Skip to the content
Icon of Christ
› ›

Evolution & Creationism

1…7891012

Comments

  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015

    By the grace of God, I will answer the points made since I joined the discussion, so will reply to the following:

    1. "theologically, evolution does not contradict Orthodoxy"

    2. mutations, gene duplication

    3. video about the genre of the Genesis account

    4. scientists who reject the theory of evolution

    5. bullying of scientists who reject evolution

    6. "you are now subjecting God's method of creation to suit your own ideas"

    7. "we have a genetic make-up that is 98% similar to that of chimpanzees"

    8. "I don't think you completely understand the theory by the things you are saying. You cannot sit and watch a species evolve"

    9. Gravity is a theory - same as evolution

    10. "It is a FACT that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old"


    My sincere apologies for the formatting! any advice appreciated


    In Christ

  • katanikhoroskatanikhoros

    CoptiCOPA you said:

    1. St Athanasius Refutes the Evolutionary Theory of His Time

    This is a common misunderstanding that anti-evolutionists have with evolutionary theory, they equate evolution with materialism. They are not the same thing, evolution is merely an honest scientific theory of how the mechanism of speciation works, while materialism is a philosophy like Epicureanism. St. Athanasius is not refuting how creation might have happened, but that IT happened. In other words, he is confessing that there really was a Creator behind it all, and it did not just appear out of nothing. This cannot be explained away or by science, but rather what philosophy you hold to. Before the Universe, was there a God or not? Regardless of how the universe came to be as it is now, was there a Mind behind it? This is what St. Athanasius is defending.

    CoptiCOPA you said:

    2. St Athanasius Upholds the Scriptural Account

    He calls it the “divine teaching of the Christian faith”; it is not man’s teaching, but
    God’s, it is divine and therefore above every foolish notion of man. In the
    paragraph below and elsewhere he refers to the literal account.

    I hope you don't mean that we must learn our science from the Bible because our inquiry as man is useless (as it would seem it would be the conclusion you're implying). The Bible never sought to teach science nor is it of its concern (as St. Augustine said). As far as doctrine goes, this statement is absolutely correct. But science as a study of nature by men is something blessed: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge." (Psalms 19:1-2)


    CoptiCOPA you said:

    3. St Athanasius Confirms that Death was a Consequence of the Fall...

    No one denied that death entered into man's world through sin. But who was this first full fledged human made in the Image and Likeness of God? We have already learned from the fathers that this image and likeness is not something physical but our spiritual dimension, our reason, our free will, our capacity to be moral etc. These first full fledged humans were born in a state of innocence in communion with Life Himself. But when they chose to separate themselves from Him they came under the natural law of death, since they began to exist they were bound to return to non-existence as St. Athanasius says, since God alone is immortal by nature, so we lost this grace. This is not to negate that maybe scientific study shows us that there may have been subhuman species prior to our current state of humanity. Maybe there was, I don't see how Genesis is against any kind of honest scientific inquiry that points in that direction and why we should be so upset and offended at it.

  • katanikhoroskatanikhoros

    On Allegorical or Metaphorical...

    St. Gregory the Theologian for one sees the Trees as allegorical among many other fathers like St. Augustine and Master Origen.

    St. Gregory the Theologian, quoting Origen says this:

    "For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second,
    and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun,
    and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also
    without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the
    manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east,
    and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one
    tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that
    one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from
    the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and
    Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts
    that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history
    having taken place in appearance, and not literally." (De Principiis Book IV)

    In his book on the literal interpretation of Genesis, St. Augustine in one place writes:

    "It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the
    sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation
    or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite
    eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons,
    about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such
    things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by
    experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful
    and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the
    non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these
    matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say
    that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in
    error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly
    while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able,
    explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of
    obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to
    the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation."

    While elsewhere:
    "With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For
    that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding
    the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters
    [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from
    those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the
    perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these
    other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or
    predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our
    authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the
    intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men
    anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation."

    By the way, I highly highly recommend reading Origen's De Principiis Book IV, it is absolutely brilliant and touches on the essence of this argument.
  • CoptiCOPA
    Dear katanikhoros

    In reply to your words, 
    This is a common misunderstanding that anti-evolutionists have with evolutionary theory, they equate evolution with materialism. They are not the same thing, evolution is merely an honest scientific theory of how the mechanism of speciation works, while materialism is a philosophy like Epicureanism. 

