Can the Biblical account fit Evolution?

[Dark Knight]

A discussion started in another topic, and now it is to be re-posted here, please give me time to post the discussion, and new comments that I have...

In the discussion we are debate if Evolution can fit the Biblical account

so here is how it got started: {extracts from posts in other topic}

For instance, the aforementioned show on the History Channel that I watched a while back (the one I mentioned on another topic) made this assertion, stating that the dragon takes components from three primary predators of ancient man: the snake, the lion and the bird (I can't remember specifically which bird, perhaps an eagle or a hawk). And, through this, it's simply a compilation of ancient instincts used to ward our ancestors away from certain creatures. And, certainly, there were many such creatures that, from afar, with this instinctual context in mind, could have been mistaken as a dragon by early man.

History Channel… well people who make those shows believe in evolution, to them there is no way a dinosaur could be seen by man, man came on the seen millions of years after dinosaurs died out…Hence they come up with these explanations, however they where not with the people…they did not see what the person saw…

people who make those shows believe in evolution

People who watch that also believe in evolution. Simply believing in Evolution doesn't denote any particular belief in religion or theology. For instance, I cannot name anybody that I know who doesn't believe in evolution, and pretty well all of them are some denomination of christian (with a few exceptions). And I personally hold that evolution not only can fit in a biblical context, but can actually be mutually explanative of it.

Evolution :
Of the here above discussion, I understand that one who believes in Creation following the Bible, The Old Testament more specifically, without any deviation or attempt at interpretation but taking every word exactly for what it strictly means, is in some way thought to be against any attempt to consider Science as a tool of investigation regarding the Historic existence or creation of man and the universe.

In few words, anyone who wishes to be called a Christian, is not to accept anything different as true than what The Old Testament says about Creation. And anyone who accepts anything different, can not be a Christian.

Have I understood correctly, I must wonder.

I never said that believing in Evolution denoted any particular belief in religion or theology....

I know that many christians believe in Evolution and you should know that many believe in creation....you seem to think it's not that many {if I assume correctly} there are loads of sites on the net... and there are like 10 creation museums/centers across the USA....

Just to let you know how big the believe is in creation...

[Magus]

If you'll induldge me for a moment, I think that it can. I'll quote a previous post of mine, which though lengthy, adequitely surmises my opinion on the matter.

First of all, an excerpt from a post written by Dark Knight:

There are some problems...

Birds appeared on day five, but other land animals did not appear until day six, so how did birds evolve from land based animals?

Stars where made after the earth...day four..

Bible shows God creating man from the dust of the ground, it does not say, man come from another animal.

And Eve was made out of part of Adam.....

And my response:

Bible shows God creating man from the dust of the ground, it does not say, man come from another animal.

On the special on the Moon, for one instance, they claimed that the Moon was once fifteen times closer to The Earth than it is today (I think they said that would be around 85,000 miles away). At this point in time the gravitation that it exerted upon the Earth's surface was enough to actually alter it, shape it, and ultimately make the ground move in the same way as a tidal wave would. Eventually the distance between them grew, and the ground itself could not be affected by The Moon's gravitational pull, but the oceans could. Tidal waves grew to roughly 10,000 feet tall, due to its still incredibly close proximity to The Earth, and washed over the fledgling planet, sucking soil and rock into the sea from far inland. This change in chemical composition is what created The Primordial Soup, and from it the first strands of DNA.

That is where the program itself left the issue, but I venture a little further into the matter. The DNA is from the chemical imbalance caused by when the soil was added the the water. I look at this and see man coming from the dirt on the ground. The material that first made him certainly came from there, and from there punctuated equillibrium would allow for rapid evolution of man (and, keeping in mind 2 Peter 3:8, which states "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," we could infer that creation, by modern reckoning, took place over the course of 7,000 in all), which could thus explain creation in a purely scientific way.


As for the bit about the birds... what can I say: evolution works in mysterious ways.



Evolution could have come about to create birds in the proper order. Not all birds fly, as you well know, so the earliest species of them might have been flightless, who later evolved with the capacity to fly.

As for the stars bit you mentioned, might I offer that they could be referring to the stars seen from the perspective of the Earth? Because, after all, light (which can be conceived as The Sun) was made in the beginning (pardon the pun). When the original planet (I believe that it was called Theis, after the mother of Selene in mythology) plummeted into the Earth, a large body of debri was flung up into both the atmosphere and around it (clouding out the surface and also making rings around the Earth). The rings are what eventually were drawn together to form The Moon. The dust in the sky eventually cleared, which would have offered a good view into the cosmos, thus giving the planet the first view of the stars since the events which acted toward creation.

