I have to agree with nearly everything you have said, except like most people you are incorrect on the concept of immaculate conception. Jesus was born of "Virgin Conception" according to Catholic Dogma, in that Mary never had sex (apparently). Mary was born of immaculate conception, that is she was born without sin, whereas us mere mortals are born with original sin already staining our soul. Mary had no such original sin and was kept free from sin throughout her life. (One does have to wonder, do this mean Mary could cast the first stone?).

Other than that, spot on, the Catholic church has created its own monster in denying priests most of their natural urges. I would be interested to know if the Anglican church has any such shortage of priests or trust in its church.

Spot on.
A few years ago Andrew Denton wrote a 'Diary" article in the SM Herald and quoted an extract from Robert Ardrey's writing where Ardrey stated we are risen apes not fallen angels. Ardrey's arguments for that view were well documented in 'African Genesis'.
In the 1960's the evidence for evolution finally caused the then Pope to accept evolution except for claiming that we were differnt from the animals and had a God given soul.
In his 1966 book 'The Territorial Imperative' Ardrey gave the lie to that claim of difference when he wrote,
"And finally we must know that the territorial imperative - just one it is true of the evolutionary forces playing upon our lives – is the biological law on which we have founded our edifices of human morality. Our capacities for sacrifice, for altruism, for sympathy, for trust, for responsibilities to other than self-interest, for honesty, for charity, for friendship and love, for social amity and mutual interdependence have evolved just as surely as the flatness of our feet, the muscularity of our buttocks, and the enlargement of our brain; out of the encounter on ancient African savannahs between the primate potential and the hominid circumstance."
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative,1966, chpt9, p.377-8.
Fortune paperback edn.

A good article, but as a catholic turned agnostic turned atheist (last conversion about 45 years ago) you are merely preaching to the converted here. Fascinating comment about whether Mary was in a position to cast the stone, and interesting that Benedict's number is written as XV1 instead of XVI ... is there a name for that number (and I don't mean "16th")?

Brian says: "The church’s teaching is that faith and the scientific evidence supporting evolution are not in conflict. The theologians who went through the intellectual gymnastics required to come to that conclusion, can only be pitied."

How reasonably intelligent people can perform these gymnastics has always been beyond my understanding, and I would welcome comments which might help me understand. I presume it is just part of that "give me a child for 7 years and I will etc etc", but today's press advises that the man who has walked on the moon longer than any other man undertakes similar gymnastics (cured of kidney disease or something from afar). Why would he believe that? Is he a Galileo or a Copernicus ahead of his time, or has he some physical neurological problem which makes him think this way; or maybe he was influenced by a dotty parent or two. Or does he just have a wicked sense of humour?

As a determinist, I find this all fairly easy to answer to a degree, but I don't want to give up on free will!

Whilst the author has identified a number of valid discussion points, the reasoning behind his view is not as well argued as one might expect from a serious journal, but, as the notes about the author make no such claim to serious intellectual standing (or anything much else?!?) then this opinion piece is no more substantial than a letter to the SMH/Age.

Sexual deviancy or other moral and legal failure is no more related to one being a priest as is it to one being a doctor, school teacher or drug running ABC foreign correspondent. However, reporting about the later groups is not quite so hysterical, nor, are the oversight authorities perceived as an easy payout option for lawyers (oh, and their clients too!). If you want to be critical (and correct) celibacy has more to do with retaining Church property.

The Church will continue to survive and grow despite numerous failed administrative and pastoral outcomes. That's why you needn't worry.

As for the tax dollars, just like any major event, the State gets a lot of it back. If you want to hold a referendum to prevent this kind of spending (on sports, cultural as well as religious events) then good luck.

What a mean spirited article. It is true that many have thrown away any morality in life and then turned to earth worshiping in order to cover guilt and put on a facade for others. Many shamelessly murder their children and then want to preach values (or lack of) to others. Many refuse to keep their marriage vowels and then despise everyone else who do.The moral high ground taken by Brian is typical of many who think 'science' justifies their rants and denial of their Creator.

Their is nothing surer that every person will face judgement. Every person's knee will bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. I just hope the likes of Brian and others will realize their futility before that time comes. I don't know about the Catholic church but their are certainly millions coming to Christ through out the world
I would be more concerned about money wasted by a truckload of Labour pollies heading off to the Bali recently in the pretense that somehow Australia is going to save our planet from destruction.

We have already had about a dozen blogs on homosexual paedophile priests. Why don't we have a few on paedophile doctors or earth worshippers or sports coaches or Labour Ministers? I wonder?

If Brian wants to wear condoms let him but stop imposing your own narrow worldview on everyone else.

"Is the Catholic Church losing its grip?" On what? A controlling interest in its ability to have detrimental consequences for millions of people due to 'messages from God' through His servant on Earth? I'm not a christian. I have no religion. I'm certainly not an atheist either (why try to disprove the existence of something you believe doesn't exist?) Yet I love my neighbour (more or less) and don't kill people (definitely). I believe that no religion has a monopoly on being a good person and the very notion that one "ism" or group can say it has is so laughably illogical that it makes my eyes water. So, is the Catholic Church losing its grip? I sincerely hope so, along with just about every other so called religion on this poor little planet of ours!

Over the single issue of birth control and the need for abortions the Roman Catholic Church has already proved an irrelevance and isnt merely losing its grip it has ALREADY LOST its grip.

Look at Italy.at the very doorstep of the Vatican.It has the lowest birthrate in Europe.No one is listening!!

Look at South America.Catholics are fed up of poverty and have decided to limit their families by using birth control and are resorting to abortions also.The Church is an irrelevance.It is VERY worried by the success of the Prorestant evangelicals, especially the Pentecostals and Baptists which are winning converts in their tens of thousands.
look at Australia.We all know Catholic families that have only one or two kids.Why?
Because the Church has already lost its grip. No one is listening.

socratease

The Catholic Church is failing in successful democracies for all the reasons mentioned and a few more. Increasing education levels and access to information finds there is a lack of evidence for the alleged wonders performed by an alleged character known as Jesus. The evidence that a Jesus person actually existed in New Testament times is flimsy at best.

The circular argument concerning the Bible, that it is about a god and it is correct because a god inspired it, no longer, holds sway intellectually. One can take the fallback position of, ‘who made the universe’, and then place a god in that position, and then name a religion to suit. In the case of Christianity, we end up with Yahweh/Jesus. It really is messy thinking.

The second key component is that cultural pressure/indoctrination supporting a Catholic belief system is lessening with each generation. Less indoctrination, more education and stable democratic political systems, means less adherents.

Catholicism in Western countries will possibly die out or at the best, become diminutively ineffectual in a couple of generations. It will therefore place more emphasis on recruiting in developing nations, which have the correct ingredients for greater success.

In fact, my guess is the CWYD was really an exercise in producing promotional material to show poorer nations that Australia’s opulence results from Catholic influence.

Clever, but nevertheless, a devious plan complementing the already disastrous influence of Christianity on the world’s most powerless peoples.

David

i guess the catholic church is not losing its grip ,

because they are still covering up the rapes and abuse of their victims in their church homes ,

as the same as the state of new south wales of which has been covering up the rapes and abuse in their states run institutions and still to this day continue to cover up those rapes and abuses that we victims suffered as children in the state care institutions through out australia ,and that of new south wales ,

we victims want justice and an apology

huffnpuff

Great article. The Pope said WYD would not have been as successful if it weren't for their 'cooperation'

their = media

The RC church is not in a backsliding.
She is building a huge all-consuming One World Church with a leader called <The False Prophet> who will later on connect with the coming European antichrist (see the mark of the beast 666).

To get this church in order, the RC leadership has to go and seduce all other religions, faiths and cultures over to their side of the fence.
Like Indonesia having her spies down here to plot to take us over as SOUTH IRIAN and China having her spies down here to take us over as NEW SOUTH CHINA, the Vatican has her spies all over the place quietly pushing One World Church doctrine and gathering info on true Christian believers.
What it means to those who know the Holy Bible and who are watching the signs of the times and who know Revelation is that somewhere out there in the not too distant future... Inquistion is once again be on the earth.

The Churches seem to have reached the point where they are proclaiming a gospel, the meaning of which they, themselves, fail to comprehend.

In ethical matters the Church now lags behind secular society by many years. As someone has pointed out, the Church does not even have the broad support of its own members on issues like contraception, sexual morality and so on.

The decline of the Church in the west may well be attributable to the disconnection between Church 'teaching' and modern education. It may, however, be a mistake to extrapolate the present rate of decline to predict the total demise of the Church. That would be bad mathematics and, I suspect, very poor sociology.

There are more Christians today in China than there are Church-attenders in Australia. That is in spite of it being alien to Chinese culture and having been brutally suppressed by the Communist government for the last fifty years or so.

The promise of everlasting life in heaven may not be an accurate interpretation of Jesus' teaching and its certainly very poor theology but it appeals to a lot of people. It gives expression, albeit very clumsily, to the hope that this life is not entirely meaningless. Most of us recognise the silliness of the heavenly promise because we are 'educated'.

It is possible, however, that new Churches might arise that find new ways to proclaim the Gospel more faithfully. That is my hope and that is why I believe the Church, in one form or another, will persist for a long while yet.

Heaven and Hell aren't concepts which
I can understand.

The best that I can understand, comes from a joke
that says, - you go to heaven for the weather,
And to hell for the company.

Is the Catholic Church losing its grip?

Look at the statistics.

There's a severe global shortage of priests.
To the extent that Rome is taking convert married
clergy (Anglican etc) and ordaining them as Catholic priests.

The Churches are slowly being emptied.
Attendance numbers are decreasing.

Of course the Church as lost its grip,
and rightly so. It can't preach compassion,
while practising exclusion.
It can't talk about traditions of caring, love,
honesty, decency, justice, a fair go, while
practicing those principles only towards a select few.

Things have to change if the Church is to survive.
People will no longer be bullied by an authoritarian
demand, and moralizing, which ignores the complex
context of modern life.

People today are quite capable of evaluating what is
meaningful and what is simply tired and imperious tradition.

Will the Church survive?

That's up to its leadership.

People today need genuine local leadership.
Rome is so far away.
Unless changes are made, the future looks grim.

Still reading life from a book. How quaint. The church isn't losing its grip, its losing the plot! Let me explain.
Evolution is a fact! the history lays in the rocks; and as the debate rolls on, it come down to one fact!
FEAR! That's right, fear! Man-kind has always looked to the skies for the answer and it still hasn't come. The idea for a all-mighty god, that is everywhere,( Rollie eyes) is totally ridiculous.
I took it upon myself to explore the churches around my district, and i found that it was over-crowded with old people that are ready for their demise. CRAP! No-one wants to die, but if you think there is a chance of the garden of Eden, go for it. We non believers wont stop you, but you should take the time to look at bigger picture.

This little book was written by a scared and paranoid society where the rich want constant power over the poor, and not to mention control over the easy beats!

Religion is just another from of in-come for those who choose that form of life-stile, hence the word con. ( evolutionary concepts ) and it all come down to, I DONT WANT TO DIE!

The meaning of life! SH@t! Iam doing it. I am the most happiest person you will ever meet, but don't take my word for it, just look around you and tell me that you have your children's future in mind.

This is just a rant, because none of you have a clue whats going on.

P/S Hello wide-bay. I see you and hear you. lol. Privite joke.

Bottem line is! Be good to all people, cause you will never know how far respect will get you.

EVO

If ever you needed evidence that the Church has got it wrong then this thread is it.

The message that everyone is getting from the Church seems to be about heaven and hell. Is it any wonder that people are distancing themselves from the Church?

Jesus message was about justice in this world for everybody NOT about rewards in the next life, not about personal salvation but about justice. Didnt He say "He who seeks to save himself will die." Didnt He heal people on the Sabbath in blatant defiance of the "Church". Didnt he party with taxpayers and hug lepers. When plain common sense said the rules sucked then Jesus broke the rules. He wouldnt have lasted long in today's Church would He.

This article is an interesting, albeit hostile, view of the Catholic Church by an outsider.

The Church is going through a crisis and decline, there can be no doubt about that. Only very few of us will live long enough to see whether this decline will lead to a complete demise, as the author suggests, or whether these predictions will remain just his wishful thinking, .

"Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you ... and stood aside of you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who reject you, and brace themselves against you, or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you?"

I think one consequence of the present crisis is that more and more Catholics are learning to take to heart these words of Walt Whitman.

However, I also think that the author's description of the situation in which the Catholic Church finds itself at the beginning of 21st century would be much more creditable had he not combined it with 19th century ideas about the relation between science and (any) religion. It is understandable that somebody cannot follow recent achievements in the study of possible interactions between science and religion (and philosophy) brought about by new insights from mathematical physics, genetics/biology and neuroscience (as well as theology). However, it is bordering on arrogance to call these new perspectives "intellectual gymnastics" just because they are beyond one’s 19th century horizon when people had to choose between a scientific or a religious approach to reality, as naive as they both were when seen from a 21st century standpoint.

Besides creation obviously (even to a 2 year old) pointing to a Creator the self righteous rants here are enough to point to the corrupt nature of man. Evolution is the biggest fraud of our time and takes a lot of faith (blind) to believe in it.

Those claiming that the Jesus did not speak of heaven and hell show a complete lack of any biblical knowledge. They have created a god in their own mind ignoring the clear teachings of Scripture.

The sad part is that many who preach their new age fear mongering have little to no credibility. They are blinded by their own lusts and take false comfort in preaching their own brand of righteousness. Hopefully one day the scales will fall off your eyes.

Few will be saved not because of their sin but because of their self righteousness where they honestly believe they don't need a Saviour. This is the end result of flawed secular teaching that laughably make out that we humans are somehow gods and can solve the worlds problems. Most can't even hold a family together let alone fix other issues. The lack of humility and arrogance is incredible when you consider where secularism has got us.

George

As our species moves forward in time, it builds its store of information. As the information gets more comprehensive, understanding becomes closer to the full picture. We may still not know the truth, but we have a much better idea than what we had 1900 years ago. An attempt to structure our knowledge today to keep a 1900 year old book viable is nothing short of intellectual gymnastics

runner,

'We have already had about a dozen blogs on homosexual paedophile priests. Why don't we have a few on paedophile doctors or earth worshippers or sports coaches or Labour Ministers? I wonder?'

Probably because of the hypocracy element. A priest puts himself up as a moral authority.

Certain criticism of the Catholic Church is perhaps made from shallow observation, where the appearance of an external authority belies its true spirit. Roman Catholisim is what could legitimately be named a traditionalist organisation based on evolving patterns of theology (or thought), albeit at the caprice of papal censorship or agreement.

Science and modernity have successfully challenged most medieval assumptions. Apart from the intransigence of the traditionalists, Catholicism perhaps presents us with an entirely different ‘animal’ – particularly post Vatican II.

Ironically, the R.C. tradition does not render consistency, for example, in the fifth century Augustine expressed the mainstream view that early abortion requires penance only for sexual sin. Eight centuries later, Aquinas agreed, saying abortion is not homicide unless the foetus is “ensouled,” and ensoulment, he was sure, occurred well after conception. The position that abortion is a serious sin akin to murder and is grounds for excommunication, however, became established only 150 years ago.

A contradiction occurs also for ‘bible-believing’ Christians, where action is derived from a strict biblical literalism e.g., we have the classic scriptural passage, often used to "justify" domestic control and abuse: Ephesians 5:22, where the author exhorts women to be submissive to husbands. In this passage the author speaks from within the patriarchal social structure of the time, where slavery and the submission of wives was taken for granted. A more modern and ‘gentler’ interpretation, whilst heartwarming does ignore the important cultural context.

Liberal Catholic theologian, Father Richard P. McBrien perhaps sums up the dissidence within the masses: “If... after appropriate study, reflection, and prayer, a person is convinced that his or her conscience is correct, in spite of a conflict with the moral teachings of the church, the person not only may but must follow the dictates of conscience rather than the teachings of the church.” Yes, I’d happily say, the Catholic Church has lost its grip, but fortunately not its conscience.

No matter the culture, however, or the organisation, the abuse of children appears the most heinous of crimes – no amount of reflection or prayer will excuse anyone from this.

Brian,
>> An attempt to structure our knowledge today to keep a 1900 year old book viable is nothing short of intellectual gymnastics <<

The writings of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras etc. are older that 1900 years and still “viable”. Children still learn about the Pythagoras Theorem, and contemporary mathematicians honour it although they have a much deeper understanding of its validity and applicability than Pythagoras himself. As I said before, the problem is not with those who do not understand e.g. differential geometry or non-commutative geometry, and their usefulness in our modeling of physical Reality (models that are unintelligible to those without an “insider knowledge” of mathematics), but with those who dismiss these insights, as incomprehensible to them as they are, as mere “intellectual gymnastics”.

Relda,
That is an illuminating positive perspective, complementing the somewhat less illuminating but comprehensive negative one provided by Brian. I do not know Father McBrien and in what sense is he “liberal”, however the quote is just the standard Catholic teaching about the freedom of conscience, at least for a private individual (it is more complicated in case of a “public individual“ e.g. a politician).

Hello George,

To give a sense of, or, to put into context McBriens ‘liberalism’, we can perhaps find it illuminated by his more conservative critics.

Ronald J. Rychlak, an R.C.,also academic, scholar and lawyer, is one such critic of McBrien. In "Catholic Answers" Rychlak writes (when referring to McBrien), “One of the most difficult problems for an apologist is a dissenting Catholic who makes public statements at odds with the true teaching of the Church.”

Some of the Rychlak laments of McBrein are that:
• He denied that Christ founded the Catholic Church as we know it.
• He wrote that the sacraments were not directly instituted by Christ.
• He said that "the idea that the Catholic Church is the one true religion no longer exists."
• He depicted Christ as if he did not always know that he was the Son of God.
• He questioned the virginal conception of Jesus and the perpetual virginity of Mary.
• He wrote that the dogmatic definitions of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary are not part of the essential core of the faith.
• He endorsed philosopher Paul Ricoeur's assessment of original sin as "a rationalized myth about the mystery of evil."
• He was one of the original signers of Fr. Charles Curran's Statement of Dissent against Humanae Vitae, and he has argued that this reassertion of the historical Christian position on contraception was fundamentally wrong teaching.
• He said the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses but were the products of the later Christian communities who invented miracles in order to convey certain theological meanings and establish the divinity of Christ.

From this I sense that Fr. Richard McBrien is quite ‘liberal’.

Welcome back George

It is difficult to convey to Creationists or Evolutionists that their 'dispute' is predicated upon a somwhat narrow and too literal interpretation of Creation on the one hand and a complete misunderstanding of the nature of Scientific theory on the other.

Waterboy:

Are you going to say something constructive, or do you just throw bombs?

relda,
As already mentioned, I do not know the writings of Fr. McBrien, neither those of Fr. Rychlak. However, if it is true what the latter claims about the former, then indeed Fr. McBrien could be labelled “liberal”, and if these statements that Fr. Rychlak rejects are only his own summaries of what Fr. McBrien said, then Fr. Rychlak can indeed be labelled “conservative”, as much as I hate this kind of labeling. I think that many problems in the Catholic Church arise from the fact that the “liberal” and “conservative” theologians misunderstand each other. However, I am not a theologian, I just have the feeling that the situation is not unlike the one during the 1990s “science wars”, where the two sides (the C. P. Snow’s two cultures) either talked past each other or attacked their own interpretation of what the other side claimed.

Nevertheless, liberal or not, the quote from Fr. McBrien you gave, as I understand it, represents more or less faithfully the Catholic teaching about the freedom of conscience. As mentioned elsewhere, having grown up in a Stalinist country I never had RE, my father (with a degree in Family and Canon Law) being my only teacher. He liked to illustrate the freedom of conscience on the trivial example of compulsory church attendance on Sundays: you are exempt if you are too old, too sick, the next church is too far, etc., but you cannot expect the Church to spell out in detail when such an exception applies to you - that must be left to your conscience. Well, in questions of sexual morals the situation could be more complicated, and where civil courage is concerned - should I put my family in jeopardy to protect somebody threatened by e.g. the Nazi or Communist regime - this could indeed be a huge responsibility resting on one’s conscience.

waterboy,
yes, this is what I meant, and also HarryG seems to have indirectly confirmed it.

“Its cathedrals are among the West’s most magnificent artistic achievements - and they will remain to be its headstone.”

The cathedrals were built with the skill and ingenuity of common craftsmen, paid with money extracted by the taxing rights of theologians of the middle ages.

It is similar to observing, Alan Bond owned works by Van Gogh and such ownership is Bonds “most magnificent artistic achievement” (as if Van Gogh had nothing to do with it).

“Several European countries which were once classed as Catholic in 1900 have become neutral to any religion as they have become more educated and prosperous.”

Education advocates the deployment of a questioning mind.

Theology, the Church of Rome in particular, demands unquestioning obedience.

Therein lies the conflict,

The Church of Rome is dependent upon ignorance for its power.

That and the disaster of its management of its pedophile clergy, leaves the whole edifice hollow and with financial circumstances heading toward what is already its moral bankruptcy

The problem with most Churches, Rome included,

they put the interests of their priests and hierarchy before their congregants and God.

runner: "This is the end result of flawed secular teaching that laughably make out that we humans are somehow gods and can solve the worlds problems. Most can't even hold a family together let alone fix other issues. The lack of humility and arrogance is incredible when you consider where secularism has got us."

Allow me to state where I think 'secularism has got us.'

When you look out the window, you seem to see some horrible world, which has gone wrong. Presumably because it's not keeping with 'god's' teaching.

Firstly, I know you can't tell me when the world was 'right' before secularism turned it wrong. As far as I can see, the world has gone in a much better direction in recent years, fearmongering and exaggeration not withstanding.

When I look at the world, I see a world that is mostly populated by good people, a majority of whom don't spend every Sunday in a church. In fact, I see billions of people getting along every day, without any need of your religion. I see a beautiful place, and while there are ugly things out there, I don't consider them to be the rule, rather the aberration.

I consider this to be a far healthier view of the world than your constant berating of other views.

You've said it yourself. You consider secularism a denial of god and thus arrogant. Or said in another way, anything that isn't adopting your god is arrogant.

That you speak of arrogance here is rather ironic.

So when you tell me everything's wrong and ugly because of man, I call your bluff and say that's crap. Worse still, it's ugly, depressing and a very unhealthy way to see the world. No wonder you need a god to fix it.

'We have already had about a dozen blogs on homosexual paedophile priests. Why don't we have a few on paedophile doctors or earth worshippers or sports coaches or Labour Ministers? I wonder?'

Could it be because the AMA or the Labour Caucus doesn't require its members to profess chastity and pretend they are asexual? If sexual desires are forced underground in this way it is inevitable that they will surface in situations that can be kept secret -- for a while at least -- by the abuse of power. Even Chaucer knew what the results of officially-imposed 'celibacy' were.

I agree George, as people we do often talk past each other – due often to the nuance of language, but, not always. Wittgenstein and Austin, for example, have shown how the complexity of language works - it refers to not only facts about the world, but it also assumes and helps create social contexts. In short, however, we do not have to choose between oversimplified accounts of language. The language of ‘liberals’ will turn supposedly to universal human experience and conservatives to supposedly inerrant Scripture.

Scientific empiricism, whilst valuable, has a limit – it cannot define ‘courage’ nor ‘faith’; the Church, even if an anachronistic institution, may stand for both – albeit, I might add, not always living up to its own ideals or principles. Perhaps the “postmodern" philosophers help us realise that the system of our beliefs is more like an interconnected web than like a building with only one foundation. Our different beliefs support each other in complicated ways, and we do not have to find some single foundational starting point.

The challenge contained in our dialogue and action, however, is for us to be consistent, the hypocrisy of our time is found not only within our Churches, but also within the secular, “The consistent ethic of life is an integrated approach to moral analysis, concerned with the protection and nurturing of human life across the entire spectrum of human existence, from conception to death. It encompasses such life-issues as abortion, capital punishment, war, social justice, human rights, and euthanasia. The approach is also known as "the seamless garment." - Fr. McBrien. I think, George, you’ll agree.

TRTL

Your world view is indeed rosy. Sin and lack of morality is as natural to man as drinking a glass of water. The end result of sin is obviously hidden from your sight.

You write 'When I look at the world, I see a world that is mostly populated by good people, a majority of whom don't spend every Sunday in a church.'

Maybe you don't see the results of selfishness as I do. Maybe you don't see fatherless children, abandoned people in old peoples homes, deserted wives and husbands. Maybe you don't feel the pain of families who have lost sons and daughters to drugs. Or maybe you do and just accept that is part of living.

You seem to share the view of many (ie eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die). Personally I believe people who live that way are spiritually blind.

You write

'So when you tell me everything's wrong and ugly because of man, I call your bluff and say that's crap.'

Well if man is the not cause who is? I take it that seen you don't believe in God you also don't believe in the devil? If man is not the cause of what is ugly who is?

Like any species runner, man isn't perfect, nor did I say the world is.

Funnily enough however, I seem to recall Jesus had more of an approach to focus on the good, instead of seeing the 'ugly' in everything.

As for 'spiritually blind' I think that's a fantastic description for those who don't acknowledge the beauty and goodness of humanity, as well as the darker side.

I guess one of us just has a little more faith in man than the other.

God has nothing to do with it. I know myself and other agnostics who are kind, hardworking people who wouldn't hurt anyone.

As yourself, how is this possible runner? If we don't follow your god and embrace secularism - taking responsibility for our own actions and views - does that really make us bad people?

But if you are determined to find the bad in everything, then I guess I can't stop you, just express my sympathy. It must be a very unpleasant way to live life.

TurnRightThenLeft

'As yourself, how is this possible runner? If we don't follow your god and embrace secularism - taking responsibility for our own actions and views - does that really make us bad people?'

To some degree it boils down to terminology of what you consider bad. Basically without Christ people are spiritually dead. You may be a very 'good' person as far as I know or you may not be. Some who claim to be Christians certainly are not all good. Some think Bill Clinton is very good while others think he is bad. Moral relativism leaves it totally open to one;s views. In some cultures old men taking young girls is not bad.

Being responsible for your own actions makes no sense if at the end of the day you are not held to account. Many men and women will happily cheat on their spouses when they know they can get away with it.

I don't think their is any doubt that people who know they are accountable to God are far more likely to take responsibility for their actions than those who don't.

You write 'But if you are determined to find the bad in everything, then I guess I can't stop you, just express my sympathy. It must be a very unpleasant way to live life.'

You are wrong again. I will call bad what God calls bad and good what God calls good. My life to date has been extremely pleasant with many blessing that I am thankful for daily. I wish the same for all people.

Runner:

"I don't think their (sic) is any doubt that people who know they are accountable to God are far more likely to take responsibility for their actions than those who don't."

You are arrogant and ignorant, and an anachronism. Well done!

relda,
Yes, I agree in principle with what you wrote, especially with that quote from Fr. McBrien as it is so universal that probably not only most Christians (including Catholics) but also e.g. agnostics or atheists will agree. It is compatible with the teachings of the Church (actually any Church) but it does not express the specificity of the Church teachings since it misses the spiritual dimension of human life (a concept that, of course, does not make sense to e.g. an agnostic). Nevertheless, it is a good formulation of what the Church can/should offer to the rest of the world, never mind the details.

Only in this sense is it possible that “the language of ‘liberals’ will turn supposedly to universal human experience“ (c.f. Hans Kung’s Weltethos). There is something universal in the official position of the Catholic Church (sometimes hard to understand therefore prone to ‘liberal‘ and ‘conservative‘ simplifications), and there is something specific about it, like in any comprehensive and systematic world view or “teaching”. The Church’s position is complicated by the fact that it has to (wants to) appeal to people with a wide range of cultural (ethnic) and intellectual backgrounds, and has to (wants to) be consistent as much as possible with its two millennia old tradition.

Also, I agree that there are hypocrites among the clergy as there are in any group of people wielding teaching authority. However, the chain smoking fat doctor who tells me about the dangers of smoking and being overweight is not necessarily a hypocrite, he is just a person with a weak will.

>>the “postmodern" philosophers help us realise that the system of our beliefs is more like an interconnected web<<
The emphasis here must be on “system of beliefs“ not “truths”, that would be (epistemological) “relativism“ that e.g. the Pope so adamantly warns against. I think the situation is not unlike models of physical reality (theories), that some also see as a network of ‘beliefs’ (Thomas Kuhn‘s paradigms). (ctd)

(ctd) However, the theoretical physicist still has to assume THE truth about (physical) reality of which scientific theories are just an approximation, some better some worse, some more some less universal. One of the best arguments against the postmodern ‘social construction‘ of scientific truth(s) I read came from Steven Weinberg, a physicist and avowed atheist, during the above mentioned “science wars”. I think much of his argument is applicable also to something deeper, that one refers to as Ultimate Reality, and which the Pope apparently has in mind without having to spell out his own belief about this Reality.

