James Mahaffy wrote:
>When I respond to a post of Dick's showing with citation from their
>books that Behe and Johnson are more upfront in stating their positions
>that Dick indicated, we get back a post that frankly I think crosses the
>line on how we should deal with brothers regardless of how strongly we
>disagree with them.
I believe there is a time to wash the feet of our brothers, and a time to
cast out the moneychangers. I don't believe the books and articles
represent honest mistakes by a fellow brother in Christ. It is a case of
someone (Johnson, not Behe) deliberately misleading gullible believers to
the overall detriment and impediment of our gospel message.
We Christians are in a unique club. Membership buys eternal life, and if
you decide not to join, you have an eternity to regret it. I'm sorry if I
see it so black and white, but that is how I understand it. The stakes are
just too high if I perceive the gospel message correctly, and please
correct me if you feel I am mistaken. I take correction.
Evolution happened. Don't blame me, I didn't cause it. We can argue about
who caused the Big Bang, and I do, and we can argue about the origins of
life, I do that too, but there are certain facets of Darwin's theory where
the confirming data is abundant, convincing, and overwhelming.
There exists a large group of Christians who wish it was not so. There
also exists a small number of individuals who with cunning words dole out
false hope - preying on ignorance and gullibility. How should we deal with
that?
I stated earlier it was an issue of honesty. As someone never said, "Don't
cry pig if you're not prepared to eat pork." Here is what I said in the
book I published six years ago:
"Even though many Christians endorse evolutionary concepts, some will say
they cannot accept the notion "we came from monkeys." Even though
biologists agree we did not come from monkeys, making such a statement of
adamant denial speaks volumes about one's closed-mindedness. Using the
words "from monkeys" reveals a commonly held misunderstanding. My brother
and I share common ancestry. I did not "come from" my brother, nor he from
me. Although certain animals may be related, this does not mean
necessarily that one is directly ancestral to the other,
It is a widely held theory that man shares common ancestors with other
higher primates. Specifically, biologists consider man and chimpanzee to
be on the same branch of the phyletic tree with the gorilla branching off
earlier. This does not mean necessarily that any one of the three
descended from the others.
Even though many also disagree with the concept of shared ancestry, at
least it states the theory more accurately. If the question was simply,
did man come from monkeys, the short answer is that it appears man did not."
Recently I mentioned an article by an NIH gene researcher, Edward
Max. Someone on this list found that Max had an updated article on
TalkOrigins. (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen) I read it. Guess
what?
"In addition, the galactosyltransferase pseudogene present in the
human genome is
shared with apes and Old World monkeys (Galili and Swanson, PNAS
88:7401, 1991)."
Notice the distinction, "Old World monkeys." In other words, we have
genetic markers common to African monkeys, but not South American
monkeys. Why? Well, the monkey family was separated at the breaking up of
Pangea roughly 200 million years ago. Which in turn implies that monkeys
divided off the primate line, and that apes and man, dare I say it, branch
off the monkey line, not that monkeys divided off the primate line to go on
their merry way before apes evolved, and then man.
So, I could pull a "Johnson" and keep my big mouth shut, catering to the
tender sensibilities of good Christian folk, created in the image of
God. Or I could do what I just did here. Admit to everyone on this list
that it appears I made a mistake, and as much as it galls me, I'll correct
it when I do a revision.
How many recantations have you heard from the ID group as a result of the
resounding criticisms they have received? Have they not made a single mistake?
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago"
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