Posted on 07/11/2002 9:44:50 AM PDT by ZGuy
The prominent magazine Scientific American thought it had finally discredited its nemesis—creationism—with a feature article listing ‘15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense’ (July 2002). Supposedly these were the fifteen best arguments that evolutionists could use to discredit the Bible’s account of Creation. (National Geographic TV also devoted a lengthy report to the article.)
Within 72 hours, Dr Jonathan Sarfati—a resident scientist at Answers in Genesis–Australia—had written a comprehensive, point-by-point critique of the magazine article and posted it on this Web site.
So Scientific American thought it would try to silence AiG with the threat of a lawsuit.
In an e-mail to Dr Sarfati, Scientific American accused him and AiG of infringing their copyright by reproducing the text of their article and an illustration. They said they were prepared to ‘settle the matter amicably’ provided that AiG immediately remove Dr Sarfati’s article from its Web site.
AiG’s international copyright attorney, however, informed Scientific American that their accusations are groundless and that AiG would not be removing the article. Dr Sarfati’s article had used an illustration of a bacterial flagellum, but it was drawn by an AiG artist years ago. AiG had also used the text of SA’s article, but in a way that is permissible under ‘fair use’ of copyrighted materials for public commentary. (AiG presented the text of the SA article, with Dr Sarfati’s comments interspersed in a different color, to avoid any accusations of misquoting or misrepresenting the author.)
Why the heavy-handed tactics? If AiG’s responses were not valid, why would Scientific American even care whether they remained in the public arena? One can only presume that Scientific American (and National Geographic) had the ‘wind taken out of their sails.’ Dr Sarfati convincingly showed that they offered nothing new to the debate and they displayed a glaring ignorance of creationist arguments. Their legal maneuver appears to be an act of desperation. (AiG is still awaiting SA’s response to the decision not to pull the Web rebuttal.)
If you say so. I just don't see the point. However, and again, how does that belief change your life in any way?
Sorry, I just don't understand your questions. You don't see the point of my belief? And you want to know how my belief changes my life in any way? Those are really weird questions.
I believe in the theory of Intelligent Design because it seems obvious to me that someone designed it all. Why do you think it's pointless for me to believe that? Because I don't give the Intelligent Designer a name, like God? If it will make you feel better, I can call the Intelligent Designer God. There. Feel better? I just don't think he's the God of the Bible. God is unknowable.
How does my belief change my life in any way? I'm aware that God created it all. I also see where God failed. Not only did he create beautiful things, but he also created death and disease and pain and suffering. So, along with the beautiful side of life, there's also an exceedingly ugly part. And that is where God failed. My belief just makes me conscious of a positive/negative God, a God who is both capable of good and evil.
A better hypothesis: the evidence indicates that genetic engineering and re-engineering were a common thing in the recent past of our planet, and that more than one pair of hands were involved in it. It appears obvious to me that the being who created humans and cats and the being who created biting flies, mosquitos, ticks, and chiggers, were not the same being. The other thing which appears obvious to me is that God, while omnipotent within his own spiritual realm, has limited powers within the physical realm which we inhabit.
Oh NO!
That means you'll ignore ME!
Traditionally, during VBS, the boys and the girls compete to see who can bring in the most offering each day. (To the non-believers, this is how we indoctrinate their little minds to blindly and slavishly continue to robotically give money when they become adult church goers)
Anyway, the 'contest' has to have SOME KIND of a prize, a payoff - some goal to which they wish to get to so they can have braggin' rights 'til NEXT year. Well, Miss Debby, as the kids call her, thought and thought and came up with - "If the girls lose, the boys can slime me: ala Nichelodeon (sp?)"
(Did you know you can ACTUALLY find RECIPES for SLIME on the 'Net!?)
There I was, mindin' my own business, when I hear in the background a chorus of 'Larry'll do it'!
[For all you guys who have thought that Elsie was a woman, it's time to come clean: no, Elsie (LC) is just my initials. My daughter is ALSO an LC]
Sunday - SUNDAY! comes and one can feel the tension in the air as people are anticipating the outcome. (I'd been waving a Franklin around, all week long, impling that if needed, I'll drop that baby in the Boys bucket, so I won't get slimed. To counter THAT some Ladies had been wavin' their CHECKBOOKS around!) Anyway, as the program winds down and the kids sing their songs, do their skits, the VBS treasurer is countin' the money. The sanctuary door opens and the slip of paper with the totals on it is given to the person in charge of the changing the display. A hush falls over the crowd as she announces, "It's time!"
The boys display inches upward, upward, higher and higher as they go wild! Todays offering is the highest yet! We fellows are doing a victory dance as we KNOW them slimy girls can't beat that!
