Metropolitan Kallistos Ware Preaches Evolution Heresy

[Matthew]

Forgive me, I shouldn't have said your views are "silly", Icxypion. I used to have the same views myself, and they certainly made sense to me at the time.

No offense taken, dear Jonathan. I love a good lively discussion. Because we get lively doesn't mean we are lacking in charity. I do think that saying something is "unacceptable" is very diplomatic. Vitriolic language would be language like "idiotic" or "stupid". Since I can see your reasoning in what you have said, what you have posited is not worthy of any other inflammatory kind of language. I understand you. However, your views are based on your trust that scientific data cannot be interpreted any other way than the views of the modernist scientists who state that the fossils are absolutely billions of years old. This is a claim I find very much wanting from both a scientific view, and from a biblical and patristic view which is based on divine revelation by the Spirit of TRUTH. Both of us are very educated and are able to analyse scientific arguments well. I have studied the intelligent design theorists for a long time (they are not Creationists, which I agree have problems of a greater order than the ID theorists) and I feel that they have put forward excellent arguments on a host of physical science fields that show that the conclusions of the Evolutionists are based on a lot of presumptions, and that they ignore a great many alternate interpretations of data that are equally satisfying (and at the end of the day they have no more loose ends than the Evolutionist theories do). We have been raised in public schools that from our childhood teach us to unquestioningly accept the wisdom of the authorised views put forward in our textbooks. Also, many coverups of embarrassing results and findings by Evolutionists and believers in a billions of years evolution on Earth have also been exposed by world class scientists. Most people don.t realise and could scarely bring themselves to believe how human and subject to fudging these heroes of Darwin are.

[Maria]

Forgive me, I shouldn't have said your views are "silly", Icxypion. I used to have the same views myself, and they certainly made sense to me at the time.

No offense taken, dear Jonathan. I love a good lively discussion. Because we get lively doesn't mean we are lacking in charity. I do think that saying something is "unacceptable" is very diplomatic. Vitriolic language would be language like "idiotic" or "stupid". Since I can see your reasoning in what you have said, what you have posited is not worthy of any other inflammatory kind of language. I understand you. However, your views are based on your trust that scientific data cannot be interpreted any other way than the views of the modernist scientists who state that the fossils are absolutely billions of years old. This is a claim I find very much wanting from both a scientific view, and from a biblical and patristic view which is based on divine revelation by the Spirit of TRUTH. Both of us are very educated and are able to analyse scientific arguments well. I have studied the intelligent design theorists for a long time (they are not Creationists, which I agree have problems of a greater order than the ID theorists) and I feel that they have put forward excellent arguments on a host of physical science fields that show that the conclusions of the Evolutionists are based on a lot of presumptions, and that they ignore a great many alternate interpretations of data that are equally satisfying (and at the end of the day they have no more loose ends than the Evolutionist theories do). We have been raised in public schools that from our childhood teach us to unquestioningly accept the wisdom of the authorised views put forward in our textbooks. Also, many coverups of embarrassing results and findings by Evolutionists and believers in a billions of years evolution on Earth have also been exposed by world class scientists. Most people don.t realise and could scarely bring themselves to believe how human and subject to fudging these heroes of Darwin are.

The fake human fossils designed by the Jesuit Father Teilhard de Chardin come to mind.

[Matthew]

I believe neither in evolution nor in "creationism" because the so-called "creationists" believe that God created the world in seven days, even though the Bible does say that a day is like a thousand years. However, man created time or chronos, while God's time is eternal.

I simply rejoice and give thanksgiving for the creation of our universe, our world, and ourselves. It is God's Great Mystery. Therefore, I look forward to Heaven where we will give thanks eternally for all of God's good gifts to us.

I do not believe God created everything in 7 days. This is a serious mistake. He RESTED on the 7th day. He made everything in SIX days.
(Slam dunk!)

Seriously though, I really DO believe everything was made in 6-24 hour days. I know in my own heart and mind that God will show that this is true. I can wait until the day when all hidden things (disputed things) will be made plain. At very least I will be a lot closer to the Truth than those who say billions of years by a system of evolutionary mistakes with death occurring billions of years before adam and with millions of proto humanoids killing and being killed all because of retroactive death on a sin in the billions of years in the future.

