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.
The Church follows Council pronouncements and not individual opinions of its bishops. Individual bishops' opinions are just that: theologoumena, not doctrines of the Church. The Church allows such pinions, even if they depart form the official doctrine, as long as they are presented as hypotheses and as long as they do not violate the Triniatrian and Chrisotlogcial dogmas of the Church. In this, Poiters' opinion does violate the dogma of the Church, but it was formulated before the Church declared itself on the issue of divine suffering. (the first Ecumenical Council that did took place some 20 years after Poiters' death)
The official position of the Church on this issue was made clear in its quest to combat Nestorian heresy at the 3rd and 4th Ecumenical Councils:
I don't know what the Latin Church teaches (I suspect the same thing), so I will defer to Cronos on that, but the Eastern (Orthodox) Church finitely stands by the Ecumneical Council statements to this day as its official doctrine.
Your ignorance is obvious. Copy-and-paste and Google search does not make you an expert on Church doctrine.
Do I need to quote you DOZENS and DOZENS and DOZENS of entries where the early church fathers supposedly "mixed" these natures?
I don't know what kind of a Christian you are, but if you are Catholic, I suggest you go back to your Catechism classes. Or, better yet, find an Orthodox priest and ask him.
The Council of Chalceodn declare Christ “to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ…”
The orthodox doctrine of the Church teaches that the divine and human nature never mix, or fuse.
Tell us, Kosta, are you saying Jesus was sinful? Yes? Do you think mere man alone since Adam's fall can be free from sin as Jesus was?
I can only tell you what the Church teaches. Christ was without sin in his human nature. That means that his human will was never in conflict with the divine will.
They wrote on ALL kinds of occasions about how Christ, the Son of God, had a body capable of suffering...a body subject to human infirmities...a body subject to human passions
Who said he didn't? His body was not divine. His human nature was not divine. His human will and his human spirit were not divine. He was subject to temptation, and death like any other human. What suffered and died on the cross was his human nature, Jesus in his humanity, not the Logos in divinity, even though it's the same person. God never suffered and died; divine nature is not subject to pain and death. That's the official doctrine of the Church since the end of the 4th century.
That in itself is a great deal more honesty than atheists can handle or will even admit on their own. Particularly since they cannot disprove the existence of God, nor even come up with a legitimate method of abiogenesis to account for life in the first place, let alone provide evolutionary solutions to irreducible biological machines and the creation of the information in dna.
Right, but you first have to believe some individual who tell you this tale without a shred of evidence that it is really what someone's chosen God allegedly decided.
My construct? You are the one who's providing me the construct of the basis for how tribals who are without knowledge of your scripture's dogma, will be "saved". Let's be clear here.
They are not 'saved' because they are ignorant of God, they are not saved because they sin.
You mean, those tribals, right? They are ignorant of your god, which is my point all along. You claim this "general revelation" as a path for their salvation, but if this is the case, that they CAN be saved through this "general revelation" then of what use are the scriptures?
The exact mechanism for the development of that final step is not spelled out.
Saying you don't know would be more candid, and I dare say, more honest.
What is spelled out is that God will reach out to those who reach out to him.
All this, outside of knowledge of the Bible, correct?
Interesting to note that atheists spend their time attacking Christianity and not Islam.
Not me. Not even the prominent non-believers I know, either.
The same statement could be made of atheism I suppose.
Are you saying that it has its scriptures? That would be news to me.
But since you can't read my mind in-spite of all your bravado, you statement is still invalid.
Would you have known of Jesus and his crucifixion, without scripture as a source to tell you about it?
Your presupposition (learned from someone else's teachings)...
Such as?
Is there a degree of faith in that - yes...
Thanks for the admission.
I am not asking about what your deity knows or thinks. I am asking about what you know about your deity - whether you are capable of admitting that you could be wrong about that or not.
What I know of God comes through vision of two types: (1) eye sight (not of God directly of course, but of the things He has made) and (2) inner sight. It's difficult to explain this, but William Blake captured this idea exceptionally well when he said, "We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through the eye." Human cognition depends on both kinds of vision in order to arrive at Truth.
