The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Sapien

Wicknight wrote:

Everyone believes in biological evolution, even the Young Earth Creationists ... the YEC theory of specialisation is a form of evolution, unless you have a better term to describe 8,000 species to 2 million in a few decades (other than "nonsense" of course)

Your comparision is pointless unless you are talking about neo-darwin evolution

Smoke and mirrors, Wolfsbane? Do you disagree with Wicknight's interpretation of Young Earth Creationism in this respect?

Stalin, Lysenko and their Russia rejected genetics. Genetics, Wolfsbane. How a theory that excludes genetic inheritence can be described as evolution - as having any sensible commonality with modern evolutionary theory - I do not know.

Did you actually not know about the Lamarckian bent of Soviet science, or were you aware but intent upon slipping in your post hoc ergo propter hoc jibe regardless. Because if you did know, you are guilty of precisely the same obfuscation of which you acuse us - bringing the crimes of a Lamarckian criminal to bear on a gathering of Darwinists in the middle of a protracted discussion on Darwinism. If you did not know, perhaps you should avoid adducing history to support your world view. A little knowldege, and all that. Your proficiency at mangling good science has been proven, and scientists aren't always at home in the written word. You don't want to get historians on your case.

zod

Came accross this and immediately thought of this thread..

Is it true that everything that we see when we gaze at the stars is an illusion of objects and events that never happened ?


"But the images we actually see in outer space-- that, according to young earthers, were allegedly created in transit by God-- are images of turbulent events, not just a steady glow.
Let me give you an illustration. Astronomers looking through their telescopes see a super nova explosion a billion light years away. (Super nova is when a star explodes and sends its material spewing out into space.) What exist now, at this moment, are the random bits of the old star which, allegedly, is the condition God actually created six to ten thousand years ago. What this means is that the star the astronomers saw explode never existed. The super nova never happened. This seems to suggest that God created the illusion of the universe and not the universe itself, because that which allegedly exists, we will never see. That which allegedly exists, we'll never see, and that which we actually see never existed!"

huh ? more here

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

You could be clearer by actually answering what I said, rather than invent a straw-man. I did not say Darwinian evolution, I said in any event evolution provided the scientific cover for communism's atheism., so unless you can prove the Soviets did not believe in and preach biological evolution, my case is proved.

No, it wouldn't be proved, wolfsbane. You mean, of course, that your contention that in any event evolution provided the scientific cover for communism's atheism hasn't actually been knocked down straight away. That hardly proves it!

Would you care to take this further - and offer some evidence in support of your hypothesis?

After that, if you prove your case, we can proceed directly to the "so what?". That's where you prove that communism wouldn't have happened without the necessary "cover". After that we can go on to whether Communism or Stalinism was the evil in the Soviet system (and indeed, that the Soviet system was evil, as opposed to dull) - and you can either prove that Communism is of itself evil (despite its similarity to Christ's teachings), or start back at square one by proving that in any event evolution provided the scientific cover for Stalin's killings.

Finally, of course, I shall wait with interest to hear why the entanglement of atheism with Communism is somehow relevant to evolution's status as a scientific theory, when, apparently, witch crazes, crusades, heretic-burning, the Inquisition, religous wars, sectarianism and the like somehow isn't even attributable to your religions and the power of their moral teachings...

not really holding my breath, though,
Scofflaw

robindch

> the impression being that evolution was not a fundamental pillar of the Soviet system.

Much as you might believe it to have been, or perhaps even want it to have been, unfortunately it wasn't, as the quote from Stalin's work shows. You are free to play word games if you like by conflating the meanings of the word "evolution", but the only person you'll be fooling in this tilting-at-windmills excerise, is yourself, I'm afraid. Stalin no more accepted the modern synthesis than creationists do, with predictable results for the country he ruled.

Anyhow, back to the topic. Here are two further questions for you:

1. How would you rate your knowledge of the modern synthesis of evolution on a scale of zero (bad) to 10 (good)?
2. Do you feel sufficiently well-informed to make a judgement on who to trust in this debate?

Scofflaw

zod wrote:

Came accross this and immediately thought of this thread..

Is it true that everything that we see when we gaze at the stars is an illusion of objects and events that never happened ?


"But the images we actually see in outer space-- that, according to young earthers, were allegedly created in transit by God-- are images of turbulent events, not just a steady glow.

Good point - it has been covered on the thread (what hasn't?). I don't think we got an answer out of our Creationist friends, since such things do not as such contradict anything in the Bible.

