CALM BEFORE THE STORM-Evolution is quite possibly the most important subject of controversy regarding the religion versus science debate. For many years I ignored the evidence before me as I chose the Bible over science books, and I felt as though Satan himself was deceiving the world with this theory that humans evolved from more primative life. I asked, how dare these scientists relegate humans to this inferior status? My own arrogance blinded my sight. You see, rule number one in progress is accepting the fact that your current position may be wrong. Your current knowledge could be incorrect, but when you release your thoughts from the 6-sided cube that surrounds your mind, doors open. Questions begin to be answered (without having to believe in supernatural explanations.)
There is something that occurs around the age of 18 that all humans experience; it's called "figuring it out." It's my estimation that approximately 90% of people close their mind completely at this age and the window narrows regarding their true capacity to accept new ideas. Also, growing up in Southern Oklahoma is not very conducive to belief in anything besides Biblical dogma, but with every breath I take, the barriers, the chains, the attachments are becoming broken. I finally feel a semblance of FREEDOM. I have lived in fear for so many years; totally controlled. Living my life for someone else. Living my life for Jesus. A person that I had never seen, never directly spoken with, never directly knew. How can a relationship exist when the other party has no physical voice or appearance? Some may say, "Jesus speaks to me everyday. I 'feel' it. I believe." I say, "Why?" For what reason do you believe? Do you believe because you are seeking eternal life? If so, that's self-interest. Do you believe because your parents told you to? If so, that's undeserving of any "eternal life" as well. Do you believe because it "feels" right? It "feels" right for Satanists to worship Satan. Satanists believe that Jesus is the real deceiver, and God's plan is actually to enslave those that worship Him in the afterlife. They believe that the enemy is not the Devil, but God. Everyone believes their belief is correct. So how would you ever know? Quite simply, you wouldn't when it pertains to gods and pseudosciences. That is why I turn to evidence, reality, and that is why I am extensively studying Darwinian evolution. Evolution is a key to finding truth about our lives. It lets us accurately identify what motivates us on a daily basis. Evolution provides us with factual, believable, logical, rational answers to imposing questions about the many aspects of life. Opening your mind's door is most important in giving evolution a fair take, and sadly, many will never take this first step. It took me years to do it, hopefully it won't take many who read my blog nearly as long.
56 comments:
Evolution is REAL. But so is God! Why does there have to be one or the other. I believe both are correct. Try linking the 2 together. Be more open minded! ;)
Actually I'll get to that possibility later on, but I will say that in most of the United States' churches today, evolution is not accepted. First off though, I want people to try to discover the true reasons that they even believe in God in the first place. And also look at the possibility that if God even exists, he/she/it may be a very different being than you originally thought. Also, evolution is a widely misunderstood topic. If you truly understand how it works, then you can start to uncover the reasons why humans may have created God in the first place.
My only big question is.....Evolutionary speaking...Out of all the species of life that have existed, long long before human beings, and some are still around even to this day.....Why are we the only beings that have true consciousness? Regret, anger, joy, shock, etc. We have the ability to see and comprehend more than any other known species. This is more than just evolution. When we reached a certain point of evolution, we were enlightened. Why just humans? That can only be attributed to a higher intelligence. You can call it what you want, but that is God to me!
How do you know humans are the only species to have pure consciousness? Chimpanzees' DNA is similar to ours by 98%. Yes, I will agree that humans have superior mental capacity over other lifeforms on earth, but we still exhibit the same basic emotions. Couldn't our intelligence simply be a by-product of natural selection? It's nothing supernatural in my opinion. Just because a Chimp can't speak English doesn't mean it doesn't feel any of our emotions. We just happened to be smart enough to give ourselves immortality in an afterlife whereas Chimps evidently aren't capable of that yet. A good article on this can be found here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4595810.ece
Hmm. As you know, there are 2 sides to every coin. You can go with heads or tails. The ones who choose not to debate this too much, have the ability to look at the coin as a whole. Is it black, or white? Or is it gray? A chimp might actually be more likely to see both sides due to their lack of deception, or being able to tell a lie. Try to grasp the "whole coin".
Diverting attention away from the specifics of the argument at hand is a logical fallacy known as "the red herring." Although it's not as much of a fallacy as it is an evasive tactic, creationists often have to employ this strategy. Preachers, for example, are masters of the side-step. Very much like salesmen, they are skilled and well-versed at the art of conversation. My point is this; I believe in arguing from evidence, examples, and deductive logic (science), not bias, preconception, and ultimately ambiguity (religion.) It's easy to say "look at the big picture" and leave the blanks unfilled. My goal is to put some of the puzzle together for not only myself, but others that are seeking answers.
What’s truly fascinating about your post is that I could repeat most of it word for word but from the totally opposite viewpoint. It’s not clear to me if you’ve done this simply to incite controversy or if you truly feel this way. For example, I am working on a book that will hopefully educate people about creation science and its intricacies. Creation theory is quite possibly the most important subject of controversy regarding the religion (evolution) vs science (creation) debate. For many, many years I ignored the evidence before my very eyes and I chose evolution over science. I discovered that it was Satan himself deceiving the world with the theory that humans evolved from more primitive life in order to relegate humans to an inferior status. My own arrogance blinded my sight. You see, rule number one in progress is accepting the fact that that your current position may be wrong. Your current knowledge could be incorrect, but when you release your thoughts from the 6-sided cube that surrounds your mind, doors open. Questions begin to be answered (without having to believe in fairy tales like evolution.) There is this thing that all humans experience throughout their lives. It is the Lord calling them. It's my estimation that approximately 90% of people close their minds and hearts to His voice. Usually at one of the lowest points in their lives with no one else but God to turn to, some repent of their sins and receive God’s salvation. Also, growing up in the north is not very conducive to belief in anything besides evolutionary dogma, but with every breath I take, the barriers, the chains, the attachments are broken. I finally feel a semblance of FREEDOM, living my life for Jesus, a person that I have seen and spoken with. I do not follow Jesus for the give of eternal life alone. Nor do I follow him because my parents told me to or because it “feels” right. I follow Him in THANKFULNESS for everything He has done for me. My faith is NOT that God exists. There is overwhelming evidence for that fact. My faith is that God will perform the promises He made to every one of us. Everyone, including evolutionists, believes their belief is correct. So how would you ever know? Quite simply, you wouldn't especially when it comes to the religion of evolution. That is why I turn to evidence, reality, and that is why I am extensively studying creation science. God’s word is the key to finding meaning, origin, and purpose for our lives. It lets us accurately identify what motivates us on a daily basis. God’s Words provides us with factual, believable, logical, and rational answers to imposing questions about the many aspects of life. The key to understanding this truth is checking your pride and biases at the door.
Now, I am sincere regarding everything I have said above, but I doubt the sincerity of your words. It is simply beyond me as to how you would find meaning and purpose for your life through evolution when it assigns no more value to a human than to a slug and when it has been the cause of the mass murder of literally billions of lives throughout history.
"Faith drives the evolutionist, truth drives the creationist." –Me
"Evolution is the cause of mass murder of billions of lives throughout history?" You mean religion right? (Jason scratches head.) Your post was interesting, but just because our opinions differ doesn't make me any less authentic. You haven't the shred of inkling about me personally so it's a little odd that you said you doubt my sincerity. I have no agenda, no profit motivation with this site, and basically no other purpose for this blog other than the fact that I want to be a "spark plug" for people's minds. I simply hate seeing people blindly follow the leader. Example: Child is born, parents tell them to worship God because parent has been told to worship God because God gets them to Heaven, parent tells child to go to church, church tells child to give money to church, and the child never questions why they're doing all of this (of course because they are assured a ticket to Heaven.) Anyways, to answer the concerns about the meaning and purpose of my life: quite simply, I love my life. I love my daughter, my wife, my family, myself, and my time here on Earth. What other reason is there to get out of bed in the morning? You lost credibility when you basically said there is no purpose without God. That is simply not true, and you are truly remiss if you believe that. Do you love God more than you love yourself? Do you love God more than your family? You aren't motivated by someone on the other side of the world that you've never seen so what's different about God? (Other than the possibility that He holds the key to your reward.) Could it be possible that your relationship with God is artificial? Insincere? What motivates you? When you tear down the facade of God, are you believing in Him just so you can enter the "pearly gates?" The data is skewed because it's impossible to be objective, impartial, and unbiased when there is an incentive involved. Of course it's easy to believe in God, Heaven, and eternal bliss in the afterlife because it's a rather convenient belief. And yet again, I am provided with another creationist answer. One that indeed provides broad answers, but ignores any of the details about life, evolution, and origins.
