Posted on 05/01/2011 7:24:18 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
The squabble between Darwin lobbyists who openly hate religion and those who only quietly disdain it grows ever more personal, bitter and pathetic. On one side, evangelizing New or "Gnu" (ha ha) Atheists like Jerry Coyne and his acolytes at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne is a biologist who teaches and ostensibly researches at the University of Chicago but has a heck of a lot of free time on his hands for blogging and posting pictures of cute cats.
On the other side, so-called accommodationists like the crowd at the National Center for Science Education, who attack the New Atheists for the political offense of being rude to religious believers and supposedly messing up the alliance between religious and irreligious Darwinists.
I say "supposedly" because there's no evidence any substantial body of opinion is actually being changed on religion or evolution by anything the open haters or the quiet disdainers say. Everyone seems to seriously think they're either going to defeat religion, or merely "creationism," or both by blogging for an audience of fellow Darwinists.
Want to see what I mean? This is all pretty strictly a battle of stinkbugs in a bottle. Try to follow it without getting a headache.
Coyne recently drew excited applause from fellow biologist-atheist-blogger PZ Myers for Coyne's "open letter" (published on his blog) to the NCSE and its British equivalent, the British Centre for Science Education. In the letter, Coyne took umbrage at criticism of the New Atheists, mostly on blogs, emanating from the two accommodationist organizations. He vowed that,
We will continue to answer the misguided attacks [on the New Atheists] by people like Josh Rosenau, Roger Stanyard, and Nick Matzke so long as they keep mounting those attacks.Like the NCSE, the BCSE seeks to pump up Darwin in the public mind without scaring religious people. This guy called Stanyard at the BCSE complains of losing a night's sleep over the nastiness of the rhetoric on Coyne's blog. Coyne in turn complained that Stanyard complained that a blog commenter complained that Nick Matzke, formerly of the NCSE, is like "vermin." Coyne also hit out at blogger Jason Rosenhouse for an "epic"-length blog post complaining of New Atheist "incivility." In the blog, Rosenhouse, who teaches math at James Madison University, wrote an update about how he had revised an insulting comment about the NCSE's Josh Rosenau that he, Rosenhouse, made in a previous version of the post.
That last bit briefly confused me. In occasionally skimming the writings of Jason Rosenhouse and Josh Rosenau in the past, I realized now I had been assuming they were the same person. They are not!
It goes on and on. In the course of his own blog post, Professor Coyne disavowed name-calling and berated Stanyard (remember him? The British guy) for "glomming onto" the Matzke-vermin insult like "white on rice, or Kwok on a Leica." What's a Kwok? Not a what but a who -- John Kwok, presumably a pseudonym, one of the most tirelessly obsessive commenters on Darwinist blog sites. Besides lashing at intelligent design, he often writes of his interest in photographic gear such as a camera by Leica. I have the impression that Kwok irritates even fellow Darwinists.
There's no need to keep all the names straight in your head. I certainly can't. I'm only taking your time, recounting just a small part of one confused exchange, to illustrate the culture of these Darwinists who write so impassionedly about religion, whether for abolishing it or befriending it. Writes Coyne in reply to Stanyard,
I'd suggest, then, that you lay off telling us what to do until you've read about our goals. The fact is that we'll always be fighting creationism until religion goes away, and when it does the fight will be over, as it is in Scandinavia.A skeptic might suggest that turning America into Scandinavia, as far as religion goes, is an outsized goal, more like a delusion, for this group as they sit hunched over their computers shooting intemperate comments back and forth at each other all day. Or in poor Stanyard's case, all night.
There's a feverish, terrarium-like and oxygen-starved quality to this world of online Darwinists and atheists. It could only be sustained by the isolation of the Internet. They don't seem to realize that the public accepts Darwinism to the extent it does -- which is not much -- primarily because of what William James would call the sheer, simple "prestige" that the opinion grants. Arguments and evidence have little to do with it.
The prestige of Darwinism is not going to be affected by how the battle between Jerry Coyne and the NCSE turns out. New Atheist arguments are hobbled by the same isolation from what people think and feel. I have not yet read anything by any of these gentlemen or ladies, whether the open haters or the quiet disdainers, that conveys anything like a real comprehension of religious feeling or thought.
Even as they fight over the most effective way to relate to "religion," the open atheists and the accomodationists speak of an abstraction, a cartoon, that no actual religious person would recognize. No one is going to be persuaded if he doesn't already wish to be persuaded for other personal reasons. No faith is under threat from the likes of Jerry Coyne.
