Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Ten Questions for Theistic Evolutionist Christians


walterpthefirst

Recommended Posts

Theistic Evolutionist is the term used to describe a broad swathe of Christians who try to reconcile what science says about evolution with a belief in the God of the Bible.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution#:~:text=Theistic evolution is a general term comprising views,compatible with modern scientific understanding about biological evolution.

 

But when we take a good hard look at the history of the universe and the Earth, a lot of awkward questions arise to challenge this reconciliation.  Here are ten that occur to me.

 

1.  

After the Big Bang, why did God delay for so long before creating the Earth?  The universe had been forming planets for 11 billion years but God waited until 4.5 billion years ago before creating the Earth.

https://www.americaspace.com/2015/02/09/astronomers-discover-ancient-terrestrial-exoplanets-around-neighboring-star/

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/exoplanets/two-ancient-exoplanets-discovered/

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/trappist1/

 

2.     

After creating single celled life on Earth 4 billion years ago, why did God wait over 2 billion years before allowing multicellular life to evolve?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life

 

3.     

Why did God go to the trouble of allowing photosynthetic life to flourish for over a billion years before bringing almost all photosynthesis to a halt by completely covering the Earth in ice for 300 million years?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huronian_glaciation

 

4.     

Why did God do the same thing again with two more major global glaciations, lasting 50 million years and 12 million years? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenian

 

5.     

When life was recovering from the first global glaciation why did God then make life’s recovery much more difficult by pummelling the Earth with an asteroid that was even larger than the one that helped wipe out the dinosaurs? http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactDatabase/New%20website_05-2018/Vredefort.html

 

6.     

After life had fully recovered from the damage inflicted by the asteroid and the global  glaciations, why did God then wipe out 85% of all species about 450 – 440 million years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordovician%E2%80%93Silurian_extinction_events

 

7.     

Why did God bring evolution to a virtual standstill by doing nothing during the Boring Billion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boring_Billion

 

8.     

Why did God revert back to his habit of destroying rich and flourishing ecosystems with four more major extinction events?

Late Devonian: 375 million years ago, 75% of species lost, including most trilobites.

End of the Permian, "The Great Dying": 251 million years ago, 96% of species lost, including tabulate corals, and most extant trees and synapsids.

End of the Triassic: 200 million years ago, 80% of species lost, including all of the conodonts.

End of the Cretaceous: 66 million years ago, 76% of species lost, including all of the ammonitesmosasaursichthyosaursplesiosaurspterosaurs, and nonavian dinosaurs.

 

9.     

After these mass extinctions, why did God create the races of archaic humans to share the planet with homo sapiens if it was his intention to lavish his love only upon homo sapiens?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_humans

 

10.  

Why does God’s divine plan to bring about humans across many billions of years look exactly like the unguided hand of evolution blindly reacting to the violent changes of an indifferent universe?

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator

Those fucking dinosaurs deserved it.

  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

Let's see if an apologist mysteriously appears again to answer this summons...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

Awesome topic!! Thank you! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Walter, brilliant compilation!

 

But, you know the answer to all ten questions:  just because. 

Because he's God and it isn't for mere mortals to question these things.

 

Ask 100 believers and that is probably the one thing on which they will all agree... that some things just weren't meant for us to know.

 

A bit like the way every 4-year-old will at some point put their hands over their eyes and declare with delight "you can't see me!".

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Those fucking dinosaurs deserved it.

 

Yeah, so did the fucking single-celled organisms, the trilobites, the tabulate corals, the synapsids, the conodonts, the ammonites and the archaic humans!

 

;)

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator
15 minutes ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

Yeah, so did the fucking single-celled organisms, the trilobites, the tabulate corals, the synapsids, the conodonts, the ammonites and the archaic humans!

 

;)

 

 

Fucking dinosaurs, man.

 

"Oh, look at me!  I'm a big gigantic lizard stomping all over everything and eating all the... Oh fuck!  A meteor!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, alreadyGone said:

Walter, you know the answer to all ten questions:  just because. 

Because he's God and it isn't for mere mortals to question these things.

 

Ask 100 believers and that is probably the one thing on which they will all agree... that some things just weren't meant for us to know.

 

A bit like the way every 4-year-old will at some point put their hands over their eyes and declare with delight "you can't see me!".

