Agreed, Dan S de Merengue.

>>My point is that people arrive at such anomalies because they are committed firstly to a philosophical idea. Available evidence is fitted into a paradigm.<<

And your own starting point is clear:

>>Genesis 1:1 says that, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I put that as a fact or proposition, not an argument.<<

Your philosophical baseline is not directly comparable with my own, however, as you yourself - very nearly - admit:

>>In the realm of cosmology currently often the 'big bang' is taken as a given.<<

There is one highly significant difference that stands out like the proverbial sore thumb - your use of the words "currently", and "often".

The "big bang" may indeed be the current flavour-of-the month among cosmologists, but it has not always been so, and may just as easily be supplanted tomorrow with another theory, as more information on our cosmic surroundings is gathered.

You, on the other hand, are unable to shift from your biblical view, as you are personally committed to it as the permanent and unchangeable centrepiece of your thinking.

There's nothing at all wrong with that, of course. But the mistake that I believe you keep making in terms of my own position is to ascribe to atheism the same kind of static world view, to match your own static biblical view. Whereas in the same way that atheism is the state of not-subscribing to a religious view, it is also the state of not having to subscribe permanently to any specific philosophical view.

The absence of a fixed-point philosophy allows considerable freedom to assimilate and process new information without the need to marry it with one single, unchangeable view. An approach that can even - as it has done on numerous occasions in the past - cause a change to the philosophical idea itself.

After all this time, I'm glad we've agreed on something.

But as for your concept of 'freedom', we're probably not going to see eye to eye. Good guidance leads people into freedom. For example, I play piano. My teachers originally taught me the scales and the disciplines. Now I play with much freedom. Parents tell their kids to go play outside. But they limit them to within safe boundaries, e.g. they don't let them play near traffic. Within the boundaries, they can find much freedom.

The Bible is very liberating. Its guidance has released people into freedom in many areas. For example, you speak of the great things the Western world has achieved scientifically in the last 500 years. This time period followed the invention of the printing press, and the translation and proliferation of the Scriptures into the common languages of Europe. Subsequently, most of that 500 years saw the West encompassed in a biblical worldview of the nature of matter and reality.

Such a worldview gave a huge boost to the advancement of Western science. I've spoken to you before of how most of the recognised branches of modern science were founded by Christian believers with a biblical mindset. For example, the taxonomy of living things that we still use today (the basic categories of family, genera, etc.) was invented by biblical (not evolutionary) thinkers.

You claim you are not as committed to your view as you say I am. Yet atheists are very much committed to their view - the task of explaining creation without a creator.

Though you claim to be trying to understand my theistic view, I see a deliberate thrust within your posts to compare and defend your particular atheistic view. That confirms to me again the overall picture of what we are discussing is really about atheism versus theism.

My wife, a linguistic researcher, this weekend is in Kyoto, Japan, attending the World Congress of African Linguistics. She said she attended a plenary session given by a Japanese professor entitled, 'Evolutionary origin of human languages viewed from the study of chimpanzees.' Without attending myself, I would have guessed that researchers might find more value in researching the linguistic capabilities of dogs (for their ability to recognise meaningful sounds) or parrots (for their ability to produce sounds). But in the end, I suppose researchers who are restricted by the current paradigm will do what they find funding to do.

Today my wife confirmed with me that the professor admitted that humans and chimpanzees have very little in common in terms of the way they think or their linguistic capabilities. This shows to me how much time and effort can be wasted in science when starting off on the wrong foot within the wrong philosophical paradigm.

That argument is a fraction disingenuous, Dan S de Merengue.

>>For example, the taxonomy of living things that we still use today (the basic categories of family, genera, etc.) was invented by biblical (not evolutionary) thinkers<<

The theories surrounding the origins of the universe that emerged from the sixteenth century onwards were discovered, analyzed, and developed by "biblical thinkers". This certainly is evidence of a significant level of freedom in their thought processes, but it is not particularly realistic to describe this freedom as being the result of biblical thinking. If they had been restricted by the bible stories in the manner that you display, they would have spent their time fitting their discoveries into the biblical paradigm, as opposed to expanding the basis of research and experimentation in the way they did. In essence, I rather suspect that the freedom in their thinking patterns was in spite of, rather than a result of, the influence of the Genesis stories.

You define your "freedom" as follows:

>>For example, I play piano. My teachers originally taught me the scales and the disciplines. Now I play with much freedom.<<

The basics that allow you to play piano "with much freedom" are also applicable to the violin, or the bassoon. Developed in another direction, they could also lead you to the conductor's rostrum. No-one denies that there is much in the Bible that encourages a good life. But neither Christianity nor religions in general are unique in pointing out that sin is bad for society.

And I'm not sure you have this the right way around

>>...atheists are very much committed to their view - the task of explaining creation without a creator<<

It is certainly easier to tell oneself that "God did it". In my early years I thought precisely that. The disconnect arrives at the moment one thinks for oneself that the existence of a supreme being is not a prerequisite to the existence of the universe. From there, it all falls into place quite easily.

[contd]

>>Though you claim to be trying to understand my theistic view<<

I do understand your "theistic view", Dan S de Merengue. You have made it perfectly clear, across many, many posts.

What I find difficult to come to terms with is the manner in which you discard the evidence that has been collected, scrutinized and analyzed by atheists, Jews, Roman Catholics, Protestants and a whole brigade of random thinkers, in favour of your single principle that the universe was created 6,000 years ago, in six days, by a single metaphysical entity.

>>You claim you are not as committed to your view as you say I am.<<

Not exactly. I am committed to atheism, sure, but my "claim" concerns the finality of the current theories on the origin of our universe, which position is most definitely open to change. Sure, the theories may be informed by my atheism, but as I said before, they are shared by many theists. Whose views, incidentally, are as subject to change as mine.

You, on the other hand, are committed to the conclusion as a direct result of your belief system., which does not allow alternative interpretation.

>>I see a deliberate thrust within your posts to compare and defend your particular atheistic view. That confirms to me again the overall picture of what we are discussing is really about atheism versus theism.<<

Up to a point, Lord Copper. At base, there is undoubtedly this essential difference that informs each individual position. But in this particular case, my position is shared by a quite considerable number of theists, which effectively rules atheism out of the equation entirely.

>>Today my wife confirmed with me that the professor admitted that humans and chimpanzees have very little in common in terms of the way they think or their linguistic capabilities.<<

That would seem to be a useful insight. At the very least, it means that no-one else need waste their time on that line of enquiry.

Maybe dogs and parrots would indeed be a more fruitful path to take. You should suggest it.

A 'Scoop' for your information Pericles... only in case you were unaware of Dr. Ken Miller (Professor of Biology and Royce Family Professor for Teaching Excellence at Brown University) who is a Roman Catholic worldview theist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk

It doesn't explain what chimpanzees think about their extra two chromosomes. Though, it is interesting to think that sometimes less is more, I'm not expecting any great apes to say so.