    Of course evolution is materialistic. That's why Darwinian evolution made such an uproar in a Christian country.
    It totally excludes God, it is a chance process, an unguided process. Evolutionists say so themselves as you can see here: 

    Professor Richard Lewontin, one of the world's leaders in evolutionary biology says:

    "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door"

    From "Billions and Billions of Demons"

  • CoptiCOPA
    Michael Ruse, professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, Canada, says,

    ‘Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint—...the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.

    ‘… Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity.’

    Dr Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State university, says:

    "Even if all the data point to an Intelligent Designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it
    is not naturalistic" (Correspondence to Nature410, septmeber 30, 1999).

    Richard Dawkins says that "there really is a deep incompatibility between evolution and Christianity"-
    here is the video:





  • CoptiCOPA
    In reply to your words about Saint Athanasius,

    St. Athanasius is not refuting how creation might have happened, but that IT happened. 

    On the contrary, he is going into detail of refuting that how they believed it happened does not make
    any sense. He says,

    "some say that all things are self-originated and, so to speak, haphazard... This view is contrary to
    all the facts of experience... For if all things had come into being in this automatic fashion... they
    would all be uniform and without distinction. In the universe everything would be sun or moon or 
    whatever it was, and in the human body the whole would be hand or eye or foot. But in point of fact
    the sun and the moon and the earth are all different things, and even within the human body there are different members, such as foot and hand and head. The distinctness of things argues not a spontaneous generation but a prevenient Cause..."

    The theory of evolution is but a popularisation of an age-old materialistic philosophy by which Satan "who deceives the whole world" (Rev.12:9), who goes out "to deceive the nations" (Rev.20:3;Rev.20:8) has been deceiving man that God does not exist.

    God willing, I will reply to the rest later in the day.

    Have a good day! :-)



  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015
    Please watch this explanation of why theistic evolution (the idea that God created through evolution) is a contradiction in terms- note
    that he says "In the science education culture, evolution means a purposeless, material mechanism"-





    please do not be deceived
  • katanikhoroskatanikhoros
    CoptiCopa:
    About your first post,
    There is a difference between materialism and evolution. Materialism is the philosophy that ALL that exists is the natural world and nothing else exists beyond it (and thus whether evolution is true or not, all that happens is purposeless and without meaning because there is no possibility of a God existing).

    ‘Evolution
    is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution
    is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged
    alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent
    evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one
    complaint—...t    he
    literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was
    true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still
    today.

    I don't care how it's promoted. Is Evolution feasible as a scientific theory or not? Yes, then let's move on. 500 years ago the Church couldn't reconcile itself with the scientific model of Heliocentrism (that the earth orbits around the sun) because of the verse that says the earth is fixed and cannot be moved. This is yet another case of this. We think that it is not possible for God to create humans through evolution. Science cannot tell us whether any mechanism has a purpose behind it or not, that is philosophy. Thank you for proving my point.

    It's the same with any other scientific theory. Gravity can be seen as some blind purposeless force, or something that God uses to bring about His providential will. It all depends on the philosophy you bring to the scientific theory.

    About St. Athanasius:
    I don't think you understand what the word creation means.
    "some say that all things are self-originated
    this clearly means that they are not created, and therefore not creation if they are self-originated. In other words, it denies a mind behind it. One can believe evolution to be a valid scientific theory without compromising a faith in a God who guides every single natural process of this universe.

    The theory of evolution is but a popularisation of an age-old materialistic philosophy by which Satan "who deceives the whole world" (Rev.12:9), who goes out "to deceive the nations" (Rev.20:3;Rev.20:8) has been deceiving man that God does not exist.

    That's what they said when Galileo seemingly contradicted the Bible and said that the earth orbits around the Sun. The reason you are against evolution is because you think it is irrreconcilable with the words of Genesis, just like the Catholic Church was with Galileo because of the words of the Psalms.

    God Bless


  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015
    Firstly, I have to define that what I mean by 'evolution' is the theory that from an amoeba came man.

    I would just like to summarise what the evolutionists have said above:

    1. Science has a commitment to materialism and cannot allow anything Divine 

    2. They know the absurdity and ridiculousness of many of the things they claim but they stick to it anyway because of their bias.

