Posted on 09/25/2009 8:34:35 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Sept 24, 2009 — The evolutionary story of human origins is often told like a cultural myth that is intuitively obvious. Humans emerged in Africa after their ancestors came down from the trees and walked upright. They began to hunt with stone tools and used fire. They migrated north out of Africa and populated Europe, overtaking the Neanderthals who lacked the brain power and culture of their more evolved cousins. How much of this story is based on actual evidence? How much is interpolation of what “must” have happened based on an evolutionary view of natural history?
As part of its celebration of the Darwin Bicentennial, PNAS invited a special series of papers on human evolution, called Out of Africa: Modern Human Origins. A careful reading of these papers reveals more gap than knowledge, more bluffing than evidence...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...
Are you equating the using of a grammatical construct that based upon a scientific flaw or a logical fallacy in a weather forecast to your literal accuracy imperative of Scripture?
Well, it’s not just a limitation on what science can study, it’s the basic nature of naturalistic science that they cannot account for the possibility of supernatural involvement in their theories. So to say that God created evolution, when evolution is a theory designed to explain the development of life without admitting the possibility of a creator, seems a little silly to me. If you believe God created life, especially if you believe in the Bible which describes how he created it, then why would anyone try to reconcile that with the imperfect theorizations of those who can only observe the remnants and aftereffects of his handiwork?
Nice point about General Relativity! But you needn’t even take it that far, even under Newton’s laws of gravitation, it’s clear that the Earth doesn’t just orbit the Sun, but they in fact orbit each other. Therefore, strict heliocentrism or strict geocentrism are either equally wrong, or equally right, depending on your perspective :)
Actually, the differences are greater than that. Heliocentrism always ignores the rest of the universe while geocentrism always includes it. Your example above shows how the rest of the universe is ignored by focusing on the sun/earth CG.
Consider that the solar system is a mere point when compared to the universe. Then consider that it does not take much gravitational imbalance in the universe to move the CG from somewhere inside the sun (for heliocentrism) to inside the earth (for geocentrism).
This is what Ernst Mach understood under classical physics and what Einstein, Hoyle, Born and Ellis understood under GR.
I quoted a complete sentence. I assumed it represented a complete thought--they usually do. The rest of your paragraph explains why you think the scientific process is a logical fallacy, but it hardly misrepresents you to quote the sentence where you say that you do.
Again, this is simply your inability to understand the ramifications of the scientific process being based on a logical fallacy. You lack the critical-thinking skills to understand that all of your beliefs are therefore based in logical fallacy and though you think it allows you to 'no longer care', the fact of the matter is that you should care very much.
Is there an actual argument in there somewhere? All I see is a series of assertions. Critical thinking is more than the ability to recite a list of logical fallacies--as one of the sites I read put it, there's a difference between logic and reason. You can cling to your puny "it's a fallacy!" objections, I'll go with something that's been shown to work.
Who said I have a "literal accuracy imperative of Scripture?" The rising and setting of the sun is both a literal observational phenomenon and a illustrative figure of speech.
Is God in control of the climate?
Ther rejection of any science based processes as being the work of God because they are n't specifically cited in clear English in Scripture pretty much answers that question.
The rising and setting of the sun is both a literal observational phenomenon and a illustrative figure of speech."
The sun neither rises nor sets; the earth rotates on its axis resulting in any given point on its surface moving toward or away from it. That we have a grammatical construct that states otherwise in biblical verbiage undermines the concept of biblical literalism.
"Is God in control of the climate?"
Of course He is. The argument isn't "if" he is in control. It is "how" he controls.
“That we have a grammatical construct that states otherwise in biblical verbiage undermines the concept of biblical literalism.”
Most people I know who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible don’t ascribe the type of “literalism” that you are implying. That would mean that when the Bible said Jesus was the Lamb of God, one would have to believe he was not a man, but an actual lamb. If no reasonable people carry “literalism” to that extent, why would you assume they would take the usage of common idioms such as “sunrise” or “sunset” as literal statements of scientific doctrine?
Are you as bad of a scientist as you are a biblical hermeneuticist?
If you wish to attack godlessness, do so. Evolution does not stand or fall because of a belief or lack of belief in god.
I can claim to be prominent (why not; it doesn't advance or hurt the idea of evolution). I am not godless, but believe in evolution.
Not being a literalist I have a hard time understanding where those who can arbitrarily apply their own threshold for literalcy, but denounce as heretics anyone whose threshold differs. How do you determine that deviation from the text is OK when reaching a logical conclusion that Jesus was not an actual Lamb or that the sun didn't actually rise, but advocate stoning those who don't believe that creation took place in six 24 hour days?
That depends on whether you think an exegete is good or bad. Considering hermeneutics in relation to its cognate branches of study, one need return to a more accurate scrutiny of its own contents. The science of interpretation has for its formal object the discovery and the presentation of the sense of Sacred Scripture. Starting from this fact, we may infer that:
• a complete treatise of hermeneutics ought to treat first of the sense of Scripture in general;
• it must lay down definite rules for finding this sense;
• it must teach us how to present this sense to others.
“How do you determine that deviation from the text is OK when reaching a logical conclusion that Jesus was not an actual Lamb or that the sun didn’t actually rise”
Because the good Lord gave me common sense.
“but advocate stoning those who don’t believe that creation took place in six 24 hour days?”
Who is advocating stoning? Did some Mohameddan sneak on the thread and I missed it?
So as long as anyone agrees with your particular interpretation of scripture and applies your logic and common sense the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs, but woe to them who see or know things differently based upon their common sense.
"Who is advocating stoning?"
Leviticus stipulates the punishment for heretics is stoning, but we don't take the literally anymore, do we?
Wow, I didn’t think there was anybody left who truly believed in geocentrism, and certainly not on this board. Is the Earth flat, too?
It was interesting how few people realized that one statement essentially admitted AGW wasn't about science.
Better. But the bigger question is are you and only you the holder of the key to the interpretation of scripture? If so I (and a billion others) have millions of questions to ask you.
I guess I can take that job if you will take the job of being the only holder of the key to the interpretation of all scientific data and observations.
If so I (and a billion others) have millions of questions to ask you.
Fire away.
Nice job of plagiarism, BTW. Lobachevsky would be proud.
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