Darwin Program - Does Dawkins annoy you?

J C

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Because it is untrue. Children can't be expected to assess things based upon reason. They tend to accept information based on authority. Critical thinking does not come easily until much later. We have an obligation to teach them only the best-established facts.

......so out goes all the 'mumbo jumbo' about teaching (Christian) kids about all faiths and letting the kids decide.....
........you say that children can't be expecterd to assess these things....and critical thinking doesn't come until much later!!!!!

.....so because children tend to accept information based on authority I guess it comes down to WHO has the ultimate authority over what our children are taught.....is it their parents or some Materialists who believe that we are all evolved from pondslime?

.....when it comes to authority it is hard to beat the authority of the Word of God.

AtomicHorror wrote: »

My point was that it (Atheism) opposes the concept of faith. If you take my point then why claim it's a faith? That doesn't make any sense at all. Read my posts please.

.....many faiths oppose the faith of other faiths......so Atheism isn't unique in opposing the faith of Theists.

Atheism is a faith in the non-existence of God.......and with considerably less evidence for it's validity than the Theists faith that an omnipotent and omniscient God exists!!!!!:)

Galvasean

J C wrote: »

Atheism is a faith in the non-existence of God.......and with considerably less evidence for it's validity than the Theists faith that an omnipotent and omniscient God exists!!!!!:)

Care to elaborate on that?

J C

Gaviscon wrote: »

Care to elaborate on that?

The Universe and all life proclaims that it was created..........and the Evolutionist position that life can arise spontaneously and dragged itself up by its own bootstraps to become man is quite frankly unbelievable!!!!:D

......and the idea that huge amounts of time can breathe life into dead things is just as preposterous!!!!:D

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

......so out goes all the 'mumbo jumbo' about teaching (Christian) kids about all faiths and letting the kids decide.....
........you say that children can't be expecterd to assess these things....and critical thinking doesn't come until much later!!!!!

Let their parents teach them religion as fact if they wish. That has no place in education. Certainly teach children about faiths, what they represent. Education is for teaching facts, as best we know them. Education has no place quashing anyone's faith, but neither should it reinforce faith upon those who are ill-equipped to make rational judgments. When they are ready to make their own choices, the information is there for them to assess.

J C wrote: »

.....so because children tend to accept information based on authority I guess it comes down to WHO has the ultimate authority over what our children are taught.....is it their parents or some Materialists who believe that we are all evolved from pondslime?

To whom should educators listen? To the many conflicting voices of the faiths or to the unified voices of the academia? Parents may teach their children anything they wish. Outright lies, if that's their desire. But state-run education has a responsibility to follow the academic consensus, be it in the humanities or the sciences.

J C wrote: »

.....when it comes to authority it is hard to beat the authority of the Word of God.

Well, best to use your words to counter this misguided notion:

J C wrote: »

.....many faiths oppose the faith of other faiths.....

So who do we believe? Islam? Christianity? Hinduism? None has any greater evidence of their truth than any other. Belief in them is a subjective and personal choice. And clearly divisive when we're talking about the top three or four faiths. It is not the job of education to interfere with or support that personal choice. To repeat myself, it is the job of education to present the consensus of facts until such time as a person may make their own choices. There is clearly no consensus on which faith, if any, is correct. There is however good consensus in the humanities and sciences in many areas.

J C wrote: »

...so Atheism isn't unique in opposing the faith of Theists.

Atheism is a faith in the non-existence of God.......and with considerably less evidence for it's validity than the Theists faith that an omnipotent and omniscient God exists!!!!!:)

Oh yes, there's just tons of evidence for the existence of God. So why do you need faith?

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

The Universe and all life proclaims that it was created..........and the Evolutionist position that life can arise spontaneously and dragged itself up by its own bootstraps to become man is quite frankly unbelievable!!!!:D

No, you just can't imagine how it might happen, so you are only too delighted to assume that it did not. That's down to two things. Your lack of imagination and your fear of what it means to merely be material. You can believe anything you like J C, but please don't try to sell your wishful thinking as fact.

J C wrote: »

......and the idea that huge amounts of time can breathe life into dead things is just as preposterous!!!!:D

And yet every time a person eats, some of the dead matter consumed is digested, assimilated and converted into living tissue. Repaired cells, new cells, new DNA, new proteins... maybe an embryo... all by simple materialistic means. There's no lightning bolts from above, no fuzzy gaps in our knowledge in which to insert majick or God. It's just biology, chemistry and physics.

