Posted on 09/09/2006 8:39:07 PM PDT by curiosity
“In the final analysis (God) used evolution to set us free.”
Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller used this quote from his book “Finding Darwin’s God” as a central point in his speech about simultaneously believing in evolution and religion.
Miller spoke to more than 500 people Thursday evening in the Kansas Union Ballroom.
He testified for the pro-evolution side in the recent lawsuit against the Dover, Pa., school district, where a federal judge ruled against the district’s teaching of intelligent design in biology classrooms. He said it was creationism in disguise.
Conservatives on the Kansas State Board of Education approved science standards last year that criticized evolution, but after the August primary election, it appears moderates will regain control of the board and eventually reinstate the former standards.
Miller gained several laughs from the audience during his speech as he described the Dover trial, including a scene when intelligent design proponent Michael Behe asked the judge if he could “move the evidence to the side.”
Plaintiffs’ attorney Eric Rothschild had stacked 58 scientific papers, nine books and other textbook chapters on evolutionary evidence supporting development of the human immune system in front of Behe on the witness stand.
Miller said religion and evolution are too often played as opposing forces and incorrectly identified as mutually exclusive. At Brown, a student once told him he could not worship at the university chapel and cited a book that places evolution as the fruit in the serpent’s mouth or a “tool of Satan.”
But Miller said the root of the portrayal of religion and evolution as opposites may come from scientists who have an “anti-theistic interpretation of evolution,” a stance he disagrees with.
“People of faith are shooting at the wrong target. They should not be shooting at evolution itself,” he said.
Miller, a Catholic, said evolution has been remarkably robust in answering criticism through fossil records, the fusing of human chromosomes and other examples.
Instead of attacking evolutionary theory, the argument should be against the anti-theistic interpretation of evolution, he said.
He quoted several scientists, philosophers and religious leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI, who has written: “Even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation.”
“By understanding the mechanics of this world, what one is really doing is praising and glorifying God,” Miller said.
Miller will answer questions from the public at 10 a.m. today at the Hall Center for the Humanities.
The lecture was the first in the “Difficult Dialogues” series on “Knowledge: Faith & Reason,” presented by the Hall Center and the Biodiversity Institute.
Federal Judge John E. Jones III, who ruled in favor of the Dover plaintiffs, will speak Sept. 26.
I was trying to say the same thing. Sorry you missed my point.
It's obvious to me that life was created in some form, and I believe in God and never try to pigeon hole him.
Not true because there are more ways in which man was created in God's image than just one, the physical one. What's more in God's image is what's inside, the mental, emotional, consciousness, self-awareness, free will, all the things that set us apart from the animal world.
Focusing on only one aspect of the meaning of something and trying to build an argument against it is not logical. Logic doesn't work if the premise is faulty.
Is it possible that the ToE is wrong?
If you have to ask, something is fundamentally wrong with your fundamentalism.
Where exactly do you find that "Pride" is one of Seven deadly sins?
You presumed to know the mind and methods of God by discounting the possibility that evolution might be a tool of His creation.
And who exactly did I commit this deadly sin against, evolution?
No, against yourself.
Likewise many presume to know the mind of God when they state that He DID use evolution as the tool of His creation.
Those that state that God used evolution to create man are doing the same thing they criticize creationists of doing, claiming to know the mind of God and speaking for Him.
So why do they do the very thing they condemn? Why is OK for them to do it and not others?
>>Because if it's possible that God doesn't have a physical resemblance to man, you can't use it as a supporting axiom in opposing evolution.
>Not true because there are more ways in which man was created in God's image than just one, the physical one.
Sigh. No wonder sane people avoid these threads! You don't read what I write, or you're purposely ignoring it.
Again:
Axiom P: "God has a physical resemblance to man."
It is possible Axiom P is not true.
Therefore, Axiom P cannot be used as an argument against evolution.
How much more plain do I have to make this?
You're starting from some faulty premises; one is that the physical is the only way in which man resembles God, that it's God who resembles man and not vice versa, and that that God does not have a form that we were patterened after.
Ignoring the other ways in which man resembles God leads to faulty conclusions because the premise is incorrect. When God said He made man in His image, HE didn't specify in which area, so to focus on something that doesn't have any support and try to build an argument on it, doesn't work.
I don't think they knew about DNA and carbon dating back in the New Testament times.
It's definitely possible that the theory of evolution is wrong.
That's why we need science to test and figure out what is right and wrong.
I'm more of an intelligent design kind of person. I have faith that God created our universe, and I think science is the tool to figure out how it was created.
And that really puts it in perspective. Science is just a tool. It's a means to an end and not an end in and of itself.
SIGH.
metmom, did you not respond thus to my question?
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VG>> Let me ask you this: isn't is possible that the body parts are allegorical?
metmom> Yeah, it's possible.
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If you said the above, then you cannot definitively say "Man has a physical resemblence to God."
If you refuse to follow the simplest rules of logic, there is absolutely no point in my debating you.
Good afternoon Elsie...thanks for your Scriptures, you do know I always read them...
These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. (Proverbs 6:16-19)
It means you have little faith in anything other than God.
I think God has given us lots of tools. For example, God gave us doctors and hospitals to help us heal from different afflictions. God also gave us scientists and instruments to help us see his wonderful creation.
Sure men make mistakes, but I still go to the doctors, just like I still trust in Carbon dating that shows how old things are.
I don't think God gave us doctors and hospitals. What we are given is intelligence, with which we can learn not to put our hands on the stove twice, and with which we can teach our children not to do it once.
This is the essence of science. Learning how the world works. What things are useful and what things are harmful. Science is also sharing our discoveries with others and with generations that will live after we are gone. It is organized and systematic love.
No, there are not. There is only one God.
I know God doesn't change.
Tell that to USMMA_83.
He said this to me: " 'I am what I am,' was the only thing he referred himself as. He can most certainly be change. Anyway, this debate is boring...you theists are too predictable and scared...peace be upon you."
I think so.
What did I 'interpret'?
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