 

 

 

Well, I guess you're ding dong, gosh-darn diddly right, aG!

 

;)

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator

Such language, Walt!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Such language, Walt!

 

Hey, if its diddly doodly good enough for Ned Flanders, then its diddly doodly good enough for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I might add that in my opinion, as a scientist, Francis Collins ought to be ashamed of himself for putting his name to these six premises.

 

From the Wiki page on Theistic Evolution.

Francis Collins describes theistic evolution as the position that "evolution is real, but that it was set in motion by God", and characterizes it as accepting "that evolution occurred as biologists describe it, but under the direction of God".  He lists six general premises on which different versions of theistic evolution typically rest. They include:

  1. the prevailing cosmological model, with the universe coming into being about 13.8 billion years ago;
  2. the fine-tuned universe;
  3. evolution and natural selection;
  4. No special supernatural intervention is involved once evolution got under way;
  5. Humans are a result of these evolutionary processes; and
  6. Despite all these, humans are unique. The concern for the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the continuous search for God among all human cultures defy evolutionary explanations and point to our spiritual nature.

 

Here's why.

 

Premise 1. 

The prevailing cosmological model is the LCDM, the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model.  This model does NOT say anything about the universe coming into being.  You can read this yourself in the first sentence of the Wiki link given by Collins.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe

 

The Lambda-CDM concordance model describes the evolution of the universe from a very uniform, hot, dense primordial state to its present state over a span of about 13.77 billion years of cosmological time.

 

The LCDM says nothing about the universe coming into being before this uniform, hot, dense primordial state.  It is theorized that this might be so, but nobody knows for sure.  So Collin's first premise rests upon an unknown that is being falsely described as a true beginning.  This is a lie.

 

 

Premise 2.

The fine-tuned universe argument does NOT specifically identify the god of the Bible as the fine-tuner.  Any religiously-minded person can use this argument to claim that their particular god is the fine tuner.  As we can see from the following list of Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Buddhist sites that are all using the fine-tuned universe argument to claim the same thing.

 

Muslim

http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/92/the-islamic-view-of-the-multiverse#:~:text=From the Muslim perspective%2C fine-tuning isn’t a problem%2C,universe. To Mimouni%2C the idea is also unscientific.

https://www.islamreligion.com/articles/10518/fine-tuning-of-universe-part-1/

https://talkislam.info/fine-tuned-universe/

https://www.ask-a-muslim.com/en/evidence-for-god-fine-tuning-argument-summarized/

https://knowingallah.com/en/articles/fine-tuning-of-the-universe-summarized-part-2-of-2/

https://onepathnetwork.com/five-proofs-that-god-exists/

https://themuslimtimes.info/2020/09/01/ten-raised-to-five-hundred-reasons-for-our-gracious-god/

http://believeguide.com/?page_id=2

https://yaqeeninstitute.org/justin-parrott/the-case-for-allahs-existence-in-the-quran-and-sunnah

 

Jewish

https://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/creatorfacts/

https://noahidenations.com/index.php/the-science-in-torah/347-a-fine-tuned-universe?boxed=1

http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/81/whether-theres-a-multiverse-or-not-judaism-can-take-it

https://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48937152.html

https://www.judaismandscience.com/tag/fine-tuning/

 

Sikh 

http://www.discoversikhism.com/sikhism/fine_tuning.html

 

Buddhist

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11797750/#:~:text=According to Buddhism%2C the exquisitely precise fine-tuning of,consciousness%2C the two having co-existed for all times.

 

So, Collin's second premise cannot be used to specifically promote his Christian agenda.

 

 

Premises 3, 4 & 5.

Evolution and natural selection are scientific paradigms and ALL of science is strictly agnostic, saying nothing at all about anything supernatural or theological.  So, for Collins to co-opt these agnostic things in the faith-driven promotion of his supernatural beliefs is both unworkable and unprofessional.  Neither evolution nor natural selection require a god to initiate or guide them.  They are stand-alone working principles of agnostic, not theistic, science.

 

 

Premise 6.

Collins' claims that all human cultures have engaged in a continuous search for God. 

