Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Even Richard Dawkins is Right Sometimes (Is the Biblical story of Adam and Eve a myth?)
Religious Dispatches ^ | 11/28/2011 | Paul Wallace

Posted on 11/29/2011 12:32:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 341-360361-380381-400401-418 next last
To: betty boop
Rather, science proceeds according to the fundamental insight of Natural Law theory: that the universe is fundamentally knowable by the human mind.

If science didn't believe that, it wouldn't have a single thing to do.

SO very true. And of course, I strongly agree that mathematics is the language science uses to bring the natural world and world of self into correspondence.

Thank you for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

381 posted on 12/09/2011 11:09:45 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 376 | View Replies]

To: betty boop
I also cannot fathom that any Christian spiritual leader would suggest that the universe or life came into existence and proceeds by happenstance (Darwinism). Such a suggestion would mean he is Spiritually blind:

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: - Romans 1:20

Indeed a curse follows for those who knowing God is the Creator, choose to adore the creature instead:

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. - Romans 1:21-25

God's Name is I AM.

382 posted on 12/09/2011 11:19:12 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 379 | View Replies]

To: allmendream; metmom

Very simply, rolling the dice or casting lots does not increase [nor decrease for that matter] information. Even to decrease information in computer code takes intelligence, time, trial and error in order to still have working code.

You don’t have to spend much time programming a computer to begin to understand that introducing random changes will very quickly break the code [rather than increase it’s usefulness]. Breaking the code would compare favorably with death, and population extinctions.

On the other hand it takes a lot of thought and trial and error to add wholly new features and abilities to any system of code.

For someone so pompous you surely do miss the obvious time after time.


383 posted on 12/09/2011 12:04:19 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 380 | View Replies]

To: allmendream; metmom

Furthermore God is not random and the quote you referred to from the Bible says ‘Man casts lots and God controls the outcome.’ From that context one should deduce God controls things - there’s no room for ‘random’ with God being all powerful, all-seeing, and all-knowing.


384 posted on 12/09/2011 12:20:27 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 380 | View Replies]

To: BrandtMichaels

Theistic evolution = about as high up as one can get on the fence for belief vs non-belief.


385 posted on 12/09/2011 12:23:38 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 384 | View Replies]

To: BrandtMichaels

Mutations change information. Any breakdown in the code that results in non viability is immediately removed. Any breakdown in the code that results in reduced reproductive success is eventually removed. What is left behind is an increase in useful variations.

I asked previously “where did these variations come from?”. If immediately after the Flood there was a maximum of four alleles at any genetic loci - and now there are many species supposedly derived from each “kind” of animal - and much more genetic diversity in each species than just four different types of alleles - WHERE DID THESE VARIATIONS COME FROM?

Why do you suppose bacteria would have an error prone DNA polymerase that would be expressed during stress that would introduce mutations into the genome; if such modifications of its code would lead to detrimental outcomes?

Did you, in your pomposity, miss this critical fact and its obvious ramifications?


386 posted on 12/09/2011 12:41:47 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 383 | View Replies]

To: BrandtMichaels
How about Geocentrism? How high or low on the fence is THAT in regards to belief vs non-belief?
387 posted on 12/09/2011 12:43:51 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 385 | View Replies]

To: allmendream

Very simply the ‘junk’ DNA as you prefer to call it.

All changes that allow for adaptation and survival had to be pre-programmed into the code by a higher intelligence.

Mutations simply do not increase the amount of information.


388 posted on 12/09/2011 12:53:24 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 386 | View Replies]

To: allmendream

Since it was Einstein who said the solar system movements could be thought of either way and the math still works, I am fine waiting as long as it takes for this to be resolved - even if that means God himself revealing all knowledge in Heaven.

You, once again, are the pompous one, acting as if any science is at 100% resolution on this point while stating otherwise whenever it fits your current argument(s).


389 posted on 12/09/2011 12:58:58 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 387 | View Replies]

To: allmendream; schaef21; Alamo-Girl; xzins; Truthsearcher; Matchett-PI; BrandtMichaels; dartuser
Attributing supernatural causes to explain natural phenomena has not resulted in better knowledge and application of that knowledge about the physical universe.

