Notre Dame priest: Creationism debate unique to U.S.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle ^ | 2003-05-11 | Walt Williams

[js1138]

However, the dinosaurs became too specialized and unable to handle changes in the environment

Hardly anything is more specialized than alligators. They were just lucky that their niche wasn't disrupted to the same degree.

[f.Christian]

To: f.Christian

g3 ...

The central point of science is the discovery of causes and effects and materialist evolution denies it. It proposes random events as the engine of the transformation of species.


ag ...


You do realize, I hope, that you're claiming modern physics is also unscientific? Randomness is the basis of quantum mechanics, in essence. We've long since gotten past deterministic cause and effect - we now look at probability as the tool for measuring the physical world. Try again.

Drew Garrett


39 posted on 04/23/2003 3:52 PM PDT by agarrett

fC ...

notice anything wrong -- off here ?

[js1138]

You seriously need to re-think that position, for Creation is the most vital doctrine we have. It is because we are created that we know God as Creator. It is because we were created, we found out about sin. It is because were created, we had need of a Saviour.

If there is no creation, there is no need to describe sin or the need of a Saviour, and you call the clear teaching of the Bible a lie.

Those are certainly excellent reasons for discarding inconvenient facts. Believe things because the alternative is icky.

[stuartcr]

Your first paragraph makes it sound like one of those two choices is correct, and an explanation is required. That is not true, we do not know the origin. Schools should simply explain both theories, and when asked by the students, truthfully answer that it is unknown, and simply a matter of what you choose to believe. There is no need to be correct about an unknown.

[f.Christian]

We've long since gotten past deterministic cause and effect - we now look at probability as the tool for measuring the physical world.

Don't evolutionist think and say the weirdist things ?

[Junior]

Are you sure they said "this is a fact" and not "this is current scientific reasoning?" I went to junior high a quarter century ago, and while I'm fuzzy on the details I'm pretty sure none of my science teachers ever said anything was set in stone. As additional data points come in theories are refined. If your science teachers did not tell you this then they were in error. Of course, I may have had a leg up as I attended a magnet program where the teachers were a cut above the average.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

It was just about 15 or 20 years ago that the Brazilians discovered a major river that they did not know even existed. This river drained more than the Mississippi. It was discovered using infra-red photography (the river was completely hidden with foliage). My point is that there are huge tracts of land which remain essentially unexplored. So I'm not surprised at all by your assertion.

[Last Visible Dog]

Why can't schools just explain what creationism is, and it's history. Then explain evolution to the children and it's history. Then explain the newer biochemical theories to the students. That way the kids know itn all, and undrestand the history of ideas.

RIGHT ON!

Present all theories - warts and all.

Allow students TO THINK not tell them what to think.

[stuartcr]

What if you just believe in God?

[Junior]

"Dinosaur" is a Latin term used to describe a certain classification of animal -- not all reptiles of the period. For instance, pterosaurs were flying reptiles, but they were not dinosaurs. Dimetrodons were mammal-like reptiles, but they were not dinosaurs. You can play word games all you want, but you would be wrong.

[ameribbean expat]

hmmm...this seems more like a comment onn intrafaith controversy (Rome taking a backhanded shot at the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, or at least what it thinks is the doctrine) than anything substantive.

[Last Visible Dog]

Science can be wrong for decades. The Bible is wrong forever.

I would love to see supporting evidence for this intellectually juvenile claim.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Not to get into an argument here, but the fact of the matter is, different translations use different terminology. I've been told, for example, that the Greek Septuagint uses the equivalent of "periods of time" vice day. As far as your "morning" and "evening" argument is concerned, a synonomous meaning could be "beginning" and "ending."

[f.Christian]

mr ...

There is a sub-set of lunatic loons who appear to wish the end of American society as we know it. Like the Nazis and the communists in Weimar Germany, they have a great deal in common as ... potential destroyers --- of the social fabric.

I have engaged in several debates in the last few days, and I admire FreeRepublic as a forum for the free expression of ideas, but the overwhelming presence of this bunch of loons is very off-putting.

