Posted on 10/17/2008 7:59:18 AM PDT by Soliton
Three antievolutionists have been appointed to a six-member committee to review the draft set of Texas state science standards, and defenders of the integrity of science education in the Lone Star state are livid. "The committee was chosen by 12 of the 15 members of the board of education, with each panel member receiving the support of two board members," as the Dallas Morning News (October 16, 2008) explains. Six members of the board "aligned with social conservative groups" chose Stephen C. Meyer, the director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, Ralph Seelke, a biology professor at the University of Wiconsin, Superior, and Charles Garner, a chemistry professor at Baylor University.
Meyer, Seelke, and Garner are all signatories of the Discovery Institute-sponsored "Dissent from Darwinism" statement. Meyer and Seelke are also coauthors of Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism (Hill House, 2008), which, like Of Pandas and People, is a supplementary textbook that is intended to instill scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution. A recent review by biologist John Timmer summarized, "But the book doesn't only promote stupidity, it demands it. In every way except its use of the actual term, this is a creationist book." Garner reportedly told the Houston Press (December 14, 2000) that he "criticizes evolutionary theory in class."
Meyer and Seelke also testified in the 2005 "kangaroo court" hearings held by three antievolutionist members of the Kansas state board of education, in which a parade of antievolutionist witnesses expressed their support for the so-called minority report version of the state science standards (written with the aid of a local "intelligent design" organization), complained of repression by a dogmatic evolutionary establishment, and claimed to have detected atheism lurking "between the lines" of the standards..
(Excerpt) Read more at ncseweb.org ...
How exactly do you know that LeGrande? What observation/logical process was involved in coming up with this finding? IOW, on what evidence is your statement based?
What observation/logical process was involved in coming up with this finding? IOW, on what evidence is your statement based?
When I was an atheist I always made statements like that. I wanted life to be more than eating and sleeping and procreating and dying. I wanted someone to prove to me that there was a God. It was a cry of desperation.
How exactly do you know that LeGrande? What observation/logical process was involved in coming up with this finding? IOW, on what evidence is your statement based?
Welllll, I can't prove it if that is what you are asking : ( I don't know how to prove a negative. I would say that the burden of proof is on those of you, who believe that something exists outside of space and time, to provide evidence supporting that belief.
I know this.
You had to make a choice to give up something that you were desperately holding on to that you knew couldn’t remain if you accepted the God of the Bible.
Those who seek Him with all their heart will be sought out themselves by God. The sad part is that people think they have to be “good enough”, ie, give up that sin part of their lives, in order for God to want them.
It’s the opposite. Seek God, He will welcome you, and your life will change because of it.
No I’m not suggesting that, as a closer reading of my statement — “In this, the classical Greeks, Israel, and Christianity are all in agreement” — would have shown. I explicitly referenced the “classical” Greeks; i.e., the philosophers, including the first so-called natural philosophers (who are now called “scientists”). The denotation of “classical” leaves out the great poets (e.g., Homer, Hesoid) and the great tragedians (e.g., Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), together with the cosmological myths expressed in their magnificent creations.
In this, the classical Greeks, Israel, and Christianity are all in agreement? Really? All though I think the ancient classical Greek mythologies and philosophers are a very important part of a classical education that sure doesn’t sound anything like the accounts of creation from Genesis.
My point was, the one thing that the classical Greeks, Jews, and Christians have in common is the fact that all three traditions place God “outside” of creation, outside the universe of space and time, in a “Beyond” (according to Plato) that is “Beyond” even the gods of Olympus (who are actually just second-generation intracosmic gods and thus bound to be replaced sooner or later in their turn). I did not assert the three traditions agreed in all aspects of their respective cosmologies.
For one thing, Plato (and the Greeks generally) held to the idea of an eternal universe, where Jews and Christians regard the universe as having been created in “the” Beginning. But then, the Greeks are not notable for their skillful handling of time problems. Plato’s myth of the Demiurge (in Timaeus) needs to be understood against this background.
Plato’s Demiurge is not the God of the Beyond, the Unknown God. He (?) is more like the Logos or “word,” of an unknown (and unknowable) creative, intelligent Agent. His job is to act on Chora, “Space,” pure as-yet non-existent potentiality which is wholly unformed by any principle by which it can manifest particular natural entities. The Demiurge supplies the principle, as it were; but he must act solely by “persuasion” — no force, no compulsion here. Chora can manifest “no-thing” unless it allows itself to be persuaded into something by the Demiurge. It simply remains pure, unformed, non-existent potentiality: If Chora is left to her own lazy ways, nothing would ever come into existence in the natural world.
