The Dalai Lama at the Vatican with Pope JPII in 1999.
Posted on 10/01/2005 5:09:27 PM PDT by NYer
EXCEPT for the robes and the fact that each is addressed as "His Holiness," it would be hard to find much in common between Pope Benedict XVI and Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Yet both have recently expressed an unhappiness with evolutionary science that would be a comfort to the Pennsylvania school board now in a court fight over its requirement that the hypothesis of a creator be part of the science curriculum.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
The great question!
He's outside of time and space. Ain't no "before" there.
But what does that mean?
Would God experience time in any sense? Would he experience a "before" and an "after"? Would God ever change his mind, or work his way to a conclusion? If there's no concept of time to God, then I don't think we would be any more comprehensible to him than he would be to us.
I always figured that to an entity outside of time, we are bugs pinned to a display. Perhaps we are moved around in meta-time to promote the celestial feng shui.
From what mortal did the Dalai Lama get this thought?
Since when did creationism get elevated to the level of a hypothesis?
Another.
Being locked in time makes it more than a little difficult to concieve of no time or outside of time. Perhaps being outside of time allows one to observe all points in the time sequence at once. If God created time then I think He certainly would understand it. God would certinly experience time if He put himself in it. Hmmm... sounds familiar.
Honestly, I can only go so far out in space or time before my brain starts smoking. It's just too big.
Why do you start from the premise of wanting to limit God? Logically, if one posits the existence of a creator, he/it understands its creation and the parameters in which it exists. Al Capp may have been on a totally different plane from Lil Abner, but he understood him!
You're a good man. Merci.
He lives in the realm of eternity rather than the realm of time. He is eternal. Always was and always will be.
Except that he created time and therefore understands it completely.
Long before Darwin came along with his nutbar theory, which is proven wrong. I think evolutionists haven't read Darwins own words, or the words of other former evolutionists who have concluded evolution is fataly flawed beyond hope. Some evolutionists just can't accept the FACTS. Discoveries made with DNA alone destroy evolution theory. Lack of transitional fossil record.
Evolutionist "scienists now admit that the possibiliy of a single cell developing on it's own is a statisical imposibility.
In fact, A tornado passing through a junkyard andleaving a fully assembled jet in it's wake has a much higher probability.
Even id you put all the needed components needed for life to create itself in a jar and left it in the sunlight, it canot happen.
Take a frog, put it in a blender, blend until total liquid, put it in the sun. Go check in a billion years and you still will not have a frog.
DNA, even for a simple single cell baterium contains information, enough to fill an entire Brittanica encyclopia set. It is a very complicated assembly language. a cell cannot form without it.
Each microscopic cell is as functionally complex as a small city. When magnified 50,000 times through electron micrographs, we see that a cell is made up of multiple complex structures, each with a different role in the cell's operation. They contain Proteins, Mitochondria, Actin fibers, Microtubules, Kinesin, Dynein, Ribosomes, Genome (DNA, RNA), Lysosome, Chaperones, and Golgi Apparatus. Each contains complex actions which the cell needs in order to develop. if even one fails the cell fails. To suggest that a cell formed from inorganic matrial by accident is laughable.
As we delve further into the cellular world, technology is revealing black boxes within previous black boxes. As science advances, more of these black boxes are being opened, exposing an "unanticipated Lilliputian world" of enormous complexity that has pushed the theory of evolution far beyond the breaking point.
In fact, it was all over for this rediculous theory 101 years ago when it was announced that spontanious generation was an impossibility, and nails began sealing the lid with the discovery of DNA in 1953. after extremely complex instruction, a language which contains billions of instructions for each base chemical were discovered in 2001, it was over for evolution theory.
And that's just at the cellular level. If the cell is that complex, what about the simplest organisms made up of these cellular structures? If the first, simple, microscopic organisms created in prebiotic rock soup are at the foundation of today's evolutionary thinking, then what is a "simple" microscopic organism? Is there such a thing? Wouldn't any organism -- even the first one -- have to synthesize fuel, generate energy, reproduce its kind, etc.?
The so-called "bacterial flagellum" is what propels a bacterium through its microscopic world. The bacterial flagellum consists of about 40 different protein parts, including a stator, rotor, drive shaft, U-joint, and propeller. Through 21st century magnification technology, we now understand that a simple bacterium has a microscopic outboard motor! The individual parts come into focus when magnified 50,000 times using electron micrographs. These microscopic motors can run at 100,000 rpm. Nevertheless, they can stop on a microscopic dime. In fact, it takes only a quarter turn for them to stop, shift gears and start spinning 100,000 rpm in the other direction! The flagellar motor is water-cooled and hardwired into a sensory mechanism that allows the bacterium to get feedback from its environment.