I’m breaking this post into 2 sections because of the length restrictions:
Look, perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. I meant no offense by doubting your sincerity. I did not say that simply because our opinions differ. I said it because your comments directly mimic what normally a “religious” person would say about salvation from God… that is truth, freedom, loss of fear, meaning and purpose to life, and answers to life’s questions. I have never seen these things applied to evolutionary beliefs and so it appeared deliberate and shallow to me from someone who had a chip on their shoulder. Now, if evolution really brings you those things, than all power to you. However, I suspect you will have a rude awakening someday. You say you love your life, your daughter, wife and yourself. Heaven forbid, but let’s say your child gets hit by a car tomorrow, you lose your job and without money your wife divorces you. Distraught you attempt suicide and become crippled in the attempt. How much would you love your life then? How much comfort would evolution bring to you? This seems very short sighted to me.
True, I know little about you personally. However, it’s more than a “shred of inkling” because you’ve chosen to write about yourself and so I have learned something about you from your words (more so than the other way around since you’ve read little of my writings). You seem offended by my suggestion that you may be insincere, yet you spend your entire post judging me and my motives and then in the end telling me that I’m insincere and not credible. Why don’t we just call it even and move to a kinder tone? While blogs and posts tend to emphasize disagreement, we should at least assume that the other person is telling the truth about themselves. Going forward, I’ll try to respect what you say about yourself as true until you prove me wrong. Perhaps we should stick to facts and evidence instead of trying to guess how the other feels personally?
Regarding some of your comments, you continue to turn things on their head. If you really hate to see people blindly follow the leader, than I am surprised you have chosen the evolutionary path. We are taught evolutionary dogma throughout our educational careers and so many blindly follow it without question like lemmings over a cliff. No other scientific alternatives are allowed. You cannot even question the evidence for evolution or you risk losing your job like so many others have. This is nothing but evolutionary bigotry, not science, and these strong arm techniques are more associated with fascist rule than in a free country. On the other hand, those that closely examine the evidence and break the mold become creationists.
Violence stemming from Christian religions pales in comparison to those brought about by evolutionary principles. For example, Hitler used racist evolutionary thinking to murder millions of those he considered belonging to the “inferior” race. Australian aborigines were slaughtered, the skin boiled off their bones and their skulls sent to museums as examples of less evolved humans! If you need more detailed statistics, I can provide them.
As far as your judgments on the authenticity of my relationship with God, it seems to me that since you apparently have failed in yours that because of pride you assume everyone else’s relationship is also a failure. So you think you have purpose without God? I’ve already demonstrated that the things of this world are temporary and fleeting. If your family is the only reason you get out of bed, what will you do if they are taken from you? Stay in bed? Yes, I love God more than I love myself and I would be willing to give my life for Him if He required it. How can you even suggest that God is comparable to “someone on the other side of the world”? You obviously cannot have a clue as to what a relationship with God really means. It is in no way a convenient or “easy” belief since many around the world and throughout history have endured much persecution and suffering for their belief in God.
You say that it's impossible to be objective, impartial, and unbiased when there is an incentive involved. What is your incentive? Acceptance by others who also believe in evolution? Acceptance by the “world”? God warned against being like the “world”. Why do you work? Would you go to your job everyday if you were not paid? Would you be married to your wife if she constantly criticized and nagged you? Would you be married to your wife if you believed in God and she didn’t? Is her love your incentive for pleasing her? God created us and our families as examples of how he loves us. Our earthly relationships are no different than the relationship we have with our heavenly Father.
Finally, you accuse my response of being just another creationist answer that “provides broad answers, but ignores any of the details”. Where are the details in your posts? If you want to get into details, I would be happy to oblige. You want to be a “spark plug” for people’s minds? I hope I have done the same.
For a list of Hitler quotes relating to his religious views, see:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm
Hitler hated the Jews because they killed Christ. That was his fuel for trying to eradicate them. This speech stuck out to me.
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
There is an interesting thought running through all of these posts that puzzles me. Why are all of these arguments based on a relationship with a god? This ignores a fundamental issue and that is; why do you believe this god is real? What logical basis do you have for this belief system? Is there some empirical evidence that has created this belief and if so what is it? Your elationship with god is a relationship with yourself. I bet that if I got 100 theists to write what god was on a bit of paper there would be 100 gods. For some he is love, to others a father, to others a saviour and to others a fearsome judge. Waht you have is differing imaginings of what a god should be based on a range of influences and experiences but what you don't have is proof of god.
@Maws. I asked, in one of my other posts, if God was indeed speaking to everyone, then why is it that there are so many denominations of the church and interpretations of the Bible? Wouldn't the omnipotent and omniscient God be able to keep the story straight? Instead, we have preachers over here saying one thing and pastors over there spouting completely different ideas about what God is saying.
@Maws. You are in denial, as are most atheists. Why would anyone believe in God if there were no evidence? The evidence is so overwhelming it would take thousands of these posts just to touch the surface. This includes empirical, logical and spiritual evidence. My goodness, what “proof” do you have that He doesn’t exist? In addition, because God reveals himself differently to different people doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. Why can’t he be ALL those things you describe?
@ragzy – God has kept the story straight. Because God spoke to everyone doesn’t mean they have to listen! His Words were perfectly captured in scripture and today with the exception of some insignificant translation errors are just what He intended them to be. He tells us how He created the universe, the history of the world, why He created man, how man sinned which severed our relationship with God, and how we can be reconciled back to God through his Son Jesus Christ. That is the TRUTH. Truth is not found in religions. There are many religions and myths which have twisted or destroyed the truth. In addition, man is fallible and that’s why there are disagreements, denominations and interpretations. Don’t follow RELIGION. Follow Jesus. Ask God for guidance and then read the Bible to make up your own mind as to what it says. God is faithful to guide his true believers to the truth.
There is no evidence and this has been the great revelation since the enlightenment. The evidence that theologists have used turns out to be inconclusive or no use as a proof. Science has shown that much of what passed for evidence of god is no such thing. Simply saying yo have proof and that I am in denial is not an argument and really only works on people that believe that it is impolite to question people's faiths. Pity I am not one of these people so I want to know what is your number 1 piece of evidence or logical proof.I don't have to disprove god beyond saying he is not real. If he is build a stack of red elephants in the shape of the word I am thinking of right now in the middle of Notre Dame cathedral. See what a sport I am to give him home court advantage What's the bet that I get up tomorrow and this has not taken place. Ergo, no entity called god who can hear, see and so anything. Imagine how that would change the debate. For a control I will write the word down and mail it to an agnostic just to be fair. You have no 100% concrete evidence.