Sure, it happens within an established life form. But it happens quickly and it happens countless billions of times a day. There's nothing mysterious about life from lifelessness. So are we really going to say that it's impossible to get a proto cell from reactions occuring trillions of times per second in hundreds of thousands of locations stewing in ideal conditions for a couple of billion years when the ingredients provided just happen to be the recipe for a proto cell?

Shinji Ikari

Gaviscon wrote: »

Well he's certainly a militant atheist anyway. So yes, I suppose he could be described as a fundamentalist.

You know what Dawkins would say to that don't you?

How many atheist suicide bombers have you heard of? Follwed by.... Well I'm a fundamentalist when it comes to reason and the scientific method if thats what you mean by a fundamentalist.

Dave!

I think he'd probably say "show me evidence for god and I'll accept his existance."

Hardly a fundamentalist if he's willing to change his beliefs is he

Whereas any amount of evidence could be shown to the likes of J C and he STILL wouldn't reject Noah's ark or Adam and Eve Now that's a fundamentalist!

Galvasean

J C wrote: »

The Universe and all life proclaims that it was created..........

It does? I never heard of aturtle or a tree going around proclaiming anything.

J C wrote: »

......and the idea that huge amounts of time can breathe life into dead things is just as preposterous!!!!:D

Is it any more unlikely than the idea where short amounts of time can breathe life into dead things: ie Lazarus or Jesus?

santing

Gaviscon wrote: »

Is it any more unlikely than the idea where short amounts of time can breathe life into dead things: ie Lazarus or Jesus?

We seem to be understanding the issue. Yes, it is very unlikely/imposible that a human can breathe life into dead things. We therefore call this a miracle by the Son of God. Now if you want to call evolution a miraculous event caused by God, we at least make progress.

AtomicHorror

santing wrote: »

We seem to be understanding the issue. Yes, it is very unlikely/imposible that a human can breathe life into dead things. We therefore call this a miracle by the Son of God. Now if you want to call evolution a miraculous event caused by God, we at least make progress.

You are free to call it that. The beginning of life is not a part of evolution. Evolution covers the emergence of variation. The origin of species.

santing

AtomicHorror wrote: »

You are free to call it that. The beginning of life is not a part of evolution. Evolution covers the emergence of variation. The origin of species.

Which is of course nonsense. Abiogenesissets your starting point. If you don't know where to start, you can't really say much for certain about the road taken. So I guess that you would want the same natural principles to apply to abiogenesis as to evolution.

J C

Originally Posted by J C
......so out goes all the 'mumbo jumbo' about teaching (Christian) kids about all faiths and letting the kids decide.....
........you say that children can't be expecterd to assess these things....and critical thinking doesn't come until much later!!!!!

AtomicHorror
Let their parents teach them religion as fact if they wish. That has no place in education. Certainly teach children about faiths, what they represent. Education is for teaching facts, as best we know them.

As you have said education should teach the facts…..and it is a fact that there is a considerable body of SCIENTIFIC evidence in support of Special Creation…….and no known mechanism for Abiogenesis.

By all means teach the FACTS…….but spare us and our children the faith-filled, wide-eyed, ever-changing, evolutionary speculations of Atheists trying to bolster their vain hope that God doesn’t exist with various 'Evolutionary Tales'!!!!:eek::)



AtomicHorror
Education has no place quashing anyone's faith, but neither should it reinforce faith upon those who are ill-equipped to make rational judgments. When they are ready to make their own choices, the information is there for them to assess.

Your OWN words show the erroneous nature of such a position.
You have just said that “children can't be expected to assess these things....and critical thinking doesn't come until much later.”
So there is a duty upon Christian parents to ensure that their children are given a proper orthodox Christian education…… as well as ensuring that they are also made aware of the latest breakthroughs in Science.

Creation Scientists DON’T advocate the teaching of Creation Science in public school. We don’t wish to force our views on anyone……and especially the children of non-Theist parents!!!!
.....however, such restraint may not be reciprocated.......and very often Christian parents have no choice about what is taught to their children in public school ……....
......but they do have the right, and the obligation, to ensure that their children are taught the facts in relation to Creation Science as well as providing a proper instruction in orthodox Christianity to their children……..and they can do so privately outside of school hours, through their local church.:)



AtomicHorror
To whom should educators listen? To the many conflicting voices of the faiths or to the unified voices of the academia? Parents may teach their children anything they wish. Outright lies, if that's their desire. But state-run education has a responsibility to follow the academic consensus, be it in the humanities or the sciences.