JCB will always "ignore" an answer that has not been submitted to him in the only form he finds admissible: I.e., the answer must be "binary" — "no in-between!!!", meaning the answer can only be "yes" or "no" — mechanical, descriptive of concrete procedures....
He's a very horizontal creature, thinking along the flattest of time lines. Kinda reminds me of a snail, creeping along in its path. The snail is wholly ignorant that its motion is tracing a path, a "horizontal" line — a one-dimensional object. The snail is moreover totally unaware that its path is evolving in a two-dimensional object — a plane.
And forget about a snail's having any concept of a third extension — a three-dimensional object (sphere, cube) signifying volume, a larger context. This implies the vertical line or extension that JCB, kosta, and LG absolutely refuse to see.
Truly, these folks are "flatlanders" to eminent degree....
That is all your so called prophecies are worth metmom. Simply saying that the scriptures are full of accurate, specific, verifiable prophecies doesn't cut it. I demand evidence, without it you have nothing.
Remember, even if someone rises from the dead, those who won't believe, won't.
Where are those who rose from the dead? Again any evidence? Can I call up Lazurus? According to Elsie, he must still be around somewhere since he can only die once.
And you know that how?
Can’t say I was not warned about your lack of integrity...
Geneva Study Bible
Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog.
(l) My life that is solitary, left alone and forsaken by all, Ps 35:17,25:16
There is plenty in Psalm 22 that even a 5 year old can understand. What was it Mark Twain said?
“It’s not the things in the Bible I don’t understand that bother me,
rather it’s the things I do understand.”
Wow, the hair-splitting. Go read how many times I've mentioned I'm looking for an exception to the rule. Even one tribal saved outside faith in your particular dogma would have sufficed. Common sense.
I was being polite. Are you as intentionally ignorant about simple scientific facts (relative motion) as Ethan and Jesse, betty boop? I noticed you never jumped in to defend the truth.
In closing, it seems to me JCB's — and kosta's, and LG's — woeful "ignorance" of God is entirely willful, not "innocent."
LOL betty. You don't like it when I accurately call Christians ignoramuses and then you turn right around and prove my case with your projection. I will have to start calling you Miss projectionist : )
You know I am just teasing and I love you don't you?
Thanks for the heads up! I’ve been following the comments and the atheist’s rehearsed chants. What can be said to those who so ardently disbelieve what they know so little about?
And how exactly will you know if someone [anyone] is saved on this side of the ‘equation’?
Yes I am descended from a common ancestor with the monkeys. That is the point of evolution.
Comparing our DNA proves it. Your DNA isn't any different than mine Matchett.
The Dome of the Rock is believed to be built upon the original site of the Temple Mount.
Obviously you try to be obtuse and when the other FR posters quit answering your inane drivel you thought the thread was cold.
If I answer anymore of your postings it will most probably be another mistake I deeply regret.
Yes, they show me. Exactly the same way a master craftsman teaches me. There are many different forms of communication. Words are a minor form of communication.
No, I don't believe that at all. I think you are deadly serious, and you don't love anyone or anything at all beyond yourself. The existentialist term for this is "alienation."
Not to put too fine a point on it....
Good luck!
So there are tribals who can be "saved" without having known anything about your dogma from any human who possesses knowledge of your scriptures. Agree?
They are "saved" by following that "inner voice" that they cannot name as Jesus's.
If these people are "saved" in such a manner, then of what use are the scriptures? Couldn't everyone be "saved" by "hearing" that "inner voice" and obeying it, instead of reading the texts handed down by mere men, and obeying the dictates therein - thus being forced to have faith in the accuracy of the conveyance from deity to prophets to men, before they can have faith in the deity, instead of direct telepathy from the deity itself, as these tribals did, thus being able to have faith in deity alone without the pre-condition that they have faith in what men have told them about the deity?
Oh please. I will match my 4d spatial visualization skills with you any day.
Do you really think that God wants you to just provide gratuitous insults. If you must, then learn from me, I am better at it than you are. You have to first get me to make a bonehead statement and then point it out. It doesn't work if I don't make a mistake.
Your turn : )
Boatbums answers from the individual relationship-with-God angle (vs. treating tribes as tribes), and that's a worthy aspect to consider.