And Eve was made out of part of Adam.....

Siamese twins?

[Dark Knight]

Thank you Magus... now to repost something I said:

Evolution :
Of the here above discussion, I understand that one who believes in Creation following the Bible, The Old Testament more specifically, without any deviation or attempt at interpretation but taking every word exactly for what it strictly means, is in some way thought to be against any attempt to consider Science as a tool of investigation regarding the Historic existence or creation of man and the universe.

Many creationists use Science as a tool of investigation regarding the Historic existence or creation of man and the universe.

However what are called main stream Sciencetists do not take there work seriously and it is not report in main stream science mags...

In few words, anyone who wishes to be called a Christian, is not to accept anything different as true than what The Old Testament says about Creation. And anyone who accepts anything different, can not be a Christian.

Have I understood correctly, I must wonder.

Well no.... many are called christian and believe many different things....

Loads believe in evolution and loads in creation...

There is a church orangization that has churches across the USA and around the would and they teach creation...

[Dark Knight]

And now the post from LB:

Essentially, humanity's invention of dragons is very much in the same vein as Jung's theories of The Collective Unconscious.

If there is time to deal with it, I would appreciate a more extended explanation about how the one (invention of dragons) is related to the other (Jung’s Collective Unconscious).

It is commonly held that the memory of dragons with man is the remnant of man’s experience of contact with wild beasts of the lizard family in older times, some of which live to the day, like crocodiles. The memory has become resident in its partial capacity to remain with the genes, which fact allows us to talk about evolution with living creatures through time as they adapt to the environment better based on the experiences of their ancestors.

This partial capacity may be compared with that of the memory of the whale, where the memory of the mother is transferred whole to the offspring. It happens with whales only. This is why they are considered, so to speak, as the wisest animals we know.

I know that many christians believe in Evolution and you should know that many believe in creation

What do you mean by “believe in creation”? I am asking because creation must have happened at some time (otherwise we are in a non-existent world like in a dream now) while I suspect that by “creation” you probably mean “Biblical Creation”, the particular manner in which the world was created, which is what the Bible tells us. I hope you forgive my asking but it is not right only to assume what others mean.

There are some problems...

Birds appeared on day five, but other land animals did not appear until day six, so how did birds evolve from land based animals?

Stars where made after the earth...day four..

Bible shows God creating man from the dust of the ground, it does not say, man come from another animal.

And Eve was made out of part of Adam.....

Just to name a few problems....

Again I need your help, Dark Knight, if of course there is enough time for you to devote and if you are not tired of helping us understand these difficult matters.

I know that in the American mentality, the phrase “there are problems” is common, and it is often used to mean a lot. Unfortunately, not all members who read these posts are American. I am trying to see what you are saying here above, so I would beg you to lead me by correcting my following understanding.

There are problems in how to explain how birds appeared on the fifth day of Creation according to the Bible, and at the same time accept that birds evolved starting from animals of the land. Because these animals were created by The Almighty on the sixth day.

I did not understand why the stars are compared with earth as made after it, unless you mean that this is against the widespread opinion that stars and this planet (Earth) were created in a line of time which is not exactly the starts first, then the Earth, but according to it, the Earth was made in a process when some stars had already come to existence.

While the human being was made from dust and God’s breath and also from the body of the first male man later, some scientists held until recently that man came from the apes, a theory which has by now been proven false of course. Those who negated the Biblical way of creation of the human being are now searching other avenues of explanation, for example, they say that man appeared on the planet and study to find out how.

[Dark Knight]

Please now wait for a detailed response...new comments that I have... I have to go to work soon...

[Magus]

Speaking of evolution, by the way... an article from BBC.com:

The bacteria selectively kills male Blue Moons before they can hatch
Scientists say they have seen one of the fastest evolutionary changes ever observed in a species of butterfly.

The tropical Blue Moon butterfly has developed a way of fighting back against parasitic bacteria.

Six years ago, males accounted for just 1% of the Blue Moon population on two islands in the South Pacific.

But by last year, the butterflies had developed a gene to keep the bacteria in check and male numbers were up to about 40% of the population.

Scientists believe the comeback is due to "suppressor" genes that control the Wolbachia bacteria that is passed down from the mother and kills the male embryos before they hatch.

"To my knowledge, this is the fastest evolutionary change that has ever been observed," said Sylvain Charlat, of University College London, whose study appears in the journal Science.

Rapid natural selection

Gregory Hurst, a University College researcher who worked with Mr Charlat said: "We usually think of natural selection as acting slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years.

