Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Closing Remarks - Evolution Debate (Part 12)

Here is a video from an honest evolutionist.



Summary of implications of modern evolutionary biology (as quoted by evolutionist naturalist William Provine who is a world famous evolutionary professor at Cornell University):

1. No gods or purposive forces
2. No life after death
3. No ultimate foundation for ethics
4. No ultimate meaning in life
5. No free will (determinism)

(Interesting sidenote: Provine does not believe in prisons)

In contrast to the evolutionary worldview, Biblical Christianity says that:

1. You are created in the image of God
2. You will live eternally in heaven or he'll
3. All morality comes from God and is written on our consciences
4. You exist for the purpose of glorifying God and enjoying Him for ever
5. Your decisions have consequences in this life and the next

We are talking about the most important subject in the universe here and that is the ultimate message of evolution. If I am wrong then I am wasting my life and if you are wrong then you will be judged by the God Who made everything including yourself. He knows everything you have ever done, ever said, and ever thought. The God Who made your eyes sees everything.

I am going to admit one thing to you about the Bible. There is one big problem in the Bible. It happened when God spoke to Moses:

The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:6b-7a)

God is kind and loving, slow to anger, and rich in mercy. But he cannot let the guilty go free. No good judge lets criminals go free. And God's righteousness demands that he must punish you for every single sin you have ever committed. Every time you have broken His Law. Here is the greatest problem in the Bible. How can God show you His great mercy and kindness and love and still be a righteous judge at the same time. There was only one way and that is why He is the only way. God became a man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and lived a perfect sinless life fulfilling every law that you have ever broken so that He could be our representative. He then went to the cross and died a horrific death and more than that, suffered under the wrath of God that is meant for sinners like you . . . and me. From now on, every time you see a cross on a church building remember this: That God treated Jesus Christ as if he lived your life, so that He could treat you as if you lived His life! That way God can demonstrate His great mercy and kindness to you without leaving the guilty unpunished. And if you love science and like to deal with facts here is the greatest fact of history - that Jesus rose from the dead proving that God was satisfied with His payment in the place of sinners.

So who are you going to believe? Those who tell you that everything came from nothing, everything is random and meaningless, there is no right and wrong, and death is the end. Or are you going to believe the guy who says that everything is a creation of God, the whole universe is an amazingly designed operating system, everything has purpose and consequences, that you know right from wrong and you do what's wrong anyway, that each and everyone of us will stand before Almighty God - alone - and answer to Him for every thought, word, and deed in our lives and that God in His great love sent a Savior to rescue us from the wrath to come.

Do you really have enough faith to believe in the religion of evolution. The Bible tells me the reason why people reject the One true God of the Bible - and like evolution it has nothing to do with science. Jesus said it best:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:16-20)

God calls on you to repent and believe the Gospel. My evolutionary friend, this is not about science, this is about morality. What is the sin that you love so much that you will not repent and believe the Gospel? Turn to God, put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is kind and merciful to those who humble themselves and repent of their rebellion and false religion.

Go Back To Part 11
Go Back To Part 1

20 comments:

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

Well, if I had to finish up such a debate in the same way, it might go something like this:

Some may recognize these lines from a set of wonderful lyrics by Eric Idle:

"Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life"

Life, Death and morality have the meaning that we, as thinking entities, with or without free will, impart on them. Your life and my life, both are short but are also unique and immeasurably precious, so we better make the most of them -- in a way that also allows other people to live their life to the fullest. So go out, stop worrying about ancient myths of sin, hell and punishment and start enjoying life. This life is your only chance, so go on, make the most of it for yourself and your fellow self-aware, thinking, feeling, crying, laughing primates:)

Cameron Buettel said...

So substance abuse and fornication is what you call "making the most of this life". God calls it evil and He will judge it. God will not go away by trying to deny He exists. Once again you show yourself up as a very bad empiricist and someone who is devoted to a really stupid religion. John Piper says that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Your problem Kristoffer is that you are not "making the most of this life" because you are settling for something that is pathetically less. And this problem pales in comparison with the eternal destiny you face every moment of your life. There is never a guarantee that you will wake up tomorrow. Why waste your life shaking your fist at the Almighty?

Cameron Buettel said...

Make the most of this life - repent from your evil sinful ways and trust in Jesus Christ.

