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11/19/2005 07:43:29 PM · #1201 |
It didn't make news, on the front or back pages of leading American newspapers, but Professor Antony Flew, a prominent British philosopher who is considered the world's best-known atheist, has cited advancements in science as proof of the existence of God.
But those who believe in intelligent design or find gaping holes in the theory of evolution frequently encounter a hostile press. The Discovery Institute focuses on the issue of whether there is any evidence of design in nature, rather than whether there is a designer. Still, its representatives tend to be portrayed in religious terms by the media.
Such a tactic is common operating procedure by the ACLU, which is determined to portray any alternative to evolution as religious and therefore not allowed to be taught or even discussed in the public schools.
Some links here on Scientific basis of Creationism
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11/19/2005 08:57:04 PM · #1202 |
Originally posted by jadin:
I'll concur to the after-the-fact interpretation. |
Exactly.
By the same reasoning, the Qu'ran also contains scientific predictions. Incidentally, also amazingly discovered to be in the Quâran after the fact of discovery. I suppose you ought to start accepting the Qu'ran as the word of God ... er ... I mean Allah.
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11/19/2005 09:16:40 PM · #1203 |
Originally posted by Gracious:
It didn't make news, on the front or back pages of leading American newspapers, but Professor Antony Flew, a prominent British philosopher who is considered the world's best-known atheist, has cited advancements in science as proof of the existence of God. |
Hereâs a statement from Mr. Flew from October 2004 regarding suggestions that he said "probably God exists" (incidentally, much different than your assertion that he âcited advancements in science as proof of the existence of Godâ):
âI do not think I will ever make that assertion, precisely because any assertion which I am prepared to make about God would not be about a God in that sense ... I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations.â
and
âMy one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms.â
Later, in December 2004, he went on to state:
âI now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction.â
and
âI have been mistaught by Gerald Schroeder [an author and physicist who has been criticized for fudging the facts to fit his supposition]" ... âit was precisely because he appeared to be so well qualified as a physicist (which I am not) that I was never inclined to question what he said about physics.â
Much less of a brouhaha than you've made it out to be. |
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11/19/2005 10:19:22 PM · #1204 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Originally posted by Gracious:
It didn't make news, on the front or back pages of leading American newspapers, but Professor Antony Flew, a prominent British philosopher who is considered the world's best-known atheist, has cited advancements in science as proof of the existence of God. |
Hereâs a statement from Mr. Flew from October 2004 regarding suggestions that he said "probably God exists" (incidentally, much different than your assertion that he âcited advancements in science as proof of the existence of Godâ):
âI do not think I will ever make that assertion, precisely because any assertion which I am prepared to make about God would not be about a God in that sense ... I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations.â
and
âMy one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms.â
Later, in December 2004, he went on to state:
âI now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction.â
and
âI have been mistaught by Gerald Schroeder [an author and physicist who has been criticized for fudging the facts to fit his supposition]" ... âit was precisely because he appeared to be so well qualified as a physicist (which I am not) that I was never inclined to question what he said about physics.â
Much less of a brouhaha than you've made it out to be. |
You know what excuses are like don't you? |
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11/19/2005 10:31:17 PM · #1205 |
Originally posted by jsas:
You know what excuses are like don't you? |
Do you have anything useful to contribute to the discussion? |
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11/19/2005 11:32:27 PM · #1206 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Originally posted by jsas:
You know what excuses are like don't you? |
Do you have anything useful to contribute to the discussion? |
There is nothing useful to say, it has already been said. |
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11/20/2005 01:50:49 AM · #1207 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
By the same reasoning, the Qu'ran also contains scientific predictions. Incidentally, also amazingly discovered to be in the Quâran after the fact of discovery. I suppose you ought to start accepting the Qu'ran as the word of God ... er ... I mean Allah. |
By this reasoning, because you think windows is a decent OS you should also run Macintosh and Linux on your PC. Since they are all decent OSes.
