Posted on 02/12/2006 10:32:27 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Either the story of Jesus rising from the dead is true, or His disciples knew that they were going to their deaths for a lie.
There are many other possibilities, the moment you step away from the Bible being an inerrant document. The truth of the record in the Bible is a matter of faith.
Religious people of all faiths going to their deaths has been common down the ages. Given the different myths that they all believed clearly most of them were deluded, as you right now believe muslim suicide bombers to be deluded.
But who? Are you hearing owls? DNA code is inherited from parents generally of the same intelligence. What part of interbreeding populations do you fail to understand?
I appreciate your reply, AG.
I continue, though, simply to ask the question of what does and does not appear in the text. It is a fair question, and it should be the starting point from which honest discussion flows.
Moses does appear in the text as does Aaron, Noah, Jacob, Nimrod, etc. We must be honest that no "theistic evolutionary" God appears in the text. A Creator God does appear.
Once we admit these overt facts, we can then say: "Here is how I interpret this overt fact. Or, this is my opinion about what these things mean.
It is important to be honest about what is overt and what is interpretive or opinion.
Some doctrines are strongly supported by the overt text. Others can only be supported circumstantially. There is a final group that honesty requires we label as speculation because the opinion is premised on opinions derived from opinions.
That is the case with any doctrine of "theistic evolution."
If we were to place our doctrine on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being a doctrine absolutely overtly affirmed by scripture and by historic creed, and with 1 being a doctrine that is absolutely lacking in appearance in scripture or in creed, then we could assign a number to the doctrine of "theistic evolution."
I'm convinced we would have to choose a number less than 5. That does not mean it is a speculation unworthy of consideration, but it does mean there is a special requirement upon us to honestly admit that we are in the area of speculation or fancifulness.
WOW! Two posts about my long time friend and colleague who died this week, and only two freepmails. Boy, these threads are really focused!
Satan delights in lies.
All of your criticisms either point at me or fail to engage my arguments.
My arguments address your contentions point by point. Because you misrepresent Evolution on purpose, there is nothing there to engage. If I claim your are left-handed and you are not, there is nothing to "engage."
Evolution claims to have deconstructed a creative force of the universe. That's not a lie. That's my take on Evolution.
So if your take on aerodynamics is God holds planes aloft, that is a basis for discussion? Like I said, it misrepresents TTOE.
And what varying degrees are Evolution dependent upon? Time mostly. That's the thing that Evos hide behind because it makes the claim indemonstrable.
This supposed "gotcha" that you CRIDers shows just how low you will go to "win." Evolution takes place in a milleu of millions of years but it is not stepwise. It goes in fits and starts, depending on many complex factors. We sometimes see examples in measurable levels and sometimes we can't see it. But the archeological records provide proof for changes we can't actually see. We can deduce quite a bit, but that deduction is up for scientific scrutiny, which is why TTOE is always being revised.
And, doll, if you think that Jesus taught that we came from lower life forms, you worship a different Jesus than the one in the Bible.
Jesus taught theology, not biology.
So, you are saying that Jesus came for all the single cells that would someday become men? Don't think so.
This is a classic CRIDer strawman. Jesus came for Men. by the time He arrived, Men already existed in modern form.
Please keep your railing accusations to yourself. Such as calling someone a liar when they are just stating their own view.
Using logical fallacies, especially misrepresenation, ON PURPOSE, is lying. I merely point it out.
Your "Satanic" ones are pretty funny, "making the pious sin to prove their point"... kettle black here I'd say. I didn't lose my temper, or accuse anyone personally, or state anything but what I think.
I admit the Satanic reference is a little over the top. But the logic is valid (lies=Satan's work). Since you want to cast the discussion in terms of "what you think" then lets all put on our thinking caps and try to come up with a group of people who frame alll their debates in terms of thoughts and feelings and not facts?
So, sorry you have to call me Satanic in order to deal with simple opinion. But since you have projected upon me a "magic" as in "poof" Christianity, how would you describe Jesus' healing of the blind man or the empty tomb?
It is astoundng how many lies (fallacies) you pleace in so few words. To begin with, yes your opinion is simple and scientifically wrong and misrepresents the subject matter. The reference to Jesus' miracles is a theological discussion not a scientific one. I believe Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, died for my sins and was resurrected. There are a minumum of 3 billion people in the world, many very educated, who disagree.
A discussion of miracles, although interesting, has no place in this discussion.
Just askin'. Since you say you are a Christian...
Just answerin' since I am.
That's just what I've been saying. Darwin's theory INHERENTLY discredits the Bible. Sorry, but that's what the whole fight is about.
So physics discredits the Bible? Much of the Bible doesn't make sense scientifically. Numbers establishes a world much younger than is possible. The Bible is a theological text, not a scientific one.
""Your assertion is like saying that if we don't believe that angels hold airplanes aloft we must therefore not believe in God.""
No, I've been saying that just because Darwin never addressed the issue of God in his hypothesis, it doesn't mean that EvoThink does not contradict Him or His Word.
It also does't say anything about how freeways should be striped, what should be on the menu at Hoo Chong's Chinese Restaurant and a bazillion other things. When a subject is silent on another you can make no logical inferences. This is a perticularly pernicous lie you CRIDers try to run.
And just for the record, since Jesus said that His disciples will do even greater things than He did, so you, of course, believe in the power of miracles as a Christian? Just wondering. Your overly emotional response belies the true spirit behind the Evo argument, btw. As the Bible says, "words betray the heart" -- as you undoubtedly already know and believe.
