Well, the usual critics jumped all over the president, but he’s absolutely right.
Charles Colson
Revelation 4:11
See my profile for info
Posted on 08/04/2005 6:47:03 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
President Bush sent reporters into a tizzy this week by saying that he thought schools ought to teach both evolution and intelligent design. Students ought to hear both theories, he said, so they “can understand what the debate is about.”
Well, the usual critics jumped all over the president, but he’s absolutely right. Considering all competing theories was once the very definition of academic freedom. But today, the illiberal forces of secularism want to stifle any challenges to Darwin—even though Darwin is proving to be eminently challengeable.
Take biochemist Michael Behe’s argument. He says that the cell is irreducibly complex. All the parts have to work at once, so it could not have evolved. No one has been able to successfully challenge Behe’s argument.
In fact, the scientific case for intelligent design is so strong that, as BreakPoint listeners have heard me say, even Antony Flew, once the world’s leading philosopher of atheism, has renounced his life-long beliefs and has become, as he puts it, a deist. He now believes an intelligent designer designed the universe, though he says he cannot know God yet.
I was in Oxford last week, speaking at the C. S. Lewis Summer Institute, and had a chance to visit with Flew. He told a crowd that, as a professional philosopher, he had used all the tools of his trade to arrive at what he believed were intellectually defensible suppositions supporting atheism. But the intelligent design movement shook those presuppositions. He said, however, on philosophical grounds that he could not prove the existence of the God of the Bible.
In the question period, I walked to the microphone and told him as nicely as I could that he had put himself in an impossible box. He could prove theism was the only philosophically sustainable position, but he could not prove who God was. I said, “If you could prove who God was, you could not love God—which is the principle object of life.”
I admitted that I had once gotten myself into the same position. I had studied biblical worldview for years and believed that I could prove beyond a doubt that the biblical worldview is the only one that is rational, the only one that conforms to the truth of the way the world is made. But that led to a spiritual crisis of sorts, when one morning in my quiet time I realized that while I could prove all of this, I could not prove who God was. I began to worry: When this life was over, would I really meet Him?
Some weeks later, as I describe in my new book The Good Life, it hit me that if I could prove God, I could not know Him. The reason is that, just as He tells us, He wants us to come like little children with faith. If you could resolve all intellectual doubts, there would be no need for faith. You would then know God the same way that you know the tree in the garden outside your home. You would look at it, know it is there, and that’s it, as Thomas Aquinas once said.
Faith is necessary because without it you cannot love God. So as I said to Dr. Flew, if you could prove God, you couldn’t love Him, which is His whole purpose in creating you. He later told me that I have raised a very provocative point that he would have to give some thought to.
So, I hope you will pray for Antony Flew—a gentle and courageous man who appears to be seeking God. And we should remember that if this brilliant man can be persuaded out of his atheism by intelligent design, anyone can see it. Those of us contending for the intelligent design point of view, which now includes among our ranks the president of the United States, I’m happy to say, are on increasingly solid ground.
Fester only accepts the parts that don't contradict what he's decided to believe beforehand, apparently. I see no other consistent explanation for what he chooses to accept and not to accept.
I do not believe radiometric dating to be an accurate discipline. When applied to matter, how do we know ultimately what the results are reporting? Is it the age of the matter itself, the form the matter took at a certain point in time? Are there impurities that effect the results? You can go ahead and place your eggs in that basket if you wish, but it is still indirect observation of history, not nearly as reliable as eyewitness and written testimony.
I've just given list after list of examples of testable consequences of the past.
The key word being "consequences." Consequences are not testable. They are indications of the past that are subject to interpretation, and the interpration, if it takes place on the part of an evolutionist, will fit the preconceived "tree of evolution" very easily.
By your reasoning, recorded history isn't any more valid that natural history. Prove to me that you weren't created five minutes ago . . .
By my reckoning, eyewitness testimony and written records are a more reliable source of information than indirect observation and extrapolations of history based on current events. I cannot prove to you that I was not created five minutes ago. I am not interested in discussing philosophy, but it tends to rear its head with evolutionists, because that is part and parcel of their practice.
note that you haven't contested the point that evolution is practically useful and creationism is practically useless.
As I said eariler, neither one qualifies as science, per se. There is little practical use for evolutionism. Creationism does not need to assert itself into science. Science simply operates in a universe that was intelligently designed by an almighty Creator and is currently sustained by the same.
And yet you claim that testimony is more reliable than those of biologists about evolution. Why? Did a biologist run off with your wife?
By and large that is correct. I operate with the biblical texts as primary truths, and all other texts and observations as secondary, or subservient, to those texts.
Because the speed of light is both directly and indirectly observable in real time this very moment. Biological and geological history for the most part is not.
The records of biological and geological histroy are observable in real time this very moment. Any decent lawyer will tell you physical evidence is far more reliable than eyewitness testimony.