"But the example in this study happened in the blink of the eye, in terms of evolutionary time, and is a remarkable thing to get to observe."

The team first documented the massive imbalance in the sex ratio of the Blue Moon butterfly on the Samoan islands of Savaii and Upolu in 2001.

In 2006 they started a new survey after an increase in reports of male sightings at Upolo.

They found that the numbers of male butterfly had either reached or were approaching those of females.

The researchers are not sure whether the gene that suppressed the parasite emerged from a mutation in the local population or whether it was introduced by migratory Southeast Asian butterflies in which the mutation existed.

But they said that the repopulation of male butterflies illustrates rapid natural selection, a process in which traits that help a species survive become more prominent in a population.

"We're witnessing an evolutionary arms race between the parasite and the host. This strengthens the view that parasites can be major drivers in evolution," Mr Charlat said.

[Dark Knight]

I know that many christians believe in Evolution and you should know that many believe in creation

What do you mean by “believe in creation”? I am asking because creation must have happened at some time (otherwise we are in a non-existent world like in a dream now) while I suspect that by “creation” you probably mean “Biblical Creation”, the particular manner in which the world was created, which is what the Bible tells us. I hope you forgive my asking but it is not right only to assume what others mean.

Yes I mean “Biblical Creation”

I know others believe in creation, but not in “Biblical Creation”…. my bad for not making that clear…

And others do not believe a God created, all this just happened...

There are some problems...

Birds appeared on day five, but other land animals did not appear until day six, so how did birds evolve from land based animals?

Stars where made after the earth...day four..

Bible shows God creating man from the dust of the ground, it does not say, man come from another animal.

And Eve was made out of part of Adam.....

Just to name a few problems....

Again I need your help, Dark Knight, if of course there is enough time for you to devote and if you are not tired of helping us understand these difficult matters.

I know that in the American mentality, the phrase “there are problems” is common, and it is often used to mean a lot. Unfortunately, not all members who read these posts are American. I am trying to see what you are saying here above, so I would beg you to lead me by correcting my following understanding.

LB I am not American, maybe I watch to many American TV shows…

There are problems in how to explain how birds appeared on the fifth day of Creation according to the Bible, and at the same time accept that birds evolved starting from animals of the land. Because these animals were created by The Almighty on the sixth day.

Correct…. A number of scientists claim birds came from land based dinosaurs, however others who do not hold to the biblical account, do not agree…. These scientists disagree on the findings that link birds and dinosaurs...

I did not understand why the stars are compared with earth as made after it, unless you mean that this is against the widespread opinion that stars and this planet (Earth) were created in a line of time which is not exactly the starts first, then the Earth, but according to it, the Earth was made in a process when some stars had already come to existence.

Yes that is what I mean… In fact according to the bible the earth first, then the plants and then the stars…

While the human being was made from dust and God’s breath and also from the body of the first male man later, some scientists held until recently that man came from the apes, a theory which has by now been proven false of course. Those who negated the Biblical way of creation of the human being are now searching other avenues of explanation, for example, they say that man appeared on the planet and study to find out how.

Some still hold that we came from apes, while others say apes and humans had a common ancestry…

All those claims and findings over the years about us coming from apes, all wrong…

[Dark Knight]

On the special on the Moon, for one instance, they claimed that the Moon was once fifteen times closer to The Earth than it is today (I think they said that would be around 85,000 miles away). At this point in time the gravitation that it exerted upon the Earth's surface was enough to actually alter it, shape it, and ultimately make the ground move in the same way as a tidal wave would. Eventually the distance between them grew, and the ground itself could not be affected by The Moon's gravitational pull, but the oceans could. Tidal waves grew to roughly 10,000 feet tall, due to its still incredibly close proximity to The Earth, and washed over the fledgling planet, sucking soil and rock into the sea from far inland. This change in chemical composition is what created The Primordial Soup, and from it the first strands of DNA.

There is no evidence for the Primordial Soup….or that DNA came first, some point out that DNA is no good with out RNA...

However want is interesting is a claim that Mars was also closer…

That is where the program itself left the issue, but I venture a little further into the matter. The DNA is from the chemical imbalance caused by when the soil was added the the water. I look at this and see man coming from the dirt on the ground. The material that first made him certainly came from there, and from there punctuated equillibrium would allow for rapid evolution of man (and, keeping in mind 2 Peter 3:8, which states "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," we could infer that creation, by modern reckoning, took place over the course of 7,000 in all), which could thus explain creation in a purely scientific way.