As I said in the previous post, there is no relationship between miracles and evolution. Evolution is a scientific discussion, miracles a theological one (although scientific studies on miracles is interesting -- just a different topic). This is yet another strawman (lie) that you CRIDer try to get by on.
Yes, begging the question. Either put up with real logic or shut up. I don't even bother with your taunts anymore.
Everyone on every thread you are on see you as a little boy in his Mommy's basement hurling epithets because you don't have the brainpower or knoweldge to compete with the grown-ups.
Gonna tell us where your college degree is from? Or are you going to keep avoiding the question.
Oh, and quit FReepmailing me. You haven't said anything on those blovating rants that you can't say on the thread.
Well, you gonna tell us about it?
Bwaahahahaa ...
Sorry about your friend passing on RA. God bless him and you, it's always tough on those left behind.
I know that I get too focused on these threads sometimes. Its almost like an addiction at times. Your posting is a timely reminder to us all that there is a big wide world of wonderful and terrible things outside FR Crevo debates. It doesn't always seem that way though... :-/
By that token, being an atheist today would be equally unfulfilling intellectually because intellectual honesty demands an explanation for the very existence of life in the first place.
I think one can certainly be a fulfilled atheist, in the sense that Dawkins meant it, with the current state of knowledge about abiogenesis. Prior to Darwin, there was not even a theoretical foundation for an idea as to how the diversity of life arose. The equivalent is not the case regarding abiogensis today. Although there are many questions in this area of research (probably more questions than answers), the answers which we do have point the way towards an eventual understanding.
Punctuated Equilibrium is a theory designed not on the basis of the evidence, but to explain away a lack of evidence while retaining the evolutionary paradigm.
Punctuated equilibrium was the theoretical explanation for an observed phenomenon in the fossil record. It was based on evidence, and advanced the idea that an establish part of the evolutionary paradigm: allopatric speciation. Eldridge and Gould's original paper on punctuated equilibrium makes this perfectly clear. It was simply proposed as an alternative to phyletic gradualism.
Here is where we must separate, far more carefully than we do, the Theory of Evolution (an attempt to explain speciation) from the Religion of Evolution. The Theory of Evolution plainly admits that it has no solution for abiogenesis, for the Cambrian Explosion, for the lack of continuous change over time in the fossil record, no fossil evidence directly linking Man to other primates, etc. If that were all that was being taught in schools and shown on government-funded PBS specials, I don't think you'd hear nearly as much objection from my side of the issue.
What I see here is the religious community reacting to those portions of the theory for which they are 1) ill informed or 2) uncomfortable with because of the impact those parts have with their faith. I've noticed again and again on these threads that often times statements about evolution are made by evolution doubters and I know (even as a lay reader of evolutionary science) that the assumptions these people have based their arguments on are absolutely false. Not for nothing, but the things you think that "[t]he Theory of Evolution plainly admits that it has no solution for,"--the theory of evolution does have solutions for these things. (Of course, some of these solutions are only partial solutions.) Some people just don't accept or like them.
I think sometimes the problem is that they are looking for a different kind of answer, one that science can't give. Will we be able to identify the exact structure and composition of the first self-replicating entity which is the ultimate ancestor of all life on Earth? Doubtful. In fact, it's probably impossible to do so. That, however, doesn't mean abiogenesis didn't happen or make a religious explanation any more valid. It just means that the answers that science is able to give are not always the kind of answers that some people want.
For example, when I read someone arguing against evolution by pointing out the fact that fruit flies in a lab haven't evolved a higher taxon in a few thousand generations, I know that they don't really and truly understand evolution, the theory, and what it's about. There are times on these threads when I'm dumbfounded by posters who assert that the science of evolution is false, that these highly educated men and women are perpetrating a scam, but the posters don't know the difference between an ape and a monkey. That's astounding to me.
I'm a youth minister, among my other duties. I recently had some of the kids in my group come to me, disturbed because they were taught in their science class that it had been proven that life could "evolve" spontaneously from the so-called primordial soup with just a strike of lightning.
If students aren't being taught the science correctly, then the problem is with the teaching, not the science. Alternately, if these kids are being taught science properly, but are making unwarranted inferences, because of their faith is affecting them, then they need to have explained to them the limits of religious thought and the fact that sometimes religious beliefs do not conform with the natural world.
The fact that those on the evolutionist side of the debate demand that IDers and Creationists publish peer-reviewed research while making it impossible for anyone to do so (at least without sacrificing their reputations and careers) also bugs me. It's frankly hypocritical, and it actually retards scientific progress.
Not at all. It is part of the scientific process. Look, if there was any scientific validity to these ID or creationist theories, then having articles published following the normal protocols of peer review is the minimum that they need to do to have these things established as science. Because that's what science does, that's how it works. And if these theories can't stand up to scientific analysis, then they aren't science. You can no more expect science to embrace non-science than you can expect Christianity to embrace monotheism. The problem with ID and creationism is that they simply are not scientifically valid.
Excellent post
Whoops, this should have read, "You can no more expect science to embrace non-science than you can expect Christianity to embrace polytheism."
Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
You saved me a lot of effort. I was considering writing something similar, but it wouldn't have been as good.
Thank you :-)
Thank you. I truly appreciated the freepmail from earlier this week. (You have no idea how much that meant to me)
:-)
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