    3. Evolution is a religion and has been from the beginning

    4. Even if all the data points to an Intelligent Designer such a hypothesis is excluded because it is not naturalistic

    5. There really is a deep incompatibility between evolution and Christianity

    6. Evolutionists view Creationists as understanding evolution correctly whereas theistic evolutionists 
    as people who do not.

    I hope that from these words from their own mouth you can conclude that science is deeply biased. Because there is a bias and because they admit that they believe the absurd, we should not believe everything they say. 

    I love science, but I love true science. I am against evolution because it is against science. That's why I entered this discussion with a scientific angle about mutations. I am not afraid of evolution; I am dismayed at the depth of its deception. As Professor Lewontin admits, scientists know that what they say is absurd, nevertheless they are sticking to it. You must listen to what he is saying. You must learn to differentiate; not everything that comes out of a scientists mouth is true. Eve was deceived because she believed everything that came out of the mouth of the Serpent. Saint Anthony said the most important virtue is discernment; you must discern between what is true and what is claimed to be true. 

    You must differentiate also between operational science, which is repeatable and observable, and historical or origins science which is about events in the past that are neither repeatable nor observable. You must also bear in mind that scientists themselves sometimes change what they say about things that they said before. 







  • CoptiCOPA
    Regarding the words of Saint Athanasius about the Epicurean philosophy of origins, you can read the details of the Epicurean philosophy from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

    Epicurus (341–270 B.C.E.) was a complete and interdependent system, involving a view of the goal of human life (happiness, resulting from absence of physical pain and mental disturbance), an empiricist theory of knowledge (sensations, together with the perception of pleasure and pain, are infallible criteria), a description of nature based on atomistic materialism, and a naturalistic account of evolution, from the formation of the world to the emergence of human societies. 

    If evolution is defined as unguided, how can God guide an unguided process?

    We also note that evolution is not some amazing scientific discovery, but an age-old pagan philosophy.





  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015
    "Is Evolution feasible as a scientific theory or not?"

    As @kahan said well at the beginning, "Evolution is a hypothesis, a theory at best. It is not a scientific fact". Indeed, evolution is a hypothesis as it's really an ancient philosophy . Yet it's propounded as a fact. It's taught as a fact. That's deception. I can understand why people fall for it. But when scientists are calling it a deception, a lie, a hoax, and when evolutionists are admitting that they are not honest in their findings, and when this theory is put under the microscope of true science and found to be terribly lacking in substance, the answer to your question is a resounding No. 

    The theory of evolution's biggest enemy is true science. True scientific discoveries about DNA, about the complexity of DNA, about the incredible genius in DNA, about the information in DNA, kill evolution because information can never evolve. I studied Computer Science and the first thing we learnt was the difference between information and data, that information had meaning. We learnt how to design a program to do certain functions, how to programme or write instructions in different computer languages. Instructions can never evolve! Information can never evolve! This is one of those absurd constructs that evolutionists like Professor Lewotin are referring to. Also, how can gender evolve as @Zoxasi asked earlier on? This is another huge problem. Why would an organism become male or female in the first place? It is totally irrelevent to its own survival. So why should it evolve into a female or a male? Dawkins can't answer that either. Please just think about it. However, this huge problem of gender and sexual reproduction for the theory of evolution is plainly declared by the divine teaching of Scripture, "male and female He created them" (Gen.1:27). 

    Also, no one has ever seen a mutation that has brought about an increase in brand new information (I will answer in detail in due course). The fact that Gould and Dawkins were debating about whether mutations come about because of the environment or something else are like two men debating about what type of cheese the moon is made of when no one has ever seen cheese on the moon.

    Guys, I speak to you out of sincere brotherly love. This is a huge deception, so "Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren" (Jas.1:16).












  • katanikhoroskatanikhoros
    CoptiCopa:
    The line of your first post is where your definition of evolution should stop. To say that it is "unguided" or what have you is philosophical baggage that has nothing to do with science, neither does it fit Darwinian evolution. The standard definition of evolution is that it is the change in the heritable traits of biological populations over successive generations. That's it. Unguided or not is left up to the person whether they believe in a mastermind behind the entire universe or not. Just as an atheist considers the everyday events of his life to be "unguided", so do many atheist evolutionists believe evolution as well as all other natural processes to be unguided.

    The problem with what you are doing is you are driving a wedge between honest scientific inquiry that challenges outdated science present in our Scriptures, and our Orthodox Christian faith.