There's no reason why God would create the illusion of supernova that never happened to stars which never existed, unless it was to illustrate the magnificence of bits of the cosmos he hadn't actually needed to create...

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

Here's a worthwhile quote from the introduction to WD Hamilton's "Narrow Roads of Gene Land":

Believing in the explanatory powers of evolution by natural selection is like a migraine, or perhaps still more like being, as it was in the old days, a 'wise woman'. The majority of humanity seem to have difficulty in accepting that the 'oddness' of such a believer can be real -- that is, simply an oddness and nothing else. As the migraine sufferer is suspected of malingering, and the woman who is merely literally wise, of witchcraft, so the evolutionist is always suspected of covert agendas unconnected with reality or the search for truth. In despair over the unending bemusement in friends and relatives and over the stream of articles and books that still pours forth stating Darwinism to be wrong, dead, right except for natural selection, superseded by this stale or ridiculous notion or that (all of which, evidently, the public eagerly buy and read, no mnatter what the competence of the writer or his knowledge of the evidence); puzzled, in short, by resistance to ideas that seem vastly more obvious and intuitive than, say, relativity or quantum mechanics, which every one accepts blithely with or without understanding, the evolution sufferer sometimes comes to believe it must be he who is mistaken. I describe this happening to me in this book. At other times the evolutionist may feel like one of the stranger 'genetic morphs' of his own theories -- mutant carrier, say, of a fourth intellectual pigment of the retina capable of raising into clear sight patters of nature and of the human future that are denied to the majority of his fellows, or perhaps just a person bewitched in babyhood to have revealed to him through blind sight, through such X-ray eyes, all the ravishing and foreboding beauty of the world that he now endures.

Perhaps more to the point, later on the same page, Hamilton wrote:

Under Stalin and Lysenko, brave men in Russia suffered and sometimes died for refusing to renounce genetics, evolution or natural selection. Nikolai Vavilov, a poineer of domestic plant origins, is one outstanding example.

wolfsbane

Sapien said:

Smoke and mirrors, Wolfsbane? Do you disagree with Wicknight's interpretation of Young Earth Creationism in this respect?

No, by evolution I mean the change from molecules to man, not the adaption of man in regard to skin colour, size, etc. Sometimes the terms 'marco-evolution' is used of the former, 'mirco-evolution' of the latter. All my objections to evolution are in the first sense.

Stalin, Lysenko and their Russia rejected genetics. Genetics, Wolfsbane. How a theory that excludes genetic inheritence can be described as evolution - as having any sensible commonality with modern evolutionary theory - I do not know.

It shares with Darwinism the concept that man is no more than advanced molecules. That man arose from the slime over millions of years. Why that should not be called evolution I don't know. Seems to me it is just the mechanisms that are in dispute.

A quote from Stand by Science illustrates that and the desire to avoid facing the facts: In the '20s, scientists worldwide vigorously debated the mechanisms of evolution. On one side were the Darwinians; on the other were supporters of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, an 18th-century French scientist who believed that new physical traits could be willed into existence. According to Lamarck, a change in the environment causes a change in an animal's behavior that leads to greater or lesser use of a given appendage or organ. Those changes are passed on to the creature's offspring. Lamarck could not prove his theory, and by the '30s most geneticists had discarded the idea.

Lamarck's ideas were useless to geneticists but very handy for Joseph Stalin, who rejected any doctrine -- like Darwinism -- that challenged socialism. Willful ideology, not genetic determinism, was the key to his Soviet revolution. Stalin named a crop biologist, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, to champion Lamarckism. [underling mine] http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1314&issue=jun_05

Did you actually not know about the Lamarckian bent of Soviet science, or were you aware but intent upon slipping in your post hoc ergo propter hoc jibe regardless. Because if you did know, you are guilty of precisely the same obfuscation of which you acuse us - bringing the crimes of a Lamarckian criminal to bear on a gathering of Darwinists in the middle of a protracted discussion on Darwinism. If you did not know, perhaps you should avoid adducing history to support your world view. A little knowldege, and all that. Your proficiency at mangling good science has been proven, and scientists aren't always at home in the written word. You don't want to get historians on your case.