Then, the girls display starts up, then slows, then starts up again - inching up, up, gaining on the boys. Then in a mighty lunge, in goes PAST the boys amount! Oh no! Doom and gloom as schreechy girls voices threaten to deafen the entire congregation! "We have WON!!!"
Well, I got it all right: on my head, down my collar, all over my shorts. But, it a spirit of co-operation, Miss Debby agreed that she, too, would let the LOSERS (Oh how I HATE that word!) slime her as well.
If He's 'unknowable', how do you KNOW He's NOT the God of the bible?
The farmer sprays the field with a bug spray, and it seems to kill 80% of the bugs. The next year, tho, when he sprays, it only kills about 30% of the bugs. By the third year, the spray doesn't seem to affect the bugs hardly at all.
The bugs who survived the spraying pass the spray resistance down to their progeney, and the bug species has now 'evolved'.
The bugs have changed.
This type of thing happens all the time. Human's environment has provided them better nutrition, so humans have gotten taller, and bigger over the last hundred or so years. Humans have changed.
Are you suggesting you don't believe in this, which most Creationists/ID theorists call 'micro-evolution'?
If so, then all we can do is disagree.
If you *do* agree with this 'micro' evolution, as does medved and most of the creo/ID folks, then you agree with Darwin's theory, because that is all it says.
But they claim they don't agree with so-called 'macro' evolution, even tho the only difference is 'time'.
Because it is certain that millions of small changes over hundreds of millions of years equals big changes.
The origin of their claim is the 'young Earth' claim, that there hasn't been enough time on Earth for that to happen.
Again, I have no interest in disagreeing with such a claim. I find it fascinating Science Fiction, really fun stuff.
But the evidence says something very, very different, to me.
Yes, in fact, it is.
But if you find that thought threatening, okay.
To me, it really seems certain that ya'll agree with Darwin, yet are completely confused about what he actually said.
Your arguments are not with Darwin. This is a fascinating discussion in that ya'll make a logical contradiction with your first words -- "I believe species adapt to their environments, but I do not agree with Darwin".
That sentence is a logical contradiction.
As for the 'young Earth' concept, I read all the points ya'll make with interest. I've lurked on these threads for a long time.
I can't find one ounce of evidence that looks compelling, to me. It appears, to me, that ya'll misunderstand almost everything about the topic.
But the theories are fascinating, and lots of fun to read.
And who knows? Anything is possible.
If you don't even see the evidence for that, then there's no chance we can have an informed discussion.
I would say that a large number of small changes will equal a big change. That appears to be an obvious, observable truth.
The only difference between micro and macro evolution is time.
The truth here seems to be you're agreeing with Darwin, yet attacking him for other, personal reasons. It seems pretty clear.
"I believe species adapt to their environment, but I don't agree with Darwin's theory".
That's a logical contradiction.
Please read the sentence above carefully. There is only one possible meaning, although it that meaning is plainer in the context of the entire statement.
The "theories of evolution" to which the Pope objects are those and only those which "consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter." He does not object to all theories of evolution. He notes, elsewhere in his statment, that there are many theories of evolution and that there is increasing evidence from many fields of study that something of that sort happened.
His objection is that in certain schools of thought or certain theories of evolution, man might be thought of as merely another sort of animal. I suspect he's being careful to indicate that only man, in the Catholic view, has a soul and a mind, and that it is incorrect to view those as just a natural by-product of having evolved further than other animals. Man is special to God.
But he specifically does not state that belief in evolution per se is against Catholic teaching. He could have done so much more quickly and easily if that were his intention.
I must presume this includes me due to my inclusion in the address list. If this is the case, however, why did you bother objecting to post 1,211 on this thread in which I parodied your style? It appears that your post is merely a convenient way for you to evade answering everyone who disagrees with you. Somehow we all seem to fall into the above definition.
Even that might not be terribly objectionable, except that you repeatedly and consistently fail to meet your own standards. In fact, the entire list above is exactly descriptive of your own behavior ... and we can also add the word, "hypocrite."
I've got a little list:
1. You've lied about other posters. If you had simply made a mistake ... which all of us have done ... and then acknowledged it, this could be overlooked. But you never acknowledge mistakes and you never apologize. And you wonder why others are antagonized by you.
2. You're refused to admit your mistakes when they're pointed out. In addition to the lying, this pertains to astonishing errors in reading comprehension, plane geometry, simple arithmetic, astronomy, and mathematics. Again, you never give an inch, even when the errors are so blisteringly obvious, an "oops" would have covered it. {You did acknowledge one typo once. We were all encouraged, but alas, our hopes were dashed when the acknowledgement turned out to be an aberration].
3. You've ignored questions posted to you when you find them uncomfortable to answer.
4. You've presented utterly unsupportable assertions as fact, but refused to acknowledge either the unsupportable nature of the assertions, or the fact that you'd done it.