    I don't care what some evolutionists have defined evolution as religion etc. These are all definitions that defy the purely scientific theory of evolution.

    I am not here to argue science, because I don't know it well enough and I don't care to prove/disprove evolution. What I am against is someone disallowing a scientific theory because he wants to dress it up as some ancient pagan philosophy when we are not at all discussing philosophy but a physical mechanism of how speciation works.

    I don't think you seem to understand that though words like "unguided" are thrown around without explanation. No evolutionist will deny that all evolutionary process happened without following the physical laws of the universe.

    Perhaps you should take a look at this: http://geocentrism.com/

    There will always be people who disagree with scientific theory because they think it to somehow undermine their faith.

    God Bless
  • CoptiCOPA
    Dear katanikhoros

    I wish you and everyone here a very happy and blessed Feast of the Nayrouze, the feast of the martyrs.
    I pray that we may have a portion of their faith. Those who were martyred under Diocletian for example, 
    had neither seen Christ physically nor seen any evidence of His appearance- there was no shroud, there was
    no scientist to tell them yes, He had indeed lived on earth. This made no difference to them whatsoever because
    they knew Him personally. He was closer to them than their very soul. They loved Him more than they loved
    their own life. They experienced Him and desired to be with Him forever, so to them death was a door they 
    ran to with great joy. If someone had told them there is no proof that your Christ existed, they would have
    laughed at them and said, we know Him better than we know you. He is more real to us than you are. 
    We have seen His mighty hand in our lives. We have seen His care, we have seen His miraculous hand
    in our lives. Say what you like, it makes no difference to us because we know Him. I pray that we too
    may know Him as they knew Him, that we may love Him as they loved Him, that we may abide in
    Him to the end as they did. May their holy blessings be with us all.


     

  • CoptiCOPA
    Dear Katanikhorus

    you seem to keep bringing up geocentism which is something I am totally ignorant of, that is why I have not addressed it. My limited knowledge is that some people in the Catholic Church came to the conclusion from some verses from the Psalms that the sun revolved around the earth. So when Galileo said that the earth revolved around the sun, they were totally against him and punished him severely. Therefore, you imply, because this happened, we do not want to do the same again?

    OK. Let's look at this together. The verses are Psalm 93:1: "Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved" and Psalm 96:10: "The world also is firmly established, it shall not be moved".

    From what I can see the Holy Bible is scientifically correct. Neither the verses themselves nor the whole psalm say anything whatsoever about the sun. It is a scientific fact that the earth is firmly established in its orbit . So what the Holy Bible says in these verses is correct. These verses show God's care for us, in that He has put physical laws that govern the earth's orbit. Our very existence depends on these laws that He has made that keep the earth firmly established in a precise orbit. The earth has never moved out of its orbit; this would be total disaster. We take these laws for granted but I think this psalm is guiding us to praise God for His care for us at a planetary level. 

    I believe that the Holy Bible is correct but that whoever in the church interpreted these verses was incorrect in the conclusions they drew. 

    So the question seems to be if the people who came to this conclusion in the church were wrong and Galileo was right, then should we accept every scientific theory? Perhaps there were other reasons behind what happened, I do not know. But whatever happened, we should remember that the Holy Bible did not say anything incorrect. Extremely importantly, we should not succumb to feelings of intimidation and subsequently accept every claim made by science. This is exactly what Satan would love us to do.  
  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015
    I am sorry if you do not like me talking about definitions- to be honest it really doesn't matter what definition it is given, because it never happened, it's a hoax, it's a deception, it's a lie, and it grieves me that people fall for it. 

    In 'On the Incarnation of the Word', Saint Athanasius refutes the theory of evolution of his time, the Epicurean philosophy or theory if you prefer. We deduce from this that the theory of evolution was in existence at least 300 years  before Christ. Saint Paul preached to Epicureans in Athens in chapter 17 of Acts, and to the Colossians he writes, saying, "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ" (Col.2:8)

    I am not a scientist either, but people accept evolution as a fact because scientists tell them for example that our DNA is 98% similar to that of chimps. But are they really? Have you looked into it? Do you know how they inferred this similarity? When they did this comparison in the 1960s, they looked at our genes and saw that 97% of them they did not know the function of so because they did not know their function they assumed they were junk DNA and so they did not include them in the comparison. Is this a fair comparison?

