Posted on 02/02/2013 9:30:30 AM PST by bray
Yes, Jastrow, atheist, is an honest atheist. Hoyle, Eddington, even Einstein (though he said he became a theist, his was a pantheistic worldview) were honest about their analysis of their findings. The newer neodarwinists are more militant in their presuppositional beliefs than those scientists of previous years. Gould created the fiction of punctuated equilibrium. Hoyle proffered panspermia. Einstein proffered what he came to declare was the biggest scientific blunder of his life with his conjoured cosmological constant. He later recanted to Edwin Hubble when he visited him at Mt. Wilson observatory, just outside of Los Angeles. Many other fictions, in the name of promulgating darwinism, have been offered. The twentieth century was largely an era in science of trying to prove Big Bang Cosmology (moment of creation) was not the case. All of the scientific evidence pointed toward a beginning despite their deep seated desire that that not be the case.
So, if I call their beginning, and raise with a young earth.
Where will your chips fall?
I do not subscribe to the young earth notion. But clearly it is a created universe by a timeless, incredibly powerful, nonspatial, personal ( to have decided to create the universe creatio ex nihlo), superintelligent, (to have ordered the universe of this complexity), immaterial (spirit). These characteristics are those which are proven by science (via induction). But one does not come to the Christian faith by sight. These characteristics are the same as those spoken of in the Bible regarding our theistic description of God...the transcendent agency who is what Leibnz described as the greatest conceivable Being. But, if one comes to Christ he must come as a little child...by faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross, the death, burial, resurrection of the one and only Man, God who became a man to pay a price which I never could.
I can’t express how much I appreciate your thoughtfulness and honesty.
My greatest hurdle, after many years of exploration was that of the age of the earth.
I had always viewed the young earth creationists as a bit crazy.
Maybe, I’m crazy now.
I found Christ through the process of elimination.
And I was crazy then.
I can’t help but to use my God given talent to figure things out.
For myself.
In addition,
The question of Free will and if Satan is real.
These where the final barriers for me.
Well, wherever it is you're sitting, you will do it without me. I cannot adopt or embrace your conclusions because I cannot fathom the semantics of the resoning you're using to arrive at them.
Just evolution? There's also general biology, chemistry, physics and geology. I'm guessing the Religion moderators may not care for the idea, but you could ask.
Nice cliche for a dodge. How many times have you sued that not so clever line. Guess you have no answer or explanation why dating is so subjective so back to the old smoke and mirrors.
Whatever - you certainly haven’t contributed anything but the standard creationist BS.
Ah- the old dismiss it as not worthy of your answer cliche. You are become a list of cliches in search of a coherent thought. Typical Darwinist clinging to his dead religion.
As you asked regarding the quote from Darwin, he said expressing his doubts of darwinism: "With me," he said, "the horrid doubt always arises whether teh onvictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" This is found in Darwins own pen, in a letter to William Graham, Down, July 3, 1881, in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin (London, John Murray, Albermarle Street, 1887),1:315-316. It is widely quoted by Darwinists and Theists alike in serious discussions of this kind of debate. Alvin Plantinga has written extensively on the subject. I can give you other references which site the quote, but I see no need in it.
The rhetorical device which you employ is a common stylistic method for evasion of addressing the content of the question. It is mostly evasive prose. Deriding the theist by involking the 'heroic age of science' maneuver. The device, rhetorically speaking, is to make the skeptic reader or debater feel if you do not 'believe' the oppositions appeal to scientific 'advancement' you have been left behind the scientific magesteriums pronouncements and are illiterate and uninformed. To be dismissive in the face of legitimate epistemological questions is a form of a self-imposed defeater of your position. Most serious-minded people who choose to engage in making their arguement are simply expressing what they believe are logical incoherencies in the Darwinists worldview.
I am willing to learn from you and am willing to teach you. But people who talk past the other offer no good will to learn and are stuck in their untenable position from which their logic and reason cannot extricate them from their selfimposed ignorance on the subject. That, by the way, is a two-way street. It is not just the Darwinists but also the theist who limits himself with presuppositional hinderences.
Thank you for your correspondence.
Thank you, I have been told there is no link that can be shown definitively between Pre-Cambrian life forms and Cambrian fully formed animals...is that true?
I have seen your tactic for 20 years. It’s the same one the Global Warmists use and universally the liberals also. You dismiss anyone who is not in your group as you are the determiner of serious science and deniers or as you call them “creationists” and will not engage a debate since you know you would lose.
Like I have said numerous times, answer the question. This is not DU, it is a Conservative board and you are acting like a braindead lib. It looks like there are a number of people brighter than you here.
Pray for America
You did exactly what I expected you to do. I am aware of question begging and circular reasoning. I used a short "loose definition" to see if you would "major on the minors", and of course, you did. You refused to address my questions (which were not begging any question), you built a straw man, as you do now declaring a focus on semantic qualities, declare I addressed only semantic content, and now define the parameters of the discussion...you will take a question on the quality of science that has developed the Theory of Evolution?....that is what you define as the acceptible parameters of the discussion which you will allow.
Now, answer the question I first put to you...Do you know it is true that evolution accounts for life on earth? It is a yes/no answer. Then if you wish to address the epistemology and ontology of your answer, if it is yes. You have evaded my little question once with a nonresponsive answer. It has everything to do with the validity of TOE, which is consistent with the parameters you laid down. I asked you if the cognitive function of the brain was required to have developed and function normatively to trust the beliefs and convictions....for example does your noetic apparatus need to function normatively to develope for you to believe in the theory of evolution? You have yet to address that question which is intimately related to your demand of the parameters of discussion only of the theory of evolution.
I will be glad to discuss, at length, you devotion to the scientific method (so called). Do I have any comment to make on the quality of science that has developed the Theory of Evolution, or....
Please quote my question begging .... please use my exact words....then explain how my comments begged the question.
If you wish to discuss the laws of logic I am happy to discuss that with you. These tools have meaning and are used by everyone...just not properly. Logic is the tool of scientist. He even declares himself the keeper of those tools. He simply cannot account for them in a materialists worldview. So, just to cut through the fog which you declare, I admit to being all things bad and ignorant and deficient.....so NOW, please answer my first questions. Your honest answer is fine. I stipulate I am all of those bad things you ascribe to me so we can go on to answer the question. Perhaps you do not think logic is the tool of the scientist? If that is the case that is fine. In fact it would be consistent with the materialists , darwinists worldview. If yes, I am simply asking how logic developed in a darwinists world. It is a simple question, it has to do with the theory of evolution, and does not beg any question...all paramenters which you require to move the discussion.
No.
Answer - Stormer -I know that the best explaination for the diversity of life on earth is found in evolutionary theory.
All of your other comments do not explicate the epistemology of your belief in the theory. Therefore, I ask again, How do you know the above assertion? Why is Darwins question pertinent to your belief? Asserting natural selection over time of the strongest, the fittest,(or as you opined earlier survival of the least unfit), your convictions are derivitive of a simian. Why, then, do you believe what you believe regarding "KNOWING" and "BELIEVING"?
Your other commments are misdirection and I see no benefit to respond to assertions of conspiracy, scientific consensus (although that is a very interesting subject, but not on this thread). I will keep it simple for my simplistic manner of thinking.
I would love to comment on paleontological discoveries, especially in regards to homologies and the fact that selection is claimed to have supported this but as you know 'evolution', if you will, occurs at the chemical nucleotide base level. Homologies are interesting anatomical observations, but offer no proof. I will not go into that for now...perhaps later. For now, I ask how you have come to know what you believe and why? Questions of thee ages.
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