Part 39 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

So if someone today says they just made a covenant with God what would your reaction be?

 

Well, I would agree that what we know as our universe began as the energy that preceded the big bang expansion.

Theory concerning what caused that stupendous burst of energy is difficult to test, of course. But, there is no indication that it couldn't have been a natural phenomenon stemming from a broader natural environment.

I note that you point out that "god" could be hypothesized to have used something that pre-existed.

 

There could also be zero gods.

There could be a team of gods, presumably including the one you found.

 

Yes, that's my hypothesis. It would explain the existence of ancient fossils, bones, and the dating preceding the creation in the Bible. It's just a could be. I obviously don't know.

 

Same as anyone...suspicion.

 

So. The difference between humans and chimps are one hundred percent for all intent and purpose.

 

There is only one head or God. Those invented by men aren't real.

 

The point is there was a common ancester 30 million years ago. The discovery of DNA and DNA sequencing are the evidence for this. Plus radiometric dating and other science denied by religion. Myth is not empirical evidence.

Humans are an intelligent mostly hairless ape created by evolution. Not some special animal created in the imagae of an invisible man who lives in the sky. Our superiority is due to our brain. Not some special relationship with a supernatural being that looks like us.

 

Today about a third or more of White Evangelical Protestants still believe that humans have existed in current form from the beginning.

BUT overall, that's a minority view among Christians today.

The below study asked which is closest to your belief - man was always like this, man evolved with god's help, or man evolved naturally.

Only 1/5 of Christians picked the answer that man was always like this!!

However, NOW about half of Christians in the USA believe that evolution is guided by god. They still claim god made man, he just used evolution to do it!


Let's not accuse all Christians of holding to the Evangelical Protestant minority views expressed by some on this board.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...olution-depends-on-how-theyre-asked-about-it/

 

As for the "guiding dna" idea -

Surely it is a sign of weakness that a god would have to be here, tweaking dna over eons in order to create the life forms we have today.

And, by life forms I don't just mean humans. Evolutionary change has produced ALL forms of life in existence today and they are ALL related.

Plus, evolution has not stopped - not even for humans. So, what does THAT say about god's intent?

In the last 20k years humans LOST about a tennis ball sized hunk of brain. Did god do that? With evolution continuing it's preposterous to consider humans as some final perfection of animal species.

Surely an all powerful god could have kicked off the universe in that original blast of unimaginable energy (but no matter) in such a way that Earth would be populated as it is today - and the quite different way that it could be populated in the future.

This idea that god controlled evolution to create humans as we happen to be TODAY is just ludicrously weak for a number of reasons of science, but also because it isn't what Christians want, either.

 

There is zero proof of evolution. But mankind has a contiguous seven thousand year recorded history wherein all were born human and none were evolved. That's a solid foundation. I also know personally on a spiritual level that God is real, that he lives and is divine. As for dating, so they find old things in the earth. That doesn't tie it to mankind. Maybe it was leftover from a previous use before it became our earth.

 

Some

There is zero evidence only for people that deny science. Science of course requires empirical evidence of claims. Your claims are supported only by your feelings.

Humans have been around alot longer than seven thousand years. But even recently genetic changes are occuring.

https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/humans-still-evolving-3-recent-adaptations

 

No, this isn't true.

Only 5,000 years ago, human adults lost the ability to digest milk as well as babies can. 10,000 years ago, blue eyes came to humans. These are easily noticeable changes, and can not be labeled as the only changes within those periods.

The fact that evolution is at a slow point for humans has to do with the absence of factors that encourage evolutionary change.

On the Galapagos islands, species were isolated, thus being more friendly to evolutionary change.

In the world today, our constant mixing through world wide travel is one factor that slows human evolution.

But, evolution continues. Claiming that modern man, in its varieties across the planet, was ever an objective is nonsense.

 

What sort of evidence would convince you of evolution?

