Posted on 08/05/2009 11:15:25 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Speaking of inventing language, what's *squal* mean? Is that like *passed* for having completed a course and getting a non-failing grade?
Speaking of inventing language, what's *squal* mean? Is that like *passed* for having completed a course and getting a non-failing grade? Or is it like getting beyond something.
Wow.. a double hit echo chamber ping... how creative.
So ask away, but not until you say why you're here, O.K.?
Again you prove that avoidance, misdirection, and ridicule are all you have left after your straw man has been knocked down.
I also dont think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory thats comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that its doable, but thats for them to prove No product is ready for competition in the educational world. ~ Phillip Johnson
“Naturalism by definition precludes design and purpose. What are termed laws are, under that understanding, no more than the physical characteristics of the universe.”
—It sounds like you are talking about philosophical or metaphysical “naturalism”. That’s certainly not what is meant when one merely says that something is “natural”. There are plenty of things that even the most ardent Creationist/IDist believes are completely “natural”, such as theories of snowflake formation, but I’ve never heard it claimed that such theories are espousing atheism or “naturalism”, or that such theories preclude purpose or design.
“Therefore Darwinism does preclude a designer with purpose, unless Darwinism is going to include belief in design and purpose ala the I.D. movement.”
—To again use the snowflake analogy - is God carving out each snowflake individually, or did God design the laws of nature in such a way to create snowflakes naturally? Does the latter idea preclude design and purpose? It sounds odd to me to say that the idea of God designing the laws of nature for the purpose of creating us via Darwinian evolution precludes design and purpose.
The I.D. movement claims that the laws of nature are not “designed” in such a way to allow for Darwinian evolution (in other words, it would be like saying that the laws of nature are incapable of creating snowflakes, and so God would have to carve out each snowflake individually, or at least intervene in some way.)
“I find the statements about Darwinism and Christianity not excluding each other to make as much sense as saying atheism and belief in propitiatory sacrifice not excluding each other, and for the same reason.”
—Whether Darwinism contradicts Christianity depends on how the Bible is interpreted, which is up to the individual. But Darwinism doesn’t include or exclude intelligent design any more or less than any other theory.
No, that's what comes of studying the Bible and thinking for myself. Try it!
But guess what..astronomers use the idea of a dome, they call it a celestial sphere, with objects (stars, planets, whatever is visible overhead) or lights attached to it.
Yes...as a metaphor. If you want to say the descriptions in the Bible are metaphors, fine. I'm just amused by those people who are willing to read all those descriptions as metaphor and then turn around and insist that everything about the history of life must be read as literal truth. (I can't remember if you're one of those people, so I'm not necessarily addressing you.)
Now where are these various Biblical descriptions again?
Job 38:13-14: "That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, And the wicked be shaken out of it? It takes on form like clay under a seal, And stands out like a garment." "Ends" being a word with the connotation of a physical edge, like the hem of a robe. And the second sentence describes the earth being spread out flat, like a stamped piece of clay.
Isaiah 40:22: "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in." "Circle" is the same word used elsewhere for a "compass" set down on a flat surface. And you wouldn't ordinarily speak of someone sitting "above" a globe. And the second sentence is a pretty clear comparison of the sky to a solid covering of some sort.
Genesis 7:11: "...on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." This one's my favorite, because people will insist the first part is literally true, but nobody insists that heaven actually has "windows." (The word used has many senses, all of an opening in a physical object.) The sentence apparently changes from literal to metaphorical in midstream.
There are more. But the overall picture is of a flat surface with some kind of roof overhead and God sitting on or above the roof. Note that I'm not saying this makes the Bible "wrong." But to accommodate those descriptions to what we know now about the physical reality of the solar system, one has to come up with all these explanations of how the words don't really mean what they say. I think if we had only recently discovered that the earth was round and orbiting the Sun in space, and didn't have the pictures to prove it, we'd be hearing the same arguments against that understanding as we hear now against evolution.
For that matter, they already knew the moon revolved around the earth, and had calculated the distances to both within 10%.
I have never made that claim. If this is your admission that there's no evidence that adding creation improves homeschool education in itself, I'm happy to hear it.
My arguments against teaching creation in science class are constitutional and scientific. I don't think it would harm students' overall education to teach them that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree, either. That's not an argument for doing so.
Yes, I know. I don't think the people who first wrote the Bible did, though.
Is your answering posts that were in reply to tpanther, and tpanther anwering posts that were in reply to you an intentional “tag-team” arrangement to confuse the discussion, or are you actually the same person?
Somewhere between ‘astroturfing’ and ‘echo chabmer’
Tiny world you must want to live in where scientifically ignorant parents get to decide what “science” is based on their religious beliefs.
Creationism isn’t science, is not based in science and belongs outside the science room...no discussion, debate, or parent-voting of Creationism will ever make it science.
"Should religion be put on an equal basis with evolution in public schools?"
Here's the real answer: Only if the religion you pick is the RIGHT one, i.e. you would need a religion which operated on something like the same intellectual level as evolutionism (so as to be comparing apples to apples, oranges to oranges etc.), and the only two plausible candidates would be rastafari and voodoo.
In fact, rastafari would lend itself quite nicely to certain kinds of team teaching situations in the typical high school inasmuch as a teacher looking for a way to put 30 teenagers into the proper frame of mind for indoctrination into something as stupid as evolutionism, could walk across the hall to the rasta class for a box of spliffs...
Liberal world you live in where the government gets to dictate what people are taught in the public education system it has no business running and requiring mandatory attendance in.
Control of education is not a delegated right of the federal government. It has no business being involved in it an any way.
Only a liberal will use anything to justify that kind of government control and loss of personal freedom. Just because evos think that they have a better reason than anyone else to dictate curriculum standards, doesn’t make it so.
And evolution does not equate to all science. The debate is about evolution having the monopoly in public education, not about what evos are afraid that creationists are going to do to all science.
But evos are great on hyperbole and extrapolation. They have to be to consider that the ToE has enough evidence to support macroevolution based on simple observations of variation within species.
To kinda cut to the chase here, it looks like Darwinism is just as much up to interpretation by the individual.
“While biologists do draw a distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution it really is a distinction without much difference. Or to put it another way, the distinction is a rather artificial one imposed by biologists. The simple answer is that the process at work in macro-evolution is precisely the same one at work in micro-evolution. So to say I believe micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution may sound erudite to the uneducated, .....It is like saying I believe in molecules, but not in atoms, electrons, protons and neutrons. ~ Steve Verdon
....and so forth springs the lame insults.
Anyone that doesn’t believe everything you believe is.....a liberal. Ya don’t have to be a Creationist to be non-liberal....but then you wouldn’t have your lame insult.
That’s the exact point where your discussion ends....that’s where mine ends.
Theres apparently nothing you can do about the hate filled bigotry, but perhaps you can do something to alleviate the ignorance, so I have a few questions:
*Is Free Will fact or illusion?
*Has ethics been disproved by Science, as some scientists (for example Harvard professor Steven Pinker in his book How the Mind Works), and other experts, argue?
*If not the case, then what are the ethics of Science, what is its ethical rationale, and whence come the values upon which its ethics are based?
*Can something be the cause of itself?
*Whence came water? Can you describe its origin?
Any enlightenment you can provide will be appreciated.
If that were the case the world would be overflowing with evidence of microevolutionary changes accumulating into macroevolutionary change but, as we all know, no such evidence exists on our planet.
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