RE: Theistic Darwinsim

RE: Theistic Darwinsim (Full Version)

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gluadys -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/7/2008 1:04:47 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jeafl quote: ORIGINAL: gluadys Thermodynamically, a closed system is one to which no energy is added by an external source. By this definition, the earth is not a closed system. So a finite earth/universe plus an infinite God does not equal a closed system. My question is based on the premise that as long as God is in control of the created earth/universe, that created earth/universe is an open system and God can add to it as He pleases so the earth/universe would never run out of natural resources for the living things that it contains. So your premise is that God did not set up a providential system to govern the order of nature, but that apparent providence cloaks a system that relies on continuous miraculous intervention to keep things going. I wonder, in that case, why God would have called this universe that needs continual tinkering "good". Do you also claim that God intended to continually increase the size of the planet to accommodate an increase in population? And that he would have altered the gravitational constant to keep it habitable? I would also be interested in what you suppose the garbage disposal system was for the waste products produced by living things.

Consecrated2God -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/7/2008 1:15:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: cow451 quote: ORIGINAL: Carico quote: ORIGINAL: jeafl Darwinism’s survival of the fittest is predicated on the proposition that living things must struggle with each other and with their environment in order to live and this means that living things must die. How is a god that would create living things just so they would die be worthy of our respect, obedience or worship? Survival of the fittest also predicates that humans are evolving into a new superior species. I wonder what that could be? gods, perhaps? [sm=purplelaugh.gif] But that's what happens when people worship scientists. They try to fit a square peg into a round hole no matter what they have to do to get it in there. [8\|] It would be easier to have a discussion if you actually knew something about science other than that which you gleaned at Vacation Bible School. BTW, Darwin did not invent the term "survival of the fittest". I'll be glad to give a link to some information if you want to improve your understanding. Comments like this really aren't necessary. There are several comments in this thread and others that border on personal attack. Please try and have a discussion without resorting to insulting each other. If you are unclear about what kind of behavior is appropriate in forums, the Terms of Service is available for your convenience on the top blue bar of every page, and also on the bottom of the page above the Salem Web Network logo. I would especially like to draw your attention to TOS #6: quote: . You will not harass, threaten, embarrass or distress users, either in the community itself or via personal email, phone, physical mail or in person. You will not engage in name-calling or personal attacks in the course of discussion or debate. You will not post inflammatory remarks simply for the purpose for evoking reaction or starting fights with other community members (Often referred to as "trolling"). Overall, promoting a spirit of divisiveness in the chat and forums community will not be tolerated. - Attacking the character or motives of someone who differs with your view or denying that he or she is a Christian is unacceptable. Please be more careful in the future. If you have questions concerning this nudge, please e-mail community@salemwebnetwork.com. Do not PM me or post about it in the community. Sincerely, Lisa Luper Moderator

scutus -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/14/2008 5:34:03 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jeafl quote: ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes Living things die. This is an obvious fact. Only in a sinful world. Why? Why is death sinful?

drmark -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/14/2008 11:23:53 PM)
quote: quote: Only in a sinful world. Why? Why is death sinful? You have it backwards, scutus. Death is not sinful, rather sin is "deathful" - Romans 5:12-21.

ianz -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/15/2008 12:33:09 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: EStan Hmmm, I wonder if that might not be a better question for the "God" subforum, since it's really questioning the nature of God. Anyway, short answer: sin and death (some believers say "spiritual death") entered the world when Adam and Eve sinned against God by not obeying Him. I'm not a Christian - but God gave Adam and Eve the ability to have children. Since the Earth can only sustain a limited number of people, God must have planned for us to die, otherwise we would have over-populated the Earth. Regards, Ian

drmark -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/15/2008 9:00:24 AM)
quote: Since the Earth can only sustain a limited number of people, God must have planned for us to die, otherwise we would have over-populated the Earth. Actually, God has planned to provide us a new heaven and earth (2 Peter 3:10-13 and Revelation 21:1-4) way before this one becomes "over-populated"!

ianz -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 9:05:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: drmark quote: Since the Earth can only sustain a limited number of people, God must have planned for us to die, otherwise we would have over-populated the Earth. Actually, God has planned to provide us a new heaven and earth (2 Peter 3:10-13 and Revelation 21:1-4) way before this one becomes "over-populated"! But the Earth can never be 'over-populated', because we can't exceed the maximum. So God must have planned death for us, since we would otherwise generate a population that could not sustain further growth. i.e. I'm not sure I can see why, in terms of bringing us humans death, it would have made any difference whether or not Eve choose to eat the fruit. She ate it, we die. If she hadn't eaten it, we'd die eventually anyway as the world's population of hitherto ageless persons reached the maximum the Earth could support. So one way or another we were pre-destined to experience mortality. Regards, Ian

drmark -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 9:22:36 AM)
quote: But the Earth can never be 'over-populated', because we can't exceed the maximum. We cannot or will not exceed the maximum? I have no idea (nor do you) what God could have done to increase Earth's habitability if humanity had remained immune to physical death. His Word states there will be a new heaven and earth in the future, not that we have been "pre-destined to experience mortality". quote: If she hadn't eaten it, we'd die eventually anyway as the world's population of hitherto ageless persons reached the maximum the Earth could support. So one way or another we were pre-destined to experience mortality. I'm sorry, Ian, but this is nothing more than humanist speculation. The Bible says that death entered the world through the disobedience of Adam but that eternal life comes through Jesus Christ. The plan of salvation has been predestined for all who accept it to experience eternal life. I will be ageless in Heaven!

