The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

jonny72

The creationist view is based on ONE thing.. the bible...

Intelligent design is a jazzed up bull**** modern take on that. Repackage, rebrand, resell.

Why aren't there Hindu's here arguing their own version of creation? because they aren't the dominant damn religion in North America/The world..

How can you even go into small details when the Big picture you present is so utterly ridiculous..

Scientology has a book, they believe whats in the book, but that doesn't suddenly make it into a 'theory' that people have figured out. It doesn't mean its more credible in 2,000 years either. Faith and common sense do not mix.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

Well, there obviously isn't a specific term for the cat-dog difference.

Wicknight knows different: What you are talking about is species . I hesitate to take sides.

In general, the term would be 'phylogenetic distance'. They are both placental mammals, both in the group Carnivora, but cats (along with civets, hyenas, and mongoose) are all Feliformia (short-snouted), whereas dogs (along with bears, seals, otters, badgers) are Caniformia (long-snouted).

To some extent, it depends on whether one gives primacy to morphological characteristics, genetic proximity, biochemical similarities, fossil record, etc. There can also be several ways of drawing the "tree of life" for any given set of organisms - although in the vast majority of cases all the different strands of evidence point to one configuration.

That's helpful in showing the factors involved in choosing the terms.

What I was trying to do was avoid terminology that meant one thing to me and another to Wickie. Species is just such a term. I used lifeform to convey at least the difference between cat and dog, but Wickie says my Mum is a different lifeform from me because she is resistant to antibiotics I still find helpful. From that he concludes evolution has been proved.

So back to the Biblical term kind. By this is meant the sort of difference between cat and dog. Creationism holds that all dogs come from a common ancestor - and that common ancestor was not the common ancestor of the cat, nor were either of them the common ancestor of the horse, nor of man, etc. All common ancestors were created perfect and their descendants have bred within the bounds of their kind.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote: »

Scofflaw wrote:

Well, there obviously isn't a specific term for the cat-dog difference.

Wicknight knows different: What you are talking about is species . I hesitate to take sides.

No sides to take - 'species' is a phylogenetic level, and is certainly not specific to the "cat-dog difference"! Wicknight is helpfully trying to second-guess you.

wolfsbane wrote: »

That's helpful in showing the factors involved in choosing the terms.

What I was trying to do was avoid terminology that meant one thing to me and another to Wickie. Species is just such a term. I used lifeform to convey at least the difference between cat and dog, but Wickie says my Mum is a different lifeform from me because she is resistant to antibiotics I still find helpful. From that he concludes evolution has been proved.

Er, no. Your mother is extremely unlikely to be resistant to antibiotics that you are not resistant to. You are both resistant - antibiotics that kill humans are not terrifically popular. Your mother has an infection which is resistant to antibiotics - that is, the bacteria that infect her are resistant, whereas the ones that infect you are not. I don't know whether you are considering the the same illness here, but you can both have the same illness, except that in her case the bacteria in question are antibiotic resistant - that is, they have evolved resistance to the same antibiotics that work for you.

wolfsbane wrote: »

So back to the Biblical term kind. By this is meant the sort of difference between cat and dog. Creationism holds that all dogs come from a common ancestor - and that common ancestor was not the common ancestor of the cat, nor were either of them the common ancestor of the horse, nor of man, etc. All common ancestors were created perfect and their descendants have bred within the bounds of their kind.

Would the dog and the otter share common ancestry?

cordially,
Scofflaw

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

"Kinds" has never been defined in a biological sense by JC or any other Creationists on this forum or in any of the articles they have linked to, so TBH I've no idea what equates to it since I have no idea what it is (I suspect it is a made up concept TBH)

If you could define what a "Kind" is that would be very helpful, but considered I have a strong doubt that Creationists have every bothered to define this in a biological sense I imagine there is no definition to be presented.

You have missed this, for example: “Species” and “kind” by Dr. Gary Parker http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/cfol/ch2-species.asp

No, you used the term "life form", and suggested that there is no difference between say non-resistant bacteria and resistant bacteria. I find that rather puzzling, since the very fact that the bacteria is resistant demonstrates that they are not the same form of life.

My antibiotic restistant Mum will be horrified to learn of her transmutation into another lifeform.

Not in one go. It has produced a change in species but this takes hundreds of thousands of years, and in these intervening years what is happening is a build up of tiny changes.

That is why I said macro-evolution is micro-evolution. Macro-evolution (the emergence of a new species) is made up of a long long period of micro-evolution, where millions of changes build up over hundreds of thousands of years produce a life form so different than the one you started off with that they are considered different species.

What you don't have is a dog giving birth to a cat due to some massive mutation.

That is why I specified it had not been observed, no matter how long was allowed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
BTW, what do evolutionists term the dog-cat difference?

Species

Hmm. I thought you said new species had been observed. A cat-to-dog difference, not just an antibiotic resistant bacteria from a non-antibiotic restistant one?

