Recap on "evolution" talk

The first two points summarize what I said the first two weeks, in total I hope it might serve guidelines for how to defend your faith or help a struggling seeker/family member.

1). The creation story in the first two chapters of Genesis are complicated and allow multiple interpretation. The simplest interpretation, based on no other information is what we call young earth creationism. I argue that to properly understand passages in the bible that have complex and seemingly contradictory verses we need other information to help guide our interpretation of scripture, we should do so here. We do the same thing to most challenging verses, ask me for examples if you don't think so.
2) Evolutionary theory is like gravitational theory; and idea that is based on solid factual scientific evidence. The earth looks millions of years old. All Living beings look commonly derived.
3) Some science should be used to show that belief in God is not made impossible by even pure evolution such as evidence of the Big Bang, all matter and energy had a definite beginning!
4) The sheer improbability the Big Bang resulted in a universe capable of evolution is crazy, but it happened. It's like all 100 roulette tables in a casino coming up with exactly predicted numbers that stood in precise ratios to other tables; table 1 is .2 and half of table 2, which is one third table 3, etc.)
5) The Universal Moral Law would teach us to counter act evolution - even ardent evolutionist don't want pure evolution. Typically animals massacre, annihilate and kill those that stand in their way from their propagation. "The notion that there is something such as a common good would never occur to a lion. "We seem to have a lot of zebra left over from that last kill. Shall we drop over to visit with that pride down the block who seems to be struggling with all those new cubs?" (quoted from an evolution website)
6) I would then suggest that this at least makes the presence of a God possible, even ceding all evolution, and then begin to probe the heart: What do they want? Do they inwardly know they have a purpose? Does anything in them cry out for love, rescue, help, redemption? Do they know that some of what they do is wrong and in need of forgiveness? These things make me personally chose to believe.

Overall, we Christians need to be less concerned about being "right" about evolution vs creation. Give the evolutionist their data, they're not making it up, but they still need a Saviour. We need to quickly bring it to the heart of the matter.

I hope this little side trip was beneficial.

Notes and comments on today's evolution talk

I want to clarify a few things and add some notes:

First: When I talked to a few people after church I realized I may have miscommunicated about the role of viruses. It is true that there are some defunct parts of DNA that could possibly be the result of some ancient virus that infected an ancestor egg or sperm cell. But I didn't not intend to tell the class that that is how all viruses act. Sure enough some viruses become integrated into the host DNA, becoming part of it for ever, examples are wart viruses, cold sores, herpes, HIV, etc. But not all viruses do that, and even fewer would infect egg or sperm cells and be passed on to offspring DNA. This is why it is taken as good evidence that species who share possible ancient infections, are related. These are too rare to show just coincidental occurrences in separate species, even if you think the world is billions of years old, (certainly not if you think it is <10,000).

Second: The example of the deficient vit. C gene is more convincing than I think I made it. I should have mentioned that making Vit. C is complicated and requites several parts, several cooperating machinery. We, and other primates, all have defunct genes that in other animals helps them to make vit. C. There are other mammals that have defunct vit. C genes in this process, namely fruit bats and guinea pigs. But their Vit. C making machinery is defunct for different reasons, they have a different genetic screw up, we and apes have the same screw ups. Let me give you a strange example to make the point. Let's say there is a blue eyed orphan kid with cystic fibrosis AND color blindness (both inherited genetic). We screen people claiming to be parents for a genetic match. Obviously using "blue eyes" would be a silly cause lots of people have blue eyes. Color blindness is caused by several things genetically so that, though better, isn't definitive. But cystic fibrosis is caused by very few types of genetic problems. A match for a parent that carries the same cystic fibrosis problem gene as the boy, AND the color blindness, is a match! Now, I know it is complicated, but our relatedness to apes is probably MORE founded than the hypothetical genetic test just described, for the exact same reasons. What I didn't have time to talk about is that this type of information also tells us, scientifically, that modern man, even in all his forms, probably have the same, THE SAME, ancestor... we all came from 1 or just a few father and mothers. (adam and eve?, who also couldn't make Vit. C!!!! - the bible is right!)

