Porkalicious!
Posted on 08/01/2005 10:58:13 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.
But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states. And then, as if to second the evangelical push for this tarted-up version of creationism, out of the blue appears a declaration from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, a man very close to the Pope, asserting that the supposed acceptance of evolution by John Paul II is mistaken. In fact, he says, the Roman Catholic Church rejects "neo-Darwinism" with the declaration that an "unguided evolutionary process--one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence--simply cannot exist."
Cannot? On what scientific evidence? Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology. Schönborn's proclamation that it cannot exist unguided--that it is driven by an intelligent designer pushing and pulling and planning and shaping the process along the way--is a perfectly legitimate statement of faith. If he and the Evangelicals just stopped there and asked that intelligent design be included in a religion curriculum, I would support them. The scandal is to teach this as science--to pretend, as does Schönborn, that his statement of faith is a defense of science. "The Catholic Church," he says, "will again defend human reason" against "scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity,'" which "are not scientific at all." Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as science. Science begins not with first principles but with observation and experimentation.
In this slippery slide from "reason" to science, Schönborn is a direct descendant of the early 17th century Dutch clergyman and astronomer David Fabricius, who could not accept Johannes Kepler's discovery of elliptical planetary orbits. Why? Because the circle is so pure and perfect that reason must reject anything less. "With your ellipse," Fabricius wrote Kepler, "you abolish the circularity and uniformity of the motions, which appears to me increasingly absurd the more profoundly I think about it." No matter that, using Tycho Brahe's most exhaustive astronomical observations in history, Kepler had empirically demonstrated that the planets orbit elliptically.
This conflict between faith and science had mercifully abated over the past four centuries as each grew to permit the other its own independent sphere. What we are witnessing now is a frontier violation by the forces of religion. This new attack claims that because there are gaps in evolution, they therefore must be filled by a divine intelligent designer.
How many times do we have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.
To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.
How so, pray tell?
I see the problem, you do not know the difference between spontaneous and gradual.
By the way, your attempt to poison the well is a waste of energy.
Those are just figures of speech - it's a very common literary device call "personification".
Watch any auto race and you will hear a driver complain that "the car WANTS to run high". Do you think the the driver thinks the car is an intelligent being? No, the car is obeying physical laws which makes it want to run high on the race track.
How so, pray tell?
See post #46.
Since Creationism also contends that God created the heavens and the earth, then made Man in His image, it would seem that there is a connection with the Big Bang theory (or a specific disconnection).
Secondly, your logical argument is an indictment on Creationism just as much as it is on the Big Bang Theory. One could just as easily ask "Where did God come from?"
Creationists say that God existed before all time and take it on faith that it is true. I'm not up on how the Big Bang theorists explain the existence of the matter required for it. I've heard the Bang-Expand-Contract-Rebang theories, but I don't recall how they account for the original Bang.
I just happen to believe that God created us and the universe we live in and am willing to take it on faith since sciences best efforts have yet to disprove it. Asking questions seems to be a good way to get others' take on the subject and I also learn more about some of the theories out there.
Have a great day.
Too bad he wasted so much time arguing based on a false premise.
Interesting section.
Do a Google search on this phrase and tell me what you find out:
"the sons of God saw the daughters of men"
Same old, same old - sigh. I think I'll go fishing. There's some big rainbows waiting out there.
No, that is not the only explanation.
"Thus, shared endogenous retroviruses between, say, ape and man is almost irrefutable evidence that they descended from a common ancestor. *Unless* you want to suggest that they were created separately, and then a virus they were both susceptible to infected both a man and an ape in EXACTLY the same location in their DNAs"
Close, but what the author narrowly missed is the fact that the creatures were created with that make-up in the cells (no need to contract a virus 'fossil' when one is placed there from the start).
Evolution theory can be quite attractive when presented by those who have sceince as their faith. But why not -- many of them are very intelligent and are committed believers in science as their faith.
"Actually I never said anything about being confused, so you'd have to suggest I was confused before suggesting why. Silly evolutionists mixing up how to prove a point again."
Your implied inability to differentiate an evolutionary process with a straw man version of said process indicates a deep confusion. It can be taken as an implied premise in logic.
Darwinists can never make their point without low blows and cheap shots. If they really had facts to back up their theory, they wouldn't need to do that.
Frankly, I have never understood the fear of a debate. To quote Dr. J. C. Nott, co-author of the pioneer American work on Anthropology in 1854:
Man can invent nothing in science or religion but falsehood; and all the truths which he discovers are but facts or laws which have emanated from the Creator. All science, therefore, may be regarded as a revelation from Him; and although newly-discovered laws, or facts, in nature, may conflict with religious errors, which have been written and preached for centuries, they never can conflict with religious truth.
There is no dichotomy between science and religion. Both seek truth, and a spirited debate in the classroom can be a powerful stimulant to the individual pursuits of truth, which is what education should be all about. Fear of such a debate, on any side of the argument, really reflects self-doubt of the strength of that side.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Ol' Chuck thinks he came from the ape family. Well, speak for yourself Chuck.
The Big Bang would have some connection to Creationism but not to Evolution. For example, God could have easily created the universe and then just stood by and done nothing for 20 billion years. Biological evolution on earth would work in either scenario.
Also the origin of life is independent of evolution as well. It doesn't matter where the first life came from - the only things that really matter is reproduction, mutation and natural selection.
Asking sincere questions is very welcomed in these threads, its just that many get frustrated because many questions are very dishonest and the poster knows it. Yous seem very sincere and thank you for the well reasoned posts.
Would you be open to evidence supporting evolution if it were presented in a respectful manner? (I'm being sincere)
Scientists should use scientific language, not poetry, that's why they are scientists and not poets.
No matter how you slice it, random accidents can not have a "Clever Strategy," embody a "Grand Design" or demonstrate a "MIRACLE."
Mathematicians never resort to "literary devices" when proving a theorem, neither should biologists. QED.
Nice attempt to avoid looking like a coward while running away from the facts. It didn't work, but nice attempt.
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.