Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
>> “guilt by association” is a logical fallacy.
That’s not logical fallacy. That’s a topological assertion.
Do you have a source for that? I can find lots of references for "guilt by association" being classified as a logical fallacy.
Definitions
- - - - - -
association: The act of consorting with or joining with others
guilt: The state of having committed an offense
Prove that “guilt by association” is false (logical fallacy.)
An example contradiction: the murderer consorted with his friend to hold up the bank. The friend provided the weapon used during the course of the robbery that resulted in the murder of a teller. The friend is guilty in providing the weapon that was used to murder the teller; therefore, it cannot be stated as truth that “guilt by association” is a logical fallacy. QED
The phrase is meaningless.
!
It has a very well know and defined meaning. I don't have time for some who wants to play that game.
“So, now, if “traditionalists” deny, say, evolution, what does that make those who agree with it, non-traditionalists?”
Spirited: As the Catholic Kolbe Center for the study of creation argued so well, natural science and evolutionary thinking create a mindset within priests who accept this way of thinking that becomes incrementally averse to the Biblical view of total reality. Obviously this is because methodological naturalism/natural science bespeak a closed system, a box with its’ top sealed tight against the supernatural dimension while Darwinism presents an inverted anti-creation account (everything begins at the bottom) that is the antithesis of the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo where everything begins at the top before falling.
Whereas the view of reality posited by naturalism consists of one dimension, the natural or sensory dimension, according to the biblical view there are two dimensions, that which we can see and that which we normally cannot.
The natural or blood and soil man faces what he believes is the total reality of the universe and interprets what he believes to be true against this one half. So everything must be matter, chemicals, grey matter, and instincts. The Christian man faces both the seen and unseen and interprets truth against these two interacting halves of reality. Thus Paul declares that we are made,
“...a spectacle unto the world, and to angels and men.” (1 Cor. 4:9)
The blood and soil man cannot understand Paul’s seemingly fantastic claim because his view of reality is a major barrier for the blood and soil man who claims to ‘see’ but is really blind to total reality.
What Paul is affirming in 1 Cor. 4:9 is that reality consists of two halves, hence this earth is really a theater and men are on its stage being observed by both the seen (men) and the unseen—Angels and fallen Angels, as betty pointed out.
Men cannot see them but they can see and hear us. Fallen Angels are all around us, watching, listening, leading men astray, corrupting minds, and speaking persuasive thoughts into the minds of men. One of their most popular suggestions is that all that exists is one substance (monism) that is either physical matter (Atomists, Secular Humanists) or spiritualized matter (Cosmic Humanists).
Now either the blood and soil view of reality (closed system) is true or the Biblical view consisting of the seen and unseen is true. If the closed system is true then adherents of the Biblical view are deluded. If however there really are two halves of reality, then the blood and soil view is extremely naïve and blind to the total reality of the universe. From the Christian viewpoint, no man has ever been so naïve, nor so ignorant of reality as modern blood and soil man with his natural science and evolutionary thinking.
If by that you mean some “Darwinists” are also atheists, then of course that’s correct.
But many are not, and neither science in general nor “Darwinism” specifically require any religious belief or non-belief.
Do we agree?
As to who might be more *ss-hattish than somebody else, I suspect that’s another one of those questions science just can’t answer.
;-)
When one considers the ramifications of what Alamo_Girl referred to, namely Schroeder's explanation of dual temporal perspectives, a 100 million year slow change in organismal expression is but a moment from another perspective.
God as Dreator, by definition is greater than His Creation, and His creation is far greater than man has yet discovered (dimensional variability is still in infancy regarding 'higher dimensions').
Since first learning the vagaries of Darwin's theory of natural selection I have marveled that humans have figured out one of the ways God creates. Sadly, the opposite effect seemed to settle into Darwin's life as he gradually rejected the learning from his youth and instead of integrsating he became, at best, an agnostic regarding God and The Grace of God in Christ.
We Christians could take another approach, and decide that God is still creating, but now generating creations at a spiritual level of the greater Universe of His creating, using a selection process described in Romans with English words of "Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified" (Rom 8:30), to describe changes vaguely expressed in the 4D limited universe if pondered without spiritual eyes and ears.
Many do not realize, or include in their reasoning, that space/time and all dimensionality are parts of the Creation and not restrictions on, or properties of, the Creator of them.
To a timeless God, is it any more or less a miracle if it happens in an instant, or over time? Is it any more or any less God if something occurs that looks like direct intervention, or something that is the logical outcome of principles or an algorithm God has set in place and in motion?
Because my observation is that God sometimes intervenes in a way that changes a circumstance in an instant, and sometimes in a way that plants a seed that bears fruit over time. Sometimes both in combination.
I believe that creation is still ongoing, and will continue to continue, because that is the essential nature of God. He is a Creator God. Its what he does. Creation continues to unfold and will continue to unfold. We have a role to play as agents of creation, but its his game.
Well and truly stated.
Strangely enough, when many of the same of what you now call the “allegedly” mocking of Christians, was introduced to you, by yours truly, in 2009 on FR (see February of 2009, How Much Longer Can They Sell Darwinism?), you had no objection, just excuses for the misbehavior of Atheists attempting to use Science as a shield. Apparently you’ve decided that tactic doesn’t work, so you’ve now opted instead for denial. Obfuscation and denial are all you have. Hence my reference to “great billowing clouds,” which apparently drives you crazy.
Dawkins, and his many acolytes (fans), have been found guilty of violating the very canons of the science they pretend to praise as superior to any possible religion or other code of ethics.
Your denial efforts notwithstanding.
