{"id":10240,"date":"2016-11-10T23:05:11","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10240"},"modified":"2016-11-10T23:05:11","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T07:05:11","slug":"10240-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/10240-2\/","title":{"rendered":"No Intelligent Design, No Creation, No God, Novel Ideas!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yuval Noah Harari in his novel Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind<\/em> presents a modern take on the Big Bang theory.\u00a0\u00a0 He starts at the very beginning of the book weaving a story that should have started with the words \u201conce upon a time.\u201d\u00a0 The context for the opening is creatively constructed with no references.\u00a0 A broad sweeping brush of humanistic views that draws off opinions and theories of so many different people.\u00a0 Very engaging writing and story-telling but most novel works have that element.<\/p>\n

The author completely aligns himself with the evolutionary thought process. He identifies that there is no intelligent design: \u201cFor billions of years, intelligent design was not even an option, because there was no intelligence which could design it.\u201d (446) He declares openly that there is no God, instead claiming that is a myth. (122)\u00a0 and he attacks the \u201cstory\u201d of creation.<\/p>\n

Creation<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAnimals are said to belong to the same species if they mate with each other, giving birth to fertile off-springs.\u00a0\u00a0 Horses and Donkeys have a recent common ancestor and share the same physical traits. \u00a0But they show little sexual interest in each other.\u00a0 They will mate if induced to do so, but their off-springs, called mules are sterile.\u00a0 These two types of species are considered two distinct species, moving along evolutionary paths\u201d.\u00a0 (4)<\/p>\n

\u201cHomo sapiens too belong to a family, one of history\u2019s most guarded secrets.\u00a0 Homo sapiens long preferred to view itself as set apart from animals, an orphan bereft of family, lacking siblings or cousins and most importantly parents. (Biblical view)<\/p>\n

But that is just not the case.\u00a0 Like it or not we are part of a large and noisy family called the great apes. 6 million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters.\u00a0 One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother.\u201d (5)<\/p>\n

Hold on a minute.\u00a0 Your creation story has some real holes in it. \u00a0Didn\u2019t you just say that some things don\u2019t go together?\u00a0 The sign that they don\u2019t go together is that they don\u2019t produce fertile off-springs?\u00a0 So if you induced a human to have sexual relations with an ape, it would produce a fertile human? \u00a0\u00a0Why would apes have a family and why would humans not have one? Your explanation for family is really sterile.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Novel thoughts.<\/p>\n

The Big Bang give us stories that all of this happened by chance and is explained by theories of science? \u00a0It happened over millions of years. \u00a0Apes went to being men. It took so much time for this to happen, but then the author in the middle of all these incredible historical stories and scientific facts about the past states: \u201cit is doubtful whether homo sapiens will be around a thousand years from now, so 2 million years is really out of our league.\u201d (7)\u00a0 \u00a0What?\u00a0\u00a0 All these historical realities about humans in the past going back billions of years but the future is less than a thousand?\u00a0\u00a0 What species are going to have time to evolve if we have less than a thousand years?\u00a0 Is it all over? \u00a0Are you predicting that the end of the world is coming?\u00a0\u00a0 Sounds like the Bible to me.<\/p>\n

So I will not belabor the point.\u00a0 The novel ideas that are presented as fact and the open disdain for creation with an intelligent creator is where I must draw the line.<\/p>\n

Anything that is created against a creator has to address the fact of creation. <\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So here is the real crux of the book.\u00a0 \u201cThere have always been a chasm between theological theories and historic realities<\/u><\/em><\/strong>.\u201d (244)\u00a0\u00a0 So in the middle of the book there has to be an argument to address the facts of creation.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That there is a creator.\u00a0 That there is an intelligent creator. \u00a0The attack goes something like this.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Most people have found it difficult to digest the monotheist idea fully.\u201d (244)<\/li>\n
  2. Christianity for example (244)<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cSyncretism might in fact be the single great world religion.\u201d\u00a0 (Believing in a kaleidoscope of monotheistic, dualist, polytheist and animist legacies,)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Hold on just a second.\u00a0 You have presented so many theories and ideas as fact.\u00a0 There is an expectation that I will just believe ALL of those as the truth.<\/p>\n

    So once you take on a creator you have to build an argument against everything that involves a creator, like the American Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n

    We hold to these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/em>The foundation for a nation.<\/p>\n

    Here is the authors argument:<\/p>\n

    According to the science of biology, people were not created.\u00a0\u00a0 Novel<\/p>\n

    They have evolved and certainly they did not evolve to be equal.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Novel<\/p>\n

    The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity, which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, and that all souls are equal before God.<\/p>\n

    However, if we do not believe in the Christian MYTHS about God, creation and souls, what does it mean that all people are created \u201cequal?\u201d (122)\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Novel<\/p>\n

    JUST AS PEOPLE WERE NEVER CREATED, NEITHER IS THERE A CREATOR. (123) \u00a0Novel<\/p>\n

    So that is where we have to disagree.\u00a0 Your novel ideas are not aligned with my Biblical belief.<\/p>\n

    But my source addresses your take:\u00a0\u00a0 A fool has said in his heart there is no God. {Psalm 53:1)<\/p>\n

    I can read this book to understand where other people are coming from. I have read it very critically.\u00a0 I can be introduced to all kinds of thought, but on this one I don\u2019t have to embrace it in any form.<\/p>\n

    I have that right which the author said no one has.<\/p>\n

    Sorry to tell you this but on this one,<\/p>\n

    You are wrong.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, London, Vintage Books, 2011<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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