Dear Peter,

It is good that we can both agree that resurrection does not equal resuscitation. I am also happy with your statement, “The resurrection is God’s act in vindicating the one we murdered”, though we may tease out the meaning in different ways, perhaps?

I must confess I don’t always altogether follow your meaning!

What I see you doing is trying to present the Christian faith in a reasonable way that gives as little offence as possible, which is an honourable thing to do, though I think a touch too concessively. For my part I am content to stay within the envelop of 1 Cor 1:18-2:5. Talking of miracles, I think the greatest miracle today is whenever someone repents and puts their faith in Christ, seeking henceforth to follow in His footsteps.

We will meet up again on other threads and I hope to have more time next year perhaps to do some writing around multiculturalism, Islam. I’m also interested in the origins of life issue and the state of western culture which in my view seems pretty sick and a consequence of the jettisoning of the Christian worldview and Christian virtues – that started long ago, but the fruits of it a certainly now mounting up fast

Arjay wrote
"What fascinates me is that we pass on better physical traits genetically,yet every generation has to relearn what their parents took years find out.In evolutionery terms,it is not very efficient".

Isn't what fascinates you Lamarckism, which Darwin refuted over 150 years ago. ID in whatever form you want it to be was also refuted 150 years ago. I can't understand why it has reared its ugly head again. What I also can't understand is why the most technologically advanced country on the planet is being drowned under calls to include this religious ideology in biology classes. Let's not go down this path and follow the US on this issue.

The thing also is if we were truly created you would think that whoever created us would have done a better job

David Palmer’s (15/9) response to my small attempt (15/9) to emphasise the distinction between evolution as a universal phenomenon and the theory of natural selection as an explanation for the evolution of biological organisms was to accuse me of hubris. I am not sure whether he was using hubris in the Macquarie dictionary sense of “insolence” or ”wanton violence stemming from excessive pride” but, in either case I can’t see any relevance to the discussion.

Many texts on astronomy describe how stars are born from amorphous clouds of gas and how they evolve through various stages until they eventually collapse and explode and disperse their contents in a different form. The theory which governed that process is the theory of gravitation.

David, himself, started as the uniting of two cells into one which evolved through many different stages to become an adult which, unfortunately, is doomed to die and disintegrate. The theories which explain that process are those of chemistry and physics.

Gods started, in their thousands, as imaginary beings attached to small tribes. They were consolidated as the tribes consolidated but then faded as they were displaced. Where is Zeus and his family? Once the greatest god of the Greeks he is now ignored except by historians. The theories governing Zeus’s birth and death are to be found in history and sociology.

The Christian God was only born two thousand or so years ago. It is not long in the scheme of things. There is now an attempt to change and evolve the image of God by substituting a more abstract Intelligent Designer. It is an attempt to sidestep many of the gross contradictions in regarding God as having some sort of human characteristics and an effect on the world at the same time as excusing Him from any responsibility for the evil and suffering amongst us.

Is an attempt to understand the nature of evolution and its ramifications hubristic? If so, so be it, but to ignore the value of understanding everything from an evolutionary perspective is to disregard much of modern intellectual enlightenment.

Now Philo,what would anyone do with 40 virgins?Imagine next morning with a hangover and being nagged by 40 women.It would be hell in heaven.Is this what made Beelzebub the anti-Allah?Really,some of the religious fairy tales are so juvenile and are an insult to the deity they supposedly pay homage to.

I think the awesomeness of nature is a better pointer to God than a Biblical text which, I think, is nothing more than a very good attempt at social engineering.

Which bit of the Bible is God responsible for, the Priestly parts or the agrarian? Don't you think it is a little bit strange that older texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh tell similar yarns? Plagiarism to boot? You could argue that the idea of an interventionist God is a very shrewd bit of propaganda.

Sells you start from the assumption that there is indeed a Christian God. Sells' proof that that unproven God is a Christian God is religion's sayso. To top it off the ID mob want to bring in another explanation for life so that that Christian God can still take credit for Creation and thus maintain credibility. Of course, Sellick hints that only those of superior intelligence can truly understand God. On the other hand, Boaz will tell you that God has to find you – grace. But all the while these explanations of God and Godly actions are always already disproven because the premises from which they follow is flawed. Fix that first.


I think that there is a God so therefore there is a God. (And that God believes in all the stuff the old codgers in Biblical times thought out to explain how we came about – that is a myth – a myth usually stems from a failed explanation). Hence the attempt to undo the failure with ID. Paul had an epileptic fit on the road to Damascus and the explanation was a very convenient conversion. Mary spoke with an angel when Joseph disobeyed the rules of abstinence and to avoid getting a flogging concocted a yarn. All these explanations are constructed in a time before other explanations based on scientific knowledge were possible . Kudos to you Sells for sticking to your path –even if there are fairies at the end of it

I think the Bible, Koran and other religious texts should be taught in literature classes along with other fairy stories. I also think the science of modern hermeneutics is the more appropriate discipline in relation to the understanding the Bible and it’s mythology in relation to creation.
Creation, ID are both beyond non-sequitur because at least you must have a premise to draw a faulty conclusion. So if we are to bring science into the study of Creation bring in the correct discipline. And if you are seeking instruction read the Bible by all means, but if you are seeking God well perhaps it is a case of not finding God because of all the religions’gods.
I suspect Peter Sellick that if you were born in a pantheist society you would be writing articles arguing the truth of pantheism.