I have yet to see any evidence that there is a Theory of Design. All I see is a lot of people saying "Something designed something", which as I said is an argument, not a theory. A theory is a model. There is no model of design, as in what happened.

Follow carefully:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
The Creation model has every living thing up and running from the word Go.

Again that is an argument, not a theory. How does one model every living thing up and running in word Go. Where were they, how many of them were there, what were they doing etc.


Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Indeed, it has them perfect genetic specimens

Again, an argument not a theory. Saying "they were perfect" is not a model. For a start what does that mean? What is a perfect genetic specimen in the sense of how would that be modelled?


Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
, holding all the information that would later be selected to give the varities we see in each 'kind' of creature today: e.g. the Causasian, Negro, etc. in the case of man.

So far you have not presented a model.

Think of it this way. What you have presented is the same as saying

"Last Wednesday it rained."

Now I work in meteorology industry and that is a statement, not a model. Scientifically it is useless.

A model would be made up of lists of rain fall data over the country, along with wind and temp information for the country, along with pressure and wind information from outside Ireland being feed into this model. It would also be made up of the mathematical models of how wind and pressure work with each other, which builds upon physics and chemistry models.

So with this model I can feed all this information into the simulation and tell you what happened where and when, and more importantly I can use this model to predict what happened on Thursday.

Do you see the difference? One is a statement, the other is a model based on theory.

I've yet to see any theory or model of design.

Imagine if I had to write a computer program where I can watch on my computer monitor a simulation of Creation. I can't do that because there is no theory under pinning this. There is just a whole load of vague statement, like saying the life forms were "perfect", what ever that means.


Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
The scientific design model (as distinct from the Biblical revelation) can offer no suggestion as to how or why the perfect creation came to be - just as Evolution can not deal with anything before its initial assumption.

But there are other theories that can. The laws of chemistry are used to explain how these molecules formed the way they formed.

Does Creationism have any theory to model when and where these original lifeforms appeared and what they did?

All of this ignored what I said about initial assumptions. The Design Model starts with the designed article being created in full working order. It does not try to account for how that could happen. Creationism identifies the cause as the designer, God. From then on, the various designed articles bred within their design form and have given rise to many modifications - skin colour, body size, etc. - but all within the bounds of their original design. All of this has been observed. This is the biosphere we see today.

Evolution has its initial assumption either the eternal existence of energy/matter, or the coming into existence of it. It offers no account of how that could happen. From there it suggests mechanisms for the distribution of matter as we see it today - usually the Big Bang Theory - and holds that somehow non-life developed into the first life. From that point it holds that complexity of information increased by mutation and natural selection, to give rise to the biosphere we see today. None of this rise in complexity, especially the change over time from biotic soup to man, has been observed.

The law of entropy has nothing to do with information disorder. That is a common myth presented by Creationists, and no doubt Son is foaming at the mouth with this nonsense.

Entropy has to do with disorder in terms of energy, not information. As energy is used to moves into a disorderd state. That is the energy itself, not the structures that are created using that energy.

There is no law that says ordered structures get more disordered over time. That is a myth based on a misunderstanding of the theory. In fact the "law of entropy" supports the opposite, since the change of energy from ordered (useful) to disorder (non-useful) facilitates the order of structure created using this energy.

I must live in a parallel universe, for in mine I have constant trouble maintaining the highly ordered items - cars, computers, flowers, etc. All seem to move from their highly ordered state toward the basic dirt condition.

Maybe you are suggesting a big mass of iron molecules is just as full of information as the engine of my car? That a living thing is no more ordered than the basic molecules of matter?

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

Er, no. Your mother is extremely unlikely to be resistant to antibiotics that you are not resistant to. You are both resistant - antibiotics that kill humans are not terrifically popular. Your mother has an infection which is resistant to antibiotics - that is, the bacteria that infect her are resistant, whereas the ones that infect you are not. I don't know whether you are considering the the same illness here, but you can both have the same illness, except that in her case the bacteria in question are antibiotic resistant - that is, they have evolved resistance to the same antibiotics that work for you.

Thank you for that clarification. I see the difference. So to qualify as a different lifeform from my mother I would have to have a genetic modification - giving rise to some characteristic my Mum did not have?

Would that not make us all different lifeforms? Wickie say two dogs can be two different lifeforms - where do we draw the line in defining this term? Any genetic difference? Obvious genetic difference (skin colour)?

Would the dog and the otter share common ancestry?
Seems very unlikely. But see the article I referred to for the nuances.

wolfsbane

robindch wrote: »

Not quite right.

The Nazi extermination camps were built and operated, not by an abstract theory which describes the effects of different levels of reproductive success or even by teams of crack professors of biology, PhD students and post-docs, but by one paranoid christian group to exterminate a non-christian group. The German christians did this at the instruction of a man who said that it was the "Lord's Work" to exterminate the non-christians. The attempt was the latest in a long series by the region's christians to exterminate the region's jews.

