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).