Part 2 of 2: On the scientific side there is Intelligent Design Theory. This is a scientific theory which uses the same scientific methods used in Darwin’s theory. In principal ID theory states that since intelligent agents we observe today generate high levels of complex and specified information (CSI) and we find high levels of CSI in nature, we can infer the prior action of an intelligent agent. Science in recent years has discovered the irreducibility of complex interdependent machines inside the cell organized and run by digital information and languages in our DNA, RNA and other areas. Scientific observations tell us that this could only have come about from an intelligent cause. While this disproves much of Darwinism, the positive case for ID and its application in many fields of science can be found here: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=986
The Bible, of course, claims to be the Word of God to his creation. Every aspect of it is incredibly accurate and truthful. It has made thousands of predictions that have come true which is unheard of in any other book testifying to the truth of its author. However, one of my favorite proofs for God is the scientific backing for the accurate eye-witness accounts of our history from the Bible, in particular Genesis. There is simply overwhelming scientific evidence contrary to Darwin and in support of scientific creation theory which is based on these eye-witness accounts. Therefore, since the Bible claims to be God’s Word it must be accurate wherever it touches upon history or science. The scientific proof of these eye-witness accounts therefore supports the existence of God. If you’d like to explore that further, I can provide specific examples.
@raisemeup. I don't think irreducible complexity is much of an argument for creationists anymore. I could be wrong, but from the majority of articles I have read on it, the irreducibly complex theories are falling flat on their heads. Kind of like the half an eye theory. What good is half an eye? Well, a half an eye is a whole lot better than no eyes so the point here is that throughout evolution, eyesight has developed from possibly just seeing vague figures or colors, to our eyesight today, and I've saw plenty of links on the net showing how the eye is, in fact, NOT irreducibly complex.
ID? ID is not science and I have the word of a series of Federal Court cases that has Behe's admission of this. It offers no testable hypothesis or in fact any discernable designer other than a god. The same god that won't prove himself to me for the range of bullshit reasons you trotted out. By him not doing this I have grounds for disbelief because he HAS shown himself to humans in the past and done what they have asked. COP OUT. The KCA that you drag out is not proof of jack shit. First you have to prove that universes fit into the set of things that need causes. As to life, yes- occam's razor applies here. It IS more likely that life is built of the organic compounds that are common in the galaxy by a chemical reaction than it is that a god fucked around for 9 billion years just to come up with Jerry Falwell and George W. Is this all you have? A discredited wannabe scientific joke and the fact you think you hear voices? Give me the slam dunk that proves this god is outside your head.
Irreducible complexity has not been refuted in the least. I’m sure the majority of articles you have read have been those opposed to ID. All of these oppositions to irreducible complexity have in turn been refuted by ID scientists. You have to really look in depth at the utter complexity of the eye to understand how it could not have evolved. Seriously, anyone can come up with an “explanation” for anything, particularly how something evolved since evolution is so plastic it will accept any data (which is why it is not falsifiable). Because someone can “imagine” how an eye evolved does NOT mean it happened that way! This is just a story proposed to rescue a dying theory. Where is the empirical evidence showing that the eye evolved this way? Was anyone around millions of years ago to witness this?
@Maws and Raisemeup. Occam's razor signaled a significant shift in my mind when I really took the time to think about it. The simplest explanation for the formation of our universe is that is just happened. If we interject complexity (God) into the equation, it just makes things get messy and complicated. I just wanted to note that more people, when studying logic, should take a look at the Occam's razor principle because it is ingenius. We can also put this principle to the test pertaining to the divinity of the Bible. If it were, in fact, an omnipotent and omniscient God that inspired this Holy Book, then why are there so many contradictions and inconsistencies, and complications. The Bible has been interpreted a million different ways that spawned many different denominations and religions. If the Bible was really perfect, it would use Occam's razor's simplicity factor and the Bible would give us all of the answers without using a harsh example of child sacrifice to get the main point across. And I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If the same God is "speaking" to all of these preachers everywhere, then why is God saying very different things to each one of them. He will "tell" one preacher how the Book of Revelation should be interpreted and "tell" another preacher something totally different. Could it be that God is just in our head? I think this example is pretty overwhelming evidence for God simply being a figment of our imagination. I am really interested in hearing raisemeup's defense for this.
@maws - If ID is not science than neither is evolution since they are both investigated with IDENTICAL scientific methods. BEHE has never admitted ID is not science; his words have simply been misinterpreted by opponents. ID makes NO claim as to WHO the designer is. If you are going to critique a theory, you should at least understand what the theory is. As far as ID is concerned, the designer could be aliens (as Dawkins believes). However, if there is a designer, then God is certainly a strong candidate based on a lot of other evidence. How willing do you think God would be to “prove” Himself to someone who treats Him with such contempt as you do? Not that He won’t, but I’m not sure I’d want Him to if I were you.
Since you admit God has shown himself to humans in the past and done what they have asked, then you have just admitted that He exists! If you don’t believe He did those things, than why do you expect Him to do them today? And He did not simply do what people asked. He is not a trained seal for your amusement. Have a little respect for your Creator (whether you realize He is or not).
ALL things need causes. I thought you were a proponent of science? Science has proven this. What is your set of physical entities that don’t need causes? It is “more likely” that life arose magically from non-life? You are living in a fantasy world. The incredible amount of specified, programmed, digital information in the cell has NO natural explanation. If you’d do a little research, evolutionists do not have a CLUE how this could have arisen by chance. Whether you agree with it or not, I have at least provided you evidence which points to the existence of God. Where is the evidence that life magically arose by itself from a rock?
Sorry, but life is not about “slam dunks”. Jesus said “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” If you will not believe the resurrection, you are not going to believe if God gave you a sign today. You already have all the evidence necessary to believe in Him. If you decide not to accept it, that is your CHOICE.
@ragsy – I have no problem with Occam’s razor. The problem comes in when deciding which explanation is “simpler” and I completely disagree with your assessment. The “simplest” explanation is that the universe “just happened”? That’s no explanation at all! As I explained in another post, this runs contrary to major laws of science. There is no room here, but I would be happy to expound upon the significant number of scientific problems with the big bang that make things so messy and complicated that many secular scientists have rejected it completely. We are interjecting SIMPLICITY to suggest God created the universe in an orderly, predictable fashion which is the only scenario under which Occam’s razor would make any sense. Why would the universe behave in an orderly, predictable and simple fashion if God had not created it that way? If the universe is just result of random atoms, why shouldn’t we expect gravity to just reverse itself tomorrow?
As I stated in another post, there are no “contradictions and inconsistencies” in the Bible. These are invented by those that wish to reject it. God’s knowledge, which is infused in His Words, is far above man’s knowledge. There is much we don’t understand. Because man is arrogant and fallible, he will attempt to “interpret” God’s words to his own ends. God is not the author of confusion, but man is. That is why there are so many different denominations and religions. You are falling into the devil’s trap if you reject the truth just because many people claim to have different versions of it. What is ironic is that you have simply chosen another “religion” (atheism) to believe in. Many people claim atheism is the truth. Yet there are many different interpretations and “sects” (if you will) of atheism as well. Instead of listening to what you think is the inconsistencies in God’s Word, you have substituted it for the inconsistencies of man’s word or the word of so called “science” which changes its mind daily. That hardly seems like a reasonable trade off to me.
On the other hand, the Bible DOES “give us all the answers”. You simply need to seek God’s answers instead of seeking man’s answers. The process is the same, but much more rewarding in the end.
@Raiseme up.
Transcript Dover trial
Q Now, you claim that intelligent design is a scientific theory.
A Yes.
Q But when you call it a scientific theory, you're not defining that term the same way that the National Academy of Sciences does.
A Yes, that's correct.
Q You don't always see eye to eye with the National Academy?
A Sometimes not.
Q And the definition by the National Academy, as I think you testified is, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences and tested hypotheses, correct?
A Yes.
Q Using that definition, you agree intelligent design is not a scientific theory, correct?
A Well, as I think I made clear in my deposition, I'm a little bit of two minds of that. I, in fact, do think that intelligent design is well substantiated for some of the reasons that I made clear during my testimony. But again, when you say well substantiated, sometimes a person would think that there must be a large number of people then who would agree with that. And so, frankly, I, like I said, I am of two minds of that.
Q And actually you said at your deposition, I don't think intelligent design falls under this definition. Correct?
