Regarding macroevolution: I'm sorry, but I just can not believe in it. I just can't. I can accept that natural selection occurs, and I can accept that mutations occur which can cause a species to develop a new genetic trait that allows it to be better selected for, perhaps even to the point where a new species is developed because only those with that trait can produce fertile offspring with each other.

But, given that mutations are the only way to provide new traits, that means a mutation has to be behind every single physical and psychological trait in every single species of living being that has ever existed. And some of those mutations are crazy: a mutation to develop leg-like appendages? A mutation to speak human language? A mutation to tend towards forming friendships with others?

I have no idea how evolutionists expect me to believe that all of that can happen.

If nothing else, believing that the all-powerful God willed the earth into existence in six days is much easier.

Now, that is that. But now, I have an important request for the Christians in this thread.

I would like to see, written out, what exactly the Gospel is, and what exactly does it mean to become and to be a Christian, according to the Bible.

We Christians will differ on all sorts of opinions here and there, but what unites all of us is the Gospel, so I think it is critical that, at least in this area, we are all on the same page, and that any misconceptions get ironed out.

I would like to see, written out, what exactly the Gospel is, and what exactly does it mean to become and to be a Christian, according to the Bible.

Becoming a Christian:
1. The person admits that they are a sinner and that the punishment for sin is death.

2. The person believes that Christ chose to die and be raised again for the purpose of atonement.

3. The person is willing to accept that atonement as their own, and to be a slave to Christ rather than a slave to sin.

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

The only part that confuses me is the "confessing with your mouth" bit. Do we need to go up and tell someone Jesus is Lord for our salvation to count?

~Riella

I'll answer the questions directed at me specifically later, as I'm a bit short on time this morning. However, I wanted to answer this question:

I would like to see, written out, what exactly the Gospel is, and what exactly does it mean to become and to be a Christian, according to the Bible.

The Gospel is this: that the Son of God for us and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and by the power of the Spirit became man, lived a fully human life, suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried. And then he rose again the third day. Because of this, we are now given new life, because we have been crucified and raised with Christ, by the Spirit so that now we can have fellowship with God the Father.

TBG

Most scientists may not be trying to disprove Christian beliefs but many of the higher-ups are definitely suppressing findings from scientific journals. A number of hugely prominent and highly intelligent scientists have been disowned because they had non-evolutionary, non-humanistic beliefs and were Christians. Sad, really.

That is a reality Thomas Khun pointed out back in 1970. 42 years later, nothing has changed. Once a scientist goes public or reveals either evidence or a belief that didn't line up with evolution, much more often than not they are fired, their funding is suddenly cut, and/or their work is rejected for publication. Even one of the world's leading brain surgeons, Ben Carson, is under attack for his Christian beliefs. From what I hear, they are trying to get him out of the field and he's easily one of the best in the field. All because he supports the Word of God.

Oh, yes. I agree and it's disturbing but it shouldn't surprise us. Ben Carson sounds familiar. He's the "Gifted Hands" brain surgeon, yes? I don't read much non-fiction but that was one of the better ones.

I would like to see, written out, what exactly the Gospel is, and what exactly does it mean to become and to be a Christian, according to the Bible.

The Gospel: The Son of God was incarnated as a human being (while still retaining His divinity). As Jesus of Nazareth, He lived a perfect life, and became the "pure lamb" sacrifice for the world's sins by dying a criminal's death on a cross. Now, anyone who confesses their sins, admits that Jesus (and the other Two in the Holy Trinity) is God, and tries to live the way God wants them to will have their sins washed away by Jesus's blood and will not die, but be with God forever.

Hopefully I didn't miss anything.

Novel-length post time!

The issue is whether, in an organism, mutations add any new, original information. That's what you would need for evolution to work. It is required. But it has never been seen or observed. Only mutation through loss of genetic information has been observed, meaning the parent had more information, the child had less.

Perhaps it is necessary to define terms.

Genetic Information – DNA base-pairs. Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymin appearing in sequential order on the DNA strand.

