Posted on 11/02/2009 8:03:34 PM PST by Alter Kaker
AMHERST, Mass. — Creationism is growing in the Muslim world, from Turkey to Pakistan to Indonesia, international academics said last month as they gathered here to discuss the topic.
But, they said, young-Earth creationists, who believe God created the universe, Earth and life just a few thousand years ago, are rare, if not nonexistent.
One reason is that although the Koran, the holy text of Islam, says the universe was created in six days, the next line adds that a day, in this instance, is metaphorical: “a thousand years of your reckoning.”
By contrast, some Christian creationists find in the Bible a strict chronology that requires a 6,000-year-old Earth and thus object not only to evolution but also to much of modern geology and cosmology, which say the Earth and the universe are billions of years old.
“Views of scientific evolution are clearly influenced by underlying religious beliefs,” said Salman Hameed, who convened the two-day conference here at Hampshire College, where he is a professor of integrated science and humanities. “There is no young-Earth creationism.”
But that does not mean that all of evolution fits Islam or that all Muslims happily accept the findings of modern biology. More and more seem to be joining the ranks of the so-called old-Earth creationists. They do not quarrel with astronomers and geologists, just biologists, insisting that life is the creation of God, not the happenstance consequence of random occurrences.
The debate over evolution is only now gaining prominence in many Islamic countries as education improves and more students are exposed to the ideas of modern biology.
The degree of acceptance of evolution varies among Islamic countries.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sorry you are too slow to understand my posts -- even the short ones.
But I am used to it.
When it comes to drive-by insults, you never disappoint.
Good job showing your Christianity as usual.
Yes. Evolution would (and does) indeed require such a process. Fortunately for us all, there is such a process. It's called "life".
Living organisms all concentrate massive amounts of negative entropy within themselves. This is absolutely intrinsic to the process of living. But, you say, "then they die." Yet they can reproduce from within themselves new individuals which can continue the process of concentrating negative entropy indefinitely.
Pride comes before the fall. I’ll be praying for you.
>>Pride comes before the fall. I’ll be praying for you.<<
And I, you.
Looks you voiced like an intent to stalk editor-surveyor on the forum there.
Pretty much thats all you got and all you ever had around here, that and your grade school level insults. Good thing you are so impressed with yourself and your intellect, cause no one else is.
There are some that are just too twisted to reply to. - The fact of their being tarbabies compounds the taboo.
Why do you say that? What did I say that was so "frustrating?" "Frustrating" to WHAT?
Details, please!!! (Please do share your thoughts in greater detail. Otherwise, I have no clue how to rationally reply to you.)
>>Looks you voiced like an intent to stalk editor-surveyor on the forum there.<<
Looks like you are wrong. Not the first time and definitely not the last. Again, my expectations are low and yet you fall short.
>>Pretty much thats all you got and all you ever had around here, that and your grade school level insults. Good thing you are so impressed with yourself and your intellect, cause no one else is.<<
On these threads that is a complement.
Thank you and may God watch over your soul, because you sure aren’t.
Thank You Tammy Faye Bakkar!
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Tacticalogic, having just arrived on this thread and tracked back to BB's Darwin quotation, it looks to me like you had/have your "offense antenna" "set to maximum gain". Darwin said what he said; why would you expect BB to give you more than that?
Having said that, I have often observed that the understanding of folks during Darwin's time of the fossilization process and the conditions necessary for fossilization was, to be kind, rudimentary and sketchy compared to present knowledge in that area. Frankly, as a physical chemist, I am amazed that we have as many fossilized remains as we have.
For example, pH of the soil and percolating fluids has a major effect on preservation of organic structures. Here in the acidic soils of the East Texas Piney Woods, survival of organic remains for any substantial length of time is extremely rare.
For example, Caddo Indian burials are often revealed only by soil discoloration marking the grave excavation, presence of ceramic "grave goods" vessels, possibly beads where a belt might have been, and sometimes a cluster of arrow points close together and facing the same direction. Of the human remains, little is left but a stain in the soil, plus, sometimes, a few teeth. (BTW, we assume that the arrowpoints represent arrows in a quiver -- but there is usually no "fossilized" wood, feathers, or leather to confirm that assumption...)
As an example of the rapid dissolution of human remains here, I (as a Texas Archaeological Steward) am working on the homesite and gravesite of Texas Senator Robert Potter, who was murdered in 1842. In 1936, for the Texas Centennial, Potter was exhumed and moved to a place of honor in the Texas state Cemetery in Austin. Those who performed the exhumation and relocation recorded that there was little to move -- aside from a few teeth, some very soft and fragile fragments of bone, some scraps of cloth, and a few buttons -- after less than a century in the ground. We will consider ourselves very lucky if we find any remains at all of Potter's young daughter, who, a year earlier, was buried nearby.
Did the Potters exist? Certainly. We have his wife's memoirs and State records to tell us so. But, there are certainly no "Potter fossils" or "Caddo Indian fossils".
Fossils are very special cases of preservation; special and very rare. Anyone who expects to build a continuous record of evolution/development based on fossil records is in for a long and frustrating search...
So, yes, Darwin's comments touched on his evolution theory -- and they also touched on geology...about which Darwin knew relatively little...
~~~~~~~~~
Does that still leave you frustrated and offended?
>>Thank You Tammy Faye Bakkar!<<
And to you, Paul Reubens.
I'd think that would be intuitive. The quote from Darwin appears to be lifted out of context, and used to imply that Darwin refuted his own theory based on not finding a consistent progression of transitionals in the fossil record. Not wanting to discuss it after having submitted it makes it appear calculated to establish doubt.
Frustrating to having a conversation about it. I ask about the context and meaning of part of it that seemed ambigous. Since you provided the quote, it seemed reasonable that you might have more information about the background and surrounding context that would help clarify it. You responded that I would have to "go ask Dawrin". Since he's dead, that's obviously going to be impossible so it's pretty much the rhetorical equivalent of flipping the bird and walking away.
That argument is not valid because entropy presumes a closed system.
What an amateurish collection of drivel. It wouldn't even be less credible if found in a super market check out stand.
That argument is not valid because entropy presumes a closed system.
No. "Entropy" doesn't presume that. Entropy is just a quantifiable character of a system, whether open, closed or otherwise. But I know what you mean: The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics -- that entropy must increase -- only applies to a closed system.
True enough. The "evolution violates the 2nd law" argument is invalid for that reason also. But my point is even simpler, and simultaneously stronger and broader as well.
Simply pointing that living things are not closed systems means that evolution does not necessarily violate the 2nd Law. But this is a relatively weak case by itself since it does nothing toward suggesting that evolution should occur, but only that it is not prohibited from occurring.
After all, there are any number of open systems in which evolution does not occur, and any number in which entropy does increase despite the system being open.
OTOH, pointing out that living things inherently, systematically, pervasively and continuously reduce entropy (accumulate negentropy) goes beyond the negative case of arguing merely that evolution is not prohibited, and instead indicates that the organized energy to drive processes like evolution actually is available and abundant.
Furthermore, it sidesteps theoretical issues altogether. It is a bald and demonstrable FACT that living organisms reduce entropy, despite and prior to any particular analysis of how they happen to manage doing it.
There go your scientific method credentials!
Willful blindness is tragic.
The quote was a direct statement from Darwin, from The Origin of Species. It is what it is. Do you think I have some privileged insight into the workings of his mind?
I take the statement at face value. Thus it seems to me Darwin was allowing that his proposed evolution theory did not have support from the geological record, at least at the time of writing. Do you read the statement another way?
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