You can apply an understanding of evolution to see why this happened and how come there are so few jews in Europe these days, but claiming that the "theory of evolution" caused the Holocaust is as stupid as saying that the Theory of Gravity caused the bombing of Hiroshima.

.

You need a deeper analyis. Try this:
Darwinism and the Nazi race Holocaust by Jerry Bergman.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/nazi.asp
Dr. Bergman's bio: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/j_bergman.asp

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote: »

Thank you for that clarification. I see the difference. So to qualify as a different lifeform from my mother I would have to have a genetic modification - giving rise to some characteristic my Mum did not have?

Well, you would have to have sufficient genetic modification, assuming by 'different lifeform from' you mean 'organism with noticeable phylogenetic distance from'. After all, I presume you are already both separate from your mother, and in many ways noticeably dissimilar to her? Presuming that, you are already a different 'lifeform', but not perhaps a different form of life.

You are extraordinarily unlikely to be a different species to your mother - usually, a sufficiency of genetic difference to establish that would also mean you would not have been carried to term. However, bear in mind that the result of some births are thought to be sterile, but may merely be incapable of breeding with normal members of their species.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Would that not make us all different lifeforms? Wickie say two dogs can be two different lifeforms - where do we draw the line in defining this term? Any genetic difference? Obvious genetic difference (skin colour)?

Ha! There you put your finger on a rather vital question. How much difference is required to separate species? It depends...the usual answer is that if the two organisms are sufficiently genetically different that they cannot interbreed to produce viable offspring, then they are separate species. However, take the example of the black-backed gull and the herring gull, both of which can be seen in Dublin. They look like different species, and they don't interbreed - but they are part of what is called a "ring species". Black-backed gulls here can interbreed with Siberian black-backed gulls, which can interbreed with Heuglin's gull, which interbreeds with Birula's gull (also Siberian), which interbreeds with the Vega Herring Gull (also Siberia), which interbreeds with the American Herring Gull, which interbreeds with our Herring Gulls here.

So the Herring and the Black-backed gulls are two ends of a continuously interbreeding ring of gull variants, but are themselves separate species.

After all, we're doing the classifying - species, like kind, is a human construct.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Would the dog and the otter share common ancestry?
Seems very unlikely. But see the article I referred to for the nuances.

I ask only because the otter is classified as a Caniform - the phylogenetic level that comes closest in some ways to "kind".

cordially,
Scofflaw

pH

wolfsbane wrote: »

You need a deeper analyis. Try this:
Darwinism and the Nazi race Holocaust by Jerry Bergman.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/nazi.asp
Dr. Bergman's bio: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/j_bergman.asp

What utter rubbish.

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Let's see what Hitler actually believed and wrote.

In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following:

(a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered;

(b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but
steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap.

The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will
of the Eternal Creator. And as a sin this act will be avenged.

Sins and Eternal Creators? How very Darwinian of him!


And so, internally armed with faith in the goodness of God and the impenetrable stupidity of the electorate, the struggle for what is called 'the reconstruction of the REICH' can now begin.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

You have missed this, for example: “Species” and “kind” by Dr. Gary Parker http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/cfol/ch2-species.asp

That doesn't define what a "kind" is, and in fact strongly suggests that the author himself recognises that such a definition doesn't exist by the fact that he says things like "perhaps each kind is ..." over and over in the article.

He appears to be suggesting that God knows what a kind is, wrote it in the Bible, and that is all we have to worry about, though we can guess at what it was.

Needless to say that is not science.

wolfsbane wrote: »

My antibiotic restistant Mum will be horrified to learn of her transmutation into another lifeform.

Why?

She is not genetically identical to her parents. Neither are you. No human is. We contain a mix of our parents DNA and on average 60 mutations from that DNA mixing. Most of the time these mutations do very little. Some times they do something significant, such as increase the immune system, which is why we sometimes find people immune to diseases like HIV.

wolfsbane wrote: »

That is why I specified it had not been observed, no matter how long was allowed.

What hasn't been observed? A dog evolving into a cat? No Wolfsbane, that has not been observed :rolleyes:

wolfsbane wrote: »

Hmm. I thought you said new species had been observed.

It has.

wolfsbane wrote: »

A cat-to-dog difference, not just an antibiotic resistant bacteria from a non-antibiotic restistant one?

That is a cat-to-dog difference, or at least it can be if you observe the bacteria replicating for long enough.

You seem to be working under the very ignorant idea that all bacteria are basically the same. They aren't. There are hundreds of thousands of species of bacteria. There are 300 different species of bacteria living in your mouth right now (that would be hundreds of thousands of individual bacteria)

wolfsbane wrote: »

All of this ignored what I said about initial assumptions. The Design Model starts with the designed article being created in full working order.

Ok. What was that like?

Define "full working order" What was where? And what were they like? You have already said that they were "kinds", animals and plants that apparently don't exist any more in their original states. So what where their original states? And where did these animals and plants start off from?

None of this is defined. Its like saying I'm going to model a ball roll off a roof but I'm not going to decide where the ball starts off from, just that it is somewhere on the roof. That wouldn't be a model of anything.

wolfsbane wrote: »

It does not try to account for how that could happen.

