Posted on 12/29/2011 1:01:09 PM PST by daletoons
Atheist militant Richard Dawkins has produced a children's book entitled "The Magic of Reality" and in doing so has joined the Millstone Swim and Dive Club. Spreading his venom for God to kids under the guise of Scientism is about as putrid as it gets. Children using simple God-given logic conclude the existence of a creator. It requires an abandonment of logic to attain self omniscience and declare there is no God. The materialist's faith in the escape hatch of "there just wasn't enough evidence for me" won't wash on judgement day. Here's a book idea: The ghost of Christopher Hitchens, Jacob Marley style, appears to Richard Dawkins and sets him straight. Dickey would probably make a hash of it, too bad Hitchens isn't still around to write it.
On further consideration, I agree.
Not at all; given what we know about genetics, mutations, and the genomes of numerous species alone, evolution is the natural conclusion.
Or, perhaps to ask more specifically: Where, exactly, am I assuming evolution in my analysis of the evidence? Do you have a problem with mutation? With chromosomal fusion? Please, do be specific.
If you’re accusing me of being hard-hearted, let me remind you; the Chris Hitchenses and the Dawkinses of this world have had innumerable confrontations with the Scriptures, and the need to repent and surrender to Christ in their lifetimes.
Hitchens, as far as anyone can tell, BLEW OFF every one of HIS chances to acquire a “SEASON TICKET” for Eternity enjoying the joy of the Lord. It appears that Dawkins is so full of himself that he’s going to be a ditto of Hitchens’ unwise choice.
God said, among many other things, “He that being often reproved and hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” and “The FOOL hath said in his heart, there is no God.” Hitchens made his own eternal bed, and Dawkins is still working on HIS. Both these dudes were in positions to influence the minds and hearts of many young people and beguile them to choose a similar erroneous path like the two of THEM did, leading many to perdition along with them-sorry-selves! DO NOT expect me to have ANY sympathy for arrogant fools like THAT! Thanks for the reply.
Psychobabble!
It is pretty darn hard to **prove** a negative. ( Hand slamming forehead) Geeze!
I sincerely hope you are not a science teacher in one of our government compulsory-attendance, compulsory-funded, socialist-entitlement K-12 schools.
Just an observation:
It does seem that biggest defenders of evolution are also the biggest defenders of compulsory socialist K-12 schooling. The two do seem to go together.
>Genesis was written for a primitive people. It is not a metaphor. It is an attempt to accurately explain an event to people who have no vocabulary for it. “Dust” is a good choice of words, for something that we would call elements and atoms, and still not be metaphorical about it.
That just means it has no excuse for being blatantly wrong. Once more, there are quite a few inaccuracies and mistakes even assuming that it’s a necessarily simple tale for a primitive people.
>How would **you** describe creation of the universe, earth, and the appearance of plant and animal life and man to a primitive people using concepts and words they could grasp? Do little ole’ **you** think you could do a better job? Really?
Yes. I could do a better job. Just for the basic example: I would note that the fish came before land plants. Now, you believe your god is perfect, yes? And all-powerful Ergo, you believe it’s better then me? Clearly, it could do a better job too, or he’s not perfect. Which is it?
It’s not about sounding magical. It’s that your explanation, that the story was written to be understood in the best way possible by a given primitive people on the one hand can’t explain its own inaccuracy if it came from a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient god and on the other hand creates a number of questions about the nature of god, which I would guess you are unable to explain.
Your original point was about how accurate Genesis was according to modern science. Genesis is *not* accurate according to modern science. So yeah, unless you have something more specific then claiming that your god couldn’t do any better a job then the inaccurate creation stories...
Also, I’m not sure you understand the definition of “metaphor”, but that’s really secondary.
Here an obvious few counter-question, given predictive value.
Given the presumed survival value of having a working gene to synthesize vitamin C...
1) Was there a triggering event which caused the inactivating mutation to be selected in guinea pigs?
1a) If so, why did it spread, if being able to make Vitamin C is (apparently) so advantageous that most other mammals possess it?
2) If the diet of guinea pigs was so rich in vitamin C that the ability to synthesize Vitamin C was not crucial, how well preserved was the pseudogene?