A Yeah
Guess who the A is....Yeah, that's Behe admitting that ID doesn't meet the standard set by the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE!!! Lets try that test for Darwinian Evolution and see what we get....Oh, would you look at that it is a theory.
I was being facetious about god revealing himself and was just using your own belief structure to show that there was no reason for god not to make me an elephant stack.
All things have causes? Really. care to lay out the logical or empirical evidence that you have for this. What data are you working on to draw this conclusion? Is it a mathematical proof maybe? The reality is you have no more evidence that this is true than I have that it may not be true. This is where my point comes in. God is possible but not probable. You cannot say that he 100% exists because the KCA just isn't a valid proof due to its unproved premise. We call these laws of logic in case you are wondering what goes on here.
@maws - As I stated earlier, you are taking Behe’s remarks out of context. That’s called “quote mining” which many evolutionists routinely and falsely accuse creationists of doing when in fact, they are the biggest offenders. Surveys show that over 94% of the NAS is atheist or agnostic. Therefore, their religiously motivated and biased definitions don’t mean a hill of beans. These bigots do everything in their power to squelch any discussion of competing scientific viewpoints that don’t support their atheist religious beliefs. Because they view ID as promoting a supernatural cause (which is not true), they define science as restricted to phenomena which have only natural causes regardless of whether that is true or not. Therefore, if God actually exists and created the universe, science by their definition could not even consider this a possibility nor come to the truth. Yet this is completely contrary to the traditional definition of science which was founded in large part by creation scientists that didn’t hold this view or this definition of science. How could science have been founded by individuals whose theories did not meet the definition of the NAS? Oh my goodness!
Not only this, because many creation theories are recent, they want to define a scientific theory as “well substantiated”. However, this is complete and utter nonsense. How can a scientific theory only be “well substantiated” when Darwin called his work a “theory” in the book where it was first proposed! No one (even secular scientists) will disagree that the term “theory” is used in a variety of ways by scientists and if you had been honest enough to include the rest of the transcript you would see that Behe is simply using a broader definition of a theory (also widely accepted in the scientific community) than the NAS is attempting to use. Behe claimed in the Dover trial and in all of his writings that ID is a scientific theory, so you are being purposely deceitful.
Because atheists have attempted to exclude from science any theories they don’t like, their restricted definitions have now restricted evolution itself. The facts are that ID meets all the same definitions of a theory that evolution does including “well substantiated” since the Dover trial is now many years ago. If you doubt this, it can easily be demonstrated point by point if you’d like.
Oh, and I’m still waiting for your list of physical phenomena that don’t need a cause. Or are you just making exceptions when you can’t figure out what the cause is? Since many atheists denigrate theists for interjecting God into areas science does not understand (i.e. God of the gaps), it seems you are hypocritically doing exactly the same thing. By suggesting not everything needs a cause, you allow anything you like to simply POP into existence as a viable scientific explanation. This is most hypocritical since you denigrate creationists for supposedly suggesting God popped things into existence. So you think the universe just popped into existence from nothing? And that life just popped into existence? Oh yes, that’s a very scientific explanation indeed. Nice try.
Finally, you keep insisting that you need 100% proof of God, however you hypocritically do not have 100% proof of your own beliefs (and never will). The fact is (which I’ve stated many times previously) is that science cannot prove anything 100%. Particularly when referring to ancient historical events, it is the preponderance of the evidence which counts, not “proof” and the evidence for God far exceeds that for evolution. In addition, I do have 100% proof that God exists. God has proved it to me. He will prove it to you as well if you would seek Him with a sincere heart. Unfortunately, it seems it is human nature not to do this until you reach the lowest point in your life imaginable when you have no one else to turn to except God. I pray that when this happens to you (and it happens to all of us) that it is not too late and that you will make the right choice.
Ohhhh Pulease. Behe's words are not out of any context. he was asked if the ID hypothesis met the standards of a scientific theory and it doesn't. It doesn't matter if atheists set the bar on this because the definition is the same one used for chemistry, astronomy, psychology or whatever. The idea must meet laws, facts, inferences and testable hypotheses. There is nothing that would exclude a designer if it were real. This is a red herring defence and it is pathetic. ID has no testable hypothesis and this violates scientific principles made when theists were the norm. You obviously have no idea how competitive and critical scientists are. They are not thologians following the churches teaching here.
Darwin called his work a theory 150 bloody years ago. Since then it has been supported by a range of fields. Why bring Darwin up? That's like saying that Newton was wrong on stuff as well.
Behe's claim to a theory was so wide astrology fitted into it, a fact he admitted in the transcript. Alchemy also fits under this definition of a theory and I tink you might face opposition attempting to chuck those two into the science curriculums. Behe has no evidence that is well substantiated and his IC examples have proven to be anything but IC.
As a typical logical ignoramus you have missed the point about criticism of the KCA. You are claiming the logic fits. It is for you to prove the premises are all true. Any lack of proof of a clause leads to the proof breaking down. I don't have to show that things happen uncaused. You have to show that all things happen due to cause and effect. Thats the way logic works. That's why cosmological arguments are not proof of any prime mover. The prime mover becomes one of a range of options but not the only option. I am happy to say that I am agnostic on this simply because I have no data set to work from and this is the only LOGICAL decision you can come to. A stage 1 philosophy course could teach you this.
As to what the universe popped into I think you are making another untested assumption. Why do you think there was something to pop into? As to life nothing popped at all. I have seen plenty of perfectly rational explanations backed by evidence about how abiogenesis could occur.
You are now being purposely dishonest. Behe was NOT asked if it met the standards of a scientific theory. He was asked if it met the standards of a PARTICULAR definition from the NAS. If you think that the definition of a scientific theory isn’t controversial, then you are ignorant of the facts. There has been a long and extremely contentious debate about what a scientific theory is for a centuries. The definition of “science” itself is hotly debated. It is an absolute FACT that scientist used the word “theory” in a variety of ways to describe scientific theories, hypotheses and speculations. It is not as if atheists are “setting the bar” as in higher expectations. They are attempting to find ways to exclude theories they don’t like (commonly called demarcation arguments) and it simply hasn’t worked. If you look at the transcript that you supplied yourself, he was only questioning the part of the definition that stated it must be “well-substantiated”, NOT that the idea didn’t meet laws, facts, inferences and testable hypothesis. That is why I brought up Darwin’s theory. When it was proposed it was NOT well-substantiated and yet it was called a scientific THEORY. This PROVES that at scientific theory does not have to be well-substantiated when it is in its early stages, so the NAS’s definition is deceptively faulty.
You say there is nothing to exclude a designer if it were real. You are in error. This is NOT a red herring argument. The courts have ruled (erroneously, but they have still ruled) that a scientific theory must conform to “methodological naturalism”. In other words, it a priori EXCLUDES any theory which might infer a supernatural or intelligent cause. One biology textbook defines science this way - “…restrict science to a search for natural causes for natural phenomena. Supernatural explanations of natural events are simply outside the bounds of science”. ID scientists have significant evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer, yet they are routinely discriminated against. ID IS science and DOES have testable hypothesis and so does not violate ANY scientific principles. It is also now well-substantiated and none of Behe’s IC examples have been refuted. Scientists may be competitive and critical, but according to surveys, also routinely falsify their data. You need only look at what happened during the Global Warming hoax to see that.
Look, we are not going to solve cosmological arguments here when great minds have been arguing this point for centuries. However you have clearly lost the argument when you resort to name calling. The fact is that LAWS of science are based on consistent observations. I have no reason to believe something doesn’t need a cause when EVERYTHING I have ever observed requires one. To make an exception simply because I don’t want to believe in the cause is a pathetic excuse. If there are such rational explanations backed by evidence for Abiogenesis, then why hasn’t it been repeated? The fact is that there are much more rational and numerous explanations backed by lots of evidence that says it could NEVER have occurred. In addition, it is contrary to several LAWS of science which atheist conveniently want to ignore. I guess you are back to popping things into existence (including space and time).