It should. Because without that how can you know what the initial state of the model is?

wolfsbane wrote: »

Creationism identifies the cause as the designer, God.

That is irrelevant. It could have been James Dean. Who he is is not important. What he did is important if you want to create a theory around this, a theory that can be used to model it.

If I wanted to model time point 0 to time point now, what would I tell the computer to start off with, exactly?

wolfsbane wrote: »

From then on, the various designed articles bred within their design form and have given rise to many modifications

How? What happens? If evolution is not the process by which this happens, what is the process?

wolfsbane wrote: »

All of this has been observed.

Actually this has never been observed (a "kind" dividing into multiple species in a few generations). Ever. Even the Creationists admit this, JC says God stopped this a few hundred years ago (right around the time we started looking)

wolfsbane wrote: »

None of this rise in complexity, especially the change over time from biotic soup to man, has been observed.

That isn't true. Increase in the complexity of genetic information due to mutation has been observed, as has been pointed out to you before many many times on this forum.

wolfsbane wrote: »

I must live in a parallel universe, for in mine I have constant trouble maintaining the highly ordered items - cars, computers, flowers, etc. All seem to move from their highly ordered state toward the basic dirt condition.

"Dirt" is not disorder.

Its hard to tell if you are joking now for a laugh, or to cover up the fact that you actually don't understand what we are talking about ...

wolfsbane wrote: »

Maybe you are suggesting a big mass of iron molecules is just as full of information as the engine of my car? That a living thing is no more ordered than the basic molecules of matter?

Again do you actually understand what we are talking about. Do you understand what "disordered energy" means? What entropy means.

The second law of thermodynamics (the law of entropy as you put it) has nothing to do with the clutter in your living room. It has to do with the usage of energy and the change from energy from an ordered to a disordered state. There is no law that says your sitting room will become more disordered as time goes by. If you think that is what the 2nd law of thermodynamics says you need to read up on your physics.

robindch

wolfsbane wrote:

You need a deeper analyis. Try this: Darwinism and the Nazi race Holocaust by Jerry Bergman.

I must say, even by the exceptional standards of AiG, this is a breathtaking piece of historical revisionism.

Bergman exhausts himself in his efforts to pin the blame for the Holocaust on this abstract thing called "evolution" and to deflect the blame from the people who actually did the murdering. It's as though, in his eyes, evolution were an axe-murdering psychopath and not an abstract theory concerning reproductive biology. At no point does Bergman actually address the points which I made, so I'm a bit perplexed as to why you pointed me to this tract. To re-iterate what I said:

• Hitler claimed he was doing god's work. Bergman seems to ignore this simple fact and actually manages (inadvertently one assumes) to quotes Hitler to this effect -- "If I can accept a divine Commandment, it’s this one: “Thou shalt preserve the species."". And german christians, in their millions, seem to have had no problem with the idea of their Furher's carrying out god's work.
• Hitler persuaded a majority christian country to murder a non-christian minority. It's incomprehensible to me that the basic religious nature of the Holocaust has slipped Bergman's notice. I would have thought it was fairly obvious, to be quite honest.

In AiG's weird parallel universe of the imagination, it seems gospel that the people who managed and carried out the business of the death camps were blameless souls, kind and decent people who were mislead through no fault of their own, and may as well not have existed for all the attention that's paid to them by AiG's "historians". I also note in passing that Bergman has no qualifications as a historian, which might perhaps explain why his alleged explanations seem to be pretty much unique to him and his co-religionists and ignored by everybody else.

I'm sorry, but I must ask -- do you actually believe AiG's line on this?

.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

You need a deeper analyis. Try this:
Darwinism and the Nazi race Holocaust by Jerry Bergman.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/nazi.asp
Dr. Bergman's bio: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/j_bergman.asp

Its kinda funny that you quote this

Lets look at what Creationists claim -

- When the world was created humans were "perfect"

- Through sin life on Earth started to "degrade" from these original kinds (Adam & Eve in relation to humans)

- Sin causes the degradation of genetic material. This is responsible for the different genetic traits of people far away from the Middle East, such as the Blacks in Africa, the Asians in China, and the Native Americans in the Americas

- The more different a person is from those in the Middle East the more their genetic code has degraded due to sin.

What delightful little idea ... the blacks in Africa, the Chinese, the Australian aborigines etc, are degraded humans, less perfect than Middle Eastern and Europeans because their genetic code has been perverted by sin more. They are further away from the image of "God"

Its a bit rich Wolfsbane claiming that Darwinism promotes racism. Darwinism states that no one creature is better or worse than any other creature, simply that one is more adapted to its environment.

Biblical Creationism on the other hand says that some human races have been effected by sin more than others. Pretty easy to see how that could be used as justification for racism.

