Posted on 10/03/2011 5:29:32 AM PDT by spirited irish
Karl Popper (1902-1994) was a British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. Because he is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century, what Popper had to say about Darwinism is of utmost importance to the desperate political struggle fought between creationists and methodological and ontological naturalists. This is because the America of the Founding generation is firmly grounded in the Genesis account of creation, Old and New Testament morality and Christian theism, yet the original meaning and intent of U.S. law — as now controlled and defined by anti-God naturalism — has been radically changed so that it now reflects the doctrinal decrees of imperialist atheist evolutionary naturalism.
Whereas the Founding generation esteemed the Bible and used it to teach their children to read, comprehend and think logically as well as to properly train them in morality and self-discipline, in contemporary America, God, Bible, and moral absolutes have been banned in favor of evolutionary science, atheism, moral relativism, and self-gratification. The still-unfolding consequences of all of this are destructive and terrible, adversely affecting every level of society from the individual to the family, community, and cultural institutions to local and national politics.
In post-Christian America atheist evolutionism is taken for granted throughout the college curriculum, just as it is in all aspects of modern thought and experience, especially within the progressive liberal community. Evolution not only undergirds biological and earth sciences, but also Freudian and Jungian psychology, anthropology, law, sociology, politics, economics, the media, arts, medicine, and all other academic disciplines as well.
Evolution-believers range from atheists and scientists to esoteric Free Masonry, Hollywood insiders, occult New Age spiritists, Satanists, powerful Transnational Progressives, and large numbers of people who call themselves Christian. Among this last group are Liberal Christians, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Emergent Church leaders Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, growing numbers of the Evangelical contemporary Church, and an increasingly vocal community of Christian scholars and scientists such as Dennis Venema. Venema is a senior fellow at BioLogos Foundation, a Christian group that tries to reconcile the Bible with evolutionary science, and as a consequence teach that humans emerged from apes.
Evolutionary naturalism is poisoning and destroying America's traditional foundations, and when the foundations have finally been destroyed, all that is built upon them will be destroyed as well.
Americans have been deceived, and are needful of learning the truth about Darwinism — and all other evolutionary theories, by whatever name they are called.
Evolutionism: Spiritual...not Empirical
Though Popper esteemed evolutionary theory and natural selection, he also forthrightly stated that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but rather a metaphysical research program. By this he means that not only is Darwinism metaphysical (spiritual), but so are its' two most important foundations, classical empiricism and the observationalist philosophy of science that grew out of it.
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that contradicts itself by asserting that human knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience rather than the mind while observationalism asserts that human knowledge and theories must be based on empirical observations....instead of the mind. For this reason, Popper argued strongly against empiricism and observationalism, saying that scientific theories and human knowledge generally, is conjectural or hypothetical and is generated by the creative imagination.
In other words, all three theories originated in the mind, a power of which is imagination. As mind is a power of soul, then Darwinism, empiricism, and observationalism are spiritual. In short, all three theories are frauds. They claim to be what they are not in order to obtain an advantage over the Genesis account of creation by imposition of immoral means.
In Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828, soul and imagination are respectively defined as:
1. Soul: "The spiritual, rational and immortal substance in man, which distinguishes him from brutes; that part of man which enables him to think and reason."
The Founding generation knew that mind is a power of soul, and imagination the power by which mind conceives:
2. Imagination: "...the power or faculty of the mind by which it conceives and forms ideas of things communicated to it by the senses....The business of conception (and the) power of modifying our conceptions, by combining the parts of different ones so as to form new wholes of our own creation...(imagination) selects the parts of different conceptions, or objects of memory, to form a whole more pleasing, more terrible, or more awful, than has ever been presented in the ordinary course of nature."
In conclusion, evolutionism is an invention of imagination, an invention more terrible and more destructive than has ever been presented in the ordinary course of nature. It imagines that God is dead, that life somehow emerged out of nonlife, that man is not created in the spiritual image of God the Father but is rather a soulless, mindless ex-ape of evolution. It imagines there is no sin, no "hell below us, and above us only sky."
Evolutionism is an invention of imagination, and it has taken the post-Christian West by storm.
copyright 2011 Linda Kimball
In what way is man "infallible" with respect to "his observations, assumptions, and interpretations of the universe around him" when he is effectively limiting himself to what can be known via sense perception?
IOW, the heart of the scientific method is direct observation. Does this mean that all non-observables do not exist? (You know, those pesky little non-observables such as God, scientific theories, mathematics, love, hate, justice, fear, mind, etc., etc.?)
Considering this is posted as a News and Activism article on a website dedicated to conservative political activism, I'd have to ask with it is you're trying to conserve if you think it's appropriate to present it in that context and then declare anything they might have had to say on the subject irrelevant.
You are right: miracles do not explain the natural world, nor can the natural world explain miracles. I don't think we are in disagreement on this.
So my creation “from dust” is both literal and figurative - because cellular processes involving DNA are used - but the creation of Adam “from dust” - was that at all “figurative” or was it ONLY literal?
Both.
Science is indeed of absolutely NO USE AT ALL in explaining the supernatural! Good thing that we live in the real world surrounded by real phenomena that science CAN explain and predict!
Sorry, can you explain scientifically why we live in a world where we continue to experiment with communism and Keynesian economics when every previous experiment has proven a failure? Why are we here? Does man have a soul? What is the chief end of man? Again NOT ALL THINGS CAN BE EXPLAINED BY SCIENCE OR THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD, and it is hubris to think otherwise.
