Posted on 01/28/2005 4:28:41 PM PST by metacognative
No problem. You were recommending that I should just move on concerning the other guy. I was just saying that I had moved on.
Rekramecalp.
Your 946 was disgustingly well worded. I feel that way partly because I already believed and agree with much of what you said, and partly because you brought up reasonable perspective and conclusions I had not yet thought about. 8^>
I'm also embarrassed that I have not yet read "The Abolition of Man" yet.
>> 200? Bah. Things just start heating up around post 500.<<
Heh, heh. That's how I got in! 8^>
Yikes! I'm still here!
Must...leave...keyboard...
Good deal.
(if this comes up twice I apologize - FR hung and I reloaded the page two times to check)
Do you doubt God's power to create a cosmic light powerful enough to sustain life on earth?
Actually, I am just relaying the premises of Dr. Brown but I do agree, if his premise is correct, it could sustain life on earth.
"what about the warmth of the Sun? Life on this planet cannot exist without the Sun, or are you saying it can? "
---
Noreen Noonan, in charge of NASA's Planetary Advisory Committee, mentions that certain extremophiles, by which she means fringe bacteria, microorganisms and viruses, thrive on highly radioactive environments. One would have thought that radiation in high doses would kill off anything, but just like some extremophiles can survive the high temperatures around deep sea thermal vents, others derive energy from radiation.
This is all relevant to Noonan, who is both aware of organisms that might be brought back to earth and survive in hostile environments but also of Earthly organisms that won't be killed by being exposed to the extremes of space travel- and thus would contaminate other worlds.
It seems all life was previously thought to fall into two categories. Bacteria, and everything else. Now there is a third category into which these weird organisms fall.
Archea are cells that don't have a nucleus. Their DNA are somewhat free floating. The extremophiles fall into this category. (Eukaryotes includes us, plants, algae and bunny rabbits- it's a big category)
You mean the law that states,
"A robot must obey orders given to it by humans unless doing so would contradict the 1st law" ??
Oh, sorry, I've been reading I, Robot again. ;-)
Well, since you bring it up, 3 > 2 except for unusually large values of 2 :-)
I answered you. Some cups can't hold the water poured in them.
Big Bang, Anthropic Principle, the first organism and DNA, consciousness from mindlessness and I will say again that it is only recently in the history of science that ID has been excluded.
But you are missing the bigger picture here if natural science is now proclaiming itself as the ultimate truth, than what is wrong with what Dawkins is saying, Catholic morality demands the presence of a great gulf between Homo sapiens and the rest of the animal kingdom. Such a gulf is fundamentally anti-evolutionary. The sudden injection of an immortal soul in the timeline is an anti-evolutionary intrusion into the domain of science. Dawkins goes on to say:
There is something dishonestly self-serving in the tactic of claiming that all religious beliefs are outside the domain of science. On the one hand, miracle stories and the promise of life after death are used to impress simple people, win converts, and swell congregations. It is precisely their scientific power that gives these stories their popular appeal. But at the same time it is considered below the belt to subject the same stories to the ordinary rigors of scientific criticism: these are religious matters and therefore outside the domain of science. But you cannot have it both ways. At least, religious theorists and apologists should not be allowed to get away with having it both ways. Unfortunately all too many of us, including nonreligious people, are unaccountably ready to let them.
I suppose it is gratifying to have the pope as an ally in the struggle against fundamentalist creationism. It is certainly amusing to see the rug pulled out from under the feet of Catholic creationists such as Michael Behe. Even so, given a choice between honest-to-goodness fundamentalism on the one hand, and the obscurantist, disingenuous doublethink of the Roman Catholic Church on the other, I know which I prefer.