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

Its kinda funny that you quote this

Lets look at what Creationists claim -

- When the world was created humans were "perfect"

- Through sin life on Earth started to "degrade" from these original kinds (Adam & Eve in relation to humans)

- Sin causes the degradation of genetic material. This is responsible for the different genetic traits of people far away from the Middle East, such as the Blacks in Africa, the Asians in China, and the Native Americans in the Americas

- The more different a person is from those in the Middle East the more their genetic code has degraded due to sin.

What delightful little idea ... the blacks in Africa, the Chinese, the Australian aborigines etc, are degraded humans, less perfect than Middle Eastern and Europeans because their genetic code has been perverted by sin more. They are further away from the image of "God"

Its a bit rich Wolfsbane claiming that Darwinism promotes racism. Darwinism states that no one creature is better or worse than any other creature, simply that one is more adapted to its environment.

Biblical Creationism on the other hand says that some human races have been effected by sin more than others. Pretty easy to see how that could be used as justification for racism.

You're jumping to conclusions again. Let me pick you up on a few points:

1. ALL mankind undergoes the degradation. Who says any group more so than others?

2. Europeans and Middle Easterns are just as removed from Edenic Man as Africans or Chinese. Have you some reason to assume Adam was white? I have good reason to assume he was not.

3. Please provide the references for your allegation that Biblical Creationism on the other hand says that some human races have been effected by sin more than others. That racism is counter to anything I have ever encountered. Or did you just make it up?

4. Darwinism's social implications have been well documented. While those practising them may well say no one creature is better or worse than any other creature, simply that one is more adapted to its environment, they go on to eradicate or marginalize those less adapted to the enviroment. That is, to promote the survival of one's 'race', interbreeding with the less well adapted is banned, and the breeding of the lesser types is actively discouraged (to say the least).

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote: »

You're jumping to conclusions again. Let me pick you up on a few points:

4. Darwinism's social implications have been well documented. While those practising them may well say no one creature is better or worse than any other creature, simply that one is more adapted to its environment, they go on to eradicate or marginalize those less adapted to the enviroment. That is, to promote the survival of one's 'race', interbreeding with the less well adapted is banned, and the breeding of the lesser types is actively discouraged (to say the least).

You're jumping to conclusions again. Let me pick you up on a particular point:

1. "Social Darwinism" has nothing to do with Darwin, with evolutionary biology, or the Theory of Evolution. It is racism, dressed up in pseudo-scientific clothing. It bears as much relation to science as the Inquisition did to Christ's message.

The science of evolution cannot advocate anything, because science, as we've said repeatedly here, is not normative. Scientists may espouse doctrines just as loony as the next man, but science urges nothing, recommends nothing - it is nothing but observation and explanation of the facts.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Ekancone

Scofflaw wrote: »

You're jumping to conclusions again. Let me pick you up on a particular point:

1. "Social Darwinism" has nothing to do with Darwin, with evolutionary biology, or the Theory of Evolution. It is racism, dressed up in pseudo-scientific clothing. It bears as much relation to science as the Inquisition did to Christ's message.

The science of evolution cannot advocate anything, because science, as we've said repeatedly here, is not normative. Scientists may espouse doctrines just as loony as the next man, but science urges nothing, recommends nothing - it is nothing but observation and explanation of the facts.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Hear! Hear!

wolfsbane

robindch said:

Hitler claimed he was doing god's work. Bergman seems to ignore this simple fact and actually manages (inadvertently one assumes) to quotes Hitler to this effect -- "If I can accept a divine Commandment, it’s this one: “Thou shalt preserve the species.""

Of course, Hitler was an astute politician. Use any reference to God/religion/atheism/socialism/whatever issue that attracts the support of your audience. Look at how the contenders for the Presidency of the US are today emphazising their religious beliefs. Do you think they are serious? No, it's what they say and do when they are in power that counts. If America were governed by Christians, how come in some thirty years 42 Million abortions were legally carried out?

And german christians, in their millions, seem to have had no problem with the idea of their Furher's carrying out god's work.
Hitler persuaded a majority christian country to murder a non-christian minority. It's incomprehensible to me that the basic religious nature of the Holocaust has slipped Bergman's notice. I would have thought it was fairly obvious, to be quite honest.

Most Germans traded their religious loyalties for belief in Hitler. Many were merely nominal to begin with, just as most Britons today may be CofE for weddings, etc. but are in reality heathens.

However, many religious types would have had little bother following the Leader, as that was the system already inculcated by their religion. Hitler and Himmler, being raised Catholic, would have appreciated that.

Many Lutherans would also have been content to collaborate, perhaps in the hope that things would not end up in the extreme of Paganism. Had Hitler not proved he was a reasonable man after all, when he got rid of Roehm and his bully boys? So practising Catholics and Lutherans did sin in collaborating, I'm not questioning that - just their numbers relative to the nominals.

Then fear/cowardice would have silenced some true Christians. They knew of the pastors/priests who had been arrested and imprisoned.