Educators SHOULD listen to PARENTS whose authority over their children is constitutionally protected!!!!
However, I wouldn’t bank on them all doing so!!!!
You may be correct that some Educators only listen to the so-called ‘academic consensus’ ……..which poromotes the teaching of Atheism’s unfounded 'pet' theory of Materialistic Evolution.

……so Christian parents could find that their taxes are being used to fund the enforced indoctrination of their children with Atheism/Evolutionism!!!!:eek:

……anyway, our God reigns……and excellent Christian and Creation Science books and media resources are readily available to Christian parents at minimal cost.

In addition, Christians can undo the damage caused by the teaching of Materialistic Evolutionism to their children in school by bringing them to Creation Science seminars and church-run Bible study groups.:cool:



AtomicHorror
So who do we believe? Islam? Christianity? Hinduism? None has any greater evidence of their truth than any other. Belief in them is a subjective and personal choice.

You are correct that religious belief is a personal matter……

Christians believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because they know that there is none other by whom we may be saved!!!



AtomicHorror
Oh yes, there's just tons of evidence for the existence of God. So why do you need faith?

There is indeed overwhelming scientific evidence for the existence of God!!!!

We DON’T need faith ......to believe in God……..the physical world and all life provides objective evidence that it was created by a God of effectively infinite power and intelligence.
BUT....
We DO need faith ........in Jesus Christ .....in order to be saved!!!!!:D



Originally Posted by J C
The Universe and all life proclaims that it was created..........and the Evolutionist position that life can arise spontaneously and dragged itself up by its own bootstraps to become man is quite frankly unbelievable!!!!

AtomicHorror
No, you just can't imagine how it might happen, so you are only too delighted to assume that it did not. That's down to two things. Your lack of imagination and your fear of what it means to merely be material.

It seems that NOBODY can IMAGINE how Evolution could occur!!!:)

………could I gently remind you that the LEADING EVOLUTIONIST, Professor Stephen J Gould ALSO shared the view that we are unable, “even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases”!!!!!

Which part of the sentence ‘Evolution NEVER happened’ do you not understand????!!!!!:eek::pac::):D



Originally Posted by J C
......and the idea that huge amounts of time can breathe life into dead things is just as preposterous!!

AtomicHorror
And yet every time a person eats, some of the dead matter consumed is digested, assimilated and converted into living tissue. Repaired cells, new cells, new DNA, new proteins... maybe an embryo... all by simple materialistic means. There's no lightning bolts from above, no fuzzy gaps in our knowledge in which to insert majick or God. It's just biology, chemistry and physics.

Sure, it happens within an established life form. But it happens quickly and it happens countless billions of times a day. There's nothing mysterious about life from lifelessness.

Life is ALWAYS observed to arise from pre-existing life …….it is called the Biological Law of Biogenesis!!!!

……and something that has died REMAINS dead…….barring a Divine miracle!!!!

…..you are confusing the life processes of living organisms with their Creation!!!!
……and the two concepts are totally separate things!!!:cool:



AtomicHorror
So are we really going to say that it's impossible to get a proto cell from reactions occuring trillions of times per second in hundreds of thousands of locations stewing in ideal conditions for a couple of billion years when the ingredients provided just happen to be the recipe for a proto cell?

In a word……YES!!!!

…..it’s like throwing a load of gold wire and plastic into a blender…….and expecting a computer to spontaneously emerge from it!!!!!:eek:

……..what amazes me is how otherwise apparently rational Atheists……….become irrational and suffer 'brain meltdown'……..when faced with the overwhelming evidence for an Intelligent Designer of life!!!!!

Their need to be rational is obviously totally overwhelmed by their need for denial!!!!:eek::)

Galvasean

santing wrote: »

Which is of course nonsense. Abiogenesissets your starting point. If you don't know where to start, you can't really say much for certain about the road taken.

How can you say that? I mean honestly, you don't need abiogenesis for evolution to be true. God could have set the universe in motion allowing evolution to handle itself. Either way it does not stop evolution from happening.

robindch

J C wrote: »

Life is ALWAYS observed to arise from pre-existing life …….it is called the Biological Law of Biogenesis!!!! ……and something that has died REMAINS dead…….barring a Divine miracle!!!!

Er, complete nonsense.

As AH has already politely pointed out, things that have died don't remain dead (silage, for example), and something that wasn't alive can gain life (NPK fertilizer in grass, for example).