ianz -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 9:34:58 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: drmark quote: But the Earth can never be 'over-populated', because we can't exceed the maximum. We cannot or will not exceed the maximum? I have no idea (nor do you) what God could have done to increase Earth's habitability if humanity had remained immune to physical death. His Word states there will be a new heaven and earth in the future, not that we have been "pre-destined to experience mortality". Well, we can't exceed the maximum - it's a maximum. The Earth is a finite resource. If humans had remained ageless, we would eventually have hit the maximum number of humans the Earth can support. So one way or another, we had to start dying. I confess I've never thought about this before so my reasoning may be a bit wacky, but no matter how I look at it, death was going to enter our world at some point. Regards, Ian

iluvatar -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 10:53:02 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: drmark quote: But the Earth can never be 'over-populated', because we can't exceed the maximum. We cannot or will not exceed the maximum? I have no idea (nor do you) what God could have done to increase Earth's habitability if humanity had remained immune to physical death. His Word states there will be a new heaven and earth in the future, not that we have been "pre-destined to experience mortality". Even if you wanted to argue that God could have provided unlimited natural resources, there's still only a limited amount of space. There would have come a time when we wouldn't all fit. If nobody dies and the population doubles every 30 years, the population would multiply by 1000 every ~300 years. So after 900 years, you'd have 1 billion people; after 1200, 1 trillion; after 1500, 1 quadrillion, etc. Even if the population doubled every 100 years (going by OT ages), the population would multiply by 1000 every thousand years. If the earth is 6000 years old and neither Adam nor his progeny ever sinned, we'd have 1.15 quintillion people on earth now - that's 200 million times more than we have now. If each person was given a 2'x2' square to stand on, they'd take up about 4.610^18 sq ft. If we dried up all the oceans, earth has a surface area of approx 5.510^15 sq ft. We'd need somewhere in the neighborhood of 836 earths to fit all of those people. And then there's the animals that allegedly never died which happen to reproduce MUCH more quickly than humans. -Dan.

Consecrated2God -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 11:04:54 AM)
According to this site, only about 100 billion people have died in the history of the world. That's not even close to 115 quadillion people. There's another article I found though about the population of the world that was really cool, but I think I'll start a new thread for that one.

drmark -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 3:15:06 PM)
quote: I confess I've never thought about this before so my reasoning may be a bit wacky, but no matter how I look at it, death was going to enter our world at some point. Of course, this would be the only conclusion a naturalist can come to. Your reasoning is not wacky, it's your presuppositions that are.

iluvatar -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 6:50:35 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God According to this site, only about 100 billion people have died in the history of the world. That's not even close to 115 quadillion people. There's another article I found though about the population of the world that was really cool, but I think I'll start a new thread for that one. That's because due to various causes of death (war, famine, plague, poor sanitation, etc) the population growth rate has been much lower than what I used in my calculations. If you follow the link in that article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population, you'll see that until the last ~40 years, the population growth rate has been accelerating due to advances in medicine and agriculture, with the peak in 1963 @ 2.19% (i.e. a doubling every 32-33 years). With current rates, the population doubles every ~60 years or so - and that's with lots of people dying and declining birth rates in many industrialized societies. So my numbers were conservative compared with growth rates we see today, not just compared to what life would be like if we were all immortal. -Dan.

Consecrated2God -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 9:20:05 PM)
quote: So my numbers were conservative compared with growth rates we see today, not just compared to what life would be like if we were all immortal. Why do you think the rate population growth would be higher if we lived in a sinless world? I would think they'd be slower. After all, you'd have eternity to have children. You could space them a hundred years apart.

drmark -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/16/2008 10:28:59 PM)
quote: After all, you'd have eternity to have children. You could space them a hundred years apart. And how does "be fruitful and mutilply" relate to "child spacing"? Would that be sin in a sinless world?

ianz -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/17/2008 5:14:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God quote: So my numbers were conservative compared with growth rates we see today, not just compared to what life would be like if we were all immortal. Why do you think the rate population growth would be higher if we lived in a sinless world? I would think they'd be slower. After all, you'd have eternity to have children. You could space them a hundred years apart. Putting aside a number of questions this raises - even if growth rates were slow, the Earth still has a finite number of people it can support. It does not matter how slow the population growth rate was, we would still eventually reach the maximum number Earth can support, at which point either we'd have to stop having children (thus disobeying go forth and multiply) or we'd have to start dying, to make space for the new ones. Regards, Ian

ianz -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/17/2008 5:33:07 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: drmark quote: I confess I've never thought about this before so my reasoning may be a bit wacky, but no matter how I look at it, death was going to enter our world at some point. Of course, this would be the only conclusion a naturalist can come to. Your reasoning is not wacky, it's your presuppositions that are. Well in the absence of an alternative explanation, I have no choice but to draw this conclusion. Your response would be more interesting if it challenged the logic. Regards, Ian

Consecrated2God -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/17/2008 7:43:10 AM)
Speaking of the topic, Let's move the conversation about population to this thread: The population discussion. Thanks! Sincerely, Lisa Luper Moderator Please do not reply to this message within the Community. Please email Community@salemwebnetwork.com with questions, comments, or concerns. Please do not send me PMs regarding this message.

EStan -> RE: Theistic Darwinsim (8/20/2008 3:40:38 PM)
Sorry, but I think endless speculation about what might have happened had man not disobeyed God and caused sin and death to enter the world is a waste of time. Again, I apologize if that offends anybody - but the fact remains, Eve did eat the fruit, gave some to her husband, and the two of them were banished from the garden. Only by the grace and love of God can we now be reconciled to Him through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. [:)]

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