Posted on 06/11/2003 8:03:26 AM PDT by blam
Using a psychopath as an example doesn't solve anything.
FYI, I am an average creationist. Your impression is wrong.
Extraordinary! How big a sample size did you use?
Your impression is wrong.
I get the impression that the average creationist would not admit to wanting to destroy the fossil record, even if he did. ;^)
I get the impression that the average creationist would destroy far more than the fossil record. There's books to be banned, schools to be closed, museums to be torched, research to be outlawed ... and then there's all those pesky scientists to be dealt with.
Count on it.
Very true, and the authors of this study would agree. That's why this find was exciting-- one version of current evolutionary theory, which was disputed by other scientists, predicted that we would find homo sapiens fossils older than 100,000 years ago in Africa but not in Europe. This find is thus evidence for that theory.
Tell me how someone can be naturalistic but not materialistic? If science is confined 100% to the natural order then it is also confined to materialism since natural processes involve matter and matter only. If you try to insert anything supernatural or metaphysical, it is no longer naturalistic.
The distinction I was trying to make-- and I made have used the terms "materialistic" and "naturalistic" incorrectly, in which case I apologize -- is that science is "naturalistic" in that it only studies natural phenomena with natural causes, but it is not "materialistic" in the sense that it does not necessarily deny that there are things which are spiritual or otherwise non-material, it merely doesn't study them. (See, for example, Gould's book on science and religion as "two non-competing magisteria".)
An atheist must be a darwinist
(a) Even if this were true, it wouldn't mean that the converse must be true-- that a believer cannot be a darwinist.
(b)It isn't true, anyway-- there were atheists before Darwin, and there have been nondarwinian atheists after Darwin (Stalinist Russia was officially atheistic but banned the teaching of darwinism; Soviet scientists preferred some other theory.)
The Pope's position on evolution certainly appears to contradict the Genesis account, and is incompatible with Christian doctrine.
I am a Jew, not a Christian, so I will let you and the Pope argue this one out.
(a)Some people disagree, which is I guess why there are thousands of churches, all of which claim to be "Christian"; but, in any event,
(b)I am not arguing for molecule-to-man evolution, but rather for evolution as originally envisioned by Darwin in the last paragraph of The Origin of Species -- evolution of all life forms from one primeval life form created by God (protozoa-to-man, if you will).
Polls are no indicator of truth.
True, but if many, many evolutionists profess a belief in God, and many believers in God claim to be evolutionists, maybe that rebuts your claim that evolution necessarily entails atheism.
Funny, I know of no "theistic evolutionist" denomination. Do you? The ONLY guide for a Christian is the bible (unless he would like to be his own God). To reject scripture is to step outside of historic Christian mainstream beliefs, and outside of ESSENTIAL Christian doctrine. The bible says God created man and woman in full form, and Jesus Christ himself said this: But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. Could you ask one of your Christian evolutionist friends to parse that verse for me? If one wants to toss scripture out, then they are welcome to be a theistic evolutionist, but I won't allow them to call themselves orthodox or mainstream. Without scripture, they don't have a leg to stand on other than their own imaginations.
Darwin was an unbeliever. It's rather foolish for a Christian believer to put stock in what a god-hater with no evidence theorizes, don't you think? Just what evidence did he have to support his claims other than simple intra-specie variation? Even less than they have today, which is none!
That's not what I said. I said that atheists have no choice but to be evolutionists (only other game in town other than special creation). People can believe in God an evolution, I don't care, but a "Christian" who believes in evolution cannot do so without being anti-scriptural.
You think you can be a Christian and reject the bible? If you say yes, then you need to tell me what authority you use to live the Christian life, and precisely how you know that Jesus Christ is Savior. You can't accept this part of the bible and not another. Either it is true or it is false, unless you want to play God and decide for yourself which parts of the bible are true and which parts are false.
I believe that my religious beliefs have nothing to do with science. None of what I believe is challenged in any way by science. Belief in an inviolate word and in the literal meaning of those words may be your litmus test, but not everyone accepts such constraints on their practice of religion.
Really? If God created all things in the universe, do you think He also created the natural laws that govern science? Is ALL of life governed by God or just parts of it? Is God also separate from politics? What is science? Who decides that definition? An atheist?
I'm sure you will now just claim that we are all a bunch of moral relativists and that there is no place for a different interpretation of the word. This is not true now, it has never been true, and it will never be true. Many Christian denominations give testimony to that point.
There's no room for interpretation on the ESSENTIALS of the faith. Deny any of those and you are no longer within the pale of orthodox Christianity (e.g. Jesus Christ is God, 2nd person of the Triune God, virgin birth, salvation by Grace alone thru faith alone in Christ alone, Crucifixion, atonement and Resurrection, and ORIGINAL SIN). If you want to be a heterodox Christian, go right ahead.
No, God is your judge. If the truth offends you, then perhaps you have some introspection and reading to do.
Really? Didn't he write this in the last chapter of The Origin of Species:
It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Just what evidence did he have to support his claims other than simple intra-specie variation? Even less than they have today, which is none!
None? Really? Haven't you ever seen any evidence for macroevolution? Or any observed instances of one species turning into another?
WOW! You are getting to be more and more of an out-an-out liar! I am just astounded that your moral code would allow that. Do you have some special dispensation for this behavour?
Also, I note that you never answered this question:
Neodarwinists theorize that there is no non-material mind or self - we are our brains. Are you actually going to try to deny that?What would be the point in assuming "magic happens" instead?
Yeast artificial chromosomes. Most of the recombinant DNA people have made is certainly, in part, the product of human ingenuity, but they are nothing that couldn't in principle have come about naturally. And after all, Darwin never actually specified the source of variation, so even a "Flavr Savr" tomato doesn't really qualify as a counterexample to Darwinian evolution. YACs, by contrast, are objects that can be totally unrelated to their "parent" organism, and strictly a product of intelligent design.
The time may come when a large fraction of the organisms on Earth are non-evolved constructs. Discussions of their origin and development will center not on the fossil record, but on the manufacturer's specifications. At that point, evolution will rightly take the passenger seat (if never a back seat).
In case anyone is interested, the two results I thought of that violate the atomic theory of matter are the diffraction of individual atoms through multiple apertures (wherein an atom behaves as an extended wave) and the Bose-Einstein condensate (wherein a macroscopic collection of atoms loses all individual atomic identity, and interacts with the rest of the universe as a single, indivisible object).
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