Luciferase,

you've again evaded the more important criticism of New Atheism in my posts. The minor point you've responded to is of little interest to me. I'm not concerned with the question of the existence or non-existence of God, but was merely asserting the surely obvious fact that no knowledge is original or spontaneous; it's all derivative and proceeded out of mysticism. Epistemology in general is another matter and so-called materialism "is" based on metaphysics, as well as a dogmatic denial of other possibilities.

Yabby,
we already have discrimination in the hospital system, between private and public. Scandalously, those with money (however it was got) get more and better services than those without!

Squeers, I've since done some homework on that story. It seems that
its Govt money which will build that hospital, the Catholics will
simply be the operators. So now its using Govt money to enforce
Catholic dogma on the public. To me that is a frigging scandal.

Luciferace,
You're a fan of probability, and are probably aware of Fred Hoyle, who calculated the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell. He calculated it as one in 10 to the power of 40,000 (one followed by 40,000 zeroes.) Though ridiculously small, it is an example of a real number.

Davidf,
Faced with odds of 1 to ten to the power of 40000, we could abandon all skepticism, join with the evolutionist crowd and say, "Why need the event have been probable? We can just shrug, and note with thanks how lucky we are." 

David, I hope you are enjoying your conference, and I'm sure that at times there will be a lot a sensible and rational words being spoken. Yet you can't claim the high ground in not believing in the absurd.

Christians well understand that in speaking of the resurrection we proclaim that which is beyond unlikely, unheard of and unprecedented. But in so many ways it is not dissimilar to your beliefs.

WM Trevor,
I think I am being consistent in pointing out the limitations and difficulties within the scientific method for both creationists and evolutionists in investigating past unrepeatable events. The scientific approach is useful but limited. It is dependent on observation, and not all things can be observed; not all experiences are repeatable.

There are different avenues to knowledge. Scientific thinking is one. Hereafter we get into theories of epistemology. In short, if we only relied strictly on scientific methodology, then we are bound to forever fall far short of complete knowledge.

Yabby says that Dawkins has a right to question religion. Don't the religious have a right to question the absurd when proclaimed by others? Of course we all have a right to question anything we want.   

Poirot,
I think I am being quite rational. But to make sure that we are following the correct sequence of events in the story, Noah got into the boat before it started raining, not after.

Dan,

"...Noah got into the boat before it started raining, not after."

Well that makes all the difference!

Where on the planet was he situated when he felt the first tell-tale drops? And from the standpoint of him and his boat occupying a certain position in space, how did he martial the organisms of the entire earth to join him on the Ark?

I can comprehend the use of a certain mysticism when dealing with theology, but I have difficulty when someone attempts to defend irrational propositions using rational argument.

Dan is aware of "Hoyle's Howler" but seems unaware of the many valid objections.

It seems that Dan would much rather sway by misinformation than genuine insight.

Regardless of the seeming simplicity of Hoyle's first-principles estimation, experimental results show that the situatiuon is nowhere near as dire.

In the early nineties, Jack Szostak assembled libraries of randomly polymerised sequences of nucleotides. The number of ramdom sequences in a typical run might number 10exp15.

For the catalytic properties that interested Szostak, a given batch might contain from dozens to several hundred examples that displayed whatever catalytic property specified.

Similar experiments have been performed using protein sequences translated from random nucleotide sequences, providing a richer source of chemical diversity and with corresponding results. Kits were available for research groups who wanted to discover new or alternative catalytic molecules, including the option of mutating and selecting successive rounds of superior catalysts.

Hoyle's mistake was that biologists at the time were captivated by the specificity or high activity of highly evolved and selected molecules and neglected the fact that a less active catalyst is nonetheless useful. Dan's mistake is to wilfully ignore these well known advances.

Hope this clarifies things.

Rusty

>>Noah got into the boat before it started raining, not after.<<

Wouldn't have helped:

Genesis 7:19-20

19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

Quote from Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos:

>>Taken literally, this seems to indicate that there were 10 000 to 20 000 feet of water on the surface of the earth, equivalent to more than half a billion cubic miles of liquid! Since, according to biblical accounts, it rained for forty days and forty nights, or for only 960 hours, the rain must have fallen at a rate of at least fifteen feet per hour, certainly enough to sink any aircraft carrier, much less an ark with thousands of animals on board.<<

Cheers,

Tony