Posted on 10/05/2005 3:53:39 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A philosophy professor and two science teachers were expected to testify Wednesday in a landmark trial over a school board's decision to include a reference to "intelligent design" in its biology curriculum.
Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, is being called as an expert witness on behalf of eight families who are trying to have intelligent design removed from the Dover Area School District's biology curriculum. The families contend that it effectively promotes the Bible's view of creation, violating the constitutional separation of church and state.
Forrest's testimony was expected to address what opponents allege is the religious nature of intelligent design, as well as the history and development of the concept, according to court papers filed by the plaintiffs before the trial.
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III was also expected to hear testimony from Bertha Spahr, chairman of Dover High School's science department, and biology teacher Jennifer Miller.
Under the policy approved by Dover's school board in October 2004, students must hear a brief statement about intelligent design before classes on evolution. It says Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact," has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.
Intelligent-design supporters argue that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
The plaintiffs are represented by a team put together by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The school district is being defended by the Thomas More Law Center, a public-interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich., that says its mission is to defend the religious freedom of Christians.
The trial began Sept. 26 and is expected to last as long as five weeks.
Right, maybe I don't understand evolution, but then again I am in good company. For seems none here has the ability to explain it to me, or even to try. That would include you.
"For some odd reason, the Leftist Darwinists have incredible traction here at FreeRepublic. So, when an apologist for Darwinism is an overt leftist, as ALL of them I have encountered so far seem to be"
I see...well...maybe I don't. So, in your opinion, all the supporters of the Theory of Evolution here on Free Republic are leftists? Is that what you're saying?
Or are you saying that all supporters of the Theory of Evolution are leftists? I'm not clear on this.
I recognize several folks here on FR who are TOE supporters, but who are very far from being leftists.
Perhaps what you're really saying is that they are not followers of the same fraction of Christianity that you are, and that you assume that all who do not agree with your theological point of view are leftists. Is that about right?
I ask, because many Christians, perhaps even a majority, believe that evolution was the tool the Judeo-Christian deity used to populate the planet with different lifeforms.
There are lots of variations of this belief, of course, but it is a minority that does not believe that evolution does not exist.
Perhaps you can clear this up for me.
You say that if as you believe religion is a bad thing.
Today, William Dembski will likely be brought up again. Barbara Forrest, a Southeastern Louisiana University philosophy professor, is expected to testify that the intelligent design movement, of which Dembski is a leader, is closely linked to creationists and conservative Christians. In Forrest's expert witness report, she cites Dembski's writings and his Web site as primary sources.Some information about the "Wedge Strategy":But in Dover Area School District's First Amendment battle over intelligent design, now entering its second week, Dembski won't get his day in court. Initially slated as an expert witness for the defense, he was dropped from the case because of a dispute over lawyer representation.
[snip]
Forrest's testimony will focus on the "Wedge Strategy," what she says is the long-term plan of Dembski and Discovery to replace materialism with "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Discovery Institute's "Wedge Project". Replacing science with theism.
The Wedge at Work. The Discovery Institute's war against reason.
The "Wedge Document": "So What?" The Discovery Institute defends the Wedge document.
So, I'll start.
Genesis Chapter Eleven
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they(decedents of Nimrod, the son of Cush, the son of Noah) journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3 And they said one to another, "Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly". And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter(tar).
4 And they said, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel (literally Babylon); because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: 11 And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah: 13 And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: 15 And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
16 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg: 17 And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.
18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu: 19 And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.
20 And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug: 21 And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.
22 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: 23 And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: 25 And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.
26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. 29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.
30 But Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and he went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran. (Genesis 11:1-32 ACP/KJV)
In verses 1-10 we see the story of the founding of the city of Babylon, and how God was forced to come down and send men apart by confounding their languages so that they no longer spoke one language, but many. Why? Because God had told them to scatter throughout all the world and repopulate it. But and as the case of Adam and Eve, men, under the leadership of Nimrod, disobeyed God. And just as with Adam and Eve, God refused to be disobeyed and had the final word. Keep that in mind when you are tempted to disobey God, He will have the last word. Check out Hebrews 9:27.
Now, starting in verse 11 and running thru verse 27 and finishing with verse 32, we see three very important facts of life and Scripture.
Noah's son Shem, the middle boy, the one in which Jesus traces His lineage, was born in the year 1559 after the fall of man. He lived a total of 600 years and died in 2159 after the fall of man.
Shem was 100 years old when his son Arphaxad was born in 1659 after the fall of man. Arphaxad lived 438 years and died in 2097 after the fall of man.
Arphaxad son Salah was born in 1694 after the fall of man, Salah lived 433 years and died in 2127 after the fall of man.
