The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Evolution, The Flood, and God’s True Nature

BTW, this is off topic, but because Randy love’s Zombies so much and people some people here hate them and are horrified by them, I thought I’d chime in.

“desensitization” is a good thing, in most cases. Christianity (the version I grew up in) taught me it was bad. It isn’t bad at all, which is why therapy uses it “ERP” to get people over their phobias and OCD symptoms. We, in the west, are not desensitized in many ways to many things that other people around the globe think is “no big deal”. An example of desensitizing: The thought of watching someone butcher a deer is barbarous to me. Why would that be? Because I have never witnessed it. So, could I then imply that a butcher is an immoral person just because I am sensitized to it? By no means. Should my life depend on it, and I had to learn how to butcher an animal, after a few times of doing it would be “nothing” to make note of. Not gross, not anything. It just is.

Parents see their children die in the third world. They move on with life. People in the west are destroyed when it happens, often they shutdown for the rest of their lives, because it is rare. Not something we see happen to other people (often) and so we are very, very sensitive to it.

Clothing is another example. Muslims are very sensitized towards women showing flesh, so they cover them up completely. If a women shows part of her ankle, the men in that culture can’t stop lusting after it, because it isn’t proper! Meanwhile, most men see women on the beach or in their workout clothes and thinking nothing of it. We have desensitized ourselves to it. If we didn’t, then people would literally go insane.

Desensitization protects us in most cases. I suppose it could be misused, but that is the nature of everything.

Zombies creep people out because they are scared of death, they fear gross and ugly things. I’d suggest people look at it more to get over it, because people do live in this world that look pretty close to some of those zombies and I think your inability to look at them without horror would be very hurtful to them. Just some food for thought. Look up ERP (Exposure Response Prevention) that many psychologists use, you may ultimately see how it is good thing and that shying away from scary things just makes them more scary.

I’m still not clear: is Randy trying to warn us about a forthcoming Zombie Apocalypse? Or is he actually trying to desensitize us to it :question:

I can’t speak for Randy. All I am saying is for us to look at why Zombies might scare/offend us. Is it because we are uncomfortable with ugly, rotting things or death, or maybe both?

Lancia, for your consideration, here is a very short essay titled, The Myth of Falsifiability,” by John F. McGowan, a NASA research engineer, and physics Ph.D.

Also, regarding the question of rapid speciation, required by the YEC model,

From my limited understanding, according to the young-earth model, rapid speciation would have been triggered by environmental pressure working on small, isolated populations. After the Flood, the earth experienced many years, even centuries, of residual catastrophism. Changes occurred through recombination of existing genes in the rich genomes of the “kinds,” not mutations as evolution requires.

A couple of articles on this question, substantiating rapid speciation:

-Getting Enough Genetic Diversity: How Species Arose After the Ark, by Dr. Nathaniel T. Jeanson.
-Darwin’s finches: Evidence supporting rapid post-Flood adaptation, by Carl Wieland.

Blessings.

:laughing: lol… I’ve been looking at Randy’s zombies for ages now and I’m well and truly “over it” — NOT because of any latent fear but because I think they’re stupid. But I understood such works for Randy so I just look for his salient points while I sail right past his weird little friends… :laughing:

I’m all for a laugh but after a while it’s just variations of the same message — but I guess according to our own particular bents we all (OR at least I’ll own mine) do the same thing. Maybe I’m just jealous because I can’t put pictures to my idiosyncrasies. :mrgreen:

I agree with some of that paper’s conclusions. But there is nothing there that is surprising. When a hypothesis is tested, especially in the case of complex ones, the hypothesis itself is rarely directly testable. Instead a testable prediction is deduced from it. In essence what one does it this: If H is true, then so is I, where H is the complex hypothesis and I is the testable (in theory) prediction. This gives us the first step in the following test in syllogism form.

Premise 1: IF H is true, then so is I.