I just finished reading a very interesting and easy to understand essay “Variety in Mysticism and Parallels with Science” (Theology and Science, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2008) by V.V. Raman, a Hindu physicist, that is related to this and, I think, throws an original light at the problem of scientific vs religious truth(s). For me it is easier to understand religion or theology explained by a scientist with a degree in theology (e.g. the ‘trinity‘ Barbour, Polkinghorne, Peacocke or the Catholic priest-astronomer George Coyne) than by a theologian with or without any degree in science, especially mathematical physics.

I cannot completely agree that the Church is an anachronistic institution; it is just a very old institution, and like old people, it moves very slowly. However, the interaction between its 81 years old head and the 400 thousand young enthusiasts, that we witnessed recently, did not sound to me as something anachronistic that is about to die away (only its ‘centre of gravity‘ is moving out of the West). This is so in spite of - or perhaps rather because of - the fact that these young people did not come to celebrate Humanae Vitae (as some ‘protesters’ seemed to think) but their faith (incomprehensible to the ‘protesters’) symbolised by the authority of one old man that in their mind represented a bridge between the past and the future. At least that is how I saw the WYD in Sydney (and also in Cologne in 2005).

Even most Catholics ignore the more extreme doctrines of the church.

The hierachy of the church is living in a fantasy world and has lost its grip on reality and relevance.

I was a firm believer until a priest started telling me that I had to accept the whole package or nothing.

The world will be a better place after the passing of the Vatican into history.

George,
It seems our ‘Shadow Minister’ certainly supports the view 'the Catholic Church is anachronistic’ but I guess, as with mine, this presents perhaps just another opinion. No doubt, as a symbol, the Pope holds a great deal of sway, and I do hold some respect for the intellectual strength of the current one.

This symbol of ‘authority’ however is more related to ceremony, charisma and splendor. The official line (or Church teaching), however, is more revealing. For instance, with regards to sexual matters etc., current teaching relates back to Augustine where all sexual activity, even in marriage, was tainted and even sinful if not done for reproductive ends. The central reason for celibacy during this period was ritual purity: the priest, performing sacred rites, was not to be tainted by a sexuality that was suspect – Vatican II affirms this but also adding, the priest needs an “undivided heart” - it is an anachronism nevertheless, along with the official line given on birth-control. Women, in very real aspects, are second-class citizens in the church – again, quite anachronistic (at least in the West), even if once readily accepted in a bygone and patriarchal era.

As we are not divided on principle but only on the detail it matters not one iota that I do not label myself a ‘Catholic’, or for that matter perhaps even ‘Christian’ – which certainly doesn’t mean I deny the ‘true’ spirit or content of Christianity. There is a tremendous amount of good done through and by the Catholic Church, but, as with the ‘fat chain-smoking doctor’ it is more an issue of credibility rather than hypocrisy. It is hardly credible that the humility and understanding often preached is done so from such a lofty and official position.
cont’d..

..cont’d
I believe Nietzsche’s nihilism reveals the urgency of this highest and broadest human task: to make sense of our existence as a whole - a big, if not impossible ask of any institution. The sociologist of religion, Peter Berger writes, "Man, biologically denied the ordering mechanisms with which other animals are endowed, is compelled to impose his own order on experience. Man’s sociality presupposes the collective character of this ordering of reality."

As with many, I do not see human religiosity as an absurd reaction to our existence or a sign of infantile irrationality, as some might claim. Instead, the religious response is intrinsic to human existence in the world. The question does arise, however: Can we know whether any of these religious responses are true? The litmus test is always on the ‘fruit’.

It’s hard not to see the relationship between mystery and science, Einstein noted this when he mused, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science". I can relate the metaphysical and the mystical to a type of mystery but not magic, I can understand there is strangeness beyond the wildest imagining, but not spells or witchery, or arbitrary miracles. The power of religion depends, in the last resort, upon the credibility of the banners it puts in the hands of [men and women] as they stand before death, or more accurately, as they walk, inevitably, toward it – at its very core, Christianity does offer this ‘power’.

relda,
Again, I agree. I suppose I got carried away with your remark about the “network of beliefs” since it touches upon the borderland between the philosophies of science and religion, where I feel more at home than with morals and ethics, thus neglecting the focus of your previous post.

Of course, sexual ethics, and the view of the role of the two sexes as complementary rather than mutually interchangeable - the standard things you list - are the weak points in the Catholic teaching. This I have acknowledged by saying that the young people did not ‘celebrate‘ this teaching (the, indeed anachronistic, Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae) but the symbol of their faith - and, I believe, also of their cofidence that one can build the future without repudiating the past. You also speak of the Pope as a symbol, and I think it was his ‘charisma‘ that made him attractive to those young people, rather than ‘ceremony and splendour‘ that appeal more to older people more aware of the two millennia old tradition.

I agree that we differ just in our opinions, often influenced by our personal experiences. Many people develop an aversion towards mathematics, the Church or religion in general because of an incompetent teacher or priest they were exposed to. This seems to be the case of ‘our Shadow Minister’ (and unfortunately of many others).

I also have to admit that my loyalty to the Catholic Church, in spite of all of my reservations regarding Humanae Vitae, was conditioned by an opposite experience in a Communist country were in face of an ubiquitous anti-Church propaganda it was much ‘easier‘ to be a priest or a nun respected by not only the Catholics.

The Lutheran Bishopess of Hannover is a clever defender of the Christian position in talks on German TV, but since the ‘yin part’ of my Christianity was formed by my grandmother and many nuns, my Christianity feels somehow more comfortable with them complementing rather than replacing the role of the priests. But, as metioned, this is just my opinion conditioned by my personal experience. (ctd)

(ctd) Also I think that the mystery that Einstein speaks about, that can be experienced by almost everybody - just by silently observing the nature, listening to classical music, liturgy or pondering the (mathematical) ingenuity of the way the universe is working (was created) - is at best a very mild version of the mystical experience that V.V. Raman analyses in the article I mentioned (c.f. also William James’ ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’). It is an experience that can be had, if at ll, only after a very very long ‘training’. V.V. Raman:

“In transcendental mysticism, the mystic becomes aware of an aspect of reality that had no ordinarily recognized shape or form, and of which he or she never had any inkling before. It is as though a person who has been blind all their lifsuddenly has their eyes open … (he) would be as intrigued and confused by the abstract entities to which scientists assign objective reality as scientists often are with the religious symbols that religious practitioners take quite seriously. The one important difference is that the icons of science constitute exopotent reality (truths that can be used to manipulate the world), whereas the religious ones are essentially endopotent (that is, they contribute primarily to the inner dimension of life).“

I do not think Einstein had this in mind.

George, Thanks for highlighting V V Raman. I’ve found him to be of some interest. In an interview Raman relates, as a grad student, he had the opportunity to meet Bertrand Russell in Paris. Raman suggested a ‘Bertrand Russell society’ be formed in order to propagate his (Russell’s) ideas on rationality and compassion etc. Raman was a little puzzled at Russell’s reply, “my friend, I don’t think you’ve really understood anything of what I’ve been saying, for as soon as you associate a name with a message, people start worshipping that name and forget what the message is all about.” Raman saw a significant truth in this, saying one of the great advantages of Hinduism is that there isn’t a single person who established it, consequently, at the conceptual level the ideas, metaphysics and meaning of religious life does not focus on a particular founder.

I do seriously question, however, the validity of the Hindu caste system where even Mahatma Gandhi technically became an outcaste when travelling to England – I think here, any ‘advantage’ gained is lost. Raman also notes, the teachings of the founders of the great religions are generally forgotten in favour of actions, often reprehensible to the founder’s intent, performed by followers that are highly incongruent with any of the founder’s teachings. I’d suggest also, organisations often form under this 'force', developing a separate ethos, often on the basis of absolutist principles and become politically driven. – i.e. based on self-interest, however, this is all perhaps just inherently a part of the human condition. There needs a continual arbiter to refute this constant condition (I find the Koine Greek, Paraclete, comes to mind).
cont’d…

…cont’d
The absolutism, as represented for example in the classic traditions of Judaism and Christianity argue God dictated every word and religious symbol/message in the canonical sources. Consequently, their authority is absolute and unlimited. These claims extended without limit, meaning other religions were of no validity. In Christianity, Judaism is superseded; the Jews were rejected for their blindness; there is no salvation outside the church. In Judaism Christianity is idolatrous and irrational; Jesus is a false messiah; the righteous of the nations are saved only through Jewish revelation. The symbolic tradition of washing someone’s dirty, grubby feet does I believe remind all people of a genuine significance in humility, cutting through the pretence of all religion.

On the subject of Einstein, his genius relates also to his simple approach to life. Many of his quotes abound and should perhaps be more widely read, “Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.” In an interview, Einstein admitted to being “enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene” (”What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck), “Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus….. No man can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he.” – Einstein.

I’ve read some of the many well constructed and well reasoned denials of Jesus' very existence, but in the final analysis, I find (as I’m in no doubt you do also) they simply do not stack up. The genius of Einstein is not needed to recognise this – nor, for Einstein, was this genius necessary.

Something as big, and as old, and as monolithic as the Catholic Church will inevitably be an easy target, and Brian has definitely taken aim. And as I am not a Catholic, I do not wish to point my finger at errors, nor offer a defense. But I would say that Brian and others seem more than willing to ignore the enormous amount of good done by the church around the world. It couldn't have lasted this long without something good going for it, could it? Maybe, but many in history have predicted the church's demise, and the church has outlived them all.

I would like to address a theme that has come up in the article as well as the posts, and that is the supposed conflict between science and faith. Such a conflict exists only in the minds of some. It definitely does not exist in the minds of countless thousands of practising scientists around the world, who also happen to be Bible believing Christians. Science flourished most in the countries with strong Bible believing traditions.

At the end, Brian talks of scientific advances providing compelling evidence for the evolution concept. Unfortunately for atheists, this just isn't the trend. In recent decades, belief in evolution amongst the general population has waned, despite its emphasis in education curricula, and despite its main proponents (RD. etc.) getting louder and bit more frantic.

Brian speaks of molecular biology coming to support the evolution concept. I suppose he is forgetting or is willingly ignorant that the founder of microbiology, the man alleged to have saved more lives in the 20th Century than any other, Louis Pasteur, spoke openly about his Christian faith, and didn't have much time for Darwin. The same could be said of Gregor Mendel, the one considered the father of modern genetics. If I started a list of leading lights from the history of Western science who were also men of faith, it could grow very long.

(continued...)

Harry G.
I know when NASA selected its Apollo astronauts, it only selected from the cream of those it considered the most clear thinking, rational, and scientific (especially in the engineering sense). When you speak of those men who walked on the moon, I'm not sure if you are referring to James Irwin or Charles Duke. Both of these men spoke openly about their faith after their return to Earth.

Also, I'd also like to ask Brian (or anyone else, as this is a regularly made comment) about science proving things such as the virgin birth to be impossible. We all know where babies come from. And we know input from a male is necessary. But with science helping to define what is possible, when God does the impossible, does that not help us to define a miracle? Is that not the point?

Dan S de Merengue:
The moonwalker I was referring to was Edgar Mitchell. The article I was referring to was from the Sydney Morning Herald dated 28 July. You can read the full artice at
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/the-aliens-arent-coming-theyve-already-been-says-moon-walker/2008/07/27/1217097059914.html

It begins:
"NEW YORK: The list of those who subscribe to the theory that aliens and UFOs have visited Earth amid a huge government cover-up is long and varied.

It includes cranks, paranoid delusionals and the odd tabloid editor, but a NASA astronaut who has walked on the moon?"

Edgar Mitchell holds two bachelor's degrees in science and a doctorate in aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He shares the record for the longest moon walk; nine hours on February 9, 1971 as part of the Apollo 14 mission.

Put all that together and it is no wonder that a British radio interviewer almost fell off his seat when he lobbed Dr Mitchell what he thought was a throwaway question: did he believe in life on other planets?"

[end quote]

So when NASA selected its "cream" did it make a mistake with this man, though he clearly did his job very well. What has the faith of a person got to do with whether he makes a good astronaut?

My request was for someone to explain to me why "intelligent" people hold some of these nonsensical (a subjective term, of course). After a solar eclipse in Western China, the feng shui experts said that it could forebode a catastrophe, and we know about China's earthquake. But people who believe there is a causal relationship between these events know more than the rest of us do, are superstitious, or maybe selected by NASA as astronauts. At least the feng shui experts have some runs on the board.

What was your point, Sam?
Harry G

relda,
Thanks for your snippets about Raman and Einstein. I have known Raman from his regular columns in The Global Spiral (http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/Columns/VVRaman/tabid/139/Default.aspx). He is a good populariser of the relation between science and religion, neither hostile to either of them nor with a Christian point of departure as the three scientist-theologians I mentioned above. He is a physicist, I am not sure to what extent is he a “devout Hindu“. I liked his recent paper because he does not so much study parallels bewteen science and theology (as e.g. the three mostly do) but rather those between mystical and scientific knowledge or experience.

Of course, i agree with your observation that there are no teachings of a founder in Hinduism, nevertheless I like very much the reassurance that in Bhagavat Gita the ‘incarnate god’ Krishna gave Arjuna: “Whatever God a man worships, it is I who answer the prayer”. It juxtaposes so nicely with the OT Yahvweh’s “You shall have no other gods before me” and I think it could be ascribed, at leat indirectly, also to our NT’s incarnate God.

As for Einstein, his ideas about God and religion followed those of Spinoza, so he has been claimed by both atheists and theists as one of their own. I think one of his deepest philosophical insights is the aphorism “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality” which, I think, could be paralleled by: “As far as religious symbols (and norms) refer to observable reality (and rules that can be enforced) they are not certain; as far as they are certain they do not refer to observable reality (and rules that can be enforced).“

HarryG,
One person’s logic is another person’s Looney-tunes.

I’m guessing we all agree that the Apollo astronauts were intelligent, and at least somewhat scientifically literate. Your question then is why do intelligent people perform mental gymnastics so as to arrive at strange conclusions?

I suppose it all comes down to your definition of intelligence, and opinion as to which are the nonsensical conclusions, and also the psychological capacity in humans for self deception. Or perhaps there are those things which are still mysterious and yet beyond our ability to investigate scientifically or otherwise.

You seem to agree with Brian that Christian faith is in conflict with evidence for evolution. This supposes that there is much evidence for evolution. So far on this thread, there have been those who have commented from both sides of that fence, as well the alleged ‘mental gymnasts’ who say there is such evidence but they’re not in conflict.

Could I ask whether you believe there is life on other planets? (I didn’t catch what your position was here.) There are those who say it is logically inevitable that there is intelligent life on other planets, with this being directly linked with the idea of evolution. Life evolved in this solar system simply through natural processes, and there must be millions of other comparable solar systems out there. Therefore, chances are, intelligent life must abundantly exist out there as well. Or so the thinking goes.

Are these people intelligent? Carl Sagan was intelligent enough to convince governments to spend millions on radio telescopes to listen for signs of intelligent life. There was a lot more tax money spent on this than on World Youth Day.

Dan,

Thanks for your response. I apologise for calling you Sam.
I recognise that "one person's logic etc"; the idea of discussions such as these is to try to understand other people's logic, and maybe, therefore, change our own, or learn "facts" hitherto unknown.
A doctor wife of a friend of mine in England believes the pyramids were either launching or landing pads for space ships. She comes from a family which gets the source of its information from The Daily Mail, so I think her mindset comes from that environment. Similarly, I think others' mindsets' mostly comes from their environment, which is why I am pleased to see lapsed catholics develop from Catholic schools - people CAN think beyond their environment when exposed to other influences, but many "intelligent" people don't seem to try.

My question was concerning mental gymnastics as you say.

You do suggest that it comes down an "opinion as to which are the nonsensical conclusions", and to a degree you are right. It is only a matter of opinion, but surely as we develop, what is right and what is wrong will finally come clear. It was once a matter of opinion as to whether the earth was flat or not. Someone might still think the earth is flat, but I declare that that opinion is nonsensical. We have reached a point of no return on that issue. Only a theoretical philosopher could argue that point.

There are certainly other things beyond our knowledge, and let us continue debating them. That way, the creationists will eventually be forced to cede.

As far as evolution goes .... ctd

As far as evolution is concerned, I am at the stage in my belief where I believe that that truth is self-evident, even if all the i's are not dotted and the t's not crossed. The only people questioning evolution are people who believe a god made the world, and they rationalise their arguments as best they can. (If someone wants to be a deist and assume a god made the world and plays no further part in its organisation or its people, I can let them live with that. It is people who insist on worshipping that god, and obeying his writings that I look askance at). Christian faith is in conflict with evolution, unless you perform some level of mental gymnastics. People looking for a second miracle from Mary MacKillop will have no trouble.

I do not believe there is life on other planets, but I would not rule out the possibility. As you say "chances are, intelligent life must abundantly exist out there as well". This is similar to the proposition that a group of typing monkeys, if they typed long enough, would eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. This is logically true whether you are an evolutionist or a creationist. But the chances are so remote, for all practical purposes they can be regarded as 0. But I would expect there to be some form of living organisms elsewhere in this every expanding universe.

Are these people intelligent? Who knows? Who cares? More money is spent on elite athletes than on Catholic World Youth (and older) Week.

What was your point, Dan?

The way I see it, the monkeys started typing 2000 years ago, and the Shakespeare has not improved.

Religions will come and go,( like they have done so thought-out recorded history) and mankind has only just taken its first steps into finding out what is really going on and I want you to think about this. We have the perfect model when we view our own solar-system.
Randomality is a constant! Just think of the universe as a large cake mix, filled with all sorts of elements, just waiting for the right cooking temperature and conditions.

Out of the billions of stars, the odds are quite in the favour of earth-like planets like our own, some advanced some are not so, and if god did just pick this one little planet just to put us on, its fair to say that the rest of the universe is there for what? It wouldn't be a very wise god to put all of ones eggs in one basket, would it!

We, the third rock from the sun, just happens to be the right distance from the big orange thing, and with that, life seems to just pop up, so given that's all well and true( which it is), its pretty fair to say that this event must also be happening elsewhere, at different degrees
of development.

OH and runner! All the best to you. I hope you find what your looking for.

Religions will just fade away the closer we get in getting off this dam rock!

The answers are not here!

EVO

HarryG,
I was suggesting that lots of money often gets spent on silly things. Yet I suppose, if it’s been given to you to spend, well, all your luck! I too quite like many of these sporting and cultural events. Yet I’ll tell you for free what they’ll hear as they strain their ears listening for communications from Andromeda or wherever.

Overall my assertion is that there is nothing in science that poses a threat to Christian faith. I disagree with Brian’s assertion that some kind of confirmation of evolution will soon lead to the church’s final deathblow.

There is much on which we do agree: That there are some things that go beyond ‘matters of opinion’. The ancient philosophers gave more than sufficient argument for a spherical earth, and this is confirmed daily. I would also agree that Christian faith is in conflict with evolution, but I disagree that the truth of evolution is self evident.

You say that the only people questioning evolution are believers in a creator god. Logically, this is the equivalent of saying that non-believers (atheists) don’t question evolution. While kind of tautological, in many respects, I agree. Atheists don’t do enough questioning of their theory. Nor does this come as a surprise. Naturalistic evolution is necessary and foundational for them.

I’m also fully in agreement that the chance of monkeys typing Shakespeare is for all practical purposes zero. The chances of randomly typing a few coherent sentences are astronomical. Yet within all living things is a complex code which uses DNA lettering to describe their genetic make up. The DNA of the simplest living thing is more complex than Shakespeare.

While not a complete proof, I think the evidence points towards an intelligent typist of those letters. Or at least I would suggest that it is not the creationists who are doing the mental contortions to try and escape the evidence.

Dan

YouSaid
I think the evidence points towards an intelligent typist of those letters.Or at least Iwould suggest that itis not the creationists who are doingthe mental contortions to try and escape the evidence.

The argument for intelligent design onthe basis of the'improbability'of the observed outcome of DNA-base life isnot valid.Probability is primarily a measure of ignorance.The less we knowabout a process the less certain we are ofits outcome ie we say thatthe probability of a certain outcome is low because,in our ignorance,weare unable to determine which of many possible outcomes will actually occur.

The problem with the'intelligent design'argument is that itis predicated on our 100%ignorance. We say that there were a vast number of possible outcomes of the'universe experiment'and thatthe very low probability of this particular outcome constitutes some sort of miracle prompting the completely irrational assertion that'someone made it happen'.

Imagine this experiment.A box,avery big box,contains ten to the ten trillion tokens numbered from 1 to ten to the ten trillion.You pick one token fromthe box.Given that the token you chose was labelled 12853917086 do you deduce from the very low prior probability of this outcome that God made it happen?Of course not.

There is,however,a valid argument that ALL those possible outcomes which we imagine might have happened, could not have happened at all (After all.... they didnt!)and itis only in ignorance thatwe believe that they could have happened.Perhaps the formation of organic matter and its subsequent'evolution'into intelligent life was inevitable from the'beginning'.Our very existence provides at least some sort of evidence that this is what was always going to happen.(And it DID).

Creation theology isnot about the physical genesis of the cosmos but a statement,in mythic form,of the nature and purpose of being human.It deals with human relationships,sexuality,family and diversity.It observes the particular relationship we have to nature and recognises the opportunities and dangers ofthe'power'we have to manipulate our environment.It asserts our freedom,our need for community and our interconnectedness with the whole of nature.

It is a travesty that,in ignorance,well-meaning and devout Christians have sought to reduce itto nothing more than a weak and discredited'scientific hypothesis'.

Dan

You think the world was created by a god (presumably the one you believe in), and I am confident, very confident, that it was not made by a god. Questions like "who made god?" and "what was god doing before time began and before he created the world?" and "can the omnipotent god make a stone so big that even he cannot roll it?" are questions that are worth asking, but won't prove much.

I don't insist on people believing in the big bang theory or whatever. All the hypotheses in the world won't prove exactly what happened and why. If people want to be deists, and believe that a god or something made the world (call it the big bang god if you like) then let them. It is a personal belief that one can hold as a consenting adult in the narrowness of one's mind.

The objection is the insistence of god worshippers that their god is the one true god (what arrogance!), that their god made their wishes known through a book or tablets or whatever, that he loves us so much but if we don't believe in him he will send us to hell and eternal torment, and through the sheer volume of the number of people who carry this superstition, the lives of the rest of us are detrimentally affected.

How can you, Dan, and your allies, believe in that sort of god? And if you do believe in one such, why worship and praise him? Is it only through the fear of an afterlife? Cast the yoke aside. You seem like a decent fellow; you'll feel better for it.

We can do without the incantations of the belief systems currently in place. The whole religious\superstitions, of the blind leading the blind, is only going to do more damage than good.
Weening of the religious pacifier must be done very slowly in order not to shock or horrify the current state of the minds that are heavily infected , that's what I believe. Try having faith in yourselves and turn the power in-wards and not up-wards into the abyss.( We have been dragging that one along to the point of not believing) Religion has had holes blown right through it, it more resembles swiss cheese.

Hypothetical.

One day man will leave this solar-system and seed other planets and I wonder what the indigenous life forms will call us!

I kinder like the name god! lol

I wonder if this scenario has already taken place! The mind can only ponder.
But one thing is for sure, we will all find out in the end.

I would hate to see all the religious people all waiting at the bus-stop and no-one comes, OUCH! that's going to hurt!

All the best

EVO

Well, threads like this show again and again that not only some Christians are very naive about what atheism or agnosticism is all about (very often because of a naive understanding of both the bible and science), but also some atheists and agnostics are very naive about what Christianity is all about (very often also because of a naive understanding of the bible and science, as well as logic, evidence etc.). Neither of these zealots, theists or atheists, can contribute much to any debate that could broaden the perspective of the participants. Such a debate is meaningful only if each participant tries to understand the world view, its presuppositions, of the other, instead of a priori proclaiming it immoral, irrational etc.

George! You may have not noticed, but you haven't provided much yourself. Of course your going to defend your little corner and so you should. Who am I, but a little spec on the face of this earth, with the same worries and concerns of those with higher knowledge's of understanding, so let me put it this way.

Believing in a god will only keep us here, and being afraid of every clap of thunder, well, I think we are past that, don't you think?

What do you think god wants? I see it as a fine case of lost in translation. If he has given us the power and control of our lives and the ability to leave this earth to find our destiny, its fair to say that god sounds a little like Hitler. YOU MUST OBAY ME OR ELSE! or sounds a bit like Peter Costello.

Seriously though, George! Evolution is winning the debate on all levels, and can I give you a hypothetical?

What if, along time ago, man just got it all wrong and wrote this book with his own interpretations? This will mean that primitive man is guiding your destiny, and before you go running off to your alter, its fair to say that this could quite possibly be the biggest form of naivety ever recorded.

Religion is a good grounding tool for many, so it will service its purpose right to the end.

EV

EVO,
>> Evolution is winning the debate on all level<<
I agree completely, not only in biology or cosmology but also in out thinking one cannot ignore evolution. Mathematics, science and e.g. religion have also evolved, and there is no point arguing with somebody about modern science or mathematics if his/her understanding of the subject is stuck somewhere at a medieval level. The same for religion, especially its Christian version.

>>What do you think god wants?<<
If I knew I would be on equal level of intelligence with Him. I can only know what my (i.e. Christian) model tells me, and that is, that He "thought us". i.e. is behind everything you find important - Hitler or Peter Costello or whomever/whatever you care to mention - and that the "technology" He used to make us happen a contemporary non-specialist can best understand reading e.g. Richard Dawkins (leaving out his atheistic non-sequiturs). Since my intelligence is infinitesimally smaller than His, I cannot judge whether He could have used a better "technology" than evolution; a "technology" that would still make us evolve into conscious beings free to acknowledge or deny Him but without the evil and sufferings as an unavoidable by-product.

It interests me how discussions such as this one, which started on issues of the Catholic Church, often gravitate towards the creation/evolution debate. For me, this is the key discussion for theists (and perhaps atheists) in understanding our base philosophical premises with regard to our identity and our relationship with the world around us.

Hence, I would like to ask EVO if you feel the importance of the debate is reflected in your name?

As for the assertion “evolution is winning the debate on all levels”, I beg to differ. Evolution is the majority position amongst scientists; the ruling paradigm. However, evolution’s opponents are standing up quite well. So well that I would suggest that is one reason evolutionists sometimes shy away from debating (I remember an example at the University of Melbourne involving Ian Plimer in 1991). I would go so far as to say that I’ve never seen a creationist lose a formal debate conducted on agreed parameters.

If anyone’s interested in reading one such debate, here’s a link to one conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald website a couple of years ago.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3466/

http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/skeptics_vs_creationists.pdf

EVO,
About man leaving our solar system. I doubt this will ever happen. I personally doubt any astronaut will ever visit another planet in our lifetimes. If anyone wanted to visit Mars, the technology has largely been available for perhaps decades.

The restrictions on interstellar space travel are relentless. Who’s going to volunteer to visit our nearest neighbour 4.3 light years away? The amount of energy required to propel a vehicle one tenth the speed of light would be massive Then after 43 years of “Are we there yet?” you’d need the same amount of energy to stop the thing, then the same to turn it around, and after another 43 years returning another enormous lot of energy to stop. I hope that first volunteer is wearing his seat belt.

Dan

I read one of the debates you referenced. You said that you had
"..never seen a creationist lose a formal debate conducted on agreed parameters."
Perhaps that is because you have never seen a debate "conducted on agreed parameters." The one I read certainly wasn't. The other possibility is that you are just predisposed to believe the creationists.

It is really very simple. Science and Theology are different disciplines. Discussion of creation makes sense within the discipline of theology and evolution within the discipline of science. Creation describes interhuman and human-divine relationships. Evolution postulates a mechanism to explain the observable phenomenon of biological change.

When Darwin announced his theory of evolution the Church reacted to the idea that humans were biologically related to other primates. It offended people to hear that they might have descended from monkeys. The creation-evolution debate has always been about this 'offensive' idea that humans are animals like monkeys, dogs and sheep. We dont need to be offended.

Many years ago I read Teilhard's "Phenomenon of Man" which is a thoroughly evolutionist work by a Jesuit priest who clearly understood the distinction between creation as theology and evolution as science. The book is really an imaginative, semi-mystical account of the evolution of humanity from the primordial soup. It's probably not a soup to your taste.

The point is that it was life-giving to read such a book. Taken at face-value it is about biogenesis but that would be to miss the point entirely. It locates the spirit of the divine in creation as a whole and in the interconnectedness of everything in creation. This is what Genesis is really about. It is an imaginative account of cosmogenesis and biogenesis wherein the organic nature of the whole is organised by the creating, divine spirit who creates it and loves it and humanity is part of that.

