Pro-Darwin consensus doesn't rule out intelligent design (published on CNN!!!)

Why does no one bring this up?

Hmmmm...so, if the ID or creationist crowd make a mistake, that means their whole movement is filled with morons, but if the mainstream scientific crowd brings us a list of disasters starting with the Piltdown Man and the Cardiff Giant and rolling all the way up to the CRU emails, that doesn't matter, right?

At best, you've simply failed to account for Niven's 16th Law.

Actually, threads like this make me want to run from any church. The “christians” on these types of threads hurl insults and do nothing to represent the nature of Christ that all Christians are supposed to have. Might even include your tongue in cheek slap at my “hypocracy” as an example.

Yes, the other side hurls them as well, but did Christ say to “do it to them like they do it to you”? Organized religion is a foul thing. I look at those “christians” and wonder a lot of things.

For instance, since this is a creation/ID thread. What is the creationist/ID thought on, say, what Benny Hinn has to say about Adam and his ability to fly? Now Benny has a very large following, 10’s of thousands, so does that make his view points more valid than others?

Might even include your tongue in cheek slap at my “hypocracy” as an example.

I was only pointing out that everyone...EVERYONE...is a hypocrite, so whether there are some pastors who are hypocrites is not exactly a relevant point. Certainly the word "slap" doesn't apply...especially if there's a smiley face at the end of the sentence. :-) See?

Actually, threads like this make me want to run from any church. The “christians” on these types of threads hurl insults and do nothing to represent the nature of Christ that all Christians are supposed to have.

Let me ask you a serious question: If Jesus Christ is real, if He really was God, really was crucified for the sins of the world and really did rise from the dead, and He really does come back one day, and you have to meet Him face to face, do really want to tell Him, "People who posted on Free Republic crevo threads were mean, so I thought it was OK to reject you?"

You are responsible for your soul, and if there is a God who wants a relationship with you, a relationship that will save you from Hell, the actions of others who claim to know Him mean squat. You're the one who has to get saved or get crispy. Take care of business.

Organized religion is a foul thing.

Organized Christianity is the reason we have the civilization we have today. It's the reason Jim Crow died, the reason most Americans hospitals were established (and the rest werte established by Jews), etc., etc., ad nauseum. No offense, but it seems like you're seeing the things about religion that confoirm what you want confirmed, rather than taking the good and the bad.

For instance, since this is a creation/ID thread. What is the creationist/ID thought on, say, what Benny Hinn has to say about Adam and his ability to fly?

1. I am unfamiliar with this and think Hinn is a charlatan, so I could care less what he says about Adam.

2. There's nothing in the Bible that could remotely indicate Adam could fly. Hinn might as well claim he was flying an F-16. I'm not remotely concerned with anything any preacher gasses on about that he can't back up from God's word.

3. What matters is what the science says, and the science shows that life is far too complex to have come together through an unguided process. That's the reality if Hin has 10 followers or 10 million. He's not relevant to it.

Thanks for the ping!

“Let me ask you a serious question: If Jesus Christ is real, if He really was God, really was crucified for the sins of the world and really did rise from the dead, and He really does come back one day, and you have to meet Him face to face, do really want to tell Him, “People who posted on Free Republic crevo threads were mean, so I thought it was OK to reject you?”

Assumptions are bad things. I never said that I was denying Jesus. I said I was running from church, two different things. To me, being a Christian is not organized religion but a relationship. A relationship between me and my Savior. A church is just simply a building and organized religion is a man-made creation. I don’t need to visit a building twice on Sundays and maybe once on Wednesday nights to be saved by my Lord. If that were the case, then He wouldn’t be much of a Savior now would He?

I am glad to see that Hinn is cannot count you as an audience member. I count him as one of those “christians” that do far more damage than any atheist. The thing is, that some people on these threads can turn off potential believers. They see that hypocracy that you were talking about and decide it’s not worth it.

Trust me, I know. Try explaining that to teenagers as you try to explain the relationship with Christ. They see people in churches backbiting each other, church splits, people who say that they are “christian” but act like something else the other days of the week. And how do I know these things? I was once a youth pastor, pastored to that special kind of flock for over 10 years of my life. Am I doing it now? No. Will I ever do it again? No. But guess what? I am still in a very solid relationship with my Lord. After leaving organized religion, that relationship has grown closer than ever. So do I miss it? No.