I'm very sorry to say, dear allmendream, that here we do part company.

It seems to me the best knowledge of the world we have from the scientific side has come from world-class thinkers engaged in the explication of natural phenomena — Aristotle, Bacon, Newton, Einstein, Bohr, oh so many others to be grateful for!

What all these men had in common, each in his own distinctive way, was the understanding that the "universe" was One single ordered (that is to say, hierarchical) manifestation of divine Being — however to be sliced and diced in doctrinal dispute.

I do not know how to "explain natural phenomena" without reference to a relatively "supernatural" criterion of explanation. "Relatively" here meaning that the phenomenal world, proceeding ("evolving") along the "horizontal extension," finds its intelligibility (meaning at any given point) only along the "vertical extension."

IOW, fact is what it is — naked event having no meaning or value. If all of life, of all the world of experience is, is a succession of — heaven forfend!!! — purposeless events, then how can we even speak about a world of Reality?

According to materialist theory, consequent existence occurs only along the "physical," horizontal extension, or plane. Another postulate of this theory holds that all immaterial, non-physically-realized (i.e., non-directly-observable entities) do not really exist. The theory concedes, however, that randomness, in principle, is inexplicable — thereby further conceding that it cannot promote itself as any kind of model of logically effective causation in Nature. IOW, the inexplicable cannot explain anything.

At the same time, it seems clear from what you have written that you, dear brother AMD, have religious notions and aspirations. And I wonder how you hold the two "spheres" together in your mind and spirit, when they seem so mutually opposed in mind.

It seems the only way to get out of this paradoxical dead-end is to imagine the world has a vertical extension imaginable as a different dimension of Time, supervening on the events of the world which we call facts. We need that dimension to think: The meaning of things is not just another fact, evolving along a horizontal timeline in a locally-caused event-line, ad infinitum — and don't even ask what it means.

Which is why I believe down to the bottom of my soul that the current popular idea of religion and science — "faith vs. reason" — as antithetical, mutually-exclusive entities is totally bogus.

To me, they are the fundamental complementarities of our world, of our being, of our understanding of the Cosmos.

But try to locate the "cause" of that idea along the "horizontal extension!"

Thank you so very much for writing, dear allmendream!

390 posted on 12/09/2011 1:00:04 PM PST by betty boop (We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through, the eye. — William Blake)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 377 | View Replies]

To: BrandtMichaels
Bacteria don't have much, if any, “junk” DNA.

So why would they express error prone DNA polymerase? How would introducing mutations help to unlock what was supposedly “pre-programmed” in?

Mutations CHANGE the information - instead of coding for glutamine - a mutation could cause the codon to specify alanine - for example. How would this be a “loss of information” rather than just a change in the information?

Why would mutations during stress be a good idea for a bacteria if all mutations were going to do was make the bacteria “lose” information?

How about gene duplication? Is that a loss of information as well? If a gene is duplicated and one version changes and the other remains the same - wouldn't that be a “gain” of information?

391 posted on 12/09/2011 1:02:00 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 388 | View Replies]

To: BrandtMichaels
The math for the gravity DOES NOT work the same - only the math for a “coordinate system”.

Einstein was not a Geocentrist. Do you suppose you have a superior understanding of the ramifications of relativity than Einstein?

There is not a 100% resolution on any scientific issue and never will be - how pompous and presumptuous of you to assume I was saying there was such resolution.

But Geocentrism is just not possible given what we know about gravity - there is no model consistent with gravity that would make it work.

Creationists take note - once you start denying evidence in preference to what you would rather believe theologically - the logical end result is Geocentrism!

AND THAT IS SO FUNNY!!!!!!!

392 posted on 12/09/2011 1:06:21 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 389 | View Replies]

To: allmendream; Alamo-Girl; xzins; schaef21; Truthsearcher; Matchett-PI; BrandtMichaels; dartuser
The Bible says that every dice roll (or casting of lots) is determined by God. Why would “random” genetic mutations be any different?