You simply wouldnt be human if you werent descended from a monkey!

Yes Dan, only in this century, but like the B/W movies of the 1930,s , when we view the past actions of the times, it was almost inconceivable to them that the future we live in now, couldn't possible ever happen, but it does!
And a hundred years from now, the people of the future will view your comment's as quite amusing, as for all of us for that matter.

But you are right about the no astronaut policy,cause no-one in their right mind would do the star-trek thing. Speed testing and unmanned technologies will do the searching for us and as for getting closer to light speed, don't worry, iam sure they will work it out.
But sometimes the smallest of starts can have the biggest rewards.
All in good time. ( fingers crossed )

A lot of people wonder why I have a war on religion. that's easy! I truly believe it is just a fraud. It is inconceivable to me that this spirit is all around us and through out the universe with the label love attached to it. These gods of yours are not merciful and the biggest worry is that the sheep people ask for help to assist them in their day to day lives and rely very heavily on divine intervention to keep them out of harms way. Yeah! I can see that's working.

If I went back in time with bic lighter to the time of christ, and with a few other fancy gadgets, you would of never heard of the bloke! Just with a box full of pharmaceuticals would of put him out of business.
OK! Its clear I have no idea what you religious people get from it, and quite frankly, after viewing the last 2000 years of it, you can have it! ( healing powers are in the mind ).

As for the name evolution, I think the definition speaks for its self.

EV

Waterboy - ‘Science and Theology are different disciplines.’

I could agree to that. The question then becomes, into which domain does evolution really fall? From your description in Teilhard's “Phenomenon of Man”, evolution (at least Teilhard's version of it) was a quite a ‘mystical’ and ‘spiritual’ process.

One way to help determine whether something can be classed as ‘scientific’, in the common usage of the word, is whether it can be falsified. Can we imagine a test that might disprove evolution? This is rather problematic. Some suggest that looking at the fossils may provide an objective test. When creationists have pointed out the sparsity of transitional fossils between the major groups, evolutionists have responded by giving possible reasons for their lack. At this point, we realised how much evolution was an idea that is difficult to falsify.

In the end, evolution is better described as an interesting philosophical model rather than an objective scientific discovery.

By the way, the design argument is not based on ignorance. We know much about DNA and genetic sequencing. Also, it is not based on probability alone but a mixture of probability an analogy.

For example, you talk of the trillion to one example that just might happen (or may have happened). Can I ask you, what would you conclude if you saw the letters H E L P scratched into sand on a beach? The chances of this occurring through natural (non intelligent) means, perhaps sticks being blown by the wind, or crabs pushing stones on the beach, are trillions to one.

What would you conclude if you heard a repeated Morse code like message being sent from a far flung sector of the galaxy?

>>...this spirit is all around us and through out the universe with the label love attached to it. ... If I went back in time with bic lighter to the time of christ, and with a few other fancy gadgets, you would of never heard of the bloke! Just with a box full of pharmaceuticals would of put him out of business.<<

Yes EV, this is what I meant when I said in my previous post that "also some atheists and agnostics are very naive about what Christianity is all about (very often also because of a naive understanding of the bible and science, as well as logic, evidence etc.)".

Sorry George, I was distracted by the intellectual humor of Dan the man, but I did understand what you said. ( how I enjoy a good blogging ) I think hes trying to take my spot.lol. but back to reality? Its a for gone conclusion to most scientists, that evolution
is a more likely start for us and I am sure a have a living relative to prove it, he wins the cave-man contest at any fancy dress hands down.
Now some say throwbacks are clear evidence of our connection with early man and some say it's a genetic malfunction and the whole theory is dismissed.

What do you think? ( I wonder if Adam from the bible had these hair follicle problems.)

EVO

Dan

My words were "imaginative" and "semi-mystical" but your ingenuous paraphrase "mystical and spritual" does illustrate that the creation v evolution "debate" is largely an exercise in devious rhetoric.

Good science is the product of hard-work, good luck and powerful imagination. The creationists' resort to the Bible for "evidence" is basically intellectual laziness. Their experimental work, given that it is almost entirely aimed at disproving evolution, locates them as a minor niche sub-group of evolutionary biology rather than a separate branch of biology in its own right.

The creation myths, however, do reflect great imaginative powers. Well, actually, they are largley borrowed stories from other cultures adopted and adapted by the Hebrews during the time of their exile in Babylon. But they're pretty good stories despite that.

The creative work that the Hebrews put into these stories was to cast them as stories about universal human identity and relationships. Their truth is greater by far than any stolid, literal interpretation of them can ever reveal. Their importance lies not in what they say about cosmogenesis but rather in what they say about being human, spirited, social, sexual and immersed in this physical world.

Evolution is not a threat to creation theology. Evolution is observable everywhere. It suggests a mechanism for macro scale biological change. Feral rabbits in Australia are now largely resistant to Myxamatosis and Calisivirus thanks to the mechanism described by evolution... well part of that mechanism anyway. Could they eventually change so much that they become a new species? Evolution is not, in itself, a theory about how the first living things came into being. By postulating a mechanism by which living organisms can change and become more complex it complements the various scientific theories about bio-genesis but those theories are much less certain than evolution itself.

Creation is delightful theology and the theory of evolution is brilliant science. You do not seem able to appreciate either. That is your loss.

Dan
you said
..what would you conclude if you saw the letters H E L P scratched into sand on a beach? The chances of this occurring through natural (non intelligent) means, perhaps sticks being blown by the wind, or crabs pushing stones on the beach, are trillions to one.

If I was not human or even just not familiar with the roman alphabet then I would not see any significance whatsoever in that particular configuration of lines in the sand. However, I do understand your point. It takes a considerable imaginative leap to get from the observation of 'organisation' to the idea of a creating God. Not everyone can make that imaginative leap and at any rate it does not exclude the possibility that God 'created' by processes entirely consistent with all our other observations of the physical and biological world.

The great flaw in creation science is that it implies a capricious, meddling God and that is not consistent with Christian theology as I know it. The same problem arises with the idea that God chooses to heal some people while allowing others to die horribly in wars, starve in famines and suffer in any one of the many other nasty ways that real people really do suffer. A doctrine of God that postulates such random interference with the laws of nature is deeply problematic.

Once you escape from the strictures of Biblical literalism the world becomes at once, more sensible, more beautiful, more subtle and more spirited... though perhaps a little more threatening and definitely more challenging. Theology becomes playful, life-giving intercourse with the Divine and every breath, every movement and every thought becomes prayer.

You dont have to give up your faith to give up your Biblical literalism. A rich experience of life within Gods creation is possible on the other side of fundamentalism.

Dan,

Not one of the points you've made on this thread so far is in anyway accurate.

<<However, evolution’s opponents are standing up quite well.>>

No they're not. They're treated as nothing more than a joke, and you should know this by now considering all the debunking I've done of Creationism in our discussions. Not one of your arguments has stood up to my rebuttals.

In fact, looking at those links you provided about the debate, I see that I have also debunked the majority of the arguments, put forth by the Creationists there.

I'm a little surprised though, that you would continue to link to such a dishonest website. I found your last Richard Lewontin quote there under the heading of “Amazing Admission”.

But I guess when you have nothing, dishonesty is all you can rely on.

<<So well that I would suggest that is one reason evolutionists sometimes shy away from debating>>

Tsk, tsk. Now aren't we just being the teensiest bit dishonest here?

Real scientists make it abundantly clear that they don't debate creationists for the same reason that Stephen Hawkins wouldn't debate Black Hole Theory with Miss World. Nor do they want to give such a crackpot idea any more acknowledgment than it deserves, or validate it in anyway by taking it seriously enough to debate.

<<The question then becomes, into which domain does evolution really fall?>>

I like how you've tried to make this question sound intellectual, when in fact, there is nothing intelligent about it at all. Allow me to demonstrate...

<<One way to help determine whether something can be classed as ‘scientific’, ... is whether it can be falsified.>>

Correct so far.

<<Can we imagine a test that might disprove evolution?>>

Yes.

Either way, there doesn't have to be a “test”, just an observation.

<<This is rather problematic.>>

No it's not. Here's why...

<<Some suggest that looking at the fossils may provide an objective test.>>

And they would be right.

A static fossil record would be good evidence against evolution. Instead, we see hundreds of smooth transitions throughout many species, particularly primates.

Continued...

...Continued

There are many other ways to falsify evolution, such as:

- Finding fossils of more complex and more recent lifeforms buried deeper than the primitive lifeforms;
- Finding true chimeras, such as mermaids and centaurs;
- Discovering a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating;
- Observations of organisms being created.

Either way, your claim is absurd considering Creationists claim that evolution has been falsified.

<<When creationists have pointed out the sparsity of transitional fossils between the major groups, evolutionists have responded by giving possible reasons for their lack.>>

Two points:

1. There isn't much sparsity between the major groups.

2. What is your point here? It obviously doesn't say much for the intelligence of Creationists if they have to have the reasons for the lack of fossils pointed out to them. Even a primary school child would know that!

<<By the way, the design argument is not based on ignorance.>>

Yes it is. And you prove this in the rest of your post...

<<We know much about DNA and genetic sequencing.>>

Yes, in fact we know so much about them, that we can now be certain about evolution since they adhere to the theory to the point that they can be classified as solid proof of it.

<<...what would you conclude if you saw the letters H E L P scratched into sand on a beach? The chances of this occurring through natural (non intelligent) means, perhaps sticks being blown by the wind, or crabs pushing stones on the beach, are trillions to one.>>

Another Creationist fallacy.

Ever heard of 'Natural Selection', Dan?

Natural Selection is what turns the randomness of mutations into the NON-random process of Evolution. Therefore, not only is your analogy completely incorrect, but your so-called "evidence" for an intelligent designer is non-existent.

So it looks like you where also wrong when you said...

<<...I would suggest that it is not the creationists who are doing the mental contortions to try and escape the evidence.>>

No Dan, Creationists are the only ones trying to escape the evidence. And you prove this every time you post.

AJ Philips,

Keep defending the indefensible. It makes for a good laugh.

Runner,

Instead of making your usual snard little inconsequential remarks, how about you actually back your opinions with some evidence or reasoning.

You can't, can you? No, you never have been able to. You just sit on the sidelines and snipe at people with nothing to back your assertions. You're nothing more than a forum troll.

Honestly Runner, you have the mind of a child.

Grow up.

AJ Phillips:
This post is just to support your comment on Runner's snide remarks. I refer to people such as Runner as "bomb throwers" - they don't contribute anything to the debate, and in this case, perhaps Runner is showing his colours - throw a bomb and run.

It is a pity we get personal in some of these discussions, but I do think we have to dissuade comments such as Runner's most recent post.

HarryG & AJ,
I find your reaction to the Fundamentalism encountered here as quite legitimate. The defensible is well provided, where, irony of ironies the Vatican’s 2006 chief astronomer Fr. George Coyne admits, “Intelligent design [or creationism’s strong counterpart] isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.” Sadly, it is really quite childish to create confusion between the scientific plane and the philosophical or religious.

Those who have learnt from the ‘Galileo affair’ know very well the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason become prey to fundamentalism – in the face of any honest reflection or debate, ‘bomb-throwing’ becomes but a desperate, unavailing sanctuary.

 >>irony of ironies the Vatican’s 2006 chief astronomer Fr. George Coyne admits<<

I do not see what is the irony in here. From its very beginning, the “Intelligent Design” movement never had the Vatican support (the Viennese Archbishop Schönborn’s unfortunate 2005 article in the NYT notwithstanding), although until mid last century, I admit, there was a confusion - not only among Catholics - between the scientific theory (theories) of evolution and the ideology of evolutionism with its metaphysical presuppositions.

After all, in 1990, when the Discovery Institute (that, among other things, fooled Schönborn into writing his controversial NYT article) was founded, Teilhard de Chardin was already widely understood and tolerated, if not accepted, by the Church. [During his August 2006 “Studienkreis” meeting with former students, Benedict XVI took upon himself the uneasy task of defending his personal friend Schönborn without giving the impression of meddling in scientific theories where he does not have the necessary qualifications.]

Thanks HarryG.

Relda,

<<Sadly, it is really quite childish to create confusion between the scientific plane and the philosophical or religious.>>

I couldn't possibly agree more!

As I have said to Dan a couple of times before, classifying evolution (the mere study of the diversity of life) as some sort of a religion, is nothing more than a sad attempt by Creationists to drag the theory of evolution, and those who accept it, down to the same sorry fundamentalist level of Creationists.

But if someone really believes this, then that not only demonstrates a blatant ignorance of evolution and science in general, but is a clear and unmistakable sign of a mind with a very poor grasp of reality.

Anyway... A couple of corrections:

I meant Stephen Hawking, not Stephen Hawkins.

And when I said:
"Nor do they want to give such a crackpot idea any more acknowledgment than it deserves, or validate it in anyway by taking it seriously enough to debate."

I should have actually said:
"Nor do they want to give such a crackpot idea any more acknowledgment than it deserves, or LEGITIMISE it in anyway by taking it seriously enough to debate."

Ironic, George, because in 2005 (NYT) Cardinal Christof Schonborn described evolution as "incompatible" with church teachings. This remark appears clearly unequivocal and certainly prompted three scientists (two of whom were Catholic) to write to Pope Benedict XVI stating, "It is vitally important ... that in these difficult and contentious times the Catholic Church not build a new divide, long ago eradicated, between the scientific method and religious belief." (This is to say they are different but nevertheless, compatible).

One can describe neo-Darwinian theory as an amalgam of genetics, population biology, molecular biology, and evolutionary theory that explains the mechanism of evolution, including natural selection and random chance - but it has nothing to say about whether a divine being may be responsible for the whole thing. Expressing a faith is in no need of qualification but ‘doing’ science has the prerequisite of its proper method. Perhaps one can agree with Schonborn's theology, but not his understanding of science, where he suggests that neo-Darwinian thought rules out a role for a creator – it is merely neutral on this. Ironically, Richard Dawkins holds Schonborn's same view on the ‘no role for the creator’ in evolution – but for reasons that are purely secular.

Relda

It is not as simple as saying that evolution and creation are "compatible". They belong in entirely different domains.
The Genesis creation myths are not primarily about cosmogenesis but about relationships and identity. For much of the last 2000 years the Church has taught, after Genesis, that humanity holds a special place in "creation" and herein lies their problem with evolution. Evolution says that we are not essentially different to other animals and indeed we are very closely related to them having common ancestors and so on. This was an offense to many Church people and many have not yet adjusted to this "new" knowledge. The offense felt by Christians makes this a highly emotive topic which is why Creationists and Intelligent Designers press their case with such vigorous and at times acrimonious "debate".

Evolution says that humans are just another variety of animal. Creationists believe that humans are above the animals, being made "in the image" of God. These two views are, indeed, incompatible. The problem is, of course, that creationists are teaching bad theology as well as bad science... and they wonder why the Church is disappearing from the western world.

Bible stories have long been taught in Sunday School to small children. At first they are taught as if they are true and that has seemed not entirely inappropriate for small children. It is not appropriate, however, to maintain this very simple understanding into adulthood. For such people evolution represents a threat to faith that must be eliminated.

AJ,
You say creationists are a joke. Others on this thread such as Runner as well as many scientists say evolution is laughable. So who decides where the joke is? Perhaps we’ll just have to discuss it. That’s what this discussion forum is about. Praise God for such forums!

Now you claim victory in ‘debunking’ previous arguments in discussions on this issue. When did OLO appoint you as an adjudicator? Wouldn’t the world be a dandy place if we could participate in a debate and also adjudicate the debate on our own behalf? Imagine how the judicial system would operate if some of us were allowed to do that.

You say real scientists don’t debate creationists at risk of legitimising their ideas. I suppose that means that you can’t include yourself as a real scientist, as you seem very keen to enter into debate on the issue.

In reality, scientists have debated the issue, as we both have made reference to above.

Although debating with you, AJ, does pose its challenges. For instance, how am I supposed to respond when you are contradicting yourself so clearly, as you did in consecutive sentences in your Wednesday post above? You even labelled them sentence 1 and sentence 2.

In sentence 1 you say there isn’t much sparsity of transitional fossils between the major groups. Then in sentence 2 you say there are reasons for the lack of such fossils.

Well, which is it? Is there a lack of fossils between the major groups or isn’t there?

You start your post with this sentence addressed to me, “Not one of the points you've made on this thread so far is in anyway accurate.” On Tuesday August 5 I claimed that the earth was spherical and not flat. What do you say to that?

But before you consider your response, can you think carefully whether you really want to enter into debate, because you’ve already said that real scientists don’t enter this debate.

Waterboy,
I’m not sure which creation/evolution debate you read, but the one I referenced, http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3466/ , was certainly conducted on agreed parameters: agreed word limits, submission dates, etc.

You accuse creationists of “laziness”, and resorting to the Bible for evidence. This makes me think that you don’t know the creationist arguments very well. Certainly, creationists start with the Bible as their philosophical and theological base. But after that, their evidence is forged in the same manner as all other scientists, by logic and observation of the material world.

I’m glad you noted that a written message like “HELP” would be meaningless to a non-human or someone unfamiliar with the code. Therein lays the strength of this creationist argument. Humans communicate through a shared code or language. Intelligence is always the source of coded information. Lately scientists are discovering the wonders of the genetic code. A similar coding of DNA is found within and read by the cellular structure of all living things.

You ask, could rabbits change enough to become a new species? Quite possibly. Speciation is a commonly observed phenomenon. If the creation/evolution debate was over speciation, then there wouldn’t be a debate. However speciation (defined by the inability of groups to successfully mate or produce fertile offspring) is usually related to selection of certain genes within the gene pool, or a thinning out or loss of information within the gene pool. But from where did the richness of the gene pool originate?

Creationists believe that a great intelligence beyond our own is the source of this genetic information. This same source of information has communicated to mankind through his Word.

If in your understanding, Christian theology is consistent with the evolution of man from lower life forms, where is this communicated in the Christian revelation?

relda,
I agree with everything you wrote so there is no point in “quarreling“ whether “ironic” is the proper description of Schönborn’s faux pas. He clearly confused the scientific theory (theories) of evolution with the ideology of evolutionism with its metaphysical presuppositions about the non-existence of a Creator, where only the latter is clearly incompatible with the Church’s teachings (and actually with practically any Christian position) because of its metaphysical claims outside the realm of science. On the other hand, I agree that it is an irony that both Dawkins and Schönborn think that neo-Darwinian theory leads or would lead to the non-existence of God.

waterboy,
>> It is not as simple as saying that evolution and creation are "compatible". They belong in entirely different domains.<<
Exactly because of that, they are compatible, i.e. “able to exist or occur together without conflict“. Your excursion into history only shows that “Church people” (the same as many of their contemporaries) were not aware of this distinction. The conflict arises only between certain interpretations of scientific findings and certain interpretations of the meaning and metaphysical underpinings of, for instance, Christianity.

>>Evolution says that humans are just another variety of animal.<<
This, of course is true in the same sense as “physics says that humans are just another variety of physical bodies.” Until recently science had no idea about the extra that made a piece of organic matter into a living organism, neither about the extra that made an animal into a conscious human. Today science has a much better understanding of the former but not much of the latter.

Christian religion did not have to say much about the first extra (and still does not), whereas the second extra was, and still is, referred to as the soul, made in the image of God, concepts that can be interpreted this way or that way, but they certainly are not part of (natural) science. Nevertheless, this Christian way of seeing humans is compatible (not in conflict, though not reducible to) the scientific understanding of humans as representing the (present) top of Darwin’s evolutionary tree.

George

As ever, your contribution to the thread is insightful and thought-provoking.

My point about the 'compatibility' of evolution and creation sought to refute any suggestion that the two 'theories' are 'complementary' hypotheses within the field of science. Representing creation as science misses the whole point of the Genesis stories, diminishing and discrediting the theological endeavour in the process.

My problem with 'creationism' is not whether it is good or bad science (Im obviously inclined to the view that it is either bad science or not science at all) but rather that it is very bad theology.

Genesis says that we were 'formed' out of dust and into something that could be called an 'image of the divine'. As you have said our being is physical which makes us one with the common dust of this cosmos. Then there is the 'extra' that gives all the qualities of life and humanity. What can love possibly mean to a stone?

You speak of the soul and so too would I but for the popular distortion of that word to mean disembodied spirit. Here perhaps we differ to some extent but I regard body and soul as indivisible. Each is but an incomplete metaphor for what it means to be human. Neither, in itself, is adequate but in juxtaposition they work together to point towards the fullness of all it is to be an 'image of the divine'. The Divine act of creation provides a model of how we might engage with the rest of creation from our 'privileged' circumstance of being human. We are actors in the cosmic drama as God was an 'actor' in 'creating'.

Reducing the creation story to 'science' is like reading romantic novels but never actually falling in love

Waterboy,
George has beaten me to it. Religion and science are certainly distinguishable, but as Einstein suggests, they are in some sense inseparable. Each is an enterprise, more or less, of every human being who asks why and how in dealing with existence. As you might suggest, neither is subservient to the other but both integral to a certain reality. The demands of either are great enough to keep most (if not all) from daring to profess competence in both.

There need be no conflict between religion and science, but where religions make empirical claims about the world we live in, conflict will be inevitable because that's precisely what science does, and generally, science's explanations will contradict those offered by the supernatural. "Creation science" costs religion its credibility and a philosophical stance of "scientific materialism" costs science its innocence. The poetry, as expressed in the metaphysical, where man's likeness to God resides especially in his speculative intellect for his relationship with the object of his knowledge resembles also God's relationship with what he has created. This is not an affront to empiricism but serves as an inspiration to not only discover but also create.

George,
I’ve enjoyed sharing with you the ironic. :)

Dan,

Forget about confuting, you weren't even able to refute any of my arguments in that last post! Play the ball not the man.

<<Others on this thread such as Runner as well as many scientists say evolution is laughable.>>

No they don't and you know it.

Give just one example of what these “many” scientists find laughable...

You can't. Because there is nothing laughable about evolution.

As for Runner though, he doesn't know the first thing about evolution, so pointing to him as an example is futile. Especially since he was (and always has been) unable to give any evidence or reasoning for his opinions.

But I guess that's why they call it “Blind Faith”.

<<So who decides where the joke is?>>

Each individual for themselves.

So where is the joke? Put it this way... Every argument that Creationists have ever put forth has either been debunked, or shown to be a misconception or a gross over-simplification. You should know this by now.

<<Now you claim victory in ‘debunking’ previous arguments in discussions on this issue.>>

Yep! Definitely and definitively.

You seem to forget that our posting history is easily accessible...

Dan S de Merengue:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/user.asp?id=49018&show=history

AJ Philips:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/user.asp?id=49348&show=history

I challenge you (or anyone else for that matter) to find one single argument of yours that I have not yet been able to debunk... Or at least bring into serious question.

Of course, I really don't want to start sounding too cocky here. The only reason I'm pointing this out is because I find it very sad that you have not yet been able to recognise that the Creationist arguments you put forth don't hold up.

<<When did OLO appoint you as an adjudicator?>>

You've tried this “adjudicator” argument before... http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6784#106235

It didn't work then, and it's not going to work now.

As I said back then, you've tried to refute my arguments, but you haven't yet confuted one of them. And the same applies to now. So I'll ignore the facetious tone in the rest of your second paragraph.

Continued...

...Continued

<<You say real scientists don’t debate creationists at risk of legitimising their ideas. I suppose that means that you can’t include yourself as a real scientist>>

You've got that right. And you're well aware that I have never claimed to be a scientist.

<<In reality, scientists have debated the issue...>>

Yes they have. Although most avoid it.

<<Although debating with you, AJ, does pose its challenges. For instance, how am I supposed to respond when you are contradicting yourself so clearly...>>

Ahhh... Such a desperate attempt to avoid the real Creationist dilemma here in regards to all the transitional fossils.

Nice side-step!

In my first point, I said that there is “not much sparsity”. I didn't say there was “no sparsity”.

So no, there's no contradiction there.

<<You start your post with this sentence addressed to me, “Not one of the points you've made on this thread so far is in anyway accurate.”>>

Hmmm... Yes, a bit of a sweeping statement there. My apologies. I was more referring to your last few posts.

<<But before you consider your response, can you think carefully whether you really want to enter into debate, because you’ve already said that real scientists don’t enter this debate.>>

Again, I've never said I was a scientist.

The reason that I bother to debate you though (other than the fact that I enjoy it), is because it would be a tragedy if someone who was uneducated in this area were to read your posts and think that you actually have a point.

Common sense and truth must always win in the end, and so far, they have.

<<But after that, their evidence is forged in the same manner as all other scientists, by logic and observation of the material world.>>

No it's not. Try listing one bit of logic... Your 'letters in the sand' analogy fell over.

Try also, listing one single observation... And I don't mean an observation that doesn't yet have a full explanation either. That would be using the “God must've done it” reasoning. And even YOU know how unhelpful that is.

AJ,
So Runner doesn’t use a lot of words. He still gives his opinion. This time he was pretty accurate. I personally know a number of scientists who might not actually laugh at evolution, they’re too polite. They just have a quiet chuckle.

I am more than happy for anyone to check out my history and that of our previous discussions on this topic. Anyone can have a look at how well (or otherwise) you have ‘debunked’ the creationist arguments. Let them be the judge. It will save you the trouble of adjudicating your own posts for yourself.

Waterboy,
I agree with Relda’s suggestion that we need to try and integrate good science with good theology, however lofty that is as a goal. (If that’s a fair summary of Relda’s first paragraph (15/8)).

Now creationists are not above criticism, but if you are going to accuse them of bad theology, you need to find a proper reason for saying that. Saying something like this is not enough, “The Genesis creation myths are not primarily about cosmogenesis.”

If Genesis is not speaking directly about cosmogenesis, I’d better go back and read the first page of that book again. (Here’s a clue – read the book title.) Let me see, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth … Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation … Let lights appear in the sky to separate day from night … Let us make human beings in our image. … etc.’

There’s nothing stolid about it. It’s majestic.

While it seems you don’t have a high view of Scripture, I don’t see how believing in evolution allows us to escape the horrors of life and death that you speak of (post Eden). Evolution depends upon death and the struggle of life for the process to advance; in the god-eat-dog struggle, the strong survive while the weak are eliminated. It’s not exactly Jesus’ words, ‘Blessed are the meek’.

When you speak of the church disappearing from the Western world, I’m not sure if you mean the Catholic Church or the wider church. Yet you said it in the context of creationism being bad for church vitality. Can I ask you, which parts of the church are growing faster or stronger, the Catholic Church (where the Vatican usually doesn’t encourage creationism) or the fundamentalist churches with their ‘simple childlike’ faith?

You speak of evolution offending Christian sensibilities. What’s more offensive, the idea that man and ape are one in essence, or that credentialed scientists dare stand up and challenge today’s ruling orthodoxy?

Dan

You said
I’m glad you noted that a written message like “HELP” would be meaningless to a non-human or someone unfamiliar with the code. Therein lays (sic) the strength of this creationist argument.

If I understand you correctly, you agree that the HELP pattern in the sand would be meaningless to me if I had no prior knowledge of the Roman alphabet. I originally thought that you intended an argument by analogy but since the analogy is now shown to be inappropriate I am at a loss to see the point of the pattern recognition story.

You now seem to be profferring a syllogism along these lines:

Coded information implies an intelligent ‘coder’ of the information.
DNA contains coded information.
Therefore there was an intelligent ‘coder’ of the information contained in the DNA.
God is that ‘intelligent coder’.

Have I missed anything?

I find it so sad that this sort of debate has to rage, but it seems there will always be people who believe in the para-normal (though I am not really sure what that means). But I see that Bigfoot is going to finally be exposed this weekend. Oh, wow!

But what prompted me to post again was my viewing of what was on Compass this week on ABC TV. I had just read the Friday evening posts and see that poor old Dan and Runner are still at it.

Compass this Sunday (from ABC web site): The story of John Fawcett, who has restored sight to 25,000 Balinese. His biggest challenge is convincing them that blindness isn't God's punishment.

Good luck, John. Once people think that there is an almighty omnipotent god that created the universe in one fell swoop (OK, over six days) they will believe their blindness is a punishment from the God who loves them.

Relations of mine deny climate change - God looks after this, it is not up to man, they say. Hence these religious freaks wreak their havoc on the world.

So sad.

Dan,
An integration of theology and science gives us something closely relating to “creation-science” and this isn’t my intended meaning – my second paragraph clearly clarifies this. My point is that one essentially informs the other but to combine them causes a ‘muddying of the waters’, so to speak, where both lose their integrity.