But this "inner sight" you mention, are you willing to admit that you could be wrong about it, or not?
Then we try to find something that will appease our of fear and, bingo, the fishers of men have their catch! We cling to religion out of fear, don't we? Fear fills the churches.
Fine - 1 and 2 are easy - since it requires the ability to make a conscience decision to repent and accept Jesus, the stillborn (anywhere in the world) and those mentally impaired are not damned - very easy case to make from the Bible.
So, they would be saved. Correct?
A clone would be more difficult now wouldn’t it.
Yes, which was my point.
Yet there is a form of cloning - twins - that shows that yes, both would be in need of salvation, since both developed into humans. So too, if a complete human was cloned - that person would be equivalent to a twin, a human, still in need of salvation and protection from atheists who would want to treat them as something other than humans.
However, in the case of cloning, it is artificially induced. Would it then not mean that the deity - God - is forced by human intervention to create a "new soul" for the clone, purely due to the whims of Man?
Cronos provided one link on this thread. As for me, I don;t keep "files" on people. You an find his posts by a simple search. Ask him if he believes Jesus is God or if he is a Christian. Get it from the horse's mouth.
I thirst to be proven wrong!
It is not for me to disprove the existence of any supernatural deity, but for you to prove me its existence! You can't prove a negative!
However, I can tell you about flaws I find in the nature of what a supernatural deity would need to posses, to be one. This was discussed earlier on in this thread, but I'll bring it back if you want to hear about my issue with the nature of God:
God is by definition, outside time.
If I stick with the dogmatic beliefs of your religion, this God both creates the Universe, and will destroy it, too. Consider God before creating the Universe.
God existed before the Universe did.
God initiates Creation
God finishes Creation
God destroys the Universe.
In a realm devoid of time, how is this sequence preserved by God?
"...nor even come up with a legitimate method of abiogenesis to account for life in the first place, let alone provide evolutionary solutions to irreducible biological machines and the creation of the information in dna."
Is all science, determined? The answer to this proves your statement above to be patently invalid. As for irreducible complexity, could you provide examples of the same?
Fear that thrives on fear and irrationality.
LOL, failed james - try again, you are the one putting forth the statement with your pseudoscripture setting. Lets be clear here james - you want to make a scriptural claim in regards to your statement - be specific and not fake.
: You mean, those tribals, right? They are ignorant of your god, which is my point all along.
I'll have to type slower for you next time James, since it is apparent you can't read my posts very well. I'll use my definition - since you are ill prepared to supply your own for tribals - I'm talking about an individual james. They are not ignorant of God - general revelation speaks to that. But knowledge alone of God isn't what makes you 'saved' either.
You claim this "general revelation" as a path for their salvation, but if this is the case, that they CAN be saved through this "general revelation" then of what use are the scriptures?
A path isn't a destination james - that is simple enough for even you to be able to understand. General revelation can only begin one down the path. But what use the scriptures??? Why should one wander around in the dark when they can throw the light switch on james?
Saying you don't know would be more candid, and I dare say, more honest.
No, I know there are other potential mechanism, in some cases angels have appeared to these 'tribals' and directed them to seek out missionaries in another part of the country to bring the word. Angels could also provide the message directly james. We don't always know because these 'tribals' in many instances are still remote and unknown, but we do know from encounters with others - even those in western society - that if they seek God with the limited knowledge they have, they will be met by God. Never the less you will likely dismiss this out of hand - but then that will just go to show that you are not interested in the truth.
Not me. Not even the prominent non-believers I know, either.
Thank you for making my point - Christianity is your threat because it is real - islam isn't because it is fake.
Are you saying that it has its scriptures? That would be news to me.
The works of Hitchens and others - yes.
Is there a degree of faith in that - yes...
Thanks for the admission.
Are you going to be truthful and admit that there is a 'faith' in atheism as well.
When I asked you if Jesus is your God and Savior you said you were the "child of the Most High". So, I will ask you again, with boatbums present:
Is Jesus Christ your God? Do you believe he rose from the dead? Is Allah your god?
Instead of playing a 'victim' card, you have steadfastly refused to answer these questions. They are not meant to "expose" you, but without knowing what your beliefs are it is difficult to discuss anything with you.
So, I will continue to ask the same questions and take your silence as an indication that you are not a Christian. If anyone has been misleading, it was you with your childish or sneaky refusal to acknowledge what every Christian would gladly answer.
I love the way their brains operate: they invent a story, say about pink unicorns, and the story spreads. Then someone comes along and says "What unicorns? There are no records of any unicorns!" and he gets pelted with every insult imaginable for not believing in pink unicorns! Then they say you "can't prove they don't exist, therefore you're wrong!" LOL!
I believe that the bible supports that interpretation.
Yes, which was my point.
Difficult - yes indeed for those of us with finite minds and not that of God. This directly answers why there is a need for scriptures. General revelation will not give us God's more specific insight on these items james.
Can you as an atheist call the clone human? Or do you consider it to be an artificial construct to be done with as you see fit? On what basis do you make your decision?
However, in the case of cloning, it is artificially induced. Would it then not mean that the deity - God - is forced by human intervention to create a "new soul" for the clone, purely due to the whims of Man?
Humans are created normally by the 'whims of man' james - or are you announcing that you were begotten in a different manner? Your version of God may feel 'forced', I don't think man can force God to do anything outside of his will. It was his will that humans have a soul and spirit, and that this clone (twin) is every bit human - just split off at a much later time.
But this raises an interesting point - how can you claim to know that God would be 'forced' to do anything james - since you reject the very existence of God to begin with. Upon what do you found the basis of your statement?
Very nice. ;)
LOL, failed James - try again, you are the one putting forth the statement with your pseudoscripture setting. Lets be clear here james - you want to make a scriptural claim in regards to your statement - be specific and not fake.
I have not claimed anywhere that the tribals (individual tribal children, as I originally stated on this thread) are "saved". This is a concept I don't believe in, so what construct would I be providing for the "saving" of these tribals? I can't type this any slower, Godzilla!
I'll have to type slower for you next time James, since it is apparent you can't read my posts very well.
Being very specific would do wonders.
I'll use my definition - since you are ill prepared to supply your own for tribals - I'm talking about an individual James.
I have supplied the definition long ago on this thread, and you know it, too. Why are you obfuscating here? You and I both know very well what I am talking about - people who haven't heard the Gospel.
They are not ignorant of God - general revelation speaks to that. But knowledge alone of God isn't what makes you 'saved' either.
Will a tribal child who is taught to believe in a particular feminine deity, for the sake of argument, innately recognise that deity to be false, at a later time? What is the basis for your answer to be FACTUALLY correct?
A path isn't a destination James - that is simple enough for even you to be able to understand. General revelation can only begin one down the path. But what use the scriptures??? Why should one wander around in the dark when they can throw the light switch on James?
I know that, hence my usage of the word, highlighted 'CAN'. This "general revelation" CAN save the tribal, yes?
No, I know there are other potential mechanisms, in some cases angels have appeared to these 'tribals' and directed them to seek out missionaries in another part of the country to bring the word.
A 7th Century Maya tribal didn't have that option. Neither did any of the other tribals in his land. How are they "saved," if any?
Angels could also provide the message directly James.
This, you believe. I don't even accept angels to be real, provable entities.
We don't always know because these 'tribals' in many instances are still remote and unknown, but we do know from encounters with others - even those in western society - that if they seek God with the limited knowledge they have, they will be met by God. Never the less you will likely dismiss this out of hand - but then that will just go to show that you are not interested in the truth.
