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Such is the life of one who subscribes to the myth of existentialism. Thompson did what he wanted and "bucked the system", following a moral relativist belief of morality. The complex system that God created has both physical and moral laws that were created to keep us safe from ourselves. When we "buck the system" our lives will inevitably be filled with pain and heartache.

Like Hemingway, Thompson fed off of his postmodernist/ existentialist world view. A belief that ran counter to how our world works. I feel bad for a man that had such an incredible talent but didn't understand how the world really works. Instead of embracing universal morality, he chose to fight it and was in a constant state of pain as a result (his constant need to medicate is an example of this). When you refuse to believe in a universal morality, you are doomed to reap the pain that comes with "bucking the system"...this is the argument against moral relativism.

Great Post!

Wow, very compelling argument.

Actually, I'm not anti-evolution, but do believe that God created this universe for a purpose. From the literature that I have read (both in public school and on my own), I can only come to one conclusion.....creation seems more rational.....more believable and seems to take less faith. As I stated in previous posts, everything that I have read about Darwin seems to contradict itself in the end (especially his own experiments with pigeons and fruit flys).
I also recently read that the moth experiment was absolute bogus (this has always been a halmark of the evolutionist agend). The photo, of this touted classic illustration of natural selection, was found to be faked (the photo of the white moth against the soot colored tree). In fact, the article went on to say that the pepered moths fly about in the upper branches of the trees and don't perch on the trunks at all. In fact, Theodore Sargent of the University of Mass. admitted that he glued dead samples of the moths onto the tree trunks for a NOVA documentary. The respected journal Nature says the moth example, once the "prize horse in our stable" to illustrate evolution by natural selection must be thrown out.

So are you claiming that whales have evolved into a higher organism than those that have vestigial hips and legs? Will we some day become whales?
The overwhelming pattern is that organisms appear fully fuormed in fossil records, with variations clustered around a mean, and without transitional stages leading up to them. The fossil record as a whole gives persuasive evidence against Darwinism.

I disagree, Our belief in naturalism or theism is the cornerstone to our world view. Why would anyone who doesn't believe in a transcendent God who designed us for a purpose, believe in universal morality? Thus, moral relativism is the direct result of a naturalistic world view. We theists believe that their are universal laws and a power that created us for a purpose. These universal laws are both physical and moral. While everyone understand the severity of not following the phyical (gravity-if you jump off of a 10 story building you will perish), many do not see the importance of folling the moral laws (there are consequences to extra-marrital affairs...pain, broken marriage, STD's). Naturalists (moral relativists) do not understand how the system works and that a Creator made the system and created the laws so that the wise who heed them would be as free from pain as possible.

The classic example of the irreducible complexity is the human eye. An eye is of no use unless all its parts are fully formed and working together. Even a slight alteration from its current form destroys its function. How then could the eye evolve by slight alterations? Even on Darwin's day the complexity of the eye was offered as evidence against his theory, and Darwin said the mere thought of trying to explain the eye gave him "a cold shudder".

Uh, come again? What the heck are you even trying to say with this?! Darwin's experiments, although extensive, were almost always focused on highly specific questions i.e. of morphological variation within and among species, variation in wild versus domestic animals (pigeons
Pigeons!!! You're going to use Darwin's work with pigeons to combat my argument?
Yes, Darwin was able to create pigeons with spectacular variations (huge fantails, bulging beaks- variations with feathers and tails). But despite all of these spectacular variations, the pigeons remained pigeons. They represent a cyclical change in gene frequencies but no new genetic information.
Another historic example is plant breeders trying to increase the sugar content of sugar beets. They did so from 6 to 17 percent over 75 years. But they could go no further (over the next 50yrs.). Why, because once all the genes for a particular trait have been selected, breeding can go no further. Breeding shuffles and selects among existing genes in the gene pool but breeding does not create new genes any more than shuffling creates more cards. A bird cannot grow fur and a mouse cannot grow wings.

Thanks, first day!

The late Francis Schaeffer used to say...Suppose a fish evolves lungs. What happens then? Does it move up the next evolutionary stage? No, it drowns!
Organisms within our system are irreducibly complex. Thus, organisms couldn't possibly survive a piecemeal evolution but would have to have a quick transition. This combats Darwins principles that organisms evolved piecemeal over billions of years.
Evolutionists propose that bats evolved from a small mouselike creature whose forelimbs developed into wings in gradual steps. But picture the steps: As the forelimbs (front toes) grow longer and the skin begins to grow between them, the animal can no longer run without stumbling over them; and yet the forelimbs are not long enough to function as wings. So, the poor creature would have limbs too long for running and too short for flying. It would flop helplessly and soon become extinct.

The funniest part of "intelligent design" for me is its inherent paradox, not mentioned in the 15 answers: if design is required for any phenomena of sufficient complexity, then who designed God?

Then if we do not have an transcendent God who created us, what do you believe? Does it take more faith to believe that a premordial soup was struck by a shot of energy and a single celled mechanism was the direct result? Do you also believe that Mt. Rushmore was the direct result of erosion?
The antropic principle states that the physical structure of the universe is exactly what is needed to sustain life (any closer to the sun and we would burn and any farther away and we would freeze). Do you believe that all the intricacies of the universe are just the result of happen-stance?

Second Law of Thermodynamics - Increased Entropy
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is commonly known as the Law of Increased Entropy. While quantity remains the same (First Law), the quality of matter/energy deteriorates gradually over time. How so? Usable energy is inevitably used for productivity, growth and repair. In the process, usable energy is converted into unusable energy. Thus, usable energy is irretrievably lost in the form of unusable energy.
Am I and numerous others reading it wrong?? Evolution is is a constant state of evolving while our lives are actually dying.
Why don't you enlighten me...

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Maybe you have heard of Law of Conservation of Matter. This states that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. This propped up the materialist philosophy.

Science and reason are the anthitisis to Darwinism. Evolution and thus Naturalism were only created because science found that Materialim (the belief that the earth just was- no end and no beginning) was impossible by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (matter is in a constant state of disinigration and decay- thus our bodies break down and our cars rust). So those who refused to subscribe to a Theistic belief worked to create a theory that did not have a transcendent Creator (historians even recoginze that Darwin was first committed to the philosophy of naturalism and worked to create a theory that furthered his world view). Even Darwin's experiments did not point to an evolutionary cause and effect but back to a transcendent Creator.