Posted on 11/13/2002 5:27:59 PM PST by ckilmer
Edited on 06/29/2004 7:09:30 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The ancient covenant is in pieces: Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance." So pronounced the Nobel Prize-winning French biologist Jacques Monod in his 1970 treatise Chance and Necessity, which maintained that God had been utterly refuted by science. The divine is fiction, faith is hokum, existence is a matter of heartless probability
(Excerpt) Read more at wired.com ...
This responds to my (or anyone else's) prior posts on this thread exactly how?
If ID is indeed proposed as an answer to abiogenesis, it will stand on the same ground as any other theory of abiogenesis - that of pure, 100% speculation. It's entirely possible that some designer zapped the first basic self-replicators into existence, just as it's possible that they arose through entirely naturalistic means. But unlike the run of evolution since then, we don't have a record of what exactly happened - there are no fossils of those first self-replicators, so we're never really going to know what happened originally, with any degree of confidence, I think. The best we can probably hope for is that someday Starfleet will be able to observe analogous developments on some other proto-world, and infer from that about abiogenesis on ours ;)
As I said, though, ID certainly does not confine itself to such questions at the present - when a rejection of macroevolution is part and parcel of ID theories, we've moved way beyond abiogenesis in scope, and into the realm of things that can be examined with an eye to the historical record. And that's where current ID is on shaky ground, and where it will die before it can be reinvented, IMO...
Seriously?
Your set and everyone else's is contained in my scenario.
The point here is not unimportant: the working assumption is that there is no intelligence at work in natural law. Theories that posit a role for an intelligent agent are rejected scornfully -- usually as "untestable".
What that really means is that the scientific method (as propounded on threads like these, anyway) is inadequate if the universe does not conform to its atheistic assumptions.
It's always good to identify one's blind spots.
If you believe fossils can be a microscope into the past, than it hard not to believe that DNA backtracing isn't also a legitimate microscope into the past. We have evidence to work with. See Woese's work, and the recent changes arising therefrom in the root of the Tree of Life.
Your set and everyone else's is contained in my scenario.
That does not answer my objection--it re-enforces it.
As the Lord God is my witness.
Right. It's not as if science has discovered anything of a theological nature. Nor has theology become scientific. It's just a kind of detante, which is nice for a change -- as long as it lasts.
Oh, it is - to a point. The farther back you go, though, the fuzzier the picture gets - will it let us trace all the way back to the very first self-replicator, the one that is the "Eve" molecule for all of us? I'm inclined to doubt it, but I'll await the evidence, obviously ;)
The Lord God will back up your beliefs---bias?
You seem to be a witness for atheism/evolution/humanism!
You seem to be either very rude or to lack reading comprehension. I am a witness for the One true Lord God of Israel; I accept (tentatively, based on the evidence as I have seen and understood it) theistic evolution.
"Big Bang"..."strict physical laws"---determinism?
No, not determinism at all. Big Bang="let there be light"; physical laws=God's choice of how He wants to carry out His will. I've said all of this several times above, you just don't seem to be getting it.
Sure; here's a few for starters (all from Leviticus 19):
3 " 'Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God. 4 " 'Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves. I am the LORD your God.
***
9 " 'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God. 11 " 'Do not steal. " 'Do not lie. " 'Do not deceive one another. 12 " 'Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD . 13 " 'Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him. " 'Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight. 14 " 'Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the LORD . 15 " 'Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly. 16 " 'Do not go about spreading slander among your people. " 'Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the LORD . 17 " 'Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. 18 " 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD .
***
32 " 'Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD . 33 " 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. 35 " 'Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. 36 Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt. 37 " 'Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the LORD .' "
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