Let's remember that in science (and religion!) there is no proof of truth that would look anything like a mathematical proof.

So, learning what you and others would accept from science is a worthwhile exercise.

 

Science has shown us a contiguous seven thousand year trek of mankind. Why vault from this out to the unknown? It'd be like the devil telling Jesus to hurl himself off the mountain and surely the angels would catch him. I'll stick with what I know.

 

Evolution is speculation. Empirical is a contiguous seven thousand year history of mankind without evolution. We are real. Evolution is not. But if you want to believe it, then that's your right. I will stick with what I know, which is the physical history of mankind and the spiritual knowledge that God lives.

 

Don't you know that humans are evolving at this very minute? Some are growing a third artery in their forearms.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/th...-of-an-extra-artery-means-for-human-evolution

 

Evolution is NOT "speculation".
It is an explanation of the diversity of species on the planet that has been around for almost 150 years. It has been subject to testing and has passed all attempts to disprove it.

Humans HAVE "evolved" over the course of our 200,000 year history (7,000 is just the time frame of "recorded history"). We can trace the history of man to about 200,000 years.

https://australian.museum/learn/sci... worldwide,to varying climates and lifestyles.

 

That's your belief, and that's fine with me if that's what you choose to identify with. But as for me, trying to convince me that we evolved from monkeys is like trying to convince me that a man is a woman or that he can become a woman thru scientific manipulation. People have gone so far as to scientifically justify men playing in womens sports, and even naming one of these men as woman of the year.

 

And here is the problem with trying to debate such questions with theists. They HAVE the answer. Facts doesn't matter. Scientific evidence doesn't matter. They have closed their minds to anything that goes against their belief.

 

That would be a strange measure of what’s an animal and what isn’t. Here’s something for you….

“….These differences suggest that the ancestral population of apes that gave rise to humans, chimps, and bonobos was quite large and diverse genetically—numbering about 27,000 breeding individuals. Once the ancestors of humans split from the ancestor of bonobos and chimps more than 4 million years ago, the common ancestor of bonobos and chimps retained this diversity until their population completely split into two groups 1 million years ago. The groups that evolved into bonobos, chimps, and humans all retained slightly different subsets of this ancestral population's diverse gene pool—and those differences now offer clues today to the size and range of diversity in that ancestral group.”

https://www.science.org/content/article/bonobos-join-chimps-closest-human-relatives

IOW humans are related to chimps and bonobos, both of which are animals. So how can humans not be animals, albeit rather specialized and advanced (“evolved”) ones. We three species descended from the same tree, the same ancestor, the same animal species.

Refusal to see humans as one member of the animal kingdom only makes it easy to destroy and/or abuse animals, because, after all, “they’re just animals” …like dogs and cats for example. I love animals. American Indians love animals as brothers. What is the Christian position on it?

 

Your post is a strawman fallacy conflating the science of evolution (genetic mutation and natural selection) with claims that a man is a woman based on feelings. As I said before, science is not based on feelings. It is based on empirical evidence and facts.

Your explanation for the fossil record supporting evolution is what exactly?

 

Explained by this book.

 

God, who created the Universe using secondhand materials to create the earth. Judging by the diversity of mankind he must have used secondhand men from the same source.

 

The following article will explain why your statement regarding the period of time when camels were domesticated is incorrect. Note that I'm only presenting the final analysis of the article and so if you want to read the entirety of the article just click on link below, I've provided.

CAMEL DOMESTICATION AND THE PATRIARCHS

In the final analysis, we can say that the evidence for the domestication of the camel in patriarchal times is clear, but limited. Clear, because the evidence indisputably points to the domestication of the camel very early. Limited, because the camel does not appear to have been widely used, and the few and rather brief allusions to camels in texts seem to mirror the limited role they played in the ancient Near East at that time. As regards the Bible, the evidence suggests that the camel was indeed used for transportation, even if it was not the most popular choice of animals available to ancient travelers and workers.

