Posted on 08/11/2002 3:59:04 PM PDT by vannrox
We're talking about two very different things. No one denies that the Founders and Framers were Christians -- most of them, with a sprinkling of deists, etc. No one denies that the US wouldn't have happened in any other kind of society. No one denies that America is nice, Christianity is nice, everything is nice. There are a thousand lovely speeches to that effect, and I don't deny the sentiment. But that wasn't my point.
I was saying that there is no scriptural basis for the fundamental, organic law of this country. Where is the Biblical reference for a federal republic? For a two-house legislature? For a short list of the specific powers granted to the legislature? For the Electoral College? For a division of government into three co-equal branches? For a Bill of Rights? For a trial by jury? I could go on, but I know you get the point I'm making -- these things aren't scriptural. They're not in the Bible. Thus, in that context, they aren't Christian. They're nice, but not Christian.
I don't see the point of trying.
But a view that teaches we serve the universe by loving our neighbor is more likely to result in good than a view that survival is the reward of the fit.
You would appear to be confusing an observation (survival of the fittest), with a prescription. It's not and isn't intended to be.
My previous assumption was that you wanted me to come up with an original, perverse idea that would lead to good. That's what I don't see the point of. Perverse as I naturally am.
See, just have to try. :-)
A lot of people describe me as very trying.
I honestly don't. But I understand that is mostly opinion.
but I can't see Jim Jones committing his evil deeds without the aid of organized religion (perverted though his version was).
I think Jones -- or Charles Mansen who could also illustrate your point -- would have used whatever means at his disposal to control his followers.
But if the positive exposure to Christianity of Jim Jones (who surely had to be exposed to it so as to pervert it) didn't turn him into a good person, how can you reasonably assume that the absence of exposure to Darwin (who makes no moral pronouncements at all) could have resulted in a good Stalin?
A very good point.
Remember, my opinion is primarily formed by the report concerning that book -- which specifically said Stalin gave up his religion due to Darwin -- and other reports which buttress that claim albeit less specifically.
If Stalin had a JudeoChristian value system that he gave up due to a belief that Darwin showed that God didn't exist, then it's logical to believe he would have kept it if he had never been exposed to Darwin.
It isn't logical to believe that Jones would give up a Christian value system because he read the Bible.
Maybe Jones was born bad, but Stalin wasn't.
No, nothing in that quote linked Dahmer's belief in evolution to the fact that he was a psycho homocidal maniac. If believing in evolution causes people to become homocidal, then why aren't there countless millions of cannibalistic killers out there?
Last I checked, I still hadn't killed anyone. Nor had any of my colleagues at work, "evolutionists" all.
Actually, I dislike that term "evolutionist." It sounds too much like a religious term, which it is not.
May I add here, for those unaware of the sad news, that Dr. Gould recently passed.
No statistics can ever be derived without at first making some observations and calculating, from those observations, the actual probability of the phenomenon being observed.
Therefore, from our observations: the probability of life arising on a planet like ours is 1.
The probability that said life will evolve to specialized organisms (e.g. higher mammals) is 1.
There is no higher probability than 1. Evolution, therefore, was inevitable.
I checked it out and you're right, it is hardly incriminating at all, re: Darwin.
Thanks, but don't worry about scaring me off. I really enjoy these fur-flying discussions. My free time is rather limited, though, so I don't know how often I can join in.
No one really knows what the first life was. A single cell, even a primitive one, is still a rather complicated organism. I have heard speculation that life arose from self-replicating RNA molecules; these exist today and are simple enough to arise by random mixing of organic compounds.
Why would this progeny ever have to adapt? Single-celled life is arguably the most resilient life on earth. Some say it can survive in outer space.
Conditions are never static. If the first life arose, as was likely, in water rich with organic molecules, at some point these primitive organisms would have used up the available molecules. At that point, an organism that could, perhaps, feed on waste products from other organisms would have an advantage. Or, if the water dried up or froze, an organism that could enter a dormant state could survive. And so on. Single-celled organisms only seem to be resilient because there are so many species of them, and they have adapted to conditions which would kill us. I don't know about the outer space part, though.