3) What accounted for the mutation *changing* in the primates or great apes compared to the guinea pig?
4) What is the number of base pairs different to make the Vitamin C gene a pseudogene? How many simultaneous mutations would be required to allow the organism to make Vitamin C again?
5) Given the obvious survival advantages of being able to make Vitamin C, and the fact that people still can't make Vitamin C, this implies that the mutations necessary still haven't happened (punctuated equilibrium yada yada). We are confident that mutations can happen over relatively short time scales (sickle cell anemia).
6) What level of survival pressure, what change in external circumstances, would be "necessary" to restore the ability to create Vitamin C? (trick question on my part to lead ot further discussion)
That’s the coolest thing about science though - if we find a piece of evidence that cannot be explained by the present theories, we change the theories! That’s how Newtonian physics made way for relativity, for example.
You do realize that this contradicts your previous railings about the wondrous predictive capabilities of science, don't you? The classical physicists were certain they had everything nailed down just so, so far were they from predicting new things. (Cue Lord Kelvin's quote ""There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement.""
As for Intelligent Design: keep in mind that Windows ME *was* designed. You are not in a position (were there a designer) to know what constraints were imposed in time, cost, choice of materials, or pre-defined design limitations, on either organisms, or the Universe as a whole.
Cheers!
We? We? Again the royal “we”.
Please don't include me or others in your anointed “we”!
She keeps making elementary misstatements about what Christianity actually says, and I keep on correcting her on content.
I applaud you for limiting yourself to matters where you have studied.
Cheers!
As for hostility? No, just bemusement.
Hi, I'm grey_whiskers. (Think cats, look up my homepage).
From your screen name, you are...tasty. :-)
With introductions completed, on to background.
The poster to whom you are attempting to act as "intellectual knight errant" for, has already admitted upthread that they are a pro-evo atheist on a conscientiously, deliberately chosen pro-God, anti-evo site.
I'm surprised you showed up out of the blue.
To wit:
So spontaneously, by chance, you just happened to show up on FR.
And just by chance, you're an atheist evolutionist.
And just by chance, you show up today.
And just by chance, you show up on this thread.
And just by chance, you show up to shore up a beleaguered atheist who is losing...badly.
Seems like you believe in Pasteur's "spontaneous generation" after all...
Cheers!
No, but you implied he was a flim-flam artist.
As you said earlier in the thread:
And ever since then, any charismatic fellow who is articulate enough can convince people that this SOMEONE spoke to him and now y'all better listen up. Worked for Abraham, worked for Moses, worked for Jesus, worked for Mohammed, worked for Jim Jones, worked for that nut who started the Mormon church... all you need is a tall, intense, good-looking man who can talk him a good one, and you've got you another religion! All endorsed by the Someone Who Must Have Made It All, After All, Here It Is.
Cheers!
Please note that in Genesis 1:20 that living creatures in the sea is mentioned before birds and again in verse 21 it is creatures of the sea before birds.
Honestly...Think about this. What is the likelihood that a primitive creation story made up out of thin air supposedly by a primitive people would get this very fine detail right? The fact is that other creation stories of other primitive peoples don't even come close.
Are there better and more accurate creation stories out there? I doubt you would be able to find one. Personally, I find it astonishing the Genesis is, indeed, right about so much of what we now know to be scientifically true.
This is the second time, now, that you have boldly proven to all on these threads that you have not read Genesis and barely know what is in it. But...Given this ignorance you seem to feel qualified to pronounce both scientific and literary commentary on it. Unbelievable! Do all government school science teachers do this? Is **this** what they teach in the colleges of education?
Genesis 20:
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”
21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Neither one. Typical atheist trick: when you want to discredit the Scriptures, assume that they were delivered verbatim in their present translation into English, and ridicule them. When you want to cast doubt on the, assume that they have be so necessarily corrupted by the vagaries of time, translation, interpretation, and transmission errors that they cannot possibly be relied upon.
The problem is, assuming for the sake of argument, that it *was* God, we don't know the audience or their cultural setting, which might have influenced the details of the story.
cf the apocryphal story of the South American missionary who translated John the Baptist's speech as "Behold the Frog of God who takes away the sins of the world" since his audience didn't know what sheep were.
Cheers!
