steamer

Jesus Taught Evolution.

Matthew 13
1The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.
2And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
3And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
4And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
5Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
7And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
8But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

If you notice, many seeds tried to grow in places where they weren't well adapted. They failed to survive when they landed near the better adapted thorns. They failed to survive on the shallow ground where they had not much earth, but other plants have adapted to that kind of environment. Some seeds were devoured by birds and there were no doubt some seeds scattered by being dropped by the birds. Those that fell upon ground to which the seeds were well adapted brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Can you see that the ones that landed where they were best adapted produced the most fruit? The best plants also brought forth the most fruit.

If you imagine that soil can vary and plants can often grow on ground that is not perfectly suitable to them, those seeds with variations helpful to grow on insufficient ground will produce among the hundredfold and not the thirty fold or at least the thirtyfold and not the zerofold. If you thought evolution was something more than this...You were wrong.

Now then, would someone care to argue with me and Jesus? Want to tell me why god's word (when it happens to be right) ought not be taught in the classroom?

buckshot23

I was going to ask you if you were serious but since you thought this post was good enough for a seperate thread I assume you are not joking. You know this was a parable right? You know he isn't talking about seeds right?

I'm sorry but this is a stretch to the Hal Lindsey level.

steamer

Of course I know it is a parable. Yet what he says is still true of seeds. Are you accusing Jesus of not knowing anything about seeds? Agriculture had been around a couple thousand years by the time Jesus was supposed to have lived.

Anyway, I guess you are not interested in learning about evolution from Jesus or the bible. You merely want to cherry pick your objective truths.

buckshot23

This is NOT evolution. If He did teach it I would be very interested.

steamer

Sorry dude, it is evolution. This is exactly evolution.

What is it you thought evolution was? Sure the big effects happen over long long long periods of time, but this is how it happens, little by little adaption to less than optimal conditions. Occasionally you get frame-shift errors like with the Nylon eating bacteria, Nylon Bug but mostly it is just little by little variations and adaptions.

Do a bible search on seeds. I'm pretty sure Leviticus has something about not mixing seeds of two kinds together. Why would that be? Plants are actually competative little buggers and whichever one is better adapted to where you are planting will beat out the other. In effect you will lose a good percentage of your crop if you mix the wrong seeds together. It's just common sense really, but it's common sense about understanding adaption and variability. It's common sense about understanding natural selection and Jesus in his parable clearly understood it and even taught it.

buckshot23

This is a stretch. Does Jesus teach us how these seeds came into being? I think He does. By creation. He doesn't seem to think over eons of time these seeds would change into something other than seeds. Jesus doesn't say anything about variations and adaptations in this parable. Just that certain seeds if planted in appropriate places would thrive. While if you plant them in inappropriate places they would die. That is common sense not evolution.

steamer

Edit to add:

"Just that certain seeds if planted in appropriate places would thrive. While if you plant them in inappropriate places they would die. That is common sense not evolution."

This is very close to correct. To make it correct add the following:

Just that certain seeds if planted in appropriate places would thrive. While if you plant them in inappropriate places without adaptation, they would die. That is common sense and evolution."

Take this teaching of Jesus and go look at some of the places he describes. Look at places where plants grow without much earth. See what kinds of plants are adapted to grow there. Look at the grass growing in the crack of the sidewalk. Why do no other plants grow there? Why is the grass better at growing in the sidewalk than a rose bush?

Look how the thorns have out-competed other plants. Look closely at any two seeds and you will see that they are not identical and each has some variation. Some seeds are never eaten by birds, but generally those seeds have other ways of hitchiking which ensures they are scattered to other areas.

Pay close attention to how some plants bring forth fruit one hundred-fold and thirty-fold. Which one will have the most offspring?

Imagine how a plant can gradually become better at growing in more alkaline soil merely by succeeding at growing there by some accidental variation from it's parent. In that soil that would be a hundred fold producing plant while a plant without that variation might produce zero or thirty-fold.

Can you really not see how eventually over thousands of years two plants in the same ancestral line might only succeed in growing in soil near to what their parents had, but not in the soil of their ancestor? What kind of fruit would they bring forth in there newly adapted state? The parent plant's direct offspring would probably die or put forth thirty-fold whilst the adapted plant would put forth one hundred-fold.

How is it that some varieties of wheat are more draught and bug resistant than others? Variation and adaption I tell ya.

Forget about creation for a moment because evolution doesn't teach how things started, only how they came to be what they are from what they were.

buckshot23

You win steamer. I do not feel like arguing this.

steamer

No problem, but it does seem rather obvious to me that Jesus as well as any farmer knew enough about seeds to teach these rudiments of evolution and natural selection. To review...

Jesus knew not to plant seeds in soil that they are not well adapted to.
Jesus knew not to plant seeds too near better adapted and competative thorns.
Jesus understood that the seeds that birds consume had a better chance of being carried (and scattered) by birds.
Jesus understood that thriving plants produce more seeds than less optimally adapted plants.
Jesus understood that soils were variable and that some plants had adapted to soils that didn't offer much earth to root in. (I'm sure we can assume that Jesus was aware of other non-edible plants that could grow there)

I'm curious who told you that you should not believe that Jesus understood natural selection?

Nero's Boot

Why not? Christians have gotten the Bible to say so many OTHER things, why not evolution, too?

--it seems so odd that an inerrant book can be interpreted so many ways NB