Reality is you choose which suits you best, which makes the most sense to you. |
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11/20/2005 10:48:31 AM · #1208 |
Originally posted by jadin:
By this reasoning, because you think windows is a decent OS you should also run Macintosh and Linux on your PC. Since they are all decent OSes.
Reality is you choose which suits you best, which makes the most sense to you. |
Your reasoning doesnât follow unless you are suggesting that Muslim were intended for belief in the Quâran and Christians were intended for belief in the Bible. A vast majority of Christians and Muslims were taught what to believe by their parents and their culture and did not choose their core beliefs.
Reality is reality regardless of what anyone chooses to believe. Choosing not to believe something does not make that something ânot realityâ regardless of how much sense it makes to you.
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11/20/2005 11:07:12 AM · #1209 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Originally posted by jadin:
By this reasoning, because you think windows is a decent OS you should also run Macintosh and Linux on your PC. Since they are all decent OSes.
Reality is you choose which suits you best, which makes the most sense to you. |
Your reasoning doesnât follow unless you are suggesting that Muslim were intended for belief in the Quâran and Christians were intended for belief in the Bible. A vast majority of Christians and Muslims were taught what to believe by their parents and their culture and did not choose their core beliefs.
Reality is reality regardless of what anyone chooses to believe. Choosing not to believe something does not make that something ânot realityâ regardless of how much sense it makes to you. |
No I'm saying they are both religions, but you don't have to believe in one because you believe in the other. For all I know every religion may be correct, but I don't have to be them all because of that possibility. |
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11/20/2005 11:51:21 AM · #1210 |
With all of issues facing the U.S., our leaders and lawmakers decide that our most pressing issue should be to define a marriage as between a man and a woman. Are you kidding me? This is the pressing issue of the day?! How about constitutional amendments that:
1. Assure every American affordable healthcare;
2. Mandate that before we send our young men and women into a "war" that we have our facts straight;
3. Reduce our dependency on fossil fuels so that I don't have to pay $3, $4 or dare I say $5/gallon.
Honestly, do I have to be told what a family is?...what marriage is? If the notion of two gay people getting married is destuctive to the concept of "family" then married men and women have been obliterating the concept of a family when they get divorced. Give me a break...live and let live. |
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11/20/2005 01:24:20 PM · #1211 |
Originally posted by jsas:
Originally posted by pidge:
Originally posted by jsas:
Is there any transfigured fossils found? What evidence is there? I mean I know some people who give it a strong case, just by the way they act but come on, this is like defending a cupcake in a fat camp its pointless. |
Few things - There are gaps in the fossil records due to various reason. One reason is that the conditions for fossilization simply weren't there. I believe sediment and other various conditions need to be met for fossils to form. Others include shifting plates and such, which is one of the reason fossils are still beign discovered today, and new organisms are being unearther all the time. They have found fossils of extinct creatures that seem to be in an evolutionary transition from say, fish that 'walk' on the floor of the ocean to amphibians.
Another thing is time. Evolution does not happen in a few years, not even over a few hundred or thousand years. It happens over millions, if not billions of years. This amount of time is a concept we cannot comprehend. If we took the age of earth and made it into a 24 hour clock, humans have existed for one half of one second (I think. I may be off by a quarter of a second or so.)
As has been stated, evolution can be researched and tested under the scientific method. ID can not. Until it can, it shouldn't be taught in a SCIENCE classroom. This has been debated in this thread before, but it's so lnog I don't even know where it is.
Anyways, there is insurmountable evidence supporting the theory of evolution, and I think comparing it to defending a cupcake in a fat camp is naive and ill-informed.
Anyways, what's wrong with a cupcake in a fat camp if it's a non-fat, naturally sweetened cupcake? |
You theory is way off I am sorry but..........a non-fat cupcake!? thats even more pointless LOL |
Which theory? If your talking about the stuff I presented on fossils, feel free to prove the evidence wrong. If your talking about the cupcake, you presented the ridiculous analogy about defending it in a fat camp and I'm just presenting a possible defense. All in good humour but I can never tell on these forums. |
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11/20/2005 02:45:18 PM · #1212 |
| I was joking about the cupcake.lol |
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11/20/2005 03:43:24 PM · #1213 |
Originally posted by jadin:
No I'm saying they are both religions, but you don't have to believe in one because you believe in the other. |
And therein lies the problem of using metaphors or âcherry pickedâ passages within specific ancient religious texts and tying them to modern scientific discovery. Anyone can use such reasoning to support their own religious beliefs, thus making such assertions spiritually vacuous.