As said above, I didn't, and don't, see the difficulty. Are you saying that the Soviets did not believe man is the end result of millions of years of evolution? That they denied we have common ancestors with all life? Just because they differed on how evolution worked, does not mean they did not believe in it.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

As I asked in my previous post, when has Creation Science ever proved itself wrong? Science proves previous scientific theories wrong all the time, that is half the point of science. Yet Creation "Science" has never once, ever showed a Biblical passage, or even idea, to actually be wrong. Rather odd for a group that claims to be interested in "science"

You obviously haven't looked at the Creationist sites much. Here are a list of faulty ideas, some once by some creationists: Arguments we think creationists should NOT use http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp
A more detailed example of competing creationist theories: Flood Models and Trends in Creationist Thinking by David J. Tyler, Ph.D.
http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/97/cm9705.html#Trends

Creation Science does test and change its theories where necessary, as scientific theory can be wrong. If you ask why Creation Scientists do not question the Bible as to its veracity, you have entered on religion, not science. The science of Creation Science is no more spiritual than that of the rest of science. It is only about how things work.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

No, by evolution I mean the change from molecules to man, not the adaption of man in regard to skin colour, size, etc. Sometimes the terms 'marco-evolution' is used of the former, 'mirco-evolution' of the latter. All my objections to evolution are in the first sense.

So your objection isn't really that the USSR offically supported evolution, it is that they didn't offically support the idea of creationism, that mankind was at some in recent history created whole by a supernatural god.

Then your objection isn't that the USSR offically supported evolution, it is that they offically supported a non-supernatural theory of abiogeneis.

wolfsbane wrote:

It shares with Darwinism the concept that man is no more than advanced molecules. That man arose from the slime over millions of years. Why that should not be called evolution I don't know.

That is one specific theory of evolution applied to one specific theory of abiogensis.

So really you have to be a bit more specific when attempting to assign evolution in general with the evil Soviet empire.

wolfsbane wrote:

Just because they differed on how evolution worked, does not mean they did not believe in it.

Yes but you weren't being clear at all in what your objection to the Soviets were. It wasn't actually that they were evolutionists, it is that they offically supported a non-supernatural theory of abiogenesis, which is a different area than evolution.

For example a lot of theist ID suppoters believe that abiogensis was divine, but since then normal neo-darwin evolution has got us to where we are today. Are these people as evil as the Soviet empire? As pointed out YEC believe (some at least) in macro-evolution on a massive scale, but only in relation to animals after the Flood.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

Wicknight said:

You obviously haven't looked at the Creationist sites much. Here are a list of faulty ideas, some once by some creationists: Arguments we think creationists should NOT use

As you point out, these are not theories, they are arguments based on evidence (or lack of understanding of evidence)

I am talking about theories that can be proved wrong, as in "The biblical flood did happen - False", "Adam and Eve where the first humans - false", "The tower of babel existed - false"

Have Creationists ever proved a since theory based on the Bible as being wrong?

wolfsbane wrote:

If you ask why Creation Scientists do not question the Bible as to its veracity, you have entered on religion, not science.

That doesn't make sense. You can't just "enter religion" for the hard bits when you like and then pop back into science for the rest

If a group claiming to be scientific in nature refuses to accept, due to religious reasons, that any of their basic theories, formed by a literal reading of the Bible, can possibly be wrong, then it isn't science.

A corner stone of the scientific method is that it must be at least possible that a theory can be shown to be false. If Creationists refuse to accept this possibility, even on religious grounds, then they are not following science, and should be ignored by the scientific community, as they are in fact at the moment.

By its very nature Creation Science isn't science.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

Actually yes they are. There are a number of movements trying to get Creationism and Intelligent Design into the class room, in American and Europe.

You confuse the scientific arguments of Creation Science and Intelligent Design with religion.

As I have explained to you before Wolfsbane science did examine the Biblical concept of creationism, for a long time it was the only accepted scientific theory, but it was found to be incorrect and dropped.

It was dropped by men looking for a non-theist explanation.

Wolfsbane alternatives are contemplated. The modern theory of evolution has changed significantly since Darwins time, and it is still changing as we develop new better theories.

So scientists in the evolution camp are open to a non-evolutionary explanation? Can you document that?

You are confusing censorship with rejection. Proper scientists reject the Biblical theory of creation because it doesn't hold up as a theory, it is deeply flawed and does not match the evidence.

Any flawed theory should be rejected by science once it has been shown to be flawed and incorrect. That is how science works.

Yet when equally qualified scientists dispute this, you are happy that they are denied a hearing.

The basic concept of evolution is still used though because it works. It is how life developed on Earth, it is how life still develops.

Nothing has been shown about organisms evolving into entirely different organisms. Can you point to even one? The adaption within an organism we see is no proof that organisms can evolve into different life-forms.

I don't know who "we" are, but if you mean the Creation Science movement then that simply isn't true. The Creation Science movement has tried a number of times, over a number of years, to have creation science, from literal biblical theories, to the concept of ID, taught in public schools, in American and across Europe.