    Now they have discovered that these genes are not junk after all. Have they changed this percentage? This lie still trips people up. We are not all geneticists. 

  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015
    As an Orthodox Christian, and if I were any denomination, I see the theory of evolution as diametrically opposed to my Christian faith. It is against our understanding of God. It is incompatible with the whole Scriptures, from the Old Testament to the words of our Lord, to the words of the Apostles, and from words of many of the Church Fathers. I am not an expert on the Church Fathers but so far we have seen that Saint Athanasius and Saint Basil believe in the straightforward reading of the creation account. In the 'City of God', Saint Augustine shows his belief in a literal Adam and Eve (I will find the quote for you). He also believes firmly that the earth is less than 6,000 years. In the Gregorian Liturgy, Saint Gregory says, "You created for me the nature of animals"- he did not say "You created me from the animals"!  

    The theory of evolution and Christianity are totally incompatible. The Holy Scripture teaches us that God is love, that God is perfect, that God created the world with wisdom, that God is not the author of confusion but of peace, that God is good. Evolution by death and struggling and the survival of the fittest are diametrically opposite to all these things we know of God. How can the same God who gave us the Sermon on the Mount have created with this method based on selfcentredness and cruelty? It is a total contradiction. 

    When @Zoxasi asked, Was there a real Adam and Eve, he got many answers- yes, no, maybe, it doesn't matter. I listened to a debate and someone was asked the same question and answered that he believed that Adam was 'Israel'. God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, my friends. 

  • CoptiCOPA
    Wishing you a blessed Nayrouze
    God bless you!
  • minasolimanminasoliman
    edited September 2015
    My dear brother,

    I would like to reply to your posts in depth, but I am a little busy. My priority is very soon to coordinate a Paltalk date with Zoxsasi soon, but very briefly I will reply to some of your arguments.

    My undergraduate degree is in Life Sciences with an emphasis on genetics research, and I recently received my Medical Doctorate. I have a very close friend of mine who is a Geneticist, and a very active Sunday school servant (he was my Sunday School teacher when I was a child). We talk every once in a while. Ever since I been to medical school, we opened up to each other on the science. We both agreed given our expertise, this is not a deception. Evolution is verified genetically, and it is impossible to ignore. Whether you interpret it as a deception or not is a matter of your personal security of how you interpret the Bible. We will differ on this issue as you can tell from my previous posts.

    I agree with Kata on your use of St. Athanasius. It is intellectually dishonest to say that Epicurianism and Evolutionary Science is the same thing. St. Gregory of Nyssa supposedly had similar thoughts on evolution, but I would not compare his thinking and today's technology and use of the scientific method, which is only 300 years old!

    St. Basil may have disagreed with Origen, but that does not exclude the fact he recommended his writings in the anthology of the Philocalia. This means there was some level of freedom and disagreement on Scriptural intepretation, so long as essential dogma is not hurt.

    God bless.

  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015
    Dear Mina

    great to hear from you! 

    I feel it would be better to continue the discussion here on the forum, as I don't feel it's fair on Zoxasi that he hears only one side of the story. Also, perhaps others are interested in following the discussion?

    I am impressed by your qualifications- am I right in understanding you are a Medical Doctor with a PhD in Genetics?

    Please verify what you mean by "Evolution is verified genetically"- is this micro or macro evolution? I think you mentioned earlier that you consider them the same thing?

    Many thanks and regards

    CoptiCOPA
  • minasolimanminasoliman
    I have an MD yes.  But not a PhD in Genetics.  I did research in Genetics, and I have a bachelors in Life Sciences (bio and chem).

    Yes, at the genetic level, this is no difference between "micro" and "macro".  Because of the genetic complexity of more complex organisms, the speed of evolutionary change, or genetic change, is different than those at the micro level, but the process is the same.  Therefore, the micro/macro distinction is just an arbitrary structural distinction, but functionally, there is no difference.

    One of the things you can do to verify evolution is use the same technique you would in determining genetic ancestry or degrees of relation between people.  For instance, my sister and I, or my parents and I will have one degree of separation.  My aunt/uncles/grandparents 2 degrees, my cousins 3 degrees, etc. etc.  These degrees of separation is feasible to calculate between any two persons.  You and I genetically can calculate how far back our common ancestry is (perhaps our great great great great great grandparent is the same).

