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To: gore3000

I can't recall anyone actually attacking Christianity, but there have certainly been objections to literal interpretations of the Bible.

All atheists use that method of attacking Christianity. As pointed out they know that a direct attack is less effective than a flank attack.

I think you are using the term "atheist" in the sense of "anti-theist." Christianity is not surrounded by enemies seeking to destroy it (with the notable exception of Islam, but that's another subject).

Phrases that include absolutes (i.e. "all atheists...") are rhetoric, in the sense that they are pretentious -- they assume facts that you cannot know. That is not a personal attack, by the way, but a characterization of your statement.

Well, there's this thing about beginnings. You want life to be created by existing life, so you're kind of fudging the "first life" thing. Or maybe God is not alive? And the fact that "evolution" doesn't include "abiogenesis" is just simply that evolution describes change, not beginnings.

Hard to discern your intended meaning. However, on this very thread the evolutionists are all defending abiogenesis tooth and nail. The opponents of evolution are all against it. I don't believe in such great coincidence. More importantly, the evolutionists claim that their beliefs are based on science. Abiogenesis as has been shown already has been totally discredited by science. Therefore evolutionist's insistence on abiogenesis shows that their guiding principle is not science.

My intended meaning is that life had to start somewhere -- even Dembski admits to a first time. He defines it as:

"Nonbiogenic emergence. Organisms emerge without the direct causal agency of other organisms. In place of life begetting life, here we have nonlife begetting life."

Then he goes on to say:

"Nonbiogenic emergence had to happen at least once, namely, at the origin of life."

The above quotes are from his paper dated October 25, 2002, which can be found here.

And you state that abiogenesis has been discredited by science. I've seen you refer to Pasteur's debunking of spontaneous generation in this context, but that's not abiogensis, so what else do you have?

This is a really odd proposal. I can see you arguing for ALL species being created, or for all "kinds" being created, but what would ONE species do for you? As to the question itself (why not one?), because that would make no sense to either side of the discussion.

You are answering my question with a question. Thus your answer is an evasion. If evolution were adhered to as science, then evolutionists should have no problem making such a concession. But man is the ultimate goal of evolution because it is the goal of evolution to 'refute' Christianity. In fact they have brought themselves much grief on this account alone. Why get into a fight against all if the goal is a scientific one instead of a teleological one?

The first part of my statement was a question, no doubt about it. Accusing me of evasion is rather disingenuous, however, since I answered your question in the very next sentence. You reiterate here that designating ONE creature as designed is a reasonable concession. Such a concession makes no sense, not to an evolutionist, not to a creationist, and not to a proponent of Intelligent Design.

And Man is not the ultimate goal of evolution, because evolution has no observable goals, no designated plan, no particular destination.

Intelligent Design is engaging in teleology, not science.

If an Intelligent Designer designed anything at all, then everything could have been designed. If everything was designed, then nothing is related. If nothing is related, then all of our biological inferences are imaginary. ID simply creates more problems than it solves. Stick with God.

The above shows that evolution is an ideology, an ideology whose purpose is to completely eradicate God's hand from nature. Just what I am asserting. It also shows again that in spite of overwhelming evidence for the ID position, the evolutionists reject it out of hand in favor of 'hopeful monsters'. Showing again that evolution is not about science, but about atheism.

Evolution doesn't eradicate God's hand from nature, it simply doesn't observe it.

And I can't find the "hopeful monster" quote in my paragraph, nor the "overwhelming evidence for the ID position" that you credit me with.

More of the same rant.

Not quite and your only 'refutation' is a personal attack. Science is not ideological but evolutionists are, that is why they cannot give an inch. They cannot allow God into anything because their purpose is the promotion of atheism. Let me note that Darwin himself asserted that a single example that could not be explained by evolution would completely destroy the theory. This does not seem to be the mentality or type of thinking of a scientist, but the mindset of an ideologue which has an axe to grind. This axe is the attack on Christianity which his atheism required.

You seem to think that the word "rant" is a personal attack. It's not, it's a description of a rhetorical style, one which you engage in frequently. It's a very popular style in internet discussion groups, and many people, myself included, enjoy a good rant. VadeRetro tosses off good rants on occasion, for example.

Good rants don't involve repetitive shouting, however. Placing EVOLUTION = ATHEISM between every paragraph does not help your arguments.

The balance of the above paragraph seems to be a summary of your position on the whole matter. So be it.

1,098 posted on 12/05/2002 11:36:56 AM PST by forsnax5
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To: forsnax5
Then he goes on to say:
"Nonbiogenic emergence had to happen at least once, namely, at the origin of life."

The above quotes are from his paper dated October 25, 2002, which can be found here.

A great example of total dishonesty. Dembski is listing the explanations of evolutionists, not saying that they are correct. In fact he is explicitly saying that they are not correct. Let's look at the 'quote' in context:

Evolutionary biology attempts to explain the absence of intermediates from an evolutionary path on the assumption that the intermediates did once exist. But now let’s turn the question around. Suppose that discontinuity is a fact not just about the history of life as we know it but about the history of life itself in other words, the intermediates never existed. In that case, how did biological forms in all their vast complexity and diversity come about? In asking this question, let's hold off asking for the underlying cause or causes of biological complexity and diversity. Rather, let's merely ask what a video camera would see if it were scouring the past and recording key events in life’s history. There are exactly four possibilities:

(1)  Nonbiogenic emergence. Organisms emerge without the direct causal agency of other organisms. In place of life begetting life, here we have nonlife begetting life.
 
(2)  Generative transmutation. Organisms, in reproducing, produce offspring that are vastly different from themselves.
 
(3)  Biogenic reinvention. Organisms reinvent themselves in midstream. At one moment they have certain morphological and genetic features, at the next they have a vastly different set of such features.
 
(4)  Symbiogenic reorganization. Organisms emerge when different organisms from different species get together and reorganize themselves into a new organism.

None of these possibilities is out to lunch. Nonbiogenic emergence had to happen at least once, namely, at the origin of life. Symbiogenic reorganization has been Lynn Margulis's main focus of research, and there is increasing evidence for it. Biogenic reinvention (organisms changing in midstream) is also not that crazy when one considers the life cycles of certain organisms which from one stage to the next are completely unrecognizable (for example, the metamorphosis of the butterfly or, even more extremely, the various forms of the liver fluke). Finally generative transmutation suggests a programmed view of evolution, where, like a computer program that kicks in at a certain time (recall the Michelangelo virus that kicked in March 6th, 1993), organisms change in one generation. French paleontologist Anne Dambricourt has seriously argued for this view in respect to the emergence of Homo sapiens.

With regard to these four possibilities, the crucial question now is this: How does one make sense of these possibilities in light of intelligent design? Clearly, none of these possibilities makes sense without some directed coordination.

With your dishonesty you have again given proof of much that I said - that the interest of evolutionists is not truth or science, that they are motivated by atheism and are willing to go to any extent to win against opponents including obvious lies. What this shows to me is a totally unChristian disregard for the truth. It also shows that evolutionists themselves are quite aware that their theory is a lie and therefore feel compelled to use lies to defend it.

1,121 posted on 12/06/2002 4:55:20 AM PST by gore3000
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