Evolution and Creation: are we missing the point?

Nice article I came across – enjoy!

In the Beginning
By Royce Logan

Why are our eyes at the front of our head instead of at the bottom of our feet? Why do we have two eyes instead of just one? Why do we have eyes? Oh, “natural selection”. The organisms in our body have evolved into this magnificent creature we’ve become because of the intelligence of nature.

What? Nature has intelligence? If nature has intelligence then nature must also have consciousness. Why? Because consciousness is required to have a will and a will must have a desire and the desire must be to choose the more favorable traits of the organism over the lesser traits of the organism and then the organism must have the ability to sever itself from the lesser traits.

So, how can nature choose the more favorable traits of the organism unless it has the consciousness, the will and the desire to make that choice and then the ability to discard those lesser traits into the ash bin of its useless self?

Pretty crazy, huh? I agree.

There is no intelligence in nature, no consciousness, no will, no desire and certainly no abilities in nature to evolve into a better organism and then intervene into that evolution process to give a body of organisms something that is not even of its own realm: a consciousness. No, the only abilities in nature to evolve are those abilities set into motion by an intelligent designer who also has the ability to intervene into that process of evolution to unite the natural realm with a realm of awareness and of consciousness: the realm of our spiritual existence.

And you say, “Prove it!” And I say, “Prove me wrong!”

Where did the first slimy organism come from? Out of nothingness? Out of no thing? No matter, no energy, no light, no life, no nothing. Emptiness. But the very existence of nature is dependant upon the reality of itself: the truth that nature must contain substance, matter, even energy to exist, to be reality, and to be truth.

Nature can procreate itself, but it can not create itself. Big difference! We weren’t evolved from some slimy mess under a rock. If you still think we were then you have to answer the question, “Where did the slimy mess come from?”

Where does thought come from? Can a creature consume certain elements of nature to create thought? Sure, food nourishes the body to provide the fuel to generate thought, but food, by itself can’t create anything.

Having the ability to choose, having a will and a desire can only be manifested in a physical creature when a physical body has been combined with life; when the experience of nature has been integrated with a spiritual experience.

Nature alone is only substance and matter. Evolution requires something beyond what nature can offer. Evolution requires life.

Creation versus evolution. We’re missing the point.

Creation is evolution.

Royce Logan. http://www.AgapeSolutions.org

The Greatest Sin

It is not uncommon to hear Christians talking about sins, and if one is worse than another. Naturally, it says that all sins are equally detestable to God, but is there a sin that rises above them all?

In short, I would say no (although there is mention of the “unforgivable” sin, which is speaking against the holy spirit). Nonetheless, I heard someone say something very interesting the other day that I want to share. During one of my classes at business school, the professor said something along the lines of:

One of the greatest sins that the Bible harps on is underutilization of potential

Intellectual Honesty or Jesus?

It seems today that when it comes to religion, many people confront an unfortunate dichotomy. The choice is between intellectual honesty and Jesus. Many believe there is no way to reconcile the two.

The purpose of me writing this post is not for me to say why my interpretation is superior, but instead to present an alternate view that often goes unnoticed… too often different views can be silenced by the surprisingly large fundie presence online (i.e. the blog-o-sphere).

If you were in a room of 100 Christians, and asked, “how many of you knew someone that grew up in a religious environment and then walked away from their faith upon leaving for college?” then you would see 100 hands raised in the air.

Let me suggest why I believe this happens.

Analyzing Jesus: His Miracles

Analyzing Jesus
Part Four: His Miracles

This is the fourth installment of my series titled, “Analyzing Jesus”. So far, we have looked at the historical figure, looked to see if he was the Jewish Messiah, and looked at further evidence to analyze the authenticity of the Old Testament claims/prophecy of a the Messiah. Today we move on and begin to address another controversial subject in regards to Jesus… his miracles.

Analyzing Jesus: Scientific Evidence for being Jewish Messiah

Analyzing Jesus
Part Three: Scientific Evidence for being Jewish Messiah

So far in this series I have covered that Jesus did in fact exist (despite some conspiracy theories), and also the likelihood that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah given all the prophecy he has fulfilled (and the probability of doing so). Today’s post I will continue with the idea of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and hopefully successfully address some major questions.

The first issue I will address is a question that I posed at the end of the last part in this series. It was the following:

“couldn’t have all the stuff about Jesus fulfilling prophecy have just been added by zealots after his death?”

Quite a valid question, in fact, many people ask it today. I mean, how can it be possible for one man to actually fulfill every single one of the prophecies written over 1,000 year span? Someone HAD to change the prophecy around right?! Not necessarily.

Analyzing Jesus: Was he really the Jewish Messiah?

Analyzing Jesus
Part Two: Was he really the Jewish Messiah?

In Part One of this series, we analyzed Jesus as a historical figure in history. The second part of this series is to address if Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, but in order to do that, we need to understand what Messianic Prophecies are. Scholars (Jewish and Christian) believe that the Bible (Old Testament) contains over 300 predictions about the Jewish Messiah. These predictions do not come from one source, but are from multiple authors in a variety of books ranging about 1,000 years. In other words, what we have here is an enormous “library” of statements made about the Jewish Messiah (what he will be like, what he will do, and so on).