Then there were also the fearless ones who did what they could to help the oppressed. I'v spoken to German Christians who told me how their parents had initially welcomed Hitler as a Deliverer from national economic ruin, but when he moved against the Jews they clearly saw that Hitler was wicked and thatGod's wrath was going to fall on the German nation.

So it is quite wrong to characterize the Holocaust as religious in nature, other than the religion of Nazism, putting evolutionary concepts into practise.

I also note in passing that Bergman has no qualifications as a historian, which might perhaps explain why his alleged explanations seem to be pretty much unique to him and his co-religionists and ignored by everybody else.

You might like to revise the Wiki articles, for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_race

A brief quotation from the section Racialist ideology: This set of claims grew out of a larger movement of Scientific Racism that developed conjointly with social darwinism theories and unilineal evolutionism which classified the European culture as the leading one in the world. Scientific racism was taught at major universities in Europe and the United States through the 1930s. Nazism combined it with pan-Germanism theories and anti-Semitism, which inspired their racial policies, in particular with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws.

Ekancone

wolfsbane wrote: »

You might like to revise the Wiki articles, for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_race

A brief quotation from the section Racialist ideology: This set of claims grew out of a larger movement of Scientific Racism that developed conjointly with social darwinism theories and unilineal evolutionism which classified the European culture as the leading one in the world. Scientific racism was taught at major universities in Europe and the United States through the 1930s. Nazism combined it with pan-Germanism theories and anti-Semitism, which inspired their racial policies, in particular with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws.

I would like to point out that every single academic that has taught me in university (and i assume most universities) has warned the class NOT to use Wikipedia as a source of reference, for obvious reasons.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

it is nothing but observation and explanation of the facts.

I agree. But all explanations of the facts enable deductions to be drawn from them; e.g. observation and explanation tell me that planting one sort of shrub beside a certain type of tree will stunt its growth. I deduce from that that if I want a good healthy line of shrubs I must plant them elsewhere or cut down the tree. Nothing loony about that.

So the social Darwinists looked at their 'race' and asked what they could do to preserve and promote it. Given the observations and explanations of Evolution, they reached logical conclusions. It's just that many of you evolutionists can't stomach the logic.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote: »

Of course, Hitler was an astute politician. Use any reference to God/religion/atheism/socialism/whatever issue that attracts the support of your audience.

So, no matter what Hitler himself actually said, in Mein Kampf or wherever, you know that his references to religion etc are in fact spurious. Does anything strike you as odd about such a claim?

Further, since "science" was the very definition of progress at the time, why does your argument not apply to Hitler's reference to 'science'?

wolfsbane wrote: »

Look at how the contenders for the Presidency of the US are today emphazising their religious beliefs. Do you think they are serious? No, it's what they say and do when they are in power that counts. If America were governed by Christians, how come in some thirty years 42 Million abortions were legally carried out?

Perhaps because the judiciary is separate from the executive.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Then there were also the fearless ones who did what they could to help the oppressed. I'v spoken to German Christians who told me how their parents had initially welcomed Hitler as a Deliverer from national economic ruin, but when he moved against the Jews they clearly saw that Hitler was wicked and that God's wrath was going to fall on the German nation.

And as usual, we can only ever tell the good Christians after the event, and in light of what we personally believe makes a good Christian. Persecution of the Jews has been one of the marks of a "good Christian" for a lot longer than not.

wolfsbane wrote: »

So it is quite wrong to characterize the Holocaust as religious in nature, other than the religion of Nazism, putting evolutionary concepts into practise.

See above, and my earlier post.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Ekancone

wolfsbane wrote: »

Scofflaw said:

I agree. But all explanations of the facts enable deductions to be drawn from them; e.g. observation and explanation tell me that planting one sort of shrub beside a certain type of tree will stunt its growth. I deduce from that that if I want a good healthy line of shrubs I must plant them elsewhere or cut down the tree. Nothing loony about that.

So the social Darwinists looked at their 'race' and asked what they could do to preserve and promote it. Given the observations and explanations of Evolution, they reached logical conclusions. It's just that many of you evolutionists can't stomach the logic.

Pretty poor logic, at that.

wolfsbane

wolfsbane wrote:

If America were governed by Christians, how come in some thirty years 42 Million abortions were legally carried out?

because the bible says nothing about abortion?
And please don't quote jeremiah at me, that was a specific prophet

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote: »

- The more different a person is from those in the Middle East the more their genetic code has degraded due to sin.

What delightful little idea ... the blacks in Africa, the Chinese, the Australian aborigines etc, are degraded humans, less perfect than Middle Eastern and Europeans because their genetic code has been perverted by sin more. They are further away from the image of "God".

Biblical Creationism on the other hand says that some human races have been effected by sin more than others. Pretty easy to see how that could be used as justification for racism.[/

And this idea came form where?

Wicknight wrote: »

Its a bit rich Wolfsbane claiming that Darwinism promotes racism. Darwinism states that no one creature is better or worse than any other creature, simply that one is more adapted to its environment.

Although evolution was used to show that blacks and their respective brains put them lower on the evolutionary scale than whites.