But as is almost always the case in complex hypotheses, the deduction of I from H is never an easy step. The deduction is not clean and usually introduces a number of hidden assumptions or auxiliary hypotheses, A1 and A2 for example, so the premise actually looks more like this.

Premise 1: If H, A1, and A2 are true, so is I.

So, then when I is tested, so must A1 and A2 be tested. But often these auxiliary hypotheses are not immediately obvious to the scientist, so they are not tested initially. It is only after the hypothesis is falsified (i.e., falsely falsified, one might say) and the dogged scientist refuses to give up are these auxiliary hypotheses discovered and tested separately. So, far from being a problem that the paper you linked to suggests, the recognition of these auxiliary hypotheses is a good thing because it forces the scientific community to come closer to the truth in their complex hypothesis testing.

That model of speciation you describe is in fact the allopatric model that is believed to be responsible for most speciation. However, the formation of a million or so species (a conservative, approximate number of extant species) in such a short span of time still boggles the mind.

By the way, evolution does not necessarily require additional mutations beyond the ones already involved in existing genes that are recombined. The requirement for evolution may be met by recombination of existing genes into new arrangements that may suffice to introduce genetic variability that natural selection can act upon. So, what is required in evolution is genetic variation, which can be produced by new mutations or by simply rearrangements of older genetic material in new ways. An extreme example of this occurs in speciation by polyploidy, in which there is absolutely no new mutation at all. What happens in this case is an increase in the number of chromosomal sets beyond the usual 2. What we see in speciation by polyploidy is an instantaneous formation of a new species as the offspring generation receives abnormally 3, 4, or even more sets of chromosomes compared to the 2 in the parents. The offspring cannot interbreed with the parents because of lack of chromosomal pairing at meiosis, the process that produces gametes, but they can among themselves.

Everyone here is consistent, with their own - off-topic message - theologically. Especially when compared, to what folks NORMALLY believe, in a theological, bell-shaped - statistical curve.

Besides, if I am right… Then I am performing a great service - for humanity. :smiley:

And what is the philosophical definition of beauty (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye))? Which is something the Twilight Zone episode, YouTube video raises at Eye of the Beholder.

The question to ask - is this: If the devil wants to give us things, like the Zombie Apocalypse…Then what does God, want to give us? Well, last night a Pentecostal preacher - gave his list:

Salvation
Sanctification
Gifts of the Holy Ghost
Health
Prosperity

Well, it got me to thinking. My list is NOT so far removed:

Salvation
Theosis
Charismatic gifts
Expect good things from God
Real presence in the Eucharist (How this is so, is a divine mystery. This answer is given, by the Eastern Orthodox and Methodists)

As far as zombies go, this GIF says it all :laughing:

Now we can add contemplation on our end (i.e. Fox Golden Key or Christians practicing yoga)…In order to be more receptive. Let’s look at part of today’s contemplation from the Center for Contemplation and Action

And of course, watching TV shows - like TV minster Joel Osteen.

And since part of this forum thread’s theme is “God’s true nature”…Here’s my view, of what he wants to give us. It’s up to us to choose.:

Food for thought:

  1. Purpose, Goodness, and Evolution, by Trevor Major, which examines some difficulties with theistic evolution.

  2. You know what destroyed Charles Darwin’s faith?,” a short essay by Richard Murray.

According to Bishop Ussher, God created the world on Sunday, October23, 4004 BC. I have no idea how he arrived at that date, but to my way of thinking, Ussher’s asseveration is no less believable than those of modern theorists concerning the evolution of the Universe.

I just finished reading This, and I have to say, it makes a very strong argument for intelligent design. It’s an enjoyable and mind-stretching read. There are little tidbits that fascinated me - such as, Jupiter. Jupiter has saved and is saving the Earth from annihilaton by meteors! The huge gravitational field of the big planet pulls in the meteors from the asteroid belt and other wanderers.
And that darn Moon! Happens to be in a place, the only place it could be to provide its function of keeping the Earth from leaning too far. You have to read it - those are just tidbits in a huge cosmological argument.
Buy it now. Read it fast, Report back. :sunglasses:

Dave, as a side note, Heeren is a sincere Christian and a great writer, but he has changed his position since the last edition of Show Me God—What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God. He now says,

Please let me reiterate:

Blessings.