 

Really?  So, the ancient Egyptians searched for the God of the Bible and not for Isis, Osiris or Horus?  The Greeks searched for Jesus Christ and not Zeus, Athena or Apollo?  Even today, the Hindus search for the Messiah and not for Vishnu or Brahma?  Or perhaps 2 million years ago, Palaeolithic humans actively sought out the God of the Old and New Testaments?

 

No.  Collins' claim is simply false.  Even if ALL human cultures have searched for a supernatural meaning to life, in no way does that equal a specific seeking after only the Biblical God.  His argument here suffers from the same flaw as his argument in the second premise.  The identity of the God he claims all humans have been searching for cannot be pinned down to only one answer - Jesus.

 

That identity varies from culture to culture and is culture specific.  The name of Jesus cannot be force-fitted by Collins into the cultural histories of the Apache, the Incas or the Mongols any more than the apostle Paul could force-fit the name of Jesus into the identity of  'Unknown God' of Acts 17.  But Collins is trying the same evangelizing trick that Paul tried on the Athenians.

 

Both are pretending to know the identity of something unknown that many people are looking for.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/23/2021 at 1:03 PM, walterpthefirst said:

Theistic Evolutionist is the term used to describe a broad swathe of Christians who try to reconcile what science says about evolution with a belief in the God of the Bible.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution#:~:text=Theistic evolution is a general term comprising views,compatible with modern scientific understanding about biological evolution.

 

But when we take a good hard look at the history of the universe and the Earth, a lot of awkward questions arise to challenge this reconciliation.  Here are ten that occur to me.

 

1.  

After the Big Bang, why did God delay for so long before creating the Earth?  The universe had been forming planets for 11 billion years but God waited until 4.5 billion years ago before creating the Earth.

https://www.americaspace.com/2015/02/09/astronomers-discover-ancient-terrestrial-exoplanets-around-neighboring-star/

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/exoplanets/two-ancient-exoplanets-discovered/

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/trappist1/

 

2.     

After creating single celled life on Earth 4 billion years ago, why did God wait over 2 billion years before allowing multicellular life to evolve?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life

 

3.     

Why did God go to the trouble of allowing photosynthetic life to flourish for over a billion years before bringing almost all photosynthesis to a halt by completely covering the Earth in ice for 300 million years?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huronian_glaciation

 

4.     

Why did God do the same thing again with two more major global glaciations, lasting 50 million years and 12 million years? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenian

 

5.     

When life was recovering from the first global glaciation why did God then make life’s recovery much more difficult by pummelling the Earth with an asteroid that was even larger than the one that helped wipe out the dinosaurs? http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactDatabase/New%20website_05-2018/Vredefort.html

 

6.     

After life had fully recovered from the damage inflicted by the asteroid and the global  glaciations, why did God then wipe out 85% of all species about 450 – 440 million years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordovician%E2%80%93Silurian_extinction_events

 

7.     

Why did God bring evolution to a virtual standstill by doing nothing during the Boring Billion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boring_Billion

 

8.     

Why did God revert back to his habit of destroying rich and flourishing ecosystems with four more major extinction events?

Late Devonian: 375 million years ago, 75% of species lost, including most trilobites.

End of the Permian, "The Great Dying": 251 million years ago, 96% of species lost, including tabulate corals, and most extant trees and synapsids.

End of the Triassic: 200 million years ago, 80% of species lost, including all of the conodonts.

End of the Cretaceous: 66 million years ago, 76% of species lost, including all of the ammonitesmosasaursichthyosaursplesiosaurspterosaurs, and nonavian dinosaurs.

 

9.     

After these mass extinctions, why did God create the races of archaic humans to share the planet with homo sapiens if it was his intention to lavish his love only upon homo sapiens?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_humans

 

10.  

Why does God’s divine plan to bring about humans across many billions of years look exactly like the unguided hand of evolution blindly reacting to the violent changes of an indifferent universe?

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

 

Walter,

 

Question 1

 

Because a theist might believe in evolution doesn't mean they would necessarily believe in the Big Bang Theory. Remember the book "The Big Bang Never Happened?" I'm an atheist and think The Big Bang is a fantasy -- dare I say 100% BS?

 

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Bang-Never-Happened-Refutation/dp/067974049X

 

Questions 2 & 3 are part of evolution theory so many theistic evolutionists would agree with evolution on these points.