Good theology has led to good science, in the emergence of Darwinism from the mainstream of a Christian civilisation, and bad theology has led to bad science in the 'creation scientists' material interpretation of Genesis and their consequent torturing of the scientific facts to construct crazy scientific theories like the 6000 year old earth. The root cause of the dispute lies in the ‘creation scientists' claim that the Bible is 'literally true'. Via this view, the Bible naturally contradicts itself. But taken as stories, fables or parables, used to make theological points, there is no predicament. The problem is the untenability of an exclusively material interpretation of Scripture

The rightful contention for many is, faith and reason are not opposed. For a start, you have to have faith in reason, and secondly, reasoning enables you to demonstrate one thing from another. From a survey taken in Nature magazine, 1997, almost all the Christians who actually understand the theory of evolution and what it says, find there is no clash between the Biblical account and the account due to natural selection. The clash is made up of atheists on one side, and Christians who hold a particular interpretation of the Biblical account on the other. Social Darwinism, however, is not only obnoxious, it has nothing to do with actual Darwinism – where all compete and the weak go to the wall. The fact of competition or co-operation is a long way from being proven to be genetic; much of it may be learned – perhaps a good, if not vital part of any religious tradition.

Dan

The constraints imposed by OLO on length and number of posts precludes one from offering any lengthy discourse on subjects as interesting as literary criticism or systematic theology.

It shall have to suffice to say that in literature ‘plot’ serves to maintain interest and continuity but does not necessarily, or even usually, convey the real purpose of the work.

In the Genesis ‘account’ of creation cosmogenesis is the ‘plot’ but it is not the ‘point’ of the stories.

The whole body of mythological literature illustrates this point. Yes! I regard the creation stories as mythological in nature and we obviously differ on this point. I think I have made it quite clear what I understand to be the ‘point’ of the creation stories.

You ask..Why is Biblical literalism bad theology?
It is bad theology because it fails to recognise the nature of the Bible as literature and consequently ‘misses the whole point’.

Lets illustrate with a familiar story.
A child ‘believes’ in Santa Claus ‘literally’ because she saw it on television and she gets presents at Christmas. It is not until she grows a little older and with maturity and experience comes to see that although Santa is not ‘real’, the story has a real point that is not about receiving gifts at all.

waterboy,
I am afraid that it is easier to agree on what is good or bad science than on what is good or bad theology. Genesis, as I think everybody understands it, is about God creating the world, i.e. being the Creator. There is an immediate, naive understanding of the concepts of world, God and creation, and there are various interpretations of what these concepts might actually mean. Both are needed since not everybody is a philosopher, and “simple” people might also look for the purpose and meaning of their existence. However, I think, that even very sophisticated interpretations (c.f. Mircea Eliade on myths and mythology) should explain but not contradict the immediate ones understandable to the “simple” believer.

There is some confusion about the use of terms creationism and evolutionism: You do not have to subscribe to the pseudo-scientific theory of creationism if you believe in a God-Creator, and you do not have to agree with the ideology of evolutionism if you accept a scientific theory of evolution like neo-darwinism. The same as you do not have to agree with historicism (e.g. in the Popperian sense) if you accepts the findings of some historical studies, or be a socialist if you believe in social justice.

Even the Pope uses these unfortunate terms, although he makes this distinction clear (he calls “doctrine of evolution“ what I called “the ideology of evolutionism with its metaphysical presuppositions“):

“I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a very bitter debate between so called creationism and evolutionism, presented as if they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator cannot consider evolution and those who affirm evolution must exclude God. This juxtaposition is an absurdity, because there are many scientific proofs supporting evolution as a reality, which we must recognize and which enrich our understanding of life. But the doctrine of evolution does not answer all questions, and above all does not answer the greatest philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how is it that it took a path that arrived ultimately at man? ” (http://www.idnet.com.au/files/pdf/Pope%20juxtaposition%20absurd.pdf).

Dan,

<<So Runner doesn’t use a lot of words. He still gives his opinion. This time he was pretty accurate.>>

Then why can't either of you give just one reason as to why evolution is laughable? You still can't after I've asked you to.

As I've said to Runner once before, merely stating something doesn't make it so. You need to give some sort of evidence or reasoning. He (understandably) wasn't able to.

<<I personally know a number of scientists who might not actually laugh at evolution, they’re too polite. They just have a quiet chuckle.>>

How nice.

Then these so-called “scientists” obviously (and I would suggest 'deliberately') don't have a very good understanding of evolution, or knowledge of the evidence for it. The poor science and reasoning (that I even I can poke holes in) and flagrant dishonesty (that you have an amazing ability to pretend doesn't exist) at www.creationontheweb.com is a good indication of this.

Interesting though, that you still seem unable to refute anything that I've said on this thread, or give any answers to my questions. Doesn't your inability to do so make you think? Even for just a second?

Of course, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. You seem too far gone unfortunately. I'm just baffled as to how anyone could be so immune to facts, reasoning and logic. It sounds to me like you'd had Creationism drummed into you from a very young age. It's the only explanation.

Very sad really.

<<I am more than happy for anyone to check out my history and that of our previous discussions on this topic. Anyone can have a look at how well (or otherwise) you have ‘debunked’ the creationist arguments. Let them be the judge.>>

You know very well that I have debunked all the Creationist arguments you've put forth.

Continued...

...Continued

All you're doing here is trying to create a sense that there's some sort of question mark hanging over my claim. The same kind of dishonest tactic used by Creationists when they try to create the illusion that scientists are quietly doubting evolution. Or the illusion that evolution has some serious unresolvable problems with it.

I suspect this is also why you're trying to claim that some scientists laugh at evolution. You've got nothing left, so now you have to rely on the last resort tactic of creating a false illusion or sense of confusion and doubt.

<<You speak of evolution offending Christian sensibilities. What’s more offensive, the idea that man and ape are one in essence, or that credentialed scientists dare stand up and challenge today’s ruling orthodoxy?>>

Erm... Dan, it's a proven fact that humans are apes. DNA and chromosomes are definitive proof of both this, and the fact that we share a common ancestor (It's a bit odd that you would be offended by what you are).

This is one of the many reasons why I doubt that you're being truthful when you say that you know scientists who laugh at evolution.

Hardly funny stuff now, is it, Dan?

What's offensive about Creationism to Christian sensibilities though, is that it goes against all the evidence, shows astounding ignorance and relys entirely on dishonesty.

By the way, George and Waterboy don't “believe in” evolution because they want to, and why would they 'want' to? They accept it because the evidence for it unequivocally proves it.

waterboy,
>> I regard body and soul as indivisible. Each is but an incomplete metaphor for what it means to be human<<
I agree in principle and I certainly do not subscribe to the idea of disembodied souls floating somewhere in an immaterial nothingness. I understand body and soul to be indivisible in about the same sense that hardware and software are indivisible: no software - including, say, this posting of mine - can make any sense without a hardware it is “running on”. (Nevertheless, when I finish, my “disembodied” posting will soon be realised on your computer that I have no idea of what it looks like. This is how I explain to myself the purely religious idea of bodily resurrection, but that is here beside the point.)

So if our predecessors saw body and soul through Cartesian dualism, we might better understand body (brain) and soul (consciousness) as a hardware-software complementarity. Here “consciousness software”, whatever it is, cannot be understood in merely the computational meaning of the word, as Penrose, in my opinion, has convincingly shown.

Of course, both models are imperfect metaphors or models for a Reality we cannot fully comprehend. (The latter is less naive than the former perhaps only in the sense that on average an eight years old boy has a better understanding of what, say, mathematics is all about than a six years old.)

This, of course, is neither science (Roger Penrose and others are doing that) nor theology, just some personal interpretations of how the two approaches to what it means to be human can converge.

<<What’s more offensive, the idea that man and ape are one in essence, or that credentialed scientists dare stand up and challenge today’s ruling orthodoxy?>>

The "orthodoxy" line gets rolled out for every public scientific debate, but ignores a crucial fact: scientists love to fight. Nothing gives a researcher a greater buzz than proving that his peer's cherished theory can be falsified. The moment a scientist announces a new theorem, a dozen others decide to destroy it.

Despite the self-correcting competitiveness of science, the public is easily convinced that scientists are routinely cowed into following established ideas without question. But the simple fact is that thousands of scientists - and not just Christian fundamentalist ones - have tried to disprove Darwin's big idea, and failed. And why wouldn't they try? Success would mean a Nobel prize and a place in the history books.

Evolution is employed every day in practice, not theory, and is 100% predictive under every circumstance. There is no orthodoxy, just an elegant and solid fact of nature.

George

Working with computers every day of my life I suppose I am a little ambivalent about the hardware/software metaphor.

Nonetheless, the theological enterprise is to talk about God and that requires the 'invention' and 'exploration' of metaphors that not just explain God but invite people to engage with the Divine. (Thats about as close as I will ever come to being evangelical).

The Greek idea of the soul works as another metaphor (to a point) but overemphasises the separation of body and soul and invites images of disembodied spirits.

The Church, for all its faults, provides a rich complex of symbols, metaphors and ideas that may enrich theological reflection and can be life-giving. I also have to admit that the Catholic Church is pre-eminent in this respect and some other Churches have slipped into the error of trying to explain rather than engage with God. I think this a point that approaches some of the issues that Sells raises.

I dont think it is too hard to identify bad theology. Bad theology tries to give answers, explanations and rules. Fundamentalism is bad theology because it is backward looking to an ideal that never really existed. Being afraid of the future, fundamentalists seek to drive us back into the past. Bad theology is closed, rigid and fearful of being 'wrong'.

Jesus told stories, asked questions, broke the rules and took risks.

Good theology is dynamically engaged with the present and oriented towards the future. Good theology suggests new questions that invite us to live as physical and spirited beings in relation with the whole of creation, in continuity with the past but remaining open to all of tomorrow's possibilities. Good theology is open, dynamic and 'risky' because that is what life is really like.

waterboy,
Thanks for your interesting insights as usual. The same to relda. I think this kind of exchange of perspectives enriches - at least as far as I am concerned - our understanding of the complicated phenomenon of faith and religion.

>> Churches have slipped into the error of trying to explain rather than engage with God. <<

I think the one does not exclude the other. You will want to “engage” with your spouse/lover but that does not mean that psychologists, sexologists etc. should not study and “try to explain” the phenomenon of love (its eros version).

Mind you, I mentioned Cartesian dualism (essentially “the Greek idea of the soul“) as a metaphor superseded by the software-hardware metaphor. So I agree with your reservations about it.

The same about the latter: each one of us started as a “software“ (DNA) that “created” the “hardware” (our body, esp. the brain) that in its turn gave rise to a “software“ (consciousness, self-awarenes) that it runs itself. This is not how it works in the world of actual computers, so I can see your ambivalence.

You gave a very fitting definition of good theology. Fundamentalism or literalism is certainly not good theology, except when it is taken as a starting point for interpretations (if you do not like the word explanation) compatible with contemporary science or exegesis. Nevertheless, I still think that “good theology” should not be in conflict with neither the text of the Scriptures (only with some of its literal interpretations) nor with the faith of the theologically unsophisticated believer. Today we do not reject e.g. Genesis as superseded, (only its literal interpretation), and we should not think philosophizing theologians are necessarily better Christians than the “simple” believer who lives his/her faith while having a (philosophically) naive understanding of it.

I also agree that Jesus did not teach any theology, which is perhaps one of the reasons the present Pope defends Christianity’s appropriation and development of the Hellenic philosophical tradition (c.f. his Regensburg lecture in 2006).

George

You are right!
Theology can help one to be a better Christian but it can also become a distraction. Ive known some very special people who exemplified par excellence the Christian way without any sophisticated theological reflection.

Dont get me wrong. I look for explanations too but Ive realised that they are models rather than answers. For the most part Jesus responded to demands for explanation with questions and parables.

Jesus did offer one explanation when He said "I came to give life and to give abundantly."
When you see children laughing, when you see mothers raising their children with confidence and hope, when you see the sick being cared for with skill and compassion and when you see a society that cares for the 'least' of its number then you see life being lived abundantly. When you see that society rejoicing in its abundant life and celebrating with God (call it worship) then you see the Kingdom being made a reality.

Priests, theologians and Churches won't be required in the Kingdom!

waterboy,
>> they are models rather than answers. <<
Models (in the language of mathematics) are the closest you can get to an answer in theoretical physics so for all practical purposes they are the answer, at least until a better, usually meaning (mathematically) more sophisticated, models become available. I think this is also the case where the divine, the subject matter of religion, is concerned - models are the answer - except that here there is no such clear-cut separation between the objective and the subjective as in, say, physics. (Also, the “objective” models are more culturally determined than in the case of scientific models).

>>When you see children laughing ... then you see the Kingdom being made a reality.<<
This reminds me of a beautiful quote from Khalil Gibran that I copied years ago from a graffiti on the walls of the Maths building at UC Berkeley:

“If you would know TRUTH be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you will see HIM playing with your children.”

As I understand it, it points to the limits of philosophical sophistication in theology, not to its uselessness.

>>Priests, theologians and Churches won't be required in the Kingdom!<<
True. Neither will there be doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers or politicians. This, however does not imply that they are not required in the world we live in now.

AJ,
You accuse creationists of being a joke. We respond by saying evolutionary ideas are laughable. In the argy-bargy of ardent debate, it’s understandable that this kind of thing is said. Yet we’d probably gain more in debate by showing due respect to an adversary.

Since you are continually attacking me personally, calling me dishonest, etc. and now making guesses about my upbringing, I thought I might open up a little and say something about my history. I made it through State primary and high school without my teachers ever addressing any view of origins, neither a creationist nor Darwinian view. (This in itself is a bit odd). I remember my Year 7 English/history teacher telling us the earth was billions of years old. And I remember my Year 10 science teacher teaching us about Mendel’s discoveries in genetics. (Since Mendel was a creationist, perhaps this is what you mean by me having creationism drummed into me). Through sporadic Sunday school attendance, I learned the basics about Bible characters such as Adam, Eve and Noah, among others. However, I pretty much arrived at University a blank slate, without ever having spoken to anyone with even minimal scienctific qualifications about creation or evolution. Just prior to arriving at University, I became infected with quite a strong case of Christian faith. I was still pretty green, but this faith was to be refined and tested, especially with the help of the Philosophy 101 course. The following year a visiting creationist, Dr Gary Parker, who had written text books on evolution before his conversion, challenged one of the university’s biology lecturers to a public debate, which he accepted, and which caused quite a stir amongst the student population. This debate sparked my interest in the subject and I’ve been following it keenly ever since.

Now if you think me going on about my life story is pretty boring (and it no doubt is), just think how boring it is to have you continually calling me and creationists dishonest and liars, as if your argument vitally depends on it.

Waterboy,
In regard to information bearing DNA, the way you set it out was a pretty good summary of what I was arguing. So no, you didn’t miss anything. Materialists will probably argue against the first line. They will argue that in DNA we have finally arrived at an exception to everything we have observed and experienced before. Here in nature we have found an unintelligent source of information. Though this runs counter to generally accepted information theory, they’ll argue that natural selection aided by mutation is a process capable of arranging the DNA in such manner. Though demonstrating such a process has been less than clear. This is one place the debate fumes.

Your fourth line, naming the intelligent designer as God is quite a jump. This is why intelligent design theorists are not so bothered about making that jump. For the moment they’ll settle for any name, believing that they have already unhinged the materialistic neo-Darwinism.

As I said when I first mentioned it on August 5, I never claimed that this argument was complete. I only say that the evidence is consistent with what we might expect after a straight forward reading of Genesis and other Biblical references to creation. God not only created the world purposefully and intelligently, but left enough clues behind to point to who did it (reference, Romans 1:20).

George, Relda and Waterboy have all claimed that Biblical literalism is poor theology. The Bible is literature (true) of a certain kind (not quite true). The Bible is collection of many books of differing genres including: songs, poetry, prophecy, personal letters, history, etc. Yet documenting their history (starting with Genesis) was very important to the Jewish nation. And identifying literary genre is not terribly difficult. Why would the story of Noah be so long and filled with minute detail if it wasn’t simply recounting the facts as they occurred, as in historical narrative?

What is good theology? Perhaps many things, but the church can never divorce itself from the central themes and teachings of Jesus which have been emphasised in Scripture

Dan

I find your "life story" interesting, and I have known a few others like you. I would venture to say that most creationists have been imbued with that doctrine since their early childhood, and hence find it difficult to change the view, and continue to rationalise. So your case is reasonably unusual in my experience.

But the creationists (I guess I really mean those that convert to a religious faith) that I know, who have not had religion drummed into them have always had reasons for the conversion, though not always acknowledged. They have usually suffered from an unhappy emotional experience - unemployment, death of a loved one, suffering of a loved one - and they gain solace from sharing their sadness with an invisible friend.

You say that you "became infected with quite a strong case of Christian faith", but you don't say how or why. Can you explain it? Did you suffer a loss? Did you meet some people who were "young Christians" and you thought one of them was a bit spunky? Did you hear some charismatic speaker? Or did you somehow deduce that there was a god sitting around with nothing to do, and then decided to create the universe?

I apologise if I sound disrespectful, because I am trying not to be, but I find it difficult to respect the thought processes of a creationist. But I would really like to understand.

... continued from previous post ...

I am a reluctant determinist. Whilst I like to believe in the concept of a free will, I really do believe that every action is the result of other actions, so there must be a reason for your conversion.

I was born of an atheist father and a Catholic mother. I was often asked if god could build a rock so big he could not roll it, and what was god doing all that time before he decided to create the world. Yet, I was agnostic until my twenties, and now, of course, atheist. I was only agnostic, I believe, because the concepts of evolution were difficult for me to understand, and all around me were churches and an establishment acceptance of a god (e.g. prayers before parliament)

Dan,

Thank you for the respectful response to my post.
This debate often (usually) gets heated... which is what makes it interesting to me.

Personally I have no problem with saying that God created all that there is but to me that neither makes the Genesis stories literally true nor contradicts evolution as I understand it.

Similarly with the Intelligent Design argument I would say that life as we know it, and the Cosmos we live in, point to the Divine but that is as far as I can go with that argument.The ID argument, as such, seems to me to logically flawed.DNA is not a 'coded message'. It is simply a complex chemical displaying regular patterns and having certain, albeit remarkable, properties. It has been described as a'coded message',even by scientists,but only,as far as I am aware, in popular literature as an informal way of describing the chemical and its properties.So you see,while I am comfortable with the language of creation I remain sceptical,as all good scientists should be,about all scientific explanations of the mechanism.

You have indicated that you do not dispute'microevolution'(that shifts can occur in a gene pool).You stopped short of excluding the next step that microevolution might,possibly,lead to species differentiation.You obviously reject the organic soup model of biogenesis.

My problem with creation is that it takes the Genesis stories too literally(indeed that it takes them literally at all).They are, quite obviously, mythic in nature and adapted from pre-existing Babylonian creation myths.They deserve to be read for what they are and mythical literature is never intended to be read literally(any more than poetry is meant to be taken literally).You need to remember that Hebrew language is metaphorical to its very core and that the Hebrews were very sophisticated creators of literature and totally innocent(we are talking 500BCE here)of the strictly evidential,scientific approach which is the way we do history in the twenty first century.

They were good at literature.Give them credit for that and when reading their literature lets honour that by applying literary techniques appropriate to whichever genre we are dealing with.

George, you make a fine point,
“As I understand it, it points to the limits of philosophical sophistication in theology, not to its uselessness”.

And to further add...
I guess many theologians of the church never lose sight of their inherited conviction that faith should precede and transcend knowledge, and that no knowledge is often valid which does not accord with traditional beliefs – this approach is now also a limit to theology. Thomas Aquinas remarked, there are mysteries of faith which are above reason, yet the natural mind is itself the servant of faith. Thus, if one is to recognize both “the light of natural reason" and "the light of divine revelation," we are to subordinate the former to the latter. Here, a ‘supernatural’ mind can rule supreme over the mind of man, or in the words of Anselm: "I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand..”. Perhaps an extravagance of faith can occur where a credo quia absurdum (to believe in the absurd) might potentially or dangerously apply where reason is lost.

It seems, the opinions of the ancient philosophers, even when admired by Christian scholars, had to be redeemed from the ‘curse’ of the natural world. A sophisticated analysis said this Greek wisdom had in reality been a Christian revelation faintly disclosed by the divine Logos operating outside of Hebrew territory, or else it had been pilfered from the Old Testament by the demons who had taught it to the Greeks in order later to embarrass the Christian missionaries. All true wisdom, after all, was of a supernatural origin. Christianity, therefore, could freely receive into full fellowship any Greek philosopher who knocked at its doors. But it appears, again ironically, it was the letter rather than the spirit of the older Greek intellectualism that Christianity thus acquired.
cont'd...

...cont'd
That spirit of scientific research which had gradually developed among the Greeks seemed to have failed, initially, to find a home in the Christian intellectualism of the ancient church, just as it had failed to dominate the later pagan philosophy of the imperial age. What was pivotal during the ‘enlightenment’ has rekindled an original spirit – more manifest today than ever. It is not just the same archaic form of religious belief that once again challenges this but also the same old fears.

Dan,

It's just plain silly to say that my claims of dishonesty are “personal attacks” when...

1. I have made it clear to you before that I don't think you're inherently a dishonest person – just a casualty of the dishonest “Creation Scientists”;

2. I am always able to give examples of why what you post is dishonest.

You know very well that my arguments don't depend on claims of dishonesty. For every falsehood, half-truth, misconception and over-simplification you've ever posted, I've countered it with the facts – whether I post them or provide links.

It's very easy to avoid the accusations though... Don't use the dishonest tactics that Creationists so often use. Admittedly this would be hard though, considering Creationism relies entirely on dishonesty.

I've suggested to you once before that you should check the facts first by looking at both sides of the story. But you don't, and I guess that's because it would be too confronting. While this would explain how you still believe in Creationism, it still doesn't explain your immunity to facts when they're presented to you. Which after reading your life story (which wasn't boring – thanks for sharing it) still remains a mystery to me.

Perhaps HarryG is on to something when talks of the triggers for religious faith? My family's experience with faith confirms HarryG's suggestion...

When I was a child, my family started attending church when I was 11. It wasn't until a few years ago that I learned that months before we started going to church, my father had done something very bad.

It didn't take long for me to put two-and-two together and realise that he became a Christian (and still is) because he found the ultimate forgiveness in his belief of a forgiving divine being. In my late teens, my brother and I tried to reason with him about his religious beliefs. But it's apparent to me now, that no amount of reasoning would have done any good since religion, to him, was like an escape from the guilt – like a drug I guess.

Moving on...

Continued...

...Continued

<<Materialists will probably argue against the first line.>>

And provably so.

This is not evidence of an 'intelligent designer'. Natural Selection debunks this assertion.

<<They will argue that in DNA we have finally arrived at an exception to everything we have observed and experienced before. >>

No they don't.

Complexity does not imply design. There are complex things that form naturally, and there are simple things that are designed. Simplicity is one of the main goals of design.

But I've already explained this to you. Why do I have to repeat such simple logic?

<<Though this runs counter to generally accepted information theory...>>

Oh dear. Another Creationist misconception.

Information Theory does not apply to evolution because change in evolution is not necessarily bad. Any bad changes that do occur are weeded out via Natural Selection.

This misconception comes from the fact that both the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and Information Theory, both have a quality called “Entropy”. But in Information Theory, Entropy can freely increase or decrease, and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics doesn't apply to evolution because it only applies to Isolated Systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_system), not Open Systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_(systems_theory).

Information Theory does have a slight degradation principal, because it implies that information is irreversible. But this doesn't apply to evolution since DNA can be used to trace ancestry.

You see, Dan... No claims of dishonesty needed.

<<This is why intelligent design theorists are not so bothered about making that jump. For the moment they’ll settle for any name, believing that they have already unhinged the materialistic neo-Darwinism.>>

Wrong for two reasons.

1. As I have demonstrated many times before, Intelligent Design advocates have NOT unhinged evolution.

2. The reason Intelligent Design advocates don't mention “God” specifically, is to get around the Separation of Church and State laws. Which so far, they have failed to do. Thank goodness!

Very slippery behaviour indeed!

<<...but [God] left enough clues behind to point to who did it [created the universe]>>

Name one...

The “coded information” argument has well and truly fallen over with science (Natural Selection) and logic (complexity does not imply design).

relda,
I can only agree and learn from your insightful thoughts about Christian scholars and Greek wisdom.

>> Here, a ‘supernatural’ mind can rule supreme over the mind of man, or in the words of Anselm: "I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand..”.<<

I do not think Anselm had the “supernatural mind ruling supreme” in mind. Anselm (or was it already Augustine?) is also known for his phrase “fides quaerens intellectum“ (faith seeking understanding). I think the translation “fides” as “faith” (rather than beliefs) is correct here, although I am not sure Anselm would have understood the difference.

I once wrote a paper (not in English) explaining the difference between faith and belief, a distinction that most of the continental languages do not have (in German, both are Glaube, similarly in Slavonic languages). [I explained the difference thus: I can have faith in you, just by knowing you well, but I can believe you only after you have made a statement I am supposed to believe.] Paul Tillich was aware of this difference, when he distinguished between what he called fides or assensus (belief) and fiducia (faith minus assensus) in his Dynamics of Faith.

One cannot seek understanding of anything unless one starts from some presuppositions - science usually starts with the belief in the existence of a world perceived through our senses but independent of them, the belief that our senses indeed provide some information about this “outside wortld”, etc., often without bothering to define precisely the term “exists”, “information” etc. So do other people, except for solipsists.

Faith is a state of mind, rather than just a belief, assensus as Tillich calls it. You can assent to propositions only if you already understand the terms involved. When you seek to understand the beliefs underlying your a priori faith you have to start by accepting basic terms like “exists”, “God”, etc. only intuitively, which for centuries (in case of Christianity) was not a problem, since there was a general agreement about them. (ctd)

(ctd) Today faith is much harder to understand for an outsider (“unbeliever”) - see e.g. the postings here by HarryG - not only because it is always difficult to communicate a state of mind, but also because of this lack of general agreement on what the underlying beliefs actually state.

One might argue that this ambiguity about the basic terms of the tenets of Christianity - which the “simple mind” understands intuitively - is a consequence of its “marrying” the Hellenic world. Nevertheless, I would agree with the Pope that this marriage contributed to Christianity maturing as a world view, capable of absorbing the Reformation as well as the corrections of Enlightenment, in spite of the fact that Christianity is primarily not about an intellectually sophisticated world view: Primum vivere, deinde philosophari applies to the teachings of Jesus perhaps more than to other teachings that lead to sophisticated world views.

Dan,

I think I need to expand on what I said about Information Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I read what they've said about them at www.creationontheweb.com and they certainly do sound convincing – until, of course, you read-up on what both of these actually are.

I couldn't possibly fit this into 700 word so I'm going to have to provide a few links.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Here is a link to a page by a Christian Physicist (who is tired of his fellow Christians using the flawed arguments of Creationists and making fools of themselves) that explains the relationship (or lack there of) of the Second Law and evolution. He uses examples that make this complex law very easy to understand:

http://www.charleswood.ca/reading/evolution.php

After reading that, you should be able to more easily understand these brief responses to the Creationist claims about the Second Law and Entropy:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001_2.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001_4.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001_1.html

And to blow the Creationist's arguments completely out of the water in more lengthy detail:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html
http://www.2ndlaw.com/evolution.html

Now read the following link and you'll be able to see the basic errors. Errors so basic in fact, that it makes you wonder how the author managed to achieve the letters after his name at all:

http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/3727/

Information Theory

There is some lengthy and detailed reading of Information Theory and Creationism at:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/infotheory.html

And here's a link that highlights the many flaws in Werner Gitt's version of Information Theory:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/gitt.html#Wrong

Happy reading. It took me hours!

Thanks for your response George,
I believe your mention of ‘state of mind’ becomes quite relevant when using the term or speaking of ‘faith’. Tillich was probably the first one who introduced me to the idea of existentialism where one could venture to say, faith is uncompromisingly existential. As Luther said, every one must do his own believing just as every one must do his own dying.

Tillich was sensitive to the problem of proselytism and believed Christianity should "negate" itself as a religion in order to let go of nonessential forms and thus be open to human communities and their rights to their own cultures even when adopting Christianity. His priori, if you like, was the "existential-historical" Jesus who, inter alia, had been not only a Jewish teacher and prophet, but also a turning point of all history, philosopher, king of kings, embodiment of mind and reason, perfect human, suffering servant, ascetic monk, and mystical bridegroom of the soul, poet and liberator of the oppressed etc. Tillich, rather than seeing a literal message from God was able to find substance with religious rite, symbol and myth – perhaps not unlike Jung of the more Gnostic tradition.