You're confusing again the scientific theory of a recent creation with the Biblical assertion of it. Creationism wants both theories taught in State schools (though some question the ability of anti-creationists to honestly teach the creationist theory).

Yes it would, and it is one of the reason the proper scientific community are so worried about the Creation Science movement as Christian fundamentalism gains popular support in places like America. The Creation Science movement is an attempt to have the particular religous beliefs of a religion taught as fact in a science class room.

That's part of the lie in the anti-creationist movement. They don't want the science of creationism taught, so they write it of as religion. A good propaganda tactic, but utterly dishonest.

America, all the time, and throughout Europe. There was an American lecturer last year how held a lecture in Dublin calling Christians here to demand that the Chrisitan schools refuse to teach evolution.

Again, you confuse the issues. Of course Christian schools should not teach evolution - or rather, should only teach it as the erroneous but popular worldly explanation of origins. That is quite different from what we expect of State schools. We expect them to teach only the differing scientific theories. Separation of church and State, and all that.

A large number of Creation "scientists" that JC often quotes have been repremanded by various schools and colleges for attempting to teach Creation Science in biology and history class rooms. Of course this just fuels the rather silly claims that modern science is atttempting to censor the "truth" of God.

Indeed, because it is an attempt not to stop religion being taught, but to stop any scientific view that would tend not to discredit Christianity.

If you repeat a statement that has been shown to be incorrect you are lying. AnswersInGenesis has done this a large number of times.

We dispute this.

Well so far modern science has improved life for everyone on the planet while Creation Science has done what exactly?

Done all of the mentioned, for it is modern scientists who run the creation movement. What you were trying to imply is that evolutionary science as opposed to creation science has achieved all these things - it has not. Neither creationism nor evolutionism have contributed anything to life-improvement. They are both about events in the past, the interpretation of the evidence concerning our history.

Apart from made parts of America the laughing stock of the scientific community

Fools laugh at the truth, be they educated fools or not.

and made sure China takes a whole load of American jobs because American school children are being taught nonsense about the way biology works?

Really. :eek: I'm glad you admit evolution is a nonsense. That is what has been taught for generations in American schools. It is that monopoly that evolutionists are fighting tooth and nail to defend, to prevent creationism ever getting taught in their schools.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

It was dropped by men looking for a non-theist explanation.

No it wasn't.

The vast vast majority of western scientists over the last 500 years have been Christian.

It was dropped a long time ago because it is not supported by the evidence. Seriously, what part of that do you not understand? It was dropped by Christian scientists who discovered that the Old Testement descriptions of Earth in those times are not literal.

There was no search for a non-theist explanation, all these scientists (the vast majority) were Christian. The majority of western scientists still are Christian

wolfsbane wrote:

So scientists in the evolution camp are open to a non-evolutionary explanation? Can you document that?

They are open to any explanation that can be backed up by either logic or evidence. Look at the competing theories of evolution from Darwins time, many of them thesist in nature.

wolfsbane wrote:

Yet when equally qualified scientists dispute this, you are happy that they are denied a hearing.

Hearing by whom? Science doesn't work like that Wolfsbane.

If you can show your theory works and is supported by evidence it will be accepted. The point you seem unable to grasp is that Creationist have completely failed to show their theories work and are supported by evidence.

Just because the Creationists rant on and on about how they believe they are correct doesn't mean they are correct. You have to show you are correct, which they have failed to do.

On the other hand neo-darwin evolutionary theories have been OBSERVED to be correct time and time again.

wolfsbane wrote:

Nothing has been shown about organisms evolving into entirely different organisms.

Yes it has. This has been observed.

You also ignore that fact that the Young Earth Creationists theories on specialisation accept that this is possible, otherwise 2 million unique species could not have developed from 8,000.

Besides increase in genetic information, due to mutation, that produces a fit offspring, has been observed in bacteria and other life that rapidly reproduce. The mutation effectively produces a different organism, with a slightly larger chromosone structure.

wolfsbane wrote:

The adaption within an organism we see is no proof that organisms can evolve into different life-forms.

You are right. Organisms mutating into different forms of organisms is.

wolfsbane wrote:

That's part of the lie in the anti-creationist movement. They don't want the science of creationism taught, so they write it of as religion. A good propaganda tactic, but utterly dishonest.

Do you actually know anything about the creationist movement you support?