Your behavior has been so childish, in fact, that you've made it impossible to respond to you in a rational fashion. Congratulations. You must be proud.
Please read the sentence above carefully...
I did, Gumlegs, as is obvious from my post. Why would you think otherwise?
The "theories of evolution" to which the Pope objects are those and only those which "consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter."
Well, Yes, that's how the Magisterium reads. No news here. It is also true, however, that the Evols who post here are uniformly and unanimously in the Materialist Atheist camp, and the Pope's message is therefore addressed directly at them.
His objection is that... I suspect...
Your interpretation is completely unnecessary. The Magisterium is intended to, and does, speak for itself more than adequately. It's laughable that you would presume to "explain" things to me but I do believe in free speech, however inane.
Right Wing Professor intended to allow the impression that the Pope and the Catholic Church were in accord with the "theory" of Evolution (see his post), as have other Evol posters in recent months. The Church is not and it is thus a lie, Gumlegs, pure and simple.
That's not only non-obvious, but it's been coercively disproven by experiment as I have noted.
A stupid theory is one thing; a stupid theory which gets 100 million people killed is something else. Chuck's theory, aside from being idiotic in and of itself, was the most major philosophical foundation of naziism and communism. Moreover, the prime motivation for the general acceptance of Chuck's theory appears to have had to do with the drug-dealing proclivities of the British empire in the 1800's.
In forming a judgement of evolutionism, you must at some point consider the circumstances under which it arose and the most probable set of reasons for its rise to dominance.
You've heard of the Medelin Cartel, El Pino, Pablo Escobar, the Pagans, and all of the other drug dealers of our times. The truth is, all together they probably don't add up to a hill of beans compared to the operations of the British empire in the 19'th century. At least one major eastern city was set up for no other reason than to serve as a conduit for Indian opium into China and an entire war was fought to protect the opium trade.
Now, you don't need to be Albert Einstein to comprehend that for a supposedly Christian nation to be engaging in this sort of business must have created at least two problems on an organizational level. One was the question of motivating men to fight and die for such causes: "For God, Bonnie Queen Vickie, and the Opium Trade, CHARGE!!!!!!" probably wouldn't get it...
The other problem which springs to mind immediately would be that which the CEO or chairman of the board of the East India Company must have faced in conducting board meatings. Picture it:
"Gentlemen, I have some good news, and I have some bad news. The good news is that profits are up 73.2% on a volume of trade which has increased 27% over the same three-month period last year, and that all of our operations appear to be running smoothly. Indigenous peoples of India, Burma, China, and several other areas with a propensity to cause problems are now happily stoned out of their minds on our products, and are causing no further trouble.""The bad news is that we're all probably going to spend the next 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years roasting on a barbecue pit for this shit..."
Now picture Chuck Darwin walking into this scene and telling all of these people that they're sitting around worrying over nothing, and that the only moral law in nature is "The Survival of the Fittest". Can you not see all of those peoples' eyes lighting up, their hair standing straight up, and somebody screaming "By Jove, I think he's got it?"
I mean, it doesn't even matter what led Darwin to devise the theory of evolution. In any normal time or set of circumstances, he'd have either been laughed to scorn, hanged, or burned. He succeeded precisely because he solved several major problems for the Godfathers of 100 years ago. In other words, there's more than a little truth to my claim that someone has to be stoned to buy off on this BS.
the Evols who post here are uniformly and unanimously in the Materialist Atheist camp,
possibly add:
Your interpretation is completely unnecessary. The Magisterium is intended to, and does, speak for itself more than adequately. It's laughable that you would presume to "explain" things to me but I do believe in free speech, however inane.
Not all evols (or in f.Christian's delightful coinage, fossil thumpers), are in the "Materialist Atheist" camp. Ditto the evols who post here. It's ridiculous to assert otherwise, but you appear to do so. Why?
Right Wing Professor intended to allow the impression that the Pope and the Catholic Church were in accord with the "theory" of Evolution (see his post), as have other Evol posters in recent months. The Church is not and it is thus a lie, Gumlegs, pure and simple.
You appear to intend to allow the impression that the Pope rejects all theories of evolution no matter how formulated. That's simply false. The Church does accept the theory of evolution, just not certain versions of it. It also rejects any interpretation that would be used to ... but you say you don't need my help on the issue, so I'll drop it with the note that the theory of evolution is taught as a valid scientific theory in Catholic schools up to and including the University level.
Be careful about the casual use of the term, "lie." You wouldn't want to appear to be gorey.
"Coercively disproven." Must have been very ... forceful ... experiments.
891 posted on 7/11/02 12:23 AM Eastern by gore3000
To: VadeRetro
Stop the endless blather, stop talking about the guys[sic] intentions, the guys[sic] beliefs, the guys[sic] agenda.
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