Posted on 11/30/2004 3:53:55 PM PST by shubi
There are two parts to creationism. Evolution, specifically common descent, tells us how life came to where it is, but it does not say why. If the question is whether evolution disproves the basic underlying theme of Genesis, that God created the world and the life in it, the answer is no. Evolution cannot say exactly why common descent chose the paths that it did.
If the question is whether evolution contradicts a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis as an exact historical account, then it does. This is the main, and for the most part only, point of conflict between those who believe in evolution and creationists.
(Excerpt) Read more at talkorigins.org ...
I'm not the only semi-Atheist or Atheist convert who now believes in a higher deity and who no longer believes in evolution.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=16&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_re_us/believing_atheist
This guy, now 81, was the father and grandfather of the Atheist movement for some 50 years.
As I have said before, the ORDER on the planet Earth is unique in the universe and balls do not naturally roll up mountains.
"God Haters" translation: People who prefer examining the physical evidence to see if they can understand the universe . People who framed the physical laws that allow engineers to build computers, the internet, jet travel, mobile phones, modern medicines, diagnostic tools but bizarrely these physical laws are wrong in almost every way according to a bronze-age book.
We do know one thing, no matter what the evidence it will never be allowed to be anything like Creation or ID.
That statement is true, because science can never indicate supernatural action as the explanation of a phenomenon. Science is the study of the natural. If supernatural phenomena exist all science can say is that they are not understood. But it is perverse in the extreme to rely on supernatural explanations when natural ones have been found.
Big Bang has never been theory, and doens't even pass itself off well as a hypothesis. It does make for some interesting science fiction. Still you have the problems with Big Bang violating the uncaused cause and the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics (plus a ton of other things). So if you can write off basic laws of physics, why not invent any explanation that defies the obvious?
The uncaused cause argument was only debunked a few hundred years ago. Do try to keep up.
But what a top physicist you are. Big Bang violates loads of physical laws does it? Have you let all the practicing physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists who accept Big Bang (>99% of people studying in those fields) know that they are wrong; and so stupid too, they didn't even notice that it violates the laws of thermodynamics. You should be in line for the next Nobel prize once you publish your peer-reviewed paper that shows where they have all gone wrong.
Alternatively, before you start trashing Big Bang you might want to understand what the theory consists of, and why scientists consider that the physical evidence available to them strongly supports it, and that they don't believe it contradicts physical laws. That is the normal path to knowledge; you try to understand something *before* you argue against it.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=16&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_re_us/believing_atheist
Did you not read the article? That would be the normal thing to do if you are going to post it... He still believes in evolution. He just believes something along the lines that abiogenesis requires a helping hand. That belief is perfectly compatible with current scientific knowledge because abiogenesis is not yet explained. If he is right then science will never be able to explain abiogenesis. His "conversion" does appear to be the classic Argument from Personal Incredulity fallacy but I guess we have to cut an 81-year-old some slack.
This guy, now 81, was the father and grandfather of the Atheist movement for some 50 years.
I'm an atheist and I've never heard of him. But then I've never heard of an atheist movement either.
As I have said before, the ORDER on the planet Earth is unique in the universe and balls do not naturally roll up mountains.
Can you evidence your statement that the earth is unique in showing order? There are 10^23 star-systems out there, a couple of thousand of which are visible to the naked eye.
s"Falsifying a theory is hardly done from ignorance. It would take a lot of knowledge to falsify biological evolution, considering the mountain of evidence that has accumulated supporting the ToE."
cI didn't "falsify" it per se, rather I claimed that just because we can't disprove it, does not make it true.
I KNOW you didn't falsify it. Your limited understanding of the science involved precludes you from receiving the Nobel Prize for science for falsifying it. No one has falsified it, because it is essentially a true fact of science which IS WHAT SCIENTIFIC THEORIES ARE. A scientific theory is not a "guess". "Disprove" has no real meaning in science. I thought we covered all this several times before.
s"You must have heard the arguments against life forming from slime from whatever creationcrapsites you have been getting your information from."
cOkay, this is yet another fun argument, even if abiogenesis is accurate you cannot say, that God or a god did not cause these "chemicals" to meet and cause the reaction creating life. The idea of abiogenesis does not contradict creationism.
I know. It doesn't contradict the ToE, either. It doesn't contradict the rational scientific theism that I hold, either. That is because abiogenesis IS NOT IN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION!! I thought we covered this before.
"Did you not read the article? That would be the normal thing to do if you are going to post it... He still believes in evolution. He just believes something along the lines that abiogenesis requires a helping hand. That belief is perfectly compatible with current scientific knowledge because abiogenesis is not yet explained. If he is right then science will never be able to explain abiogenesis. His "conversion" does appear to be the classic Argument from Personal Incredulity fallacy but I guess we have to cut an 81-year-old some slack."
I read every word of the article, which is why I posted it. To cut you some slack, as a stand alone argument against evolution, I can understand your response. However, the post was a continuation of previous posts and should be read based on the information exchanged within those posts.
"I'm an atheist and I've never heard of him. But then I've never heard of an atheist movement either."
Perhaps you should put more key words into Yahoo/Goooogle, "shake the pan a bit", and look for the bits of Gold.
"Can you evidence your statement that the earth is unique in showing order? There are 10^23 star-systems out there, a couple of thousand of which are visible to the naked eye."