Religion and science are separate? Really? It seems science has bullied religion into some obscure place in society and now pokes at it for fun. The God gene - memes - The Tower of Babel - etc How often do we see Bible verses quoted by atheists here to ridicule Christians yet if a Christian quotes Darwin they are immediately labeled dishonest and the atheists interprets the Darwinian scripture as only they can do
The term creationist is thrown around not as some useful label but as an insult. If you believe you are the result of intelligence rather than mindless mechanisms then you are called a creationist. But what does it actually mean for science to proclaim that there is no intelligence behind our existence? It seems current science has created an either/or situation. It seems that you are either a creationist (if you see any intelligent agent acting at any time) or an atheist (if you believe no intelligent force ever acted). You might say, Ah, but I believe the intelligent force behind our existence will always be invisible to us. Fine, but evolution states that it never had a target and we are a transitional species just like all life. Or again, as Dawkins states, Such a gulf is fundamentally anti-evolutionary. The sudden injection of an immortal soul in the timeline is an anti-evolutionary intrusion into the domain of science. Who are you to intrude into the domain of science? Science tells you who you are you are a creationist (and all that implies). Dawkins, being the intellectually fulfilled atheist, is being honest in regard to current science. Heaven forbid you actually believe some miracle from the Bible this goes against the teachings of current science and is blasphemy.
Look, I love science but we all know it is wrong about many things just look at history but I see intelligence behind our existence. So now the big question: What do we do and how do we find common ground?
The flaws and poisons -- those are harder to recifity. Especillay when you make demands that have no reality in them -- that poison is something YOU have to work through. What demands? For one that your understanding of Genesis is so perfect that anything contrary to IT -- your understanding, not the Genesis text itself -- is untruthful.
There are those who want Truth's head on a silver platter, apple in mouth served up neat and clean. Or served up certified and hygienic in refereed scientific journals, reciped repeatedly by cookbook experiment, preserved in aether-like systems of logic, model and formulae, held in dark complex secret lingua dear to a priestly elite in some haven of high clerics, catalogued into well-researched taxonomies, or argued politely according to Hoyle on forums of the intellect. Truth defies all that. These are tools, man as toolmaker and baker, fine and dandy. but the tools oft get the best of man's intent and make very job that a nail before the hammer held, whether a nail and beam is or is not -- the hammer will be used, damn the plaster.
Big Bang, Anthropic Principle, the first organism and DNA, consciousness from mindlessness
I didn't express myself clearly. I meant can you point to any important discoveries in physics, biology, astronomy, geology, or chemistry that isn't the result of assuming that phenomena are regular?
The Big Bang theory is absolutely the result of following natural phenomena to their conclusion. The theory has nothing to say about the earliest moments.
The anthropic principle is not a scientific theory, nor does it explain anything. Why are your legs exactly long enough to reach the ground?
Science has not explained first life, nor consciousness.
Now tell me what ID is contributing to science. What discoveries or useful products are the result of assuming that living things are designed? What data does ID have that isn't the product of mainstream research?
Oh, I do agree with you there gobucks!
At bottom, "all morality is," is a specification of what is the best way to reconcile the apparent "conflicts" that obtain between God and man, society, and the world -- "world" here being understood, not only as planet Terra or the solar system, but of the entire physical universe altogether. This would be the "material picture." But the animating principle of the universe, it seems to me, comes from God and man, and tends to get externalized in societies. This principle is immaterial in nature. So are Life and consciousness and all the works derived by humans from same, in the sciences, in literature, in the arts; not to mention the great religions, my own confession being Christian.
Now folks will say, I'm sure, that to make such a sweeping statement is to endue humanity with a significance which it does not deserve. All I can say in reply to that is: The Holy Scriptures advise us otherwise.
And this "fame thing" is a pernicious influence on society, if you were to ask me. I won't say it is necessarily "immoral" in principle; but I would suggest that it is thorough-goingly amoral. And not only that, but a complete waste of time to the extent that it refuses to engage the really serious things of life and the world, from the standpoint both of "the performer," and (worse) the audience.
Thus, to me, it represents a lack of seriousness wherever it may be found, exemplified and amplified by our wonderful "Mainstream Media." And may I also take a moment to thank Academe while I'm at it?
Not!!!
Oh, well. For what it's worth, gobucks. Thanks so much for writing!
You missed the big picture. Again, ID has been part of science as a given it is only in recent scientific history that it has been excluded (and without sufficient cause IMHO) Biology currently looks at organisms as designed and this is productive.
That's a pretty sweeping statement, WildTurkey. Could you help me narrow it down a little bit? Just give me an example or two, and I'll go chase it (them) down. Then we can compare notes. If there's evil to be found there, why, we can just root it out together.
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