Aopolgies for the tardiness I wasn't given an alert to say you had posted. ID is not a scientific theory by any standard because it is untestable and there is no experiment that you could carry out that could check its veracity. It would require your designer (god) to create de novo a species in the lab. It relies on supernatural intervention which means something that is not part of nature must intervene. if it is part of nature where is it? If it is part of nature and can influence matter and energy then it should leave traces or conform to natural laws.
As to behe's claims you may want to check how many parts of the blood clotting cascade are still IC. same with the flagellum. even he is shrinking back on how IC his IC wunderkind actually are. How is ID in possession of a testable hypothesis. where can i find the details of this because nowhere that i can find is it laid out. The nature of the designer, the method used to implement the design, the flaws in design the means of countering the undeniable evidence that designed things evolve have never been clarified.
The fact that people have been tossing cosmological and ontological arguments around for centuries prove that the are inconclusive. Thus useless for making 100% claims. I don't care that you have only observed cause and effect. That is irrelevant to whether universes follow this model because you have never observed the creation of a universe and that is the only way to decide if it has a cause. The fallacy of composition is based on "common sense" and this generally fails in the face of quantum physics. Question to illustrate this. What is the smallest enclousure you could put all the animals on the planet?
@Maws (Part 1 of 3)
Before I begin, I do want to thank you for this response. It is probably your most civil response to date and I appreciate the more reasonable tone, even though the arguments you make are still unfortunately completely invalid. It is obvious that you misunderstand the science behind ID and you are being hypocritical (I’ll be kind and add perhaps unknowingly) by claiming it is not science but that evolution, which would fail the same standards, is science. ID does not test for God, nor speculate on the nature of His existence, nor propose the methods used to implement the design, nor rely on any type of supernatural “intervention” with the ongoing adaptation of life. ID is very narrow in its scope. ID is strictly concerned with detecting the effects of intelligent agency within nature. You are critical of ID because of its implication that God may exist (which is outside the realm of the theory), yet you hypocritically have no trouble with evolutionary theory despite the fact that it also has implications regarding religious philosophy (ie God does not exist).
You continue to rely on evolutionary propaganda sites instead of going to the source of reliable information from those that proposed the theory in the first place. I would suggest the discovery institute for the source of this information. You can still disagree with their position, but at least you will be informed regarding what they actually say their theory is about. I would also recommend you read “signature in the cell” by Stephen Meyer who does a wonderful job of describing ID theory, why it is science, why it is the most reasonable theory regarding the origin of information in the cell and the scientific predictions the theory makes (one of them being that we would find critical functions for “junk” DNA which is exactly what we are finding!).
@Maws (Part 2 of 3)
For example, to graciously save you some work of looking it up yourself, this is from the discovery institute – “The digital code and information processing systems that run the show in living cells point decisively toward prior intelligent design. Indeed, we know from our repeated experience -- the basis of all scientific reasoning -- that systems possessing these features ALWAYS arise from an intelligent source -- from minds, not material processes…The reality is that ID uses the scientific method to make its claims. The scientific method is often described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. ID begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be tested for by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures through genetic knockout experiments to determine if they require all of their parts to function. When experimental work uncovers irreducible complexity in biology, researchers conclude that such structures were designed.”
The rest of your comments are just as hypocritical and baseless. You say ID requires “god” to create de novo a species in the lab. While that is NOT true (as explained above), evolution (Abiogenesis) requires your “evolutionists” to create a “species” in the lab or even an observation that one kind of creature has changed into another, NEITHER of which has happened or ever will happen. Therefore you have actually indicted yourself of requiring faith in “impossible” events outside of observational science by your own statement!
@Maws (Part 3 of 3)
You again indict your own theories by your hypocritical statements here - If disagreement on cosmological arguments proves that they are inconclusive, then evolution is also inconclusive because many scientists (and the majority of others) disagree that it is a valid theory which also makes it useless for making 100% claims. It is not surprising that you don’t care that we have only observed cause and effect, since apparently you also ignore the law of biogenesis which states that life ONLY arises from prior life. This is, in fact, the mark of a true evolutionist who is forced to ignore multiple laws of science, logic and “common sense” to dream up their wild stories based on nothing but their fallible imaginations. If the universe was created, as you claim, then this requires a creator! You also claim that its creation has never been observed and therefore cannot tell if it has a cause. However, this also means that you cannot tell that it didn’t have a cause! Yet God DID observe it and gave us a written accurate eye-witness account, which is the ONLY way to know for sure what happened.
An argument in the form of the “fallacy of composition” is not necessarily fallacious. This is particularly true of cosmological arguments. You can’t just arbitrarily claim that the whole doesn’t have to follow the lead from the parts. In many cases it absolutely does. When the argument is fallacious, we know WHY the whole doesn’t follow the parts. In the absence of any reasonable argument backed by evidence to the contrary, the RATIONAL thing to accept is that whole does indeed follow the same logic as the parts. Therefore, it is rational to believe that since everything in the universe not only requires a cause but can theoretically be traced to a chain of causes, that the universe itself also requires a cause and in fact is the result of the original cause (God).
Part 1
Of course ID is about god. What other designer can be invoked that creates planets and life? The Dover Trial alone determined that ID "is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory". I don't think the wedge document and creatards like William Dempski coming out and saying the designer is the god of the bible have helped.
ID is based on a designer and this presents two options. 1 the designer is a natural entity. This is a problem because it demands you explain how the designer got to the level that 3.5 billion years ago it created life. The answer must be evolution or else you get infinite regression problems. Or 2 it is a supernatural entity and wahaaay we have god. So which is it? The DI goes with god and bullshits about it. Do try and avoid being obviously duplicitous because you end up looking stupid. I have no problem with evolution because it works whether god exists or not and even the vatican recognises that. Also evolution doesn't start with the premise god is not real because Evo is based on the observation of evidence. there could still be a creator of the universe and evo would be cool with that because that does not change the fact that it is the tested and observed mechanism of change for life on earth. ID is not science. It needs god as a first premise and cannot function without it.
I have looked at the DI information and have read their work. God dun it. As to Meyer he is a philosopher of science who has no other idea than god dun it. He works on a false dichotomy using an argument from ignorance. There are other options open to the origins of life that he simply glosses over with the really clever argument that it looks designed so it must be. By his logic snow flakes and rainbows must be created.
part 2
As to the line "we know from our repeated experience -- the basis of all scientific reasoning -- that systems possessing these features ALWAYS arise from an intelligent source -- from minds, not material processes" this is a logical fallacy. Information systems that we make will show signs of intelligence but that does not mean that this proves DNA is man made. If I put Dolly the sheep before you I could claim that she was born by natural intercourse because all sheep that exhibit her physical form are born through natural processes. The fact she was a clone makes a mockery of this. In science you need the evidence or else it is a hypothesis. He proves his case as a philosopher using meta physics not science. I really wish you guys would do Philosophy 101 or something because your grip of logic is universally weak.
As to the CSI there is no guidelines as to what makes something CSI. It looks designed so it must be is all this says. The concept of IC has proven to be virtual nonsense and Is a god of the gaps argument. the work done on blood clotting and the flagellum has showed how weak it is. If ID is a science why does it fail to make the standards set by the US government. The courts keep kicking it into touch because it can't meet the standard. You have theists in power and in the courts and it still can't get past this hurdle.
part 3
Abiogenisis is in luck then. Put down your bible and google Lenski and E coli or KIngsly and sticklebacks or Rijpkema and petunias or Svante Pääbo and Neanderthals or Diaz-Palacios and Caenorhabditis remanei or any one of the other experiments in evo. Give me one example of a lab experiment that supports ID. All ID has is sniper attacks as it picks at what it sees as weak points without ever really revealing its own position beyond a designer did it. How, why, when,etc etc.