It is perhaps easy to see that metaphysics was to the Gnostic age what the scientific spirit is to us. Gnosticism was perhaps one of the greatest efforts ever made to satisfy the religious needs by seeking a religion which would conserve the maximum of the past and yet adjust itself to the contemporary outlook. It was the religious reaction of the syncretistic centuries to the intellectual forces of the time. Gnosticism, as with many other movements, however, declined in the third century and subsequently into puerility and whimsy - it parted company with reason, the pride of Hellenism.
cont’d…

cont’d…
It should be evident, a new religion cannot spread independent of its historic milieu, nor can it forge for itself at once new categories of thought and own psychology. This equally applies to early Christianity. This new religion spread in a world of Paganism with deep-rooted artistic-religious cravings, and not in the mother-soil of Judaism, which was indifferent to plastic and pictorial art – still a hangover within an iconic Roman Catholicism.

As another priori, the ‘middle’ and ‘dark’ ages presented a period where Greek science was dead and modern science not yet born: neither philosophy nor theology had yet parted company with mythology. There is perhaps a half-truth in Sir James G. Frazer’s remark, "The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, and to find a sound theory for absurd practices." Our Western civilization is an attempted, but as yet very imperfect, synthesis of three great heritages of the things of the spirit - Hellenism, Hebraism, and Christianity.

One can see ambiguity everywhere, including the R.C. religion. Father Fausto Marinetti, a missionary for 15 years in Brazil wrote a pleading letter to the current Pope, '.. Family, sexuality, defense of life, bioethics, etc.. etc.. everything is important, but if you want to own the "life from conception to its final outcome," you can not ignore, or treat us as "poverini" they deserve crumbs of compassion. We want dignity and justice.. [it is a] dogma declared even by pagans: "Primum live, deinde philosophari."'

relda,
>> metaphysics was to the Gnostic age what the scientific spirit is to us <<
I agree, except I do not see the scientific spirit as something that SUPERSEDED metaphysics, but as an EXTENSION of the way metaphysics looks at reality, which, I think, is a part of our Hellenic heritage, not restricted just to the Gnostic centuries.

Otherwise Amen to what you wrote, except perhaps for the last paragraph.

I do not know who is Father Marinetti, and how he came to the conclusion that Benedict XVI denied dignity and justice to his "poverini". He probably is hinting at the Pope's (and his predecessor's) dislike - or condemnation if you like, although it is less outspoken now after the fall of the Marx-leninist Empire than before - of liberation theology that in THEORY (theology, after all, is not a social program but a theory) wants to mix Christianity with Marxism, the principle of "love your neighbour" with the principle "fight your class enemy", whatever might be the PRACTICAL (political) reasons for fighting some groups for the sake of social justice.

Especially in (Central) Europe one has learned to be sensitive about mixing religion with politics: the horror of Stalin (that begun almost a decade before Hitler) made many, including some clergy, blinded in their toleration, even sympathy for any anti-communist nationalist movement, even the fascists and Nazis, until it was too late. So one should understand the Pope’s aversion to theological eagerness going the opposite direction, although, of course, not every Marxism must lead to Marx-Leninism or Stalinism, and not every nationalism must end in fascism or Nazism.

I agree George, there can be a pervading Marxist element in “loving your neighbor” when applied to a perception of class within society – undoubtedly, these boundaries exist, but all too often are a reflection of the envy contained and the dissatisfaction found in one’s life. The determinate of this discontent is readily fueled by the materialistic idea, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” – Marx.

A real and lasting social revolution can only ever be attained through the emergence of an inner consciousness, and not any outer existence. As we find, our vastly improved social conditions (outer existence), prevalent in much of the West, do not alter our ‘faulty’ interior one bit. But, on this point at least, I’ll agree with Fausto Marinette where the “poverini” deserve a compassion that attends their dignity and provides justice – this I’d regard as truly Christian in its ideal, where ‘liberation’ becomes reality (for giver and receiver), rather than a false premise for socialist doctrine. For now, I’ll not judge his (Fausto’s) motive but perhaps assume his compassion as genuine – from his words.

relda,
let me repeat, I (and the Pope) do not necessarily object to political programs (involving Marxism or not) aimed at improving the lot of the ”poverini” but to the mixing of theology with a political program. Andrew Greeley, a sociologist and priest, certainly not a conservative, formulated thus the difference in the seventies (when liberation theology was a still novelty):

“Religious symbols may create a context in which humans can work for a better social order, but the symbols do not and cannot dictate specific social policies and strategies. To identify strategies or programs with religious symbols is both naïveté and idolatry. It is naïve because religious symbols have nothing to say about concrete issues of international economics, and it is idolatrous because such identification absolutizes the relative — and every program of strategy is relative... But if religious symbols do not provide practical programs, if they are no substitute for political, economic and social competence and sophistication, they do provide the motivation, the goals and the ideals for social reconstruction.” (The New Agenda, 1973)

I think this explains also the difference between the practitioners of Christianity (like Mother Theresa and many priests in South America who work with the “poverini”), and the theoreticians of liberation theology.

Also, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness” sounds to me like a chicken and egg statement, a position that reminds me of the “social constructivists” of science drawing far reaching conclusions from the obvious fact that scientists work in a social environment.

However, I have to admit that as far as Marx and social revolutions brought about by social engineers in the name of the proletariat or “poverini” are concerned I am biased, growing up in a Stalinist country where these theories - their Marx-Leninist version, admittedly a distorted version of Marxism - were brought into praxis. A bias perhaps not unlike that of somebody raped by a priest towards all clergy.

Dan
In an earler post, after you had given us a short version of your life history thus far, I asked you if you could give me some explanation as to why you switched to christianity and a belief in "creationism". I am really quite disappointed that you have not responded, because it is of great interest to me. Can you identify what caused you to switch? Did it happen "overnight" or did it happen over a few years. Was there something that made you start believing in god, or was there something that stopped you believing in a world without god? Was there a sudden conversion, or (do I dare?), did it just evolve?

I do hope we hear from you.
HarryG

George,
I didn’t think what I’d expressed had implied the integration of theology and politics which, I grant, is likely to grow into something more of an expressed ideology rather than something of the more poetic, philosophical or metaphysical. But, as Reinhold Neibhur suggests, “A religion of detachment from the world may persuade the soul to find both happiness and virtue in defiance of physical and social circumstances and thus to regard all social problems as irrelevant to its main purpose”. Niebuhr has helped many to see that political understanding and inquiry cannot be divorced from a clear understanding of human nature – which therefore will draw us also into the realm of religion. He also rightly said that a religion of social amelioration easily becomes a beautiful romance which obscures the unlovely realities of life.

The Christian faith has been so deeply involved in the religious sanctification of historic structures of injustice, that to a considerable degree a struggle for justice has been borne by "secular" forces. On must also come to realise that secular philosophy erroneously estimates human nature, it understands neither the height nor the depth of man, neither his grandeur nor his misery; and when consistently employed it reveals dangerous tendencies toward totalitarianism.

Niebuhr had a favourite saying, "Sometimes new truth rides into history upon the back of an error." This can apply to both the religious and the secular – both can be bearers of important truths. The fact is, both the errors and truths have been used so often to undermine religious absolutism where this twofold attack will result in the obscuration of Christian insight as well as the undermining of ecclesiastical pretension. This certainly serves to indicate the complexity of the cultural and intellectual foundations of modern democracy. This mixture of ideas and forces, operating so strongly in the development of our western culture, is surely allied to a sense of justice and social right – but, yes, ambiguous it remains.

Sancho,
Nothing is 100% predictive. Unless, of course, you’re working within a predetermined world view. For example, if you perceive all evidence within the framework or paradigm of evolution, then all the evidence will naturally fit that paradigm. If you go looking for evidence of evolution, then guess what you’re likely to find.

You can never scientifically disprove Darwinism or any other theory of history (explanation for how things came to be). For example, in the Azaria Chamberlain saga, scientific evidence was involved, but they didn’t bother putting 12 scientists on the jury, for it was an issue of interpreting historical events. Even today some remain unconvinced over the judicial outcome.

Waterboy,
You claim that the Hebrew language is metaphorical to the core. Does this mean that Hebrew is incapable of describing a sequence of historical events using straight forward narrative, so that the order of the events are clear and without danger of misinterpretation from different levels of meaning? Can’t they tell their history in a straight forward manner, and aren’t we capable of recognising such passages and relating to them?

AJ,
You’re asking me to make comparisons between a creationist article and several others from pro-evolution websites. Yet, you recently advised us that Creationism relies entirely on dishonesty. So why should anyone expect to find anything of value from the creationist article? Furthermore, for those who say that all life evolved from non living chemicals, on what grounds do they justify honesty or truth telling (beyond some sort of expediency in that it may confer some survival advantage)? I’m not sure what reasons you give to motivate me to go to the trouble.

HarryG,
You speak of indoctrination of the young. From my view, our young have been totally captured by evolutionary philosophy. Ever seen a book from a children’s library on dinosaurs or other animals or a TV wildlife documentary that doesn’t contain imagery and commentary of our supposed evolutionary history? From Play School to Lateline, you can’t get a job at the ABC without first showing a quiet antagonism towards things Christian.

HarryG,
I’ve never pondered long over the question can God create a rock so big, etc? There are numerous things that God can’t do: God cannot construct square triangles, he cannot deny himself, and he cannot lie, among other things.

But there are issues you raise that I have puzzled over for quite a while, such as determinism and free will, especially in regard to myself becoming a Christian. Was that my decision (free will) or someone else’s (determined)?

Definitely, I had two devout and hard praying grandmothers. I don’t begrudge this. It is good for parents to pass on a spiritual heritage to their children. God demands this. I don’t look down on those whose faith has been nurtured all their lives by a godly tradition. But I’d like to think my decisions are my own.

My Dad taught me the religion of sport. Its two main manifestations, cricket and football, were determined by the weather. But as season after season continually passed, cricket to football and back again, I wondered about the orderliness of it all, and thought there must be something guiding it. As a teenager with the usual social needs and insecurities, I felt in a position to make comparison between two paths, the natural, as portrayed by our cricket club (biggest by player numbers in Australia), and the spiritual, as portrayed by our local church. (I’ve always felt the two path approach was somehow kind of logical.)

Acknowledging that the cricket club could well continue without metaphysical intervention, I was drawn to the church by certain things, including: the appealing personality of Christ (as preached), some good role models, a sense of uplifting, purposeful, and caring community, not felt outside the church, which at the time I interpreted as God’s Spirit.

As for sudden loss or tragedy, in my experience, people come to faith drawn by as many felt needs and via as many paths as there are individuals. Conversion comes after encountering God’s Spirit, having sensed him as real enough, and seeing the Christ that he came to reveal.

Dan:
Thanks for your response. I am not going to comment on it - not because it is not worthy of comment, but because I don't want to get into a protracted discussion going over issues again.

But you comment about not being able to get a job at the ABC does deserve a comment (it was directed to me, though not in the post I referred to in my previous paragraph).

Can I let you know, quite categorically, that it was not until I had been formally offered a position at the ABC and I was formally accepting that I "affirmed" rather than swear on the bible my allegiance to the Commonwealth of Australia or whatever. Up until then. the ABC had no knowledge of where I stood. And in my many years at that organisation, I met a broad cross-section of society (it is a broadcasting organisation!)

Throwaway lines like yours do nothing for constructive comment. That is why I don't say things like "you have to be a paedophile to become a priest". It belittles the person making the comment.

May your god go with you.

relda,
Again, I have to agree with most of your analysis. Note however, that in your quote Niebuhr (not Neibhur) speaks about religion, not theology. I think what Niebuhr stood for agrees more with what Mother Theresa and some South American priests are DOING than with what liberal theologians (Gutiérrez, Boff) or political theologians (J. B. Metz) are SAYING. This is the distinction I had in mind when speaking of theology as pure theory versus Christian practice.

In my mind this is similar to the distinction between pure and applied mathematics: to the “man in the street” only the latter is useful. Nevertheless, without pure mathematics, that keeps its ideas and concepts independent from their practical applicability, applied mathematics would soon stagnate, unable to face challenges by new discoveries by science about the physical world. Without today’s pure mathematics, there wouldn’t be any tomorrow’s applied mathematics or mathematical physics. Newton’s physics has met its limitations, but without his mathematics (calculus) you could not even formulate Einstein’s theory, QM or the new theories of physics.

Perhaps something similar can be said about the distinction between “pure“ theology and “applied“ theology or religious practice (Niebuhr?), and about the need to keep the “purity“ of the former, i.e. theology, “uninfected“ by political programs or ideologies that happen to be in the vogue, like Marxism or nationalism, concepts that - unlike Christianity - did not exist a couple of centuries ago, and will be unknown, except to historians, in another couple of centuries. What Niebuhr calls “religion of detachment from the world” is an extreme position, almost a caricature. The purity I had in mind was a theoretical or FORMAL (not practice oriented) detachment (from the physical world and political programs or ideologies respectively).

I know that there could be tensions - even academic “fights” - between those who emphasize more the pure aspect of mathematics, and those who place more weight on its immediate applicability, and obviously the same can be said about the two aspects of theology (ctd)

(ctd) Retrospectively, I can agree that

“the Christian faith has been so deeply involved in the religious sanctification of historic structures of injustice, that to a considerable degree a struggle for justice has been borne by "secular" force”

but only to a point. There are many things that were under the control of the medieval Church, and that She had to give up, often painfully, to the secular world after it learned to stand on its own feet. Not unlike a parent who has to give up control - often also painfully - over his/her matured offspring. Secular forces that could struggle for justice (or “do“ science, politics or whatever on their own) have existed only for the last couple of centuries; prior to that there was no alternative (in the West) to what - with the wisdom of hindsight - we can call “sanctification of historic structures of injustice”. I am not a historian but I would be careful about passing moral judgements on the past without paying due attention to the different circumstances and criterions of justice that prevailed at those times.

Dan,

<<...if you perceive all evidence within the framework or paradigm of evolution, then all the evidence will naturally fit that paradigm.>>

Here you go, yet again, trying to drag evolution down to the same fundamentalist, unscientific level of Creationism. Even though I've debunked this unprovable assertion of your's over and over, demonstrating that zealots can never be reasoned with.

Science is a search for truth – whatever the truth turns out to be, even if it’s evidently not what we wanted to believe it was. In science, it doesn’t matter what you believe; all that matters is why you believe it. This is why you try to make evolution sound like a religion – despite the fact that you fail every time!

<<If you go looking for evidence of evolution, then guess what you’re likely to find.>>

Wrong.

Take the founders of modern science for example. Their contributions to science were triggered by their belief in an 'Orderly Creator'.

But those Christian men, who relied on natural methodology rather than their Creationist beliefs (because that's the only way science can progress), found natural explanations for things previously believed to be miraculous, and they only ever succeeded when they didn't allow their religious convictions to subvert or inhibit their inquiry.

None of them were able to vindicate the Bible stories, and their efforts to do so only ever indicated another origin. Thus these men wouldn’t have supported Creationism as we know it today, and many of them wouldn’t have been Creationists if they’d understood evolution or natural selection.

So there goes your 'Orderly Creator' argument too!

Wow! Two birds with one stone! I'm getting better at this. :)

<<You can never scientifically disprove Darwinism or any other theory of history.>>

I've already given you just a few of the many ways that evolution can be falsified. Yet here you are, repeating the same falsity. Amazing!

You try to segregate 'experimental' science from 'historical' science, ignoring the fact that both are based on empirical observations, and both can be checked with testable hypotheses.

So your 'Azaria Chamberlain' example is irrelevant.

Continued...

...Continued

Your response to me is a little strange.

<<So why should anyone expect to find anything of value from the creationist article?>>

Um... Yes, that was part of my point. You're catching on! :)

<<...for those who say that all life evolved from non living chemicals, on what grounds do they justify honesty or truth telling...>>

Let's see...

They don't believe/claim that abiogenesis is the absolute truth, since the study of it is still in it's infancy and they can't conclusively prove it yet;

They don't twist and manipulate the data to fit their theories;

They don't have statements of faith such as the one at www.answersingenesis.org that say that any data that contradicts their beliefs is to be discarded... http://www.answersingenesis.org/about/faith

Shall I continue..?

<<I’m not sure what reasons you give to motivate me to go to the trouble.>>

How about, preventing yourself from looking foolish, for starters?

You and I both know why you won't read what I've linked to – it would be too confronting.

You're simply trying to justify to yourself why you won't read the facts that I've link to.

I like how you've used to term “pro-evolution websites” though. Although it's accurate, it makes it sound like they too have twisted the facts to support their theory. When in fact, they only speak of real science backed with logic and facts. Sites such as www.creationontheweb.com though, rely on the fact that their readers are already pre-disposed to believe what they say and won't verify the facts – just as you don't.

You know, Dan... I've been reading a lot of www.creationontheweb.com lately, and verifying their claims. And I've gotta hand it to 'em... Creationists may not have anything to support their beliefs, but there's one thing they have over real scientists... And that's their amazing ability to be so consistently proven to be absolutely wrong, about absolutely everything, 100% of the time, for such a long time, and still make-believe that their's is the absolute truth.

This is why Creation “scientists” can never be considered real scientists (only pseudo-scientists) regardless of their qualifications.

If there is a god, may he strike me..BeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeP!

Dew to technical difficulties, EVO is currently unavailable.

EVO. Smile.

<< Creationists may not have anything to support their beliefs, but there's one thing they have over real scientists... And that's their amazing ability to be so consistently proven to be absolutely wrong, about absolutely everything, 100% of the time, for such a long time, and still make-believe that their's is the absolute truth. >>

Quite. I recall a comment from a reformed fundamentalist on another site, along the lines of "the clash between science and religion never bothered me, because I knew that when the science contradicted my faith, then the science must be wrong".

In centuries to come, our descendants will be amazed that our civilisation achieved so much while so many still indulged in such primitive nonsense.

Dan,

There's one more line in your last post to me that deserves more attention...

<<...you recently advised us that Creationism relies entirely on dishonesty.>>

Really?

I had advised everyone? You say this as if no one else knew about it. Or, as if it is merely a claim that I have conjured up out of thin air.

Would you like me to start pointing out the dishonesty of Creationism using references to www.creationontheweb.com? I've found more than enough to keep myself busy posting for many weeks!

You even (inadvertently) point it our yourself. Your last quote from that site was blatantly dishonest and I irrefutably demonstrated why.

So how can you possibly act like the dishonesty doesn't exist?

Since you need me to (yet again) point-out the dishonesty of Creationism, how about we start from the beginning?

Sir Richard Owen.

Owen was both Darwin’s superior and fiercest adversary. He believed in 'common archetypes' rather than a 'common ancestor'. Ironically, his conduct was an 'archetype' of the modern Creation "scientists", only these days, they submit to peer review rarely – if ever.

Owen was a Creation “scientist”, both in the sense that he preferred magical explanations over material evidence, and because he deliberately misrepresented evidence in an attempt to mislead others into believing as he did.

Owen tried to find some physical trait to distinguish humans from apes. He presented similarities as differences, and when he couldn’t find any legitimate differences, he made up entirely fictitious ones.

Owen's dishonesty was rife throughout his work. He was credited with the establishment of the British Museum of Natural History, and of inventing the word, “dinosaur”, but he did so by suppressing the work of other scientists and taking credit for their discoveries himself.

Just like today's Creationists, he had a reputation of never admitting his own mistakes, and he was often described as "dishonest". And just like Creationists today, he believed religion should override scientific research.

Continued...

...Continued

So, Dan, it's rather silly of you to pretend that I'm just inventing the concept of Creationist dishonesty, when it's been around for 150 years!

Quote mining (as you have helped me demonstrate a couple of times before) is the most obvious form of Creationist dishonesty.

Then there's the Creationist tactic of exploiting fear.

For a site that tries to be scientific, www.creationontheweb.com contains a lot of this.

Stalin’s ape-man Superwarriors (http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5198/)

Oooo... this one sounds scary!

Actually, this article made me sick to the stomach! That's the effect it tries have on it's readers so they feel repulsed by the very thought of evolution. But I felt sick because it was an appalling way for so-called Christians to be conducting themselves; trying to manipulate people to reject a scientific theory.

Their logic is astoundingly poor! They talk about Stalin's desire to breed ape-like soldiers (apparently because Stalin accepted evolution) then they come to the illogical conclusion that because Stalin was an evil man, evolution is therefore a bad thing, and that this somehow means it's false.

The author (Russell Grigg) even demonstrates that he knows nothing about evolution...

“If evolution were true, humans and apes would be closely related. So the idea that they could interbreed would not have seemed outlandish.”

Evolution wouldn't allow this.

Either these people have very low IQ's, or they're rotten to the core – Just like Owen apparently was.

There are hundreds of examples of this kind of this disgusting and dishonest behaviour. Simply do a Google 'site search' of www.creationontheweb.com for “Stalin”... http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=site%3Acreationontheweb.com+stalin&btnG=Search&meta=.

Or “Hitler”... http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=site%3Acreationontheweb.com+hitler&btnG=Search&meta=. Even though what Hitler was doing was “Selective Breeding” – not “Natural Selection”.

There are many more examples of Creationist dishonesty. I can keep posting them if you'd like, Dan? You evidently need to have things spelled-out to you quite clearly and repeatedly.

How about the their articles on the Archaeopteryx? (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=site%3Acreationontheweb.com+archaeopteryx&btnG=Search&meta=)

Try searching these pages for key words like “bill”, “nasal/nostril”, “teeth”, etc... They don't appear. Funny how they can claim this transitional species is just a bird without even mentioning much of the evidence!

HarryG,
When I made that throw away line about the ABC, I had no idea you were an employee. In the context of what you said about children being imbued with certain doctrine, I was making inference about educational and cultural ‘indoctrination’ within our society, the ABC being one good example of this. Now without restriction to word limit, I’ll flesh out what I was saying.

You say most of those who believe in creationism do so because they’ve had it instilled into them from an early age. Can I then ask, why do people believe in evolution? You admitted that the concepts of evolution can be difficult to understand.

Now because the concepts are little hard to understand, but society says it is necessary that the kiddies get it right and believe what they’re supposed to, our educational institutions, the media, etc. help them out with colourful TV documentaries, imaginative pictures of supposed half-monkey men, etc. all reinforcing the idea that the world sprung into existence by itself millions of years ago.

Even the church here is at fault, when it teaches the Noah story to kids with images of a leaky tub of animals with giraffes’ necks poking out the top, reinforcing the impression to people like Relda, George and Waterboy that the account must be mythical, forgetting that the Biblical dimensions of the ark were about the size of the National Gallery in Melbourne.

“You have to be a paedophile to become a priest.” “You can’t be a Christian and get a job at the ABC.” Both of these are deliberate exaggerations. Obviously exceptions exist. I have met employees of the ABC that were Christians. I’ve never met a paedophile priest. But the ABC’s reputation is deserved for its strange interpretation of the words ‘bias’ and ‘balance’ within its charter.

Here’s a tip for ABC news and current affaires, when reporting on controversial issues, try and fairly put both sides of the story.

As an ABC employee, can you point me to one program reporting on creationism that you can unashamedly say was balanced and fair?

Dan:
It's a long time since I worked at the ABC, and I neither have my ABC Weeklies or TV Times to check out when the ABC showed something which met your idea of "balance". However, I do watch Compass mostly (which seems to cover most issues over time) and the 702 Sunday night radio is deeply religious. It seems to me that neither agnostics or atheists ever are on air. But it is a silly challenge to issue, and probably even sillier to respond more than I have.
I am not sure if you misquote me, or perhaps I was not particular enough, but certainly, in my experience, it appears that those who are creationists have that belief or attitude because it was the attitude that surrounded them in their formative years; but also, some people switch to a god, and accept all the tenets that that entails, after they have had some kind of difficult, emotional experience and they seek solace and support in a god. I was asking you if you could explain why you believe in creationism to expand my understanding.
I know that the media can get it wrong, particularly when there is no intrinsic reason why they should get it right where they are driven by profit or the personal opinion of their majority owner. But I think what you are seeing are demonstrations of how the world and its creatures have evolved as seen by scientists, backed up by scientific evidence and some hypotheses built around that evidence as the whole story is being discovered. This is not bias, any more than a demonstration of the facts and the hypotheses surrounding the development of the atomic table would have been at the time of its development.
ctd...

ctd from previous ...
Dan, there is a right and a wrong in all this, and the creationists are currently on the losing side (going by weight of numbers(there is more debate there, I am guessing with a smile)), but keep your battle going and try to avoid rationalising.
Just imagine what side you would have been on when Copernicus was making his outrageous statements, or Newton, or goodness know how many others (I am sure there is something on the ABC to demonstrate this)
And what would a "balanced and fair" report on creationism look like? Would it discuss evolution? Would it have pictures of fossils, and what neanderthal man or a dinosaur might have looked like? Or would that make it biased?

Sancho,

I can relate to that.

I used to be a Creationist myself... Until I reached the age of reason.

Dan,

<<Can I then ask, why do people believe in (sic) evolution?>>

Because the evidence for evolution is plentiful, irrefutable and nothing contradicts it. Every claim that Creationists have ever made has been debunked immediately and repeatedly. The Dover trial even disproved Creationism in a court of law.

<<[HarryG] admitted that the concepts of evolution can be difficult to understand.>>

Any science is difficult to understand until you learn about it. You're living proof of this.

Evolution and natural selection are actually very simple concepts to understand when you sift through the confusion tactics and false propaganda Creationists put out there.

This is becoming a tiresome old tactic of yours, Dan. Taking something someone has said, and twisting it to support your position.

Very sneaky behaviour!

<<...but society says it is necessary that the kiddies get it right and believe what they’re supposed to...>>

What a completely idiotic thing to say about teaching a field of science, just because it threatens your personal religious beliefs!

Can you provide evidence for this conspiracy theory of your's?

<<...our educational institutions, the media, etc. help them out with colourful TV documentaries...>>

Such as?

Unlike religion, I can't remember ever having evolution shoved down my throat as a child. Nor do I ever remember seeing books or television shows with anything relating to evolution.

Could you please give me an example of what you're talking about?

<<... imaginative pictures of supposed half-monkey men...>>

You mean like the one's we've found fossils for?

<<...reinforcing the idea that the world sprung into existence by itself millions of years ago....>>

Who says the world “sprung into existence”? I don't know of any scientists who claim that. You're telling porkies again, Dan.

Not very becoming of you.

I like the word “reinforcing” though. You make it sound like there's a conspiracy out there to brainwash children, just so you can drag evolution down on par with religion.

This belief of yours is unmistakably, undeniably and demonstratably delusional.

Continued...

...Continued

Try giving one reason (that I've not yet falsified) why evolution is a religion? You can't, can you?

You assert that evolution is a religion, with no evidence or reasoning, even though evolution doesn't adhere to the definition of “religion” one iota. You even use the word “doctrine” in an incorrect manner.

You're being deliberately deceiving. Shame on you!

<<...Biblical dimensions of the ark were about the size of the National Gallery in Melbourne.>>

Even if it was twice that size, it still wouldn't fit all the land Creatures. Not to mention that at that size, it would have broken apart – being made of wood. All marine life would've died because of the saltwater and freshwater mixing.

Creationists try to get around the inadequate size of the Ark by saying that it contained two of each “kind”, and that the variety of species we see today “Super-evolved” from these “kinds”. But this theory (unsupported by science) means that a speciation event would have had to occur every 4 hours, and all without any beneficial mutations, as Creationists assert.

Creationists get around this (and every other flaw) by invoking the supernatural, and then wonder why they're not taken seriously by scientists.

There are literally hundreds of reasons why we know, with absolute certainty and without a doubt, that the Flood and the story of Noah never happened... http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Of course, you won't read it, Dan. You seem to think that ignoring the facts means they don't exist, but for anyone else who values facts over mythology, it's an interesting read.

For a good laugh, see... http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3000/ (Warning: May Cause brain cells to commit suicide.)

Some poor logic displayed by Creationists, is their argument that there are many flood legends around the world – forgetting that flood legends are common because floods are common.

If the world's flood myths came from a common source, then there's a lot about them that we'd expect to see that we don't... http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG201.html

But please do give an answer to HarryG's question. What would we see in a “fair and balanced” report on Creationism?

Evolution is a religion! Don't make me laugh! Its common sense!

If you non-believers needs more facts, please read my complete history for the answers I have already put down on this site!

Here is a model for you to think about.

Science and religion were once living side by side, but a fork in the road slowly divided the conscious minds, and the tree of life has mapped its new direction.

Anyone feeling the need to sweep the myths under the carpet.

Religion has no place in a first worlds of thinking! But it can help the second and the third.

