Posted on 03/19/2010 4:56:11 PM PDT by chessplayer
What if Darwin's theory of natural selection is inaccurate? What if the way you live now affects the life expectancy of your descendants?
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
In fact I deny that the term applies at all other than that he, like I, believed that God created the universe.
His theology was as mixed up as anything, but his science was as sound as a pound.
Unlike his religious musings about the Trinity, his science can and is put to the test.
Thus science is superior to theological musings in both utility and in recognizing brilliance from irrelevant heresy.
Science produces things of value.
Creationism produces nothing of any value.
Disparaged? LOL. Oh, and your comment about “piddly little brains”? That showed your Christian love and charity? No. It just showed your feigned ignorance of the fact that the Creationism is statistically the refuge of the undereducated and less intelligent.
From readying the article, I’ve come to the conclusion that the human brain cannot comprehend or fathom the process of natural selection far enough back as to understand the effects that alter future generations and why..
Damn that was hard to write!
That is my point. Truth that can't be falsified, has no meaning.
Let me give you an example, E=MC^2. That is a truth that can be falsified. Simply take two clocks, accelerate one clock to a 'relatively' high velocity and then compare the time. The equation precisely predicts the time differential. If the prediction is off, then that 'truth' is falsified. If it was not possible to 'falsify' the equation then it would be meaningless. We have string equations that fall under that catagory.
From reading the article, I’ve come to the conclusion that the human brain cannot comprehend or fathom the process of natural selection far enough back as to understand the effects that alter future generations and why..
Damn that was hard to write!
SEE!
If you can give an example of a "truth" that is falsifiable, then you can give an example of a "truth" that is not falsifiable. And if you can give a truth that can be falsified and so then it has meaning, then you can give a truth that cannot be falsified and so then it has no meaning; So give an example of a 'truth' that cannot be falsified and has no meaning.
This should be easy for you, you seem bright enough. There are many things out there that can fit the example of a, "truth that cannot be falsified and so then it has no meaning," in your perspective.
This statement is a lie. Read my post again.
Everything is waves of nothing actually, or EM waves of the Quantum Field in other words
A clear statement! Even with the Theory of God you can't prove anything. Now, please give me the scientific evidence which proves the above statement. Please expound on the statement, "Everything is waves of nothing. Please explain the word everything and the word, nothing. Surely things (photons, quarks, electrons, wave are something). If however you are approaching the notion that quantum physics and at a subatomic level events are uncaused, this is a mistake. As you must know this is the Copenhaagen Interpretation of quantum physics. This is not an exception to the dictum of First Cause. At best it is indeterminant, as all of these studies to not begin with nothing, but a quantum vacuum rich in energy and energy fuuctuations. The problem is that all of science points to a singularity where there was no vacuum, no time, no space, no matter, and no energy. Such quantum studies do not begin with nothing and are therefore indeterminent. However if your premise is that everything is the result of a quantum event, then you have no reason to believe anything. There is no reaon to believe that we can study the barometric pressure this morning and it will be subject to the same laws of physics as tomorrow (see Hume). Nor is there any reason to not believe, a universe originating from a quantum event, that everythin,...the sky, the lions, the butterflies, the concrete in the street was in existence 4 minutes ago. This is, of course, the notion of Boltzmann, saying that in a quantum world there is no reason to believe in the laws of physics, laws of logic, reason....they are simply the result of a quantum even. Science, which you are clearly a devotee of, cannot operate on those lack of rules, logic, and methodology. Science itself, with the use of logic and scientific methodology cannot be believed if the universe is under the domain of a quantum event, instant after instsant, after instant. Or, perhaps you want it both ways.
Even with the Theory of God you can't prove anything
I will ask you, the Theory of a Godless universe, will prove...what?The fact that you cannot account for reason and logic in an atheistic universe confirms that God exists. Without the author of logic, reason and rational thought, how does a brute universe give rise to self-consciousness? How does it give rise to your sentience? Your attempt to reason and your consciousness cannot be accounted for in a materialist universe. If you can, please explain to me how. You are prima fascia evidence that you prove the Transendental Proof of the existence of God. Without God, you lack reason, logic, and rational thought and can not account for anything at all. As Leibniz asked 200 years ago, 'Why is there something, rather than nothing?'
