Posted on 11/21/2011 9:46:01 AM PST by SeanG200
A new audio added to my mix of videos in regards to evolutionary ethics and rape. Richard Dawkins in an honest moment.
Interesting. What's the ancient Greek word for "evolution"?
Wow! Two oxymorons ... in the same sentence.
My Navy days had me in Greece. It's not a "Western" area. Very little is readable.
Nonetheless ... I found this from a Google search ...
evolution ---> "The word is: εξελιξη/ekseliksi (pronounced as: e'kseliksi) It comes from the words: εξ (meaning from)+ ελισσομαι (meaning move/manoeuvre among)"
In what way and in what sense?
Read your post #30.
I'm having difficulty believing you did not already know that.
Wow! Two oxymorons ... in the same sentence.
In what way and in what sense?
Connecting the word "metaphysical" to either darwinism or reality is subjectively derogatory.
Darwinism and reality are factual, non-spiritual matters.
“Anaxagoras sought such a principle in a cosmic mind; Empedocles sought it in the inherent forces that made for evolution.”
Spirited: Greek nature philosophers were initiates of the occult Mysteries, thus Anaxagoras and Empedocles were debating the nature of the universe, in particular the dialectic of form-matter with emphasis on the concept of the continuity of being, an idea basic to Greek thought and religion.
For Egyptian thought, god and man were of a common nature and alike products of a common substance, called Nu by the Sun-god Ra. Both gods and men evolved out of Nu. The Egyptians were monophysites: many men and many gods, but all ultimately of one nature.
Returning to the Greeks, the one-substance was known as Chaos rather than Nu. And out of Chaos comes the two-in-one, the androgyn, and according to Plato in the “Symposium” out of the splitting of the androgyn came the two sexes.
Human nature was originally ‘one’ (androgynous) and as the one-substance (Chaos) is asexual, then human nature must become one again. Hence the truest symbol of perfection is the hermaphrodite, for which reason the “bisexuality of the philosophers amounts to asexuality...” (Hermaphrodite: Myths and Rites of the Bisexual Figure in Classical Antiquity, Marie Delacourt, p. 69)
The form-matter dialectic of Greek culture exemplified by Anaxagorus and Empedocles came to be as a result of long development.
For one school, the one-substance (the world of nature) was matter-—of hard-reality, atoms,and void.
For the other, the one-substance is ‘form’ or ideas and universals. Divinity resides in men, an idea held by Aristotle, Plato and Empedocles.
With the first school, matter is given to change and flux; with the second, form is timeless, unchanging, eternal.
Reality, the real world, was thus made up of two antithetical,irreconciable elements: matter and mind.
If matter is stressed, then god or gods, spirit, soul, and mind (and belief, OldNavyVet) are reduced to matter and the movement of chemicals in the brain. Man is nothing more than a highly evolved animal; god (or gods)is reduced to the unseen force behind evolution, gravity and natural laws.
Cynicism, scoffing, sneering, ridicule, despair, sexual anarchy, lawlessness and cultural collapse are the consequences.
If form is stressed, then mysticism becomes man’s way of contact with the one-substance on the one hand and escape from the false world of matter on the other, for mysticism reduces the real world to illusion. The one-substance absorbs reality and condemns individuality as unhealthy separation. Irrationalism and totalitarianism are the consequences.
The mystical contempt of the material world has as its counterpart the materialistic contempt of God, spirit, soul, moral law and meaning as subjective, relative and irrelevant.
For both schools of thought, the one-substance is the “what” and evolution is the mechanical “how.”
Only the supernatural Creator can link mind and matter and give meaning to both.
“Metaphysical darwinism is an idea which cannot allow its own metaphysical reality.”
Spirited: Not oxymorons ONV, but clear, concise, irrefutable logic. Even Karl Popper agrees with Texas Songwriter:
Imagine There’s No God.....Only Evolution
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2787047/posts
I am going to make this as brief as possible and, hopefully, convivial. Have you seen evolution happen. The answer is, NO. Darwin did not see evolution either. What he did see is what he believed to be evidence of homologies and change. The notion of the tautology of survival of the fittest, though acclaimed as useful to explain the mechanism of selection, is meaningless, or more specifically, circular reasoning...of course the fittest survive...that is axiomatic and has no place in the discussion. So based upon evidence Darwin, by induction, is a matter of logic, not science, and the notion of evolution, as a theory derived by a nonscientific methodology, is a product of a metaphysical tool, not a tool of physics, chemistry, or laws of matter. The derivitive is a product a nonphysical, invarient, universal abstract concept....logic. The editors of the preemeninent science journal Nature Darwinism is both metaphysical and unfalsifiable, conceding that Popper was correct in his writings, but lamely added, that though Popper was 'technically correct', that"the theory of evolution is not completely without empirical support, and metaphysical theories are not necessarily a bad thing." (The entire story of the controversy at the British Natural History Museum is found in the editorial pages of Nature got 1980-1982, volumns 288-291 p.208 in Vol 288; vol. 289, p.106,742; vol. 292,p. 403.)
THe Naturearticles not only affirmed that Darwinism is metaphysical in reality, not scientific, but is sustained only by faith. The birthplace of Darwin, himself, and promoter of Darwinism has provided a reasoned, logical explication of what Darwinism actually is.
So, I repeat with certitude that "Metaphysical Darwinism is a idea which cannot allow it own metaphysical reality." Thus, your superficial analysis with an endpoint declaration of fact, which is not factual, and acclaimation of reality, an invarient, universal, abstract entity which is neither material, physical, and a concept which no honest darwinist, physicalist, materialist can explain using their own worldview that all there is, is matter and energy. These are those who declare that theist live in the shallow end of the pool and have nothing to add to the discussion. The evolutionist make no effort to distinguish between the "fact" of evolution and the Darwinian theory of evolution.
How does the doctrine of "special creation" of the species based on the account of Creation from the Book of Genesis give "meaning" to matter?
The "meaning" of the physical universe should be implict in it's properties. YEC doctrine says that the physical evidence is a lie.
Well written, nice presentation, and actually appreciated. Thank you.
Jones has rewritten Darwin’s narrative with the help of the latest insights from evolutionary biology … Adopting the rich anecdotal style favored by Darwin, but seasoning it with a good dose of the sardonic humor that readers will recognize from Jones’ previous books, Jones demonstrates how completely modern biology has vindicated Darwin’s claims.”
And I would add ... Jones also demonstrates how completely modern geology - moon rock alalysis included - has vindicated Darwin's claims.
Happy reading!
Ah....another scientific source. So you assert that evolution is "fact" because darwinian devotee Steve Jones, as interpreted by a New York Times book reviewer, settles the discussion. I hear that same Times reviewer, the following week, reviewed Opra Winfrey's last book. We have arrived at the heart of the debate. Thank you for this clarity.
I imagine he had to, Old Navy Vet. It's the only way he could avoid having to acknowledge that he has beliefs himself — if by "belief" we mean something held to be true for which there is no evidence directly available to sense perception, something that Dawkins deplores as "irrational." Yet it seems to me that orthodox Darwinist evolution theory falls into precisely the category of the irrational.
As the philosopher Richard Spilsbury wrote, in Providence Lost: A Critique of Darwinism (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), the basic objection to Darwinism
...is that it confers miraculous powers on inappropriate agents. In essence, it is an attempt to supernaturalize nature, to endow unthinking processes with more-than-human powers — including the power of creating thinkers.... I find it impossible to share this faith that supra-human achievements can be encompassed by sub-human means and sub-rational elements.Yet evidently Dawkins does not find it "impossible." More, one cannot "get rid of" God unless one imbues nature with such miraculous powers.
Of course, Dawkins very well knows that God "exists." (If he did not, his position would be utterly ridiculous: If God does not exist, then why does Dawkins spend so much time and energy inveighing against Him?) For some reason, he's very bitter about Him; yet he knows he can't "kill God." What Dawkins can do, however, is to try to destroy belief in God and even — possibly, given his reluctance to say whether what Hitler did was in any sense evil — to destroy believers who do not share his belief if he ever got the chance. (Especially Christians.)
In denying the objective existence of any axiological claim, of any objective moral law independent of human imaginings, he prefers the Zeitgeist, the fickle, ever-changing Spirit of the Age. In consequence, he's up to his eyeballs in moral relativism, and evidently likes it that way.
At this point, perhaps a word of explanation is necessary. Zeitgeist is a German word meaning “spirit of the age.” Dawkins here refers to the prevailing moral climate or mood of a given place or time. We may observe that what constitutes moral or ethical behavior differs from one culture to another; indeed, it may even differ within a given culture. This is not in dispute. The question, rather, is this: should moral standards be based on the societal zeitgeist or should they look beyond it to something else? (Larry Taunton, "Richard Dawkins: The Atheist Evangelist")I think what Dawkins is trying to do is (as Taunton also notes in the above-quoted article) is to preach to the choir of his own doctrinal group. Quoting the anthropologist Roger Sandall, psychologist/philosopher Robert Godwin has pointed out,
"Knowledge in such groups is not rationally justified but culturally justified, so that everyone is anxiously coerced into believing the same thing, no matter how faulty or implausible.Anyhoot, Dawkins' enterprise essentially boils down to the creation of an alternative religion or belief system more congenial to the Spirit of the Age. It withdraws its eye from God and sees nature itself as miraculously self-creating, and thoroughly amoral.
"All that is needed is for enough people to believe that X is true, and X is true.... What is called tribal "knowledge" usually reflects the needs of group solidarity more than anything else: as such it often represents culturally justified false belief...."This leads to the universal principle applicable to all groups, that Logical coherence and social solidarity are inversely related. So the more solidarity you have, the less logic you get, and vice versa."
And he says Christians are the irrational ones! Personally, I think Dawkins needs to see a shrink — he and all his like-minded buddies living in scientistic fantasyland. FWIW
BTW, Obama also believes that if enough people believe X, then X becomes true — even if X has never been true in all of human experience and history. It has to be this way if a "new and better world" is to be brought into existence.... It stands to reason that the "old" one has to be cancelled first.
But then, how we to tell whether something is "new and better" without a standard of value by which to judge it? It is precisely such a standard that is not permitted with the type of reasoning in which both Dawkins and Obama routinely engage.
But then, what can one expect: They're both Left Progressives....
Happy Thanksgiving to you, Old Navy Vet, and to all my dear FReeper friends!
Thank you for your excellent Post 54! I certainly agree with you that Darwin's theory is far more metaphysical than empirical. :^) And I also definitely agree that no one has ever directly seen evolution....
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
It seems totally unnecessary and introduces ambiguities into arguments and confusion into the debate, yet it persists, and no one seems able or willing to explain why.
O.K. We can just leave out evolution and I will ask you how origen of life came to be. How, scientifically, and proven via scientific methodology, did first life appear? Not wanting to conflate abiogenesis, a scientifically disproven theory (starting with Spalanzini and Pasteur and many, many others)....over and over and over again disproved) and evolution, and thus its ambiguities (you euphemistially want to refer to them as), lets go to first things first. Tell me how first life came to be. And please define that life....and define life.
Happy Thanksgiving Betty! Thank you for your essay. I learn something every time you write....I hope others are listening too.
It seems the question will not be answered, nor will it be tolerated to have it asked.
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