Posted on 11/23/2004 9:53:55 PM PST by nickcarraway
"Your baby daughter is heaven waiting for you, "
If, by "heaven", you mean "your house", then you are correct! Sorry, Bellflower - I wasn't very clear on my original post, but please know that my little girl is very much alive! she was recently diagnosed with a type of sclerosis, though, which was what my original post was referring to and the origin of my anger.
See your email for more detail.
I sorry if I thought your daughter died when I first read your post. Now that I read it again it might be she is alive with this disease still. Forgive me please. If she is alive yet, which I cannot really tell by your post, please be a dad who can show her the true love she needs that can flow only from the LORD. A father's goal is to lead his family into goodness and eternal life. A Father can only be like a rock of security if he is standing on the Rock of Jesus Christ. You will demonstrate love and be of great comfort to a love one who is sick when you know the LORD. I know, as many loved ones have died in the last 10 years and the LORD was there to help and comfort. If she is alive with this disease the LORD may heal her yet as I have been healed several times in my life and though I am seriously in poor health I believe that the LORD will heal me at any moment but I love him no matter what because I know him and he is worthy. This time on earth is incredibly short and eternity is is after all forever. Let the LORD shape you and your family for heaven. Trust him as he knows everything and has it all worked out. It is us who is responsible for the wickedness and evil of this world not the LORD who is perfect and gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. You are in a good position to know what the LORD sacrificed for you a sinner when he gave his pure, spotless son to die a horrible death for us. Start being thankful for your daughter and the love you have for her. Thankfulness has the ability to cure a heart of bitterness. Begin to look at what you are thankful for this Thanksgiving and have a happy one filled with true love. Smile from your heart as it will shine on all those that you love. Live can be far, far from easy but very painful. Through it all God understands and loves us and he knows what he is doing.
I do wish you and your daughter well B. We have been through something similar in my extended family and I know the pain it can cause.
The purpose of science is to understand how things work without God's influence, or from a dfferent point of view, to understand how God has set nature in motion. When something is not understood, one can take the position that its due to God's influence, or that someday science will explain it.
God and science are, by definition, exclusive of each other. This does not make science "sinful". God commanded us to take dominion over the earth, which would include understanding how earth works.
A scientist does not have to be an atheist nor does a Christian have to reject science, as long as they understand the purpose of science.
I personally think that God is powerful enough to have created Evolution itself. A grand invention.
You seem to understand the purpose of science.
Creationism is not even a scientific argument, and therefore discardable ipso facto. Even if it really happened exactly like that, only an irrational person would assert its relevance to scientific endeavor (null priors and all that).
Intelligent Design is dominated by pseudo-mathematical asshats like Dembski, who invent new math that can be trivially demonstrated to be inconsistent with the mathematics that everyone else uses by any decent mathematician in the field. If ID wants people to listen, they need credible authorities. As for the people who trot out Dembski and Behe as authorities, it brings to mind the old saw "Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him?"
Strict Darwinian speciation is probably incorrect as a system model in practice, even though there is nothing theoretically wrong with the idea in the abstract -- it is mathematically sound. System models such as genomic automata would work on sufficiently faster time scales that it would dominate the speciation process.
And then there are the idiots who think that there can only be either Evolution or Creationism/ID -- a false dichotomy that ignores an astronomical palette of other possibilities. Proving evolution to be incorrect does not even remotely prove Creationism/ID to have validity.
Most people have such a ridiculously narrow conception of the space that their opinions on the matter are worthless. Which isn't unusual, look at the global warming issue...
I thought we we placed here by aliens?
Ah yes, Forbidden Archaeology. Published by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Uses creationist-quality quote mining techniques to argue the opposite of Christian creationism: That anatomically modern humans have existed for hundreds of millions of years!
I find it ironic that you're impressed by that book.
It's good that you believe in moral absolutes, though. So do I. But you're dead wrong if you think that evolution somehow negates the concept of an objective morality. (Well, if you merely believe in an absolute morality, I guess it wouldn't necessarily be objective. It could be the arbitrary whim of an Absolute Authority Figure of some kind. In that case we'd have to obey it to avoid the AAF's wrath, but it wouldn't exactly command our passionate support, would it?)
Andrée Rosenfeld again: "What is curious is that an essentially religious organisation feels the need to justify themselves by recourse to science - but their discourse is scientistic, not scientific." In this, they are no different from any other creationists. Try to think ourselves into the mindset of a religious fundamentalist: "I believe in my sacred texts. I am aware that science does not support their veracity. My belief is not wrong - that is axiomatic - therefore science must be. I must look into this science business, to find out where it went wrong."The fundamentalist convinces him/her/itself as supposed holes in the scientific fabric turn up, and wow! this can be used to convince others too! It's a kind of top-down learning experience; what is missing is what students get as they learn their science bottom-up: context. That, really, is why it is so difficult to actually open a dialogue with the creationist: why it is that scientists debating with creationists are effective mainly when they are pointing out their opponents' ignorance, stupidity or outright lies. Their opponent - let alone the audience - simply has no conception of context.
A book like this, simply because it is superficially scholarly and not outright trash like all the Christian creationist works I have read, might indeed make a useful deconstructionist exercise for an archaeology or palaeoanthropology class. So it's not without value. You could do worse, to, than place it in front of a Gishite with the admonition "Look here: these guys show that human physical and cultural evolution doesn't work. Therefore it follows that the Hindu scriptures are true, doesn't it?".
You are confusing the norm with the specific, thus committing the "some=all" fallacy I carefully avoided.
One of the ocservations Darwin made was that the fossil record should be replete with evidence of transitional species, a record which simply does not exist.
In his defense, Darwin did not have the advantage of an understanding of DNA which we now possess. Those who persist in defense of this position are lately relying on "puntuated eqilibrium" to explain the movement from one form to another. Not very good scholarship.
Your review stands on the shaky foundation of assuming that any religious believer - or "fundamentalist" - is, by very definition, ignorant, biased, and wrong.
Therefore just a review is by my lights, standing on a foundation which is biased, ignorant, and wrong.
IOW, according to the standard accepted scientic viewpoint, only atheists are worth listening to, or only those who already march lockstep with what the other like minded scientists have agreed upon as the accepted "truth".
I have read the book - have you? Are you saying that a book critiquing Darwin's theories is useless if written by someone of any particular religious views? The book in question barely mentioned the author's religious viewpoint. It was essentially a critique of the various specimens used to support evolution.
If you haven't read the book, you really don't have much to say about it that's worth listening to.
Yes, but how did the aliens get here?
Nonsense. He said exactly the opposite, and explained it in detail. He took a whole chapter to discuss this:
The Origin of Species, Chapter 9 - On the Imperfection of the Geological Record.
imperfekt placemarker
"I do wish you and your daughter well B."
Thank you for your kind thoughts!
"Now that I read it again it might be she is alive with this disease still. Forgive me please. If she is alive yet, which I cannot really tell by your post,"
Umm..trust me, she is doing fine. I just tucked her into her crib nite-nite. I'm more concerned with ending her seizures and any long-term effects of this crappy situation. Know that she gets as much love as I can give her! Hopefully, science will provide a cure soon - they've only recently isolated the genes that cause the condition.
No more calls please, we have a WINNER!
You said it perfectly!
You haven't read it. He titled a whole chapter "On the Limitations of the Geologic Record." His conclusion is that we have crudely the geologic record we would expect given his model of evolution and the reigning model of geology. IOW, you are flat misstating what he actually had to say on the subject.
And I bet the rest of your supposed information is of a piece. Care to state the mechansim of evolution for us?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.