Thirdly: While it may absolutely be possible that species where created each in their own form, individually, there is alot of strange things that would have had to be created along with them. Such as: an absolutely defunct Vit. C machinery in Adam and Eve, that we all inherited... why?....and many other strange deficiencies in our DNA and other animals DNA that God would have had to have created in a deficient state.(why?) other examples are the human appendix - useless, the ability of a human infants to support their own weight by gripping onto something - now useless (but similar to other primates gripping onto mothers fur), and, in other animals, such as salmon fish's adipose fin (a useless fin), and many other things rendered useless over time (you can ask me for more examples). Why would he create useless things? I know some would say: perhaps we don't yet know their use... but it's pretty clear that a person with out an appendix... has no change ill or good what so ever.

Fourthly: We didn't have time to talk about how things are aged, but it would have been boring anyway, to sum up, what we are left with is these choices:
1. Things did evolve like they certainly scientifically look like they did. or
2. Things where created pretty much as is, but they LOOK like they evolved.
You see, the science isn't wrong at all to make the conclusions it makes. For example: If adam was made "from dust".. he was made an adult, we assume. So on day 2 of his life, if you looked at him, you would probably say he looked, .... 30 years old? But he was only 1 day old. What about trees, they have rings.... first tries presumably had rings too.. showing "incorrect" ages. The point is, from where the science data sits, it tells a certain story. If we choose to believe something else, it is by faith alone. What we should never do is ever ever, never never ever, give credence to wacky "creationist science" - the world looks old... if it is younger... it's a miracle..

Next time we'll talk about the part of science that leads to God and how to talk about that with seekers.

Let us not be ignorant...

I wish I hadn't missed last Sunday!

We'll try to tackle an equally problematic question though. This Sunday will be very difficult for me; we will discuss some tenets of "Evolution" that are "fact" and perhaps we will have time to discuss some theological implications. Let me iterate the goals of the topic - that we/the church will be more able to reach out to co-workers/others and family members and be ready for the world view of our children. After this discussion, next time, we will have a finishing discussion about how we might then engage non-believers in conversation about our savior. See you on Sunday

Belief in God, for a scientist

Let me review the goals of the discussion for the next few weeks-

1: That we may be better evangelist and that more people come to know Christ from a modern/skeptical city and world
2: That our faith in God and the scripture will grow
3: That our knowledge of scientific processes will increase

I intend to strengthen our ability to present belief in God as not only viable, but avoidable only by not wanting or being blind to see Him. Here is our general outline:

Week I; What does a 'creationist' believe? - we will read Genesis 1-2 in class together and discuss its literal meaning and implications.
Week II; What of "evolution" is "fact" - what will our kids learn in school. We will talk about facts of evolution that are very difficult to argue against - by difficult I mean that they are obviously true and you will discredit yourselves by not believing them (a lot of this you already believe) - and how creationism isn't hindered.
Week III: How best to explain your faith in light of science. We will focus on the WHY question, which obviously evolution cannot address. We must lead people to see that their heart yearns for a WHY - even if the world is 5 billion years old or something, and we have the answer to that!
Week IV: - open- to specific questions that arise if needed.

It will help our discussion if you respond with specific fears, ideas, beliefs, etc to this blog and I can help you more.

This coming sunday - and beyond

I have two ideas for continuation 'series" for the summer and I'd like some group input.

1: We could explore what I'd call "science and the bible" - starting with creation/evolution and I'd hope to bring a unique perspective having worked and studied in the biological and environmental science fields. This is an extremely relevant discussion as "creationism" is more and more looking like "wacko-ism" to the world and a huge stumbling block for people and even more so our children will grow up in a world that not only teachers evolution, but actively teaches against creationism.

2: Possibly well mingled with Casey's Bible 101, we could begin an exploration of some key recent Church figures. I have a list in mind that would include people like Westley, Toser, missionaries such as H. Taylor, but would take suggestions. This would lean heavily on some biographies I'm intending to read and a book of "classic devotionals" that highlights contributions of key figures in the past centuries.

Please could some people respond with their preferences.

Thanks
Caleb