We can even measure thought.
You can measure thought??????????????OK. Measure thought. I did not speak to thought, which you, no doubt, equate with logic, reason, and rationality. So I ask you, how much does thought weigh? What color is thought? How long are they? These are absurd questions which arise from the absurdity of your statement. I have ordered enough EEGs in my time to know that we measure brainwaves. We do not measure thought. You are a sentient creature, yet you cannot account, through use of logic, your sentience, perusal of your materialist worldview. So, knock yourself out and make an accounting for a statement which you cannot justify or warrant.
Thought is simply EM radiation.
For the uninitiated reading this, electroencephalography is the study of electrical activity of the central nervous system, primarily the brain. The electrical potentials tracked in the brain appear in a wave form from 1-100 cycles per second and in amplitude from 5 to several hundred microvolts. What is being recorded is the depolarization of the neurons and that is transferred by the electroencephalograph into a wave form. But so is the purkinje system which controls the normal depolarization of cardiac muscle. And so does every living cell in our body have an electrical potential to depolarize and be graphed. So Mr.LeGrand, is asserting that electricity (actually, depolarization across cell membranes IS thought, logic, and reason. In fact, it is the measurement of an elecatrical potential, and has not the definition of thought. But Mr.LeGrand says, in its essence, we can read thoughts. That is roughly equal to saying we can read minds. However he cannot acocunt for mind in his materialist world. Make it easy on us, LeGrand, and make such an accounting using logic, reason, and rational thought, but always conforming to your materialist worldview.
Mental events are genuine non-physical mental states that exist. Specific mental event types are regularly correlated with specific physical event types. There is an explanation for these correlations. Personal explaination is different from natural scientific exoplanation. The explanation for these correlations is either a personal or natural scientific event. The explaination is not a natural scientific one. Therefore the explanations is a personal one and is therefore a personal mental event which is non-physical and therefore metaphysical and therefore theistic.
Okay then. What is your evidence that this is a Theistic Christian Universe?
You are!!!!I will repeat what I have said before. I will assume that you are familiar with the Cosmological proof for the exitence of God, the Teleological Proof for the existence of God, the Ontologic Proof for the existence of God and the Moral Proof for the existence of God. The most compelling, for my mind, is the Transendental Proof for the existence of God.
Here, I ask you, respectfully, to read it, and consider it with seriousness and sobriety. The Transcendental Proof for the existence of God says, says that "without God, it is impossible to prove anything. That is to say, without God, there is no logic, reason, or rational thought. Those tools of thought or laws of logic cannot be accounted for in your materialistic universe, can they? Yet you use them in your own way to try to engage in our dialogue. Where do they come from? How does a cold, material universe give rise to self-consciousness (you are conscious of the world around you and you are part of the universe) or logic or reason? It cannot be accounted for in your understanding of the material world. No one, you nor I, can be presuppositionally neutral. That is why when I speak to an atheist I try to enter their world and speak to them in their terms. The proof of the Transcendental Proof is the impossibility of any other. The maintainence of any other than a theistic worldview leads to irrationality and absurdity, and without the Transcendent God, who is separate from the universe, distinct from the universe, and not subject to the laws of the universe, you cannot prove anything. Atheists cannot account for the laws of logic. The laws of Logic reflect the thinking of God. They are, if you will, a reflection of the way God thinks and expects us to think.
If you want to go into all of the permutations of the cosmological argument, which powerfully, scientifically, logically, determine that it is a fact that the universe exploded into being, I will be glad to go there. The same for the Teleological and Ontological Arguments.
Please explain this statement.
Yeah. But only rarely do such types become aware of the endless circumlocution [i.e., solipsism] that the atheist involves himself in, by claiming that Newton's astoundingly gorgeous and powerful mechanics somehow proves that Newton was — like himself — atheist. [I assume on the basis of observation and experience that most evos are atheist. Which is the "polite word" for nihilist IMHO. :^) ]
But Newton was a most passionate believer in God. He was the most rock-ribbed monotheist I have ever encountered working inside the historical discipline of science.