Your peculiar religious understanding of "alive" doesn't represent reality.

santing

Gaviscon wrote: »

How can you say that? I mean honestly, you don't need abiogenesis for evolution to be true. God could have set the universe in motion allowing evolution to handle itself. Either way it does not stop evolution from happening.

The only purpose for which evolution was invented was to get rid of God. If you need Him at the start, it defeats its purpose. If your theory needs one act from an eternal being, and after that He can disappear, then you have a bigger problem on hand. You have introduced a being whose influence you want afterwards eliminate in your research. But since your model depends on this being not doing anything, you must prove that He indeed doesn't do anything!
However, with natural (time restricted) research you cannot say anything about a being that is spiritual and not time limited. So you are in an impasse.

If you need God once, its time to make an appointment with Him, because He may have acted more often. He also may have some purpose for your life...

santing

robindch wrote: »

Er, complete nonsense.

As AH has already politely pointed out, things that have died don't remain dead (silage, for example), and something that wasn't alive can gain life (NPK fertilizer in grass, for example).

Your peculiar religious understanding of "alive" doesn't represent reality.

AH didn't pointed that out. He pointed out that dead material can be used by life material to amke the life material grow.

Dead material never receives life again on its own. I thought Mr. Pasteur had a law around that several centures ago.

Galvasean

santing wrote: »

The only purpose for which evolution was invented was to get rid of God.

And to think, you recently accused others of nonsense on this thread.
If you really do believe that the theory of evolution was created just to get rid of God then I pity you. Charles Darwin himself believed in God. He even mentioned him in The Origin Of Species.

robindch

santing wrote: »

Dead material never receives life again on its own.

Well, the atoms which make up dead grass in silage can show up in the proteins in the meat of a cow. You can disagree with it all you like, but that's what happens.

robindch

santing wrote: »

The only purpose for which evolution was invented was to get rid of God.

I think you've been reading too much of (diploma-mill) Doctor Ham again!

The Theory of Evolution was developed to explain why there is such a variety of life on this planet. Inevitably, it displaced earlier explanations, one of which appeared in at the start of the OT. And that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable.

It's perhaps like discovering that one's not swimming in a pool six inches deep, but six miles deep.

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
Life is ALWAYS observed to arise from pre-existing life …….it is called the Biological Law of Biogenesis!!!! ……and something that has died REMAINS dead…….barring a Divine miracle!!!!

robindch
As AH has already politely pointed out, things that have died don't remain dead (silage, for example), and something that wasn't alive can gain life (NPK fertilizer in grass, for example).

Your peculiar religious understanding of "alive" doesn't represent reality.

.......and your peculiar religious confusion between inanimate matter (NPK fertiliser), animate matter (grass) and dead matter (silage) has lost touch with reality!!!:)

.....as I have previously said, you are confusing the Creation/Abiogenesis of living creatures with the life processes of living organisms (like grass assimilating fertiliser and bacteria fermenting silage) !!!!
……and the two concepts are totally separate things!!!

Living creatures make use of a wide variety of (inanimate) substrates which they convert into living tissue.......but the processing of inanimate substrate by living organisms has no relationship to the ORIGINS of these creatures.....and NEITHER Evolutionary Scientists nor Creation Scientists dispute this!!!!
.....at least not up to NOW!!!

......your need to be rational is being totally overwhelmed by your need for denial????!!!!:eek::D

robindch

J C wrote: »

I have previously said, you are confusing the life processes of living organisms (like grass and bacteria) and their use of available substrate with their Creation!!!! and the two concepts are totally separate things!!!

They use the same source material and follow the same chemical laws -- biological dualism is a non-runner, my dear!

Though I can see why, as a religionist, you're required to think they're different

santing

Gaviscon wrote: »

Charles Darwin himself believed in God. He even mentioned him in The Origin Of Species.

He believed in God? Well, not when he wrote he famous book. The following is from his autobiography:

At present the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it cannot be doubted that Hindoos, Mahomedans and others might argue in the same manner and with equal force in favour of the existence of one God, or of many Gods, or as with the Buddhists of no God...
....This argument would be a valid one, if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God; but we know this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings are of any weight as evidence of what really exists....

Fanny Cradock

santing wrote: »

He believed in God? Well, not when he wrote he famous book. [/I]

I think he could be best described as an agnostic. Not sure if you could stretch it to deism.

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
I have previously said, you are confusing the life processes of living organisms (like grass and bacteria) and their use of available substrate with their Creation!!!! and the two concepts are totally separate things!!!

robindch
They use the same source material and follow the same chemical laws -- biological dualism is a non-runner, my dear!

