PBS Offers Intelligent Design Documentary

CREATION - Evolution Headlines ^ | 04/28/2003 | Illustra Media/CREATION - Evolution Headlines

[balrog666]

Pure gibberish placemarker.

[tortoise]

To say that we can know nothing about God is to say that we can know something about Him. Your statement is, therefore, self-refuting.

There are many classes of things that are "unknowable" in a strong sense. You are not reading this correctly at all. The special thing about this class of thing is that you can't know anything, as you can't even premise an assertion of existence. This is essentially a restatement of so-called "Strong Agnosticism", which asserts that the concept of God falls into this class of information and that we can therefore never know anything about God, including God's existence. It is an interesting argument from a mathematical perspective, as the only effective contrary argument is to assert a finite/causal God (though with such power that it appears infinite to us mere humans and not necessarily existing within our universe). I'm actually perfectly happy with the finite/causal God theory, because there is no evidence to the contrary and it doesn't restrict God's behavior in this universe yet it allows us to assert that we can know things about God without being totally irrational. Your word juggling (and not just in the above selection) reveals a very shallow understanding of the semantics.

By the way, your reading comprehension is really, really bad, so I am not even going to bother to respond to the rest of what you wrote. You set up all sorts of strawmen and read all manner of assertion in my statements that were never even stated. If you can't deal with what I wrote, I'm not interested in your response to things you imagine I asserted or implied.

[BMCDA]

Ichy is so prolific it gets hard to keep up. Nevertheless, I agree that both posts are keepers.

Aye, indeed. He's really enthusiastic and I hope it doesn't wear off since I really enjoy reading his posts ;)

[Dimensio]

The 'argument' is a strawman. The scenario allegedly presented by your grandfather is not remotely like the process of evolution, and as such it is nothing more than argument by ridicule of a strawman. Insulting people who point this out does not make you right.

[Dimensio]

1) We are not discussing an imaginary god. We are discussing the Creator.

Please present your evidence for the existence of this Creator, including any evidence that supports this Creator having attributes to which you ascribe (that is, if you ascribe any apart from 'ability to create universes wherein life can occur in a very, very small segment).

2) Please offer your theory of how an impersonal god, who cares nothing for man or the universe, would create a universe in the first place. Then explain how an impersonal creation with impersonal natural laws could give rise to personal beings.

Perhaps it was all a big science experiment and we are the results. Are you saying that you can not only infer the existence of a Creator from the universe but that you can also discern its very motives? I would really like to see whatever tests exist for that. Also, could you explain how a divine creation by a divine being could give rise to nondivine entities?

[f.Christian]

Comment #271 Removed by Moderator

The fr pat henry ...

self appointed mind and lives guardian // czar of other people's children ...

via govt money -- schools --- very strange -- weird !

To: don-o

dp ...

What dissenting opinion gets the hammer?

owk ...

I myself was suspended just a week ago for ... questioning (( ATTACKING )) * * --- the existence of God...

And the posts were wiped from existence.

For example.

499 posted on 05/03/2003 10:45 AM PDT by OWK

... * * ... my addition --- FR atheist nazis !

[f.Christian]

The buzz is, a cable network plans to re-run the series “Evolution” backward so that all the zombies will end up back in frog pond convergence ... to give it a happy ending --- or a happy beginning – whichever it turns out to be."

Link ... 'article' --- is there !

[Dimensio]

I just checked this quote:

Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed. But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?”

Looks like part of it is real, but part of it is bogus. What I found:

Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all the species of the same group together, must assuredly have existed; but the very process of natural selection constantly tends, as has been so often remarked, to exterminate the parent forms and the intermediate links. Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains, which are preserved, as we shall in a future chapter attempt to show, in an extremely imperfect and intermittent record.

Looks like some enterprising creationist decided to lie about Darwin's words because nothing damning enough could be found. Both blurbs of text occur in Chapter 6, but as anyone can see, the second half actually appears before the first half! Whomever initially presented the quote didn't just cut out a huge portion of text between the two segments, they actually reversed the order! I wonder why they never note such when presenting the quote, instead presenting it as though it is the complete and original statement from the book. (also note that Darwin does address the question that he posed within that chapter, though he explains more thorougly in another).

[Dimensio]

Sir Fred Hoyle, a British astronomer famous for research on origins of the universe, "claims that believing the first cell originated by chance is like believing a tornado could sweep through a junkyard filled with airplane parts and form a Boeing 747.

This is another funny one. Not only is this once again an attack on something other than evolution by idiots who think that evolution must also address the ultimate origins of life, but I assume that you don't agree with Hoyle's position that the first life forms were brought to earth by aliens.

I couldn't find anything on the alleged quote from Einstein. A search turned up exactly one apologetics webpage that was using it as support, so I cannot even confirm a source for the quote. I found some interesting information on Michael Denton, however, and even an old discussion here on FreeRepublic about it (turns out that Denton does accept evolution now but he used to believe it impossible).

Finally, no source for the Stephen Jay Gould quote. If you have one, let me know.

[Dimensio]

From nothing nothing comes.

From where did the designer come?

Irreducible complexity of systems and organisms that absolutely rule out random chance as an explanation for their existence.

I've seen quite a few criticisms of the irreducable complexity argument, but I've never seen those criticisms addressed.

Common characteristics in design.

Which means what, exactly?

The existence of not just information but complex and huge amounts of information in the simplest of organisms.

Again, this infers design, how? What would an undesigned organism look like? The existence of intelligence. The existence of the personal.

So you've made two starting points that supposedly lead to a conclusion. How do these starting points get to that conclusion.

We must not forget the great supporting role played by the impossible materialistic alternative: darwinism.

Strawman. Evolution does not imply strict materialism within the universe, and only an idiot would claim as much.

[js1138]

public bs placemarker. I quit watching PBS science shows after a three strike season that included the "Pinks and the Blues", and gaping "documentaries" on UFOs and ESP. That was about 20 years ago, and I believe every year without PBS has been a plus in the column of general knowledge.

[Dimensio]

Darwin's own words are meaningless because the sentences are quoted in reverse order.

They aren't just quoted in the wrong order. They are two parts of two different paragraphs with entirely different context. Your argument would imply that because you might be able to put together enough segments of statements that I've made to form "I am a murderer", I should be tried for murder.

Context is important, and that is why any honest source will present quotes within full context without abridgement or alteration. What has been done with Darwin's words is worse than just taking them out of context, and it amounts to blatant dishonesty. Each statement does not 'stand on its own', it stands within the context of which it was written, which is not presented in the bogus dishonest "quote" that creationists lie and claim came from Darwin.

The honest thing to do in this situation is to admit that you were taken by a false quote and apologize for it. Instead, you're trying to defend the fact that creationists have taken Darwin's words out of context and out of order in an attempt to lie about what he has said. Somehow, I'm not surprised.

[Dimensio]

So, you believe that all life came from a single organism (we'll just forget where the organism came from)...to me the alien story sounds better

I don't know where all life on earth ultimately originated. I lack the knowledge and the biological expertise to formulate a personal hypothesis.

there haven't been any sightings of transitional forms though.

This said by someone who has been given multiple links to evidence of transitional forms. Like I said, you ignore the evidence because if you pretend that it isn't there you can imagine that you're not really lying when you deny its existence.

[CyberAnt]

Well ... I don't see anyone standing behind you twisting your arm and forcing you to believe it!

As for the person "who thought that up", it Rev. E.V. Hill, a Baptist preacher.