Creationists have tried over 50 times in the last 40 years to get Creationism taught in US State science class rooms. When they found that the US Constitution would never let that happen they moved to attempting to get ID, a theory with absolutely no scientific basis, taught in science class rooms.

wolfsbane wrote:

That is quite different from what we expect of State schools. We expect them to teach only the differing scientific theories. Separation of church and State, and all that.

In America, where this battle is raging hottest, it is illegal for a state school to teach a religion idea in a science class room. And that is all ID or Creationism is, a religion idea, it is not a scientific one.

wolfsbane wrote:

We dispute this.

I don't care.

The lies of AnswersInGenesis are well documented, and have been posted on this thread a large number of times, by myself and others.

wolfsbane wrote:

Fools laugh at the truth, be they educated fools or not.

Well you can bet the Kansas Board of Education was laughing when they won there victory to have evolution removed from state school science rooms (luckly it didn't last long), so does that make them fools ... I think so

wolfsbane wrote:

That is what has been taught for generations in American schools.

As I said, until the Creationist movement attempted to get nonsense taught in science class rooms, which is about the time the rest of the world thought "Thanks a lot, we will take those biology jobs, you idiots"

Sapien

wolfsbane wrote:

It shares with Darwinism the concept that man is no more than advanced molecules. That man arose from the slime over millions of years. Why that should not be called evolution I don't know.

That much is clear, and it is because your perspective is so impossibly skewed that you cannot see that, from our perspective, Communist doctrine was as ridiculous as your is. Your attempts to Venn us together in any respect are preposterous.

We do not support neo-Darwinian evolution because we get a kick out of the idea that "man arose from the slime". We support it because it explains everything we see, it fits with all of the evidence, it is simple - it works. Lamarckian theory, Lysenkoism, does not work. It is, therefore, a world away from Darwin.

Do you see the difference between the way you and we approach these ideas, Wolfsbane? We judge and categorise theories on their explanatory power and their rapport with observable fact. You judge and categorise them on the basis of their aesthetic implications. That is why you don't get science.

wolfsbane wrote:

Are you saying that the Soviets did not believe man is the end result of millions of years of evolution? That they denied we have common ancestors with all life? Just because they differed on how evolution worked, does not mean they did not believe in it.

I am saying that they, like you, propounded a theory that does not work because it was favourable on ideological rather than scientific grounds, and that, as a result, their science atrophied to the point of becoming an international laughing stock. *fast forward to Texas in twenty years time*

The science of Stalinist Russia is not a burden for the atheist or the Darwinist to bear. It was an experiment in which a cognitive disease permeated a society so utterly that it undermined the pursuit of the scientific method, reversing decades of progress within its area of influence. You and your ilk are its rightful inheritors, Wolfsbane, not we. The Creationism debate will be a grotesque footnote to Lysenkoism in encyclopedias fifty years from now. Wait'n see.

bonkey

J C wrote:

life is objectively the result of INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

With respect, there's nothing objective about that claim.

jc

robindch

> The Creationism debate will be a grotesque footnote to Lysenkoism
> in encyclopedias fifty years from now.

A cheering thought indeed, but frankly, I doubt it. Creationism will be no more dead in fifty years time than the "Christian Scientists" equally witless prohibition against modern medicine. At least CS has a natural selection pressure -- the early deaths of believers -- working against it, while creationism has none, other than people's desire for intellectual honesty and accuracy, attributes notable by their absence from the creationist brigade.

In short, there's simply far too much money to be made from it by people like Ken Ham who seem to have no higher aim in life than to sit on the bible and charge money for entry.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

You confuse the scientific arguments of Creation Science and Intelligent Design with religion.

You're confusing again the scientific theory of a recent creation with the Biblical assertion of it. Creationism wants both theories taught in State schools (though some question the ability of anti-creationists to honestly teach the creationist theory).

That's part of the lie in the anti-creationist movement. They don't want the science of creationism taught, so they write it of as religion. A good propaganda tactic, but utterly dishonest.

Indeed, because it is an attempt not to stop religion being taught, but to stop any scientific view that would tend not to discredit Christianity.

Let's see - 99.99% of scientists, whether theist or not, say ID has no scientific validity. The legal judgements say that ID is a pseudo-scientific stalking-horse for Creationism, which is a religious argument. The Wedge Strategy document written by the ID movement itself says that ID is intended to get Creationism back into science classes.

The only people who say that ID is scientific, and not religious, are its proponents (except for the Wedge document, of course). Everybody else disagrees.

By all means continue to argue the indefensible, but it does you no credit - and please do not imagine for a moment that your tactics are not clear!

wolfsbane wrote:

It was dropped by men looking for a non-theist explanation.