........that is like arguing that because cars and buses run on diesel that they were originally manufactured from diesel as well!!!!!

NOBODY that I know of has ever argued that the presently observed processing of inanimate substrate by living organisms bears any relationship to how these creatures originated, in the first place......and, as I have previously said, NEITHER Evolutionary Scientists nor Creation Scientists dispute this!!!!
.....at least not up to NOW!!!:D

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by santing
Dead material never receives life again on its own.

robindch
Well, the atoms which make up dead grass in silage can show up in the proteins in the meat of a cow. You can disagree with it all you like, but that's what happens.

.......the critical point being made by Santing is that "Dead material never receives life again on its own."

i.e. dead matter can only be converted into living tissue by already existing living creatures......just like new living creatures can only come into existence via already existing living creatures.

It's the Law of Biogenesis in action!!!!!
......a law that must be violated for Abiogenesis and Materialistic Evolution to have occurred!!!!:pac::):D:eek:

.....could I point out to the Physicists amongst us, that Abiogenesis and Materialistic Evolution are the Biological equivalents of a perpetual motion machine......and they are just as scientifically unsound!!!!!!!!!!:)

Zombrex

santing wrote: »

The only purpose for which evolution was invented was to get rid of God.

Well no, the purpose of evolution was to explain the observed state of biological life on Earth, which it does do. And which "God did it" doesn't do.

santing wrote: »

If you need Him at the start, it defeats its purpose.

That start doesn't have a lot to do with evolution. As soon as you get some form of self replicating unit, in the case of life on Earth most likely a self-replicating molecule, evolution will take place.

The first self replicating unit could have been naturally formed through the laws of chemistry, or it could have been created artificially by some intelligence, it doesn't really matter. Evolution will take place either way, and in fact humans have created self-replicating molecules themselves, but in labs and virtually using computer simulations, to study how they evolve.

santing wrote: »

If your theory needs one act from an eternal being, and after that He can disappear, then you have a bigger problem on hand. You have introduced a being whose influence you want afterwards eliminate in your research.

Life looks like it developed natural on Earth. If God in fact did something supernatural to cause this to happen he did a very good job of hiding that fact from us. If God created the universe 6,000 years ago and all life in created form he, for some reason, made it look like he didn't.

And science can only work with what is observable and testable.

The analogy used before is the old joke about the blue fluff

What is blue and fluffy?
Er, don't know
Blue fluff!
Har har, very good
What is brown and fluffy?
Er, brown fluff?
No, blue fluff died brown!
Har har

If the world is as Creationists believe, based on the Bible, then it certainly doesn't look like it is. It is blue fluff died brown.

Science deals with how the universe appears to work. If you want to believe he have the secret behind that, the true way everything is, because it is written in a 4000 year old book, by all means go ahead. If you want to believe the brown fluff is not really brown fluff but blue fluff died brown, go ahead. But science will continue to look at what things appear to be, not what a particular religion claims they actually are.

santing wrote: »

So you are in an impasse.

They are only at an impasse if they are trying to disprove the existence of God. They aren't.

PDN

OK guys - we give threads plenty of latitude to meander wherever they will - but in my experience they get into a terminal cul-de-sac once they start discussing Creationism.

One Creationism thread is enough for this board - so please go there if that is your thang. Otherwise this thread will be locked.

ChocolateSauce

To get back to the OP, Dawkins does not annoy me. I find him to be polite, reasonable and level-headed. He offends people, but only by calmly and honestly speaking his mind. I think people are only annoyed with him because they can't argue effectively with him, and he makes them feel unintelligent.

sdep

Following on, and at risk of staying on topic, I still have my concerns after watching the series.

Dawkins discussing Darwin is fine by me. Dawkins questioning the basis of religion is fine by me. But why can't he keep them separate? Why does he go baiting Beardy Williams on the validity of the Virgin Birth and the resurrection of Lazarus when the programme is meant to be about Darwin? Why does he read out his religiously-themed hate mail? If there is any connection to Darwin's life and theory, it wasn't made.

The danger is that people are left with the impression that Darwinian evolution specifically contradicts the articles of their religious faith. This is the exact same argument made by Creationists. It may lead some to abandon their faith; it causes others to reject evolution. Better to serve up your Darwin straight and leave theology for another day.

kelly1

Good point sdep. He's supposed to be a scientist but yet he seems to spend most of his public time ranting about the absurdity of faith in God. Didn't he call religion a virus. He's not just an atheist, he's an anti-theist. His bias is all too apparent.