Posted on 05/20/2002 12:53:27 PM PDT by rpage3
Or he knows nothing.
Just playing a bit with Pascal's Wager ;-)
One of the worst analogies I've encountered lately.
Of course, the very idea that "harm to hundreds of millions" is a bad thing, is something that Gould the atheist evolutionist could not rationally have defended. After all, developing the means to inflict harm, or to avoid being harmed, are presented as the primary engine of evolution. At any rate, random evolution does not allow us to make the sort of absolute moral claims that is required to condemn a man for his ideas.
Come now. There are certainly Christians with exemplary moral character, but there are also self-described Christians, including some of the clergy of various denominations, who are quite immoral -- just read the headlines. And there are examples of athiests who have very strict morality. Also, there were the so-called "virtuous pagans" in the Greek and Roman world. Further, I know loads of people who believe evolution is a good scientific theory who live entirely virtuous lives. If you want to believe that only your denomination can give man morality, go ahead, but there's just too much evidence to the contrary.
Yes, but not in the way you think.
JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION, volume 16, number 1.
Spring 2002. ISSN 0892- 3310.
Book Reviews
Further Books of Note
Cancer Selection: The New Theory of Evolution by James Graham, Lexington, VA: 1992. xiii + 213pp. $35, cloth. ISBN 0-9630242-0-5.
What brought about the division between plant and animal kingdoms? James Graham's answer is, "Cancer". Graham, who is an amateur and not a professional scientist, published the idea in the early 1980s in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Disappointed that his insight was not taken up in the scientific mainstream, he published this book in 1992.
[snip]
In a nutshell, Graham argues that plants and lower life forms are relatively simple, with nothing like the complexity of animals, which have so varied a set of disparate tissues and organs. For so complex a creature to develop successfully from a single fertilized egg requires a most impeccable control of cell differentiation and multiplication. Cancer, of course, is uncontrolled cell division and multiplication. So for development to be successful, cells must be able to stave off any tendency to become cancerous. Thus the evolution of cancer defenses is what enabled the evolution of complex animals. The theory demands that all animal cells harbor potentially cancerous tendencies; and in point of fact it seems that all animal cells do indeed possess oncogenes which, when activated, cause cancer. Graham also presents other evidence for his theory and other potential tests of it. The book is well worth reading by anyone who has wondered how "normal gradual Darwinian" evolution could possibly have brought about a new genus or a new family, let alone a new kingdom like that of the animals. [snip]
Henry H. Bauer
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Science Studies
Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sciences
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
TEST
LOL!!!! Can I see the chapter and verse in question?
I think by now, He has done just that.
funny!
Does not an atheist have feelings? Does he not love? Can he not be loved by others? Wouldn't his service to his fellow man give meaning to his life? Or maybe his quest for knowledge? While it is difficult for you to consider a life without God to be meaningful, it is not necessarily so to those who live it.
really funny!
I understand where you are coming from; however, I don't hold Gould in such high regard as others do. I believe what Don Mills of Wellington, New Zeland wrote on the Ancient Near East Archaeology discussion list applies to Mr. Gould as well:
"Skeptic that I am, I wonder how much of a literature there is 'debunking the debunkers.' Several of the names put forward (such as James Randi, Martin Gardner, and Carl Sagan) are those of scholars who have been (sometimes repeatedly) caught out in the manufacture of inaccurate and unworkable arguments to "disprove" what they held to be 'crackpot' theories, or (in the case of Randi and Gardner) in the active suppression of good scientific evidence that pointed in a direction contrary to the one they wanted to pursue.
"This is not a popular topic among scientists and scholars, to be sure, though it has attracted the attention of a number of science historians and philosophers. As one wrote, 'Science is not what we are taught it is: science is what scientists do' (Alfred de Grazzia, I think).
"When authority figures adopt an authoritative position, it is surely incumbent on them to deal accurately with the facts. Unfortunately, some of the authors ... have been repeatedly quoted, by colleagues and by laity, as "disproving" this-or-that 'idiotic' hypothesis, even after sceptical analysis of their 'disproofs' has shown them to be poorly founded and poorly constructed."
atheism...hilarious!
What on earth are you talking about? Those two men have always seemed honest to me.
Coherent!
The Bible speaks of one unpardonable sin. Jesus talked about a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that can never be forgiven (Mt. 12:31-32; Mk. 3:28-29).
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