Thank you.
I can't equate mans' sinlessness with deathlessness.
"By sin, death entered the world."
Sure, Jehovah God created man without flaw (spiritually) but his physical body was subject to physical laws and did require sustenance to survive.
Answer this, why did Jehovah create the tree of life BEFORE Adam had sinned?
*shrug* That's a difficulty, but not an insurmountable one. Possible solution: to redeem the fallen state of man.
(Genesis 2:7-9) And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul. 8 Further, Jehovah God planted a garden in E′den, toward the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Thus Jehovah God made to grow out of the ground every tree desirable to one’s sight and good for food and also the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.
Also in the verses following Romans 5:12 it says ' 13 For until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not charged against anyone when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death ruled as king from Adam down to Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression by Adam, who bears a resemblance to him that was to come.
Um, so you're saying Cain didn't sin?
You are missing something big, my friend. Cain sinned. The Lord Himself said sin was crouching at the door of Cain's heart: God never told him not to kill his brother.
Yet it was sin.
But let's assume your interpretation is correct: there was only sin when the Law was given?
So no one sinned until God spoke the Ten Commandments? The people before the TC never died spiritually??? Because there was no Law, right?
Your verse application is incorrect.
My point still stands.
macroevolution cannot work without death
I disagree.
*shrug* Allow me to preach:
Mechanisms
There are three basic mechanisms of evolutionary change: natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow. Natural selection favors genes that improve capacity for survival and reproduction. Genetic drift is random change in the frequency of alleles, caused by the random sampling of a generation's genes during reproduction, and gene flow is the transfer of genes within and between populations. The relative importance of natural selection and genetic drift in a population varies depending on the strength of the selection and the effective population size, which is the number of individuals capable of breeding.[41] Natural selection usually predominates in large populations, while genetic drift dominates in small populations. The dominance of genetic drift in small populations can even lead to the fixation of slightly deleterious mutations.[42] As a result, changing population size can dramatically influence the course of evolution. Population bottlenecks, where the population shrinks temporarily and therefore loses genetic variation, result in a more uniform population.[15] Bottlenecks also result from alterations in gene flow such as decreased migration, expansions into new habitats, or population subdivision.[41]
Natural selection
Natural selection of a population for dark coloration.For more details on this topic, see Natural selection and Fitness (biology).
Natural selection is the process by which genetic mutations that enhance reproduction become, and remain, more common in successive generations of a population. It has often been called a "self-evident" mechanism because it necessarily follows from three simple facts:
Heritable variation exists within populations of organisms.
Organisms produce more offspring than can survive.
These offspring vary in their ability to survive and reproduce.
These conditions produce competition between organisms for survival and reproduction. Consequently, organisms with traits that give them an advantage over their competitors pass these advantageous traits on, while traits that do not confer an advantage are not passed on to the next generation.
The central concept of natural selection is the evolutionary fitness of an organism. This measures the organism's genetic contribution to the next generation. However, this is not the same as the total number of offspring: instead fitness measures the proportion of subsequent generations that carry an organism's genes.[43] Consequently, if an allele increases fitness more than the other alleles of that gene, then with each generation this allele will become more common within the population. These traits are said to be "selected for". Examples of traits that can increase fitness are enhanced survival, and increased fecundity. Conversely, the lower fitness caused by having a less beneficial or deleterious allele results in this allele becoming rarer — they are "selected against".[2] Importantly, the fitness of an allele is not a fixed characteristic, if the environment changes, previously neutral or harmful traits may become beneficial and previously beneficial traits become harmful.[1].
Natural selection within a population for a trait that can vary across a range of values, such as height, can be categorized into three different types. The first is directional selection, which is a shift in the average value of a trait over time — for example organisms slowly getting taller.[44] Secondly, disruptive selection is selection for extreme trait values and often results in two different values becoming most common, with selection against the average value. This would be when either short or tall organisms had an advantage, but not those of medium height. Finally, in stabilizing selection there is selection against extreme trait values on both ends, which causes a decrease in variance around the average value.[45] This would, for example, cause organisms to slowly become all the same height.
A special case of natural selection is sexual selection, which is selection for any trait that increases mating success by increasing the attractiveness of an organism to potential mates.[46] Traits that evolved through sexual selection are particularly prominent in males of some animal species, despite traits such as cumbersome antlers, mating calls or bright colors that attract predators, decreasing the survival of individual males.[47] This survival disadvantage is balanced by higher reproductive success in males that show these hard to fake, sexually selected traits.[48]
An active area of research is the unit of selection, with natural selection being proposed to work at the level of genes, cells, individual organisms, groups of organisms and even species.[49][50] None of these models are mutually-exclusive and selection may act on multiple levels simultaneously.[51] Below the level of the individual, genes called transposons try to copy themselves throughout the genome.[52] Selection at a level above the individual, such as group selection, may allow the evolution of co-operation, as discussed below.[53]
In fact, I read in an article somewhere (crud, I can't remember for the life of me: but it's as much a source as anyone's got right now) that death is evolution's greatest tool.
One creature, whether it be man or animal , if long-lived can mate with multiple partners and with each offspring procreate a unique/evolved individual. And that offspring most likely would bear no resemblance to its siblings. (let me qualify that with an example- say a man mates with an Asian, African and American woman. Would you recognize them as siblings?)
Mmhm. But you're suggesting that those people eventually become something unhuman.
We've never seen that happen, and we have quite a bit of interbreeding, as far as races go.
Death, per se, IS NOT required for evolution to take place.
Could you cite that from some sort of scientific source, please?
Evolution is NATURAL.
Microevolution is natural.
Godless evolution is not.
agape,
James
The god of evolution is Time. Give everything enough time, and it will condense to subatomic size, explode, and form life. Give a species enough time, and it will eventually turn into something it was not.
But I digress. :)
You will excuse me if I do not give credence to your arguments, but I would really appreciate credible sources for absolute statements like "death is not required for macroevolution to take place," because right now, it's your word against mine.
...and this is my thread. *stamps foot* *laughs* The burden of proof is on you, here. :)
...
(dang it, where did I hear that quote...)