Humans and chimps are more similar to each other in DNA than either is to a gorilla. How do you explain this fact? Common descent of species explains it. Creationism, as is usual, explains nothing.
First, I am not defending creationism. I've said all along that it and macro-evolution cannot rise above conjecture. Also, you keep taking God out of the picture. Either He exists or He doesn't. If He does exist, then the supernatural exists.
BB,
If you look at my other responses, you will see that I am not defending infallibility.
-K51
How would that be compatible with God's omnipresence?
Good. I'll check out your other responses K51.
So if my creation “from dust” is explainable through physical means - is the creation of Adam “from dust” also via explainable physical phenomena?
If my creation via cellular and molecular processes involving DNA doesn’t remove God as my creator - why do you think that the creation of the human species through cellular and molecular processes involving DNA would remove God as the creator of the human species?
It is not I who am attempting to construct a model where there is no God - it is the argument of the author of this article that to accept evolution is to remove God as the creator.
I don’t hold to that - and neither - it seems - do you - at least in the case of stars forming.
Common descent of species is far more than just conjecture - it is a theory that explains and predicts facts.
Creationism is of absolutely no use in explaining and predicting facts about the natural world.
I do not claim that all things can be explained through science. I do claim that the physical world can be explained through science.
Meanwhile, in explaining the physical world - Creationism is once again of absolutely no use.
Actually, you creation can be seen as both natural (your corporeal self) and supernatural (your soul). With the one-time event of Adam, both were supernatural. Again, you can TRY to explain this by natural means, but you fail to honor the testimony of the eyewitness to the event.
Common descent of species is far more than just conjecture - it is a theory that explains and predicts facts.
May I have a link on the predictions from common decent?
Meanwhile, in explaining the physical world - Creationism is once again of absolutely no use.
I'm not and have not been defending creationism in this discussion.
As did I. God bless.
I told you two facts that would be predicted via common descent that couldn't be explained via your clumsy ‘similar things should have similar DNA’ explanation.
Do you need them explained again?
How about a different line of evidence - those of endogenous retro-viral sequences (ERV’s) in the genomes of species. Why would those present only in some human populations look so very similar to living virus - while those that are common between all apes and humans look as if they were mutated from their original viral sequence? Why would these viral sequences be in the same place and the same status of fidelity of sequence in similar species? Why would I be able to accurately predict that if we found an ERV at a location in humans and gorillas that it would also be in chimps - but be unable to make the same statement with regards to predicting that an ERV in common between humans and chimps will also be found in gorillas?
The theory of common descent of species explains and predicts all these facts about ERV’s.
Creationism, as is usual, explains and predicts nothing of value.
No, I would like a link, thank you. I would prefer to examine the evidence from the source.
It should be common knowledge for anyone who thinks they are qualified enough to even discuss human evolution.
Are you not only unaware of this fact but also unable (too incompetent) to find out if it is factual on your own?
While I disagree that chimps should be in the Homo clade - this author discusses the greater genetic similarity that humans and chimps share than either shares with gorilla. You can find any number of other articles including primary research that shows the same thing.
Why is it that you DOUBT that a human and chimp are more similar in DNA than either is to a gorilla? Because your creationist mindset has once again led you down the wrong path?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030521092615.htm
I told you two facts that would be predicted via common descent that couldn't be explained via your clumsy ‘similar things should have similar DNA’ explanation.
And you have been doing a poor job of reading my posts, or at least understanding what I said.
I never said that ‘similar things should have similar DNA’. I said that DNA was common to all life for compatibility purposes.
Also, when you attempt to explain all phenomena with natural causes, you DO remove God acting supernaturally from the equation. Is there anything that you would agree to that God did supernaturally?
Why, do you propose a more useful system that includes supernatural explanation of physical phenomena?
Don't be dissuaded by the total lack of any advancement through using this method! Propose it!
What do you mean by “compatibility purposes”? Why would a chimp and a human be more similar in DNA than either is to a gorilla for “compatibility purposes”?
Again, you presume too much. You assume that I would think chimps and gorillas should have more commonality than chimps and man.
Are you not only unaware of this fact but also unable (too incompetent) to find out if it is factual on your own?
Actually, I believe that it is proper etiquette to defend your facts with links.
Even things that should be common knowledge should be backed up with links?
Sorry, in a discussion of human evolution if you are unaware that humans and chimps are more similar to each other than either is to any other ape you are simply not qualified to contribute to the discussion, unless you think ignorance is a contribution.
Thanks for your contribution!
And I did provide a link. To something that should be common knowledge.
So what?
What's wrong with purpose?
I completely understand that. That is why the origins of man is so contentious, since God and the supernatural are required for it. Trying to impose natural causation onto it will lead to a false result.
Why, do you propose a more useful system that includes supernatural explanation of physical phenomena?
As you pointed out, this cannot be done. But how do we have a coherent view of the world if we preclude God from it?
What do you mean by “compatibility purposes”?
I mentioned this before: food.
Even things that should be common knowledge should be backed up with links?
Sorry, I should have been more specific. I wanted more than one example. You mentioned later the ERV’s, which I don't think is common knowledge. Some links like that would be helpful.
You might enjoy this article by philosopher and clinical psychologist, Robert Godwin (a/k/a "Gagdad Bob"): Why Darwinists Reject Evolution.
It's full of surprises. :^)
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