Religious People - Where do you stand on the creationist/evolutionist scale?

[Greatest I am]

Third option ending was supposed to read: "without natural selection ever being present"
Fourth option ending was supposed to read: "on his/her/their own without the help of natural selection.


This is intended to be a poll, not an evolution megathread, but if it turns into that, so be it.

As I've stated many times before, I'm a (christian) theistic evolutionist. The creation story wouldn't have been written if god didn't play a role, but the scientific evidence for an old earth and some level of natural selection is definitely there and very hard to deny in my view. I believe this is consistent with the bible, even if I don't have a perfect answer to every question YECers/OECers ask.

You forget that all religions have some kind of creation myth so why would you pick a fairly recent Christian myth over the older myths and traditions?

[Greatest I am]

I am an ''Old Earth, Young Humanity'' creationist.

You seem to promote Jesus'/Yahweh's substitutionary atonement as moral and just.

How so when your own scriptures speak of our being responsible for our own salvation?

Most Christians will not argue for it. Perhaps because every decent court on earth would reject such a notion as they believe that justice should seek to punish the guilty and not the innocent.

I basically think the way this Bishop does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKNup9gEBdg&feature=em-subs_digest-vrecs

Are you up for a civil argument here or in a new O.P. as to not highjack this one?

If so, please refute this following statement here or begin a new thread.

Having another innocent person suffer for the wrongs you have done, --- so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, --- is immoral.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Young Earth, but I do recognize that they're some evidence in favor of the other choices.

Do you see your bible as evidence given that it begins with a talking serpent and a God who cannot seem to get creation right?

By that I mean that he screwed up heaven with Satan, he screwed up Eden by having to murder A & E by neglect and locking away what would have kept t5hem alive, the tree of life, and finally God could not control his own sons of God and had to genocide almost the whole earth to reboot the system.

Not a great record for a God. Right?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

A bit of comic relief followed by how creation really happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPQj5ITva9k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmD9ZWDUsNY

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I think the question is perhaps backwards. I believe that it is our role to discern the nature of the universe, its creation, and through that God's relationship to humans. Discernment is a neverending process and continually reveals new facts. So today we can speak of a universe that dates to 13.8 Gya, and Earth to 4.5 Gya. We can speak of an evolutionary process at the molecular level involving changes to DNA. I believe we will continue to discern new facts about the universe and life on Earth, some of which will supplant facts we currently accept.

How can we have a relationship to an absentee God who does not even speak to us long enough to tell us which of the myriad of Gods on our menu is the real one?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I think the question is perhaps backwards. I believe that it is our role to discern the nature of the universe, its creation, and through that God's relationship to humans. Discernment is a neverending process and continually reveals new facts. So today we can speak of a universe that dates to 13.8 Gya, and Earth to 4.5 Gya. We can speak of an evolutionary process at the molecular level involving changes to DNA. I believe we will continue to discern new facts about the universe and life on Earth, some of which will supplant facts we currently accept.

How can we have a relationship to an absentee God who does not even speak to us long enough to tell us which of the myriad of Gods on our menu is the real one?

Regards
DL

Your question implies that God speaks in ways like you and I might speak to each other. I wouldn't accept that assumption, and I claim no great knowledge as to what is and isn't God speaking. Who am I to say that God isn't speaking to us over many lifetimes, revealing more as time goes on. That's why I stressed discernment, since I do believe that discernment involves trying to understand the way in which God speaks to us.

Seems you are seeking Gnosis.

Look within, as Jesus preached and you might find.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Think of it as seeking your Father, as in Father Complex.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9QI3nlinYQ

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

How can we have a relationship to an absentee God who does not even speak to us long enough to tell us which of the myriad of Gods on our menu is the real one?

Regards
DL
[/quote]

Your question implies that God speaks in ways like you and I might speak to each other. I wouldn't accept that assumption, and I claim no great knowledge as to what is and isn't God speaking. Who am I to say that God isn't speaking to us over many lifetimes, revealing more as time goes on. That's why I stressed discernment, since I do believe that discernment involves trying to understand the way in which God speaks to us.
[/quote]

Seems you are seeking Gnosis.

Look within, as Jesus preached and you might find.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Think of it as seeking your Father, as in Father Complex.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9QI3nlinYQ

Regards
DL

[/quote]

I believe knowledge is found in the universe around us as well as within.[/quote]

Absolutely, if you are seeing what is true.

Here is what I think is true.

Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.
If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.
But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

As you can see from that quote, if we see God's kingdom all around us and inside of us, we cannot think that the world is anything but evolving perfection. Most just don't see it and live in poverty. Let me try to make you see the world the way I do.

Here is a mind exercise. Tell me what you see when you look around. The best that can possibly be or an ugly and imperfect world?

Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

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This seems to bolster my point above.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[/quote]

Idol worshipers, which includes most Christians and Muslims do have cause when they have decided to swallow all the lies that their priests, preachers and imams feed them on a steady diet.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

As you can see from that quote, if we see God's kingdom all around us and inside of us, we cannot think that the world is anything but evolving perfection. Most just don't see it and live in poverty. Let me try to make you see the world the way I do.

Here is a mind exercise. Tell me what you see when you look around. The best that can possibly be or an ugly and imperfect world?

I see neither. Your exercise is to me a false dichotomy. I see a universe governed by laws, some of which we know and some of which we do not. That doesn't make it evolve towards perfection, since the laws known and unknown are already in place. The universe evolves according to those laws, but that makes it beautiful and yet imperfect.

So to you, the universe following it's laws is somehow short of evolving perfection. Ok.

Which universal law should we not follow to improve what is?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Darwinian, which is totally compatible with the believe that the Universe was created by some form of higher consciousness.

Compatible, I do not think so.

Darwin would say that nature would or could never evolve to having talking serpents and donkeys or water walking men.

Regards
DL 

[Greatest I am]

Yes there is a scale.

A scale called supernatural and fantasy and intelligent people will not pass that scale of lack of intelligence.

Yet people cannot even rate a perfectly evolving natural system as perfect.

Regards
DL