How does it compare with an outboard motor I'm familiar with? Was the mechanical motor designed and then manufactured according to engineered specifications? Of course! Now, make that same outboard motor one thousand times more efficient and miniaturize it by a factor containing many zeros. The complexity is staggering! Even with 21st century technology, we'll never be able to create a micro-machine like this.
But, evolutionists think that something this complex, a bacterial flagellum, 'created itself out of nothing 'by accident'. God or not, inteligent design is the reality in todays science, not evolution. Evolutionists are not interseted in science, they are intersested in preserving their own religion despite what science tells them.
Michael Behe, a biochemist currently teaching at Lehigh University, coined a term for describing the design phenomenon inherent in molecular machines such as the bacterial flagellar motor -- "Irreducible Complexity" -- "a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." (Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Simon & Schuster, 1996, 39.)
The bacterial flagellum is only one among many thousands of intricate, well-designed, molecular machines. Furthermore, take these same principles of design and "irreducible complexity" and apply them to marvels such as the human eye, ear, heart, lungs and brain. Seriously, how can we logically explain the gradual and random development of these complex systems?
What about the human brain? It's a legitimate computer system, 1,000 times faster than a Cray supercomputer and with more connections than all the computers, phone systems and electronic appliances on the entire planet.
Darwin said:
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down"(Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection p158)
The human eye is enormously complicated - a perfect and interrelated system of about 40 individual subsystems, including the retina, pupil, iris, cornea, lens and optic nerve. For instance, the retina has approximately 137 million special cells that respond to light and send messages to the brain. About 130 million of these cells look like rods and handle the black and white vision. The other seven million are cone shaped and allow us to see in color.
The retina cells receive light impressions, which are translated to electric pulses and sent to the brain via the optic nerve. A special section of the brain called the visual cortex interprets the pulses to color, contrast, depth, etc., which allows us to see "pictures" of our world. Incredibly, the eye, optic nerve and visual cortex are totally separate and distinct subsystems. Yet, together, they capture, deliver and interpret up to 1.5 million pulse messages a milli-second! It would take dozens of Cray supercomputers programmed perfectly and operating together flawlessly to even get close to performing this task.
Obviously, if all the separate subsystems aren't present and performing perfectly at the same instant, the eye won't work and has no purpose. Logically, it would be impossible for random processes, operating through gradual mechanisms of natural selection and genetic mutation, to create 40 separate subsystems when they provide no advantage to the whole until the very last state of development and interrelation.
How did the lens, retina, optic nerve, and all the other parts in vertebrates that play a role in seeing suddenly come about? Because natural selection cannot choose separately between the visual nerve and the retina. The emergence of the lens has no meaning in the absence of a retina. The simultaneous development of all the structures for sight is unavoidable. Since parts that develop separately cannot be used, they will both be meaningless, and also perhaps disappear with time. At the same time, their development all together requires the coming together of unimaginably small probabilities. A "statistical impossibility." (Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Inheritance and Evolution, Meteksan Publications, Ankara, 475.)
Darwin specifically discussing the incredible complexity of the eye in "Origin of Species":
" To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree possible."
Human Eye The human eye is enormously complicated - a perfect and interrelated system of about 40 individual subsystems, including the retina, pupil, iris, cornea, lens and optic nerve. For instance, the retina has approximately 137 million special cells that respond to light and send messages to the brain. About 130 million of these cells look like rods and handle the black and white vision. The other seven million are cone shaped and allow us to see in color. The retina cells receive light impressions, which are translated to electric pulses and sent to the brain via the optic nerve. A special section of the brain called the visual cortex interprets the pulses to color, contrast, depth, etc., which allows us to see "pictures" of our world. Incredibly, the eye, optic nerve and visual cortex are totally separate and distinct subsystems. Yet, together, they capture, deliver and interpret up to 1.5 million pulse messages a milli-second! It would take dozens of Cray supercomputers programmed perfectly and operating together flawlessly to even get close to performing this task.1 That's so powerful to me! Obviously, if all the separate subsystems aren't present and performing perfectly at the same instant, the eye won't work and has no purpose. Logically, it would be impossible for random processes, operating through gradual mechanisms of natural selection and genetic mutation, to create 40 separate subsystems when they provide no advantage to the whole until the very last state of development and interrelation. How did the lens, retina, optic nerve, and all the other parts in vertebrates that play a role in seeing suddenly come about? Because natural selection cannot choose separately between the visual nerve and the retina. The emergence of the lens has no meaning in the absence of a retina. The simultaneous development of all the structures for sight is unavoidable. Since parts that develop separately cannot be used, they will both be meaningless, and also perhaps disappear with time. At the same time, their development all together requires the coming together of unimaginably small probabilities. 2 The foregoing represents the core of "irreducible complexity." Complex organs made up of separate but necessary subsystems cannot be the result of random chance. Or, using the above language, such development could only result from "unimaginably small probabilities." For me, this means "statistical impossibility." Come to think of it, I remember Darwin specifically discussing the incredible complexity of the eye in Origin of Species: To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree possible. 3 So, how did Darwin deal with the staggering realities of the eye in the 1850's? As "absurdly" improbable as it was, he followed through with his theory and pointed to the simpler eye structures found in simpler creatures. He reasoned that more complex eyes gradually evolved from the simpler ones.