    This same technique is then used interspecies.  Hence the genetic study between humans and other ape species, like chimps, gorillas, binobos.  As you go further away structurally from our bodies, you would expect this degree of separation to go further.  Indeed, the genetic evidence is very consistent with the structural studies.  Furthermore, the genetic evidence is also consistent with the fossil evidence and dating, thus geological and genetic calculations seem to approximate each other.

    This consistency I find very strong, and it is this consistency I cannot in good conscience ignore and call myself "deceived" for accepting it.  Unless there is a better theory to explain it, there is no better than evolution.  I had to come to terms with this in my studies, and my friend who as my Sunday School teacher also went through the same struggle in his life and thought as a Coptic faithful person, with strong faith and theological background as well.

    One thing I would like to point out in history, it was very common for the Church fathers to believe in a flat "domed" and stationary Earth floating on a vast sea with the sun, moon, and stars revolving around it in particular circular motions.  These are not to be taken as dogma, and neither am I insulting the fathers when I mention their scientific inaccuracy.  It is what they knew best at the time with the technology and the mathematical knowledge that was available to them.  You and I who lived then would probably believe the same thing.  However, given the scientific method being as young as it is relative to all of human history, I cannot compare to the scientific theories of today to the philosophies of the ancient world.  There may be some linguistic similarities, but FAR from being the same thing or the same idea.  To use Epicurian philosophy just to refute an idea is just as questionable as using the "science" of the Church fathers.  It was all speculative, and not based on the scientific methodology that was used very relatively recent in human history.  So I searched out with what is the important dogma of our Church, and I gave a summary of these dogmas and how they fit by faith with the scientific knowledge we possess today, and I still find remarkable theological consistency that does not contradict the scientific consistency we have today.
  • katanikhoroskatanikhoros
    +100
  • katanikhoroskatanikhoros
    Just to add, 
    these same scientific inaccuracies are present in the writings of Scripture because science was not of the concern to the writers, rather like language, it is an imperfect mode of communication for a deeper spiritual truth concerning our salvation. Since the Bible is not the Qur'an but is divinely inspired and not dictated verbatim, human communication is used to convey God's message.

    God Bless
  • CoptiCOPA
    My dear Mina

    The Holy Bible lightens up our way in the darkness of this world with the teaching, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death" (Prov.14:12)(Prov.16:25). To Eve, when she looked to the tree after Satan had lied to her, what he said to her seemed right. The Theory of Evolution is a vehicle that has transported millions, if not tens of millions, to the land of atheism, the land of spiritual death. Christ our Lord tells us to be "wise as serpents" (Matt.10:16). His saintly apostles tell us to "Test all things" (1Thess.5:21), and, "do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God"(1Jn.4:1).

    You say that it is the strong consistency that has led you to accept this theory. You must be aware that any 'intellgent' criminal wanting to cover his tracks needs to have a consistency in his alibi so as not to be caught out. It is the work of a good detective to scratch beneath the surface and test the truth of his claims. Likewise, we must dig deep into each part of the claims that are being made. When we do, my friend, you can be sure the whole thing falls apart like a tower of cards. Come and let us see together what you have been led to believe.

    "at the genetic level, there is no difference between 'micro' and 'macro' evolution". 

    This is an astonishing claim. Even in the article you gave me to read when I asked about if there was one single example of a mutation that has caused an increase in the information of a genome- even in there the writer quotes from Lynch that "the gene duplication process provides fuel for both of the major engines of evolution: adaptive phenotypic change within lineages and the creation of new lineages by speciation". There is a difference. Let us take two examples: from fish to a frog and from a lizard to a bird. I know these are totally arbitrary but I'm just trying to make a point with them. For a fish to evolve into a frog, it needs to gain legs. For a lizard to evolve into a bird it needs to gain wings.


  • CoptiCOPA
    You told me that you think that an increase in genetic information has something to do with gene duplication which is what the scientific article detailed. As a medical doctor, you must be familiar with the fact that gene duplication leads to many diseases such as Down Syndrome, for example, where each cell in the body has three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the usual two copies. But leaving this aside and saying that perhaps, by with a bit of luck, as Dawkins said is need in this, and millions and billions of years, at some point the fish should have a mutation that gives rise to additional information for a leg or four, and the lizard needs a mutation that will give rise to a wing or two. The leg in the case of the fish and the wing in the case of the lizard are brand new genes, brand new information that didn't exist before and that can in no way come from the duplication of genes that have nothing whatsoever to do with legs in the case of the fish or wings in the case of the lizard. Gene duplication is a duplication of existing information, not new information.