The Bible records the existence of domesticated camels in the patriarchal narratives, but their footprint is actually quite small. They are listed among the very last items in the total wealth of both Abraham (Genesis 12:16) and Jacob (30:43; 32:7,15). They are mentioned as being used for travel by the patriarchs (Genesis 24:10-64; 31:17,34) and by the Midianites (Genesis 37:25). The Egyptians used them for transport as well (Exodus 9:3). Despite their use for transportation, however, the donkey appears as the favored mode of transportation for the patriarchs. In the ancient Near East as a whole, the same might be said during the early second millennium B.C.—the camel was known and domesticated, but not widely used until later.

Free makes an important observation that applies today just as much as it did a half century ago: “Many who have rejected this reference to Abraham’s camels seem to have assumed something which the text does not state. It should be carefully noted that the biblical reference does not necessarily indicate that the camel was common in Egypt at the time, nor does it evidence that the Egyptians had made any great progress in the breeding and domestication of the camel. It merely says that Abraham had camels” (Free, 3:191). Kitchen sums up the matter: “[T]he camel was for long a marginal beast in most of the historic ancient Near East (including Egypt), but it was not wholly unknown or anachronistic before or during 2000-1100” (2003, 339, italics in orig., emp. added).

Those claiming the absence of domesticated camels during the patriarchal age must deny a wealth of evidence to the contrary. Indeed, the evidence is both early and spread over a large geographical area. It includes figurines, models, petroglyphs, burials, seals, and texts. While some of this evidence is relatively recent, some of it has been known for over a century. Critics often claim that believers refuse to consider any evidence that has a bearing on the validity of their faith. It would appear that in the case of Abraham’s camels, the opposite is true.

REFERENCES

Albright, William Foxwell (1951), The Archaeology of Palestine (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books).
Archer, Gleason (1970). “Old Testament History and Recent Archaeology from Abraham to Moses,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 127[505]:3-25.
Collon, Dominque (2000), “L’animal dans les échanges et les relations diplomatiques,” Les animaux et les hommes dans le monde syro-mésopotamien aux époques historiques, Topoi Supplement 2, Lyon.

Davis, John J. (1986), “The Camel in Biblical Narratives,” in A Tribute to Gleason Archer: Essays on the Old Testament (Chicago, IL: Moody Press), pp. 141-150.
Finkelstein, Israel and Neil Asher Silberman (2001), The Bible Unearthed (New York, NY: The Free Press).
Free, Joseph P. (1944), “Abraham’s Camels.” Journals of Near Eastern Studies, 3[3]:187-193.
Gordon, Cyrus H. (1939), “Western Asiatic Seals in the Walters Art Gallery,” Iraq, 6[1:3-34.
Gordon, Cyrus H. and Gary A. Rendsburg (1997), The Bible and the Ancient Near East (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.), fourth edition.
Hamilton, Victor P. (1990), The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Kirtcho, L. B. (2009), “The Earliest Wheeled Transport in Southwestern Central Asia: New Finds from Alteyn-Depe,” Archaeology Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia, 37[1]:25-33.
Kitchen, Kenneth A. (2003), On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Redford, Donald B. (1992), Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Ripinsky, Michael (1985), “The Camel in Dynastic Egypt,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 71:134-141.
Sapir-Hen, Lidar and Erez Ben-Yosef (2013), “The Introduction of Domestic Camels to the Southern Levant: Evidence from the Aracah Valley,” Tel Aviv, 40:277-285.
Wiseman, Donald J. (1959), “Ration Lists from Alalakh VII,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 13:19-33.
Younker, Randall W. (1997), “Late Bronze Age Camel Petroglyphs in the Wadi Nasib, Sinai,” Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin, 42:47-54.

https://apologeticspress.org/abrahams-camels-4800/

Ok thanks Gawd for your post. I hope you now clearly see and understand that camels were indeed domesticated during the time of Abraham.