Genetic Mutation – when the process by which genes are replicated makes a mistake. This can consist of the deletion of existing base-pairs or the addition of existing base-pairs.

I think those definitions are pretty straightforward. With that established, one can see that some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Increases in information have been observed to occur because of this.

Scientists have seen increased genetic variety in a population, increased genetic material, novel genetic material, and novel genetically-regulated abilities. This has been observed in the field and tested in laboratories. (Sources)

operational science: diagnoses diseases, makes smartphones, launches rockets, and so on, all based on the present and exercise of the scientific method.

origins "science": un-observable, un-testable beliefs about the past, with attempts to find evidence to fit these presuppositions.

I think what you call “origins science” can be observable and testable. The taxonomy and distribution of biological life fits perfectly into what evolution would predict. If God created the animals in very distinct “kinds” during creation, it should be easy to map out exactly where the biological boundaries are for kinds. But instead, we have every species of life on the planet in a vast group of connectedness of every level and scale. Species can be classified according to genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and finally domain, finding organisms of every level of similarity at each rank. I have no idea where the YEC would draw the boundaries on that spectrum.

A notable difference between evolution and creationism is that evolution started out as a hypothesis, and after a few tweaks and a lot of scrutiny, managed to be compatible all our recent archeological discoveries. It’s similar to how the Big Bang hypothesis was vindicated. It predicted that a microwave background would have been left behind as a result of the bang, even though such a thing hadn’t been observed up until that point. When astronomers developed better telescopes – lo and behold – a microwave background was discovered.

Creationism, on the other hand, believes that it knows the dogmatic truth before an analysis of the evidence has even started, which leads to statements like the one AnswersinGenesis has in their mission statement…”By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record.”

First off, appeal to majority. The majority has been wrong a great number of times. … I'm going to be very blunt here, the origins of evolution and OEC (along with TE and the other variations) were not providing an alternative view of Genesis but a blatant attack on the authority of Scripture.

My point was that even if this were the case, the attack on Scripture has failed because so many Christians have been able to absorb the evolutionary theory without it causing them to denounce their faith.

On your example of 'beneficial' mutations. They are only beneficial in that particular situation and setting. Take them outside that situation, that mutation definitely becomes dangerous. This is not NEW information. It's distorted original information. It was there to begin with.

Huh? First off, I have no idea where the assumption came from that these mutations “definitely become dangerous” if you take them out of their original setting. And even if that were true, that doesn’t mean it’s ‘distorted original information’. A species will naturally adapt to perform better in the surrounding environment. The effectiveness of the adaptations outside of the surrounding environment would be irrelevant until a population decided to leave, after which they would start adapting to the new environment.

It’s like how populations of people that lived in cold areas of the world naturally have a lighter skin tone. If you take a bunch of Scandinavians and plop them near the equator, yeah, they’ll get sunburned. But that’s not their fault, because they were adapting to excel in a different environment, and until very recently, people never traveled vast distances within a single generation.

And to take the leap of faith (and it's a major one) to say 'add up' little mutations here and there over long periods of time, eventually we'll get a new species, is truly....I don't have the right word to describe it.

To start, perhaps we should define the term.

Species – a group of organisms biologically similar enough that, through mating, can produce fertile offspring. (Meaning, their genes can be shared.)

If you have an alternative definition of species, please let me know.

Now, the way new species develop in evolution is by populations getting isolated and genetically drifting apart to the point where if you take two from each group, they would either not conceive offspring or produce an infertile hybrid.

What this means is that all life develops in the form of a giant family tree. Creatures can’t cross over from branch to branch, meaning they can only evolve within their area of the tree. This is why humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos are all considered apes. Back in the day when all these creatures had a common ancestor, there was simply an “ape” species. As this species of apes drifted apart, their populations began to adapt separately and branched off in all different directions. Eventually they would become different enough that they wouldn’t be able to mate anymore, and we would declare them to be a different species.

If creationists had observed this, they might be tempted to say, “But we haven’t really seen evolution happen! They’re all still ‘apes’! They haven’t actually changed into something else!” But that’s how evolution operates – variation within a branch. Life can never scamper down a branch on the tree of evolution and crawl up another one; the only thing it can do is by chance develop something similar to another branch.