EVO

The question of divorcing science from religion is rather a mute point – it has become more a matter of preferred belief based on certain ignorance. One only needs look objectively at the example of say, evolutionary biologist and geneticist at the University of California, Francisco J. Ayala. By any definition, Ayala is a scientist, and a respected one at that, with a highly rated peer review. He is also a former Dominican priest, a man of current religious faith, promoter of evolution, anti intelligent design and anti creationist. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society; fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the California Academy of Sciences.

The argument therefore is not whether you can maintain the full integrity of science whilst holding to a religious conviction (because, clearly, you can) but more, a capacity to be open to an understanding beyond one's own innate prejudice.

The really fruitful discussion between mainstream religion and science is happening in a much more low-key fashion, which does not usually get the attention that the current creationist/ evolution controversy would. Unlike as in many forums, it is displayed in a fashion where there is a courtesy and creativity one would expect from those genuinely seeking the truth - whether in religion or in science.

relda,
of course, you are absolutely right. I have already called Dan's attention to Ayala (c.f. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6784&page=0#104370) but I am afraid it did not impress him. Neither will it impress those who approach the relation of science (evolution) and religion with the opposite single-mindedness, as sincere as both approaches might be.

relda

"Liberal Catholic theologian, Father Richard P. McBrien perhaps sums up the dissidence within the masses: "If... after appropriate study, reflection, and prayer, a person is convinced that his or her conscience is correct, in spite of a conflict with the moral teachings of the church, the person not only may but must follow the dictates of conscience rather than the teachings of the church."

I think, in the Synoptic Gospels of a modern bible, only Luke makes reference to the infancy of Jesus, beyond the nativity and escape to Egypt. Here, we are given a glimpse of the future that awaits Jesus. Jesus, aged 12, goes missing for 3 days and he is found debating with the temple/church leaders. At this age, they merely find him 'amusing'. But later on in the story...... well, we all know where this path leads and the reaction he got from the "church" leaders at the end of his life?

Therefore I would agree with Father McBrien. To me, the story of Jesus is about teaching people to be themselves, their own person, not blindly yielding their own consciences to others, who in turn would use them for their own, self-serving purposes.

"And call no one your father on earth for you have one Father - the one in Heaven."
Matthew 23.9

The message is to become one's own guide through life. At peace with oneself. Hardly ever possible if you give yourself over to the unsavoury diktats of others?

"The Kingdom of God is within you".

I suppose the story of Jesus is really that the lesson of life is to learn what is right for oneself, allowing others to do the same. The only "commandment" to entrust, is to find what is right for ourselves, without deliberately hurting others. Should we persecute and/or torture others to demonstrate our own self-importance? Manipulate the hearts of others from love towards hate?

Ultimately, if the choice of life is between love and hate, I know which way I prefer.

K£vin,
Like other educated Jews in his day, Jesus was faithful to the Law of Moses, learned in Jewish scriptures and oral law, steeped in the spirit of the Pharisees, and expectant of the coming of the Messianic Era and called a "rabbi." The Torah of Jesus (Torat Yeshua) is love and, ‘ispo facto’ fulfilled its intent – i.e. love does no wrong to a neighbor and therefore fulfills the law. This is the true ‘community’ of God.

Where the major tenet, “to find truth no matter where it may be” becomes overly zealous, as was the case with the early 13th Century Dominican order, it follows, 'Where words fail, blows will avail…' – the words attributed to Saint Dominic, when he failed in his conversion of the Cathars. One must obviously treat history with some respect, and also to understand the ignorance of the time – rather than attributing the ‘evil’ to self-importance, I’d suggest something a little more dangerous - misguided zeal. It is certainly insufficient to say, as does the Roman Catholic encyclopedia, “Ecclesiastical authority, after persuasion had failed, adopted a course of severe repression, which led at times to regrettable excess.” Our secular sensibilities suggest there was not the slightest excuse for the repression raged by the Inquisition, let alone the huge ‘collateral damage’ (excess). Father Richard P. McBrien, undoubtedly had he expressed the same sentiments 800 years ago, would have found himself a necessary victim of the ‘collateral damage’.

HarryG,
I’m glad you raise Copernicus. He and today’s creationists have a lot more in common than you might suppose. Firstly, both explicitly believed the Biblical scriptures. Also, they were both willing to swim against the stream, stick their neck out and risk intense criticism by stating their position, and giving clear reasons for that position. Why should an accusation that I’m holding to a minority position bother me? I hope you weren’t suggesting that right and wrong in all this is defined by a majority vote.

Now I know that creationism is a minority position. So if the ABC and other media suppose to ignore it as such, then so be it.

However, creationists must be punching above their weight since the ABC can’t seem to ignore it and were often reporting this issue (when I used to tune in to the ABC).

All I ask is that the ABC uses its tax payer funding to report fairly. And fair reporting is not difficult to define. As I said previously, on a controversial issue, it has something to do with reporting both sides. (I’m not sure why I have to explain this to media people. I wonder what they learn at media school.)

When Ian Plimer was attempting to make a name for himself as an anti-creationist crusader, the ABC would give him unfettered access to the airwaves. His message was (similar to someone on this thread) that creationists were sinister and out to deceive. Asking for some sort of balance or right of reply was an exercise in futility.

If you get any response at all, it was something like ‘turn on Compass on a Sunday night.’ In which case you would get the views of the Relda, George and Waterboy type who also hold a low view of creationists.

So it’s not rocket science. If you are going to address the issue of creationism or the Biblical view of origins, then you need to make a reasonable effort to accurately portray the creationist view, from the creationists.

So Harry, I’m sorry for my anti-ABC rant. No doubt they try very hard, and I know they don’t have horns coming out their heads, but I get quite hot under the collar about them. The way I see it is that they’re not a lot different from other media. But the biggest difference is with other media, I can just tune out. But with the ABC, I have to pay for the privilege of not watching.

You ask, what would a balanced and fair discussion on creationism look like? It would have a qualified scientist, who understood and adhered to the creationist viewpoint explaining the evidence from a creationist perspective. Of course, depending on the question that was being addressed or the topic of debate, or whatever, there would be room for discussing the evolutionary point of view, as they are competing views.

We got onto this line of discussion because I said that most kids in our culture largely only get one view presented to them, which is propagated daily by books, periodicals, TV and radio, etc. Last week, my primary school son came home with a school assignment of writing up about a zoo animal. He had chosen the mandril monkey and selected some books from the school library. Each of those books contained pages of evolutionary philosophy. One I looked at a bit more contained imaginative pictures of hairy half-monkey type people using primitive tools and building makeshift shelters.

Now the fossils that these pictures were based on (probably never even seen by the artist who drew the pictures) are usually scrappy fragments of bone, without flesh, skin or hair. To arrive at the pictures my son was viewing required much interpretation, philosophically driven guesswork and speculation.

EVO,
Good to see that you so quickly recovered from your misadventure last Saturday.

AJ,
I’m sorry you didn’t like my phrase ‘sprung into existence’ millions of years ago. Okay, I’ll use terminology reflecting the currently accepted scientific view – ‘The cosmos exploded into existence millions of years ago’. This is often referred to as the Big Bang.

Dan:
Just to clear things up - it is something I tried to do before, but cut it out because of exceeding the word limit, and I did not put it back in after I decided I had to split my post.

While having worked at the ABC, I am not a "media type", though I still had to go through the same induction procedure and I worked with many "media types".

I had probably given a wrong impression before.

<< All I ask is that the ABC uses its tax payer funding to report fairly. And fair reporting is not difficult to define. As I said previously, on a controversial issue, it has something to do with reporting both sides. (I’m not sure why I have to explain this to media people. I wonder what they learn at media school.) >>

But then the ABC would have to report equally on the Raelian and Falun Gong beliefs regarding UFOs, the crystal-powered beliefs of astral travellers, and the faith of the Last Thursdayists, who believe that the universe was created last Thursday and the creator simply filled us with false memories of everything that came before.

Natural selection and evolution get top billing for a simple reason: there is oodles of evidence behind it. Creationism cannot claim that.

As the founder of the Flying Spaghetti Monster faith wrote,
"I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

<< If you are going to address the issue of creationism or the Biblical view of origins, then you need to make a reasonable effort to accurately portray the creationist view, from the creationists. >>

Absolutely. In religious studies or sociology, but not in a science classroom.

The creationist view, Dan, is that all science is a 'paradigm'. A point of view. An inventive approach to page one of the bible.

Very nice words sancho, very nice. I can see resolution not too far off. The filing cabinet of life is really getting a good shuffling, I cant wait until the dust settles.

I think once all enidence comes to light, its going to be a case of I told you so! from both sides.

Thanks Dan! I am feeling a lot better.

EVO

In 50 years time we will still be having the evolution/creation debate. The Creationist arguement will be the same because a 2 year old can see design. The evolutionist position will change many times over because it is based on fraud. The best they can do is to attack to messengers and then accuse Creationist as being dishonest. The thought of not having a Creator might give people a few fuzzies and let them enjoy their sin guilt free for a short while. Soon we will be dead and you will face your Maker. Your arguements in the name of science will look pitiful. Evolution is nothing short of fraud and deceit and many scientist know it.

This is a beautiful poem, written post Darwin, when poets were realising the fallacy of religion and the existence of a god, and we humans were here on earth, no guiding god, left to our own devices. I love the last stanza in particular.
I think it is relevant to what has gone on before.

Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

You're perfectly right, runner, this debate will still be around in 50 years' time. And science will still be a verb, not a noun.

I'm normally against line-by-line rebuttals, but a post from runner is always pure gold, so it'd be a waste not to savour it.

<< The Creationist arguement will be the same because a 2 year old can see design. >>

Indeed. A two-year-old can also see that the earth is flat and that a heavy object falls faster than a light one. Have you considered that, just perhaps, the impressions of pre-schoolers aren't the best basis for scientific enquiry?

If your strongest argument against evolutionary theory is that toddlers find it a bit too complicated, then you're hardly on the verge of unravelling the worldwide Darwinian conspiracy.

<< The evolutionist position will change many times over because it is based on fraud. >>

Or perhaps it will change as new evidence comes to light - a recurring problem for areas of knowledge not based on Bronze-Age folk stories.

<< The best they can do is to attack to messengers and then accuse Creationist as being dishonest. >>

This is rich indeed. Plan A for runner is to immediately assume victim status and attack the messenger. When the argument goes against you (which it usually does because you rarely provide evidence to back your claims) you simply turn up the volume.

If you want a primer in dishonesty, take a look at the creationist quote-mining project. If the case for design is so strong, why is that sort of underhanded scummery necessary? I doubt Jesus would approve.

<< Evolution is nothing short of fraud and deceit and many scientist know it. >>

You say this whenever evolution is mentioned, and you have never produced one bit of credible evidence to back it. Instead, you just refer to some large, anonymous body of scientists or doctors who don't believe a thing about the science they practice for a living. Apparently an assurance from runner is proof enough that these people exist.

relda,
I have to repeat that I am not a historian but as far as I know, nineteenth-century data about Inquisition have already been corrected, (see e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Inquisition-Historical-Revision/dp/0300078803/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219739148&sr=8-1) showing that not only religious but also anti-religious (or anti-Church) zealots of recent centuries could be carried away while looking for support of their preconceived positions. Nevertheless, I agree that even for contemporaries Inquisition was something horrible (as was e.g. medical practice of amputating a limb without an anesthetic).

>> Father Richard P. McBrien, undoubtedly ... would have found himself a necessary victim of the ‘collateral damage’.<<
Yes, so would Darwin, Einstein, Heisenberg, Teilhard de Chardin, and probably also Benedict XVI. I was about 15 years old when I asked my father how would Aquinas have reacted to TV: would he think that there were little people or devils hidden in the box? He then convinced me that it does not make sense to ask such questions.

Dan,
>>In which case you would get the views of the Relda, George and Waterboy type who also hold a low view of creationists.<<
You forgot to mention Ayala, Coyne, JP II and Benedict XVI.

What is the difference between 'creating' and 'evolving'? Both seem to suggest a universe in flux?

What is the difference between "there was a big bang" and "then there was light?"

Thanks Sancho, you've saved me the effort.

Apologies for my line-by-line rebuttals though. I try do to avoid it, but Dan's posts are so chock-full of errors!

Dan,

<<...[Copernicus] and today’s creationists have a lot more in common than you might suppose.>>

Oh dear! And I just recently debunked this one too. Maybe approaching it from another angle will help, eh?

Let's see..

<<Firstly, both explicitly believed the Biblical scriptures.>>

Yes, only the founders of modern science relied on natural methodology and only succeeded when they didn't rely on their religious beliefs. Creationists today, however, fail constantly because they rely on their religious beliefs.

<<...they were both willing to swim against the stream...>>

Yes.

Copernicus (et al) used 'natural methodology' to swim against the stream of 'religious dogma';

And today's Creationists use 'religious dogma' to swim against the stream of 'natural methodology'.

<<...stick their neck out and risk intense criticism by stating their position ...>>

Yes.

Today's Creationists risk intense criticism from scientists;

And Copernicus (et al) risked death at the hands of religious authority.

Nice attempt to make evolution sound like the new 'religious authority' though. Good example too of the victim status that Creationists like to claim.

<<...and giving clear reasons for that position.>>

Yes.

Copernicus (et al) used testable evidence as their reason;

And today's Creationists use religion.

<<Asking for some sort of balance or right of reply was an exercise in futility.>>

So they asked for a right of reply, yet they very rarely ever submit to peer review? I think you're just making this one up.

So why is it so exceptionally rare that Creationists ever submit to peer review, Dan? Could it be that (deep down), they know they've twisted the facts in order to preach to the already converted?

<<[A balanced and fair discussion on creationism] would have a qualified scientist, who understood and adhered to the creationist viewpoint explaining the evidence from a creationist perspective.>>

Why on Earth would the ABC want to regularly show view points that have been debunked repeatedly?

Now THAT would be an “exercise in futility”.

Continued...

...Continued

<<...there would be room for discussing the evolutionary point of view, as they are competing views.>>

“Competing” is a strong word in this instance. It implies that the study of evolution has “competition”, and considering Creationists are taken at every turn, they hardly qualify as "competition".

<<To arrive at the pictures my son was viewing required much interpretation, philosophically driven guesswork and speculation.>>

Not quite.

Many of the fossils are complete enough for computer modeling to produce an accurate image of what they would have looked like.

What I find amusing though, is that Creationists themselves can't agree on which ones they think are Human and which are Ape. You'd think they'd have put two-and-two together by now! A classic example of how religion can be a hindrance to scientific research.

Oh, and in case you'd forgotten, Dan, there's this thing called “Separation of Church and State”. You know, that thing you forgot to mention when giving the reasons why Intelligent Design advocates don't use the term "God"?

In this case, the Separation of Church and State (which protects many countries from becoming disastrous Theocracies), means that religious mythology cannot establish itself in schools as science. Science must be based on empirical observations and testable hypotheses.

<<Okay, I’ll use terminology reflecting the currently accepted scientific view – ‘The cosmos exploded into existence millions of years ago’>>

Err... That's the same as using the word “sprung”. You're certainly no Stephen Hawking, are you, Dan?

The Big Bang is an expansion, and this is all it has in common with an explosion. And “billions” of years ago – not just “millions”.

Not only do we see a lot of evidence that fits the Big Bang theory, but the theory's predicted a lot of what we see.

I could provide you with a ton of links, but I know they'd be too confrontational for you to click.

Runner! You have been asked this question a thousand times,and with all your 6000 years to think about it, where is your evidence!

P/s. (I have lived with clinical depression all my life, so you mind your dam mouth! I am doing the best I can.)

Where is the god in you now!

EVO

EVO

Where is my evidence? Speak to the thousands of scientist who can plainly see that what we observe on the earth is exactly what is written in Scripture. Proving evolution however ends in a lot of garble with no substance or evidence. I sympathize with your depression although again this proves that evolution is wrong. It is easy to observe that morals, sickness and perversion is increasing and not decreasing (which if there was any credibility to the evolution theory would be happening). The missing link is just that. Multiple frauds have been uncovered and will continue to be produced. The ridiculous notion that we came from apes has led to nothing more than racism and fantasy. A.J Phillips is blinded by his and others dogmas. Evolution is the theory that should be able to produce evidence. In hundreds of years it is still scientifically a fraud. I am thankful that many many scientist are honest enough to admit it.

relda
"Like other educated Jews in his day, Jesus was faithful to the Law of Moses, learned in Jewish scriptures and oral law, steeped in the spirit of the Pharisees, and expectant of the coming of the Messianic Era and called a "rabbi." The Torah of Jesus (Torat Yeshua) is love and, ‘ispo facto’ fulfilled its intent – i.e. love does no wrong to a neighbor and therefore fulfills the law. This is the true ‘community’ of God."

Indeed,

"...which commandment in the law is greatest? He said to him, "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment".

Matthew 22.36-38

Hard to disagree, integrity is indeed a good thing.

"And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Matthew 22.39-40

To me, the problem for Catholicism and some emerging forms of Evangelical Christianity is their reliance on the "supernatural". The spreading of fear to control people's minds. The teachings of Jesus do no such thing - but he appeared quite partial to a parable or two?

Today we would refer to such things as allegories, metaphors, analogies etc... but certainly not literal truths.

You’re quite right George, there were many aspects to the Spanish Inquisition holding equal, if not, greater dimension than the idea of Catholic reform or conversion. Historians have in fact noted that it reflected the social, political and religious agendas of Spain's rulers and many of her people. As often falsely assumed, there is simply no comparison to be made with the brutality of our modern dictatorships (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, et al). A primary driving force behind the persecution of, first, the Jews, and, then, the ‘converted’ was envy, greed, and lust for power on the part of, particularly, the rising Spanish urban leadership. This was done in part to wrest power in the cities from both the crown and the church. In a very real sense, therefore, the Spanish Inquisition could not have existed anywhere other than in Spain.

I note also, as shown in part on this forum, where postmodern skepticism is a healthy antidote to the theological nonsense associated with ‘miracles and magic ‘and that in fact, Pascal was dead right, there is more faith in honest doubt than ‘creeds of belief’. Again, and ironically so, clinging to the ‘miraculous’ seems more an act of ‘unfaith’.

The encounters found within Christian exclusivism is good reason why many may take refuge in the Buddha's Dharma – quite the positive atheism.

K£vin,
>> the problem for Catholicism and some emerging forms of Evangelical Christianity is their reliance on the "supernatural".<<
Whatever the problem for Catholicism, that indeed is going through a crisis, it could not be the same as that for Evangelical Christianity that, on the contrary, is thriving.

As I said before, Jesus indeed did not teach any theology, even less philosophy as it is understood today, which is perhaps one of the reasons the present Pope defends Christianity’s appropriation and development of the Hellenic philosophical tradition. The “reliance on the supernatural” has a different form for the good old lady taking verbatim everything that is in the Bible (and what she hears from the pulpit), and a different form for an educated, even philosophically inclined, 21st century Christian. Jesus spoke (and speaks) to BOTH, however the latter needs the “appropriation and development of the Hellenic philosophical tradition” to understand the metaphysics of the “supernatural” coming with it.

relda,
of course, you are right on the Spanish Inquisition; the correction I had in mind concerned only the number(s) of claimed victims.

As for postmodernists, I would value more Pascal’s comments on (even Enlightenment’s correction of) Christianity, although here I am probably biased since I know (the French) postmodernists only through their peculiar - to say the least - view of science (c.f. the Science Wars of the nineties).

I agree that Buddhism is a soft version of atheism in the sense that even if they accept the “supernatural” (not all Buddhists do) it does not involve a personal God. Nevertheless, Christians can learn a lot from their practice.

K£vin,
Miracles and magic (i.e. the supernatural) are theologically problematic because of their implications for theodicy. Quite genuine questioning (if you don’t take the fundamentalist position) arises viz, why does God miraculously intervene in the lives of some people and not others? On what basis does God intervene in the laws of nature, and for whom? Does God capriciously tweak the laws of nature he created to teach some human beings lessons, to rescue some persons from tragedy and not others, to reveal wisdom to a few and not all? etc...etc..

My view, and that of many others who accept the premise of ‘Christ’ianty is that the Christ of faith is a theological interpretation of the historical Jesus. The historical Jesus and the Christ of faith are, of course, interdependent, but they are not identical and both are historical constructions. In the historical Jesus as the Christ of faith, Christians apprehend God active in history since the beginning of creation of the universe, as exemplified by the prologue to the Gospel of John.

In considering the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, in Vatican II, they have come to a position on religious pluralism that is often called the "inclusivist position." The inclusivist position "affirm[s] the value and dignity of all religious paths." So, without delving too intensely, it is perhaps sufficient to say, being faithful to Jesus as the Christ means being open to others and to the future, which means that Christian absolutism in any form is idolatrous and is the opposite of faith – Tillich expresses an "ultimate concern", present to all. The fundamentalist error is one of confusing faith with belief, which transforms theology into ideology and confuses ideology for thought.

R. S. Thomas, the late Welsh poet and Anglican priest puts it nicely, “Religion” he says, "has to do ... with vision, revelation, and these are best told of in poetry.... Jesus was a poet.... In another sense, he is God's metaphor.... [And] how shall we attempt to describe or express ultimate reality except through metaphor or symbol?" ("A Frame for Poetry").

Dan

You wrote
".. Does this mean that Hebrew is incapable of describing a sequence of historical events using straight forward narrative, so that the order of the events are clear and without danger of misinterpretation from different levels of meaning? Can’t they tell their history in a straight forward manner, and aren’t we capable of recognising such passages and relating to them?"

The Hebrews understood that it was impossible to speak directly of God, so they used metaphors, myths, poetry and narrative (story-telling) to tell 'salvation-history' rather than trying to "tell their history in a straightforward manner". Again you must remember that they did not share our 'scientific' and evidential understanding of history so it simply does not make sense to suggest that we might find any such 'history' in the Bible. They saw no problem in collecting traditions (even from other cultures) and crafting them into narratives, parables or poetry to make their 'theological' point. Without doubt the Bible contains many historical references that we can confirm using modern, scientific, evidential techniques but it also contains 'legendary' accounts of 'historical' events so we would be foolish to accept any Biblical account of apparently historical events without external corroborating evidence. The parallel with drawing scientific conclusions based on Biblical texts should be evident.

The truth that the Bible conveys is not carried in the literal sense of the text because the Bible is 'about' God's dealings with Her people and that requires metaphor, parable and poetry as one simply cannot 'explain' God in simple, direct (straightforward) language. The 'extra levels', as you describe them, do not confuse the meaning because they 'are' the meaning. In many cases, 'forcing' (yes, forcing, because myths and metaphors are not meant to be taken literally) a literal interpretation on a Biblical text distorts its meaning and such is the case with the Genesis accounts of 'creation'.

Dan, Evo et al,

The Australian Skeptics Society recently orchestrated an online 'sting' by sending out phishing emails a la Nigerian banking officials. Y'know the ones. Whoever replied was sent an email warning them of the pitfalls of taking seriously emails that were either too good to be true or so outlandish that even a two-year old should have picked up on it.

It is not possible to sway by reason one who has not reached a position through reason. Runner is in reality a covert agent for the Skeptic Society. He just hasn't sent you that email yet.

Bernie.

Point taken.

EVO

Runner,

I think Dan's struggling here enough without your input.

<<Where is my evidence? Speak to the thousands of scientist who can plainly see that what we observe on the earth is exactly what is written in Scripture.>>

It doesn't matter what you believe – only why you believe it.

In the United States – which has more Creationists than any other industrialised nation – only 5% of scientists believe in Creationism. But in the relevant Earth and Biological sciences, only 0.15% of scientists believe in Creationism. That's a mere 700 out of 480,000 scientists.

Again though, this is only in the United States. In every other industrialised nation, this drops below 0.10%.

Creation “scientists” like to misquote other scientists to create the illusion that an increasing number of scientists are doubting evolution – and you've fallen for it.

Not a very honest or Christian way from them to behave, is it, Runner?

<<Proving evolution however ends in a lot of garble with no substance or evidence.>>

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't make it “garble”.

As for evidence though, there's mountains of it. I've posted about 100 or so posts with plenty of evidence. Dan can't disprove any of it, so I'm not going to start repeating it for you.

<<...[depression] proves that evolution is wrong.>>

No it doesn't. You don't even know what you're talking about, do you?

If anything, depression is consistent with evolution since evolution doesn't aim to get anything perfect like a designer would. So long as enough organisms live long enough to carry on their genes, then evolution is doing what it's supposed to.

Take the eye for example. It's hardly a perfect design with all it's flaws like blind spots, retinal detachments, etc... What would you say about creatures like Planarians and Marine Snails that don't have fully evolved eyes yet?

Or is God just testing our faith?

<< It is easy to observe that morals, sickness and perversion is increasing and not decreasing (which if there was any credibility to the evolution theory would be happening).>>

Continued...

...Continued

Correlation does not imply causation, Runner, and you've been told this many times before. People have generally been getting smarter too, but should we relate that to the teaching of evolution?

"Do not ask why the old days were better than the present; for that is a foolish question" (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

<<The missing link is just that.>>

What missing link are you talking about? You don't even know, do you?

Fossilisation isn't exactly common; finding fossils is even rarer. If fossilisation is so prevalent though, then why don't we find fossils of animals migrating from the ark?

<<Multiple frauds have been uncovered and will continue to be produced.>>

Multiple?

Name one other than Piltdown man?

I could name quite a few from Creationists if you'd like?

Piltdown man was exposed by scientists and was no longer used after it was exposed. Creationists, on the other hand, are still using their hoaxes as evidence.

<<The ridiculous notion that we came from apes has led to nothing more than racism and fantasy.>>

Ahhh.... the old “Social Darwinism” argument.

'Social Darwinism' is nothing more than a metaphor, and racism has been around a lot longer than evolution.

Evolutionary theory shows us that long-term survival is strongly linked with genetic variability. Social Darwinist programs advocate minimising genetic variability, thus reducing the chance of long-term survival in the event of environmental change.

Evolution shows how things are – not how they should be.

I like how Creationists distance themselves from bad Theists by saying that religion isn't bad – people are. But then contradict themselves by trying to imply that because 'Social Darwinism' is evil, then so is evolution. Amazing!

But this has probably all gone way over your head. In the next thread, you'll be back with one of your childish, uneducated and pointless little rants; telling people that evolution is stupid – or something along those lines.

So until then, how about you go play in the sandpit with the other kiddies while the rest of us talk about big people stuff? Okay?

Run along now...

Sancho,
In your haste to talk about your beloved spaghetti monster, you totally missed a key point in what I was saying. I didn’t ask the ABC to report on creationism in the first place. They did this off their own bat. What I was saying was that if the ABC is going to report on an issue, they should do it properly, fairly and objectively. Unfortunately, on the continuum from hatchet job to balanced and accurate journalism, the ABC was too often sliding towards the wrong end of the scale. Are you happy with your tax dollars being spent this way?

Also Sancho, don’t get sucked in by AJ’s nonsense about not being allowed to quote people, or that quoting implies dishonesty. Inserting quotes into a comment is standard form within many types of writing. You’ll find it in newspapers. You’ll find quotations in academic pieces. People quote one another in the Bible. Lots of people do it on this thread. You do it. AJ does it himself.

AJ,
When you talk about the law of separation of church and state are you talking about an American law, an Australian law, an international law, or just something else you’ve made up in your head?

Relda (and other skeptics),
You speak of the post-modern world being sceptical. I heard there was even some discussion of including scepticism as an Olympic event. However, our world class sceptics found their skills amateurish, feeble and undeveloped when faced with such mystical ideas as animals morphing into one another in times distant past. To quote Modell from the Barry Levinson movie ‘Diner’, “I don’t buy the whole thing. They’re saying that millions of years ago there was a swamp. And in the middle of this murky, disgusting, boggy-water swamp, there’s an amoeba. Now this amoeba meets another amoeba, and they have a kid who’s a fish who crawls onto land. And from one lousy amoeba millions of years ago, that today there’s some guy with a winter coat on a corner somewhere yelling, ‘Taxi’. Where’s the connection? How could that possibly be?”

George,
"Christians can learn a lot from their practice".

I agree. I was raised within the Catholic faith. But even as a very young child, I was aware of hypocrisy in action all around me. I don't subscribe to any particular belief/ideology these days. I've explored both Taoism and Buddhism too, which often seem similar.

As a result of the latter, I have come to appreciate the practice of vipassana (insight) and metta bhavana (loving kindness) meditation. Teach these techniques to children everywhere and I'm pretty sure we would arrive at a world where a whole generation of people, everywhere, might experience peace and fellowship. Not as a result of being told what to do, but as a result of personal discovery.