An outright lie.

wolfsbane wrote:

Nothing has been shown about organisms evolving into entirely different organisms. Can you point to even one? The adaption within an organism we see is no proof that organisms can evolve into different life-forms.

You're playing fast and loose with terminology here - do you mean speciation, or when that's proved will you want to see something else?

wolfsbane wrote:

Done all of the mentioned, for it is modern scientists who run the creation movement. What you were trying to imply is that evolutionary science as opposed to creation science has achieved all these things - it has not. Neither creationism nor evolutionism have contributed anything to life-improvement. They are both about events in the past, the interpretation of the evidence concerning our history.

No, what we are saying is that the scientific methods that have created all the technology we have today are the same methods that have produced and validated the theory of evolution. These same methods do not validate ID or Creationism, which is why you have to claim that the scientific method needs "improvement".


regards,
Scofflaw

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

Oh it was quite easy for Noah to build the Ark, it was only 120 meters long after all.

The hard part was getting all the animals into it, since it clearly would not fit them.

Was the ark large enough to hold all the required animals?The Ark measured 300x50x30 cubits (Genesis 6:15), which is about 140x23x13.5 metres or 459x75x44 feet, so its volume was 43,500 m3 (cubic metres) or 1.54 million cubic feet. To put this in perspective, this is the equivalent volume of 522 standard American railroad stock cars, each of which can hold 240 sheep.

If the animals were kept in cages with an average size of 50x50x30 centimetres (20x20x12 inches), that is 75,000 cm3 (cubic centimetres) or 4800 cubic inches, the 16,000 animals would only occupy 1200 m3 (42,000 cubic feet) or 14.4 stock cars. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i2/animals.asp

The Bible even says it only had 3 decks, so the arguement that Noah could have filled it with a large number of low roofed desks in increase the floor space for the small animals isn't possible

It does not say anything about what sort of cages were on each deck.

This ignores the fact that 8,000 species cannot develop into 2-5 million in a few decades anyway, with is possibly the stupidest idea I've ever heard

Forgive my ignorance of biology, but I'm given to understand the species today are numbered as:
Mammals: 4,629
Reptiles: 8240

I suppose your figure included insects? What size of cage would a million or so insects require? I would have thought many more could just as well survived in floating foliage and other debris.

pH

What can I say?

Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design

John Hooper in Rome
Monday August 28, 2006

"There have been growing signs the Pope is considering aligning his church more closely with the theory of "intelligent design" taught in some US states. Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Critics say it is a disguise for creationism."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1859760,00.html

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

There are currently no good competing theories to genetic evolution - although I myself expect to see some backtracking towards Lamarckianism over the next couple of decades.

Interesting - why so?

Logically, you have made it impossible for you to accept the evidence of anyone who does not agree with you. A Creation Scientist who discovers the Bible to be in error immediately ceases to be a Creation Scientist. Perhaps you can tell me where I'm wrong about that?

You are certainly right about the Creation Scientist. But I can certainly accept any specific theory I, or more importantly, any scientist may have is open to correction. What is not open to correction is the assertions of the Bible. For this debate, that means we can argue and change our minds on the mechanics of the Flood, but not deny the Flood happened. Rather like Evolutionary Science argues about the mechanisms of evolution, but never tolerates evolution itself being questioned.;)

Nope, see above with respect to the Flood. As to the Fall, if it cannot be addressed by science, and yet is used as an explanation, then it constitutes a supernatural explanation of the type prohibited - we might as well say (leaving the Bible aside) that Fairies did it.

So it would be alright if Creationists began with Day Six of creation - it all being there - but did not say how it got there, just that it all began as a mature universe? Just like evolutionists start with existing matter - although some are arguing it had an origin or it always existed, which seems to fall into your Fairy catagory.

If they ever do some science, they might have a better chance of having it presented. Why would anyone present polemic and sophistry in science class? Evolution is perfectly respectable science, for all you dislike it.

I fully accept it is - but so is Creationism, for all that evolutionists dislike it.

Not at all - the master-race concept was entirely racist. And, Heavens, but racism predates Darwin! I also thought it was common knowledge that Darwin was considered absolutely heretical in the USSR, but I see it isn't.

Racism before Darwin had other justifications offered for its evil concept. But Hitler did not use them, he used evolution. In fact Darwinian evolution. Hence the Communist holding to a different mechanism of evolution.

Yes, I do, because it simply isn't the same thing as suppression. Groupthink can affect a group, although it doesn't affect all groups. Not only that, but groupthink is only relevant to the particular (smallish) group it's found in - the next group's groupthink may be entirely different. Suppression of dissent means the imposition of a gagging order - it's not the same thing.

