Posted on 06/27/2006 5:06:32 AM PDT by 7thson
Ann Coulter states in her book on page 201 -
Darwin’s theory of evolution says life on Earth began with single-celled life forms, which evolved into multicelled life forms, which over countless aeons evolved into higher life forms, including man, all as the result of the chance process of random mutation followed by natural selection, without guidance or assistance from any intelligent entity like God of the Department of Agriculture. Which is to say, evolution I the eminently plausible theory that the human eye, the complete works of Shakespeare, and Ronal Reagan (among other things) all came into existence purely be accident.
On page 202, she states The “theory” of evolution is:
1. Random mutation of desirable attributes (highly implausible)
2. Natural selection weeding out the “less fit” animals (pointless tautology)
3. Leading to the creation of new species (no evidence after 150 years of looking)
My question – is she correct in her statements? Is that Darwin’s theory?
On the ligher side, check out the first paragraph on page 212. LOL Funny!
Thank you for your civil and well-worded response. Yes, it was much more direct in addressing the issues and not personal in its approach.
Continuing with the discussion:
disagree with that premise. I believe that you cannot be a serious Christian and try to change who and what GOD is.
Then we disagree here. If you’re saying JPII wasn’t serious (and I don’t think you’re saying that), you’d be being silly. Your right, I am in no way saying he was not a serious Christian I take your point, then, to be that you equate accepting the scientific Theory of Evolution with trying to “change who and what God is.” We disagree on that, too – I don’t see how the Theory of Evolution has a bearing on God. This one is easy for me. I believe that God created the earth as stated in the bible, in 6 days. If that defines me as being a right wing Christian fundamentalist then so be it. He created Adam with age. He created Eve with age. Again, not trying to read anything into the bible and just accepting it for what it is. If I can therefore accept that he created these two beings with age, why is it such a great leap of faith to believe he could have also created the Universe with age? I don’t believe it is. If I base my belief on that axiom, then what the Pope says is redefining God’s words to fit his beliefs, which for fundamental Christians is a strict No-No. That’s my problem with the Pope’s statement, and from an earlier post, his word carries a great del of weigh with those who cannot read or don’t have access to a bible.
Well, fine. But the problem with a dogmatic insistence on the incompatibility of the Theory of Evolution and Christian belief is that it flies in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary (the previous Pope again). In addition, while there are undeniably Christians who as a matter of faith cannot accept the Theory of Evolution, there are also many who have no problem with it, and who may get irritated when they’re told they’re all atheists, heretics, etc. I hope you can see from my response in the above paragraph why I feel this is wrong. I do not believe current evidence on evolution discounts or negates the biblical explanation of creation. As stated above, God could certainly create all that is around us with age. Why one might ask? To test your faith in the creator which is what God requires us to have. God is not going to come down and slap people in the face to show them he is real. To do so would no longer be faith but undeniable truth. The bible does say, every knee saw bow and every tongue will confess that very thing but until the last possible moment, everyone must choose to believe or not all by his or her self based upon faith. Another reason he might have created the universe with age: as a possible explanation, would the solar system be to violent if it were created without age thus not allowing the earth to support life? No time for the eco systems to settle into a stable configuration? Just a question I'd like to field.
But they’re wrong about a scientific disproof of God – there can’t be a scientific disproof of God. Science doesn’t address the supernatural and therefore has nothing to say about God one way or the other. I agree with that 100%
We're not talking about proofreading here. We are talking about repeated basic grammatical error.
For example you confuse "your" with "you're" with such reliability that I can only conclude that your unaware of the difference. Also observed is repeated use of singular words in the plural sense, confusion of "they're" with "their", amongst many other howlers. Such errors are not what I expect from someone with higher education, and that, combined with your manifest ignorance of science (including the relationship between hypothesis, fact, theory, evidence, and proof), causes me to doubt your claim to be a trained scientist, your company title notwithstanding.
Further, I haven't discounted anything you've said based on you're grammatical errors. Nor have I seen anyone else do so. Your arguments, such as they are, stand or fall on their own merits. Mostly they've been falling flat because you don't know what you are talking about. Someone who claims a scientific education and then talks about objects being carbon-dated at 400,000 years old (thereby revealing ignorance of absolutely basic atomic physics that anyone with college science education would know) cannot expect to be taken seriously.
I still think some of your posts ended up (although that was not your intention) to be very funny. Laugh with us, continue posting literate posts as your last few were and we will all go on to better discussions.