And with this method, one can continue making this connection every step of the way down the evolutionary tree.

That is how speciation works. The emergence of new species has already been observed and documented. See section 5.0 of this article for a few dozen examples.

The idea that fish became land animals is impossible. The gill breathing system and lung breathing system must each work completely. No room for intermediate steps. If the system doesn't work for a matter of minutes, the creature dies.

Ah, now we get to the big stuff! Evolutionists don’t state that a certain generation of fish magically turned into full-fledged amphibians. There are many stages of development between land animals and aquatic animals, and there are some transitional species that help us understand how such a process occurred. For instance, fossils of Acanthostega, a tetrapod, show us that aquatic creatures developed legs before they even exited the water. That alone explains the problem that one might think of how fish flopped around on land with their flimsy fins.

Now, for the lungs! Evolution does have an explanation for this, and I’ll get to it in a second. The key is to understand a fallacy of the type of irreducible complexity argument that creationists will often present. The famous creationist Dr. Behe used this argument as one of his cornerstones. One of his examples was the flagellum, the tail-like structure many bacteria have that allows them to swim about by wiggling it furiously. He noted that the flagellum has several parts that are all essential for it to function. How, then, could they all mutate into existence at once? The answer is, they didn’t. What Behe didn’t know was that most components of the flagellum served alternate purposes in the cell, giving them a reason to be there besides to make the flagellum work.

It’s the same with the lungs; they appear to have evolved from swim bladders. A swim bladder is an internal gas-filled organ that allows a fish to control its buoyancy, and stabilize itself. The first lungs were simply sacs connected to the gut that allowed the fish to gulp air in oxygen-poor conditions. The sacs had an alternative reason to be there because they helped the fish in other ways. If that still seems like a bit of a stretch, there’s another piece of evidence that points to this – there are no creatures that have swim bladders and lungs.

Missing links: The humans ones you gave are all humans. Not half-human, half-monkey, all 100% human. Aborigines were slaughtered so their skulls could be used to demonstrate human evolution. There is more genetic diversity within the major human races of Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, African, Native American, etc, than there is between the 'races'.

The slaughtering of the aborigines for their skulls was disgusting and atrocious, I agree. But before you consider it a moral victory for creationism as an instance of demonstrating evolution encourages racism, remember that in the centuries past, colonizing Christians had a pretty low view of indigenous folk as well, due to their inferior, savage religions.

Onto the skulls themselves. Aborigine skulls do look decidedly different from the standard human skull. The reason for this is because they ended up being geographically isolated from the rest of the human population further back than pretty much any other group. As a result, they have had the most time to evolve separately and the structure of their skulls took a different developmental path. The aborigines are not a missing link, they are what would have eventually become another branch on the evolutionary tree. But right now, they are considered to be members of our same species, because interbreeding is still possible. And this is not being racist – I wouldn’t say the aborigines would turn into objectively superior or inferior humans than the rest of the population. They would simply turn into a type of human that is better suited for their particular environment.

If one looks side-by-side at a ‘normal’ h**o Sapiens skull, an Aborigine skull, and a Neanderthal skull (the closest other transitional human species), the Aborigine skull is decidedly less different. Neanderthals already had a noticeably smaller forehead and a very strong brow. Aborigines definitely don’t look like this.

I don’t know if you assumed the variation in aborigine skulls meant that all the transitional human skulls I linked to are just some “standard examples of the various shapes that human skulls can resemble today”…but, no. That would not be correct.

Ancient Knowledge and Technology: No we wouldn't use their methods of teaching as we do today. But they knew how to do stuff we can't do today. We still don't know how the pyramids were built. Yes, we would do things differently but that doesn't make them 'less advanced'. We can't build roads or buildings that will last 2000 years or more. We have a hard enough time getting them to last 50 years.