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

Now, it would be silly of me to shake my fist at something I do not think exists, don't you think? ;)

-I think you would be surprised how little I care about your particular brand of superstition...to me, your religion is not one bit different from islam, hinduism or scientology. What I care about is that you are spreading abject falsehoods about our current understanding of how the world as we see it today has come to be as it is. -You as a person are absolutely welcome to entertain these crazy notions, but I think it is important to let people know that you represent a very small minority and that accepting your particular brand of young-earth creationism means to ignore and disregard not only most of geology and biology, but to basically disregard all scientific progress in the last century. -The "evolutionary view" of our past does not depend exclusively on a few old fossils, but is deeply rooted in solid evidence from chemistry, genetics, physics, geology and biology.

From discussions such as this, I have come to realize that you and your fellow YEC believers do not wilfully lie and distort evidence. Good on you, I guess...but you are so utterly ignorant of not only modern scientific facts, but of the scientific method in general that it almost hurts to listen to and to read. This is also why teaching young people critical thinking skills is so important, because armed with these and a general idea about how solid, trustworthy knowledge is produced by the set of ideas and methods known as "the scientific method", they are able to quickly see through your arguments and refute them:)

Cameron Buettel said...

Wrong Kristoffer, the issue is and always has been that you hate God and love sin. You don't have a shred of evidence that proves your position. You have a presupposition that demands how you interpret the evidence. And why? Because you hate God and love sin.

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

You do seem to repeat yourself a lot...but I guess that is in the best biblical tradition;)

Remember, that from my point of view there is no such thing as a "sin" and there is no such thing as a "God". I am neither in love with the one or hate the other, I simply don't think they exist as anything but religous concepts that some people find terribly important.

You claim that I do not have a shred of evidence to support my position. As written above, this is more a testament to your lack of knowledge that to my lack of evidence...The evidence for a really, really old universe, a very old Earth, life stretching back billions of years and us humans appearing relatively late on the stage is varied, it is solid, it is testable and it is falsifiable as well as verifiable - otherwise it wouldn't be science. The methods by which we have come to such understanding of our wider world are _exactly_ the same as the methods that have been applied to create the microchips that allow us to have this conversation, they are _exactly_ the same as allow oil companies to find their oil deposits and they are _exactly_ the same methods as allow medical researchers to screen the genome of a cancer and tailor its treatment.

You may not like the conlusions that these methods lead us to. Tough on you, as you cannot simply say that these methods do not work, for all around you, there is direct evidence that this method of inquiry, the scientific method, provides solid, trustworthy knowledge about the workings of the natural world. To ignore this remarkable succes of such methods is to stick you head in the sand. You are most welcome to do so, and in doing so you will join many a mormon, a good bunch of hindus and pagans as well as many a True Believer in islam - all of you united in ignorance. Enjoy the company:)

Cameron Buettel said...

The key statement in your previous comment "my point of view" - and that's exactly what it is. And it's a view that hates God and loves sin. And by the way, stop pulling that stupid stunt that dating methods apply the exact same science as making microchips. That puts you in the Michael Moore class of journalistic integrity.

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

Sooo...Let me get this straight: You claim that I hate something in which I do not believe and that I love something else that I don't believe exists either? -I hope that you realize that for anyone not already neck-deep in your particular religious ideas, this is absolute nonsense... :)

And, as it happens, I didn't just come up with the microchip example from scratch. I did my masters degree within solid state physics and nanoelectronics, two fields which just happen to be the foundations of modern chip design...and when today I read a paper on some old pile of bones that some paleontologist dug out of a desert somewhere, I see the exact same methods and principles applied to their dating (and interpretation) as people apply in, say, nanoelectronics research. -If anything, paleontologists are MORE careful in their dating and characterization than what you seen in the characterization section of your typical article on transistor gate materials or whatever. But all of the principles applied are the same, and they are very powerful for ferreting out the truth from complicated sets of data, no matter if the data are electrical measurements or fossil bones:)

Cameron Buettel said...

So Kristoffer, am I supposed to be impressed with an education that trained you to accurately give the radiometric age of a microchip . . . plus or minus a few million years?

Cameron Buettel said...

So Kristoffer, were you so busy getting multiple degrees in nanoelectrronics and solid state physics that you skipped classes on reality? Let me explain this in simple terms so you can understand - just because you don't believe in something does not mean that it does not exist! And just because you like to fornicate and get drunk does not mean that it is right.