[Note to Christians: Evidently Newton rejected the Holy Trinity on "Occam's Razor" grounds. Bear in mind also that his basic picture of the universe was "mechanical": describing "Newtonian particles" — i.e., abstract particles of whatever size/scale moving in time according to a chain of direct, local causation. Ironically, this is perhaps why he has to invoke God to restore order to a system of nature that, on the basis of his own principles, Newton conceded would inevitably go awry, because it was a mechanical system and thus could be expected to accumulate errors over time. That is to say, any system tends to disorder if left alone. Which would explain why Newton evidently believed that God would have to step into the picture, to restore the order of his creation, from time to time as needed.
Certainly Newton was not a Deist.]
For Newton, God was not only God Creator, but God Pantocrator — the Ultimate and Eternal Ruler of Everything That Happens in the Universe. Newton called his God "the Lord of Life — with His creatures." And suggested that the presence of God — the with of "with His creatures" — was mediated in space and time by a sensorium Dei — a much quibbled-over term since Newton's time. [E.g., Leibniz thought this constituted clear evidence that Newton was a pantheist. Pantheism was not fashionable at that time, to put it mildly.]
Whatever. To me, Newton's sensorium Dei is the seminal idea behind modern field theory, which was quickly taken up by Michael Faraday and expanded....
If the evos seriously want to get into the game — especially those who self-identify as atheists —it seems to me they've got a bit of catching up to do first.
We always have to ask ourselves: Is this thinking, or is it group-think?
The two rarely square in my experience. FWIW
If this post seems tendentious to anyone, I apologize. I just realized that, if evos are starting to dump on Newton, maybe it's because they have finally come to realize what Newton's theological views might actually mean to science — and to themselves....
I am not an atheist, so your strawman is rather inapplicable.
Newton was not a Creationist in any way other than that he believed that God created the universe.
Newton produced something of value when he sought to describe physical causes to physical phenomena, that is science, not creationism.
Is there any evidence that Newton would not have made the same discoveries if he had held different religious beliefs?
INDEED.
WELL PUT, AS USUAL.
THX.
Whenever the topic of evolution comes up it reminds me of the following funny quote from GK Chesterton.....
“IN one of his least convincing phrases, Nietzsche had said that just as the ape ultimately produced the man, so should we ultimately produce something higher than the man. The immediate answer, of course, is sufficiently obvious: the ape did not worry about the man, so why should we worry about the superman? If the superman will come by natural selection, may we not leave it to natural selection? If the superman will come by human selection, what sort of superman are we to select? If he is simply to be more just, more brave, or more merciful, then Zarathustra sinks into a Sunday-school teacher; the only way we can work for it is to be more just, more brave, and more merciful — sensible advice, but hardly startling. If he is to be anything else than this, why should we desire him, or what else are we to desire? These questions have been many times asked of the Nietzscheites, and none of the Nietzscheites have even attempted to answer them.”-GK Chesterton
Anyone who believes that God created the universe is a creationist by definition.
Disparaging creationists as producing and contributing nothing of value dismisses the majority of people who have made any meaningful contribution to society and culture, because science isn’t all there is in this world and it isn’t what everything is about.
Creationists contribute in meaningful ways in all realms of life. Atheists are not the only individuals who are capable of making contributions that are of any value, which ism by default, what your position is with the blanket statements you are making about people.
Not very objective of you, I should say.
I said nothing about atheism and I am not an atheist, despite continued attempts to beat that strawman.
Creationism creates nothing of value.
Science creates value.
It is not the only thing of value, but it is valuable.
Please do take your "evidence" and stuff it allmendream. Such demands are thoroughly tiresome to me by now.
You miss the point entirely even to ask such a question.
But to answer your question directly: There is no such evidence. All the evidence we have is what Newton actually left. And that includes both his theory of motion/mechanics, and his ideas about how the motion and mechanics fit into "the larger picture."
Okay??? Can you GRASP that point???
Is there any other way to define "creationist" allmendream?
I can't wait to hear further from you on this subject.
At the very least I am most glad to hear you acknowledge that Sir Isaac Newton believed in the Creator God.
I myself am convinced that he did. FWIW
Thanks for the ping!
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