Lenin is supposed to have said that capitalists would sell him the rope by which they were to be hung. The “anarcho-loons” on this forum would not bother to sell the rope but provide it as a public service.

401 posted on 05/06/2003 5:54 PM PDT by moneyrunner (I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed to its idolatries a patient knee.)

[Tribune7]

Are you sure they said "this is a fact"

They taught it as such. There was no qualification such as "but not all the data is in," nor was any opposing theory presented.

[f.Christian]

To: f.Christian

I've struggled with this for years. First being fully indoctrinated on young earth creationism (before it had that name), then being fully indoctrinated with evolutionary naturalism.

Never have fully sorted it out, but I have reached a few conclusions.

I. The Bible is open to some limited interpretation. Day-age, for starters. Which hebrew words are used for "made"? For that matter, look at what leading Jewish theologians say about it, its vastly different that what they teach in mainstream protestant sunday school.

II. Science itself is not anti-God. It is a study of that which God has made, and can provide a multitude of lessons about the nature of God.

III. Science is limited to naturalistic assumptions. Meaning, being based on repeatable experiments, it [i]a priori[/i] excludes the miraculous. Some misunderstand this and conclude miracles are impossible. No, they are just not subject to investigation by science, because they are by their very nature non-natural, non-repeatable.

IV. The Theory of Evolution is a mixture of good and bad science, and advocated zealously by the naturalists. The naturalists seem to think that the T-of-E removes the need for a God. Ignoring the whole question of where did the universe come from in the first place.

V. The two single biggest problems for the T-of-E are macroevolution and abiogenesis.

A) Abiogenesis, that life arose from inorganic material, is, scientifically, a discipline in shambles. A lot of time and energy spent, a lot of speculations made, and so far, nothing but some impossible speculations to show for it.

Oddly ... the impossibilities are suppressed --- the cleverness of the speculation trumpeted, and in some quarters people think its already proven.

B) Macro-evolution - perhaps a bad term. I mean to say, descent with change is proven - children differ from their parents, over time this can lead to changes in a species.

But, the assumption or speculation that this accounts for the grand diveristy of all life on the planet has not been proven, and in fact, scientifically, is a huge and largely unsupported leap. Put another way: the fossil record supports this theory very poorly.

7 posted on 04/28/2003 8:03 AM PDT by FactQuest

[Dataman]

I see nothing of Christ's humility and love in these discussions...what I do see plenty of though, is FEAR. Perhaps it is the fearfulness that we actually are required to exercise the brains that God so graciously gave us, instead of using a literal interpretation of the Bible as an excuse not to search and be thoughtful.

A gratuitous and thoughtless ad hominem.

Many of you like to point the finger at creationists and insist that they behave like your simplistic concept of the historical Jesus. Do you every wonder why your peace-and-love Jesus was hated? Why he was executed? Perhaps a more appropriate comparison would be between the indoctrinated evolutionists and the Pharisees who stopped up their ears before they stoned Stephen.

[Last Visible Dog]

the beginning of any established protestantism. If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an excommunicated Catholic monk in 1517.

More silly statements. Protestantism is merely a variation of Judaism and traces its origin to the origin of Judaism. (hint: Protestantism is not a religion per se)

double-verified in unbiased historical reference books

Yeah. Right.

If you are an agnostic, you profess an uncertainty or skepticism about the existence of God, or any being higher than yourself.

More crap. Show me one agnostic that thinks he or she is a higher being.

[Dataman]

RIGHT ON!

Present all theories - warts and all.

Allow students TO THINK not tell them what to think.

Allowing students to think for themselves is unacceptable to the Left. It is also unacceptable to the evolutionists. You think there might be a connection? Perhaps one evolved from the other.

[f.Christian]

What evolutionists are doing ...

is using conservative scientific rhetoric to force teach liberal tyranny (( satanism // atheism )) ---

a bolshevic monopoly to persecute theists (( true conservatives )) !