Well the first thing is that people who believe in punctuated equillibrium do not all agree on how fast it was…

Did not the Lord rest on day seven?, so is that not 6000, or are you saying it continued without him…

All animals evolved in two thousand years interesting…days 5 & 6...and man in one thousand years or are you not saying that?

As for 2 Peter 3:8, it does not say to apply to the days in the beginning of the bible, if one where to apply it to all days that the lord talks about you would get some interesting results…

Exo 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

He clearly did not mean for people to work six thousand years and then have a sabbath day for a thousand years....no one lived that long not even in the days before the flood of Noah.....

Here we see that the Lord meant for them to work six days as he himself did, which is understandable…

When I look at 2 Peter 3:8, I can see it being applied when the bible mentions the Millennium reign of Christ, which is a thousand years, and also described as one day. Here clearly is when 2 Peter 3:8 does apply...

Some say then using this that the Millennium reign is day seven… and since the Earth has been around for about six thousand years…it has been around six days…

People have done numbers based on information in the bible to come up with a number close to 6000, of course others have come up with other numbers…

7 days for the old Earth and then comes the new Earth…

As for the bit about the birds... what can I say: evolution works in mysterious ways.
Evolution could have come about to create birds in the proper order. Not all birds fly, as you well know, so the earliest species of them might have been flightless, who later evolved with the capacity to fly.

yes I know not all birds fly, however that does not mean those birds never did fly, maybe they lost that ability…..

As for the stars bit you mentioned, might I offer that they could be referring to the stars seen from the perspective of the Earth? Because, after all, light (which can be conceived as The Sun) was made in the beginning (pardon the pun). When the original planet (I believe that it was called Theis, after the mother of Selene in mythology) plummeted into the Earth, a large body of debri was flung up into both the atmosphere and around it (clouding out the surface and also making rings around the Earth). The rings are what eventually were drawn together to form The Moon. The dust in the sky eventually cleared, which would have offered a good view into the cosmos, thus giving the planet the first view of the stars since the events which acted toward creation.

Interesting theory there, but not proven….

Maybe some need to read again, the beginning?

Yes there was light in the beginning, but did it come form the Sun? God can give or make light, without having to make a star…. God has many powers, surely it is easy for him to make some light or a lot…

It does not say this light came form the Sun which had not been made yet...

God made the Sun and the Moon on day four.. It does not say they where seen on day four, It says made, and man was not around to see anything on day four anyway….Unless you are saying that if someone was around they could have seen….

And Eve was made out of part of Adam.....

Siamese twins?

No way….. Adam was a fill grown man, before Eve was made, and she was made a fill grown woman…

Well I hope I get this posted, three trys to post the LB response above, got it posted on the fourth go....

[Dark Knight]

Speaking of evolution, by the way... an article from BBC.com:

Did I not say to wait for a detailed response

I may comment on this at some point...

Anyway now you can comment....

[Magus]

There is no evidence for the Primordial Soup….or that DNA came first, some point out that DNA is no good with out RNA...

Chicken or the egg. Wouldn't it be somewhat reasonable to assume that the same mixing of chemicals that created DNA would also create RNA, or that they were both created seperately and later introduced to the other, or that one merely developed before the other?

However want is interesting is a claim that Mars was also closer…

This makes sense, for several reasons. One is the theory of the universe expanding, and the other is the fact that gravity lessens over a period of time.

Well the first thing is that people who believe in punctuated equillibrium do not all agree on how fast it was…

This is no evidence either for or against it. Right now we're disagreeing on specific matters pertaining to The Bible; is this evidence against it?

Did not the Lord rest on day seven?, so is that not 6000, or are you saying it continued without him…

Okay, touché. However, even so, God's active creation might only have lasted the first six, but evolution itself (which is a constant and ongoing process) most likely continued afterwards (It's even still going on today. Look at the finches found on the Galapagos, or even the article on the butterflies I quoted above). I maintain that evolution carried on through the seventh day and beyond, to even our contemporary age.

All animals evolved in two thousand years interesting…days 5 & 6...and man in one thousand years or are you not saying that?

Good catch. Like you said yourself, nobody really agrees on the exact rapidity of punctuated equilibrium, so that could possibly account for it. Or, perhaps, (and this seems somewhat more likely), the "days" of creation merely denoted when the particular aspect of creation that it is associated with, and not when they were started. In other words, I postulate that, although Man was finished being created on the sixth day, his progress very well could have begun with the rest of the animals, or, further, back with the inception of DNA/RNA when the waters were first made.

