Maybe I'm missing something here, but this sounds an awful lot like Lamarckian inheritance. Life's ability to respond to stimuli should have no bearing on natural selection, which works from the pallet of genetic variation. I think you're engaging in some special pleading here. Going off your example, the Earth could not remain in its orbit if its environment weren't conducive to such. If a big asteroid came and knocked it out of its pattern, it would effectively be "selected out" from the solar system. The Earth, then, is situated in its orbit precisely because it remains a favorable spot. The same is true for the spacial locus of any biological organism--it is where it is because it was "formed" there and it is able to persist there.
I wonder where this thread is going? lol I don't see why natural selection, evolution and Christianity can't exist together and agree. After all, God can do anything - even make the earth seem older than its creation point. Creating a history which appears to precede the creation is something God can do. Why is that difficult to accept? It's so simple, there are far far more challenging ideas in religion.
It seems to me that this conception of the world would pose huge theological questions. An obvious one is whether such a god that would knowingly deceive people could be considered "good" as is commonly held by the Abrahamic faiths. A more interesting problem, though, is that this theology forces us ontologically into a sort of Barkeleyan idealism, where all that exists is part of the mind, either ours or God's. All materialistic determinations instantly become suspect, as one could simply explain away any apparent phenomenon as God making things seem as what they are not. A further problem arises when you go to examine so-called holy texts and are forced to conclude that God may be imbuing a false authority into them. Thus, if the scientific conclusions concerning the age of the earth are called into question, so are the theological ones of the inerrancy of the Bible or Quran.
Excellent points! I agree the argument that God can do everything so empiracal evidence for Evolution shouldn't be taken at face value since God could just be deciding to deceive us humans would mean that everything is in doubt. For that matter why would God choose to deceive us? Is this supposed to be a test of faith? If so what if its the religious texts that he is deceiving us with? I have no problem with believing that God exists but at the same time that doesn't mean that scientific knowledge doesn't exist too. This just seems to be a false dichotomy based upon a literal, and in my opinion shallow, view of religious texts.
They can, and there’s no need to believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old as most young earth creationists believe. Nowhere in the Bible does it specifically state the age of the earth. YEC is more of a traditional belief based on assumptions about the meaning of certain passages in the Bible. It’s not a literal interpretation of the bible, although they tend to claim it is because they see their assumptions as they only possible interpretation of these passages.
Perhaps your ire should be directed to the post that stated that if natural selection was more widely understood, there "wouldn't be the need for the supernatural". I don't see a criticism of evolution here.
Science doesn't explain everything, but it is the only way you can know anything. I'm with the OP in wondering why anyone pays attention to vestigial nonsense.
Yes but your thought hinges completely on the idea that it is "deception" rather than a favor, gift or mercy of some sort. Deception is one of a large number of possibilities. For example, let's say Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son. He was about to. Then when he didn't God didn't punish him. Since God knows the future, did he deceive Abraham when he said YOU HAVE TO SACRIFICE YOUR CHILD? No, it wasn't deception. It was mercy. It was setting an example. It was coding something into the human mind in a specific way for a specific reason. For all we know, the population would perish if the history wasn't coded as such. Also, I have never heard of this Barkeleyan idealism, but it sounds a whole lot like blind faith in religion. It doesn't really surprise any of us that I don't think my faith is blind but you do, does it?
Also, apples come in green/yellow/red. If religion is what it purports to be, your statement is simply stating the obvious - religion doesn't need to evolve whereas science always will (even according to religion lol).