In plain language, groupthink is "oh, we didn't think of that way", whereas suppression of dissent is "well, Billy suggested that way, and they shot him, so we don't talk about that except in secret any more". You're claiming that the two are the same, for dramatic effect - a bit like claiming being polite requires shooting those who swear.

It is not groupthink that is the problem - it is blatant suppression of argument and discrimination against Creationist scientists that pollutes our democracies. Contemporary suppression of the theistic worldview
by Jerry Bergman
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v9/i2/suppression.asp

You believe that you, and only you, are possessed of truth - an eternal, unchangeable truth. After a bit, we get back to where someone says "all truth is in the Bible, no other books are needed, as they either agree with it, and are superfluous, or disagree with it, in which case they are lies". No thank you.

There is no logical reason to go down that path. All spiritual truth is in the Bible, not all truth. For instance, it doesn't even say the moon has approximately the same apparent size as the sun, though that fact is before our eyes. This is a strawman of your imagination.

Your beliefs about science are no more rational than those of any other conspiracy-theorist. I'm not aware, for example, that the scientific elite orders mass abortions - I always thought it was the legislators who made the law, and individual people who made the decisions. Perhaps you have some evidence, though....a sort of Protocols of the Elders of Science?

So it was the American masses who demanded abortion, not the liberal elite who controlled the legislature? And I do not make a distinction between one sort of godless elitist and another - the atheist scientists and legislators are of one mind, working to one agenda. Sadly, they have found many 'useful idiots', to use Lenin's phrase, to defend their cause.

robindch

> Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design

Sadly, this makes sense. I came across this story earlier on today, but didn't post the link, pending some kind of independent confirmation that it might be true (creationists please note techinque):

http://in.news.yahoo.com/060824/139/66xfd.html

...looks like the story might be true after all.

Diogenes

So it was the American masses who demanded abortion, not the liberal elite who controlled the legislature?

I'm sorry the what did the what now?

Is your grasp of history and politics as shoddy as your grasp of genetics biology, and geology?

Roe Vs Wade was a the result of a massive grassroots campaign, both for and aganist the decision and faced resistance at every level, final being forced to the US Supreme court, a body that was and seriously dominated by Right leaning judges, like Rheinquist. The were forced to admit, that it was unconstitutional to prevent a woman seeking an abortion.

Ever since then the anti choice (I refuse to use the term pro life) movement has used members at every level of the judicary and legislative bodies to revoke the decision.

To suggest there is a liberal bias to the judicary and legistation is frankly mind boggling and leads to suspect you have little idea and plenty of absurd fantasys fueling your position.

And I do not make a distinction between one sort of godless elitist and another - the atheist scientists and legislators are of one mind, working to one agenda. Sadly, they have found many 'useful idiots', to use Lenin's phrase, to defend their cause.

Pray tell what is that agenda?

J C

Interesting article on the Evolution / Creation debate which is going on at the highest levels within the Roman Catholic Church here:-
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/aug/06082502.html
The Pope apparently accepts micro-evolution but rejects macro-evolution. (Could I remind you that this is in full conformity with the latest Creation Science thinking on the subject)!!!:D

Another interesting development has been the recent retirement of the evolutionist Head of the Vatican Observatory :-
http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/#one

……..and the new Head of the Vatican Observatory is concentrating on Astronomy and he is saying nothing about the ‘merits’ of Evolution :-
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/aug/06082104.html

As I have previously said, I am a 'mainstream Christian' – when it comes to Creation.

The Eastern Right Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Churches and the Anglican Communion ALL subscribe to the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed as required Articles of Faith.

The first sentence in the Nicene Creed is :-
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible.”

The first sentence in the Apostles Creed is :-
“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son , our Lord.”

Equally, most independent and non-conformist churches also hold Special Direct Creation as Biblically endorsed doctrine.

The belief in Direct Creation is therefore the official position of practically ALL of Christianity !!!:eek: :cool:


Zod
Astronomers looking through their telescopes see a super nova explosion a billion light years away. (Super nova is when a star explodes and sends its material spewing out into space.) What exist now, at this moment, are the random bits of the old star which, allegedly, is the condition God actually created six to ten thousand years ago. What this means is that the star the astronomers saw explode never existed.

Zod, we’ve ‘been there and done that’ on this thread already!!