However, this hypothesis no longer passes muster. Short of the micro-biological and genetic information issues, paleontology now shows that "simple creatures" emerged in the world with complex structures already intact. Even the simple trilobite has an eye (complete with its double lens system) that's considered an optical miracle by today's standards. More of Darwin's very honest statements:
"Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?
"But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?
" Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed."
"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory."
Since Darwin put forth his original theory, scientists have sought fossil evidence indicating past organic transitions. Nearly 150 years later, there has been no evidence of evolutionary transition found thus far in the fossil record. In Darwin's own words, if his theory of "macro-evolution" were true, we would see a vast number of fossils at intermediate stages of biological development. In fact, based on standard mathematical models, we would see far more transitional forms in the fossil record than complete specimens. However, we see none -- not one true transitional specimen has ever been found.
Our museums now contain hundreds of millions of fossil specimens (40 million alone are contained in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum). If Darwin's theory were true, we should see at least tens of millions of unquestionable transitional forms. We see none.
Author Luther Sunderland saw the problems with the fossil record, so he determined to get the definitive answer from the top museums themselves. Sunderland interviewed five respected museum officials, recognized authorities in their individual fields of study, including representatives from the American Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and the British Museum of Natural History. None of the five officials were able to offer a single example of a transitional series of fossilized organisms that document the transformation of one Kind of plant or animal into another. (Colin Patterson, personal communication. Luther Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, 1988, 88-90.)
Sunderland interviewed Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum and editor of a prestigious scientific journal. Patterson is a well known expert having an intimate knowledge of the fossil record. He was unable to give a single example of Macro-Evolutionary transition. In fact, Patterson wrote a book for the British Museum of Natural History entitled, "Evolution". When asked why he had not included a single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book, Patterson responded:
"..I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least "show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived." I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument."
Therefore, based on Darwin's own words, his original theory of macro-evolutionary progression didn't happen. Paleontology was a brand new scientific discipline in the mid-1800's, and now, roughly 150 years later, we know that the fossil record doesn't provide the support Darwin himself required.
David B. Kitts. PhD (Zoology) is Head Curator of the Department of Geology at the Stoval Museum. In an evolutionary trade journal, he wrote:
"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of "seeing" evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of "gaps" in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them. (Evolution, vol. 28, 467.)
N. Heribert Nilsson, a famous botanist, evolutionist and professor at Lund University in Sweden, continues:
"My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40 years have completely failed… The fossil material is now so complete that it has been possible to construct new classes, and the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled." (Nilsson quoted in The Earth Before Man, p. 51.)
"In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions… these have not been found -- yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks.(David M. Raup, "Evolution and the Fossil Record," Science, vol. 213, July 1981, 289.)
Interestingly, in all other fields of human endeavor we find that "design necessitates a designer." Thus, design detection methodology is a prerequisite for many disciplines, including archaeology, anthropology, forensics, criminal jurisprudence, copyright law, patent law, reverse engineering, crypto-analysis, random number generation, and SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). In general, we find "specified complexity" to be a reliable indicator of the presence of intelligent design. Chance can explain complexity, but not specification. A random sequence of letters is complex, but not specified (it is meaningless).
Remarkably, the SETI project, a multi-billion dollar effort to scan the cosmos for some indication of intelligence, is based on one simple notion. If we find radio waves that contain any type of ordered sequence of sounds, then we've discovered intelligence somewhere in the universe! Think about that? The whole premise of these scientists is that you can't have ordered sound (such as the blips and dashes in a Morse code transmission) without an intelligent force behind them. In the case of evolution theory however, rather than admit the theory is flawed beyond repair, they ignore the evidence of inteligent design to protect their religion.
