Creation as Jazz

Biologos seems to have (at least) three main categories:

1. Repeat "Evolution is true" mantra
2. Belittle the Bible
3. Poetry and art (proclaiming how beautiful the deist god is)

An example of the third is the recent post "Creation and Jazz Music".

It really speaks for itself:

"If God has shaped the world as it was from the beginning, the universe seems reduced to a mere puppet stage where God the Puppet Master pulls all the strings."

That's the treatment of the sovereign God of the Bible.

"Instead, God in his wisdom has provided a system in which creatures can make themselves." (emphasis added)

The important point in the creation debate is: "The creator makes the rules". If God created us, we are subject to His rules. If random chance creates us (or we create ourselves) - we are not subject to God's rules.

Finding Darwin's God

It took me a long time, but I finally waded through it!

I picked up this book after getting involved over at Biologos. Kenneth Miller is one of the writers there.

I am looking for a book that pairs a solid scientific understanding of evolution and an old earth with solid theology - this book is not it.

Miller approaches things from the scientific standpoint (he is a cell biologist and professor). His theology is fairly broad, although not well defended or deep. He adds nothing new to the scientific argument, repeating the "evolution is true" mantra repeatedly.

What interests me most is his theology.

The choice quote (you have to get far in to find it, out of 292 pages):

"He [God] wanted these creatures [us] to be free to choose Him or to reject Him" (page 251)

There are aspects of this earlier (and it is much repeated later), but this really captures the heart of Miller's theology.

He has raised human will to the level of God (hyper-Arminianism).

"Free choice" is so important that Miller is willing to sacrifice everything else - God's omnipotence, omniscience, creation, etc. Even the definition of good is up for grabs (for how is "nature, red in tooth and claw" good?).

It is also not surprising to find elements of Open Theism (which is a common failure mode for hyper-Arminians; although it appears Miller has not yet fallen so far):

"The freedom to act and choose enjoyed by each individual in the Western religious tradition requires that God allow the future of His creation to be left open." (p.238)

"Given evolution's ability to adapt,... sooner or later it would have given the Creator exactly what He was looking for - a creature who, like us, could know Him and love Him" (p.238-239)

This is not the God of the Bible. The God who plans and purposes before acting. This is not the God who is the man Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Given the course Biologos is taking, I doubt I will see reconciliation on these points. I have another book to try.

DNA Frontloading

One of the interesting results of genomic research is the challenge to evolutionary assumptions. From Science Daily:

"report the draft genome sequence of the sea sponge"

"All living animals are descended from the common ancestor of sponges and humans, which lived more than 600 million years ago"

"essentially all the genomic innovations that we deem necessary for intricate modern animal life have their origins much further back in time that anyone anticipated"

Now the evolutionist will say, "See, we use the same proteins; therefore we have a common ancestor!"

However, there is a much more subtle (and damaging) point.

If the earliest life forms have all the complexity - then deep time (the billion year hammer) buys you nothing. Later forms use multiples of these genes, often with slight modifications.

Prehistoric Conditions

One of the most interesting things about uniformitarians is their inconsistency. They insist the present is the key to the past (that current conditions tell us about how things operated in the past).

But the data shows that conditions in the past were unlike anything seen today.

Take this article from Science Daily:

"These elevated [oxygen] concentrations have been linked to gigantism in some animal groups, in particular insects, the dragonfly Meganeura monyi with a wingspan of over two feet epitomizing this." (italics in original)

Insects have an open circulatory system. This system is fairly inefficient, and limits the body size in insects today. In other words insects today could never be so big (they wouldn't get enough oxygen). So, the presence of these insects indicates higher oxygen pressure (either more oxygen or more atmospheric pressure or both).

Current oxygen levels are ~20%, "levels around 30 to 35%, as have been proposed for the Late Paleozoic". High levels of oxygen would also cause large amounts of coal to form.

Things were very different, that much is agreed on. That's what the evidence shows.

ASC Research

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"engineers used human mesenchymal stem cells, which are found in bone marrow and other connective tissues such as fat. The stem cells differentiated into bone when grown on stiffer scaffolds, and into fat when grown on more flexible scaffolds."

Ray Bradbury on God

An interesting article at CNN.

For those not familiar with him, Ray Bradbury is a fairly famous science fiction author. I have a certain grudge against him, because the one SF novel I got to read in high school was his "Illustrated Man". It wasn't particularly interesting (I remember it as half the stories being about the last moments of people in exploding rockets).

I had always thought of Bradbury as British, but apparently he was born in Illinois.

His theology is unusual among SF authors (who tend towards atheism), but nothing like Biblical faith:

"He considers Jesus a wise prophet, like Buddha and Confucius."

"'Jesus is a remarkable person,' Bradbury says. 'He was on his way to becoming Christ, and he made it.' " (not sure what that means!)

"We must move into the universe. Mankind must save itself. We must escape the danger of war and politics. We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves."

I guess that last one says it all. Please pray for Mr. Bradbury.

ASC Supply

An interesting article from Science News:

"The findings 'represent a huge and important progression in the field,'...The new studies accomplished the reprogramming feat by using viruses to deliver a four-gene cocktail that reverts the cells"