Posted on 08/15/2005 9:18:06 AM PDT by hc87
Exactly eighty years after the Scopes "monkey trial" in Dayton, Tennessee, history is about to repeat itself. In a courtroom in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in late September, scientists and creationists will square off about whether and how high school students in Dover, Pennsylvania will learn about biological evolution. One would have assumed that these battles were over, but that is to underestimate the fury (and the ingenuity) of creationists scorned.
The Scopes trial of our day--Kitzmiller, et al v. Dover Area School District et al--began innocuously...
(Excerpt) Read more at tnr.com ...
I'll start with Karl Marx and get back to you with some others.
An observation... Inalienable rights we are endowed with come from somewhere -as does absolute truth. Christianity already permeates (imposes itself) upon western society and is basis for moral law -I myself am quite happy with the imposition of the opiate of the masses that is basis for our liberty... The question is -why do the secular wish to eradicate Christianity from public discourse?
Until approximately 1793, the Delaware Constitution required the following statement to be signed by all public office holders:
"I_________, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Spirit, one God, Blessed forevermore; And I do acknowledge the holy scripture of the old and the new testament to be given by Divine inspiration."
Also...John Jay, Noah Webster, James Madison, Sam Adams and etc. all made strong statements in regard to the requirement for public office holders being Christians.
"Why is evolution, out of all theories in science, being singled out for a disclaimer when its standing is no less firm than any other established scientific theory?" ~ Dimensio
Dawkins, et.al., want to call their man-centered religion, "science" - when in reality it is Scientism.
Scientism: "Only that which can be proved by science is true."
".....the implication is that science, because of the scientific method, somehow refines information to a point and focuses it such that we can look at that point and say that this is something that is true and will not change. ...
Scientists don't ask the question "What is science about and what can science do?" It is a second order discipline of philosophy of science that asks these questions.
In the area of philosophy of science there's a tremendous amount of debate as to whether science does tell us true things.
As a matter of fact there's a lot of debate as to whether science is one particular thing at all. Does the scientific method actually exist?
And very trenchant arguments have been offered to demonstrate that the scientific method per se, or some particular methodology necessarily that identifies something as scientific, simply does not exist.
Instead, what we have is a constellation of procedures and disciplines that when worked together and used inductively can help us to come to some reasonable understanding of truth.
Those understandings may be wrong. They are not absolute. But they represent evidence that brings us to a reasonable conclusion.
As a matter of fact, when you look at the history of science it is really a history of replacement of scientific views rather than confirmation. ...
....when science reasons it reasons inductively and it reasons basically the same way as we would reason about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It brings different pieces of information to bear on a particular point and if the information is valid then the point is valid.
But it's the same procedure that we use to discuss lots of different things and there's nothing sacrosanct about the so-called "scientific method" in itself.
So don't fall for the illusion that there is something inerrant about the scientific method and scientific ability at arriving at truth because it is not inerrant at all and there's a tremendous amount of debate in the area of philosophy of science as to what exactly science can accomplish for us.
So for Carl Sagan, for example, to say with impunity that there must not be a soul because science has not demonstrated any proof for it and come to his other conclusions is a little bit overreaching his bounds in the terms of the limitations of science. ....
For hundreds of years, since the time of Kant, there has been an aggressive effort by scientists to prove and demonstrate that the universe is infinite.
Part of the reason for that is that if the universe if infinite then they don't have to acknowledge a creator.
This is a self-conscious enterprise, by the way. I'm not reading in motives that aren't there.
These people were aware of what they were doing so much so that at one point even Albert Einstein suggested a universal constant which was completely invented because what he'd been doing up to that time seemed to indicate without any doubt that the universe had a beginning.
He introduced this thing that didn't exist to change his equations to imply that the universe had no beginning at all and was infinite.
He later said that that was the worst mistake of his career and abandoned it.
Now we all know that the universe had a beginning and that's what the whole Big Bang is about.
I want to make the point that for a hundred years or so there was a strong effort to try to demonstrate that the universe was infinite.
A point that Dr. Moreland made yesterday from a philosophic perspective is really helpful in dealing with this particular issue.
There may be things like possible infinites. We think about the numbers that could be infinite. But whether there's an actual infinite or not is another problem.
Can we actually count an actual infinite amount of numbers? Or could there be an infinite amount of time in which matter existed?
And Dr. Moreland argued yesterday that was not possible.
It may be a little hard to explain this but simply put, if there is an infinite series of events like there would have to be in the universe if it was infinitely old, it would be akin to trying to start this process to trying to jump off an infinitely high building into an infinitely bottomless pit.
The point is that there would be no place for you to even think about jumping because any place you would jump would be a type of terminus, a type of beginning and then it would not be infinite. Any point of departure would be a beginning.
So there are serious problems with there even being an infinite chain of events like that or the material order of the universe being infinite.
It's kind of like if you were in the process of an infinite chain of events, if you tried to move forward in those events, one step forward would flip you one step backwards into eternity and you would never make any progress.
There can't be an actual infinite like in the universe.
These are very strong arguments against the universe being infinite and if scientists would have taken this into consideration they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.
It took them 150 years to finally come to the conclusion that there is no infinite universe, something philosophers could have told them for very good reasons a long time before that. ......." ~ Gregory Koukl
Complete commentary here: http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/science/saganand.htm
I didn't say DNA had nothing to do with evolution, I said spontaneous formation of proteins had nothing to do with evolution.
RightWingNilla: "Well said js."