So one might argue that, with Plato at least, we do have a creation myth that is similar in certain critical respects to Genesis….
The takeaway in all three traditions is: The manifested universe is ultimately the product of an intelligent, creative, purposeful, self-subsistent (i.e., uncreated) cause Who is outside, or “beyond” the universe of space and time.
As for what is suitable from these traditions to include in a science class, I’d say devote maybe 15 minutes to the above statement in bold. Then get on with the science.
BTW, the teacher might also mention that it was from the classical Greeks that science first emerged. (E.g., The first atomic theory was propounded by Democritus and Leucippus.) What made this beginning possible was the great cultural and intellectual shift that occurred in Athens around the middle of the first millennium B.C., a shift away from the primitive cosmological consciousness of the poets, to the rise of reason and the life of the mind of the great Greek philosophers. Indeed, the classical Greeks invented reason — not to mention laid down the first systematic work in logic that continues to be used to this day.
If the teacher ever gets to quantum theory, Plato’s myth of the Demiurge might make for an interesting, and relevant, thought experiment for the class. (What is Chora, if not a virtually infinite sea of statistical probabilities? And what of the Demiurge as a model of the observer?)
In short, I wasn’t proposing turning science class into a tutorial on comparative mythology — as you seem to have done, LOLOL!
Thanks so much for writing. Caramelgal!
What would you regard as "acceptable" evidence?
“Welllll, I can't prove it if that is what you are asking : ( I don't know how to prove a negative. I would say that the burden of proof is on those of you, who believe that something exists outside of space and time, to provide evidence supporting that belief.”In other words, you take it on faith that there is nothing outside of space and time.
Nothing can “self create”, so everything had a creator that is ever existing. Simple enough.
Also, there is the concept that the universe had to have a beginning, and everything that has a beginning has a cause, leading back to my first point. The Cause has to be ever-existing and outside of the bounds of the caused.
I gave up my belief that there was no God but that's about all. I also gave up my hatred of religion but that was pretty much after I was born again.
I’ve talked to a few born agains that said that their need to believe that there was no God was centered in their desire to be in total control.
The takeaway in all three traditions is: The manifested universe is ultimately the product of an intelligent, creative, purposeful, self-subsistent (i.e., uncreated) cause Who is outside, or “beyond” the universe of space and time.
As for what is suitable from these traditions to include in a science class, I’d say devote maybe 15 minutes to the above statement in bold. Then get on with the science.
More often than not, what I notice is this is the rational honest scientific discourse from our side, but more often than not our concern for scientiic origins is met with endless projections about theocracies, burnings at the stake, Inquisitions OR ALL THOSE MILLIONS of different creation views as espoused by the cults.
Like Applewhite who thinks the way to get to heaven is after castration, suicide and catching a spaceship to heaven in the tail of a comet. I think they automatically actually see this in chapter one of every science text if they dare to even entertain ID!
Not to mention they see Christianity and this or any other cult just the same way.
Thanks for the reply. It’s clear that LeGrande is a poser. And I agree, if he said such a thing, that just underscores the point. But as much as I’d like to engage his misplaced hubris, I have decided to spend all my energy getting the word out about Obama on moderate and lib forums until the election. And frankly, I would advise all FReepers (that includes you, LeGrande) to do the same if we are going to have any hope of keeping Obama and friends out of the White House.
The Bible says "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved". There is no mention of "giving something up".
What I’m saying is that need to hold onto, whatever it is, be it control or some sin,
is what keeps a lot of people from making the “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” choice.
I think we are dangerously close to breaking into an election vs free will debate. ;-)
OK, let’s drop it then...
My “debate” position on this topic isn’t theological, it’s observational, and admittedly may not apply in all cases.
He won’t answer any questions. Nothing new there.
Since he has demonstrated time and again that he’s wrong and never backs up anything he says, he has destroyed any and all credibility that he may have ever had, and the chance to ever have any again.
He has given no on any reason whatsoever to believe anything he has to say. It’s all just been whistling into the wind.
But we knew that all along.
"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"
********************************************************
There's no convincing anyone of something if they don't want to believe it.
28. Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"
29. Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
30. He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
31. They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household."
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