    Let's see what the article says. The article uses the words 'probably' and 'may'. There is nothing concrete. For example, the writer says, "Duplication of genetic material has probably played a major role in the evolution of all genomes. Gene duplication provides the raw material for the generation of new genes, and so is one of the principle drivers of evolutionary novelty at the molecular level. They also play a role in promoting genome rearrangement and probably, in driving speciation... I then focus on the human genome, and highlighting the particular roles gene duplication has probably played in human evolution. The large amount of duplicated material in the human genome suggests gene duplication may have been particularly important in human evolution". 

    What does he say about the fate of duplicated genes? He says, "For a duplicated gene to evolve a new function, positively-selected mutations for the new function would need to occur before any loss-of-function mutation. Such mutations seem likely to be much more than beneficial ones, leading to a slight mystery over how exactly duplicated genes have produced the remarkable diversity of existing gene families".

    So he is saying that loss-of-function mutations seem more likely than beneficial ones, so he says it's a slight mystery over how exactly duplicated genes have produced new species. It's a mystery to him. It's a mystery to us too. :-)

    In concluding, he says, "gene and genome duplications... may have played a key part in... producing the human species". It may have and it may not have. The conclusion we can draw from this article is that there is no solid or concrete example of a gene duplication leading to any increase in new genetic information, But on the contrary, it is a mystery how it was used. He is assuming that it did in the past and finds it quite mystifying. 

    The first law of thermodynamics states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. However, genes are more than matter; they are information. In his book, 'In the Beginning was Information' Dr Gitt describes The First Law of Information, "Information cannot originate in statistical processes (chance plus time cannot create information, no matter how much time and how many chances are available)".  The Second Law of Information out of interest is that "Information can only originate from an intelligent sender".





  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015
    Regarding verifying evolution by the techniques used to determine the degrees of relationships between humans or living things. Well, it depends on how you interpret this data. You could also interpret it to be the degree of common design or common function. I am sure that if you compared a human being with a banana you will get a degree of similarity. Does this mean that humans are related to bananas? Well, apparently 4 billion years ago, eucaryotes branched out into plants and amoeba. So can we conclude that because we share certain genes with banana that we are cousins one million or so times removed? To believe that, we must be bananas!! I joke, my friend. :-) Come on! I You can see what I am getting at. Degrees of separation if interpreted another way can indicate simply the similar functions inherent in living things. All living things, both plants and animals, share seven characteristics such as movement, reproduction, respiration, and so on. So it is no surprise that our amazing Designer used the same functions in the DNA instructions.  
  • CoptiCOPA
    Regarding Epicurean philosophy, I am not misleading anybody. I listed what Saint Athanasius wrote and also listed how the dictionary defined it. You can draw your own conclusion. Saint Athanasius also said people among whom were the Epicureans. There are other Greek philosophies existing at the same time that said the same thing. Please just research the history of the theory of evolution to confirm.






  • CoptiCOPA
    edited September 2015
    Dear Kata

    Saint Paul tells us that, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2Tim.3:16). It is not meant to be a science text book, nevertheless it is the word of God and as such we must listen and keep in our hearts the words of our Lord in His prayer to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Your word is truth" (Jn.17:17) You must remember that there is a huge spiritual war going on between the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God. As Satan is a liar and God is the truth, God's word which is the truth is that which exposes the lies of Satan and that is why Satan has been working relentlessly since the Garden of Eden to undermine, mock, question, ridicule His word. 

    The word of God is also the only offensive weapon in our spiritual armoury as Saint Paul explains to us this spiritual battle, saying, "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 

    Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph.6). As soldiers on the side of the kingdom of God we are supposed to gain ground for our King, to bring others to the true faith. How do we do this? With the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God". Why is this? Because "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom.10:17).




  • CoptiCOPA

    So don't be surprised when you hear the word of God being undermined- that has been the work of the ruler of this world ever since he said to our mother Eve, "Has God indeed said, '... '?" (Gen.31). She did not resist him, she was not steadfast in the faith. But what about you and I, my dear brother?

    God bless you all.