Dear BroJoeK, who's quote is this? It doesn't "sound" like C. S. Lewis' language at all. [I do not see much use of strictly denotative language in his works: He is a great literary artist who typically employs symbolic language.] I thought, well, if a statement like this exists in C. S. Lewis' body of work, then I'd likely find it in The Abolition of Man. Having just skimmed that work, I could not find that statement or anything like it.
Plus there is this problem: Lewis was far too gracious a man to ever "mock" anyone or anything. That was definitely not his style.
This may simply be a case of someone attributing something to Lewis. If so, I'd like to know who, what, and in what context. I'd be glad to look into this matter further. Would you kindly give me the cite for the above statement?
But this quibble is about the authorship of a statement. I gather that's not really what you're interested in. So, "Indeed, let's look at that quote again."
Primarily, this is a statement about evolution. It doesn't directly specify Darwinian evolution, but seems to imply it. I can give you my analysis, but can only do so from my own point of view — which I suspect may be very close to C. S. Lewis' own.
For openers, speaking as an orthodox Christian, in no way do I find the idea of "evolution" objectionable in principle. From the cosmic perspective, it seems very clear to me that the Creation, or the universe as you may prefer to call it [hopefully we won't quibble about terms, at least not yet] is a process that unfolds in space and time, from a beginning, progressively developing its potentialities as it "evolves."
The Darwinian claim that Christians find objectionable is that evolution is fundamentally a random process. This is not to say Christians deny that there is a certain amount of randomness in nature. Certainly I don't. But the point is, randomness cannot serve as an organizational principle governing the evolutionary process. Undisciplined by law, randomness just continues to be random. The point is, randomness has no principle whereby it can produce its own organizational laws, such that it can cease to be "random," and actually evolve into "something."
But then it will be argued, Natural Selection is Darwin's organizational principle. A "natural" selection is one that is elicited by environmental pressure, acting on random mutations of already-existent organisms about which we know nothing apart from the fact that they already exist. That is to say, Darwin's theory is not a theory of the origin of biological beings (i.e., the origin of life); it is a theory about how existent beings change morphologically, or speciate, over time.
Thus we are left with the squishy proposition that the natural environment, which is itself ever changing, acts on a random flux of biological possibilities, for the purpose of — selecting for reproductive fitness. How banal a final cause could there be than that?
For make no mistake about it: "Survival of the fittest" is a final cause, though a rather puny, paltry one. I doubt many Darwinists would ever admit this, of course. Just as they reject out of hand the idea there could possibly be "design" in nature, even if it very much looks like there IS design in nature.
So they say this is just "apparent" design. Which is like saying that nature is engaged in a full-time job of fooling us; and yet Darwinists still place their faith in natural selection, even though nature itself has no lawful principle to stand on that Darwin's theory bothers to elucidate; and which seems to play the jokester in this "apparent design" business.
And at the apex of Darwin's evolutionary chain is Man — who Darwinian thinking easily justifies as "a vicious predatory animal."
Notwithstanding all of the above, a whole lot of people out there think Darwin's theory is the sine qua non biological theory! Worse than that, they believe it is a theory of man.
Contrast the characterization of man as a "vicious predatory animal" with the characterization of man conveyed in a couplet I found recently in a Roman Catholic missal:
Yet you have made us little less than gods,No wonder dogmatic, bitter-ender, materialist (and oftentimes atheist) Darwinists, and thoughtful Christians have such difficulty seeing eye-to-eye: They do not even stand on the same ground of Being. It is just on that point that I aver that Darwin's theory is a very great lie, in that it falsifies not only the order of nature, but the order of man and society.
With glory and honor you have crowned us
Gave us power over the work of your hands,
Dominion over all that you have made.
I do not "mock" Darwin's theory in saying any of this. I hold it too dangerous to the well-being of human persons and societies to dismiss it by such cheap means.
Generally, Christians do not believe the universe is a random development. They believe it is a consequence of God's Word in the Beginning, the Logos, which specifies the organizational principles of the universe that guide (but do not completely determine) its evolution in space and time.
What I find truly fascinating is that recent findings in scientific physical cosmology seem to corroborate God's statements in Genesis 1. In physical terms, we hear of the Singularity, or even (to my ear) of what David Bohm called the "implicate order" that was initiated "in the beginning" in the Big Bang/inflationary universe concept.
I could wish that modern-day biologists were so "open-minded."
Must close for now. Thank you so very much for writing, BroJoeK!
Jeepers, this is news to me, dear R7 Rocket. Could you/would you provide further details?
Also, while you're at it, if you could give me your definition of "magic," I would find that most helpful.
Just trying to "get on the same page" with a stranger....
You said it was a logical fallacy. And you’re wrong. Not a game.
Every reference work I can find says it is, and you’re the only one that says it’s not. Looks like the whole world is wrong except you.
How banal a final cause could there be than that?
WoW what a concept... that..
natural selection is “a banal story and limp attempt at explaining original cause”...
At least thats what I got... from your screed above...
I have always “felt” that..... just didnt put it in those words..
Boiling original cause down to the level of the breeding of domestic dogs and cats..
which is not natural in any way..
The breeder being the Natural Selection God(god removed)...
Talk about Easter Bunnies and Santa Clauses.. even Tooth Fairy’s.. (invisible friend’s)..
The natural selection god did not make Chihuahua’s, Beagles or Siamese Cats...
BUT he may have made democrats.. the bastard...
Non-belief is an implied requirement to whatever might contradict the given “science”. So “science” can certainly apply constraints on faith. Then there’s the “science” of Global Warming which arguably requires “belief” the “deniers” fail or refuse to adopt.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.