Except for this one. This one continues to flourish in the minds of many, despite the fact that the scientific (evidentiary) underpinnings are simply not there.
The fact is I am losing patience with trying to engage with people who do not live in the same world that I do, who speak an entirely different language, who think like machines. (I am not a machine!) This being the case, real communication is impossible.
My sense is you and people like allmendream — myrmidons sent from DU to trouble the Christian citizens who frequent FreeRepublic — have blinders on their eyes and braces on their brains. It seems impossible that they should ever see the "big picture" of Reality in its fullness. Cognitively, they seem to function at the level of machines: They live in a world of two-value logic — a logic which can propound only two possible answers to any question: True or False. Yes or No. 1 or 0.
IMHO, at minimum, to truly get a grip on understanding the world around us, a two-value (Aristotelian, as in the Law of the Excluded Middle) logical system cannot suffice. We need at least a three-value logical system: True, False, Undecidable.
You wrote:
Of course, the (doomed) efforts to discredit the theory of evolution really have nothing to do with science. I think they exist because, as a document of the beginning of Earth, life, and human life, the book of Genesis doesn't match much of what we know about the world at all, and it has too many internal inconsistencies. That upsets (some) people, for whom faith is somehow invalid if they must accept that Genesis is not a literal account. For me, it's no big deal. Faith is one thing, science another, and I'm fine with that.But this only tells me that you do not understand what Genesis 1 and 2 actually say. Truth rarely reduces to the "literal." Understanding requires more than that.
To my understanding, Genesis 1 and 2 perfectly match up to my knowledge and direct experience of this world.
So, what do you and I have to talk about? We're not even standing on the same ground.
That line jumped out at me the most. They don't KNOW what they are asserting, they conjecture and extrapolate what they are asserting. And those conjectures and extrapolations are based on assumptions that have holes that are easily punched through and can be demonstrated to be inaccurate.
Well, it's not just evolution but any theory that pretends to be able to look back into unobserved time. The Big Bang also comes to mind. Such 'theories' are based on the assumption of naturalism (the fallacy of begging the question) and the fallacy of composition. We could add others.
The fallacy of composition says that something that is true of a part is also true of the whole. You often see this one when 'scientists' argue that because the 'scientific method' can be used to create computers that it is also useful for explaining origins (of life, the universe, etc).
“The theory of evolution, as Darwin first formulated it, and as it has been refined in the ~170 years since, works very well as a framework for biological investigation. If it didn’t, we (scientists) would have ditched it... just like we abandon every theory that turns out to be incorrect.”
Spirited: First of all, evolutionism is not empirical science, as even Karl Popper was honest enough to admit:
“Imagine There’s No God-—only evolution” http://209.157.64.201/focus/f-news/2787047/posts
Evolutionism, whether a spiritual concept such as Teilhard’s or a material concept such as Darwins’ is a metaphysical program purpotedly answering the ultimate question of origins. However, it ultimately implodes into nihilism.
Next, the taproot of Darwin’s concept stretches back to the most ancient evolutionary conception so far translated, that is the Enuma Elish.
Man is fully capable of deceiving himself and deceiving others. And when men do not want the true, living God to exist they inevitably turn to evolutionary conceptions and then mock, scoff, and belittle those who refuse to follow them into their folly.
IMHO, only when third party undecideds are lurking is it worth the effort to engage a poster with an upside down worldview.
Thank you so much for your wonderful essay-posts, dearest sister in Christ!
Actually I would be very interested in the person that could reasonable prove to me that the third human on this planet DID NOT come from two other people..
Where did the two originals come from?..
Now theres a question... but the third one is my dilemma..
It may be possible that the Adam and Eve story was a metaphor or metaphorical “inference”.. true.. but even so they came from somewhere.. And the “evolution” story was and is just that “a story”.. A convoluted Yarn to be sure but really its just a Yarn..
Its even possible there was another society of beings somewhat like humans before Adam and Eve.. Who is to know?.. It may be “we’ll” never know for sure.. how humanity started really..
Humans definitely do not like not knowing.. so they make up things.. Like atoms, little balls rolling around other balls.. which is a cartoon.. Humans like cartoons.. Einstein studied the world telescopically and Bohrs studied microscopically.. They argued the same page within different books.. Did GOD get the whole thing started or not?..
Nobody really knows what God is.. but everything needs a source.. God is a good X factor.. Until another source comes along better.. I’m going with God.. Whatever God is.. Yes, that means I do not know.. I am good with that..
One thing is for sure.. if you know.. faith is no longer needed..
Having faith is an important needed lesson of life..
LIFE!.. no one knows what life is either.. or death..
"When we talk about "the degrees of knowledge," we implicitly acknowledge the degrees of being that correspond to them. .....
"What is necessary above all is "to discriminate and discern degrees of knowing, its organization and its internal differentiations....
"....a shallow soul is satisfied by staying on the surface of things. The deep soul knows that no merely scientific explanation can ever satisfy man, whereas the shallow soul seems content to play in the little blandbox of efficient causes. .....
"[What we need is something] capable of speaking to our age of stupidity."
bttt
What, exactly, is the supposed evidence that would definitively prove evolution but doesn't actually exist? If you have that evidence, it is scientifically sound, and your experiments/observations are repeatable by any knowledgeable life scientist, why haven't you published it yet?
The burden of proof is really on you to produce it. On the science side, we have countless thousands of pieces of evidence that support the ToE as the mechanism responsible for the diversity of life that we see today. What evidence do you have?
The fact is I am losing patience with trying to engage with people who do not live in the same world that I do, who speak an entirely different language, who think like machines. (I am not a machine!) This being the case, real communication is impossible.
I live in the same world, and I do not think like a machine. I think and speak like a scientist, because that is what years of college and work experience have taught me to do. It is true that scientists have their own special language; most professions do.
My sense is you and people like allmendream — myrmidons sent from DU to trouble the Christian citizens who frequent FreeRepublic — have blinders on their eyes and braces on their brains. It seems impossible that they should ever see the "big picture" of Reality in its fullness. Cognitively, they seem to function at the level of machines: They live in a world of two-value logic — a logic which can propound only two possible answers to any question: True or False. Yes or No. 1 or 0.
I'm sorry, but it simply does not follow that because I am not a literal creationist that I am the sort of crazy-eyed lunatic who typically frequents sites like DU. Nor do I think that is true of allmendream. Furthermore, it is my experience that logic and fact are distinctly unwelcome in leftist circles, so the chances of me ever visiting DU are almost non-existent.
I must ask, why is it that you assume that being a scientist is incompatible with Christianity? As far as I can tell, the creation/evolution debate is not driven by scientists; it is driven by literalists who, for some reason, have decided that the entire basis of their faith is invalid if Genesis is not a literal account of the beginning of the universe, the earth, and life. Since scientists first showed hundreds of years ago that creation as portrayed in Genesis is not supported by scientific evidence, I have to wonder, what is the big deal? Why the attacks on biological sciences, when no branch of science supports a literal creationist view?
I would say it's not scientists who are stuck with the "0 or 1" mentality.
But this only tells me that you do not understand what Genesis 1 and 2 actually say. Truth rarely reduces to the "literal." Understanding requires more than that.
To my understanding, Genesis 1 and 2 perfectly match up to my knowledge and direct experience of this world.
So--you are now saying that you do not, in fact, believe that the creation account put forth in Genesis is a literal account of the beginning of life, the universe, and everything? Then why do you resist accepting that scientific concepts and theories are, in fact, based on empirical observation of the world around us?