Posted on 12/18/2004 5:56:30 PM PST by PatrickHenry
It ain't what you don't know, it's what you know what ain't true.
Catholics have been "allowed" to believe in "intelligent design" since the days of Augustine.
When I was in college, our professor told us that Darwinian evoluation was a theory, and that although we had to understand and know about it, we didn't have to believe it.
In the Philosophy of science, theories are the way we desribe what we find in experimentation. These theories use the philosophy of the one making the theory. So Darwin, who was seeking a way to explain God didn't exist, found blind evolution, while Pasteur, a Christian, did experiments to explain why "spontaneous evolution" of life didn't exist, and Mendel, who was also a Christian, did experiments to explain why all life inherited all traits from parents via genes, which went against an early "evolutionary theory" that acquired traits were inherited (i.e. if your parents go t sunburned, you would be born with the genetic trait to be dark skinned)...
God created Adam and Eve fully matured, older, right? Why could He not have made the other things that way.
I have problems with getting to pick and choose what in the bible is literal, and what isn't. If it's not all literal, unless clearly stated as with parables, then there is no way to trust any of it as true.
The bible says God created the universe in 6 days, so it has to be in 6 days.
Becky
Then you need an alternative explanation for the strong similarities between genomes of all living organisms. I agree that at the superficial level the differences between the physical forms of living organisms make evolution of humans, say, from a single-celled eukaryote seem implausible. But the biochemical similarities are far more pronounced than the physical similarities.
It is also obvious that I have offended you and for that I apologize.I do feel that the apparent need to lash out at me personally and attempt vilify me validates my point that there is a religious aspect to evolution.
I won`t pretend to know all details of PE but in general it theorizes that at certain times for unknown reasons evolution essentially ran amok.This results in a rapid evolutionary jump in species.This is to explain the lack of transitional species and why fossils of species suddenly appear in the rock strata.It is not an implausible theory but is still a theory.
One final word.When I was in school dinosaurs were taught to be slow moving cold blooded reptiles.I suppose this was by comparing bone structure,tooth shape,etc and they compared to what we could observe in modern life.
Now because of other similarities it is believed that birds evolved from dinosaurs.One problem was that birds are warm blooded so at least in part for this, dinosaurs are now believed to be perhaps warm blooded faster moving animals.I have no idea which is correct but my point is 30 years ago disagreement on the established scientific position was rejected as stupid or uneducated.
Now that scientific opinion has or is shifting from the earlier position any one disagreeing is once again declared stupid or uneducated.I again won`t pretend to know all the evidence for the newer hypothesis but to some extent it seems to be to meld evolutionary theory.I simply don`t understand why on this issue any challenge to whatever the current thinking may be is rejected out of hand if it does not come from the position that evolution is an established fact beyond any question.
I don`t know that this is a appropriate definition of science.
I don`t begrudge you or any others their opinions.I don`t care what you think of me personally.I do think we all deserve to be courteous to each other.
"The bible says God created the universe in 6 days, so it has to be in 6 days."
Read it again. In the beginning God created the heavens and earth.
No where here does it say when the beginning is or was. What follows is an event described. AND the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. This word 'was' should be became cause there was a rebellion, note that word 'darkness' we are told who is darkness.
Then comes a description of cleaning up a MESS, because it does not say again the heavens and earth were created.
The first verse in full context would be down thru verse 5, which ends with "the evening and the morning were the first day."
Becky
I think you just like to bash those who believe differently that you do. Grow up.
Interesting, according to the Prof, ID is falsifiable. Now I wonder, is RD be falsifiable?
It's just like a creationist fanatic to latch onto part of a quote and run with it. What part of the not taking Genesis literally did you not understand?
Dinosaurs were obviously related to reptiles, and the early reconstructions reflected this. Reptiles are cold blooded, therefore dinosaurs must have been cold blooded. Reptiles walk with splayed legs, therefore dinosaurs must have walked with splayed legs. Reptiles drag their tails so therefore dinosaurs must have dragged their tails.
Not all early paleontologists accepted that dinosaurs were slow-moving, cold-blooded critters (more creationist misinformation). Some reconstructions from the 1920s and 30s show very active dinosaurs. These paleontologists noted that extent dinosaur tracks showed the animals with legs under their bodies and lacked any tail marks. Recent analysis of dinosaur bones show that most were at least semi-warm blooded (bones of warm-blooded animals are very vascular; dinosaur bones fall between the ranges of warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals).
Creationists are always mired in their personal pasts. "Thirty years ago, such-and-such was taught, and now we're told something different, therfore it's all wrong and no one knows what he or she's talking about." Creationists never make allowances for advances in science (except when it reinforces a personal position, such as global warming). Of course, science marches on despite the braying nay-sayers.
The threads aren't here to convince die-hard creationists; these threads serve other functions. First off, there is the definite possibility that the literally hundreds of lurkers on these threads might come away convinced that science really does know whereof it speaks. Secondly, these threads also show that not all Conservatives are scientifically-illiterate bohunks mired in the dark ages.
And for the same reason.
I've been involved in a number of version 1.0 software projects. It come from paper and pencil methods. Or from a competing product.
One of the nice things about JimRob's recent updates is that it gives some evidence for the existence of those lurkers. As I write this, this thread has 75 posts, but 756 page views. 750+ times someone has loaded this thread up to read, but only 10% of the time does that viewing result in a post. 90% of the time, someone's reading but not posting.
{sigh}
My confidence in you guys just dropped another three notches.
If random has a designer, then what is observed as random is actually "apparently random."
My math is rusty but isn't the result of each roll of two dice considered random? And isn't it random within a limited number of possibilities with some possibilities more likely than others? A truly random number generator that must produce a result between zero and one is random but limited by a rule. Don't the physical laws of the universe limit what "apparently random" processes operating within it produce?
The creationists prove every day on these threads that they are profoundly, abysmally ignorant of the theory of evolution. OK, maybe they aren't "just" ignorant of it. Maybe they are in religious horror of it. Maybe they think they will go to Hell for letting any real information get into their heads. There is something wrong with everything they say, and that's quite an achievement. That's Clintonian. ("Every word out of his mouth is a lie including 'and' and 'the.'")
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.