Darwinism was used to promote racial class as was the Bible.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote: »

I agree. But all explanations of the facts enable deductions to be drawn from them; e.g. observation and explanation tell me that planting one sort of shrub beside a certain type of tree will stunt its growth. I deduce from that that if I want a good healthy line of shrubs I must plant them elsewhere or cut down the tree. Nothing loony about that.

So the social Darwinists looked at their 'race' and asked what they could do to preserve and promote it. Given the observations and explanations of Evolution, they reached logical conclusions. It's just that many of you evolutionists can't stomach the logic.

Do you see the highlighted bits? Those are the intentions of the person receiving the scientific information. They are vital.

Science has told you that "planting one sort of shrub beside a certain type of tree will stunt its growth". Now if you want dwarf shrubs, you will plant that kind of tree. If you don't care, you may or may not. If you don't want dwarf shrubs, you'll plant those trees elsewhere. If you disliked that kind of tree, you'd point out to others its stunting effect as an example of why you disliked it.

The 'science' has dictated none of that. Nor did it dictate the actions of the Social Darwinists. They chose to do what they wanted to do with the information because they already believed certain types of person were inferior - evolutionary theory simply gave them a way of dressing it up.

Otherwise, to support your claim that the Nazis were simply following evolutionary logic requires us to accept that their claims against the Jews actually had a scientific basis in fact. Is that your claim?

regards,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

You're jumping to conclusions again.

Yes, it is annoying when someone distorts a position to make it appear to be something it actually isn't :eek:

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote: »

Although evolution was used to show that blacks and their respective brains put them lower on the evolutionary scale than whites.

There is no "evolutionary scale", so I doubt that Brian :rolleyes:

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

So the social Darwinists looked at their 'race' and asked what they could do to preserve and promote it.

Well there are two problems with that.

Firstly Evolutionary biology tells us that there is no such thing as "race" in the classical sense. That is a scientific deduction independent of any political correctness. Genetically I can be more similar, on average, to an African than to someone living in the next town to me.

Secondly if these "social Darwinists" were looking to preserve their own race, as they defined it, they were already racist to begin with before they went near Darwin. The claim that Darwinism promotes racism then seems rather strange. Certainly racists groups will take aspects of science and distort the science until they think it support them, but then a lot of groups do this including Creationists (look at JC's little rants about how the theory of Mitocondrial Eve is supposed to support the idea of an actual "Eve")

Thirdly, if "social Darwinists" believed that there was an evolutionary scale, as BC seems to do, and that they were on top, with others on the bottom, they didn't understand evolution at all. There is no universal scale in evolution. Organisms are either adapted well or not adapted well to their environment. It would be very difficult to determine any kind of scale (what would measure), but under most criteria humans would not even be at the top of the scale in terms of adaptability to enivornment.

wolfsbane wrote: »

It's just that many of you evolutionists can't stomach the logic.

Well its because the logic is wrong, a fact you seem to be quietly ignoring.

See my post about Creationism inherently promoting racist belief. You replied with a what they heck are you talking about Creationism doesn't say that response.

Annoying, wasn't it, me saying that about Creationism ... are you starting to see the point.

wolfsbane

Apologies for delay in reply to several posts. I'm pressed for time at the moment, having just started a new aspect to my job.

I will start at the latest and work back.

Wicknight said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
So the social Darwinists looked at their 'race' and asked what they could do to preserve and promote it.

Well there are two problems with that.

Firstly Evolutionary biology tells us that there is no such thing as "race" in the classical sense. That is a scientific deduction independent of any political correctness. Genetically I can be more similar, on average, to an African than to someone living in the next town to me.

I certainly agree that all men are of the one race. The racists are looking at the genetic markers that obviously distinguish people groups from one another, and arguing for the propriety of discriminating in favour of theirs.

Secondly if these "social Darwinists" were looking to preserve their own race, as they defined it, they were already racist to begin with before they went near Darwin.

Certainly, some were, just as the belief in the evolutionary origins of man pre-dated Darwin. But those who lived post-Darwin were raised with evolution as their milk; their beliefs about their 'race' were informed by Darwin and his followers.

The claim that Darwinism promotes racism then seems rather strange. Certainly racists groups will take aspects of science and distort the science until they think it support them, but then a lot of groups do this including Creationists (look at JC's little rants about how the theory of Mitocondrial Eve is supposed to support the idea of an actual "Eve")

The progress of slime to man is portrayed in terms of competition, not just adaption to the enviroment. The best survive/surviving makes you the best. You and yours must dominate to be sure of survival. Compassion for the weak or outsiders is not part of evolutionary history.

Thirdly, if "social Darwinists" believed that there was an evolutionary scale, as BC seems to do, and that they were on top, with others on the bottom, they didn't understand evolution at all. There is no universal scale in evolution. Organisms are either adapted well or not adapted well to their environment. It would be very difficult to determine any kind of scale (what would measure), but under most criteria humans would not even be at the top of the scale in terms of adaptability to enivornment.