"Either way, it’s another example of God using the definition of something to explain it instead of an untranslatable Hebrew word."

Or an example of God using a simplistic word that existed in Hebrew, but could not convey the full meaning that would be revealed for millennia.

Where I have a problem with atheistic evolution is that they first of all cannot come up with a concrete theory on how life began.

As you probably noticed, there's kind of a disagreement around here about whether the theory of evolution has to explain how life began. It really doesn't, or rather, it functions fine to explain things after the point where we can all agree there's life. I liked the way someone who used to participate in these threads put it: the origin of life could have been by (a) creation, (b) pure chemistry, (c) seeds from outer space, (d) something else entirely. Take your pick--the answer would make no difference whatsoever to evolution.

Which isn't to say the origin of life isn't related, or "of particular interest" as that Berkeley site puts it. But (here's another analogy I like) it's like the question of whether a biography has to start with the person's conception. Most don't.

So I'd say you may have a problem with atheism but not with evolution.

Specific life forms may evolve, but life did not evolve. There was nothing living before life...so it did not evolve.

I hate to do this, but that all depends on how you define "life" and "evolve." If RNA was capable of self-replication and adaptation, was it alive? How about when it managed to enclose itself inside a protective membrane and became a "cell"--was it alive then? If RNA gave rise to DNA and cells, can one say that "life evolved"? More to the point, can one say for sure that it didn't?

Indeed, there has never been any small living new organisms which just popped out on record.

No small living new organism ever popped out. That's not how evolution works.

Next, we are asked to believe that some organism that never flew ‘evolved’ somehow into a being that could fly.

No, we're asked to believe that over the course of maybe 50 million years, some organisms started to grow fuzz, which developed into feathers, and later some climbing tree-dwellers with feathers developed skin membranes like flying squirrels have, and later some of those developed lighter bones and different muscle arrangements that enabled them to glide further and actually flap their membranes. Now, that's about five stages of development, or about 10 million years per stage. Say it takes 10 years for these organisms to produce a new generation: that's a million generations to get from fuzz to feathers, and then another million to get from feathers to gliding membranes. It all took a very long time--we didn't go from some organism that never flew to one that could in one or even a hundred steps.

Then we are asked to believe that along the evolutionary trail a specific bird (can’t remember the name, but can get it if you like) evolved a ability to fly from what is now the North American continent (Canada I believe) all the way to Hawaii

My guess is that the bird wasn't trying to get from Canada to Hawaii, but rather was trying to get way out over the water from Canada--where it would have exclusive fishing rights--and then back to where it started, but got blown to Hawaii. I don't know. But I did want to point out that what you describe is just "microevolution," or the sort of adaptation within the bird "kind" that creationism permits. Explaining that bird is just as big a problem for creationism as it is for evolution (unless the claim is that the original created bird "kind" was an ocean traveler).

How could a single cell organism all of a sudden grow a set of lungs to breathe air? You cannot live with partial lungs,

Again, none of this happens all of a sudden. And actually, some of the earliest fish had air sacs connected to their esophagus--I think the hypothesis is that they helped the fish gulp air when they couldn't get enough oxygen from the water. So it wasn't the case that organisms living on land had to develop lungs from scratch, they just had to adapt the ones that were already there.

Life has to include some level of consciousness, pretending a protein or amino acid is life is really changing the logical definition to fit their own concepts.

I'm not sure I'm ready to say that bacteria or algae have consciousness. I guess I find it easier to see non-life to life as a continuum than you do.

I answered at length because I probably won't get back to this for a couple of days. I hope you have/had a nice holiday.

Assumptions are bad things. I never said that I was denying Jesus.

You're quite corect. My apologies.

To me, being a Christian is not organized religion but a relationship. A relationship between me and my Savior.

Dead on.

A church is just simply a building and organized religion is a man-made creation.