Analyzing Jesus: The Historical Figure

Analyzing Jesus
Part One: The Historical Figure 

It’s about that time again. Time for me to start up a new series regarding religion/faith/Christianity. I can already tell that this series will be a long one, so get ready for the long haul. I will address Jesus on a variety of different fronts, trying my best to be objective (like a lawyer). Granted, I cannot completely rid myself of my preconceived biases, but I hope that you can, at the very least, respect my investigative reasoning.

a Letter to Atheists

The internet has opened a whole slew of avenues to obtain information, meet new people, and read up on different ideas. Until recently though (roughly about the time I started this blog) I had never had constant contact with individuals from the atheist community. Wow have things changed. Today I read (daily) atheist commentaries and I even contribute on a very popular atheist blog (as the Christian Contributor of course).

Worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster

 This post contains the best theist response I have found in regards to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  In short, it analyzes the faults with the “theology” behind the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) and similiar Atheist creations by exposing the theological and philisophical flaws.  Props to Phillip for the post (you can also read it at his blog, Agkyra).

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How is belief in the God of the Bible different than belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster god or Invisible Pink Unicorn goddess?

The FSM and IPU are, according to Wikipedia, the deities in two parody religions intended to help us theists realize how fatuous our beliefs seem to atheists.

a Christian on the Sidelines

Below is a post that I did for an atheist website I contribute for… enjoy.
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Christian Commentary 

Well I have a bit of a confession to make to this website…I have been struggling as of late as to what to contribute (especially since traffic has exploded the past couple weeks). During my time on the sidelines, I have enjoyed reading the various posts and people’s reactions to them. I admit that I have not jumped in as frequently as I once did due to an upcoming move I am preparing for.

It was during my time on the outskirts of this forum that I began to ponder the (for lack of a more sensitive term) “point” of atheist websites such as de-conversion. Now this is not meant to be an insult, but maybe more of a sociological question and hypothesis. To do a comprehensive study on the posts of this blog would take a substantial amount of time. However, in my informal examination, I came a few conclusions.

Agnostic and Atheist contributors/commentors usually come from one of two backgrounds (I apologize for the dichotomy, but the simpler the better). In one camp, there are the individuals who lost their faith because of resentment towards Church establishments. These individuals could not deal with the hypocrisy of their particular religious institution and began to turn away from their faith – and who could blame them? The unfortunate corruption of scripture (through the travesty of strict literalism) has put a big black spot on “religion”. Not too long ago, a post was done on this blog that criticized people for saying they were “spiritual”, not “religious”. I think that this distinction has to made given the nature of “religion” today (particularly by the 20th century Christian fundamentalist movement.) In the effort to avoid digressing too far, I will just say that separating spirituality from religion coincides with Jesus’ irreligion purpose:

“…How terrible it will be for you experts of religious law! For you crush people beneath impossible religious demands and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.” (Luke 11:46)

“How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law – justice, mercy and faith…” (Matthew 23:23)

It is clear that many Agnostic/Atheists walked away from Christianity (or whatever religion) because they were tainted by the hypocrites, and were burdened with “impossible religious demands” (perhaps aA falls into this category as I recall him once saying how free and clear his conscience felt once he renounced his faith). Sadly, religious fundamentalists tend to avoid the “important things of the law- justice, mercy, and faith”. Agnostic/Atheists in this group are often angry, and their writing/comments reflect their displeasure with corruption.

The second camp of agnostic/atheists are usually individuals who feel that it does not make sense logically, scientifically, etc. for the events that are recorded in say, the Bible, to have occurred. Posts by these contributors tend to create interesting “online debates” in the comments section. Naturally though, there is a distinct flaw within having such “debates” because, in most cases, definitions are improperly defined and there are too many assumptions made on both sides. In other words, the paradigms of the individuals are holding back any real progress in regards to Atheists and Theists. The Agnostic/Atheist is attempting to explain religion through empirical methods while Theists attempt the same by using theology. The mixing of these concepts into the other field is a clear injustice to both disciplines.

If you can recall, the purpose of this post was to try to figure out the point of such forums like this one… it is quite apparent that the main goal is to provide a haven for like-minded (and sometimes “unlike”-minded) individuals to have a community to fall back on…hm, kind of sounds like a Church . In other words, everyone wants to know others who believe the same. Yet what is it that Atheists and Agnostics believe? If the “De-Conversion Wager” on the side menu bar is an indicator of anything, then it appears that perhaps Atheists and Theists are not that different. Beyond the corruption, close-mindedness, and ignorance of both the religious and a-religious camps lies a similar desire. Boiled down, it looks as if the only difference that remains is determining where that “desire” comes from…and frankly, it doesn’t matter, because Atheists and Theists alike still have not fully embraced the concepts of love, mercy, compassion, and tolerance.