Letters to the Editor
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Dan, evolution is science.
Look it up.
So is chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy, cosmology and everything else that has to be wrong for you and your biblical literalists to be right.
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And as for "risk analysis"...
What's the context? Don't believe in a literal interpretation of the bible and risk burning in a lake of fire for eternity?
That's good science too.
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What complete knuckle-dragging BS
Summary of the AiG Statement of Faith
For a slightly more detailed copy of the Statement of Faith, please make your request in writing.
(A) PRIORITIES
The scientific aspects of creation are important, but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The doctrines of Creator and Creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
(B) BASICS
The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. It is the supreme authority in everything it teaches.
The final guide to the interpretation of Scripture is Scripture itself.
The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the Earth and the universe.
The various original life forms (kinds), including mankind, were made by direct creative acts of God. The living descendants of any of the original kinds (apart from man) may represent more than one species today, reflecting the genetic potential within the original kind. Only limited biological changes (including mutational deterioration) have occurred naturally within each kind since Creation.
The great Flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and effect.
The special creation of Adam (the first man) and Eve (the first woman), and their subsequent fall into sin, is the basis for the necessity of salvation for mankind.
Death (both physical and spiritual) and bloodshed entered into this world subsequent to and as a direct consequence of man’s sin.
(C) THEOLOGY
The Godhead is triune: one God, three Persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
All mankind are sinners, inherently from Adam and individually (by choice) and are therefore subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.
Freedom from the penalty and power of sin is available to man only through the sacrificial death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, and His complete and bodily Resurrection from the dead.
The Holy Spirit enables the sinner to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit lives and works in each believer to produce the fruits of righteousness.
Salvation is a gift received by faith alone in Christ alone and expressed in the individual’s repentance, recognition of the death of Christ as full payment for sin, and acceptance of the risen Christ as Saviour, Lord and God.
All things necessary for our salvation are either expressly set down in Scripture or may be deduced by good and necessary consequence from Scripture.
Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and is currently seated at the right hand of God the Father, and shall return in person to this Earth as Judge of the living and the dead.
Satan is the personal spiritual adversary of both God and man.
Those who do not believe in Christ are subject to everlasting conscious punishment, but believers enjoy eternal life with God.
The only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman. God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of marriage.
(D) GENERAL
Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation.
The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.
The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.
The ‘gap’ theory has no basis in Scripture.
The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of Biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into ‘secular’ and ‘religious,’ is rejected. (emphasis mine; this is simply Taliban equivalent shit)
No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.
(Right. What an unmitigated utter load of crap. All of it.)
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Grand Canyon: ha!
I know I am preaching to the choir here, but there are very simple, easily understood refutations to the Grand Canyon being created by the rush of receding waters of the Flood.
1. The Colorado Plateau slopes north-to-south. A rush of water would go south into Arizona, since water runs down hill, not west to the Gulf of California.
2. A rush of water tends to cut straight canyons since momentum carries things in a straight line. The Grand Canyon, however, is sinuous like a normal river canyon.
3. The Grand Canyon has numerous side canyons that are just as deep as the main canyon. A rush of water cannot cut side canyons that are perpendicular to the direction of the water.
Just my 2 cents as a Grand Canyon backpacker.
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Dear Dan: Galileo and Copernicus say hello
Hey Dan. How's it hangin? I hope you're not being too tempted by the forbidden fruits of knowledge here at Salon.
So you said, "But evolution is not science. Neither is archeology and much of astronomy." I seem to recall a couple of fellows named Galileo and Copernicus (early astronomers perhaps?) that got into trouble with the church for saying things like the earth is not the center of the universe. The reason the church had a problem with these radicals (probably liberals) is because their crazy scientific theories contradicted many parts of the bible like below:
Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and Chronicles 16:30 state that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." Psalm 104:5 says, "[the LORD] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "the sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises."
Now I don't want to be the one to pee in your garden of Eden, but it seems to me that the bible got this one wrong. And if the bible is wrong about the earth being the center of the universe, there's a good chance that the bible just might be wrong on the whole evolution thing as well. When it comes to science, the church always seems to be about 400 years behind.