Our roads and buildings aren’t designed to last 2000 years or more; they’re designed to function optimally within a reasonable time frame. The Egyptian Pyramids are designed to serve no purpose except just sit there as a monument to their pharaoh as long as possible. And they did a good job of it – turns out that making enormous pillars of rock in a shape that’s impossible to topple over will do the trick. And even then, the pyramids have decayed a bit from their original form.

And yes, there are a few bits of information that have gotten lost throughout history, like the recipe for Greek fire and other assorted things. That’s inevitable from the age of history where not everything was written down and kept out of the way from destruction. But if you compare our understanding of the cosmos to theirs, ours has gotten, overall, better over time. Saying “well, we can’t say that we’re more advanced than them because there’s a handful of things they knew how to do that we don’t” seems like cherry-picking at best, since there are hundreds of thousands of things we know how to do that they don’t. We’ve just accumulated more information over the years that gives us an understanding of how to do things more efficiently in almost all areas.

Fine-tuning: This is why a little clay in the foundation really messes things up. Genesis 1. Day 4. God made the sun, moon, and stars to be signs of the times and guides. Before compasses and GPS, how did people navigate? They used the stars.

The stars are organized pretty randomly in the sky. If one jumbled them around and they were arranged differently, I’m pretty sure that people would have just developed different constellations and different navigational stars.

I've frequently heard the argument that evolution is to biology as gravity is to physics. That is simply not true. A lot of the discoveries we've made in biology have no bearing whatsoever on evolution being the foundation.

Evolution does not affect every discovery in biology, of course. Neither does gravity in physics…many areas of physics don’t involve gravity, either. But it’s very much a part of the big picture, just like gravity is a big part of the fundamental forces in physics.

In fact, the more we learn about biology, the more evolution comes into question. DNA is a major stumbling block to evolution. Homology (the idea that common features came from a common ancestor, and one of the most important foundational pillars to evolution) is a self-circulating definition. We have no way to actually prove anything is homologous. We only get the scientists' word.

Again, we can see the process of speciation in action, and if we back trace this process, we get homology. If the fossil record showed species with certain physical features appearing all out of order, then yes, homology would fall apart. Instead what we have discovered is a full tree of life that can be connected due to features appearing directly in magnitude of relation. Wouldn’t that be rather odd if all the creatures would be created all at once? And as the kicker, many creatures have vestigial organs that were prominently used by their ancestors in the previous environment, but have yet to evolve themselves away in the new environment.

DNA self-repairs, which is another blow to evolution.

Not when the mechanism that repairs DNA is prone to error itself.

The real reason evolution is still around is because the only alternative right now is Biblical creation.

There are plenty of alternatives to Biblical creation and evolution. Muslims, Hindus, and the Navajo all have their own creation stories. This is why many are annoyed with the creationists’ “teach the controversy” campaign…as if their creation story and evolution were taught in the classroom, a child would know every possible way they could choose to think the universe was created.

What you really mean, however, is that developments from the primitive are always to be preferred---that there can be no regression. That is to say, when you call a theory "primitive" what you mean is that we no longer ought to believe it because we're more grown up than that now. Don't discount a theory just because it's old or because many scientists doubt it.

Developments from the primitive are always to be preferred by definition! If “primitive” means an earlier stage in the historical development, something can only be primitive if there is a later stage in the development to make it so. I would not discount a theory just because it’s old. I would discount an old theory if there was a newer theory that gave a better explanation. This illustration demonstrates the silliness of acknowledging primitive theories just for the sake of acknowledging all the theories.

[Prehistoric creatures] are rather beside the point. Explanation of data, like the fossil record, depends, almost entirely, on what your preconceived notions are what theoretical framework you are using.

I don’t think it’s beside the point if the explanation of data fits one theoretical framework like a glove and another theoretical framework like a square peg fits a round hole. The discovery of a multitude of prehistoric creatures prompts a very important question to creationists – where did all these species go? If creationists maintain that fossils are the product of the Great Flood, that means that all these creatures must have been alive at the time of Noah. Noah would’ve had to bring them all on the ark if he was bringing a pair of everything on the planet (making the question of how he fit everything on the ark that much harder). Then they all would have to go extinct shortly afterwards, making much of Noah’s effort to save earthly life a waste.