I may have mis-represented Heeren by using the term ‘intelligent design’! I forgot how loaded a term that was - I was only trying to point out that he made quite the case for the fine-balancing, to the point of being miraculous, of the cosmos and especially in the privileged position that God has put the Earth in- the number of parameters that have to be JUST SO in order for us to even be here. I call that ‘intelligent’ and it certainly is a ‘design’ and I doubt Heeren would back off from those presentations in his book.
As to the evolution angle - maybe Heeren needs to read James Perloff - Tornado in a Junkyard. Devastating to those who have the idea that evolutionists are just SO close to proving their theory. More on that later. I haven’t read the entire book, so I don’t know where he goes from there…
goodreads.com/book/show/195 … a_Junkyard

Don I like that. But is it oooo-sir or us-her? but I like the concept. I know you’ll be able to straighten me out on the grammar :smiley: As far as the date and the context… who the heck knows?

Here’s a Q and A from Quora today:

Why is evolution taught in schools when it hasn’t been proven, in my opinion, to be 100% true?

Perhaps I might ask, why the tribulation and the Zombie Apocalypse…Or those promoting Miracle Spring Water…are NOT emphasized in religious schools? :wink:

Of course.

Of COURSE you are mistaken, qaz!!

Just kidding :wink: I have heard the term used as a pejorative paired up, usually, with ‘creationism’, by fools that don’t know any better.

Until I started investigating, I had NO IDEA HOW INTELLIGENT the design is!! The book “Show Me God” shows a universe that humbles the imagination and the spirit. Thrilling.

At the beginning of this thread, I mentioned the following:

I just watched a great show today on Netflix: Is Genesis History? (2017)

In this documentary, you can see Mark Armitage examining the soft tissue from a triceratops horn.

Last week, one of Jehovah’s witnesses rang my door bell. When I came outside, she presumed I was ignorant of the things she was telling me. I informed her that I was familiar with her organization. Then she handed me a “Watchtower” magazine, expressing the desire that I would read it.

Late I began to read it. One of the first articles was entitled “OUTDATED OR AHEAD OF ITS TIME?” The subheading read "THE BIBLE IS NOT A SCIENCE TEXT BOOK, YET IT CONTAINS STATEMENTS THAT WERE WAY AHEAD OF THEIR TIME. CONSIDER A FEW EXAMPLES.

One of the “examples” was the claim that in Isaiah 40:22, "The Bible writer Isaiah referred to “the circle of the earth,” using a word that may also be rendered “sphere.” I looked up the Hebrew word “chuwg” and the Greek equivalent in the Septuagint “γυρος” (“guros” or “gyros”) and can find no evidence that either word ever means “sphere.”

In all the translations to which I have access, the word is Isaiah 40:22 is not translated as “sphere” although Darby’s translation as “globe” suggests the same idea. It is translated as “circle” in AKJV, ASV, AV, KJ21, LEB, NHEB, YLT, NRSV, ESV, Orthodox Study Bible (which translates the OT from the Septuagint) and interestingly enough the New World Translation (by Jehovah’s Witnesses). The NEB and the Jewish Study Bible render the word as “vault,” and the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible as “disk.” I am confident that Isaiah viewed it the same. Thus:

However, if Isaiah had visualized the earth as a globe, what would it mean for God to sit ABOVE it? For all directions away from the earth are UP!
For example, for those living in Quebec, “up” is exactly the opposite direction from that which is “up” in Australia.

Re the circle of the earth:

creation.com/isaiah-40-22-circle-sphere

Are you aware, they also have their own Bible translation? For the record, I don’t agree with much of their theology. see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses