In crevo debate (which is not the object of this thread) - strawmen are common. Often, when the "evo" side doesn't have an argument, it raises a new issue and argues against it. It's a sign of weakness.
Evidently, controlling the dictionary is part of building a strawman. For instance, the "evo" side uses the term "Creationist" instead of the term "Young Earth Creationist" but makes its arguments against YEC instead of the many other Creationist beliefs, e.g. OEC.
Bottom line, anyone who believes in the Creator is a Creationist.
We need a "Godwin's Law" for crevo strawmen, i.e. when it happens declare a win and walk away.
“This thread was about Darwinism, not evolution”
Spirited: Misconceptions abound regarding the meaning of evolution. At one time it simply meant progressive development from moment of inspiration to finished painting, for instance.
In much the same way as homosexuals have appropriated the word “gay” to disguise reality, scientistic materialism has appropriated the word evolution to cover-up its’ parentage from metempsychosis and/or reincarnation.
Whereas metempsychosis/reincarnation mean movement of spirit over time in many different bodies scientistic evolution means movement of life over time in many different bodies. When the former conception speaks of different bodies it means any kind from human to bird to fish to insect. The latter means the same thing: from primordial pond scum to seaweed to reptile to fish to bird to ape to human.
The Christian Truth which has been undermined and displaced by scientistic evolution developed as biology, psychology, ideology, political correctness, philosophy, and natural religion was no mere philosophical truth but the Truth of Life and salvation.
And once there began to:
“gain ground, among the multitudes who have been nourished by that Truth, the conviction that it is no longer credible, the result will be...a spiritual catastrophe of enormous dimensions.” (Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, Eugene Rose, pp. 44-45)
The climate of naturalist scientism established by eighteenth-century rationalists was extended by nineteenth-century positivists and evangelists of the idea of collective progress (monism), giving birth to the first natural religion of science: scientific socialism and/or Marxist Communism.
Fyodor Dostoevsky had a bitter foretaste of the demonically malignant effects of scientific socialism, “a spiritual catastrophe of enormous dimensions.” This evil religion, said Dostoevsky:
“....is that terrible scourge of mankind, a scourge worse than plague, famine and war, an evil that didn’t exist until this century... one that has its own priests and slaves; a tyrant that is worshipped with unprecedented awe and adulation before which science itself fawns and cringes.” (The Restitution of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism, Michael D. Aeschliman, p. 37)
Toward the close of the nineteenth century thinkers like Nietzsche foresaw the spiritual catastrophe that would eventuate in the genocidal “nightmare of destruction in which America and other nations participated” from WWI through WWII.
The first phase of the spiritual catastrophe has passed. We are now moving into the second phase marked by the progressive development of a ‘new’ universal religion, a fusion of Teilhard’s spiritual evolutionary conception, post-transcendent (naturalistic) Christianized monism and socialism.
At your service:
Internet Forums and Social Dynamics: Part I: Everybody is someone else’s weirdo
Internet Forums and Social Dynamics: Part II: Snapbacks
The Internet and Social Dynamics, Part III: Getting Back to Basics, or, Don't be so Acidic
Internet Forums and Social Dynamics, Part IV: The Problem of Knowledge, or When Doctors Disagree
Cheers!