It's titled On the Origin of Species. The Kindle edition is free.
The theory of evolution is a major interest of Dawkins, but it neither proves nor disproves the existence of a Supreme Being.
Dust of the earth is not a metaphor. We **are** dust of the earth! Ask any mortician. Ask anyone who works in crematorium. Ask any archaeologist who digs around in the graves of the ancients.
That “dust” is the word used is amazingly accurate. Are you disappointed that it doesn't specifically name the elements? ( not that this would be intelligible to a primitive people.)
Is it possible that not only do you not understand the science of the composition of man, but that you do not understand the word “metaphor” as well? ( Hm? In one of your previous posts did you state that you teach science in a classroom? Really?)
Why is it I keep getting pulled into the theological side of things?
Alright, rhetorical questions aside, I’ll see if I can keep this short:
First of all, if you are using the word “law” to both mean “A set of guidelines for human behavior, often with punishments” and “a physical principle describing how the universe works”, you have committed a fallacy of equivocation.
A human law is something that we codify, we describe, and we judge; these change greatly over time. Such is the reason that slavery (endorsed in the old sentiment) - as I think was mentioned elsewhere - is no longer condoned by our present society. Our laws, like are society, are contently evolving (using the basic definition of “evolution”, not specifically biological evolution); they change and grow. Indeed, if you want to be technical, even religious beliefs change and grow over time, albeit slowly. Where do you think all the sects came from?
Now, “natural law” is quite another matter. Scientific laws describe the way that the universe works on some distinct, physical level, in a manner that has been tested and examined and which we can be sure about. Examples include the law of gravity on the earth’s surface, the law of Mendelian segregation of genes, and the law of averages of a coin flip. These all apply to specific situations - items on the surface of the earth, Mendelian genes, and a balanced coin - and describe what happen in each of the events, which may include probability. These are codified and described by humans, but not created by us, and essentially unaffected by us; the universe works with or without our examination.
The key turning point of your argument then is that such laws cannot exist without god. The problems with this - aside from not having demonstrated the existence of said god - is that it does not solve the question; saying that there is a god is special pleading, and fallacious. At that point, one must consider what god is, how god arose, and so forth. As the comic itself brings up and uses a red herring to avoid answering, if god always existed and was never created, why couldn’t the universe be the same way?
Also, just as a correction, modern science has not been trying to evict god from his creation; god has never been a factor in science, as he remains rather distinctly unfalsifiable and therefore untestable - under most definitions. The others are simply demonstrated false.
Science doesn’t comment upon god, and has never included god, just like it has never included magic or ghosts. There have been times where the most learned men were superstitious, but science has always been removed from superstition - if not the cure for it.
And remember, science changes based upon what’s observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.
Actually, this demonstrates my point:
Light - and the sun and stars, while we’re at it - were around long, long, long before anything that could be described as The Earth was.
So if in the beginning, god was floating over the waters on earth, and then created light, and after that the sun and stars, that’s simply wrong.
>Here’s another challenge that will be impossible for you. Find another creation story of a primitive people that more accurately describes what we now know to be true about the creation of the universe, earth, the appearance of plant and animal life and finally man.
According to Sanskrit tradition, the universe grew from a seed and will eventually return to it, going through numerous cycles of growth and sleep. Sounds a great deal like the big bang & big crunch, doesn’t it?
No, I didn't.
But there's a world of difference between *delighting* in seeing someone's eternal torment and recognizing that what goes around comes around and they're just getting their due.
You post in no way indicated a delight in watching someone burn, which is what you were being accused of.
And why are you so sure science has it right? You are presuming that science is correct and measuring Scripture against it and finding it wanting.
The fossil record is by no means complete. All we know about the geologic record and evolutionary record is based forensic evidence and extrapolation.
Science changes by the day as new data comes in. It's hardly a reliable standard by which to measure the truth or accuracy of ANYTHING else.
1;1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ( True. A big bang happened.) 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep ( True. Thick clouds of chemicals completely hid the sun) , and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ( What would you use for a dark, formless, primitive chemical “soup” that a primitive people might understand? )
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ( It does not say that God created the light, does it? ) 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ( Oops! The clouds are clearing away from the surface of the earth.) 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day ( Which does not mean 24 hours of our time) .
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