As for 2 Peter 3:8, it does not say to apply to the days in the beginning of the bible

Why wouldn't it apply to the earlier days of The Bible? I myself see no reason why they wouldn't. Also, let's take another look at the passage.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day

Of course it wouldn't pertain to the days of men, for time is as it always has been for them. But God is another matter, and the rules that govern men do not govern Him, do they?

yes I know not all birds fly, however that does not mean those birds never did fly, maybe they lost that ability…..

Or perhaps they gained it. Evolution is about change. Sure, some may have lost the ability over time, but, more likely, it's something that they gained.

Interesting theory there, but not proven….

True, it's not proven (because, let's face it, the only way to actually "prove" it would be first-hand observation, which is something that we're lacking in the matter). However, this is, generally speaking, the most scientifically sound and universally accepted theory on the creation of the moon.

Yes there was light in the beginning, but did it come form the Sun? God can give or make light, without having to make a star…. God has many powers, surely it is easy for him to make some light or a lot…

True. Surely He could, if He wanted to. However, the possibility of creating it without is not proof that He did. It's no refutation that the light could have been the sun.

God made the Sun and the Moon on day four.. It does not say they where seen on day four, It says made, and man was not around to see anything on day four anyway….Unless you are saying that if someone was around they could have seen….

I took down a copy of The Bible. The exact quote is "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." It doesn't actually say that he made the light on that day, not technically. He just said "Let there be light." Further, I never said that it would be from Man's perspective, but from The Earth's, so that, would there have been people at this time (which there weren't) this is what they would have seen. As such, this, I believe, is where the the rock and dust in the atmosphere, that had once blocked out the sun, cleared enough to let it shine on down to the surface.


The Siamese Twin comment was a joke, just for the record. I admit that, at present, I have nothing to counter this particular point (although I'm certainly looking into it to what extent I can). However, as with the rest, I do believe that this aspect of Biblical creation can, and does, fit in to the realm of scientific explanation. I'll let you know when I come up with something, though.

[Magus]

There is no evidence for the Primordial Soup

I was just reading over Genesis (in order to bone up on Creation, and find an answer that could explain the whole Adam/Eve situation mentioned above), when I actually came across Biblical proof of the primordial soup.

Genesis 1: 20, 21

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God Created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Like I said before, the moon's original close proximity to The Earth caused massive tidal waves that swept over the surface, pulling in the soil and rock from the shore. This new composition of chemicals created DNA (and RNA), aka The Primordial Soup (which, really, was the oceans of the world).

The Bible itself states that life started in the sea. First the fish (and aquatic mammals), then the birds. Then, after that, you had the land animals. After which came man, which, I feel, perfectly fits into evolution.

[LightBrigade]

Dark Knight, Magus,

I feel that each of you might make a very brief synopsis of what you have said about the topic so far for anyone interested in following your thoughts and understanding what you think about it. Personally, I would also be able to follow replies to my questions. Of course I will be equally pleased to continue to try to follow the exchange of ideas as they appear.
- - -
Dark Knight, I am fully aware that you do not live in America. *s*

Thank you for your reply about creation, and thank you for your trouble in this topic.

It is natural for a number of scientists to claim birds came from land based dinosaurs, and for others who do not hold to the biblical account, not to agree, believing that birds and dinosaurs are linked. That scientists have opinions does not mean we have to adopt them.

It is the same with what I mean to talk to Magus below, about the Moon. I hope that we do not discuss taking everything scientists say as valid, as though they were some authority we are to accept, regardless of how far their arguments stand to common sense, logic, History and generally our own experience of the civilisation of mankind. That we are not experts in a field, does not make us automata (automatons, also) ready to accept what experts announce they have come to believe.

That some still hold that we came from apes, while others say apes and humans had a common ancestry is a matter of ignorance. We do indeed now know that man does not come from the ape. We know it based on irrefutable proof, scientific evidence and once again, harmonising with the Christian religion where this Darwinian hypothesis (that man comes from the ape) is inconceivable. I may very easily expand in the matter to its deserved end (how we know and why we know that man does not come from the ape), if it is desirable.

Magus, that some have announced their beliefs, theories, expert opinion that the Moon was once closer to Earth than what it is now, does not make it so. It does not mean that the Moon was indeed closer to Earth. I will happily elaborate why this cannot be, based on what we know today about the Moon, if this is desirable.

Generally speaking, I would feel that if I need to think about the Moon and its influence on Earth, or any other matter, it must be very useful for me to read about all information we have about the Moon or that other matter. Then, I will be more able to discern the validity of related opinion experts bring out.

Now I shall read here again in one more effort to find a reply to my question about the Christian religion and evolution. And then I will read any reference I can find anywhere about the statement that the Moon was once closer to Earth.