Dan S de Merengue,
"quote Modell from the Barry Levinson movie ‘Diner’, “I don’t buy the whole thing. They’re saying that millions of years ago there was a swamp. And in the middle of this murky, disgusting, boggy-water swamp, there’s an amoeba. Now this amoeba meets another amoeba, and they have a kid who’s a fish who crawls onto land. And from one lousy amoeba millions of years ago, that today there's some guy with a winter coat on a corner somewhere yelling, 'Taxi'. Where’s the connection? How could that possibly be?"

As above, so below. Have you ever seen documentary footage of the first moment of forming of a human embryo? The first cellular division? Not too dissimilar to what you describe?

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T S Eliot
The Four Quartets

Consciousness/evolution is a strange and wonderful thing and moves forward at a slow pace. It has taken billions of years to get where we are today though, to our minds, it appears like no time at all. Children, for example, don't experience time in the same way as adults. This understanding is explored by C S Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia, for example.

Awareness is an amazing thing, of which knowledge is but a minor facet.

relda,
>> magic (i.e. the supernatural)<<
This is a different understanding of the term ‘supernatural‘ than what I understood K£vin had in mind, namely the divine, the part of Reality that is transcendent (Kant), i.e. not accessible through our senses, directly or indirectly via instruments or mathematics (so e.g. the Multiverse if physicists will agree to accept its existence, would still be accessible indirectly through our senses, i.e. through mathematics, hence not the Transcendent Reality).

Of course, the existence of such Reality beyond the physical is disputed by atheists especially if they adhere to a strict distinction between the subjective and objective that today has become blurred even in physics (QM). Also, in Buddhism, as I understand it, there are those who accept a divine realm accessed by mystics, and those who do not; again a distinction that is clear only if one completely separates objective and subjective reality.

God‘s answering your prayers on a strictly personal level (e.g. of a student before exams) can be explained by psychology so there is no need for Him to interfere in a way atheist would dismiss as magic, hallucination or superstition, in spite of the fact that the person concerned experiences this as real. The same for illnesses that can be influenced by the patient’s attitude, conscious or not. (ctd)

(ctd) Theodicy and miracles, God's interference in the physical world, are a different matter. I do not think God needs to "interferes in the laws of nature" if by the latter you mean the laws established/discovered by science. Nevertheless, there seems to be a possibility of explaining God answering our prayers by “interfering” using the ambiguities built into QM (there is now a rich literature on that, e.g. by John Polkinghorne).

There is also mystical experience, which can be accepted as real, especially if you do not stick to the strict distinction of the subjective and objective: You and I can doubt that there could be a photo of, say, an apparition of the Virgin, but we shouldn’t doubt that in the "established" cases it was a deep and lasting experience for those involved. The difference between “established“, mystical, cases and mere hallucinations is given by the lasting impact on the lives of those who experienced them. Also, the form of such experience depends on the cultural background of the person who experienced it (hence the Virgin in the case of Bernadette of Lourdes or other Catholic mystics). These things are nicely explained in the paper by V.V. Raman that I mentioned before.

K£vin,
most of what I have learned, and appreciated, about Buddhism came from a late friend, a Chinese who converted from Buddhism to Catholicism, (he actually started as a Buddhist monk who then went to Rome to study theology, somehow did not finish, and married). He showed me a Buddhist perspective of Christianity, and vice versa, perspectives that do not have to be as hostile as in the writings of D. T. Suzuki on one side, or of some Christian scholars of previous centuries on the other.

Christianity and Buddhism/Taoism represent two complementary approaches to the divine: Christianity with its emphasis on THEORY, i.e. scripture and theology informed by Hellenic rational sophistication (that begot science and technology) and Buddhism with its emphasis on PRACTICE of vipassana and metta bhavana (leading to peaceful coexistence of different world views). I think these Yang and Yin approaches need each other.

George,
If Kevin was referring to the "part of Reality that is transcendent" then I find there really shouldn't be a problem - as transcendence is that which transcends our own consciousness or understanding. By defintion Science is open-ended and is continually improving or building on existing knowledge, this state of flux suggests there is an unknown knowledge transcending current understanding. I'd suggest there's nothing 'magic' nor supernatural in this notion. I think somehow Kevin was referring more to the 'trickery' as found in magic -something not 'natural' (or believable). The 'divine' is something beyond understanding - not supernatural.

Dan

You previous post was rather curious. On the one hand you seem to be deriding scepticism and on the other you quote (albeit from a movie) an example (though expressed in a rather unsophisticated form) of empirical scepticism. I assume you believed that this example 'supported' creation science or ID in some way. If you did then you are sadly mistaken.

In order to illustrate the 'scientific' nature of creation you would need to provide an example of 'creation scepticism' and how creation scientists are applying critical thinking in the construction and testing of their own hypotheses. If one's scepticism is directed towards evolution and experiments are 'designed' to disprove evolution then one is working in the field of evolutionary biology and not in the field of 'creation science' at all. Show me experiments designed to refute the creation hypothesis because that is what 'creation scientists' would be doing if they took their science seriously. Show me how 'creation science' is inspiring new downstream studies and 'producing' useful results in biology, medicine etc. It isn't and that is why it is either bad science or not science at all. There are very good reasons why creation 'science' is so unproductive and it has to do with fact that the creation hypothesis is irrefutable and so the only 'work' creation 'scientists' do is try to refute evolution. That does not make creation a field of study in its own right and does not establish creation as a science. In their own small way the so-called 'creation scientists' have made some contribution to establishing evolution as the important field of study that it is today by their very scepticism on the subject and by their efforts in trying to refute it (proving, if nothing else, that evolution is a 'testable' hypothesis).

Dan,
Your last post is indeed rather “curious”. A Healthy skepticism certainly does not always alleviate one from an excess of belief. A total lack of skepticism, however, allows an entry of those alternative beliefs coming under the label of "fringe belief," not because they are held by only a few people (some of them may actually be held by a majority of the population), but because they lie on the fringes of elite or highly academic opinion – whether on the scientific or theological side.

Popular ‘science’ represents the widely held beliefs of people in superstitions, astrology, magic, witchcraft, psychokinesis, extrasensory perception, and the like where an embrace of this popular science has no difficulty believing there are extraphysical entities capable of violating the laws of science at will. Your ‘popular’ form of religion, Dan, does not really put you in the minority position, as you’ve suggested – your appeal is in the arena of popular ‘science’.

The type of personal God or creator who can and does intervene when and if the creator sees fit, and thus can be induced to intervene to change the course of everyday events by prayer and other supplications is current popular religion. The fundamentalist strains of most major religions fall into this category and, as George correctly points out, this particular strain of Christianity is thriving. A recent American survey show that 55% of American teenagers believe that "astrology works" and 38% of college students believe that human life originated in the Garden of Eden – there is little to distinguish between these two beliefs as they both belong to the same ‘genotype’.

Through examination of what Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas had to say about the Bible and creation. Ayala concluded that "the point is that the two greatest thinkers of Christianity could find no reason based on the Bible that species could [not] find their origin in causes other than God." Your ‘Diner’ quote, “How can this possibly be?” is rooted in the idiom and superficiality of the popular.

Dan,

This is becoming painful to watch.

You're scrounging around looking for any old argument you can find, and when you can't find one, you recycle an old debunked one; put another slant on it; maybe re-word it a little hoping no one will notice.

What I really don't like though, is you're last resort tactic of putting words in someone's mouth...

<<...Sancho, don’t get sucked in by AJ’s nonsense about not being allowed to quote people...>>

Where did I say that?

<<...or that quoting implies dishonesty...>>

Or that?

Quoting does not imply dishonesty. I'd provided you with a link once before to hundreds of examples of Creationist quote-mining, but you obviously didn't look at it.

'Quoting' becomes 'quote-mining' when the quote is either out-of-date, or is carefully selected to make it look like the the person who said it meant something entirely different.

What really sickens me though, is when Creationists stoop to the sub-human level of misquoting a dead person who can't defend themselves. Einstein, Darwin and Stephen Jay Gould are three examples that immediately come to mind.

Trying to create the false illusion that quote-mining is just something that I've made up is futile considering a simple Google search for creationist+quote+mining reveals your deception...

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Creationist+quote+mining&btnG=Search&meta=

Wow... Look at that! 235,000 results!

<<When you talk about the law of separation of church and state are you talking about an American law, an Australian law, an international law...>>

I don't know if there is any set “law” as such. But here in Australia, 'Section 116' of the constitution is relevant to the Separation of Church and State, and in the United States, it's the First Amendment.

All your doing here is trying to find a legal technicality to salvage the trashed reputation of the Intelligent Design advocates. Well, it won't work. Just as their slippery tactics didn't work in the courts.

You sound no better than them.

Ultimately, this is all beside the point anyway. Just imagine the precedent we'd be setting if we allowed religion into science classes.

Continued...

...Continued

<<...or just something else you’ve made up in your head?>>

Something else?

You mean there was “something else”, and you passed the opportunity to point it out?

Ahhh... I know. This is just another sneaky tactic to create an illusion that I sometimes make things up. I don't think you're fooling anyone.

It's a bit rich though, to imply that “something else” I've said was made-up “in my head” considering I've been able to provide examples and proof of my claims.

<<...faced with such mystical ideas as animals morphing into one another in times distant past.>>

“Mystical” is the wrong word. It implies that evolution transcends human understanding. Well, maybe it transcends the understanding of some.

“Morph” isn't the best word either. It over-simplifies what it means to evolve as there is no apparent system to morphing.

But you already knew all this, didn't you? That's why you used those words.

As for your quote though. Gee... I'm not sure where to begin. It sound's like you're going down the “Just Sprung into Existence” road again.

Your quote is an argument from incredulity (AKA God-of-the-gaps argument): “I can't imagine it, so it mustn't have happened.”

Honestly Dan, that's terrible logic!

No one claims that life as complex as an amoeba just popped into existence like your quote implies.

But since you seem to know that abiogenesis never happened, maybe you could answer a few questions for me?

1. Is it impossible for nucleotides to have formed in montmorillonite clay?
2. Is it impossible for nucleotides to join together to form polynucleotides?
3. Is it impossible for polynucleotides to become RNA?
4. Is it impossible for RNA to become DNA?
5. Is it impossible for DNA to attract lipids that form a protective membrane?

So which of these is impossible, Dan?

Anyway, to summarise...

You have quoted from a movie, with an argument from incredulity, that completely misrepresents and over-simplifies the science of evolution and abiogenesis.

That's three strikes, Dan...

You're out!

Relda,
Thanks for your response. Just quickly, I suggest to you that 38% is commonly defined as a minority, not majority.

I also put it to you that the 38% of respondants who said one thing and the 55% of respondants who said something else were not of the same genotype. More likely these categories of people are mutually exclusive as these two belief sets you mention do not overlap. If you like, I could find some statistics that demonstrate that people with Bible based faith generally do not believe in astrology.

AJ,
You brought up the notion of 'separation of church and state'. When I asked you for more detail, you then say you don't know if there is any law as such, but directed me to Section 116 of the Constitution.

Okay, so we look up Section 116 of the Constitution. This is often referred to as the clause which establishes freedom of religion. It doesn't contain the words 'separation' 'church' or 'state'. Only with some extravagant imagination or spicy pizza before bed could we suggest that what is written here is defining or legislating what can and can't be said in a classroom.

You're not really motivating me to look up your wild goose references.

Also, what's so wrong with quoting from a movie? Does it conflict with OLO guidelines or perhaps do you class it another sub-human creationist tactic? I kind of like Barry Levinson movies.

relda,
well, it is for K£vin to decide what he understood by supernatural. If it is indeed “'trickery' as found in magic“, if supernatural is what occultists, witches, ghostbusters seance mediums and the like try to contact, and not serious Western or Eastern mystics, then I misunderstood him and you, and my comments were irrelevant. In that case, however, I do not understand what is the relevance of the problem of God’s interfering with the physical world and theodicy that you mentioned, to this meaning of the term supernatural.

Also, the open-endedness of science has nothing to do with Kant‘s Transcendent Reality (the unknowable, Ding an sich), one aspect of (rather than part of) which is physical reality perceived through our senses and instruments (and physical theories built on mathematics). Kant‘s Transcendent Reality is not the same thing as when you say that yet unknown scientific knowledge will “transcend” the already known one, although it is obviously related. The divine, is that part, or rather aspect, of Transcendent (or Ultimate) Reality that is not accessible through sense, instruments and mathematics, i.e. not knowable by science IN PRINCIPLE, irrespective of what future developments in our knowledge of the physical world might bring,

This definition of the divine would agree with the classical theist (God is outside the Universe/Multiverse) as well as the panentheist (God is greater than the Universe/Multiverse but includes and interpenetrates it) model of God, and, I think, would satisfy also the Buddhist outlook.

George,
You speak of a ‘reality’ which I would term as a spiritual one – i.e. it is a truth of the spirit, not a truth of the intellect, not a mathematical theorem or a logical formula.

I would suggest that anything that “is not accessible through sense, instruments and mathematics” is not IN FACT knowable by science. A deviation from this creates a problem when dealing with the ‘creationist’ argument - if, in acquiescing to this, one is then faced with a ‘Buddha-science’, ‘Mithra-science’, ‘Muslim-science’, Shinto-science’ or perhaps a ‘Zoroastrianism-science.’

As Luwig Wittgenstein might suggest, “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” and reference to the ‘supernatural’ might in fact suggest something beyond our world but it is a terminology refering all too often to something as literally real, i.e. demons, angels, ghosts, devils and other such phantasms, and I prefer not to use it. The ‘supernatural’ rests equally with Greek mythology as it did in Hebraic writing an thought – it was the Hellenistic spirit which broke its bind.

Dan,
You miss my point, “your appeal is in the arena of popular ‘science’” and the popular ‘science of which I speak covers both astrology and ‘creation -science’. Yes, they are both separate beliefs, and as you suggest, one is biblically based (literally), but, in terms of real science, both are equally muddled in their thinking. You may certainly hold faith in either belief but both forms of belief are equally and entirely unscientific.

You perhaps need to discover, evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it – ‘creation-science’, however, falsely seeks to do this.

Ok! here is another model. Dan! have you ever watched how a lioness and its cubs have that maternal bond with each other, and almost every other living thing has this natural instinct. We humans have also evolved this instinct.

Christianity calls this the love of Christ. This love is in all humans and fauna alike thanks to evolution and that's the facts jack.

The moment that man-kind broke away from nature, we have not stopped interpreting the world around us in the evolutionary separation. Early humans had no idea of what they were viewing and proceeded to name gods one after another. The whole human history is full of them.

I would of loved to of seen the faces of early man when instinct left and the conscious mind began, it must of been terrifying.

EVO

Dan,

For someone who claims that chemistry disproves abiogenesis, you seem very evasive of my questions.

No matter. We'll just pretend that it didn't happen, like every other one of my 100 or so questions you've never answered.

<<You brought up the notion of 'separation of church and state'.>>

Because you “forgot” to mention it when it was a crucial aspect of the point you were making about ID.

<<When I asked you for more detail, you then say you don't know if there is any law as such, but directed me to Section 116 of the Constitution.>>

…And the First Amendment of the US constitution.

You failed to mention that one though, because ID was ruled to be religious in a US court and therefore, a breach of it.

<<...so we look up Section 116 of the Constitution.>>

“The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.”

<<This is often referred to as the clause which establishes freedom of religion.>>

If you only read the nine words after the second comma.

<<It doesn't contain the words 'separation' 'church' or 'state'.>>

It doesn't have to.

The First Amendment doesn’t either. Yet at the Dover trial, the First Amendment, along with the debunking of the Creationist's “evidence”, lead to a crushing defeat. So much so, that they didn't even bother appealing.

<<Only with some extravagant imagination or spicy pizza before bed could we suggest that what is written here is defining or legislating what can and can't be said in a classroom.>>

“Taught”, not “said”. There's a difference.

But if you have a problem with the ruling against ID, then argue it with the Judges in the US.

My only point was that you had failed to mention that Creationists come under the guise of 'ID advocates' in order to sneak Creationism into classrooms by using the underhanded tactic of not specifically mentioning religion.

Continued...

...Continued

What point are you trying to get at here, Dan? That Creationism should be taught in schools? That a Separation of Church and State doesn't exist?

You don’t even know anymore, do you?

You just thought you’d spotted a glass jaw and went for it, as if to think that if you can cast doubt on one of my claims, then everything else I've said comes into question.

Your desperate scratching around for arguments is starting to make your thought patterns resemble that of a ball of string after a cat’s been playing with it.

You're beating a dead horse, Dan. Move on.

<<You're not really motivating me to look up your wild goose references.>>

What a copout.

You can't deny that you refuse to read the links I provide, so you invent reasons to try and save face by shifting the blame on to my arguments in a public display of self-denial as to the real reason you can't look at them – it would simply be too confronting.

I shouldn’t have to motivate you, Dan. The fact that you’d learn a thing or two and prevent yourself from appearing foolish by repeating debunked arguments should be motivation enough.

<<Also, what's so wrong with quoting from a movie?>>

“Wrong” is a strong word in this instance.

But movies are often fictional, so when you've resorted to quoting lines from them to refute a scientific theory with mountains of evidence, it's time to walk away.

<<Does it conflict with OLO guidelines or perhaps do you class it another sub-human creationist tactic?>>

I like how you threw in the “sub-human” bit, as if to try to discredit one of my previous arguments about misquoting the dead.

But comparing the 'quoting of movies' to 'misquoting dead people' is contemptible to say the least. Absolutely disgraceful!

Dan, I used to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were just a naïve Christian who was the victim of the deceitfulness of Creationists. But now you're acting more like a politician trying to cover-up his colleague's scandals.

AJ,
You can use lots of derogatory words like dishonest, deceitful, slippery and sub-human. But when you call me politician, you’re getting below the belt and it’s time we had a little talk.

Let’s try and get a grip of who we are here. This is not a scientific forum. If it was, you and I wouldn’t be allowed on, as neither of us has the relevant qualifications. It is not even a place for formal debate. So none of us here is going to finally resolve the creation/evolution debate or any other issue. We’re just a bunch of people sharing some opinions.

It’s pretty easy to answer most of your questions. And it’s very easy for me to ignore them too. You’re not my school master, and if I can’t be bothered answering you, or you give me low grades for a response, it’s not going to affect my future employment prospects. Maybe I might be challenged by something you say. But why should I be bothered responding when a half descent response is going to be met with slander?

No one’s paying me to be here. We just come here for amusement and the hope and belief that interacting with those out there in cyber-space possibly might do us some good.

As for your many questions, I’ll pick an easy one and see where we can go from here.

Should creationism be taught in schools? I think in principle, parents should have a big say in what and how their kids are taught. In the public system this is more problematic as more things are regulated by the state, but parent committees have a say. Teachers are largely caring, intelligent and educated. Legislating a teacher to teach against their conscience is ineffectual and self defeating.

I’m for supporting a classroom atmosphere of curiosity and open discussion. It is hard to comprehend why people in America would want to run to the courts to have classroom discussion stifled (though I know Americans are born litigants). If a theory is sound, why would it need protection from open discussion?

relda,
you wrote: >> anything (spiritual reality) that “is not accessible through sense, instruments and mathematics” is not IN FACT knowable by science.<<
I wrote: >> The divine, is that ... aspect of Transcendent (or Ultimate) Reality that is not accessible through sense, instruments and mathematics, i.e. not knowable by science IN PRINCIPLE <<

Spiritual reality or the Divine, I think we speak of the same thing and do not contradict each other (except that 'mathematical theorems' are statements, that can be true or false, but are no reality in whatever sense).

Buddhism, Zoroastrianism etc have different models (mythologies, if you like) of the Spiritual/Divine hence the relation to scientific models would also have to be expressed differently. See e.g. Fritjof Capra in case of Buddhism. Immanuel Kant - whose term (transcendent) Reality or Ding-an-sich (Thing-on-itself?) I borrowed to express the fact that we cannot know Reality directly, but only through models, scientific or religious - had probably only Christianity in mind.

I should clarify, that Kant’s Ding-an-sich, as i understand it, is supposed to be EVERYTHING assumed to exist independently of our mind. It includes that aspect of Reality, called physical, that is accessible through senses and indirectly through scientific models. It also includes the Spiritual/Divine, if you believe in it, accesible only through religious models, or through mystic experience. (It does not include the fictitious realm of ghosts, fairy tales etc.)

Also, I think that lumping "demons, angels, ghosts, devils and other phantasms" together is like in science lumping together e.g. phlogiston, ether (physics), gravity and evolution", of which only the latter two have become universally accepted scientific concepts. Angels, the Devil etc., and symbols from other higher religions, figure in the “official“ narratives that constitute the particular religious model of the unknowable Divine/Spiritual; in distinction to ghosts, poltergeist and other fairy tale characters. If you do not make that distinction you blur the difference between the higher religions and what our atheist friends like to call the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Hence my earlier concern about confusing the two different meanings of “supernatural”. (ctd)

(ctd) In your quote, Wittgenstein, roughly speaking, calls language what I called models, and ascertains its/their limitations (the Kant‘s unknowable Ding-an-sich). The ultimate “unknowability”of certain “things“ is expressed by Wittgenstein’s "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" which resonates with Lao-Tse’s “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao”, a nice meeting of Western and Eastern pieces of wisdom. It reminds us also that whatever the usefulness of this or that e.g. Christian theology - and I do not want to deny the usefulness of the rationalisation of faith - it is just a MODEL of the Divine (or Spiritual reality, if you like), rooted in our culture, tradition and limited by our capacity to conceptualise and understand.

Interesting response, Dan.

You've resorted to reducing this debate to mere opinions; misrepresented what the Dover trial was about; confused 'teaching' with 'discussing'; and even slung in a classic Creationist fallacy for good measure.

<<You can use lots of derogatory words like dishonest, deceitful, slippery and sub-human.>>

How else would you describe quote-mining, the exploitation of fear and the countless examples of deception?

Remember, Dan... I am always able to back my claims with examples and I have many more – I've barely scratched the surface.

But we've already been through this several times before and you're never able to provide any examples or reasoning as to why my claims are false.

<<Let’s try and get a grip of who we are here. This is not a scientific forum. If it was, you and I wouldn’t be allowed on, as neither of us has the relevant qualifications.>>

Here, in another attempt to discount everything I've posted, you have used the reverse of another Creationist fallacy... The argument from authority.

While qualifications are important, they're not everything. If an argument is logical, and based on reliable and verifiable real-world data, then the argument has authority regardless of who is giving it.

If you were to apply this argument uniformly, Creationism would fall in a second. For every Creation “scientist” who claims one thing, there are hundreds of scientists with far greater professional qualifications, who say the opposite.

You're drastically underestimating me, Dan. My first encounter with you sparked an big interest in science. I'm even considering studying it part-time starting next year.

Over the last few months, I have spent hundreds of hours of my own time studying this debate, so I know quite a lot about the science behind it now. So much so in fact, that I am now at the point where I can go through each page of www.creationontheweb.com and pick-out where they've twisted the facts.

<<We’re just a bunch of people sharing some opinions.>>

We're not just talking mere opinions here, like some political Left versus Right issue. We're talking facts versus falsehoods.

Continued...

...Continued

<<...why should I be bothered responding when a half descent response is going to be met with slander?>>

You're making excuses, Dan.

As I've explained once before, “slander” is the use of false words, and none of my claims are false as I am always able to demonstrate with logic, reasoning, examples, etc...

Most of my questions are 'rhetorical questions' anyway, so I don't usually expect an answer.

<<As for your many questions ... Should creationism be taught in schools?>>

Actually, that wasn't one of my questions. But you still couldn't directly answer it – confusing 'teaching' with 'discussing'.

<<Legislating a teacher to teach against their conscience is ineffectual and self defeating.>>

Teachers need to teach objectively, not subjectively. If we allow personal beliefs to enter the classroom, where do we stop? Would you feel comfortable with a white supremest teaching your child with their conscience?

There is nothing “ineffectual” or “Self-defeating”about ensuring the that religion doesn't enter science classrooms. You know this, but you get around it by convincing yourself that evolution is a religion.

Creationism is subjective; evolutionary theory is objective.

<<I’m for supporting a classroom atmosphere of curiosity and open discussion.>>

There is nothing wrong with talking with students about Creationism. But to present religion in science classes as a credible alternative to natural sciences is wrong for so many reasons.

<<It is hard to comprehend why people in America would want to run to the courts to have classroom discussion stifled...>>

Again, 'taught', not 'said'.

The trial wasn't about stifling discussion. The trial took place because a school in Dover, Pennsylvania *required* that teacher's read a statement in science classes presenting Creationism as a credible alternative to evolution.

Presenting religious mythology as science to young vulnerable minds raises many serious issues on many different levels; sets a frightening precedence and should not be taken lightly.

<<If a theory is sound, why would it need protection from open discussion?>>

Suggesting that evolution needs “protection”, not only displays an ignorance of the issues at hand, but a serious underestimation of just how incredibly solid the theory is.

Dan

Even if we ignore the fact that the creation hypothesis has its origins in the Genesis myths and ignore the fact that it is a completely untestable hypothesis it still does not deserve to be taught in schools because as a 'scientific' theory it has proved to be completely unproductive in terms of downstream studies and practical results. Even if it is allowed on the tree of scientific knowledge it is a dead branch and therefore of very little real scientific interest. Teaching it in schools would simply be a waste of time. The curriculum is already crammed and there is no value in teaching oddball theories that have no practical use.

George,
We are both agreed in our sense of the Divine, but in terms of “…EVERYTHING assumed to exist independently of our mind[s]”, this will obviously be highly subjective.

I guess I align myself with Jung in his claim to follow the scientific method and keep a clear distinction between the description of cognitive processes and truth claims attesting to the objective reality of such cognitions. Any reductionist collapsing of philosophy into psychology or vice versa is the cause of what Jung critically calls Eastern intuition over-reaching itself.

Christian symbolism is inherently important to those within the faith and is sacred to expressing truth – however interpreted by the individual. Having been raised within a Christian home I am fully cognizant of this but also understand many of the Christian symbols are in fact borrowed. There are symbols of differing traditions pointing to the same reality – Christian theology properly distinguishes its own deep perceptions. The Bhagavad Gita has a tree that grows upside down, with its roots in heaven and its branches in the world. Christianity incorporated the mythography of the tree/cross from Gnostic and Kabbalist ritual, and echoes of this religious structure can be found even earlier in the Egyptian world – a supernatural world also with the promise of eternal life. The Jungian archetype seems to illustrate something more universal through the four main types of self, shadow, anima and animus.

Personally, I prefer much of the Christian symbolism and the way it has evolved because it is a strong part of my upbringing. That is my emotional side – objectively, however, I can see people can hold equally valid expressions and symbols but differ by an accident of birth into another culture. I have however lost the ancient supernaturalisms generally associated with relgious symbolism - perhaps a legacy of Hellenism.

relda,
first of all thank you for continuing with this debate that is very rewarding for me, giving me an opportunity and incentive to more carefully formulate my own thoughts. I hope we two are not the only ones still following this debate.

When speaking of “EVERYTHING assumed to exist ...” I was trying to explain KANT, not make a claim myself. I might have misunderstood him: only a better knower of Kant - theist or atheist - could tell. I personally believe that the Divine/Spiritual has both objective and subjective (individual as well as of humanity as such) features. It cannot be reduced to either, only one of its features can be suppressed by this or that individual or school of thought. This probably comes from my experience with “doing mathematics“ where it is also hard to tell whether one creates (the subjective feature) or discover (the objective feature).

Since quantum physics, this clear distinction (between the observer and observed) became problematic even in the philosophy of science. A lot of misunderstandings - including those manifested in derogatory remarks about religion and faith on this OLO - arise when one strictly separates what is subjective and what is objective when dealing with what “really exists“. “Epistemology models ontology” is the favourite saying of John Polkinghorne, the physicist-theologian I often refer to.

I agree that Christian and other religious models (symbolisms) of the Divine contain “echos” of earlier models, some rather primitive. This is just what evolution is all about: we share 95% of our DNA with the chimpanzee, and Einstein’s theory certainly contains “echos” of Newton’s theory. However, I agree that the relation between various religious models of the Divine is much more complicated than that between various scientific models of the physical reality.

Your last paragraph expresses simply the reasons why I value your opinions so much: it is a nice formulation of what tolerance is all about. The “equally valid” part in your confession is for me acceptable exactly because in these matters I do not subscribe to a strict distinction between subjective and objective.

George,
"first of all thank you for continuing with this debate that is very rewarding for me, giving me an opportunity and incentive to more carefully formulate my own thoughts..." You have allowed me to do the same. Thankyou.

Quantum physics has for some time interested me in the idea of the observer affecting the observed - quite metaphysical really. Not even our scientists can quite grasp QM - nor do they pretend to.

