Casey Luskin and Hank Hanegraff on Adam and Eve

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 3, 2022

Culture, Intelligent Design, Religion}

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Casey Luskin discusses what we might learn from the debate:

Hank Hanegraaff, the host of the broadcast and the podcast, is joined by Dr. Casey Luskin, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, and author of “Lessons Learned (and Not Learned) from the Evangelical Debate Over Adam and Eve” in the upcoming issue of the Christian Research Journal. Hank and Dr. Luskin discuss why so many Christians are so quick to abandon the belief of a historical Adam and Eve, theistic evolution, evolutionary creationism, the argument that human genetic diversity can’t be explained by an original Adam and Eve and more.

Note: If Adam and Eve are mythical figures, the problem for Christians is the Scriptural statement,

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. – 1 Corinthians 15:22, NIV

Proclaiming Adam to be a myth naturally raises the question about the promises of Christ. This is one of the reasons Woke churches tend to be empty ones. – O’Leary for News

You may also wish to read: Casey Luskin: The Mytho-History Of Adam, Eve, and William Lane Craig. Craig got swapped into the production at the last minute… Seriously, Luskin is reviewing, over a series of posts, William Lane Craig’s In Quest of the Historical Adam. Long a defender of orthodoxy, Craig seems to want to prune the orthodoxies he is expected to defend.

