Good Idea!!!!
Posted on 09/13/2005 4:15:07 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
So what would Charles Darwin have to say about the dust-up between today's evolutionists and intelligent designers?
Probably nothing.
[snip]
Even after he became one of the most famous and controversial men of his time, he was always content to let surrogates argue his case.
[snip]
From his university days Darwin would have been familiar with the case for intelligent design. In 1802, nearly 30 years before the Beagle set sail, William Paley, the reigning theologian of his time, published "Natural Theology" in which he laid out his "Argument from Design."
Paley contended that if a person discovered a pocket watch while taking a ramble across the heath, he would know instantly that this was a designed object, not something that had evolved by chance. Therefore, there must be a designer. Similarly, man -- a marvelously intricate piece of biological machinery -- also must have been designed by "Someone."
If this has a familiar ring to it, it's because this is pretty much the same argument that intelligent design advocates use today.
[snip]
The first great public debate took place on June 30, 1860, in a packed hall at Oxford University's new Zoological Museum.
Samuel Wilberforce, the learned bishop of Oxford, was champing at the bit to demolish Darwin's notion that man descended from apes. As always, Darwin stayed home. His case was argued by one of his admirers, biologist Thomas Huxley.
Wilberforce drew whoops of glee from the gallery when he sarcastically asked Huxley if he claimed descent from the apes on his grandmother's side or his grandfather's. Huxley retorted that he would rather be related to an ape than to a man of the church who used half-truths and nonsense to attack science.
The argument continues unabated ...
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Evidently not as easily as a few words written three millennia ago.
But at LEAST you can spell testamint!
Heh! A sub-thread comes to an amicable conclusion without dissolving into mutual incomprehension. Is that a first for us?
It is no doubt the human accomplishment of greatest magnitude, but "highest"? I wouldn't say that. Science is neither good nor evil, though; it has brought the world both great good and great misery, depending on how it used. Science is only a tool of inquiry into the natural world, nothing more.
Science, like everything else, serves God, not the other way around.
Exactly. Which is why honest scientific inquiry is important. Touting the falsehoods of creation science as scientific conclusions of equal or greater validity than evolution serves neither God or science.
Literal? Metaphorical? Enquiring minds want to know!
That one was funny the first 12,000 times I read it on Free Republic.
For an evolutionist, your humor hasn't progressed much.
I have gotten much funnier looking, though.
Hmmm... You may want to take the time to read/research a bit more on this subject before posting further.
Large parts of it.
And you still think they serve the same God as Christians?
They certainly proclaim that they do. I don't recall taking any position on who they actually serve. I just said they worship the God of Abraham, that they do; and I said that strict Muslim literalists are creationists; that they are.
I am aware of the many attrocities printed in the Koran. To be honest, I haven't studied the religion in enough depth to draw any sensible conclusions about what context some of the more abhorrent-statements are written in, and I won't try to here.
Are you aware of the many apparent attrocities written in the Bible? It could be quite easy for an overzealous reader to take many of these statements in the wrong context and wreak havoc (and this has in fact happened in history). Fortunately, though, Christianity has undergone a Reformation, so this is not as common as it was in the Middle Ages. But don't ever forget some of the abhorrently violent roots of much of what is contained in Scripture - there are passages within that I certainly hope you aren't taking literally.
LOL. Nonsense. You look exactly like the devilish cad of days gone by. 8~)
There is only one "atrocity" in the Bible. It is the source of our salvation.
ROFL!
I am not a literalist. And I believe every word of the Bible to be inspired truth as ordained by God who gives eyes to see and ears to hear.
I agree.
Brewing is the highest human accomplishment (followed only by bartending).
You are proposing the death of the Internet.
ROFL! :-)
How much "la fee verte" is too much?
And I agree that God is responsible for the creation of the world. I never contested that perspective. I only challenged that the account of Genesis 1 can be read off like a shopping list describing literal history. Sorry, the physical evidence just doesn't lend credence to that interpretation.
Tell me, do you think Jesus literally meant it when he said
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."
-Luke 14:26-27
Do you think Jesus literally wants you to hate your family? Do you think He literally wants you to nail two planks of wood together and carry them around for Him? Was He speaking of your version of the absolute literal "truth" when He said these things?
I think not. This is obviously a metaphor; to think otherwise would be to believe Jesus was insane. I certainly hope you love your family and don't walk around bearing a literal cross on your shoulder.
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