Posted on 11/30/2004 9:14:15 AM PST by cainin04
Over the past days there has been a great discussion about the role of the theory of evolution and whether it alone or the thoughts on Intellegent Design should be taught in schools.
I made the argument that Darwinsism attempts to replace God. "If you have Darwinism there is no need for God the Creator." But many of the Free Republic members disagreed.
Read the text from this recent text book used today in public schools and draw your own conclusions. I found this in Lee Stroble's "Case for a Creator."
Futuyma Douglas author of "Evolutionary Biology"--page 3--"By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superflous."
The book "Sign of Intellegence" cites several of the other popular text books. The writers cite the terms used to describe evolution; "evolution is random and undirected,"without plan or purpose,"Darwin gave biology a sound scientific basis by attributing the diversity of life to natural causes rather than the supernatural creation."
Stroble also cites an article from Time Magazine, "Charles Darwin didn't want to murder God, as he once put it. But he did."
One can read text book after text book, they all come to the same conclusion--Darwin replaced God.
Why then is a theory that has so many holes in it, still being taught as "fact?" Many excuses could be listed, but I would say it is just part of the liberal establishment trying to remove God from our schools and our country as a whole. In history class we can't read the "Declaration of ID" or say the Pledge of Allegiance, because they mention God; in English we can't read a story from the Bible, because that is seperation of church and state--yet we CAN read other religous materials as long as they are not Christian; and of course in science class we can't mention ID because that would include God.
Americans are going to have to stand up. We can not sit back and watch these atheistic liberals have every mention of God removed from our country. If we do stand up, not only will we produce children who have no understanding of our country, our history, or our values, but we will also see our nation fall into a great moral decline.
However, I do not think we are going to allow that to occur. In this last election we had a clear choice between a man of God--a man with values--and a man with little or no values. We chose the man with values. The fight will continue and Patriotic-God loving Americans can never give in. Read what is in your child's text books and if it attempts to remove God, speak out against it. Your voice matters--it matters not just for your child's sake, but for the sake of all America's citizens.
What does this theory predict, how can those predictions be tested and what hypothetical observation would falsify the theory?
At the heart of design science is the notion of irreducible complexity. Prediction-- take a biological structure, remove a component and it will fail to function. Test--I will leave the technical problem of testing to someone better prepared than I am. Falsifying Observation--the structure would continue to function without the component.
How's that for short notice.
See 261.
This comes from the old squabble that so much of science, especially biology, is reductionist in nature (everything can be reduced to physical and chemical mechanisms). Even some famous atheists have argued that not everything can be reduced (i.e. Ayn Rand who considered consciousness irreducible). So if something cannot be reduced (insert a leap of faith here) its complexity must be by design.
BTW the existence or non existence of God is not a scientific dispute since science deals with only concrete, observable and verifiable facts, not acts of faith. This discussion properly belongs in the field of Philosophy.
I did not say Darwin's theory was "THE" answer to How, I said it was a theory that addresses HOW.
There is no doubt that evolution occurs, whether you want to play the macro or micro argument is really irrellevant, it occurrs, and we can and have observed it. Breeding is a direct human intervention into it that has been going on for thousands of years by humans that we know of.
Even if the theory of evolution was eventually proven to be 100% correct, and I'm not saying it has been, but even if it should be, that does not invalidate or negate the existence of God.
There are only extremists on both sides of the argument in my opinion that believe the theory of evolution invalidates God or can invalidate God.
It does nothing of the sort.
When I read something like this, I wonder why the science faculty at LSU, Tulane, etc. didn't turn up in force and argue some sense into the idiots on the school board. They tried this in Nebraska a few years ago, and we turned them away.
> the notion of irreducible complexity
Which has been pretty well mashed.
> Prediction-- take a biological structure, remove a component and it will fail to function.
Same test would serve evolution. Come up with a Creation-specific test. And the fact is, there is one:
Pray real, real hard, and if a whole new type of critter pops out of thin air... you've got yourself some evidence.
> Falsifying Observation--the structure would continue to function without the component.
You mean if your eye was damaged, or made structurally simpler, and still functioned, then Creationism would be disproven?
The human body is obviously not an irreducible complex biological structure.
Ho, ho! Joke's on you! Didn't you know that the appendix is the seat of the soul? The body may continue on for a time, but the person roasts in Hell the while.
"Then what you call the God of Scripture and the God of the Roman Catholic Church are also incompatible."
Could be. If you are referring to the RCC's teaching that evolution is in some sense true, then that's probably right.
If you are referring to the Biblical view of justification and a RCC one, then you are probably right also, though this is not as clear to me today as it was in say 1516. My point on that is simply to study the Book of Romans and the rest of Scripture, including the OT, and then try to answer the question, "who does the choosing? Man or God?" Seems to me that God chooses in Scripture. So that is what I believe....In my observations, there is a lot more similarity now in the RCC teaching on justification and the Reformed/Biblical one, though they probably are not yet identical. Work must still be done.
I might be wrong about Scripture? I haven't done anything except try to say faithfully what Scripture itself says. Unlike the pre-
vatican II RCC, I don't claim infallibility. That said, you must refute Scripture with Scripture. You don't refute Scripture with science, or philosophy or wishful thinking or anything else. If someone can point out to me somewhere in Scripture where we are given latitude on understanding the Biblical account of creation, the fall, the flood and so on...I am all ears.
I'll read that post later, but just wanted to quickly post that I agree that the Bible and Science jive in many, many ways.
IMHO comparing genesis to approval of slavery is a little extreme.
Your theory was just falsified rather rapidly by Dimensio. Would you like me to provide some rather obvious tests for "macro" evolution?
BWAHAHAHA!
So you falsify ID by removing a part from a irreducibly complex biological structure, and having it continue to function. And what makes it an irreducibly complex biological structure? Well, the fact that you can't remove a part from it and have it continue to function!
Nice test of falsifiability you got there, Busywhiskers.
You were complaining earlier that evolutionists can't argue with creationists without belittling them. Now do you see our problem?
The Bible describes a day as light to dark and to light again. At work so don't have the direct passage, but the Bible is clear on what a day and it is used in all forms of contexts. After 3 days, Jesus ascended into Heaven, Moses' flood was 40 days and nights, etc..... I don't believe there are any metaphors in Genesis, but that's my humble opinion.
These guys could have benefitted from a trip to Barrow, Alaska.
"The Bible describes a day as light to dark and to light again. At work so don't have the direct passage, but the Bible is clear on what a day and it is used in all forms of contexts. After 3 days, Jesus ascended into Heaven, Moses' flood was 40 days and nights, etc..... I don't believe there are any metaphors in Genesis, but that's my humble opinion."
The question is, what does the text itself say. The question is not, what do we want the text itself to say in light of our evolutionary presuppositions. If one just accepts the absolute authority of Scripture, and then reads the Genesis account, then it is fairly obvious that it was meant to be taken as "fact". It only becomes tricky when you approach the text with presuppositions not based on Scripture.
All that is to say, you are right. Genesis is not a metaphor. I'm pretty sure that Jesus, Paul or any of the NT writers didn't think so either.
What? The only precipitation I recall during Moses' time was flaming hail and frogs. I think Noah endured alot of rainfall, however.
Wow. You must be living right. So how was it when the Roman Empire fell? :-)
You would, I hope, that the men whose lives are chronicled in Scripture - for example the Book of Acts - are zealots?
Evolutionary theory wasn't discussed in Acts.
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