Just out of curiosity, what are the defeaters for the theory of evolution? That is, what evidence (given current discoveries) would have to arise to disprove it?

Well, we already know evolution is going on today. That’s a case that’s been proven in the scientific community. In order to disprove that evolution is responsible for all the diversity of life on earth, though – I’d say if creationists found biological boundaries between the ‘kinds’ of life God created, that would disprove evolution. If fossils were discovered that were wildly out of the structure of homology, that would cause some serious doubts too.

Just our of curiosity, what are the defeaters for the theory of creation?

The Genesis narrative does, indeed, describe things phenomenologically (as you do---I've never witnessed an earth-turn, but I've witnessed many beautiful sunsets).

Yes, I would grant it that. In the part of the Biblical narrative where God causes the sun to stand still in the sky for an extra 24 hours to help the Israelites win a war, I wouldn’t say “well, the Bible should have said God made the Earth stop rotating”. Some things make more sense to describe phenomenologically.

But some don’t. The best explanation I’ve seen for the structure of the Days of Creation in Genesis is that God creates the habitats first, and then fills those habitats. Like so:

Day 1, God creates light and darkness (day and night).
Day 4, God creates the sun, moon & stars to govern the day and the night.

Day 2, God creates the sky and the oceans.
Day 5, God creates the birds and sea creatures.

Day 3, God creates dry land and plants.
Day 6, God creates land animals and humans.

While describing a sunset as “the sun setting” makes sense because it is accurate with the modern cosmology once the perspective of the viewer is taken into account, saying that day and night were created before the sun, moon & stars, and that they were put there to watch over the day and night makes no sense. That’s just not how it works. (Furthermore, saying the moon was made to govern the night is rather iffy as well, since the moon is sometimes absent during the night and appears in the daytime frequently).

I was pointing out that questions of young-earth, old-earth, and evolutionary creationism are a small part of the doctrine of creation that all Christians believe. I would say even that they are irrelevant to the existence of Adam and Eve.

I remember you saying something a few days ago that sounded rather different…

I think it's fairly clear, Scripturally, that Adam was a historical person who was not the product of evolutionary biological processes. Too much of our doctrine of creation and of the Christian understanding of the atonement and the work of Christ rests on this for us to bow to the whims of scientific theory on this point.

I’m not quite sure what you mean. Is evolution relevant to the existence of Adam and Eve or irrelevant? Please clarify.

Regarding macroevolution: I'm sorry, but I just can not believe in it. I just can't. I can accept that [speciation] occurs…but, given that mutations are the only way to provide new traits, that means a mutation has to be behind every single physical and psychological trait in every single species of living being that has ever existed. And some of those mutations are crazy: a mutation to develop leg-like appendages? A mutation to speak human language? A mutation to tend towards forming friendships with others? I have no idea how evolutionists expect me to believe that all of that can happen. If nothing else, believing that the all-powerful God willed the earth into existence in six days is much easier.

If you feel that it’s personally easier for you to believe an all-powerful God willed the earth into existence in 6 days, well, that’s your own decision to make.

However, if a prominent scientist said the same thing as what you said above, he would discredit himself pretty quickly. Whether or not something seems absurd is not a valid guide in science. In Charles Darwin’s book Origin of Species, he demonstrates this point by discussing eye evolution. He said it might be easy to think “it’s absurd in the highest degree that something as complex as the eye could be formed by natural selection”. Later on in the passage, he states “if intermediate stages of the eye can be found in nature with each stage giving an advantage to the organism, as is certainly the case, then whether or not people find it hard to imagine them evolving by natural selection doesn’t undermine the theory.” The grounds that an eye could evolve should not be dismissed as absurd because the physical evidence for it already existed. He goes on to list many places where such intermediate stages can be found in nature.

Gradual processes can explain all the mutations you listed. Creatures didn’t suddenly start developing leg-like appendages. They first developed fins, and then fins that could help with grabbing things, and then fins that helped them more and more with that until they had full-fledged legs. I’m not one that has studied leg evolution in detail enough to describe it eloquently with scientific terminology, but the evidence for intermediate stages exists.