It may be a little hard to explain this but simply put, if there is an infinite series of events like there would have to be in the universe if it was infinitely old, it would be akin to trying to start this process to trying to jump off an infinitely high building into an infinitely bottomless pit.
Perhaps that's because an infinitely old process cannot have a start.
Yes. I think it is fine to impose Christianity. That is my position.
And I believe that my position is consistent with the founding fathers' position...Read Washington, Morris, Jay, Madison, Webster, Adams and etc.
Also read the following quote from the Portsmouth, New Hampshire newspaper May 24, 1800:
"After the jury was impaneled, the Judge delivered a most elegant and appropriate charge...religion and morality were pleasingly inculcated and enforced as being necessary to good government, good order, and good laws, for "when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice." [Proverbs 29:2] After the charge was delivered, the Rev. Mr. Timothy Alden addressed the Throne of Grace in an excellent well-adapted prayer."
As I have been saying, recognition of the Creator is foundational to our representative republic and also to conservatism, not the destruction of it.
We don't live in a vacuum...Christianity, if wiped from public life and view, will be replaced by some other religion or philosophy.
And do you think it is fine to impose naturalism and/or secular humanism? Is that your position (niether of which are in keeping with the founding fathers and/or conservatism).
"Newton and other Enlightenment thinkers believed that their explorations into physics would reveal God and His nature. I beleive they were right." ~ L,TOWN
"...... science has after a fashion demonstrated the soul.
It doesn't have a tremendous amount of evidence there but this is an interesting thing to ponder. When the brains of some people are opened they can touch the brain with electrodes to stimulate different memories and the like.
This is why some people have argued that memories are merely a chemical kind of response and don't have any relationship to a self, a separate soul, a person other than the brain.
But when scientists have stimulated part of the brain and the patient is conscious, the patient can actually tell whether a memory is being stimulated by the scientist or whether the memory is being brought forward out of their own consciousness.
They say, "Hey, you did that. I didn't."
This makes a very powerful point. "You stimulated that memory, I didn't." Who's the "I?"
The "I" was the person inside there, the "I" is the soul.
So there's a distinction between a chemical response that produces a memory and a volitional response that produces a memory. So it is not entirely true that there is not scientific evidence for the existence of the soul because there is some.
But there's another point that's actually quite a bit more important.
That's the fundamental point of whether science is the only road to truth. And there are actually three different ways to refute that. And it's very straight forward.
You can almost sum them up under one concept.
The idea is that if science is the only way to truth then science itself is self-refuting because science is built on a series of truths that cannot be demonstrated by science but must be in place even for science to be valid.
For example, is orderliness in the universe an illusion or is that real?
Is the external world knowable at all?
Are the intellect and the five senses reliable tools to examine the world?
Are values like "be objective" or "report data honestly" appropriate in the scientific endeavor?
Is nature basically uniform?
Do numbers in truth exist?
Do the laws of logic apply to reality?
All of these things are non-scientific questions but they relate to the issue of truth that must necessarily be in place for science even to be practiced.
So the point I'm making is that if you hold the belief that science is the only thing that is a measure of truth, then science is in hot water because science can't justify itself.
Science is not the sole arbiter of truth.
Ethics is another source of truthful information.
Philosophy is another source of truthful information.
History...Do you know that even mathematics is not scientific? Math is used in science, it underlies science, but you cannot prove math scientifically.
So the point is this, its an empty claim by Dr. Sagan that the soul can't exist because no scientific evidence has been produced to support the idea that there is a soul.
There can be other kinds of evidence that are not merely scientific yet be very valid. ......." ~ Gregory Koukl http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/science/saganand.htm
My goal is not disprove or weaken evolution by naming names...see my reply to a previous post. There you will find the context.
Somethng just flew over the cuckoos nest. LOL
Lucky for us, America's Framers held the biblical worldview and made damn sure that NO TYRANICAL mentality (professing "Christian", or not) would ever be able to gain absolute power and control to impose his conscience on the rest of us. [See my profile page and get up to speed]
Several other states have the same requirement.
How is that, exactly? Who will be leaving the Conservative fold over ID in the classrooms? What swing state will we lose? What new army of voters will be motivated by this single issue to oppose the Conservative cause?
Otherwise, why care about a Liberals' opinion of you? That you are stupid for believing differently is inherent to their vision, and needs little if any reaffirming.
I'm not running for office. If I were, I wouldn't say the things I say.
IT is the same as the dimwit liberals -they seem quite electable NOT...
They seem so today. But after the word "conservative" is a bit more synonymous with "uneducated", that will change.
The left are idiots EVEN if you agree with them...
I believe the left is only correct about one subject. Evolution. And I dislike them so much that I'm fighting hard to take that one issue away from them.
You are the one helping them on that subject. Yet you are too blind by ego and pride to see it.
Even if you are completely correct about religion and evolution. That won't change the fact that this subject will damage the credibility of conservatisim. And damage our ability to effect positive change on issues that are important to religious conservatives.
There's a time and a place to just shut up. And conservatives should shut up about evolution. Bush had enough brains to do that until last week. I believe he finally had enough pressure from uneducated folks like you to finally cave in. It was a huge mistake and we're all paying for it on the cover of Time magazine this week.
You may not give a hoot about what Time says. But other voters do. This was a huge mistake.
Enough. That's it! No soup for you!
I don't see "science" attacking "religion" (although that may change because of this issue). But there are dozens of anti-evolution organizations within religion.
Faithful people started this fight.
Did Kathy and Connie cut you off?
Thanks for your fact-filled contribution to this discussion.
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