomena. So it should be taught that we have no idea why, when we don't really know why, we shouldn't say why. In other words, teach what we know, not what is speculative, and beyond a test of proof. I don't insist at all what God should do, or what His plan is or was, I simply believe we do not live in a Godless universe. Others may believe we do live in a Godless universe. However, neither belief system has any business in a science class, nor does a theory that man evolved from lower species. The facts of evolutionary process of biological organisms can be observed, and understood without any speculative theory used to indoctrinate into a particular "ism." Science should be free of "isms" and that includes Darwinism.