Same thing with language – humans didn’t just think to themselves one day, “herp derp, let’s make a language”. Vocabulary would have developed over time – humans that communicated to each other about dangers using special grunts probably survived on average more than humans who didn’t. Over time, the grunts would become more and more sophisticated to communicate more complex things. And language would begin to spread from generation to generation separate from evolution – children would be taught language instead of knowing it intuitively. And humans aren’t the only one with this ability; they’ve just utilized it more optimally than most. We can teach chimpanzees and gorillas to talk with us at a basic level through sign language and symbols; the biggest problem there is that they can’t mimic the human voice. Since parrots can talk like humans if they want to, it’s possible to teach them some fairly advanced stuff. One famous parrot learned over 700 words and could answer questions far more complicated than “yes or no”. Friendship is sort of vague, but it appears so often amongst the animal kingdom that it doesn’t seem like a stretch for animals to naturally figure out they’ll survive better if they work together.

Even one of the world's leading brain surgeons, Ben Carson, is under attack for his Christian beliefs. From what I hear, they are trying to get him out of the field and he's easily one of the best in the field. All because he supports the Word of God.

From what I researched, all that happened was Dr. Ben Carson was Emory University of Atlanta’s commencement speaker. About 500 students & alumni signed a letter that wanted to bring attention to his anti-evolution views. The letter did not ask Carson to be dis-invited. What was most concerning about Carson's beliefs, according to the letter's authors – Emory Professors Jacobus de Roode, Arri Eisen, Nicole Gerardo and Ilya Nemenman – is that Carson "equates acceptance of evolution with a lack of ethics and morality." The letter described Carson's objections to the theory of evolution and stated that his claims were incorrect because the evidence in contrary for evolution is "overwhelming." Probably in what irked Christians off most, it accused Carson of disregarding important science and critical thinking in his evaluation.

I can see how some people at the university would get offended by some of the things Carson has said regarding evolutionists. Writing a whole letter out like that in response was a bit much and in poor taste, but goodness gracious, they weren’t trying to sabotage his whole career and get him kicked out of the field of neurosurgery.

Whether or not something seems absurd is not a valid guide in science.

Huh. And here I thought science is all about that which can be observed, so if something seems absurd, it is tested and if it happens... well, then it's not so absurd anymore. And if it doesn't happen, it's absurd.

I mean, I can understand bacterial evolution since that can be observed, but the large-scale macroevolution of all species? Nope.

All the "evidence" mentioned is archaeological evidence. I'm fine with archaeology: find stuff in the ground and use it to try to guess what the past is like, great! But it is not science. It is extrapolation, which is a violation of good statistical (and thus good scientific) analysis and is therefore not scientific. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it falls into a category other than science, even if it uses science for some of its own propositions.

But then again, maybe what I've been taught that science is (by a high-ranking secular math and science academy) is wrong and you really do know what science is and this sort of thing really is science.

Gradual processes can explain all the mutations you listed.

Gradual processes are gradual, but there'd still have to be a mutation for the first part of that process, occurring within a large enough part of the population that it can eventually be selected for in X number of generations... and then that process would have to repeat for every single part of the process. That just seems impossible to me to have happened.

Not to mention, a couple of intermediary stages aren't enough "evidence" to show anything. Okay, so there is some evidence for some fin-like things that develop into legs. Okay. When did some mutation cause that fin to elongate into something leg-like? When did some mutation cause the bones in the fin to become jointed? What about the mutations that changed that joint to something like the current knee-joint? What mutations caused leg muscles to take their shape over time?

Maybe your faith in this is greater than mine, but for me to believe in this kind of evolution, I'd have to see a record of an intermediary stage of every single gradual change that has occurred, each one explainable as a genetic mutation.

If science or archaeology cannot provide such evidence, is it any wonder that I instead choose to put my faith in a God who has shown me His power in my life many times already?

Friendship is sort of vague, but it appears so often amongst the animal kingdom that it doesn’t seem like a stretch for animals to naturally figure out they’ll survive better if they work together.