Logic again poppet. The basis of ID is the god designer. Any doubt on its existence in the KCA= doubt on the ID idea. Because there is absolutely no evidence on what existed at the moment when expansion began or even if there was anything before things began you are trying to impose metaphysics onto a system based on the rules that followed a collapse of the quantum state. What do you know about the start that astro physicists don't? This is why the KCA is not proof of god. I am open to admitting that god is an option from the KCA but not gauaranteed and that is all you can claim as well. That's not a problem for me but it fucks your point of view rather badly.
BTW god did not write the bible, men did. Why do I say this, because you have no proof of god that would allow you to prove that god exists because he wrote stuff. The book about god is not proof that god exists.
Common sense is bollocks. Tell me, what is the smallest enclosure you could put all the animals on the planet into?
@Maws (part 1 of 4)
LOL, this is getting long, isn’t it? The character limit is supposed to be 4000+ characters, but the “post a reply” box flakes out if you get much more than half of that. Anyway, you are being purposely dishonest. If you’ve actually read any of the literature on ID by those that have proposed the theory, you know very well that it has absolutely nothing to do with God. God is one IMPLICATION of the theory, just as the absence of God is an implication of evolution. Neither implication is actually part of the respective theories. Those implications (many would consider them religious) are outside of the theory. If that makes ID unscientific, evolution is also unscientific on exactly the same grounds. Who people think the designer is, is absolutely irrelevant. What other designer can be invoked, you ask? Dawkins thinks it’s aliens and ID does not rule out that possibility. Certainly, the designer could be any number of gods, not the Biblical god. It could be the flying spaghetti monster for all we know. What we DO know (and all that we know from ID) is that the best scientific evidence we have today points conclusively to the fact that living things have been designed and could not have come about by purely naturalistic means. Period.
Evo as defined by leading evolutionists that promote the various evolutionary theories is NOT at all compatible with any god, particularly the God of the Bible. Either God or evolution (or both) must be erroneously re-defined by those that support compromised theories like theistic evolution. Evo is NOT cool with a creator of the universe because Evo tells us that this occurred by purely materialistic means alone (ie big bang). Many evolutionists were and are still unhappy with the big bang because it implies a “cause”. In an obvious attempt to remove god completely out of the equation, infinitely oscillating big bangs or multi-verses have been proposed. Evo DOES start with the premise that God is not real and then evidence is cherry picked to fit into the theory. I have already demonstrated on several occasions why this is true. What scientific evidence did the ancient Greeks have when they came up with their religious concept of evolutionary theory in the first place?
Evo is not, nor has ever been, a “tested and observed mechanism of change for life on earth”. Historical events cannot be repeated, tested and observed, so you have a fundamental lack of understanding of what science is. Observation and testing of physical phenomena that may have a supernatuaral “cause” is NOT and never has been outside the realm of science. Otherwise, if it is TRUE that God is a first cause, science could never come to this truth. As you have stated, many believe that evolution requires a supernatural cause. By your own logic, that would mean evolution is not science. If evolution is science, then ID is science because they both involve hypothesis and investigative methods centered around historical, unobservable and unrepeatable causes regardless of whether they are materialistic or supernatural in nature. ID is NOT an argument from ignorance any more than evolution is. What evolution does not understand (and there is a lot it does not understand) is ASSUMED to have evolutionary materialistic causes, that is, it is “evolution of the gaps”. So if anyone is arguing from ignorance, it is evolutionists. On the other hand, we know from repeated experience that all things (without exception) that contain high levels of CSI have been designed. Snowflakes and rainbows do NOT contain CSI and are therefore not “created”. Again, it is clear you are getting this stuff from evolutionary propaganda sites. If you had actually read his book, you would know this.
@Maws (part 2 of 4)
Scientific reasoning is NOT a logical fallacy! If it is, then evolution is also a logical fallacy! You continue your rant here about wanting “proof” of everything, yet you have no proof for what you yourself believe! THAT is the logical fallacy! You demand proof for everyone else’s theory, when you don’t have proof of your own. This is PROOF that the evidence doesn’t matter a hill of beans to you. You are going to believe what you want to believe and damn the evidence! Your sheep argument works both ways. It will only be a matter of time before scientists will actually be able to create new forms of life by tweaking the genetic code. If they clone a sheep that’s twice the size with 10 times the amount of wool and I showed you a flock of these in the wild, I could claim that they evolved since, as we all know, all the species we see today evolved from a common ancestor. The fact that they were actually DESIGNED makes a mockery of evolution. The fact is, there is every reason to believe that all the major forms of life have been designed. In science, you need the evidence or else it is a hypothesis. In fact, one of the greatest scientists of all time (Karl Popper) once called evolution nothing but a metaphysical research program! He was right, of course, despite being pressured by evolutionists to retract his claim later. Regardless, if anything is metaphysics, it’s evolution. We have NO empirical evidence whatsoever that life has evolved from a common ancestor. In fact, all the evidence points in the other direction. Evolution is an ASSUMPTION which does not even deserve to rise to the level of a hypothesis.
Finally, CSI has been very specifically defined. You need only look at the discovery institute. There have been NO detractions on the IC components that have been identified so far and the number of those discovered is growing on a regular basis. Supposed refutations of blood clotting and flagellum have been shown to be completely bogus. ID does not fail ANY scientific standards set by the US government. ATHEISTS are in power and they refuse to allow any alternative theories to be heard that might detract from their evolutionary holy of holies. Policies change. Human evolution could not get past US Government “standards” at one time. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, atheists have shown their true colors – complete hypocrites! They only care about freedom of speech when it is THEIR speech and they do everything in their power to silence everyone else.
@Maws (part 3 of 4)
I don’t understand your point regarding Lenski and the others. What has this to do with Abiogenesis? In addition, ALL of these lab experiments support both ID and creation theory, so there are your examples. Every one of them (e.coli, sticklebacks, petunias…) demonstrates clear change WITHIN a created kind with no development of new CSI consistent with ID and creation theories. They DO NOT support the kind of change from one kind to another that is required of evolutionary theory. In fact, the changes we observe in many of these system (a great example is the immune system) are clearly due to designed and purposeful programmed genetic variability. After literally millions of observed generations, E coli are still E coli, sticklebacks are still sticklebacks and Petunias are still Petunias completely consistent with the predictions of ID and creation theory. Finally, there have been a significant number of lab experiments that have demonstrated the IC of biological systems that support ID done by scientists at the discovery institute and others. Anyone can look these up. If you need specifics, I’d be happy to provide them. It seems to me that you are being purposely ignorant of the facts.
You also continue on with your complete illogic regarding cosmology. Since ID has nothing to do with God, doubt on logical cosmological arguments for His existence are irrelevant from the standpoint of ID. In addition, it is no problem for me either since it is only one of many arguments for the existence of God that together, add up to “you’d be a fool not to believe in God” (that’s as close to 100% as is necessary for me). In other words, I KNOW that God exists; I don’t need to prove it to you and in fact can’t because you are a-prior rejecting his existence before even examining the evidence. You are looking for reasons not to accept him because you don’t want to live by His rules. In addition, simply because some religiously biased people (atheists/agnostic) question the truth of the argument doesn’t make it untrue! So I’m to take it that you are an agnostic rather than an atheist? Otherwise, admitting that god is an option would definitely be a problem for you.
@Maws (part 4 of 4)
The bottom line is this - All causal explanations must ultimately terminate with an entity whose explanation need not reference anything more fundamental or primary. All materialist explanations rest on many assumptions (ie where did gravity come from, where does space and time come from, God does not exist or had no hand in our evolution, billions of years, evolution itself, common ancestry etc) and it would simply be special pleading on your part if you then turned around and rejected any creationist assumptions. Your claim that “god did not write the Bible, men did” is only another assumption. How do you know? Claiming to have no proof of God is completely irrelevant to whether He actually wrote the Bible or not! The Bible claims to be written by God. If you reject the Bible, you reject God. If you accept the Bible, you accept God. Since everything we know about the Bible has turned out to be true, this is evidence that all its claims are true including that it was written by Him.