I'm surprised you believe that to be true. It was God, not man, who established an organized church in Matthew 16:18 (note that He calls it "my church") and Matthew 28. Then there's massive amounts of material in Acts and the epistles (50% of the content at the very least) that simply wouldn't have been written if there was no plan for an organized Church. What does that say to you?

I don’t need to visit a building twice on Sundays and maybe once on Wednesday nights to be saved by my Lord. If that were the case, then He wouldn’t be much of a Savior now would He?

True, but consider this: In Hebrews 10:25 we are told, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

In an age where there are many wolves in sheep's clothing, it may be harder to find the right fellowship than it used to be, but it is plainly not optional. And as the Day of the Lord gets closer it would seem to be even more important.

Regarding your last paragraph...sorry you felt you needed to leave the ministry. But here's a question, preacher to preacher: Isn't the church supposed to be a hospital for sinners, rather than a hotel for saints? And is your assessment that you have a stronger relationship with Jesus based on objective biblical benchmarks (such as the ones in 1 John) or on how you feel? I ask because I have a couple of friends who have gotten deep into new age stuff and they claim that their relationship with Jesus is stronger than ever. So does Oprah, IIRC. Are you sure you can put aside a core part of what Jesus established here on earth as unimportant and still develop the kind of spiritual life He intended?

Just trying to speak the truth in love. If you wish, take the conversation to freepmail anytime, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

As you probably noticed, there's kind of a disagreement around here about whether the theory of evolution has to explain how life began. It really doesn't, or rather, it functions fine to explain things after the point where we can all agree there's life.

So let me ask you a question: How come when some evo putz on this board accuses people of believing in "magic" and "God saying 'poof'" because they are IDers or creationists, I never see someone like you coming into the conversation and saying, "Well look, evolution doesn't say that life happened without God, it only says it changed after a certain point, so stop the insults?"

I'm not asking that to be combative. I'd really like to know why it never seems to occur to y'all that as a group you're basically expecting to have it both ways.

So let me ask you a question: How come when some evo putz on this board accuses people of believing in "magic" and "God saying 'poof'" because they are IDers or creationists, I never see someone like you coming into the conversation and saying, "Well look, evolution doesn't say that life happened without God, it only says it changed after a certain point, so stop the insults?"

In my experience with these threads, the references to magic and "poof" have to do with creating animals fully formed (creationist view) or intervening in some unspecified way in the evolutionary process to add new parts (ID view). I haven't seen those words applied to the idea that God was involved in the origin of life. As far as I can tell, most "evos" here believe in God, so I'm sure they believe He was somehow involved in the origin of life, even it it was only to "create" (however one views the act of creation) a universe in which life was inevitable, given the rules and conditions. Some atheists may deride even that as magic and poof, but I haven't seen them on these threads.

"Evolution doesn't say that life happened without God, it only says it changed after a certain point." But creationists and IDers aren't satisfied with that. Well, creationists are, but they insist that "certain point" was after birds and cows and people were already in existence as such. And IDers won't say when they think that "certain point" was, but they think evolution needed a little help to get that far.

Anyway, I don't think most of "us" are expecting to have it both ways. The core argument is, once something we can all agree was "life" existed, natural selection of genetic variation got us to where we are today. Arguments about life's origins are down the hall.

Actually, the theory of evolution, survival of the fittest, can be a very good clue as to how life started. It has nothing to do with survival, per se, but with what is most likely to happen. Darwin's theory implies that the ones which reproduce the best become more populous than the others.

If the same theory is applied to the organic soup of primitive, oxygen-rare earth, then those chemical reactions which resulted in the same chemical reactions, a positive feedback loop, would out-react those which didn't have such a feedback. A chain of nucleic acids which sucked the phosphorus and nitrogen and small amino acids out of the pool to creat longer nucleic acids would use up those resources more "efficiently" than most other compounds. Phospholipids that grouped together would gather other phospholipids and naturally form a micelle. Over time, it's hard to see how groups of these attractive and reactive chemicals would not mix and increase their reactivity. This is not saying that this would be like a modern lab reaction. This is chanced and churned over a billion years.

In any case, this could show, from Darwin's great idea, how life itself started on earth.

No thoughts on post 168?