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

Cameron, given the background materials you are reading I can hardly fault you for not knowing this, but the several forms of radiometric dating is only a very few out of MANY different methods used for dating fossils. -And quite probably, radiometric dating is not the best method for dating microchips;)

Going back to paleontology and of more relevance to my particular field of study would be the use of magnetic inclusions and the orientation of their magnetization or the use of radio/thermoluminescence dating...but that is actually slightly besides the point. -The point being, that the paleontologists apply the scientific method rigorously at all levels of their work, in particular hypothesis construction and hypothesis testing...just like all other scientists do on a daily basis in their chosen field of study.

-As to reality, I guess that you would not be terribly surprised to learn that I think that you and your fellow believers have only the most tenuous grasp of what is real and what is not;) This means, that for me to take your rantings about hating and sinning seriously, you would first have to convince me of the reality of your particular religion...and, let me tell you, you are not quite there yet;)

Cameron Buettel said...

Key phrase in your last comment Kristoffer - "I think that . . ."

Again, great science dude.

There are some things you think about that I know about. This is something I know to be true, and something you should at least acknowledge as an empirical possibility - that the God of the Bible may have revealed Himself to people other than yourself. You can disbelieve all you want religious boy, but that is not enough to invalidate my truth claim.

Cameron Buettel said...

And if I hated you Kristoffer, I would have deleted all your ignorant comments a long time ago. I have a family I would rather be with. But I actually love you and don't want you to burn in hell for eternity. God derives great glory when he saves people like you out of their false religions.

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

The existence of some fully omnipotent creature can of course never be completely ruled out by empirical means.

But what can be ruled out by empirical means are your claims of a 6000 year old Earth, that all humans are descended from a single couple, the flood of Noah and so on. The fact that these biblical events never took place of course has implications for theology (-which I would call mythology, due to the lack of evidence...;), but frankly, as a non-believer I don't really care what christians do with the information they get from modern science...although it IS kind of fun to see well-educated men squirming about trying to reconcile what they read in the holy book of their choice with modern science:)

-And I never thought that you hated me, no worries! -I was referring to you nattering on about me hating your God, me loving sin and so on:)

Cameron Buettel said...

Make that fornication, drunkenness, and lying . . .

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

Lying...now, is there some specific bible text that makes you insist that I am lying, or is it just your standard answer when you run out of real arguments?

And why do you keep on leaving out gluttony on my list of sins?? -I REALLY enjoy gluttony as well!

Cameron Buettel said...

Saying that there is no evidence for a young earth, or a global flood, or all people descending from a single couple is lying. There is plenty of evidence, that I have pointed out - you just don't like it. Just goes to show that defending your religion is more important than honesty. The only difficult area of harmonizing empirical evidence with a young earth chronology is some parts of cosmology, most particularly the time it takes starlight to travel. This is also a problem for Big Bang chronology. And Creationists have done a much better job of bringing forth theories that harmonize this.

But your arguments from fossils and radiometric dating etc are just theories driven by the facts that you presuppose. The way you throw around the word "fact" when you don't know is embarrassing and dishonest.

Drunk, fornicator, glutton and liar! You are in very big trouble on judgment day. And because you are so unscientific, and ignorant, I will spell this out to you again. The God Who will judge you and damn you cannot be wished away by trusting in your false religion. You don't create a new reality by believing in something. You should believe in God that is real - and I know this empirically.

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

I take issue with the lying part, but I wholeheartedly embrace the rest of your list of my self-admitted sins..."sinning", as you call it, is a damn (geddit?;) lot of fun :)

Would you care to explain to me the empirical evidence for descendence from a single couple, and what the problem with Big Bang chronology is? -While you're at it, it might also be good fun to see you explain away the lack of any evidence for truly, crazy massive amounts of water draining away from the all the landmasses only a few thousand years ago. I would also think that such a global flood would have left some quite remarkable imprints on the polar ice sheets, but such markings are mysteriously absent?? I mean, that IS kind of strange, isn't it, as it is a simple matter to count the yearly layers of snow many tens of thousands of years back in time, and still there is not a scrap of evidence for a massive flood??


-And if you're feeling up to it, I would also just love to learn how you empirically know your particular God to be real:)

Cameron Buettel said...

You would have to humble yourself Kristoffer - something you know absolutely nothing about.

Kristoffer Haldrup said...

Absolutely true - humility is not among my virtues:)