Lastly, since this is the second time you’ve asked, what in the world is your point about the size of a box which would fit all the animals on the planet and what does this have to do with common sense? Seems to me this would be a rather straight forward mathematical calculation (with some estimates involved) without the need for “common sense”. It doesn’t appear you are referring to the ark, because the Bible never claims it would have to be big enough to fit all the animals that exist in the world at the present time. However, assuming you are completely ignorant of what the Bible actually claims (as I’d expect based on your prior responses), it would be another indication of your complete hypocrisy and lack of common sense. You claim “common sense is bollocks”, but they you use your own common sense to reject the scientific evidence for the ark which demonstrates that it would have been more than large enough to fit 2 of every kind of animal existing AT THE TIME of Noah. Since then, of course, there has been significant amount of speciation as these animals multiplied and filled the earth while adapting to changing environments after the flood. Evolutionists have been shocked to see how rapidly speciation can occur, which again, supports the timeframe of the Bible.
Your mendacity is unbecoming. I have quotes from William Dempski, Jonathan Wells and Casey Luskin that completely reject your claim. As far as the Discovery institute or its spinoff the IDEA the designer is the god of the bible. It must have escaped you that the courts have also agreed that ID is cannot be uncoupled from its religious antecedent. There is no scientific evidence on your side here. Period.
Evo makes no claims about the origins of the universe. It deals with speciation. Cosmology deals with universes. Whether the universe started from an expansion event (I hate the term big bang)or was shot out of the FSM's dick it makes no difference to the concept of descent with modification. This is what evo is. You can still have evo and a prime mover. Personally I think gods are for children and the poorly educated but Evo doean't care. even if your god is real he used evo as the meachanism for shaping life.
Bollocks to your CSI. It is utterly unsupported by statisticians or biochemists. If ID is not an argument from ignorance why doesn't have a description of how the designer did it 3.5 billion years ago and every second since? Why did the designer build in retroviruses? Why do we see mutations and genetic drift? ID makes no positive hypothesis apart from an unknown (but we all know who) designer did something, is still doing something but we don't know what, using a set of tools they can't explain in a way we cant detect. All they have is it looks a bit designey and it seems a bit unlikely so god must have done it.
BTW Dawkins doesn't believe aliens did it. Creatard myth. He said it was a possibility when asked but that it was not at all likely. Panspermia may explain the origins of life but that's not what he believes.
I offered you a range of active experiments into evo but that seems like hard work huh. Better to just say there are none. Some of the really interesting bits of research also being done kick shit out of the IC myth. The flagellum has had most of its parts explained to the point where you wouldn't bet the farm it will remain on their IC list for long. the same is happening to the blood clotting cascade. I think there are only 4 parts left and again i wouldn't hold your breath on that one either. the eye is not IC and Popper happily retracted his statement in the light of the experiments that were going on around him. Biologists employ optimization analyses to predict which combinations of morphological, behavioral, or physiological traits are more likely to be advantageous (i.e., to increase “fitness”) in the range of environments actually encountered by a given living form. They then sample natural populations of organisms, determine in which environments they actually live, measure those traits they hypothesize are more likely to make a difference, and obtain statistical predictions on where natural selection should push the population next. Finally, biologists wait until the next generation of organisms comes out and measure their characteristics again. Popper wrote “I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation” (Dialectica 32:344-346).
What is the point of Lenski et al? Why that would be watching natural selection and mutations change an animal without the need for a designer. This is why evo is testable and falsifiable. Little science speak there but something ID can't claim.
Lastly we get to the evidence for god. You have none. The cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments are not proof of god as any halfway competent philosophy student will tell you. There is no philosophical or scientific proof of the spirit either. So sad. I will be fair though, what is your clincher? What makes god real for you but not philosophy and science?
You say The bottom line is this - All causal explanations must ultimately terminate with an entity whose explanation need not reference anything more fundamental or primary.. my question to you is what data set are you using that shows what the universe was like at the point of expansion? What data do you have that no cosmologist has? Lay it out because you just won the NOBEL PRIZE!!!! Without that data set you have no more idea of the origins of the universe than I do.
Now for the answer of the box question. The answer is a ring box. If you remove all the space from the atoms of humans we make a sugar cube. All the other animals a couple more sugar cubes. This is why common sense has nothing to do with quantum physics etc. Common sense says one thing yet reality says another. BTW what is interesting about the mass of a proton and the mass of the two quarks that make them up?
"The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ," Dembski said. "And if there's anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ [and] the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.... It's important that we understand the world. God has created it; Jesus is incarnate in the world." – National Religious Broadcasters, 2000
"I think the opportunity to deal with students and getting them properly oriented on science and theology and the relation between those is going to be important because science has been such an instrument used by the materialists to undermine the Christian faith and religious belief generally." "This is really an opportunity," Dembski added, "to mobilize a new generation of scholars and pastors not just to equip the saints but also to engage the culture and reclaim it for Christ. That's really what is driving me." – Dembski to head seminary's new science & theology center, 2004
"Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration." - Intelligent Design's Contribution To The Debate Over Evolution: A Reply To Henry Morris, 2005
Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology (1999)
* "If we take seriously the word-flesh Christology of Chalcedon (i.e. the doctrine that Christ is fully human and fully divine) and view Christ as the telos toward which God is drawing the whole of creation, then any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient."
* "Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners do not have a clue about him." p. 210
* "My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ.” p. 206
The IDEA Center also requires its club presidents to be Christian. Luskin explained that as a Christian group, "we wanted to be totally open about who we thought the designer was." But, he added, "this belief about the identity of the designer is our religious belief; it's not a part of ID theory."
We believe that in the investigation of intelligent design the identity of the designer is completely separate from the scientific theory of intelligent design, since a scientific theory cannot specify the identity of the designer based upon the empirical data or the scientific method alone, and is not dependent upon religious premises; nonetheless, we consider it reasonable to conclude that the designer may be identified as the God of the Bible, while recognizing that others may identify the designer in a different way.
I have been attempting for days now to post a response unsuccessfully. Even thought it says it has successfully posted my message, it does not appear on the site. If this shorter message works, I'll post in even smaller chunks.
@Maws (Part 1 of 3)
Your mendacity is unbecoming. I have quotes from Dembski, Wells and Luskin that completely reject your claim. The discovery institute makes NO claims in their theory that the designer is God. If you say they do than you are lying outright and it makes no sense to continue this discussion with someone who chooses to be purposely dishonest and can therefore not be trusted. The opinion of a liberal judge who is simply the puppet of atheist organizations can hardly be considered compelling evidence and he is in no position to judge conclusions of science.
@Maws (part 3 of 3)
Regarding your “active experiments into evo”, they all could have just as well been performed by creation scientists (and many have). None of them provide any evidence whatsoever in support of the theory of evolution. Natural selection was first proposed by a creation scientist before Darwin for goodness sake. Mutations, natural selection and speciation are critical components of creation theory, since the diversity of life we see today must have arisen from the set of originally created kinds in only 6000 years. How do the experiments you describe provide any evidence whatsoever that a molecule can evolve into a man which is what the theory of evolution says happened?
You apparently don’t even understand what you are choosing to denigrate. The fact that natural selection and mutations change an animal without the need for a designer is an essential part of creation theory. That is why creation theory is testable and falsifiable! However, evolution is NOT because none of these theories provide any evidence for evolution. Instead, they fully support creation theory as we have NEVER observed one kind of animal changing into another which is what evolution says occurred.
I am glad you have admitted that you have no idea about how the universe came about. You are correct, and neither do evolutionists. However, creationists at least have an accurate eye-witness account of how it happened. Evolutionist’s explanations only reside in their fallible imaginations. One thing we do know. The vast majority of evolutionists consider that the universe had a beginning, and if it had a beginning, it had a cause. I’ll provide my evidence for the existence of God in the next post.