And so does this mean that you believe that God completely determines everything that happens in the Universe?

If so, how do you make this insight compatible with what orthodox Darwinian evolution theory predicts — that all "progress" in the biological universe is attributable to random accident, somehow attuned to "results" (survival of the species) without there being any purpose-intending result in mind?

A biology of "successful reproduction" on the basis of natural selection doesn't explain anything about the nature of the Reality the "successful replicants" have to "select" for, or against, in order to leave progeny.

God is Power. He could utterly determine everything, were that His design, or purpose.

Yet evidently He chose to do otherwise: He chose to leave man, His own created son, "free."

Which certainly makes for an interesting world.... For man, and I daresay, for God....

But I digress. What I would most like to ask you for, dear AMD, is your list of citations; i.e., re: That God's "dice roll" equals "random mutation," among other things....

393 posted on 12/09/2011 3:13:31 PM PST by betty boop (We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through, the eye. — William Blake)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 380 | View Replies]

To: betty boop
The Bible says that the result of every ‘casting of lots’ is “from the Lord”. So yes, I believe that everything that happens in the Universe, God knew it was going to happen.

My religious beliefs are not at all in contradiction with evolution through natural selection of genetic variation - only your strawman of it - the typical Creationist bugaboo that “random” somehow means ‘beyond the power of God to control’.

If I say I am offering to play you a game of chance - and that there is a random chance that you will win or lose - and that there was no “result” that is more likely than the other - that doesn't imply that I have escaped the power of God to determine that I am going to win and you are going to lose.

You want the Bible passage that speaks of the result of casting lots being from the Lord?

394 posted on 12/09/2011 3:26:32 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 393 | View Replies]

To: betty boop
“the inexplicable cannot explain anything” betty boop

This is why Creationism is useless.

The supernatural causation Creationism ascribes to natural phenomena are inexplicable and therefore cannot explain anything. They therefore lead to no further knowledge, no useful application, and has no predictive value.

Creationism is useless because the causative forces it invokes are inexplicable.

395 posted on 12/09/2011 3:29:41 PM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 390 | View Replies]

To: betty boop
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

I do not know how to "explain natural phenomena" without reference to a relatively "supernatural" criterion of explanation.

Nor do I.

At the root, in the absence of time, events cannot occur and in the absence of space, things cannot exist - and yet space/time does not pre-exist but is created as the universe expands which means there was a beginning of real space and real time. This is an 800 lb gorilla in the living room whenever we mention things or events - whether phenomena, matter, energy/momentum etc.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. – John 1:1-3 God's Name is Alpha and Omega.

396 posted on 12/09/2011 9:57:34 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 390 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Except that anatomically correct humans have been around for 1 million years. They’re called homo erectus.


397 posted on 12/09/2011 10:01:58 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: <1/1,000,000th%
"anatomically correct humans have been around for 1 million years. They’re called homo erectus."

TRUE

398 posted on 12/10/2011 9:04:59 AM PST by Matchett-PI ("One party will generally represent the envied, the other the envious. Guess which ones." ~GagdadBob)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 397 | View Replies]

To: allmendream; betty boop; schaef21

Does it make you feel better, or justified in your beliefs, or vindicated, because you think you can appeal to some sort of spiritual authority to validate your belief in evolution over the words of God in Scripture?


399 posted on 12/11/2011 1:16:30 PM PST by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 380 | View Replies]

To: metmom

It makes me instantly recognize how ludicrous your most frequent argument against evolution is - namely that one cannot be a Christian and accept the Bible and also accept the theory of evolution; because by that simple minded formulation you are saying the Pope is not a Christian and doesn’t accept the Bible.

I don’t care who you are - that right there is FUNNY!

It reduces that line of ‘reasoning’ to the absurd.

It also frequently allows rather nutty anti-Catholic creationists to “out” themselves as small minded historically ignorant bigots.

A “Win win”. :)


400 posted on 12/12/2011 7:24:07 AM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 399 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 341-360361-380381-400401-418 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson