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To: general_re
That my home will exist when I return from work is a reasonable assumption, but not an irrefutable one. One may not be burned by a hot stove so long as you take the precaution of a oven mitt or hot pad. Most scientific hypotheses are reasonable and may be used with a high degree of confidence. The conclusion that a hot stove will burn an unprotected hand contradicts no proposition of conservative Christianity or any other faith.

The problem with macroevolution and even perhaps the old universe is that the hypotheses of mainstream science spill over into metaphysics. The statement that the various species of life developed over a period of hundreds of millions of years through a series of evolutionary events, unguided by a superior intelligence is contradictory to the Biblical statement that in the beginning God created those species by fiat. Contradictions cannot exist. A person has four alternatives: to accept the hypotheses of mainstream science and reject the concept of a divine creator, to accept the claims of the Bible in spite of the evidence of the scientific mainstream, to try to synthesize or harmonize the two positions, or to come up with another hypothesis.

551 posted on 12/20/2004 2:01:57 PM PST by Wallace T.
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To: Wallace T.
A person has four alternatives: to accept the hypotheses of mainstream science and reject the concept of a divine creator, to accept the claims of the Bible in spite of the evidence of the scientific mainstream, to try to synthesize or harmonize the two positions, or to come up with another hypothesis.

I vote for option 4 - you should take up Hinduism.

559 posted on 12/20/2004 2:07:47 PM PST by balrog666 (The invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike.)
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To: Wallace T.
The conclusion that a hot stove will burn an unprotected hand contradicts no proposition of conservative Christianity or any other faith.

And what if it did? Would we require equal time in the schools for the Christian "unburning stove" theory?

The problem with macroevolution and even perhaps the old universe is that the hypotheses of mainstream science spill over into metaphysics.

Oh, well. You really only have two choices when your worldview conflicts with observable reality, not four - attempt to maintain your worldview in the face of the evidence by sticking your head in the sand, or revising your worldview to take the evidence into account. If you find physical reality incompatible with God, I submit that the problem is neither with God nor reality, but with your conception of one or both - God cannot be incompatible with reality, and so if there's a problem, it's your problem to solve as you will. Either you misunderstand God, or you misunderstand the universe, but in both cases, neither God nor the universe are affected in the slightest bit by your opinion or your politics or your metaphysics or your worldview. Next time try not to have a metaphysical worldview that is dependent on some aspect of the physical world that you don't fully understand, is my suggestion - then you never have to worry about conflicts between God and His creation.

617 posted on 12/20/2004 3:12:54 PM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: Wallace T.
The conclusion that a hot stove will burn an unprotected hand contradicts no proposition of conservative Christianity or any other faith.

Actually there are entire sects of Christianity with millions of followers that believe diseases are not caused by germs, at least not in any sense that would indicate prevention or treatement based on germ theory.

622 posted on 12/20/2004 3:23:18 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: Wallace T.
The statement that the various species of life developed over a period of hundreds of millions of years through a series of evolutionary events, unguided by a superior intelligence

You know, much of the problem with the whole debate about creationism vs. evolution comes from statements such as this. An accurate statement of the theory of evolution would be everything in italics above that comes BEFORE the comma. Everything after the comma is simply stuff that's added by the creationists to get themselves all into a snit. The theory of evolution nowhere says that there was no intervention from a superior intelligence. (Of course, nowhere does the theory say that there was such intervention.) The whole idea of guidance by a superior intelligence is outside of the scope of science. While it may very well be true that there was intelligent design behind evolution (and I do believe that is the case) science will never be able to detect this design. Consider that a limitation of science if you want to, but let's at least debate the same ideas and not some version with additions that don't belong there. I think that too often these debates get so heated because we are talking past each other and debating false versions of the arguments.

833 posted on 12/21/2004 8:13:05 AM PST by stremba
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