You box question is misleading. It is not common sense that disagrees with reality, it is devious minds. You said nothing about removing the space from the atoms of the animals before packing them into a box! I’d like to personally see you squeeze a herd of wild elephants into a shoe box. Apparently your common sense tells you that you can, mine doesn’t. Whose common sense is better? Sounds like I’ve won this argument about God after all.
So what is the point of your quotes? The majority of scientists who founded the science you enjoy today were creation scientists who were Christian, many of whom believed in a literal 6 day creation 6000 years ago. I’m glad to see there are scientists today who still are Christian and can rightly interpret truth from fantasy. However, what has that to do with whether ID theory has identified who the designer is? Your quotes betray you – “this believe about the identity of the designer is OUE religious belief; it's NOT a part of ID theory."
Surveys indicate that anywhere from 87 to 99% of leading evolutionists are atheists. Unlike your quotes which deny that ID identifies the designer, I could literally provide you with hundreds of quotes from evolutionists claiming that evolution EXCLUDES the possibility that God exists (or influenced that particular evolutionary theory). For example:
"Darwin's theory encountered opposition in religious circles, not so much because he proposed the evolutionary origin of living things…but because his mechanism, natural selection, excluded God as the explanation accounting for the obvious design of organisms." (Francisco J. Ayala, "Darwin's Revolution")
"Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion...we can dismiss entirely all idea of a supernatural overriding mind being responsible for the evolutionary process" Julian Huxley, Issues in Evolution, 1960.
So should we dismiss evolutionary theory because its proponents are atheists? As usually you draw conclusions directly in contradiction to the facts.
@Maws (Part 2a of 3)
Evolution consists of a whole set of theories that attempt to describe the origin of the universe and everything in it by material means alone. Biological evolution is just one of those theories. If the God of the Bible is real, then He created the original kinds of life; they did not “evolve”. CSI has been very specifically defined and it is supported by creationists, ID scientists and many evolutionists alike. If evolution is not an argument from ignorance than why don’t evolutionists have a description of exactly when and how life arose and every second since? God’s creation was perfect. Man’s sin introduced death and suffering into the world and our genetic code and everything else in the world has been degrading ever since. That is the source of viruses and mutations. I have already explained the scientific nature of ID, how it detects CSI in nature and concludes design based on our scientific observations. It has absolutely nothing to do with who the designer is, how he designed or whether he is still doing something. By continuing to focus on these things instead of what the theory actually says, you are engaging in a dishonest straw man fallacy which is no longer deserving of a response.
@Maws (Part 2b of 3)
Since you have already demonstrated above that you are capable of lies and misrepresentations regarding ID, it would come as no surprise that you are also misrepresenting the flagellum and blood clotting cascades as well. If you want to continue that discussion you will have to provide a link to some evidence which makes you think that either of these IC systems has been refuted. Here is a link which indicates that they have NOT been refuted: http://www.discovery.org/a/3408.
As to CSI as an accepted theory it is not outside of the usual characters.
As to your feeble attempt to twist my argument back-evolution does explain what happened from when life began up until now. Mutation, natural selection, genetic variations leading to descent with modification. It runs along turning single celled organisms into whales, flowers, mushrooms and all things in between. It needs no outside agency because it happens whether we like it or not. Ask a hospital about evolution in microbes. ID does need an explanation for every change of model because that's the way it works. You assume humans are perfect design and we are pretty good but without technology most of this planet is lethal to us. Microbes are much more perfect-as one would expect if they had 3.5 billion years of work.
Mark J. Pallen & Nicholas J. Matzke From The Origin of Species to the origin
of bacterial flagella. Nat. Rev. Microbiol.
4, 784–790.
and Liu, R., and Ochman, H. (2007). Stepwise
formation of the bacterial flagellar
system. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104,
Try these for info on reducing the IC of the Flagellum.
The blood clotting issue includes information from the sequencing of the Amphioxus genome. The Amphioxus has no gene for fibrinogen, the final step in the modern clotting cascade, yet it still clots its haemolymph. Then there is the issues with Lamprey and hag fish clotting systems and the evolution of the cetacean clotting system that has no factor XII due to the genes for its production being turned off.
@Maws (part 1 of 2)
Evolution’s explanation from what happened from when life began until now is a bedtime story. There is not a shred of empirical evidence indicating that a single celled organism turned into a whale. Microbes do NOT evolve. Show me some empirical evidence of a microbe changing into anything other than the same kind of microbe and then we can talk. Humans WERE perfectly designed, but that design has broken down over thousands of years of mutations. You see, we are not evolving into a higher state, we are degrading into a lower stated due the effects of the 2nd law of thermodynamics which is another scientific principle evolutionist like to ignore. Neither are microbes “perfect”. They were designed to be useful to humans. Over thousands of years of mutation, many have become dangerous and illness causing instead.
@Maws (Part 2a of 2)
So let’s take your first article by Mark Pallen. I don’t have a subscription to see the entire article on line. However, this is what the abstract says (emphasis mine) – “Here we explore the ARGUMENTS in favour of viewing bacterial flagella as evolved, rather than designed, entities. We dismiss the need for any great conceptual leaps in creating a model of flagellar evolution and SPECULATE as to how an experimental programme focused on this topic might look.”
This article is nothing but just-so speculations and stories without a single shred of empirical evidence! In the article Pallen states “"the flagellar research community has scarcely begun to consider how these systems have evolved."
So much for your refutation of the flagellum! Try again. Actually, you can try all you want, you won’t find anything because its just a horses tail from evolutionary propaganda sites that are not the slightest bit interested in the truth!
@Maws (Part 2b of 2)
As for the other article by Liu, a complete refutation of the article can be found in the following link. In summary, it doesn’t come close to addressing the irreducible complexity of the flagellum. It is actually addressing a completely different topic of common descent, NOT evolution by random mutations and natural selection.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/04/darwinism_gone_wild_neither_se003517.html
The same holds for the blood clotting issue. It has NOT been refuted in the least. Evolutionist will be scratching their heads till their brains are exposed (if they had any).
In biology, evolution is the change in the inherited genetic traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. escent with modification. In some cases this leads to speciation due to isolation of a group of organisms. Microbes evolve. I dare you to go to a medical researcher and say they don't. Ask any hospital with MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) in their wards. You should at least know what you are rejecting.
As to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics you are an idiot. The 2nd law works only in closed systems. The biosphere is not a closed system. If you look into the day sky the big bright thing is the sun. It adds energy to the system and thus earth is an open system. This is how I know you just follow the cretard sites-your woeful ignorance of basic scientific principles.
Creation scientists dispute the theory of evolution, not changes in organisms we can observe in the present that support creation theory. Creation scientists call this change “adaptation” which allowed the originally created kinds of life to adapt to changing environments after the flood. You can call it what you want, but it is NOT the kind of change described in the theory of evolution. Microbes only “evolve” in the dictionary sense of the word “evolve”. They do NOT “evolve” in a way that supports the theory of evolution. They simply change (de-evolve) into more microbes, nothing else.
As to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, you are the one that demonstrates a woeful ignorance of basic scientific principles. The 2nd law is valid in both closed AND open systems as stated by evolutionist Dr John Ross (Harvard scientist): "The 2nd law applies equally well to OPEN systems ... there is somehow associated with the field of far-from equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself.” So exceptions to the 2nd law have never been observed even for open systems.
Just because energy is added to a system doesn’t mean it can break the 2nd law. The sun’s energy is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. The effect of the sun is to break down and degrade what it shines upon. Go ahead and sit out in the hot sun for a couple days and then tell me your boiled and blistered flesh is a sign of increased complexity arising in your skin. A bull in a china shop also adds energy to the store, but you don't see any new china being created! Increased complex and specified order/information ONLY arises through a designed machine capable of converting that energy into useful work. The suns energy cannot create these machines all by itself. Evolution violates the 2nd law.
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