"The first act of reason is consciousness [but] I must have objects of my thought and apprehend them: for otherwise I am not conscious of myself... [And to possess freedom is to possess spirit]. There is thus a being above the world, namely the spirit of man.” – Kant :)

AJ,
I wish you well in your science courses. On the nature of facts versus opinions, not everything associated under the rubric ‘science’ is hard fact. The issues raised on this website, www.onlineopinion, are those inviting considered discussion. The standard required before a proposition is considered a fact is so high as to usually bring only short, dull discussions. Most things worth talking about are not black and white. Possibly you’ve come to the wrong address. www.onlinefacts is down the street.

Waterboy, Relda.
I’m all for scepticism. What I was attempting to show was that Joe Schmoe Modell in the diner had a more healthy scepticism than some today who profess to be scientifically minded yet swallow fanciful ideas pretty rapidly.

If I understood Waterboy, then for a hypothesis to be scientific, it must be able to be disproven. So if all evolutionary theories were disproven, where would we be? Surely we would have to then propose some type of non-evolutionary view, even if just hypothetically? Yet nearly everyone here is telling me that creation could not even theoretically be considered as scientific.

Waterboy suggests we use scepticism in attempting to disprove some of our own theories. The problem is how to find a test to disprove a theory of history. What test will disprove that God took six days to make the world? Which test proves or disproves that reptiles changed into birds hundreds of millions of years ago? What test disproves that Hannibal crossed the Alps on elephants? What test can finally resolve an explanation for the death or disappearance of the Chamberlain’s daughter?

If I claim I sipped from that glass of water on the table last Thursday, what analysis would disprove my claim? That singular event is unrepeatable. Yet science normally requires repeatability. Historians may use witnesses or records in verifying historical claims, such as a camera that viewed me drinking the water. Then we argue the reliability of the recording. Such uncertainty arises over an event happening only last week. How far must my scepticism stretch for the alleged millions of intervening years?

(continued…)

Earlier AJPhilips posed some suggestions on experiments that could disprove evolution. He said if we could find a true chimera then that would settle the matter. However, if we found one tomorrow I’m guessing the evolutionary model is malleable enough to adapt to this new finding.

Others in Darwin’s day proposed the test of finding the predicted great number of transitional fossils. A hundred years later, the fossil record wasn’t much different. Palaeontologists were admitting as much. People like AJ were getting upset when creationists dared quote their summaries. So technically the test had failed, but the theory itself was able to adapt. Theories of history always can.

Relda views science falling into two types, the popular (the sham) and the academically sanctioned. Creationists have suggested it useful to view science in two categories: historical science, that invoking investigations into the past (palaeontology, archaeology, origins, etc.), and operational science, that which can be examined in repeatable tests (physics, chemistry, medicine, communications, transport, etc.).

Waterboy, you and several others on this thread have suggested that we look for what’s useful, alleging creationism doesn’t produce useful results.

Neither evolution nor creation are branches of science. They are both explanations of history, or philosophical frameworks for interpreting the evidence. No one on this thread has given any example of how seeing certain evidence through an evolutionary perspective is more profitable (in medicine, for example) than viewing it through a creationist model. I’m guessing I’ll wait in vain for such an example.

Medical science predates Darwin. Western science in general established its foundations (its most usefulness) at a time when most scientists accepted six-day creation.

Let’s not start to detail the pioneering breakthroughs in medicine accomplished by creationists such as Joseph Lister, Raymond Damadian or Louis Pasteur (though AJ protests the inclusion of Pasteur’s name).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Vahan_Damadian

Bennie,
The idea that science is viewed through a paradigm or a framework for assessing the evidence is not necessarily a creationist idea. If you want to find out more about scientific paradigms, read the writings of philosophers of science such as Thomas Kuhn.

relda,
I do not know about other scientists but physicists certainly have no problems with QM, because of its applicability. It is the philosophers of science who have problems with a model of reality they cannot visualise. I know, the Copenhagen school is just one attempt to interpret QM in a way acceptable to philosophers. I hinted at it not because I necessarily accept its explanations; I only wanted to show that the strict, “mechanical” distinction between what is subjective and what is objective can be challenged even from within science, albeit only on the most fundamental level of asking what is the “stuff” matter is made of. Is it tiny balls of elementary particles, waves, strings? Or is it Hilbert spaces, curvature of space-time? Of course, it is neither, these are just models: the first three are visual, the other mathematical, but still just models of the directly unaccessible Ding-an-sich.

All I wanted to say was that even if one restricts oneself to the reality described by science (and accepted by everybody except for the solipsists), the situation is not as simple as some of our atheist friends try to pretend. And that the blurring of the borderline between subjective and objective just MIGHT shed a new light at the relation between the material and the spiritual.

Thank you for the quote from Kant. His “spirit of man being above the world” is apparently supposed to parallel Genesis 1:1 “And The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters“? Nevertheless, I think that Kant’s metaphysics is compatible with Christian faith, even if he does not say so, although Fichte and Schelling apparently do.

While pursuing this line of thought I came across http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/ksp2/, which seems to be very promising. I am certainly going to try to read and understand it. This is again something to thank you for.

Dan

You appear to have missed the point.
Creation is not a repeatable event as you have agreed. Evolution is not only repeatable but is going on all around us.

As for your glass of water the only 'unrepeatable' aspect of that is that we can't go back in time to last thursday. To claim that drinking a glass of water is unrepeatable just because we cant go back in time shows a profound misunderstanding of the scientific process.

Furthermore refutability does not depend upon the reliability of witnesses. It is sufficient that the possibility of the event being observed makes it knowable or refutable. Creation is not observable or repeatable. Creation cannot be used to make model-based predictions which is why it is a useless theory.

Evolution is observable and therefor refutable.
As for the usefulness of evolution... what is animal husbandry if not an application of evolution, microbiologists use evolution all the time, we use our understanding of evolution to manage infectious diseases, Genetic engineering is nothing more than carefully managed evolution. The bottom line is that evolutionary models have proved to be very useful and there is every reason to believe that we will continue to make interesting and useful new discoveries well into the future following the evolutionary model. For that reason teaching evolution in the school curriculum makes good sense.

What justification is there for teaching creation or any of the other oddball, unproductive theories that are floating around.

You’re panicking now, Dan, and it’s starting to show.

All you’ve done is repeat the same old debunked arguments by putting a different slant on them.

You can give you’re arguments any slant you like, but they will continue to fall every time because they’re illogical.

*First Paragraph:

Thank you for your well wishes.

I’ll have to skip the rest of the first paragraph as it merely a red-herring and I don’t have the word allowance for it.

*Second Paragraph:

If Joe Schmoe doesn't understand abiogenesis or evolution, then his scepticism is irrelevant here.

Being sceptical is healthy, but if that scepticism comes from a deliberate ignorance, then it becomes stupidity.

*Third Paragraph:

No, Creationism can’t be consider scientific, and for many more reasons than even Waterboy has mentioned, and it’s disappointing that you need everyone to tell you this.

*Fourth Paragraph:

Your entire fourth paragraph focuses ‘testability’, but ignores observations.

But yes, we can test evolution. Natural selection is testable; mutations are testable.

And don't bother with going down the “no new information has been seen to add information to the genome” road. Not only has this been seen, but ‘adding information’ doesn’t have to occur as often Creationists like to imply. I’m happy to go further into this if you’d like?

Creationists accept ‘microevolution’, which is testable, but reject ‘macroevolution’. Yet they can’t find a mechanism that limits evolution – another way of falsifying it. The difference between macroevolution and microevolution is essentially just the time-span.

What proves reptiles-to-birds evolution? DNA, anatomy and fossils such as the archaeopteryx.

As I have tried to tell you time-and-time again, the fact that macroevolution is “history” is irrelevant. Disregarding a field of science because it is a science of history is irresponsible for so many reasons.

You’re advocating ignorance.

*Fifth Paragraph:

Behold the Creationist strawman argument...

You're 'past events' analogy – like the 'letters in the sand' analogy – is irrelevant.

Past events are not living creatures;
Past events don't leave their fossils behind;
Past events don't pass on DNA that we can trace back and compare to current events.

Continued...

...Continued

Also, the millions of intervening years are not just “alleged”. We have irrefutable proof of the Earth's age. I could provide you with many links to undeniable evidence of this, but you're too afraid to look at them.

*Sixth Paragraph:

Then you'd be guessing wrong.

So long as the chimeras weren't explained by lateral gene transfer, which mind you, only transfers very small amounts of DNA between lineages, then no.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe the reason we don't see chimeras is because evolution might be a fact?

Besides, you forgot about the other ways to falsify evolution that I mentioned, which are just some of many.

*Seventh Paragraph:

You’re trivialising the deplorable behaviour of quote-mining in yet another attempt to brush it off. Yet amazingly, it doesn't make you wonder why Creationists need to resort to it. I suggest you look-up the definition of “misquote”.

Also, before Darwin, paleontologists didn't know what to make of the weird creatures they'd found. We only realised what they were until we learned about evolution. Hundreds of transitional fossils have been found since Darwin, so no, the test didn't fail. You're point here is based on a falsehood.

*Eighth Paragraph:

One of the differences between evolution and Creationism is that Creationist’s don't want to 'do' science, they want to 'undo' science; Making Creationism not only useless, but counter-productive.

Dan, I feel sorry for you if you view historical sciences as useless. It’s as though religion has killed a part of your curiosity and spirit.

*Ninth & Tenth Paragraphs:

I believe Waterboy’s covered this.

*Eleventh & Twelfth Paragraphs:

My debunking of the ‘Orderly Creator’ argument also debunks these arguments, because they’re based on the same flawed logic.

Evolution has helped immensely in medical research; Belief in a six-day creation has not.

But maybe you can inform me, Dan... How did their belief in Creationism help with their medical/biological research?

P.S. Please don't make things up about me protesting Pasteur's name. I’d explained to you why your points about Pasteur were wrong. Just as I have now.

Continued tomorrow...

On second thoughts, I don't really have the energy to repeat everything that I've already said over the last 100 or so posts on this topic. So I'll leave it at that for now.

Trying to crush the rest of my response (which started out with 5000 words) into a measly little 700 words will only result in another couple of posts that don't flow too well.

Waterboy,
Firstly, let me say that I was never attempting to make a case for curriculum change in public schools. My view is the classroom should be an open place of discussion and investigation. I know a few Christian schools that teach units on design or creation. But they also see the importance of their students understanding the evolutionary view, as it is of course current accepted thought. At the public school where I used to teach, the biology teacher (who was evolution leaning) made himself aware of the creationist view, as he wanted to be able to deal with it fairly when it came up in discussion. And it inevitably will if OLO is any guide.

As for the glass of water example, I think you see my point. I was never claiming that drinking water was unrepeatable. I was only highlighting that historical events were unrepeatable and not directly observable. Only current processes are observable. That reptiles turned into birds is a claim to which people ascribe a date long past.

My previous paragraph is trivial. You claim evolution is an observable process going on all around us now. This is the claim around which there is debate. I would say that what we observe is not evolution at all.

A lot depends on the definition of ‘evolution’. Some (I’m not claiming you) say it just means ‘change’. Perhaps when the weather changes, or when I change my underpants, we see everywhere that change is constant, and ipso facto, evolution is observed.

So we need to specify clearly what we mean by evolution. If evolution only meant ‘natural selection’ then there would be no debate. That is a process everyone sees. Darwin didn’t dream it up. Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was already talking about it. Creationists such as Edward Blyth were already documenting this process before Darwin.

The current in vogue neo-Darwinian version of evolution is something like what Modell crudely described in the diner (27/8), a microbe slowly became a man. Are we currently really observing processes that affect these types of changes?

(continued…)

(…continued)

Alternately, there’s creationism. The biblical version thereof talks about a series of particular events in the past which have lead us to this point in time. You correctly note that this creation process is finished and therefore neither directly observable nor repeatable. We cannot demand of God that he go back and repeat it so that we may observe the process.

However, God did leave a record of what happened with enough detail (rough dates, etc.) for us to make models and predictions of the sorts of evidences and processes we might expect to see now, for example, remains of dead things buried in sediment from the result of the Great flood.

If our model is good, then it will produce useful scientific results.

Distinct categories or kinds of living things were created to reproduce after their kind. Animal husbandry and genetic engineering make use of the genetic variability within the created kind, producing similar if not more rapid results to that which may occur under natural selection. But the changes are still restricted to the change within that particular kind of living thing.

The problems of disease realised by antibiotic resistant bacteria do not arise from an appearance of new biological information, but often even degeneration of the genetic material within the bacteria.

In conclusion, the overwhelming number of scientists go about their daily activity without the question of origins entering their attention. Most current scientific pursuits would practice adequately under either model of origins. However, getting our view of origins correct could well lead to further breakthroughs in medicine or other areas of applied science.

AJ,
By the way, another accurate prediction of creationism is that all humans are shown to be closely related genetically. You could use this argument to good effect when you run into those white supremacists you mentioned.

As for discerning between facts and opinions, how come you skip over this, claiming it’s a red herring, when you put quite a lot of emphasis on it the previous day? Fact versus interpretation goes to the heart of what I’m saying

Dan,

You still couldn't respond to anything I said in my last response to you.

<<I was only highlighting that historical events were unrepeatable and not directly observable.>>

Yes, and both Waterboy and myself showed you why that was your analogy was irrelevant.

<<Some ... say it [evolution] just means ‘change’. Perhaps when the weather changes, or when I change my underpants, we see everywhere that change is constant, and ipso facto, evolution is observed.>>

And who would these people be? I don't know of anyone who says that. "Change over time" would be a little more accurate.

I suggest you check your dictionary for the definition of “evolve”.

<<[Natural selection] is a process everyone sees.>>

So if we can't see it, and it conflicts with the naïve beliefs of privative Hebrew tribes, then we disregard it regardless of the fact that the evidence is in everything we see?

<<The current in vogue neo-Darwinian version of evolution is something like what Modell crudely described in the diner (27/8), a microbe slowly became a man.>>

For someone who sounds so certain that evolution is false, you really don't know anything much about it at all, do you?

<<Are we currently really observing processes that affect these [macroevolutionary] types of changes?>>

No, and we wouldn't expect to either. If we did observe that within our lifetimes, then that would disprove evolution.

<<Alternately, there’s creationism.>>

Ahhh... The Creationists' false dichotomy.

<<...God did leave a record of what happened with enough detail (rough dates, etc.) for us to make models and predictions of the sorts of evidences and processes we might expect to see now...>>

Rough dates?

Oh, you mean those other dating methods you mentioned on the other thread that are based on old out-of-date information.

<<...for example, remains of dead things buried in sediment from the result of the Great flood.>>

I've already provided you with a link to irrefutable evidence that this is not the case. You see? It pays to check the links I provide in order to prevent yourself from repeating falsehoods.

Continued...

...Continued

<<If our model is good, then it will produce useful scientific results.>>

Exactly!

And that's why it hasn't produced anything useful.

<<Distinct categories or kinds of living things were created to reproduce after their kind.>>

I like this Creationist tactic... Use vague words like “kinds”, “new” and “information”. That way, when more evidence for evolution comes to light, you can simply shift the goalposts by changing the definition of those words.

<<Animal husbandry and genetic engineering make use of the genetic variability within the created kind, producing similar if not more rapid results to that which may occur under natural selection.>>

Nice try, Dan. The concept of selective breeding did not come from the Creationists' concept of “kind”. It's been around for a lot longer than the Bible. So no, this isn't an example of the usefulness of Creationism.

<<But the changes are still restricted to the change within that particular kind of living thing.>>

And your evidence for this is?

<<The problems of disease realised by antibiotic resistant bacteria do not arise from an appearance of new biological information, but often even degeneration of the genetic material within the bacteria.>>

A link I provided on the previous thread disproved this falsehood that Creationists pedal. This simply is not true. But if you're too afraid to click on my links, then I'll be glad to explain it in a post. Just ask.

<<By the way, another accurate prediction of creationism is that all humans are shown to be closely related genetically.>>

Well that's convenient considering that that's what evolution would've shown anyway.

<<As for discerning between facts and opinions, how come you skip over this..?>>

The red-herring was the 'www.onlinefacts.com' bit.

In regards to facts versus opinions... You don't seem to realise realise that some opinions can be facts. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that the opinions that rely on selective and false data (confirmed by their statements of faith), inciting fear and loathing, and quite-mining are obviously the false opinions.

Unfortunately, you're yet to make that connection.

Dan

It appears we are making some headway.
We seem to have come to an agreement that 'creation' is an alternative to scientific theories of abiogenesis (and cosmogenesis... but thats another story).

Microevolution is accepted.

Now lets take the 'primordial soup' theory. What experiments are suggested by this theory. Well we can easily construct experiments which replicate aspects of such a process. If they succeed they do not prove that this is how it really happened but it would, at least, prove the plausibility of the hypothesis. Of course an hypothesis has to be quite specific in order to be testable so a primordial soup hypothesis must needs be specific about details of the chemical constitution of the soup, atmospheric conditions, physical conditions such as temperature, pressure and so on and so on.

Once the conditions of the hypothesis are made specific and the necessary outcome established then we can imagine an experiment that we could theoretically conduct to test the hypothesis and so it generates work for scientists to do to construct and run the actual experiments. So far the plausibility of the primordial soup hypothesis is suggested rather than proved and more work is required. Thats productive science at work.

What actual scientific work is being inspired by the creation hypothesis other than occasional attempts to challenge various dating methods used by evolutionary scientists?

Waterboy,
I don’t accept that evolution is occurring. Microevolution is your word, not mine.

I struggle to see where you’re going with the primordial soup experiments. If we succeeded in demonstrating a particular experiment today, that may help plausibility but not establish the truth of what happened at a certain time in the distant past. I thought we had established that it was impossible to directly observe a past, historic event. How could we ever know what the chemical constitution of that soup was, its physical conditions, temperature, pressure and so on? It could only be guess upon supposition.

If we employed thousands of scientists running many hours of intricate experiments that succeeded in synthesising a replicating life form in a laboratory, how would that establish the hypothesis that the first life was capable of appearing naturally without intelligent input? Wouldn’t it suggest the opposite?

It also seems from your comment about being productive that the aim is to provide employment for scientists and make them busy. I thought the aim was to discover truth.

In regard to being busy, creationists would enter into more experiments than they do if they had access to some of the government funding that is devoted to attempting to solve evolutionary related problems. Yet despite lack of resources much creationist theory has been established and many problems resolved upon the science already conducted. I would say that the experiments investigating the emergence of the first living cell from purely natural processes have done much to confirm the impossible nature of such occurrence.

Getting back to useful discoveries in medicine, the classic drop the ball, fumble on the evolutionists’ part was when they were suggesting people had many vestigial organs. In the decades when evolution was gaining popularity, the list of vestigial organs grew long. If we don’t know the function of an organ why not presume that it might be a useless evolutionary leftover? However, if we were designed, it would make sense to seek each organ’s true function. Here creationist thinking inspires investigation. Similarly true today for investigations of ‘junk’ DNA.

Waterboy,
Getting back to what you said about Hebrew narrative, I can appreciate literature that includes metaphors, parables and poetry as well as historical references. Where we might differ is where to draw the line between such things. However, there are clues available that may help show where to draw that line correctly, some of which have not yet been raised in this discussion.

I may not be an expert on Jewish history, but I doubt that their concept of history is all that far removed from ours. I understand that the current date on the top of any Jewish newspaper gives a year in the sixth Millennium, as dated from the beginning of all history in the Garden of Eden. The Jews took utmost care in recording genealogical records that can be found in the New Testament as well as the Old. It is very hard to make any clear distinction, at least on any objective literary grounds, as to where in these lists the real people start and the mythical people finish. They were all real people. And though not being an expert in interpreting Jewish Scripture, I think I am allowed to take a lead from those who are, such as the rabbi Jesus who had a pretty clear interpretation of the reality of characters and events from Genesis. Also, Paul and the other New Testament writers were pretty consistent on this level.

It’s alleged that those cultures surrounding the Jews had similar myths and legends. If the stories were real history, wouldn’t we expect some record of them in other cultures? And who’s to say who borrowed from whom?

Lastly, if your ability to interpret Jewish allegory is supposedly superior to mine, how do think you can get away with calling God female?

While God created us in his image, both male and female, he has revealed himself to us relationally as male. This is consistent from Genesis, to the prophesies of Messaiah, through Jesus’ male incarnation, Jesus praying to his Father, to Revelation where his glorious Bride, the church, is united with her Beloved.

Dan

You just dont seem to get it. My point is that it is impossible to construct any experiment which could disprove creation. The creation hypothesis cannot generate scientific work of any sort.

As for the mythical nature of the Genesis story you need only look at the use of the Hebrew words tehom (related to the Babylonian Tiamat) translated 'the deep' and raqia translated 'firmament' which means a solid ceiling. The 'creation'described in Genesis is of a flat earth covered by a solid ceiling with water above and below. The source of the 'Great Flood' is the waters of the tehom (the waters below the earth and the waters above the solid ceiling of the 'firmament'). The tanninim (monsters of the deep) is not a reference to sea creatures at all but to the mythical residents of the 'deep'. These 'monsters' are the enemies of Yahweh. Given that this is what Genesis means 'literally' then although we cannot disprove creation as such we can, and certainly have, proved that the sky is not a solid dome and therefore that the Genesis cosmology is 'wrong'.

The language of Genesis is thoroughly mythical and if you are determined to take it literally then you must accept its 'direct' meaning in its original language and therefore accept that the earth is flat and the sky is a solid dome outside which there is endless water populated by leviathan and other creatures opposed to Yahweh. It is simply unacceptable to read modern sense into the text just because you choose to interpret the english translations in any way that suits you. The original Hebrew language is mythical and the only way to show the text the respect it deserves is to accept it for what it is ie thoroughly mythical and unhistorical.

Then you complain that I use feminine language for God. Given that all language for God is necessarily metaphorical there is no reason why we shouldnt use female language for God from time to time. There actually is a Biblical precedent for this. It occurs in much of the wisdom literature

As a scientist I look at the two theories. One is evolution, the other is creation.

Evolution predicts and accomodates the fossil records whilst creationism doesn't.

There is no proof of creation and the only "proof" offered is the throwing of stones at the gaps in the fossil records.

Creationism predicts that humans would have closely related chromosomes or they could not breed. That chimpanzees have a 98% correlation with our chromosomes is completely unnecessary if we are completely unrelated.

Whilst evolution is not yet perfect, creationism is deeply flawed.

We seem to have wandered far from the topic, which was something about the Catholic Church.
See you in another thread!

waterboy,
I don’t believe we’ve wondered off topic. Brian Holden’s article included the contention that the findings of evolutionary science would bring the immanent death of the church. If he’s going to say such outlandish things, then it’s reasonable that they should be discussed here.

You claim I don’t get your point. If your point is that ‘it is impossible to construct any experiment which could disprove creation’ then I not only get it, but I’ve openly stated it myself. Several times I’ve spoken of the difficulty in proving or disproving any claim of history. The problem for evolution is that it falls into the same category. In both cases, evolution and creation, they’re both impossible to falsify. If you know of a way then please, suggest a test.

Your other comment, ‘the creation hypothesis cannot generate scientific work of any sort.’ Yes we can investigate claims and make predictions surrounding the evolutionary hypothesis, but we could say the same for both views. The creationist hypothesis establishes a framework for investigating the natural world. A simple example from geology: ‘investigate the boundaries of flood catastrophism and post-flood erosion of the coastlines’. Last post I raised another example from medicine, demonstrating how your philosophical view of origins affects your scientific investigations. Yet you didn’t make any comment on ‘vestigial organs’.

If I take Genesis as straightforward history, that is because that is what is suggested by the language. I can appreciate that we must take literature for what it is, but I would disagree with you about the meanings some of those Hebrew words. For someone who claims to know a fair bit about the Bible, I am amazed that you would suggest that the Bible anywhere says the earth is flat. I remember one or two places in (I think) Isaiah where it specifically talks of the roundness of the earth.

Shadow,
There is much evidence offered by creationists beyond the gaps in the fossil record.

As far as people and chimpanzees sharing a high percentage of genes, this is only logical and expected as we share many other commonalities, such as both having eyes, ears, limbs, brains, etc. The key is found in the differences, not the similarities. We’re share 50% of the genes of a tomato, but when we eat a tomato we’re not 50% guilty of cannibalism.

DSM,

If you look at the microbial world there is huge genetic diversity, more so even with similar bacteria than between us and tomatos.

Simple development of microcondria enabled the formation of multicelled organisms and thus all plants and animals have a common ancestor and thus the same genetic heritage.

There is no creationist reason why the tomato should have 50% of the same genetic heritage, while it evolution predicts it.

As much of the DNA is redundant, the similarity in form could be done with less than 25% of similar genetics.

Dan,

<<I don’t accept that evolution is occurring. >>

Then how do you explain speciation?

<<Microevolution is your [Waterboy’s] word, not mine.>>

No. “Microevolution” is the entire scientific community’s word.

<<I thought we had established that it was impossible to directly observe a past, historic event. >>

No. You merely presented a strawman argument that was shown to be irrelevant to the topic.

<<How could we ever know what the chemical constitution of that soup was, its physical conditions, temperature, pressure and so on? It could only be guess upon supposition.>>

Wrong.

I refer you back to my five questions about abiogenesis earlier – and that’s just one of many plausible theories.

<<Wouldn’t it [scientists creating synthetic life] suggest the opposite [that an intelligent agent was required]?>>

And this is what I mean by shifting the goalposts. As soon as it happens, Creationists will simply change their claim from “It can’t be done”, to “It proves an intelligent agent was required”.

If humans can create synthetic life, then it shows that a God wasn’t required, and therefore, nature would've been capable of doing it too, given the time.

<<…creationists would enter into more experiments than they do if they had access to some of the government funding that is devoted to attempting to solve evolutionary related problems.>>

And what would they do with this funding? Continue to try and disprove evolution, abiogenesis and the big bang theory? That’s all they’ve done so far.

To receive government funding, some evidence for their theories would need to be presented. So far, every argument Creationists have ever presented has been debunked immediately and repeatedly.

<<Yet despite lack of resources much creationist theory has been established and many problems resolved upon the science already conducted.>>

Again, every argument ever put forth by Creationists has been debunked immediately and repeatedly.

<< I would say that the experiments investigating the emergence of the first living cell from purely natural processes have done much to confirm the impossible nature of such occurrence.>>

Then you would be wrong.

Replicating long time spans is difficult with limited technology.

Continued…

…Continued

<<…the classic drop the ball, fumble on the evolutionists’ part was when they were suggesting people had many vestigial organs.>>

Do you know what “vestigial” means?

<<If we don’t know the function of an organ why not presume that it might be a useless evolutionary leftover?>>

Obviously not.

‘Vestigial’ doesn’t necessarily mean the organ is entirely “useless” – Just that it’s function is reduced.

<<However, if we were designed, it would make sense to seek each organ’s true function.>>

If we were designed then it would mean that God is a pretty bad designer. Complexity in design only comes about by either necessity or carelessness, and a God with infinite power would hardly need to make life so complex and faulty – just as it would be if it had occurred naturally.

<<Here creationist thinking inspires investigation. Similarly true today for investigations of ‘junk’ DNA.>>

Scientists haven’t given up trying to figure out what junk DNA is. But a lot of it is known to do nothing.

Why do you persist on inventing false arguments?

<<In both cases, evolution and creation, they’re both impossible to falsify.>>

Nature could quite easily disprove evolution. I’ve already given you some examples of how evolution can be falsified.

<<If you know of a way then please, suggest a test.>>

There doesn’t have to be a test, just an observation. I’ve already explained, but like with everything else, you simply continue on repeating the same nonsense as though nothing happened.

<<Your other comment, ‘the creation hypothesis cannot generate scientific work of any sort.’ Yes we can investigate claims and make predictions surrounding the evolutionary hypothesis>>

Selectively picking and choosing data to fit a Biblical interpretation is a pretty poor excuse for ‘investigating’.

<<…example from geology: ‘investigate the boundaries of flood catastrophism and post-flood erosion of the coastlines’.>>

See what I mean about bad investigation?

The coastlines are not consistent in any way with a flood.

<<Last post I raised another example from medicine, … Yet you didn’t make any comment on ‘vestigial organs’.>>

How about you look-up the definition of “vestigial” first, eh?

Shadow,
The reason creationists say that all life has similar biochemistry as that we were all designed by the one Designer who purposed us to live together on the one planet. If we all had different biochemistry, then that might be evidence that there were many different designers.

It is a prediction of sustainability in design that plants such as tomatoes would have similar biochemistry with that of man and animals. Otherwise, what would we eat?

I think the word you might have been searching for in your last post was not microcondria, but mitochondria.

AJ,
I think we’ve come to the point where it’s clear you’re not listening to what I’m saying. I don’t doubt you’ll say the same for me.

But thanks for your comments. You flatter me with such attached dependency