Then, where came the series of mutations that would give an animal the ability to "figure out" that it's better to work together?

Not to mention that human friendship is far more extensive than just "oh, we should work together on this"...

Is evolution relevant to the existence of Adam and Eve or irrelevant?

Evolution is irrelevant to the existence of Adam and Eve because, regardless of the machanism of species diversification, Adam and Eve were special creations.

Maybe your faith in this is greater than mine, but for me to believe in this kind of evolution, I'd have to see a record of an intermediary stage of every single gradual change that has occurred, each one explainable as a genetic mutation.

I'll go further, actually: I'd have to see the genomes of the individual stages mapped and clear causal connections established.

The question of evolution/creation defeaters is very interesting. Here would be a list off the top of my head. An important thing to realize is that just listing a defeater is not sufficient to rule it out. The defeater must be true.

Evolution defeaters:

Lack of Connections between 'kinds'. If it cannot be demonstrated that one primitive species evolved into another of a different type (basic example could be a cat evolving into a dog, or a lizard into a bird). Where the connection can break down is through intermediate steps such as the 'missing links'. (They are called missing for a reason). But it's not enough to have one 'link'. There needs to be ALL the links for it to work. If you have apes to humans, you also need lizards to birds, fish to mammals, etc. Another issue here is the what makes them 'links'. As TBG mentioned above, it needs to be demonstrated at the feature and molecular levels that they are indeed links. The only evidence we have that such links exist is the word of the biologists. They can't demonstrate to a layman how it really works and we have to take them by their word.

Time: Is Billions of years enough time for it to happen. Recent research indicates that Trillions of years would still not be enough time if it worked as it did.

Dating Methods: This one goes both ways to defeated creation and evolution. If the earth really is billions of years old, the reality of the creation account is different than what the creation account says. If the earth cannot be demonstrated that the earth is billions of year (which I believe is the case, but I also believe it is impossible to scientifically prove the earth is 6000 years), then dating methods become transparent to the issue (useless to both sides).

Homology: A key component to biological evolution is the concept of homology and convergence. It's the concept that common features came from common ancestors (ie the wings of birds and bats, as well as the eyes of humans and octopi). Having recently done a paper on this, the only thing I see evolution has here is two pictures side by side and a biologist saying "look, it's homology and proof of evolution". The problem here is that homology is a circular reasoned term. The definition of homology assumes evolution to be true, and them apparent common features are then used to prove evolution. Microbiologist Norman Nevin reveals that homology must work at the feature level and molecular level and the same genes that produce the same features also produce different features elsewhere. If molecular homology fails, so do the features. And if homology goes, the evolutionary theory cannot stand.

The Geologic Column and Fossil Record being produced quickly: Noah's Flood plays a major role in this one. If Noah's Flood occurred, (as a Global Flood), then all the fossils were produced by the Flood, dinosaurs and humans lived side by side (chronologically, not necessarily physically), the dating methods for evolution are messed up, and the whole process fails. If Noah's Flood did not occur, then that is a defeater of creation. But if another mechanism can suggest quick and sudden burial, evolution is defeated.

Abiogensis: Atheistic evolution depends on abiogensis. Theistic evolution is safe here because of the "God-factor". If life could not come about on its own, the whole theory falls apart.

Now for creation defeaters (YEC view in particular):

Demonstration of an older earth: If the earth can be proven to be older than 6000 years, then actual history and what the Bible says are two different things. But what must be considered for this to be a successful defeater is the dating methods. If the dating methods cannot prove without a doubt of the age of the earth, then this is not a defeater. Interpretation must be separated from the science. Radiometric dating has this problem. The interpretation and the science are easily confused. It cannot prove an old earth (just one example).

Noah's Flood: Noah's Flood plays the most important role scientifically in the issue. If Noah's Flood did not occur or was not Global, that will defeat YEC. A Global Noah's Flood accounts (according to YEC) for the current world's population levels, the formation of the fossil record, geologic column, and oil, and the eventual conditions that formed the mountain ranges, tectonic plates, and perhaps the Ice Age. If it could be demonstrated that Noah's Flood didn't happen or if it wasn't Global, then these effects of the Flood would not occur and keeps the door open for evolution. YEC does have several theories of how this could happen and I have not looked at all of them to know which is the best yet.