Good point! The significance of the plant Earth in the universe is about that of a grain of sand on Santa Monica Beach (I just made this up for brevity.....it's a guess). Actually, when younger, this led me to not believe in the concept of God. However, with all the remaining grains of sand, where else is there ORDER that drives things. The other evidence/feeling of the existence of a higher Deity can be argued on another thread.
BTW, how do you accentuate a statement in italics? Every time I tag a phrase "(i)phrase(i/)" (where the ( = < and the ) = >), I cannot separate the other words in the post.
Good point! The significance of the plant Earth in the universe is about that of a grain of sand on Santa Monica Beach (I just made this up for brevity.....it's a guess). Actually, when younger, this led me to not believe in the concept of God. However, with all the remaining grains of sand, where else is there ORDER that drives things. The other evidence/feeling of the existence of a higher Deity can be argued on another thread.
Offhand, I expect that the earth is much *less* significant than a grain of sand on SM Beach. 10^23 is an awesomely large number. You need a cube of grains of sand about 5x10^7 in each dimension to get a feel for the number of stars in the universe. A cubic mile or so of very fine sand.
As to where else is there order that drives things? We don't know. To say that 1 or 10 or untold billions of other planets somewhere in the universe don't support life is to presume your conclusion, which is that the earth is unique. You have supplied no evidence for that conclusion.
BTW, how do you accentuate a statement in italics? Every time I tag a phrase "(i)phrase(i/)" (where the ( = < and the ) = >), I cannot separate the other words in the post.
Try doing /i rather than i/. Hope that helps ;)
Oops, I made a mistake with my exponent shifter. That is 10 cubic km of very fine sand, assuming a grain size of .2mm. About 6 cubic miles.
Try doing /i rather than i/. Hope that helps ;)
Also separate paragraphs with "(p)" (appropriately angle-bracketed)
I agree that you don't have to believe in anything. But if you use the logic of Pascal's wager to argue in favor of a belief in God, the same logic applies to any other deity. That was my point.
I make no such equation in general. I simply pointed out that if Pascal's wager is the only reason that one has for believing in God, that that reason is insufficient to distinguish belief in God from belief in any of the other beings I mentioned.
Good. Now that you've given a definition of allele, does the frequency of alleles in a population change over time or not?
The big bang is a theory. It makes predictions that have so far been found to be consistent with all observations. It is not whatever "God haters" say it is. It is a very specific theory about the expansion of space-time. It is not and never was an explosion. Yes, theories can be modified, but that is the result of new evidence. You are also correct that God will never be considered as a possibility in the big bang (or any other scientific theory) because the hypothesis that God exists or that God did anything is unfalsifiable. Your lack of understanding of the big bang theory or science in general is irrelevant.
BTW, the second law of thermodynamics is not violated by the cosmology proposed by the big bang. The first law may also not be violated if the negative gravitational energy of the universe is equivalent to the positive energy present in the form of matter and radiation.
Even granting entirely the truth of what you are saying, neither argument you make (man is made in God's image, everything was created in six literal days) implies that evolution is contradictory to creationism. Do you not believe in an omnipotent God? If God is omnipotent, it should be easy for Him to use evolution to create man in his image. That's the easy one. As far as a literal six day creation goes, one must understand general relativity. GR states that a duration of an event will be measured differently in different reference frames. One factor that causes differences in measured duration is a difference in gravitational field. In the early universe, the universe had the same mass but was much smaller. Therefore the gravitational field in the early universe was much higher than now. The result of this is that a six day duration as measured in the first six days of the universe would be measured today as tens of billions of years. Therefore, it can be true that God created the universe in six days AND that it took billions of years for everything we see to arise from a "big bang". That is the nature of the relativity of time.
The Earth is a grain of sand and the universe is six miles of Beach. To date, life has only been found on Earth but SETI and other programs are still searching. The starting processes of life and life forms evolving are very controversial issues, but if other life forms were found it would add credence to the evolutionary argument. Could science and/or open mindedness come up with a another round Earth revolutionary discovery? Time will tell who is correct.
I'll buy that argument and put my chips on a big "No".
BTW, thanks for the tip, I can express issues a lot better now.
oxymoron, yes like screens on the windows of submarines.
...comes into existence without a creator... how?
atheists make me laugh.
I wouldn't hold your breath. The search space is large and our search-range is tiny. SETI can only find intelligent life and the evolutionary evidence is not strong that our kind of high-intelligence is particularly successful. We've been around for an eyeblink in evolutionary terms and already we're in danger of destroying our planet (and no, I'm not a tree-hugger, just a realist)
The starting processes of life and life forms evolving are very controversial issues,
Evolution is not controversial at all in mainstream science. The argument inside science (ie amongst the people who spend their lives studying this) ended over a hundred years ago. Starting processes (abiogenesis) still attract some debate within science because we haven't yet fully explained how they could have happened. Most of that debate is about possible mechanisms rather than Behe style "throw your hands in the air and declare God did it"
but if other life forms were found it would add credence to the evolutionary argument.
A bit more than credence, I venture.
Could science and/or open mindedness come up with a another round Earth revolutionary discovery? Time will tell who is correct.
Indeed. But science doesn't feel that it needs those confirmations to be very confident about its current position.
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