Posted on 08/28/2002 9:36:04 AM PDT by gdani
Yeah, we are pretty mucn in agreement. As long as comparitive religion or philosophy are given as much standing as science. They don't have to be the same to be of equal importance in life.
Indeed. It's also important for muliticellulars like plants.
See my answer to tortoise above. Briefly if is not Christianity that needs to disprove evolution, it is evolution that needs to disprove Christianity for evolution to be true.
I doubt that, but I suppose you as an objectivist must accept it.
Going from genes that express "hair" to lack of genes that express "hair" may be described many ways, but it is NOT evolution. What this IS, is an example of how sloppy the definition of terms is in this whole argument.
Reductionism? Devolution? Breakdown? Simplification? Maybe so, but "Evolution?" Nope.
The same thing applies to the "dog breeds" argument. Dog breeds are developed by eliminating unwanted genetic information, not by creating new info. Therefore, it is not "Evolution." It is merely "change."
FIG A: Philosophical naturalism as exemplified in the Hard Facts Wall from the California Academy of Sciences exhibit in San Francisco, CA Life Through Time: The Evidence for Evolution
FIG B: Fossil data applied to the philosophical framework of Fig A. (Hard Facts Wall from the California Academy of Sciences exhibit in San Francisco, CA Life Through Time: The Evidence for Evolution)
FIG C: Empirical data of the Hard Facts Wall after removal of materialistic philosophy with Occam's razor.
FIG D: LIFE THROUGH TIME: Framework for theory of Macrostasis based upon the pervasive patterns of natural history. "Stasis is data." -- Stephen Jay Gould, "Opus 200," Natural History, August 1991, p. 16
FIG I: The origin of the phyla: the fossil evidence
Contrary to both Darwinian gradualism and punctuated equilibria theory, the vast majority of phyla appear abruptly with low species diversity. The disparity of the higher taxa precedes the diversity of the lower taxa.
The existence of God in no way proves the validity of the Bible or any other religion. This is a fairly gross fallacy that isn't brought up often enough. If I accept that God exists, and I do in fact accept that possibility, it says absolutely nothing about the Bible, Christianity, or any of that being anything other than utter nonsense cooked up by some fellas a few thousand years ago. Even if God exists and he is more or less the same God the Biblical people were talking about, it does not lend much support to anything in the Bible being true. God could very well exist AND you might be wrong on every single account of the truth EXCEPT the fact that God exists. But I don't see too many believers asserting any reasonable limits of their knowledge of God; if they know anything, they seem to know most everything.
That's actually a more rational position that the atheistic accident which some are striving to have be our mythological explanation for the existence of the universe.
Why would it automatically mean that the God of the Bible is the one who is real?
We have to make a choice as to who or what to worship. That's what free will is all about. Our culture and nation is based on treating the God of the Bible and Jesus' teachings as an axiom. It works pretty well. Cultures that reject the God of the Bible are superstitious hells on earth.
How can you really know what's for certain? That's what the Gospels are all about. That's what Jesus Christ's sacrifice is all about.
But again, it is your choice to accept or reject.
I'm only going to tell you once: Stay out of my house! :-)
Jenny, you do not believe in any God. Who determines your truth and why?
Your statement is your question
"What exactly do you mean by this? What exactly did your father think was bunk? And how exactly did mainstream scientists' explanation of the petrified forests change?"
Well, he said the 27 forests growing up, dying, then petrifiying in sequence was bunk. I think his reasoning was something like: A. Petrification of a standing forest is rare, almost impossible to conceive of. B. How does this happen 27 straight times without any intervening stratification?). [at this point, the evolutionary geologist would have said "you can't argue with the facts discovered in situ!!]
Mainstream geology has come to a similar conclusion, interpreting the stratification as the result of seasonal flooding of a single forest. If you are worried that geologists have based this new interpretation on an analysis of the book of Genesis, I think you're still safe.
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.