God doesn’t lie or play games with Humanity!!:)

The solution to your apparent conundrum is that the super nova ISN’T a billion light years away – direct triangulation can only measure distances less than about 200 light years – and the rest is speculation and conjecture!!!:cool:

J C

robindch wrote:

> Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design

Sadly, this makes sense. I came across this story earlier on today, but didn't post the link, pending some kind of independent confirmation that it might be true (creationists please note techinque):

http://in.news.yahoo.com/060824/139/66xfd.html

...looks like the story might be true after all.

Could I quote from the ANI article:-
"The Intelligent Design theory basically supports the religious discourse that the world was created by God over a period of seven days, and also that man was created by God and did not evolve through the random, unplanned processes of genetic mutation and the survival of the fittest, as argued by Charles Darwin."

While ID research can be used in support of 6 Day Creation, ID itself doesn't hold any position on Genesis.
6 Day Creation is actually the Creationist position.

This seems to indicate that the Pope is a 'creationist' - and not just an ID proponent!!

This shouldn't come as any surprise - because the Apostles and Nicene Creeds are 'creationist' Creeds and they remain required Articles of Faith for all Roman Catholics.

pH

J C wrote:

The solution to your apparent conundrum is that the super nova ISN’T a billion light years away – direct triangulation can only measure distances less than about 200 light years – and the rest is speculation and conjecture!!!:cool:

That is either

• galaxy NGC 1309 (100 million light-years from Earth)
• Some swirly dust much closer to us
• A smear on Hubble's lens

Astronomers remain baffled.

robindch

> But Hitler did not use them, he used evolution. In fact Darwinian evolution.

Wolfsbane, could you please provide a quote from Hitler in which he makes it quite clear that his sole reason for murdering Jews is his unambiguous acceptance of the concept of differential reproductive success?

If you cannot, then please withdraw your assertion.

J C

pH wrote:

That is either

• galaxy NGC 1309 (100 million light-years from Earth)
• Some swirly dust much closer to us
• A smear on Hubble's lens

It could be some 'swirly dust' around a star......
......OR possibly a micro-GALAXY much closer to us!!!:cool: :cool:


Quote pH
Astronomers remain baffled.

I'm sorry to hear of their bafflement!!:D

pH

J C wrote:

It could be 'swirly dust' around a star......
......OR possibly a micro-GALAXY much closer to us!!!:cool: :cool:

A micro galaxy? What is that? Perhaps a link to the definition? (wikipedia would be nice - but I'd accept any reputable science site - this is SCIENCE we're talking about here isn't it?)

Perhaps you're an expert in this field, and would like to expand on your NGC 1309 is a micro galaxy theory. Can you provide a *rough* estimate of:

• Its distance
• Its size (rough diameter of the 'spiral' will do)
• Number of stars (micro stars?)

Son Goku

The solution to your apparent conundrum is that the super nova ISN’T a billion light years away – direct triangulation can only measure distances less than about 200 light years – and the rest is speculation and conjecture!!!

For the hundredth time, why does it not work?
What are the assumptions?

J C wrote:

It could be 'swirly dust' around a star......
......OR possibly a micro-GALAXY much closer to us!!!:cool: :cool:

Swirly dust?........... Swirly dust?
JC a star can't generate an orbit like that. Also its own internal dynamics mean it is at least several tens of thousands of light years wide.
(Unless you also disagree with General Relativity)

And if you say this is based on assumptions then explain what the assumptions are?

And please make a serious response, JC.

Scofflaw

Is this really what we're down to?

wolfsbane wrote:

And I do not make a distinction between one sort of godless elitist and another - the atheist scientists and legislators are of one mind, working to one agenda. Sadly, they have found many 'useful idiots', to use Lenin's phrase, to defend their cause.

Conspiracy theories of the type "the world is secretly run by ________ (your preferred hate group) who repress the truth about ___________ (your chosen belief)".

JC wrote:

It could be 'swirly dust' around a star......
......OR possibly a micro-GALAXY much closer to us!!!

And over-capitalised ravings.

Just two different types of weird. Is there much point in arguing against this kind of make-believe, particularly since it is combined with a blanket refusal to admit of any evidence that doesn't agree with them?

cordially,
Scofflaw

pH

Scofflaw wrote:

Just two different types of weirdity, so. Is there much point in arguing against this kind of make-believe?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Well it's either posting here or on another thread about whether atheism is a 'logical choice', and tbh reading this thread makes me feel dead clever.

At some stage J C will post his unanswered list of questions (You know the one - muck to man and all that) and we can start all over again.

Never show weakness!!! Chin up there Scoff. Get some sleep, you'll be your old argumentative self in the morning.