Conclusions From Uncounted Creation/Evolution Debates

PatrickHenry | 10 June 2006 | PatrickHenry (vanity)

[Elsie]

 

You do realize judging and sinning are synonomous for the mortals, right?

 

No, I didn't.  While I wait for your explanation of this fact, I'll leave you with a few verses....

 

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Matthew 7:7  "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

 

 

Ah yes; the great verse that is used by those who do not wish to be judged by mere humans.

 

 

Too bad they tend to ignore others...

 

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NIV Luke 12:57
  "Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right?

 

 

NIV John 7:24
   Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment."    (Said Jesus)

NIV Acts 15:19
   "It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. (Says St. Luke)

 

NIV Romans 14:1
   Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 5:12-13
 12.  What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?
 13.  God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."
 

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 6:2-4
 2.  Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?
 3.  Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!
 4.  Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church!

 

 

Paul did a LOT of 'judging'....

NIV 1 Corinthians 2:15-16
 15.  The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
 16.  "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 5:3
   Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present.

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 7:25
   Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 7:40
   In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is--and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

 

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 10:15
  I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 11:13
  Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?

And Paul said this:

1 Corinthians 11:1  Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

[Elsie]

But seriously, how can you possibly think your brand of Christianity is better than someone else's?

Gosh... I hadn't thought about this!!!

What Brand® IS my Christianity anyway???

[mjolnir]

Yes, Dembski is well aware of the definition of complexity developed by Kolmogorov. That's why he talks about distinguishing between kinds of complexity, for instance, the complexity of a software program and the complexity of a snowflake.

I understand that people who find ID to be illegitimate a priori believe that these differences are, as you believe them to be, a purely artificial product of the sorts of associations we've been conditioned to see because of our experience with ourselves and other organisms (beavers, birds). However, anyone who accepts design inferences as legitimate must reject the Humean picture of induction, abduction and probability, whether they use the eliminativist program of Dembski or the Bayesian approach most other IDers favor.

An IDer need not believe in God at all, much less be a Christian. As I've said before, during the time Francis (the famously atheist-claimed-he-went-into-biology-to-undermine religion Crick) Crick promoted panspermia, he was an IDer. This fellow, who if we take him at his word, is not a theist of any sort, is not an IDer: http://www.secweb.org/index.aspx?action=viewAsset&id=297

ID in no way necessitates belief in a personal God. Even the argument from design, which ID is not a form of, does no such thing--- historically, during the Enlightenment, the loudest proclaimers of the argument from design were Deists-- in fact, the fact that design arguments have no necessary connection to faith in a personal God is precisely why Cardinal Newman, Pascal and Kierkegaard disdained them. Darwin himself made this distinction--- while he was sympathetic in his disagreement with the argument from design, he came to believe it nearly immoral to believe in a personal God, given the existence of evil in both nature and human society. Read Old Earth Creationists such as Duane Gish or Hugh Ross. Ross will tell you he repudiate ID for similar reasons--- it isn't Biblically based.

The only way someone could think ID purports to be a form of natural theology is by committing what Elliot Sober calls the Birthday Fallacy, wrongly inferring that because everything has some cause, there's some cause that everything has, so once we someone claims any form of life is caused in part by design, why, then all life on Earth--- no, not just its life, but the the Earth itself--- no, the universe--- must each be designed by that same cause.

Of course, this is a fallacy. The fact that everyone has a birthday does not imply there's some birthday everyone has, and ID does not purport to be a form of natural theology.

Rightwing Professor, Dembski's Design Inference stuff is actually very highly regarded within probaility theory. having said that, I wouldn't be surprised that some math types you know were less impressed. If logicians are the redheaded stepchildren of philosophy and mathematics--- advanced studies of formal logic fit only partly in either, probability theory is the redheaded stepchild of logic and mathematics. Howler, I can tell you that within that field, being published in the Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory series is to be recognized as having a work at the very top of the heap by the scholars who themselves are at the top of the probability theory heap: the very top: Brian Skyrms, Ernest W. Adams, Ken Binmore, Jeremy Butterfield, Persi Diaconis, William L. Harper, John Harsanyi, Richard C. Jeffrey, Wolfgang Spohn and Patrick Suppes, the editors of the series, are each recognized without any controversy as each being eminences in at least one of the disciplines listed in the series title.

The well known logician and mathematician Keith Devlin, who is trying to promote math as the "science of patterns" these days, disagrees with Dembski's conclusions in the Design Inference and is a critic of ID (Devlin believes that, depending upon how one weights the variables, Dembski's design filter will support the proposition that all life evolved by a combination of chance and natural processes, just as easily as it might human life arose by design--- in other words, the same problem that the old Drake equation which claimed to show the probability of extra terrestrial life had )also maintains that "Dembski's theory has made an important
contribution to the theory of randomness-- if only by highlighting how hard it can be to differentiate the fingerprints of design from the whorls of chance'".

Now, that's obviously not an endorsement, so why does Devlin say this? The reason, I think, is that 'differentiating between the fingerprints of design and the whorls of chance' is a perfectly legitimate project. As A matter of fact, most IDers disagree with Dembski's methodology-- his approach is in many ways the opposite of the more common Bayesian one. But that the Design Inference is a useful, well written work in the most prestigious series in its field is hard to deny... And one may deny or not deny it without being a creationist, a Christian or a theist.

[SaveUS]

The Brand that makes people run away.

[JCEccles]

Gentle FReepers, herewith I present a few conclusions I have reached

GIGO.

[Elsie]

The Brand that makes people run away.

Good answer; doesn't reveal much, other than Scripture seems to repel you.

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(Much like Sunlight repels that OTHER fellow that 'goes for the jugular.')

[SaveUS]

I guess I just keep picturing Ernest Ansley. HEAL! With a slap upside the skull and the poor lady faints dead away on the floor. Not to mention, when you type things like:

"(Much like Sunlight repels that OTHER fellow that 'goes for the jugular.')"

I have to wonder, WTH? Do you lead a lot of people to the light this way?

[NoGrayZone]

Perhaps the problem here is a lot of people think of Gods "7 days" in our time frame. Our day is 24 hours, his may be 1.5 million years (just made that number up, not stating it as fact). Or perhaps the bible was written so man can actually understand it. Remember, we only use, what, less than 10% of our brain. Pretty sure He knew that.

[SaveUS]

But saying that doesn't really help all the other stories that didn't happen as the men who wrote the bible say they did. Noah's flood. Didn't happen. Faith says it did. Reality says it didn't. No, God is WAY more powerful than the bible can explain with man's limited understanding. Do this: Read a Hawking book and when you are done say, "God did all that. Wow." Then you have something. Telling me it is just a Jeanie and Major Nelson story just isn't true. Scientists don't want to know IF God did it, they want to know HOW God did it. And it wasn't blink boing oing oing.

[sully777]

Clean up in aisle three: Lucy Is No Lady: Lucy: Clearcut Case of Evolutionist Fraud

[ahayes]

Hooey. Argument from personal incredulity plus baseless accusations.

[sully777]

It's what makes the threads such riotous fun.

[Ottofire]

And then I come to the ball-game late and hate to read all 500 posts...(okay 270+, but exaggeration is expected, right?)

Who said what? (lol)