The only reason I will find this amusing is because such a possibility makes the necessity of the scriptural contents - and faith in the contained dogma, unnecessary for "salvation". You started off by the implication of the punishment of "original sin" being this separation from the deity you've chosen to believe in. Now if this deity will approach and re-establish that communication with certain tribals to "save" them, why not every one else? For starters, that would eliminate the need of man-derived and man-sourced scriptures such as the Bible or the Quran, or any other such texts.
Thank you for making my point - Christianity is your threat because it is real - islam isn't because it is fake.
LOL, no. Irrationality is my threat. Islam is certainly a threat. Your claim is false, and a lie.
Are you going to be truthful and admit that there is a 'faith' in atheism as well.
I have always stated my stance: I don't believe in supernatural entities. See my previous comment on the impossibility for an entity outside time to order sequential events.
This is something neither you, nor I will be able to answer with confidence. I will ask you this, would conducting research on unfertilised eggs and unfertilised sperm, separately, be unethical? Clones are produced from one of the former, combined with the DNA from another body cell, by-passing the natural mode of fertilisation through the union of the gametes. It's a tough question, because if human cloning is executed, it would pose the problem of defining what the rights of the clone would be. As a believer in the Golden Rule (do not do unto others what you do not want done unto you) as the source of all morality, I would have to empathise with the feelings of this sentient clone and grant him or her the rights I myself enjoy.
Humans are created normally by the 'whims of man' James - or are you announcing that you were begotten in a different manner? Your version of God may feel 'forced', I don't think man can force God to do anything outside of His will.
I am talking about a clone, Godzilla. One created by scientists out of body cells.
It was his will that humans have a soul and spirit, and that this clone (twin) is every bit human - just split off at a much later time.
Yet, the clone is a separate individual from the source, is it not? The source (with its "soul") and the clone cannot possibly share the same "soul", correct? The clone needs a "new soul" to be introduced into it. Since the creation of the clone is itself a product of the whims of Man, this deity of yours (God) is thus forced to intervene and create a "new soul" for the clone.
But this raises an interesting point - how can you claim to know that God would be 'forced' to do anything James - since you reject the very existence of God to begin with. Upon what do you found the basis of your statement?
I really am perplexed why you ask this. I don't know what was lost in the translation, but if it has escaped you, my way of showing why I find belief in supernatural entities to be irrational is by admitting for the sake of argument the existence of the said entity, temporarily, and then bringing about a real, undeniable absurdity that results from its characteristics. I did this with the isolated tribal example, with the deity-outside-time-ordering-sequential-events example, and here, with the clone example. I hope I have clarified your doubts.
Yet you hold to the claim that God doesn't exist - you hold to an undefendable claim then. Just because you can't see God doesn't mean he doesn't exist james. You claim God doesn't exist - you live a fallacy since you cannot support your faith. At the best, you can only say that it isn't determined that God exists or not. Yet we do not hear that honesty coming from you atheists on this point.
However, I can tell you about flaws I find in the nature of what a supernatural deity would need to posses, to be one.
Also sprach Zarathustra
God is by definition, outside time.
Epic fail on the first point james (particularly when you don't found your "definitions" on anything solid). While at face value it may seem correct to you, you grossly over simplify the definition of God by leaving out a whole lot of other things. God is by definition is not constrained, restricted or enslaved by anything - even time which He created. Think about it for a second james - we are creatures of time, created with time and subject to its laws and rules. Yet God created time, therefore it is time that is subject to God and not vice versa. Our chronological framework forbids knowledge of the future - yet that isn't a limitation of God. So that 'time' doesn't affect God in the same manner as it affects us.
Because God is the creator and master of time the rest of your logic chain unravels.
Is all science, determined? The answer to this proves your statement above to be patently invalid.
LOL, yet you appeal to that same science in an effort to bolster your faith in the non-existence of God.
As for irreducible complexity, could you provide examples of the same?
bacterial flagellum - and a evolutionary step-by-step method of creation if you care to refute it. Detail how chance created it. I know you'll probably cite Miller attempted rebuttal - but his rebuttal only addresses it's current functioning now - not how it became assembled in the first place.
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