  • RemnkemiRemnkemi
    Copticopa,

    I understand your zeal against evolution but your approach to me seems dishonest. You addressed Mina's point of consistency as an example of an intelligent criminal wanting to cover his tracks through an alibi. The implication is that if the intention of an intelligent criminalis to cover his tracks through his alibi, it automatically nullifies the alibi. The implication further states the same must apply to evolutionary science. The first part is debunked by simple jurisprudence. If a person has an alibi, he is innocent. If you continue to believe he is a criminal, then the onus is on you to prove his alibi false. If a competent detective is able to prove he had falsified an alibi, then he never had an alibi to begin with. Thus having a true alibi does not prove guilt but innocence. Evolution is no different. The alibi is science and different sciences corroborate the theory. You are basically trying to defunct evolution by taking down the very scientific methodology and scientific philosophy that is the foundation of science. It is imperative that we accept science for what it is, a true process for the discovery of information, not as some sort of conspiracy cover up.

    In order to show science is false, you are using biblical verses out of context to show the very nature of scientific philosophy is wrong. Proverbs 14:12, for example, does not talk about philosophical ideas that seem right and lead to death. The whole chapter speaks about people's behavior towards sin and morality. The same holds true for Matthew 10 and 1 Thess 5. In the former, Christ is commissioning his disciples to raise their defenses against men who will persecute them and in the latter St Paul is talking about the anti-Christ and the end of the world. Nothing in these verses gives us a blanket statement to challenge evolution in a priori ideologically manner. If you want to challenge evolution, don't use the bible for support. It won't work.

    Regarding microevolution vs. macroevolution, a simple search in Wikipedia revealed this:
    "Microevolution can be contrasted with macroevolution, which is the occurrence of large-scale changes in gene frequencies in a population over a geological time period (i.e. consisting of either rapid or extended microevolution). The difference is largely one of approach. Microevolution is reductionist, but macroevolution is holistic. Each approach offers different insights into the evolution process. Macroevolution can be seen as the sum of periods of microevolution, and thus the two are qualitatively identical while being quantitatively different."

    Now you may not want to believe anything on Wikipedia (I usually don't). But it illustrates the fact that some people believe there is no substantial distinction at the core of micro and macroevolution. At the very least, one cannot say microevolution is entirely acceptable and macroevolution is not since such a distinction does not occur in science but in religious anti-evolution polemics. 

    You wrote, "The first law of thermodynamics states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. However, genes are more than matter; they are information. In his book, 'In the Beginning was Information' Dr Gitt describes The First Law of Information, "Information cannot originate in statistical processes (chance plus time cannot create information, no matter how much time and how many chances are available)".
    This also seems out of context. At the very least it is a very weak argument. You are trying to use chemistry and physics to explain information. If information cannot originate in a statistical process, then why is there even an interdisciplinary science called information science that uses statistical analyses and processes to describe the "the analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection of information"? You have to explain how the brain creates art and intellectual information that is even protected by law, if information is never "created". This illustrates that however Dr Gitt described as the First Law of Information, it needs more clarification to apply to our discussion at hand.

    I am not versed enough to explain how genetic information is gained from evolution. I do know that many Christian geneticists do not have a problem with evolution. They do not try to disprove it in any form. They have a large corpus of consistent studies over a century that describes genetic processes that seem to fit the theories of evolution and biology. 


  • CoptiCOPA
    Dear Remnkimi

    Please don't overcomplicate what I am trying to say- I just used the criminal as an example, to show that yes, everything evolution says is consistent - for example they say that 98% of the dna of a chimp and man are the same and the age of the earth is billions of years old and mutations that add info can happen and so on but when you go into detail you find that these are based on major assumptions which they do not tell you. So yes what they say is consistent but it doesn't mean that because it is consistent it is true.

    I am using the Bible to point out to a spiritual aspect that we are supposed to be alert to the wiles of the Devil. I am not being dishonest. When I tried to use science only, I was told I had to get my theology in line with others first before I move on to science. When I try to give you a spiritual view you accuse me of being dishonest.

    Of course there are many geneticists who do not believe in evolution. I can find them if that is what will convince you. 

    I have spent much time reading books by scientists from various fields of speciality, refuting this subject from a scientific point of view. 

    I read the article Mina told me to read and the man says himself it is a mystery how duplicate genes caused this diversity of life- I did not invent that you can read it yourself it is on the previous page.

This discussion has been closed.