 

Questions 4 & 5 -- many Christians think that God generally does not interfere with the weather -- except once every blue moon via prayer

 

Question 6 -- God saw that the dinosaurs were bad so he destroyed them.

 

Question 7 -- God did nothing because he had not yet created Adam and Eve and the Garden, so he took a little rest

 

Question 8 & 9 -- God cares nothing of ecosystems. He created it all, including animals, for man's benefit -- to eat and use as beasts of burden. If man doesn't know how to put on a coat it's his own fault. Archaic humans just didn't listen so God destroyed them.

 

image.png

 

Question 10 -- Satan is real

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, pantheory said:

Good questions, Pantheory.  I'll try to do them justice.  :)

 

 

Walter,

 

Question 1

 

Because a theist might believe in evolution doesn't mean they would necessarily believe in the Big Bang Theory. Remember the book "The Big Bang Never Happened?" I'm an atheist and think The Big Bang is a fantasy -- dare I say 100% BS?

 

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Bang-Never-Happened-Refutation/dp/067974049X

 

Yes, that's possible.  But unlikely.  If you know the minds of truly committed and devout Theistic Evolutionists (hereafter, TE's) then you will know that they look for every possible chance to justify their faith with what they think is scientific evidence.  Thanks to the apologetic efforts of the Reverend William Lane Craig almost every TE wrongly believes that Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose have proved that the universe must have had a beginning.

 

This thread demonstrates that Craig is completely wrong.  https://www.ex-christian.net/topic/82597-the-failed-cosmology-of-william-lane-craig/

 

The incentive for Craig and the TE's to hold to this falsehood is that it appears to scientifically justify and validate Genesis 1 : 1.   The universe being spoken into existence by God.  That chance is simply too good to miss by dismissing the Big Bang as BS.  You have to try and get into their shoes to really understand their thinking, Pantheory.

 

Many of us Ex-Christians can do this because we used to think and believe exactly along the same lines as these TE's.  As an atheist you might have trouble doing what we can easily do.  But don't worry if you can't.  If anything, you should be pleased that you were never troubled by such a serious mindf**k as Christianity.

 

 

6 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Questions 2 & 3 are part of evolution theory so many theistic evolutionists would agree with evolution on these points.

 

Yes, they do.  But their agreement is only a means to an end.  The most important thing in their lives is their faith and if they can seem to reconcile science and the supernatural by accepting certain aspects of evolution, then they'll gladly do it.

 

6 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Questions 4 & 5 -- many Christians think that God generally does not interfere with the weather -- except once every blue moon via prayer

 

I'd like to see some empirical evidence of that blue moon connection.  ;)

 

 

6 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Question 6 -- God saw that the dinosaurs were bad so he destroyed them.

 

Yeah, but if he's so all knowing, why didn't he FORESEE that they would be bad and never let them evolve in the first place?

 

 

6 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Question 7 -- God did nothing because he had not yet created Adam and Eve and the Garden, so he took a little rest

 

Oh well that's all right then.   That little rest of his must be a billion-year long Sabbath day.

 

 

6 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Question 8 & 9 -- God cares nothing of ecosystems. He created it all, including animals, for man's benefit -- to eat and use as beasts of burden. If man doesn't know how to put on a coat it's his own fault. Archaic humans just didn't listen so God destroyed them.

 

image.png

 

And good riddance, say I!

 

6 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Question 10 -- Satan is real

 

You may not believe what I'm about to tell you, but I swear that its the truth, Pantheory.

 

When I was a believer I once visited a hard line Baptist church and heard the pastor denouncing the Christmas holiday season from the pulpit.  Not just for the rampant commercialism and the lack of focus on Jesus Christ.  No, the main thrust of his argument was that the fat, white-bearded and rubicund deliverer of yuletide gifts was actually a nefarious agent of the Devil.  How did the good pastor know this?

 

SANTA  is  an  anagram  of  SATAN!

 

🤪

 

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator
On 11/24/2021 at 1:02 PM, TheRedneckProfessor said:

"Oh, look at me!  I'm a big gigantic lizard stomping all over everything and eating all the... Oh fuck!  A meteor!"

 

"It must be the god of a yet to arrive biblical tradition's will..."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.