Do you know the difference between records and real time observation? Why do you conflate the two? For the purposes of this argument I prefer to keep them distinct, although you are correct in maintaining that one can observe records in real time.
When your retina holds an image of something that happened a few milliseconds ago, is that a record, or a real time observation?
Lawyers are, by and large, students of the past, too. It is just because they deal chiefly in past events that their judgments are subject to error and much care must be taken to properly interpret the evidence properly if justice is to be served. You sure picked a shaky vocation to make your point, as lawyers are often interested in making the evidence tell the story the way they want it to be told.
Any normal human being will tell you that what they see with their own eyeballs is more reliable than either of the above. The more direct and current the observation, the more accurate the information.
Evolution, Intelligent-Design........the truth will be revealed.....take what each of you believe and keep satisfied in your faith...
Revelation 4:11
See my profile for info
I listed several in Post #128. I'm not going to do it again. You are blatantly incorrect, here. Talk to some scientists, and you'll realize you're wrong, here.
I do not believe radiometric dating to be an accurate discipline.
This one made me laugh out loud. I'll warn you that you're talking to someone who works with nuclear physics and statistics for a living and spare you the humiliation of addressing this point, unless, you want to prod me with a proverbial stick.
By and large that is correct. I operate with the biblical texts as primary truths, and all other texts and observations as secondary, or subservient, to those texts.
No, you operate with your own "infallible" interpretation of Biblical texts as primary truths, to the exclusion of any other possibility of their deeper meaning. Plenty of Bible-believing Christians of strong faith are able to accept evolution because they are not so arrogant in their interpretation when confronted by common sense.
By the way, since we're talking about the Bible, why not address one or two of the points I made about the Bible in Post #128, which already replies to the point you just wrote.
What meets the senses directly (as in your example above) I would consider real time observation. For the purposes of my argument, the record would consist of a written expression of what has been observed directly. Thereafter, the phenomena as realated in the record would be considered "indirect observation." The more time that passes from the moment of direct observation, the less reliable become both the data, and by extension its interpretation.
Why do you claim it's direct? It's a pattern of reacted molecules on the surface of an epidermal layer. It hasn't gotten to a neuron yet.
For the purposes of my argument, the record would consist of a written expression of what has been observed directly.
So a genome is not a record, it's direct observation?
That's great. I'm sure you do well at it, and have been an excellent student related to your discipline. I still don't think radiometric dating, as it applies to rocks, fossils, and the like, is accurate. I believe too many assumptions have been made, and that the procedure must be better refined.
I listed several [practical uses for evolution] in Post #128.
No. What you did was make several assertions that are not substantiated, and that could just as easily be attributed to someone who believes the universe was intelligently designed. You also continue to argue against something I am not arguing for, namely creationism as science. I've said it more than once: creationism is not science. Neither is evolutionism. Is that clear enough?
. . . why not address one or two of the points I made about the Bible in Post #128
Because your qualifications as a theologian are null and void. You neither believe nor understand that the Author of the biblical texts is the Creator Himself. You operate with your own reason and experience as a primary authority, so whatever I might say in reagrd to the biblical texts will fall on deaf ears, just as your attempts to hold forth evolutionism as science will fall on deaf ears on this side.
You want to play smartass. I don't.
So a genome is not a record, it's direct observation?
There is a sense in which a genome is a record, but I've been using the words "record" and "recorded" to mean a written expression (in human lanuguage) denoting what has been observed with the eyes. So far there is no written record indicating that an ape was once confused for a human or vice versa. Only perhaps, in the records of Barnum and Bailey's Circus. In that case we should see how, or whether, science ever settled the case. I doubt was was a serious case of, "Gee, we cannot tell. Ape or Human?"
Talk about making assumptions. So I can't have any faith because I don't ascribe to the same very narrow interpretation of Scripture as you? How very dichotomous of you. I'm glad you feel you have the authority to judge the strength of my faith.
Now instead of your repeated and unsubstantiated attacks on the functionality of perfectly good science and my religious beliefs, how about addressing one or more of the points made in Post #128 about the Bible. I'm not claiming to be a theologian, I'm just asking the simple question about what you think of these points, as one person who's read the Bible to another (I assume you have).
Seems I've touched a nerve here with these points.
Yep. A complete waste of time and bandwidth.
I never asserted as much. I asserted that you neither believe nor understand that the biblical texts were authored by the Creator Himself. I said nothing about my interpretation of them or whether you should be subject to my interpretations. You raised that red herring yourself, and you continue to argue against something I am not arguing for.
For the time being, I would like an explanation as to why science has not produced, or observed a case (other than in fossil and bone records) where an ape was mistaken for a human or vice versa. The viability in terms of natural selection should be decent, and the possibility of seeing at least one case ought to be high in view of the billions of human samples available for observation in the present day.
I wanted to play intelligent debate. You don't have the wherewithal.
Nothing I said was in the least smartass.
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