Yes we have mysteries in creation and in theodicy. But you are unnecessarily adding to them, and adding ones that the Fathers never encountered because they believed as I do that the world knew no sin or death until Adam and Eve, about 7500 years ago. (Note the Calendar Year of the Church which all Orthodox accepted say it is 7521 FROM ADAM. And even Saint Seraphim of Sarov says that Christ will return and that the world will end before the eight thousandth year from Adam. He believed in the accuracy of the Church's calculation of the age of humanity on the Earth as not being more than about 7300 years (according to the church calendar) around the end of his own lifetime.

Yes I know you can discount all of this and say they are "non-essentials" and not dogmas, and that science has proved a great many things Church Fathers in the past believed but that we now know are not true (like the existence of the phoenix). But the difference is that if we wander from the things the holy fathers held in unison for millennia to be voluntary subjecting our faith to redefinitions set by the unbelievers (as most of these evolutionists are) then you are paddling your own canoe. I choose rather to take the whole of the Orthodox faith simply, and as obediently as I can submitting my intellect and judgement to the views held by the majority of the saints and fathers down through the ages. Maybe I will be proved wrong at the judgement, but I will not be proven intellectually self-guided against the consensus of the Church, but rather submissive to it. I feel much more comfortable with that than with running with the modern fashion on these matters, and I have not an ounce of embarrassment or fear of being laughed at or thought simple-minded and ignorant by anyone who accepts these theories of the secular humanist evolutionists and proponents like Ernst Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins and the like.

[jgress]

Well, if the evidence turned out to be against evolution, I'd be happy to reject it. I'm just not convinced, so my concern is more what I would do as an Orthodox believer if evolution were true. Would I have to abandon my faith? These attempts at reconciliation are partly aimed at helping me see how both might be true, since I can't bring myself to reject either one.

It is certainly the case that many atheists have used evolution as a pretext for abandoning Christ. To me, however, that only proves that they were looking for an excuse; it doesn't tell us whether evolution is intrinsically opposed to faith. You can't make an argument along the lines of "if evolution is true, Christianity is false"; or rather you can try, but I am not convinced. I think the mere fact that some TO believers are able to accept evolution as a scientific theory shows that you can accept both. We might be mistaken, but I think we, just as you, are honestly trying to work out the truth.

Following St Gregory Palamas' words that I quoted elsewhere, I am trying to take what is good from science and reject what is bad. We have different ideas about what constitutes good and bad, of course, but we're operating under the same principles. To my mind, what is of more concern is people attempting to use science to bolster their anti-Christian worldview. If an Orthodox believer accepts evolution, I don't see that as a big deal, since he is still Orthodox; if he abandons Orthodoxy and tries to argue that Orthodoxy must be false because of evolution, then we have a problem.

[Matthew]

Most people don.t realise and could scarely bring themselves to believe how human and subject to fudging these heroes of Darwin are.

The fake human fossils designed by the Jesuit Father Teilhard de Chardin come to mind.

Dear Maria, actually I was thinking of the fudging, exaggerating, stretching of truth and even outright lies of the Evolutionists that have been exposed. Here are just a few from http://conservativecolloquium.wordpress ... aeoraptor/:

The Piltdown Man
In 1912 in Sussex, England, amateur paleontologist Charles Dawson discovered what appeared to be a skull with a human-like cranium and an ape-like jawbone. The “missing link,” a transitional organism fossil, had apparently been found.
But in 1953 radiocarbon dating revealed that it was a fake. Dawson had attached a modern orangutan jaw modern to a 1000 year old human skull. In fact, the jaw was stained with potassium bichromate and the teeth where filed down to make them look more human.

Archaeoraptor
In 2000, this half-bird, half-dinosaur found in China and smuggled to the U.S. was also proven a hoax. A fake tail had been glued on another fossil to try and increase its value when sold on a black market.

The Peppered Moths
I remember being taught this example in school. It was supposed to be a real life demonstration of natural selection at work. According to this story, black moths evolved from white moths. It was theorized that that the white moths were easily seen on industrial revolution-blackened trees and thus were easily seen and eaten by predators. The black moths, however, blended in and avoided predators. Thus the environment naturally selected darker moths. In the 1950s, Oxford biologist E. B. Ford actually set up an experiment to test this theory. It was a fraud though.
Ford and his assistant placed lightly-colored moths on black tree trunks in broad daylight. But lepidopterist (moth specialist) Ted Sargent and others pointed out that peppered moths do not rest on tree trunks but on the underside of high branches and are nocturnal! Thus the experiment was rigged; placing moths where they would not normally be at a time that they would not even be active.
Yet evolutionary fundamentalists won’t let go of this one that is still taught in schools.

