I think this is a great place to discuss this. I installed this threaded comment system to make such discussions easier to follow. I plan to get involved myself, but I’m still catching up with many things.

In the meantime, enjoy!

What are your thoughts on brainier critters like gorillas? Does death “count” for them?”

I see gorillas, monkeys, birds, dogs, cats, donkeys, pigs etc. as animals that can experience emotion. I believe that death definitely refers to them.

On the second one, a lot of my friends have started out evo and went creation. I have not met anyone personally who went the other way. Maybe it is because like-minded people band together (it goes both ways), or it might be the locale. Where I am almost no one is taught creation from a young age, so there is little possibility for someone to switch to evo, but a bigger possiblity to switch to creation.

There is a couple evo scientists that became young earthers. Would you say that their conversion was for financial gain, popularity, sincere belief change, evidence that seem contradictory, or any other reason (Might also be a combination).

I do not know if posting on here is the correct way to discuss views, but I do not mind people listening (or rather reading) in on it. If you want you can e-mail me as well. I would love to hear why people turned from creation to evo.

One of the reasons I believe that is because there does not seem to be any emotion in insects, in other words I don’t believe they can experience death or even dying.

What are your thoughts on brainier critters like gorillas? Does death “count” for them?

A creation model makes much more sense to me scientifically and also theologically (Although I understand that a lot of people believe contrary to that statement).

***Raises hand***. I tend to meet a lot of people who started out as creationist and went evo, but not vice-versa. So I’d be interested to hear your rationale on this – you’ve got rarity value

Cells within our body dies at a very fast rate. This is a process that is needed to be able to live. A definition of death I believe is central to this issue.

I believe the death that was referred to in the fall was both a physical death and a spiritual death. As I understand it when God said that you will die, it means translated, that you will die and keep on dying. That would be impossible if Adam died on the spot, instead I believe it reffered to a process of degeneration. This means the copy process of cells without ‘God’s tree of live’ (whether this is an actual fruit or His presence or anything else is irrelevant to my point – any one of these can be debated) would deteriorate over time. Death in Hebrew – not Greek – relates to what we mostly call mammals and humans (I don’t think the categories are exclusive).

In short what I wanted to say is that I think that plants are amazing food producing machines, and I would even go as far as to say that insects are even more amazing machines, but I don’t see that death at the fall referred to either one of them. One of the reasons I believe that is because there does not seem to be any emotion in insects, in other words I don’t believe they can experience death or even dying. We can debate whether this means that in order for something to die it has to be able to experience death, which can turn into a fun philosophical debate (i.e. my computer is busy dying on me).

I believed for most of my live in an evolutionary model, and defended it hotly. A creation model makes much more sense to me scientifically and also theologically (Although I understand that a lot of people believe contrary to that statement).

Hans Jansen.

I ask because I’m just reading one of his papers (“Warranted belief in God”, from a book of his) and, snide Calvin quotes aside, it’s quite interesting. He’s at least approaching things from what I’d see as the most sensible direction. Have you come across him? I’d be interested to know your opinions.

Which is funny, because I started investigating alternatives to the view you describe precisely because I found enough convincing evidence to decide that evolution was true and the Creationists were wrong. I should have realized how much is invested in that view because I held it.

IIRC, Genesis reports the warning of quick death for partaking of the forbidden fruit, with language something like “In that day, you shall die” (correct me if I have this wrong). Since Adam then lives quite a while after that, I have always viewed that as spiritual death, i.e, spiritual separation from God, an affliction all of us share.