Comments

All of this in the service of what? Ancient bronze-age mythological etiology? Come on, folks. Graduate from kindergarten already. When the Creator decides to show up, all will be revealed. In the mean time, more important matters for the human condition need addressing. P.S. Just be kind. And don't forget to agape your neighbor as yourself. --Ramram_{April 11, 2022
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Chuckdarwin says: "I did learn one new thing, the “primordial diversity” theory of Adam and Eve. I had not heard this novel theory before. This is an ad hoc notion that God created Adam and Eve with more genetic diversity than normally found in human gametes to “solve” the famous “bottleneck” problem. " Seversky says: "Why did God create just Adam and Eve? Such an omniscient being should have been well aware of the need for genetic diversity so why not create a large breeding population in the first place to give mankind a good start?" Actually it makes sense - the primordial diversity theory of Adam & Eve. I didn't know there was a name for it, but the original humans would have had a genome chock full of genetic diversity. Over time, that information would have been thinned down because each child only received half of their parents genes. This loss of diversity would slowly continue and over time the differences would become visible in their offspring. Sev asks why God only created Adam & Eve? Why not? If He created them with a rich gene pool for natural selection to use, then He did think of the need for genetic diversity and provided everything they need to give humans a "good start".tjguy_{April 8, 2022
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@Zweston at 13: Right, and Stephen Blume in his book Evo-illusion talks about current population levels taken back to the first pair, the timeline is exactly what you would see with regard to about 6500 years passage. That isn't YEC, but explains the timeline of modern man's arrival as in the Biblical claim, which is silent on the age of the earth and the universe.AnimatedDust_{April 6, 2022
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@Seversky @10 Good question. I guess He didn’t think of that. Obviously, you would have if you were God; right?Belfast_{April 5, 2022
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I still am amazed that when you use the current (and only observed) mutation rates in human generations, mitochondrial eve is only 6500 years old or so...zweston_{April 5, 2022
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As to the 'assumption' that the genetic diversity of the initial human pair was homogenous. Well, that is exactly what it is, i.e. a Darwinian 'assumption', not an established scientific fact.:
In BIO-Complexity, a New Model for Human Ancestry Ann Gauger November 7, 2016 Excerpt: The key assumption that distinguishes our model from the standard ones is that we assume that the first pair started out with heterogeneous chromosomes -- four distinct sets, two sets for each individual. The standard population genetics models work backward assuming everything starts from a single point. We are proposing that things started out different, not the same, with diversity present from the beginning in the genomes of the starting first pair. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/11/in_bio-complexi_1103261.html Adam and the Genome and “Predetermined Conclusions” - February 9, 2018 Excerpt: Gauger and some of her colleagues, such as Ola Hössjer, have been addressing that data. They have published two peer-reviewed papers that present models for potentially testing population genetics arguments against a first couple at our origin: Ola Hössjer, Ann Gauger, and Colin Reeves, “Genetic Modeling of Human History Part 1: Comparison of Common Descent and Unique Origin Approaches,” BIO-Complexity, Vol. 2016 (3). Ola Hössjer, Ann Gauger, and Colin Reeves, “Genetic Modeling of Human History Part 2: A Unique Origin Algorithm,” BIO-Complexity, Vol. 2016 (4). Their papers evaluate the assumptions underlying the standard evolutionary model of human origins and find “it is full of gaps and weaknesses.” The authors maintain that “a unique origin model where humanity arose from one single couple with created diversity seems to explain data at least as well, if not better.” https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/adam-and-the-genome-and-predetermined-conclusions/
Moreover, contrary to what Darwinists try to portray, it is not the Christian's claim that God created Adam and Eve that is in conflict with the body of established evidence from science, but it is, in fact, the Darwinian claim that humans evolved from some chimp-like ancestor that is badly in conflict with the body of established evidence from science.
Jan. 2022 Fossil Record refutes human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-fox-news-adam-and-eve-are-compatible-with-evolution/#comment-744141 Like the fossil record, the genetic evidence also falsifies Darwinian claims for human evolution rather than confirming them.,,, The evidence from genetics, directly contrary to what Darwinists claim, simply does not support the Darwinian ‘narrative’. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740245 Darwinists simply have no evidence that morphology, and/or biological form, is reducible to mutations to DNA. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740247 Population Genetics falsifies, instead of confirms, Darwinian claims for human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/christian-darwinists-must-now-backtrack-re-adam-and-eve/#comment-741335 Human exceptionalism falsifies Darwinian claims for human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740249 Darwinists, (in what makes the ‘problem’ of explaining the origin of the human species pale in comparison), have no clue whatsoever why "I", as an individual person within the human species, should even come into existence as a person with unique individual subjective conscious experience. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/casey-luskin-the-mytho-history-of-adam-eve-and-william-lane-craig/#comment-740568
Verse:
Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
bornagain77_{April 5, 2022
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Paul said a number of dumb things with regard to the Hebrew Bible. It's only a problem if you believe his words are "God breathed scripture." It's easy to prove they were not. He was a guy with an experience, who erred sometimes. --Billram_{April 4, 2022
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Why did God create just Adam and Eve? Such an omniscient being should have been well aware of the need for genetic diversity so why not create a large breeding population in the first place to give mankind a good start?Seversky_{April 4, 2022
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People who believe in Adam and Eve want to abandon the God that created these two after He had done so. They invent all sorts of crazy scenarios to explain the genetic variability that is found in the current human genome. I have not watched the above video but the explanation provided seems absurd. I once sat through a lecture by someone who seemed a little deranged who said that Adam’s children bred with animals and that is where the diversity came from. I thought that if Adam and Eve are real people, God is a powerful dude and could change the DNA with a thought and all would be solved. After all He just created Adam and Eve from scratch according to the account. Christians just have to accept The Fall as a true story if one is a believer. To introduce all sorts of scientific speculation just gets in the way. Aside: I was out walking and decided to listen to another Kirk Durston video. He was interviewing some guy with some very out there speculations including that there was a quantum collapse of the universe when Adam ate the fruit. Advice: take all these speculations as just that, wild a** speculations.jerry_{April 4, 2022
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As a favor to ChuckyD, I think I will park this new video right here:
Challenge to Origin of Life: Cell Membranes (Long Story Short, Ep. 6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHRcPTS1VHc
You can thank me later ChuckyD.bornagain77_{April 4, 2022
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Stephen Meyer just wrote a 400-page book claiming God did it all
Darwinists claim chance did it all. No evidences , no nothing. :lol:Lieutenant Commander Data_{April 4, 2022
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I suspect Chucky D is one of Those People who think you can believe ANYTHING and behave --however-- you want, *except* you can't be a Christian, or he will Troll the H*ll owt of ur blog. Andrewasauber_{April 4, 2022
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The depressing thing is that it’s not really even good, creative ad hoc theory, it’s just worn out, tired and boring
Apparently the truth bores you. You constantly run from it. For example, did Meyer make the case for the Christian God?jerry_{April 4, 2022
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Zweston--I don't "deny Jesus." I don't believe he was divine. I don't think listening to another lecture on "cold case Christianity" for the umpteenth time is going to change my mind. The issue isn't ad hoc theories per se, it's the candid acknowledgment that you are using an ad hoc theory. Cosmologists don't deny that the multiverse theory is ad hoc. IDers, on the other hand, trot out God every time they reach a roadblock completely oblivious to the fact that God is not an explanation or a theory for anything. I mean, look, Stephen Meyer just wrote a 400-page book claiming God did it all, and not just any God but the personal, all loving, all powerful, yada, yada God of "theism" (translate "Christianity" because he sure isn't talking about Allah). That's not an explanation, it's just plain old made-up stuff. The depressing thing is that it's not really even good, creative ad hoc theory, it's just worn out, tired and boring.chuckdarwin_{April 4, 2022
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The most amazing thing from this thread is that ChuckDarwin has 90 minutes to waste but won’t respond to criticisms of his inane comments here. So it’s not due to lack of time.jerry_{April 4, 2022
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Sticking with Denying Jesus eh? If you want to see a fresh compilation of the facts around Christianity, I'd suggest "person of interest" by J. Warner Wallace. I like how you critique ad-hoc theories, but probably subscribe to multiple such theories. And if you don't, we know that a multiverse theory is ad-hoc. So is "chemical evolution" and the idea that mutations are the main driver of the emergence of complex body plans.zweston_{April 4, 2022
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Mostly a wasted 90+ minutes. I did learn one new thing, the "primordial diversity" theory of Adam and Eve. I had not heard this novel theory before. This is an ad hoc notion that God created Adam and Eve with more genetic diversity than normally found in human gametes to "solve" the famous "bottleneck" problem. This is the problem of claiming that humans could not have proceeded from only two original members, that by reducing genetic diversity to two haploid cells (one set of chromosomes), extinction of the species would have been virtually certain. Of course, this "theory" is completely made up and has no empirical basis. But it does illustrate IDers' ability to set aside cognitive dissonance and mock other ad hoc theories, such as the multiverse, in mainstream science without breaking stride.....chuckdarwin_{April 4, 2022
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