And why would varied progeny adapt differently to the same environment -- even ignoring the fact that their grandparents are thriving quite happily in it.
Some may do better, and some, worse, than their grandparents. But environments also change.
Why would sexual reproduction develop? How could it develop at random? I've seen explanations, I just can't take them seriously. I've heard better reasoning from a football fan saying how his 0-7 team can still be expected to make the playoffs.
Sexual reproduction is a means of exchanging genetic material, which provides a quicker way to adapt to changing environments. Yeast mate by merging two cells--it is easy to envision how cells can merge by random. Bacteria mate by injecting genetic material into other bacteria. While the specialized structures involved in this process had to evolve, genetic material can be ingested much like food, and bacteria can and do ingest DNA without physically touching other bacteria. The mating bacteria would have an advantage over bacteria randomly encountering DNA; both processes are common. I believe all cellular organisms mate; I don't know if non-cellular organisms (viruses, mycoplasma) do.
Then there is the lack of evidence. I can perfectly accept that tigers and housecats share a common descendent. I can't accept that housecats and horses do. And I can't accept the fossil record as being definitive about much of anything.
I believe the fossil record shows some proto-mammals existing hundreds of millions of years ago; all mammals are believed to descend from a common proto-mammal. I wish I could show you a phylogenetic tree; these are like evolutionary family trees, which show where each phylum, genus, and species branched off of the ancestral trunk. These are generated on the basis of sequence divergence of a single protein. With one exception that I know of, it does not matter which protein is selected, because the result will be similar, and correlates well with the fossil record. Geneticists have calculated, based on the known mutation frequencies of DNA, how long it takes for a single amino acid in a protein to be altered, so that each branch of the phylogenetic tree corresponds to the time since speciation, as well as the genetic similarities between organisms. Such a tree will show horses on a distant branch, with other herbivores, cats will be on a closer branch, rodents are closer, and primates and humans form a very small cluster of branches. (I'm not sure about the relative "closeness" of cats and primates; the only tree I could find on short notice shows bacteria.)
And then there is irreducible complexity. Somebody is going to say that Behe has been refuted. I'm going to say I can't see how. Then somebody is going to say Behe is a fool and I'm a fool for considering his argument. Sorry, I'm not buying that.
Who or what is Behe? I do not know about irreducible complexity; there is enormous range in genome size (the amount of DNA in any given species), and most of that DNA is useless junk. Bacteria, which are very small and must conserve energy, tend to small genomes and very little junk. Higher organisms tend to larger genomes, mostly junk, but even higher organisms can reach a point where it takes too much energy to maintain the DNA, and they lose some. Plants tend to have genomes larger than animals' by orders of magnitude. It's not a question of complexity so much as a problem of accumulating junk.
Then there is a religious aspect. No offense meant to anyone on this thread, but there are those who use evolution as an excuse to deny God's existence.
God exists.
If you argue that God exists and evolution is how he did it that's fine. You won't get mad at those with whom you dispute.
I will not argue that there are atheists, and that some of them will point to evolution as proof of a godless universe. There have always been atheists, though, and their reasons for being so have nothing to do with scientific theories. I also will not argue that God exists, and I will not speculate on whether or how God created the universe. I do believe that God set into motion the forces of evolution (of the solar system, as well as of life) and created or adjusted the physical constants that made it all possible.
I am sorry this ran so long; you did not ask questions with easy one or two sentence answers.
I'm sorry, General, I only have one kid, and so never got the experience of having to separate him from anyone :)
Yeah, except the parts are not exactly the same from one organism to the next...
another one proposing research into why ape DNA is more vulnerable to mutation than monkey DNA
Let's see... big, nearly hairless apes toast themselves in tanning beds and on beaches, their DNA is cooked from the UV... monkeys don't tan... Question answered, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars saved for not having to do the research.
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.