A second problem with trying to tie religious passages to modern scientific discovery is that science makes no claims as to being perfect. Theories can be overturned if a hypothesis is proposed and tested that better explains the data. Does your particular religious text suddenly become âwrongâ if youâve tied some passage within it to a recently overturned scientific theory? You could claim a wrong interpretation for a particular passage, but that leaves your position open to the real possibility for wrong interpretation on all after-the-fact predictions.
These are the dangers of using ancient religious texts as after-the-fact predictors of scientific discovery; anyone can do it for nearly any religious text and science as a whole makes no claims of inerrancy.
Originally posted by jadin:
For all I know every religion may be correct, but I don't have to be them all because of that possibility. |
Since religions contradict each other about the nature of reality, I think we can safely agree that not all religions are correct. To paraphrase the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, not all religions are correct, but some may be more correct than others.
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11/20/2005 04:24:56 PM · #1214 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
And therein lies the problem of using metaphors or âcherry pickedâ passages within specific ancient religious texts and tying them to modern scientific discovery. Anyone can use such reasoning to support their own religious beliefs, thus making such assertions spiritually vacuous. |
To a degree. But usually it's pretty obvious that it was "cherry picked". As was my opinion of RonB's examples. And your opinion of mine.
Originally posted by milo655321:
A second problem with trying to tie religious passages to modern scientific discovery is that science makes no claims as to being perfect. Theories can be overturned if a hypothesis is proposed and tested that better explains the data. Does your particular religious text suddenly become âwrongâ if youâve tied some passage within it to a recently overturned scientific theory? You could claim a wrong interpretation for a particular passage, but that leaves your position open to the real possibility for wrong interpretation on all after-the-fact predictions. |
In this instance I would say it becomes wrong. I very well could be wrong in my interpretation. But (IMO) these scriptures are quite clear.
Originally posted by milo655321:
These are the dangers of using ancient religious texts as after-the-fact predictors of scientific discovery; anyone can do it for nearly any religious text and science as a whole makes no claims of inerrancy. |
See above.
Originally posted by milo655321:
Since religions contradict each other about the nature of reality, I think we can safely agree that not all religions are correct. To paraphrase the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, not all religions are correct, but some may be more correct than others. |
Your point? My statement was hypothetical. |
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11/20/2005 05:24:01 PM · #1215 |
Originally posted by jadin:
To a degree. But usually it's pretty obvious that it was "cherry picked". As was my opinion of RonB's examples. And your opinion of mine. |
Isnât it obvious that statements such as âHe stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live inâ is a metaphor? Isnât it obvious the word âstretchesâ used several times in the same book (Isaiah) is an extension of that same metaphor? If you say ânoâ and âno,â weâll just have to agree to disagree.
Originally posted by jadin:
In this instance I would say it becomes wrong. I very well could be wrong in my interpretation. But (IMO) these scriptures are quite clear. |
And in my opinion quite clearly metaphors and poetic language.
Originally posted by jadin:
Your point? My statement was hypothetical. |
I guess my point is that, if you accept a consistent universe, your statement âFor all I know every religion may be correctâ is wrong. If you donât accept a consistent universe, then your hypothetical statement could be correct and, in follow up, Iâm not particularly interested in arguing the merits of a hypothetically inconsistent universe.
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11/20/2005 05:49:28 PM · #1216 |
Actually, I think when you use the construct "like a ___" it's considered a simile, meaning similar, same, or equivalent to.