Yet God deals with us in both ways: Both as individuals and members of larger groups. The Bible is full of corporate treatment, to the point where Jesus condemns entire towns in Luke for their rejection of Him.
James, you seem dead set to pit the Western "tribals" who claim Christ vs. the tribals who have yet to hear of Him. Tell me, have you -- or would you on this thread -- repeatedly pit Jews vs. Gentiles? Wasn't there a rather exclusive line drawn in Old Testament times between God's covenant people and Gentiles?
But did not God's promises apply to the Gentiles as far back as Genesis 12? That through Abraham (meaning the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ) all peoples -- Gentiles, too, would be blessed?
I suppose you could have asked of those who adhere to Abraham, "But if ALL peoples will be blessed, of what use is it to belong to the original covenant people of God, Israel?"
Yet God's timetable is not ours: Generations of Gentiles indeed wasted away before knowing of Abraham's seed. Likewise, the same is true of certain tribes.
So just to be clear from a Biblical perspective:
Reverse to Abraham's day. How was he saved? Where was the Jesus for Him to believe and know?
What does Scripture say?
(1) “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness...We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness...It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith."(Romans 4:3,9, 13)
(2) Galatians 3:
Abraham 'believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.' 7 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: 'All nations will be blessed through you.' 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. 11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because 'the righteous will live by faith.' 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, 'The person who does these things will live by them.' 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.' 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. 15 Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say 'and to seeds, meaning many people, but 'and to your seed,' meaning one person, who is Christ. (Gal. 3: 6-9, 11-16)
The promise Abraham believed in was the single seed -- meaning one person -- Jesus Christ.
And you know that how?
Experimental evidence, and extremely well tested theories, whose predictions are precisely accurate every time (especially regarding time).
May I suggest Feynman's lectures on Physics, they are free to download.
LOL, I am not claiming it. I am suspicious of this whole "saving" concept itself, which is why I asked about the exceptions (tribals who are innocent of dogma) and how they are "saved". It is you who should be telling me how they are "saved", if at all, knowing that they have no idea who Jesus was. If you have no idea how they are "saved" then it would point to a flaw in the "absolute law" that everyone is saved only through faith in a certain deity.
How do those tribals know that deity? If you say "inner voice", how is it distinguished from, say, that of Krishna? What if those tribals were merely believing in a version of Krishna? After all, this is what Krishna says in scriptures:
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Who seeth Me, Lord of the Worlds, with faith-enlightened eyes,
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Unborn, undying, unbegun.
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And Rishis, Pitris, Manus, all, by one thought of My mind;
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Thence did arise, to fill this world, the races of mankind;
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Wherefrom who comprehends My Reign of mystic Majesty—
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That truth of truths—is thenceforth linked in faultless faith to Me:
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Yea! knowing Me the source of all, by Me all creatures wrought,
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The wise in spirit cleave to Me, into My Being brought;
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Hearts fixed on Me; breaths breathed to Me; praising Me, each to each,
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So have they happiness and peace, with pious thought and speech;
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And unto these—thus serving well, thus loving ceaselessly—
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I give a mind of perfect mood, whereby they draw to Me;
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And, all for love of them, within their darkened souls I dwell,
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And, with bright rays of wisdom’s lamp, their ignorance dispel.
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I am the Spirit seated deep in every creature’s heart;
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From Me they come; by Me they live; at My word they depart!
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The lore of all the learnèd, the seed of all which springs.
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Living or lifeless, still or stirred, whatever beings be,
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None of them is in all the worlds, but it exists by Me!
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Nor tongue can tell, Arjuna! nor end of telling come
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Of these My boundless glories, whereof I teach thee some;
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For wheresoe’er is wondrous work, and majesty, and might,
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From Me hath all proceeded. Receive thou this aright!
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Yet how shouldst thou receive, O Prince! the vastness of this word?
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I, who am all, and made it all, abide its separate Lord!
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What? You've been able to create personal entities from impersonal sources experimentally?
Are you trying to imply that Christ was solitary and forsaken his entire life? That is your prophecy that proves the validity of the Bible? LOL thank you for providing something to laugh about today : )
What was it Mark Twain said?
“It’s not the things in the Bible I don’t understand that bother me, rather it’s the things I do understand.”
You do know that Samuel Clemens was an Atheist don't you? Maybe that will make what he wrote clearer to you. Have you actually read any of his works?
I see you not invoking "verticals" and "horizontals" there! Not even spirals. How else can you "see"? LOL.
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