Embryo Drawings
I remember seeing embryo drawings in my biology textbook. German biologist, eugenicist, racist, and proto-Nazi Ernst Haeckel first drew the embryos of various vertebrate animals. They all looked the same and thus were evidence that they all had a common ancestor in the evolutionary chain. Darwin himself claimed the “facts” of embryology to be “second to none in importance” and “by far the single strongest class of facts” supporting his theory.
But in the 1990s, British embryologist Michael Richardson and his team of researchers actually looked at vertebrate embryos through a microscope. Photos were published in the August 1997 issue of the journal Anatomy & Embryology. The photos look nothing like Haeckel’s drawings! In fact, Haeckel had used the same woodcuts for some embryos and doctored others to make sure they looked alike. Even his contemporaries charged him with fraud.

Computer Simulations of Eye Evolution
Richard Dawkins, well-known evolutionist, claimed in his book River Out of Eden that computer models exist that can simulate or recreate the evolution of the eye.
However, the senior author of the study on which Dawkins based his claim, Dan E. Nilsson, has explicitly rejected the idea that his laboratory has ever produced a computer simulation of the eye’s development.

Added the reference to make this post compliant with copyright laws.

[Matthew]

Well, if the evidence turned out to be against evolution, I'd be happy to reject it. I'm just not convinced, so my concern is more what I would do as an Orthodox believer if evolution were true. Would I have to abandon my faith? These attempts at reconciliation are partly aimed at helping me see how both might be true, since I can't bring myself to reject either one.

It is certainly the case that many atheists have used evolution as a pretext for abandoning Christ. To me, however, that only proves that they were looking for an excuse; it doesn't tell us whether evolution is intrinsically opposed to faith. You can't make an argument along the lines of "if evolution is true, Christianity is false"; or rather you can try, but I am not convinced. I think the mere fact that some TO believers are able to accept evolution as a scientific theory shows that you can accept both. We might be mistaken, but I think we, just as you, are honestly trying to work out the truth.

Following St Gregory Palamas' words that I quoted elsewhere, I am trying to take what is good from science and reject what is bad. We have different ideas about what constitutes good and bad, of course, but we're operating under the same principles. To my mind, what is of more concern is people attempting to use science to bolster their anti-Christian worldview. If an Orthodox believer accepts evolution, I don't see that as a big deal, since he is still Orthodox; if he abandons Orthodoxy and tries to argue that Orthodoxy must be false because of evolution, then we have a problem.

I agree that the deeper concerns of "What does our faith actually rest upon within ourselves? What do I allow to determine my faith positions?" are of great import and need to be scrutinized. I have made the choice to ignore presently popular "Dogma" in secular society and media, and only seek to please God and have faith regardless of how it makes me look in the eyes of others who consider me backwards and ignorant. (Not saying either of you do, but certainly my sister does! and has let me know it on numerous occasions.) but you see that is just the point, even if evolution does not make you stumble, it definitely does make the majority of young people raised in Christian or faith based homes stumble and fall from faith in Christ. It is simply dangerous and an attack on the Bible and the traditional faith of the Church on the origins of life, and of where suffering and death come from.

[jgress]

But the point I'm making is that it's not evolution itself, but the "spin" people put on it who are hostile to the Church, that causes people to stumble. What has, in fact, caused me to stumble more than once is the insistence of some Orthodox that I must reject evolution to be Orthodox. This I can't do, and I think many others feel the same. Given this ultimatum, many must choose evolution, since they can't reject their own reason.

I think this puts the spotlight on where the difference between faith and reason lies. You can't "prove" Orthodoxy by the same arguments that you can prove evolution. Orthodoxy is something you experience, not something you prove. Evolution is a scientific theory, meaning that it has no absolute truth value. Scientific theories have provisional truth value, meaning that they may be accepted as provisionally true as long as they have explanatory value and aren't contradicted by known evidence. Orthodoxy, on the other hand, is true because I myself experience it and know it to be true.