Posted on 07/30/2008 7:56:37 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Feedback archive → Feedback 2008
Christopher Hitchens—blind to salamander reality
A well-known atheist’s ‘eureka moment’ shows the desperation of evolutionists
In a recent article in the leftist online magazine Slate, prominent atheistic journalist Christopher Hitchens (b. 1949) thinks he has found the knock-down argument against creationists and intelligent design supporters. Fellow misotheist Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) and another anti-theist Sir David Attenborough (b. 1926) agree. Not surprisingly, there have been questions to us about this, so Dr Jonathan Sarfati responds. As will be seen, their whole argument displays ‘breathtaking inanity’ and ignorance of what creationists really teach, and desperation if this is one of their best proofs of evolution...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationontheweb.com ...
ping!
Desperation of evolutionist? Me thinks the Creationists are desperate.
Thanks for the ping!
ping
You wouldn't know it by this article. Everywhere I look, evolutionist atheologians are grasping at straws to defend the crumbling Temple of Darwin, while Creationists and ID scientists beat them over the head with reality (and they're having fun doing it). That's the opposite of desperation in my book.
Methinks you had best consider the content of the article. It would help evolutionists be more credible if they would stop making absurd mistakes about something in the here-and-now (what creationists actually believe), before trying to demand authoritatively that we trust them about an unobserved past. As it stands, evolutionists have largely forfeited the contemporary debate because they are _not_ dealing with the issues in a credible manner (as this example demonstrates).
Degeneration is not evidence of molecules-to-man evolution, it is its opposite. It fits much better with the worldview of Genesis (perfect beginning followed by a Fall and Curse).
Just try to explain that for a set of building blocks to come together to form a complex system the individual steps have to be favored by natural selection— which is the ID argument— and you'll get all kinds of counterarguments that do not address the ID claim (after they have finished calling you a hack for the Discovery Institute).
I don’t post on these threads much, as I really don’t see any point. However: Why does evolution preclude the existence of God? I believe in both, and see no reason why they’re incompatible.
A theory in crisis since 1859. I wonder if Dembski will pay off on his current bet when he loses ... again.
It’s the anti-Creationists that desperately strive to censor God in the classrooms and in the government.
Which was more virtuous, the praying 1700s US government or the 1950s Soviet atheist governent? Do a search for DEMOCIDE.
Which brought forth students with higher 3Rs and scientific skills, the pre-1962 schools with prayer and commonplace corporal punishment, or the modern atheist version?
I totally agree with you. I realize that much of what motivates the anti-evolutionary movement is religious in nature. But an argument is true or false regardless of the motivation of the arguer.
==Why does evolution preclude the existence of God?
It contradicts the creation account in the Bible, it contradicts the Bible on how sin entered the world, it contradicts the effects of sin (death, disease, suffering, etc), and it contradicts science (which is an investigation of God’s creation).
What strikes me about most of the essays which purport to challenge the tenets of ID and Creationism, is the thread of smarmy contempt and denigration for those who hold those beliefs, which seems to permeate the writing. I don't understand the necessity for doing this. IMO, one cannot with the wave of the arm, or wry smirk, dismiss the compelling arguments of the ID belief system.
I prefer to read studied responses and essays which do not contain attempts to ridicule.
Huge Flying Reptiles Ate Dinosaurs (StorkZilla LIVES!)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2022299/posts?page=18#18
Which creation story? Genesis 1? Genesis 2? The Hindu creation story?
What part of the word Bible don’t you understand?
Bump
Belief in evolution shouldn't undermine belief in God—and I agree with that. But the rabid atheist crowd will certainly use evolution to proselytize for atheism.
So some of the extreme antagonism facing scientists who even consider intelligent design has nothing to do with the purity of science—it's motivated by a hatred of God.
You beat me to the punch.
I don’t know, I’ve yet to see a single contribution by Creationists and ID people to science. What have those people done to strengthen American economy? Have they developed a single drug? Have they built a shuttle? Have they managed to produce a single scientific breakthrough?
The answer is an emphatic No.
By giving these ID people power we’re robbing our nation of scientific knowledge and ceding the next century to China and Europe.
I don’t understand how Creationism got tangled up with Conservatism. As a conservative I’m a strong proponent of science - it’s what enabled us to beat the Nazis, the Japanese, the Soviets and now Terrorists. We are a superpower because our instruments are more sophisticated. And we are sophisticated because we value the scientific method.
Intelligent Design is the enemy of science and therefore detrimental to the growth of our nation as we try to maintain our competitive edge in this century.
Belief in God and belief in evolution are not mutually exclusive. However, some choose to use ID as science which gives a bad name to rational Christians who are pro-science and pro-America.
As evidenced by Dawkins and Hitchen’s latest antitheist rants.
Although we keep hearing that, in practice, the teaching of evolution in the public school system is required by the staunch evos to be totally Godless. If it's true that many believe that the two are compatible, then why the furor when any attempt to mention God and evolution in the same sentence, or even the same setting?
Basically, though, anyone who believes that God and evolution are compatible, is an IDer.
Aren't you familiar with the name of Issac Newton? For starters.....
Science and technology are not the same thing.
ID is pure science—which has its place too. I have yet to see a real world application of string theory, which may or may not be true. That doesn’t mean string theory is not science—it’s just not applied science, at least not yet.
Really? Show me a paper in Science, Nature, PNAS or PRL spotlighting this amazing retort to evolution.
Me thinks your response will be that of a typical kook—that these publications have muzzled creationist brilliance from shining through.