I once made a simple math error (decimal point placement) and all the other scientists and engineers were all over with funny stories and outcomes that my error would produce. Every time I logged on for two days I would have a bunch of new posts about my error. Each day I would come back with a new reason why I made the error and we all laughed. No, I never blamed God for the error.:)
I'm kinda glad I skipped this thread.
No one knows who or what God is. We can only try to understand our existence, but we will never know. We cannot change who or what God is, we can only change our perception of him. This has been going on for thousands of years and will continue for thousands more. I know you are trying to "lock" onto the truth. You may have convinced yourself that you have, but if you have locked onto the truth, you have accomplished a feat that is more improbably than evolution as viewed by the anti-evolutionists.
I wish I had.
Bad move in a lecture on grammar.. ;)
But it proves a point. Sometimes my brain gets ahead of my fingers (I am a 2-finger typist) and I post without spell checking (or worse, it passes spell check with an incorrect word). If I am making a solid point it is disingenuous for the victim respondent to ignore my point and instead chide me for spelling.
Hell, I've even worked with Business Administration grads who couldn't spell if their lives depended on it! (They really should have known better!)
Doesn't mean they were/are stupid. In fact, every one I've known has been sharp as tacks. Earned every cent of their paychecks. They do what they do. They don't try to emulate Rachel Carson when they "write".
While I agree that a liberal arts adjunct to one's education does make a more well-rounded person, I also recognize that not all people are into that.
I dunno. Maybe that's important to some of you. I don't regard it as the essential definer of a person's intelligence, nor the determiner of the veracity of one's argument.
You doubtless have other criteria on which to argue successfully with the person. This isn't merely not your strongest one, it's probably your weakest.
Do what you urge these people to do - stay on subject.
CA....
I never said I was perfect. I am far from it. However, extremely basic spelling and grammar mistakes do not lend themselves to an argument.
And with this post, I am off the thread. It has digressed from the original intent.
My apologies for helping it to do so.
Ditto and ditto. But, contrary to your experience, I tend to find a correlation between a mastery of basic skills and an ability to produce advanced thought.
Here's where I stand: We'll let A represent a hypothetical believer in the Christian Bible. I cannot accept A's interpretation of the Bible as either dispositive as to the meaning of the Bible, or having any bearing on science. I don't care how well educated A is, I don't care how well-versed in Biblical interpretation A is, and I don't care how many Bible verses A can fling at me off the top of his head. There are too many people out there who seem to mistake their interpretation of God's Word for God's Word. If A is one of them, I stop listening. And if A attempts to persuade me of his correctness by issuing threats, A has just crossed the line into crank territory.
I mentioned previously the numerous Christian churches. Each exists to the exclusion of others because of disagreements as to what it is God says and/or expects us to do. Yet each church will tell me it and only it has it all straight, and that all the others are more-or-less incorrect. Persumably A belongs to one of those Christian churches (or maybe he founded his own. Stranger things have happened). So before he's going to convince me, A will have to convince all the other Christian churches that they're all wrong.
And this covers only the Christians. The Hindus seem to think they've got it right, and let's not even think about the Muslims.
As I posted before, you're entitled to your religious beliefs. But they're not science, and there's no firm guidance -- from above or anywhere else -- as to exactly what the Bible means, or what God really expects of us.
You probably drive to work in a car and use electricity to post to the internet. The Pennsylvania Dutch aren't going to like that. Heck, they won't even use buttons. Ever been cured of a disease by modern medicine? The Christian Scientists have whole libraries of literature to tell you how wrong that is. See what I mean?
The "test our faith" proposition doesn't interest me, I'm afraid, on the grounds of convenience. It answers every question, and therefore, answers none (in my opinion).
We could hijack it into a grammar thread ;)
Catch you later on a more focused thread.
It goes to the whole package. He was initially given the benefit of the doubt but he kept backing up his non-solid points by referencing his creditials as a degreed scientist.
Besides, some of his mispellings turned out to give meanings to his sentences that were downright hilarious!
Then they were not good engineers. I have found that illiterate communication by engineers leads to lost efficiency and possible injury or death. Engineers focus much of their effort on communication. They are not necessarily the best writers but it is wrong to classify engineers with such a brush.
A sloppy engineer is an accident waiting to happen.
The actual episode was over in a flash. Now all the others have to chime in to review and rehash the merits of that episode. Life goes on.
Just to restate; the guy offered his professional credentials as a basis for his statements. When one does that, his professional appearance (postings) are fair game.
Read up on surface tension of water. Bugs do it all the time.
I posted to him that he had. Sometimes it is best to stop digging and reinforce the shaft before going deeper.
Fixed. Now we are back on topic.
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