Historical Adam and Eve: Doctrinally, Adam and Eve MUST have been real for Scripture to be true. If Noah's Flood is not true, then this can be explored. If Noah's Flood is true, then we have no means of exploring scientifically the historicity of Adam and Eve from a scientific or historical means. The evidence will have been wiped away by the Flood.

That's all that comes to mind right now. From science, the one defeater above all others is Noah's Flood. If Noah's Flood occurred as depicted in Scripture, then evolution has no chance. If Noah's Flood did not occur or was 'local', then YEC is dead. In what I have seen of the evidence, I cannot 'prove' Noah's Flood did happen, but the evidence seems to be quite strong in favor of a Global Flood happening.

For the record I think that science and technology progress over time, but I don't think the same can be said for morality or philosophy. We live in a period with different biases and prejudices than our ancestors had and vice versa.

The thing with me and science is this: I don't understand it. I have a mathematical block (C. S. Lewis did too) and my brain just isn't scientifically inclined. Often an atheistic scientist will talk about religion and I want to pull my hair out because they just don't understand it. I wish they would either take the time to understand or else just stick to their science projects and say nothing. To be consistent, I have to do the same with science. I don't understand it so I leave it to the professionals and I have faith ( ) that what they're telling me is true... at least as far as our scientific knowledge has progressed. At any rate I have faith that they're not trying to intentionally mislead me.

I'm one of those that is fortunate to be both. I'm one of those jack-of-all trades, but master of none guys. In formal education, I have a math and science background. My degree is in computer science from one of the top programs in the US, with Civil Engineering before that. And I am certified to teach math and physics. So I have the math and science background. Theologically, I grew up in the mission field and was raised with solid teachings my whole life. (None of the churches I have attended though emphasized on YEC or OEC, just the authority of Scripture). And on the side I am an athlete through fencing and a fiction author. So I am well-rounded. But having solid foundations in both science and theology, I am able to see where the cross-over is allowed, where it crosses 'the line', and distinguish between the facts (like what the Bible says) and the interpretation (like what the Bible meant). The last one is very difficult for many to do and even I miss it too at times. But I too don't like it when people who have no idea about one subject talk about it like they are experts. Doing research is great, but be wary of 'appeals to authority'. I see all the time someone will post what someone else said as the answer to a question aimed at them. I don't care what the other person said, I care about what you (the person, not anyone here) say. You can reference someone else, but tell me why you agree with them or don't agree. I would not call myself an expert on everything but I am well-rounded enough to know where the errors lie. Many others are too, but there are just as many who aren't.

I wouldn't even call myself a "theistic evolutionist" or "Old Earth Creationist" or whatever the fangled term is. Science has little (if any) bearing on my faith and theology. I don't believe in evolution; I'm simply not against it. I don't see that it is a threat to Christianity and am more than open to viewing parts of the Bible as "mythological" (for lack of a better term). They don't lose any of the power or thematic/theological weight by doing so.

I had a question about Revelation and the "Mark of the Beast". I was wondering what the "Mark of the Beast" actually is... And what anything in Revelation actually is.

I hear so many strange theories about it. The Rapture, people being implanted with chips under their skin, end times plagues, locusts who sting people that can't die or something, people wondering who the antichrist is... I've even heard theories about demons disguising themselves as aliens and descending on earth, and people worshiping androids (I think that theory had something to do with an image of the beast or the image of the antichrist or something? I forget the exact wording).

So, what does it actually mean? I've heard people say that if you get the Mark of the Beast, you go to hell when you die. Is the Mark of the Beast something we'll actually recognize as the Mark of the Beast when we see it? Is it really going to be those chips? Or barcodes? What happens if someone gets chipped without their permission (if that's possible)? Would they still go to hell? And what about all the other theories I mentioned above?

~Riella