Salah's son Eber was born in 1724 after the fall of man, Eber lived 464 years and died in the year 2188 after the fall of man.
Eber had a son named Peleg who was born in 1758 after the fall of man, Peleg lived 239 years and died in 1997 after the fall of man.
Peleg had a son named Reu, Reu was born in 1788 after the fall of man,Reu lived a total of 239 years and died in 2027 after the fall of man.
Reu's son Serug was born in 1820 after the fall of man, Serug lived 230 years and died in 2050 after the fall of man.
Serug had a son named Nahor who was born in the year 1850 after the fall of man. Nahor lived 148 years and he died in the year 1998 after the fall of man.
Nahor, the grand father of Abraham had his son Terah in the year 1859 after the fall of man. Terah lived 205 years and died in 2084 after the fall of man.
While the evolutionist flounder around searching here and there for some kind of maybe proof that their theory isn't full of holes and slime, we have the accurate, decisive, honest and reliable word of God. And from it we can see four clear and absolute facts.
1. They were all born!
2. As we get further from the flood and further form the casting our of the Garden of Eden, men's lives got and are getting shorter. Shem lived 600 years, his great, great grandson Eber lived but 239 years and 3 generations later, Nahor lived only 148 years, I will be very surprised if I live half that long fro 74 is considered a nice ripe ole age.
3. They all died!
4. The world is not billions and billions of years old dated by a so called record of dead things, because the first death took place only 6,417 years ago when God killed an animal or two to clothe Adam and Eve! Genesis 3:21
Now there are three points I want to cover.
1. The first sin and death came into the world between 6,415 and 6,417 years ago, that is an absolute fact, not according to me, but according to the word of God, the Holy Bible. Anyone saying otherwise is calling God's word, the Holy Bible wrong and by default accusing the Author(GOD) of either not knowing what He(GOD) is taking about or a liar. Look if your preacher says 6,000 years ago, that's ok, if he says 10,000 years ago, you need to ask him how he arrived at that number, if he says millions of years ago or billions of years ago, you need to find another church. One where the preacher reads and believes Holy Scripture.
2. Everyone is going to die.
Ah that's enough for now.
By the way, while I din't right it, it does articulate what I believe.
Now it is your turn.
"Right, maybe I don't understand evolution, but then again I am in good company. For seems none here has the ability to explain it to me, or even to try. That would include you."
To do so would be a misuse of the bandwidth here on Free Republic. There are any number of websites which explain the Theory of Evolution. You need only use Theory of Evolution as a search phrase in Google to find as many as you could possibly read.
Further, I have no doubt that there is a public library in your community. You'll find a number of books there which explain the theory very clearly and accurately. You'll find them at index number 536 in the Dewey Decimal System or QH300-400 in the Library of Congress indexing system.
These books are available in a wide range of reading and knowledge levels, from books suitable for children to complex graduate-level texts. I suggest paging through a few to see which one meets your level of education the best.
After you read a bit in this area, you'll have a good grounding in what the TOE is and is not. Then, you'll be able to discuss it in detail and with some actual information.
I recently received a Carbon-14 date at 7140 BP (Before Present, defined as AD 1950).
Can you tell me how this date is so in error?
ps. The site had no evidence of a flood.
You actually believe this this literally true? Really? =8^D
Through the process of replication, heritable difference, and natural selection over multiple generations, interbreeding populations change to adapt to changes into their environment. When a population splits into two separate isolated groups, each group will change in different ways as they adapt to different changes in their environment. If they stay isolated long enough, they will gradually become so different that they no longer interbreed if they eventually come back into contact with each other. Thus, a new species.
It appears the purveyors of the ID cult are jumping off this sinking ship portside and poopside.
"While the evolutionist flounder around searching here and there for some kind of maybe proof that their theory isn't full of holes and slime, we have the accurate, decisive, honest and reliable word of God. "
So YOU say. :)
"Now it is your turn."
Been there, done that.
First ever Sox-Sox playoff game.
"By the way, while I din't right it, it does articulate what I believe. "
OK, then, how about telling us who DID write it and giving us a link to the place where you copied it. That way, we could go there and read more.
LOL! This is true. Steinbrenner is Satan.
ID is actually based on lots of observable evidence and facts. The main argument for intelligent design is based on scientific observation. The conclusion of IDers is, that after observing the facts, evolution does not and cannot reasonably account for life as it currently exists; including specific parts of the bodies of various non-plant life forms.
And Behe doesn't?
I suppose you would just want witnesses on the stand that support your case. You wouldn't have to hide your eyes then.
I dont have the patience to dislodge the Jack-Chick-Cartoon version of evolution from your brain.
And yet ID isnt a religion at all. It really, really wants to be a science.
This is not speculation?
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