I see what you are saying, that in a general sense a bug is as well-adapted as a boy - but racist's claim to superiority or the right to struggle for dominance is based on the particulars of evolution. Neanderthal was eliminated by Modern Man. If one belongs to the most efficient brand of Modern Man, it makes sense to dominate/cull any competition.

See my post about Creationism inherently promoting racist belief. You replied with a what they heck are you talking about Creationism doesn't say that response.

Annoying, wasn't it, me saying that about Creationism ... are you starting to see the point.

I was able to prove that Evolutionism was in fact the basis of the racist's arguments - you were not able to prove Creationism does the same.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

Do you see the highlighted bits? Those are the intentions of the person receiving the scientific information. They are vital.

Science has told you that "planting one sort of shrub beside a certain type of tree will stunt its growth". Now if you want dwarf shrubs, you will plant that kind of tree. If you don't care, you may or may not. If you don't want dwarf shrubs, you'll plant those trees elsewhere. If you disliked that kind of tree, you'd point out to others its stunting effect as an example of why you disliked it.

The 'science' has dictated none of that. Nor did it dictate the actions of the Social Darwinists. They chose to do what they wanted to do with the information because they already believed certain types of person were inferior - evolutionary theory simply gave them a way of dressing it up.

I agree that the science required no specific response. It is a fact that un-protected promiscuous sex may lead to HIV, but one need not act on that one way or the other - it is a matter what one wants to do. But the perceived facts strongly influence one's decisions. One may already believe such sex is wrong and point to the scientific fact that supports the decision to abstain from it. Alternatively, the news that there is such a thing as HIV may have come a unpleasant surprise to a backwoods boy.

Just so some racists would have been glad to hear of evolution, as a support for their beliefs. Others would have been won to the racist position when they imbibed the 'facts' of evolution.

Otherwise, to support your claim that the Nazis were simply following evolutionary logic requires us to accept that their claims against the Jews actually had a scientific basis in fact. Is that your claim?

No, just that evolution tends to support the idea of survival of the fittest, and making yourself the fittest usually implies domination of the rest.

Both evolution and Hitler's other myths were bogus.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote: »

I was able to prove that Evolutionism was in fact the basis of the racist's arguments - you were not able to prove Creationism does the same.

No, you were able to show that racists have used 'evolutionary theory' as a 'justification'. As a Creationist, you told us that racism has no justification in Creationist theory, and never has. As a scientist, I am telling you that racism has no justification in evolutionary theory, and that it never has.

cordially,
Scofflaw

wolfsbane

bluewolf wrote: »

because the bible says nothing about abortion?
And please don't quote jeremiah at me, that was a specific prophet

Funny that the Christian churches have opposed it for so long then? But as to the Biblical case, it is based on the baby in the womb being fully human.

Since you don't want to hear from the Old Testament, here's one from the New:
John the Baptist
Luke 1:15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb...41 And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit...44 For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

I certainly agree that all men are of the one race. The racists are looking at the genetic markers that obviously distinguish people groups from one another, and arguing for the propriety of discriminating in favour of theirs.

Which goes against what biology and the theories of evolution tell us ...

wolfsbane wrote: »

Certainly, some were, just as the belief in the evolutionary origins of man pre-dated Darwin. But those who lived post-Darwin were raised with evolution as their milk; their beliefs about their 'race' were informed by Darwin and his followers.

No they weren't because as soon as Darwinism started to become accepted and studied biologists started to abandon the classical views of race, and the idea that Europeans are superior, or that "superior" was even a valid way of thinking about species, since they didn't match the science any more.

wolfsbane wrote: »

The progress of slime to man is portrayed in terms of competition, not just adaption to the enviroment. The best survive/surviving makes you the best.

Look wolfsbane you continue to do what we are giving out about the "social-Darwinsts" doing, thinking of evolution in terms of "better" and "best", which is a misrepresentation of the ideas of evolution.

There is no such thing as "the best" in evolution.

There is only the most adapted. And being the most adapted doesn't mean anything. The bacteria in your belly is more adapted to it's environment than you are. Do you hold that bacteria has having more value than you?

wolfsbane wrote: »

You and yours must dominate to be sure of survival. Compassion for the weak or outsiders is not part of evolutionary history.

Again not true at all.

Humans and a large number of other species have evolved complex systems of society and social organization that include all these things, for various reasons.

It is getting really tiresome discussing this with you Wolfsbane when you (just like JC) don't understand the subject you are discussing.

wolfsbane wrote: »

If one belongs to the most efficient brand of Modern Man, it makes sense to dominate/cull any competition.

What do you mean "makes sense" Makes sense to whom?

wolfsbane wrote: »

I was able to prove that Evolutionism was in fact the basis of the racist's arguments

No you were able to "prove" that a large misrepresentation of the theory of evolution was used by racists groups to try and support their cause, groups that ignored the fact that the science actually contradicted their basic premise.

That is easy Wolfsbane, and I would agree with you 100%.