Message edited by author 2005-11-20 17:50:42. |
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11/20/2005 05:54:40 PM · #1217 |
i just clawed my way off of my deathbed, and lo and behold this beast is still lumbering. woo hoo!
after reading 1200-odd posts, i have to say that out of ALL of the ridiculous statements that have been made here, this one takes the cake:
Originally posted by Gracious:
There is just as much intolerance towards Christians as there is towards homosexuals. |
pardon the phrase, but
oh...my...god.
and with that, i'm gonna take some more nyquil and go back to sleep. see you tomorrow. |
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11/20/2005 05:55:38 PM · #1218 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Actually, I think when you use the construct "like a ___" it's considered a simile, meaning similar, same, or equivalent to. |
Darn it! You're right, of course. Dear reader, please feel free remove all my references to "metaphor"s and replace them with "simile"s.
From Wikipedia:
'Metaphor and simile are two of the best known tropes and are often mentioned together as examples of rhetorical figures. Metaphor and simile are both terms that describe a comparison: the only difference between a metaphor and a simile is that a simile makes the comparison explicit by using "like" or "as."' |
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11/20/2005 08:12:30 PM · #1219 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Isnât it obvious that statements such as âHe stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live inâ is a metaphor? Isnât it obvious the word âstretchesâ used several times in the same book (Isaiah) is an extension of that same metaphor? If you say ânoâ and âno,â weâll just have to agree to disagree. |
We'll have to agree to disagree.
Originally posted by milo655321:
I guess my point is that, if you accept a consistent universe, your statement âFor all I know every religion may be correctâ is wrong. If you donât accept a consistent universe, then your hypothetical statement could be correct and, in follow up, Iâm not particularly interested in arguing the merits of a hypothetically inconsistent universe. |
Look, you told me I should accept the Qu'ran and Allah based on a false assumption. All I tried to do was point out how that simply isn't true. And your statement that not all religions are correct only helps prove my point.
You seem to want to argue for the sake of arguing. It's getting old fast. |
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11/20/2005 08:19:28 PM · #1220 |
Originally posted by jadin:
You seem to want to argue for the sake of arguing. It's getting old fast. |
I wouldn't call 41 pages and 1216 1217 posts exactly "fast." |
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11/20/2005 08:49:45 PM · #1221 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by jadin:
You seem to want to argue for the sake of arguing. It's getting old fast. |
I wouldn't call 41 pages and 1216 1217 posts exactly "fast." |
I joined late in the game... ;) |
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11/20/2005 08:52:45 PM · #1222 |
Originally posted by jadin:
Look, you told me I should accept the Qu'ran and Allah based on a false assumption. All I tried to do was point out how that simply isn't true. And your statement that not all religions are correct only helps prove my point. |
I didnât say you should accept the Quâran and Allah based on a false assumption. I said you should accept the after-the-fact of scientific discovery predictions found by Islamic scholars in the Quâran based on the same reasons you accept the after-the-fact of scientific discovery predictions you assert are contained the Bible. The reason you donât is because youâre a Christian and not a Muslim, not because the after-the-fact of scientific discovery predictions found in the Bible are necessarily qualitative better or more accurate than the after-the-fact of scientific discovery predictions found in the Quâran.
Originally posted by jadin:
You seem to want to argue for the sake of arguing. It's getting old fast. |
You can always choose not to reply.
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11/20/2005 09:00:43 PM · #1223 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
I didnât say you should accept the Quâran and Allah based on a false assumption. I said you should accept the after-the-fact of scientific discovery predictions found by Islamic scholars in the Quâran based on the same reasons you accept the after-the-fact of scientific discovery predictions you assert are contained the Bible. The reason you donât is because youâre a Christian and not a Muslim, not because the after-the-fact of scientific discovery predictions found in the Bible are necessarily qualitative better or more accurate than the after-the-fact of scientific discovery predictions found in the Quâran. |
Half-a-dozen one way, six another. |
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11/20/2005 09:03:31 PM · #1224 |
Originally posted by jadin:
Half-a-dozen one way, six another. |
Thank you for agreeing with my point. |
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11/21/2005 04:29:31 AM · #1225 |
Originally posted by milo655321:
Thank you for agreeing with my point. |
Whatever you say chief... |
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