Evidence for Intelligent Design is obvious upon close examination of any mechanical machine. The concept and design inherent in a machine, whether simple or complex, is self-evident. Whether a machine is high quality or low quality, its designer is both necessary and apparent. Information Theory states that concept and design can only result from a mind. Even the diminished quality of a poorly constructed machine cannot obscure the necessity of an intelligent designer.
Machines, as defined by French Biochemist and Nobel Laureate Jacques Lucien Monod (1910-1976), are "purposeful aggregates of matter that, utilizing energy, perform specific tasks."(For Monod's theories see A. E. Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, T.W.F.T. Publishers, 1981; and Eastman and Missler, The Creator Beyond Time and Space, 43.)
By this authoritative definition, living systems are also recognized as machines. A living organism fulfills the definition of a machine all the way down to the molecular level.
Back in the mid-1700's, David Hume successfully invalidated the "machine" analogy in biologic systems because we could only guess at what existed at the molecular level. However, the phenomenal discoveries in the last few decades have finally and unequivocally demonstrated that living systems are, in fact, machines - even to the deepest, molecular level.
"It has only been over the past twenty years with the molecular biological revolution and with the advances in cybernetic and computer technology that Hume's criticism has been finally invalidated and the analogy between organisms and machines has at last become convincing… In every direction the biochemist gazes, as he journeys through the weird molecular labyrinth, he sees devices and appliances reminiscent of our own twentieth-century world of advanced technology. (Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 340.)
Because of the metaphysical implications of life resulting from "Intelligent Design", a surprisingly large number of us seek to reject the foregoing statements and find a mechanism by which complex biologic machines may arise naturally by random chance.
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!" (George Wald, "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954.)
Sir Arthur Keith, a famous British evolutionary anthropologist and anatomist, declares:
" Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable. (avid Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779))
H.S. Lipson, a Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester (UK), continues:
"In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it, and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit with it." (H.S. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics Bulletin, vol. 31, May 1980, 138.)
Could life evolve randomly from inorganic matter? Not according to mathematicians.
"In the last 30 years a number of prominent scientists have attempted to calculate the odds that a free-living, single-celled organism, such as a bacterium, might result by the chance combining of pre-existent building blocks. Harold Morowitz calculated the odds as one chance in 10/100,000,000,000 power.. Sir Fred Hoyle calculated the odds of only the proteins of an amoebae arising by chance as one chance in 10/40,000 power. ...the odds calculated by Morowitz and Hoyle are staggering. The odds led Fred Hoyle to state that the probability of spontaneous generation 'is about the same as the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard could assemble a Boeing 747 from the contents therein.' Mathematicians tell us that any event with an improbability greater than one chance in 10/50power is in the realm of metaphysics -- i.e. a miracle. (Mark Eastman, MD, Creation by Design, T.W.F.T. Publishers, 1996, 21-22.)
I. L. Cohen is a mathematician, researcher and author -- a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and officer of the Archaeological Institute of America. In his book, Darwin was Wrong -- A Study in Probabilities, Cohen writes:
In a certain sense, the debate transcends the confrontation between evolutionists and creationists. We now have a debate within the scientific community itself; it is a confrontation between scientific objectivity and ingrained prejudice - between logic and emotion - between fact and fiction.
In the final analysis, objective scientific logic has to prevail -- no matter what the final result is - no matter how many time-honored idols have to be discarded in the process.
After all, it is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution, and stick by it to the bitter end -- no matter what illogical and unsupported conclusions it offers... if in the process of impartial scientific logic, they find that creation by outside superintelligence is the solution to our quandary, then let's cut the umbilical cord that tied us down to Darwin for such a long time. It is choking us and holding us back.
"Every single concept advanced by the theory of evolution (and amended thereafter) is imaginary and it is not supported by the scientifically established facts of microbiology, fossils, and mathematical probability concepts. Darwin was wrong. The theory of evolution may be the worst mistake made in science. (I. L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities, New Research Publications, Inc., 1984)
Physics and metaphysics are not mutually exclusive. Scientific discovery implores us to follow the observational evidence, no matter what the destination. Antony Flew, a British philosopher, Oxford professor and leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century, said it best:
"My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."
Well, at age 81, Flew honestly followed the evidence and renounced his atheism, concluding that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. He declared, "A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature."
Evolution is dead. The world did not create itself.
How does one demonstrate that the universe and humankind was created by God (or whoever you surmise) a few thousand years ago, i.e., what is your hypothesis if evolution is "dead?"
By actually reading my post.
Thanks for all that information that should be part of all school lesson plans. It's so sad that kids must suffer and hopefully see through a dishonest agenda disguised as science.
I should say that I don't think the teachers of evolution are dishonest. They have just been brainwashed to accept it as many scientists have.
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.