Sources? I'd be interested to know how you know the belief system of every scientist who's made any contribution to science in the last few years.
BTW, welcome to FR.
What the heck are you talking about...many scientific disciplines were pioneered by CREATIONISTS.
Why on earth would I go looking for papers written to refute evolution in rags cranked-out by the Temple of Darwin? Still, they can’t help but provide evidence (which Creation Scientists and IDers take full advantage of) refuting their own religion...after all they are, whether they care to admit it or not, investigating God’s creation.
This is like claiming that clerks in the Swiss patent office made pioneering contributions to relativity.
The same is true in America. Most of the top American universities were founded by religious groups. Look at most of our hospitals—most have names like Saint ______ or Mt ____ or Our Lady ___.
Don't lose sight of the forest b/c of all the trees.
History moves forward, never backward. Since the dawn of history the race of man has weathered massive changes to his world; discoveries that kick up a lot of dust in their wake.
Over time -- and through much sturm und drang --the human race itself to these changes, i.e., the discovery/harnessing of fire; the invention/usage of the wheel; the compass; the printing press; discovery of new world; electricity; the internal combustion engine; birth control pills.
Today we are living through yet another massive change: the computer.
And, as per usual, a great deal of dust is being kicked up, but than it always has. In time and over time human society will adjust. The dust will settle just as it always has. The past is morphing into the future in a big,big way and we --and our thoughts, hopes, fears, plans and dreams-- are caught up in the whirl wind.
LOL! Or, as mothers everywhere would say, "It's just a phase we're going through."
A really great book related to this issue is
The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success
by the preeminent sociologist of religion Rodney Stark
Amen. Rather like the question: Why is the life of the dolphin considered more sacred than that of the tuna? Does the tuna hold his own life in any less regard? IOW, if you are going to teach one version of Creationism, you'd better be prepared to teach all versions. After all, the life of the tuna is as precious to it as...
>”Sources?”
Exactly. There are no sources because there are no material contributions by ID people to recent scientific body of knowledge. All they do is to insult Christianity by taking allegorical parts of the bible and using them to attack our grandest Western achievements - namely the scientific theory.
The scientific theory itself is a product of our Christian past, as some people already pointed out. And it is not mutually exclusive with the Darwinian theory of evolution.
A Christian scientist who endorses the scientific theory is not in the same league with a proponent of Intelligent Design. There is a distinction that’s lost on many people. ID is comparable to Astrology or Scientology insofar as the claims go. Even the Catholic Church rejects ID on grounds that it’s too ridiculous to be taught as science. ID and Creationism harm Christianity because they promote lifefless, bloodless deism which is worse than atheism.
BTW, welcome to FR as well.
Guess who wrote:
“I would say that parents should teach their children anything that’s known to be factually true –like “that’s a bluebird” or “that’s a bald eagle.” Or they could teach children that there are such things as religious beliefs. But to teach children that it is a fact that there is one god or that God created the world in six days, that is child abuse.”
Please don't take this as it might sound, but as used in the above context, what do you mean by "pure science"? What do you mean by "applied science"? These are not leading questions. I am genuinely curious.
What a steaming pile.
Defending a myth with a fiction. Creation "science" at its best.
Creationism doesn't harm Christianity because the same Bible that tells us about Christ, tells us about God creating the universe and everything in it. As a matter of fact, Jesus Himself refers several times to creation and the creation account.
Your initial comment was: "I don’t know, I’ve yet to see a single contribution by Creationists and ID people to science. ". Now you're just claiming that it's IDers? Why are you changing your story?
ID and Creationism harm Christianity because they promote lifefless, bloodless deism which is worse than atheism.
How so?
==This is like claiming that clerks in the Swiss patent office made pioneering contributions to relativity.
Hmmm...Einstien, by no means a believer in organized religion, came to the conclusion that the Universe is the handiwork of a divine intelligence:
“Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order. This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.”
Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein, Crown Publishers, New York, NY, USA, pp. 36-39, 1954.
Sounds kind of like an ID scientist, no?
I use the term in this sense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_science
“Fundamental science is the part of science that describes the most basic objects, forces, relations between them and laws governing them, such that all other phenomena may be in principle derived from them, following the logic of scientific reductionism. There is a difference between fundamental or pure science and practical science; sometimes called by the two phases pure science and applied science.[1] Pure science, in contrast to applied science, is defined as a basic knowledge it develops. Basic science is the heart of all discoveries, and progress is based on well controlled experiments. Pure science is dependent upon deductions from demonstrated truths, or is studied without regard to practical applications.”
The current version of ID is pure religion, cooked up after the Edwards decision of the US Supreme Court in an effort to sneak religion back into the schools.
You don't believe it, just look up “cdesign proponentsists” for the sordid details.
And they began to make real progress when they finally escaped the stiffling thumb of religious control. I think it was called The Enlightenment.
And many of our modern theocrats want to take us back to those bad old days.
PS My original point that many Creation Scientists pioneered major scientific disciplines still stands. If your goal is to rewrite history, it won’t work on this thread—GGG
As I posted earlier, yes, many ID proponents are motivated by religion.
Look, the big bang theory was motivated by religion. If you look at the history of the idea, you’ll find that its development was theologically motivated. That doesn’t mean it isn’t science.
The part that asks for Genesis 1 or Genesis 2 for the “right” Creation story. They’re different, you know...
And why should we accept and teach the Biblical Creation story over the Hindu, or Inuit, or Mayan, or Egyptian Creation stories?
Modern scholarship on the middle ages has overturned arguments such as the one you are making.
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