Posted on 12/18/2006 8:12:55 AM PST by SJackson
Please provide extra-biblical evidence of a worldwide flood occurring 4000 years ago.
And please explain how fresh water aquatic life was able to survive such a flood.
And please explain how Noah fit millions of species on a wooden boat.
I'll wait.
"still serves important functions with out being assumed a degraded functional leg."
Please let me know what the purpose of that leg is.
Wrong. I am asking how human consciousness (i.e. human traits) ultimately came from purely mindless mechanisms. IOW, how do intrinsic mindless chemicals and chemical processes form human consciousness ultimately from a purely natural progression void of any direction? Upon what grounds should humanity base any morals if they only exist in humanity and not anywhere else in the mindless universe that created our consciousness?
And I am totally open to a higher being having a hand in nature. I doubt it is the one described in the Bronze Age Hebrew creation myth though. I dont know what the nature of such being would be.
In order for to believe the Hebrew creation myth and Intelligent Design, one would have to throw out nearly the entire fields of biology, geology AND astronomy. You have to make way too many leaps in logic.
Now, ‘your’ mistake is applying intelligent design to the Bible. The entire book of Genesis could be found totally false and this would have no impact on id. And since you are open to ‘a higher being having a hand in nature’ you are open to id.
But, if you want to criticize creation myths that ‘you’ believe have been debunked due to science - I can offer some scientific creation myths that maybe ‘you’ have faith in:
Let me now try to summarize Darwin’s contributions to the thinking of modern men. He was responsible for the replacement of a world view based on Christian dogma by a strictly secular world view. Furthermore, his writings led to the rejection of several previously dominant world views such as essentialism, finalism, determinism, and of Newtonian laws for the explanation of evolution. He replaced these refuted concepts with a number of new ones of wide- reaching importance, also outside of biology, such as biopopulation, natural selection, the importance of chance and contingency, the explan atory importance of the time factor (historical narratives), and the importance of the social group for the origin of ethics. Almost every component in modern man’s belief system is somehow affected by one or another of Darwin’s conceptual contributions. His opus as a whole is the foundation of a rapidly developing new philosophy of biology. There can be no doubt that the thinking of every modern Western man has been profoundly affected by Darwin’s philosophical thought.
Mayr
I have argued that the discontinuous gap between humans and 'apes' that we erect in our minds is regrettable. I have also argued that, in any case, the present position of the hallowed gap is arbitrary, the result of evolutionary accident. If the contingencies of survival and extinction had been different, the gap would be in a different place. Ethical principles that are based upon accidental caprice should not be respected as if cast in stone.Or is this your belief?
- Dawkins
The time has come to take seriously the fact that we humans are modified monkeys, not the favored Creation of a Benevolent God on the Sixth Day. In particular, we must recognize our biological past in trying to understand our interactions with others. We must think again especially about our so-called “ethical principles.” The question is not whether biology—specifically, our evolution—is connected with ethics, but how. As evolutionists, we see that no [ethical] justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will.... In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place.
-Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” in Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, ed. J. E. Hutchingson (Orlando, Fl.: Harcourt and Brace, 1991)
Maybe this is what you believe?
Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.Is this your creation theory?
- William Provine (from Darwin Day speech)
DAWKINS: (snip)"…But yet we have this gathering together of genes into individual organisms. And that reminds me of the illusion of one mind, when actually there are lots of little mindlets in there, and the illusion of the soul of the white ant in the termite mound, where you have lots of little entities all pulling together to create an illusion of one. Am I right to think that the feeling that I have that I'm a single entity, who makes decisions, and loves and hates and has political views and things, that this is a kind of illusion that has come about because Darwinian selection found it expedient to create that illusion of unitariness rather than let us be a kind of society of mind?"PINKER: "It's a very interesting question. Yes, there is a sense in which the whole brain has interests in common in the way that say a whole body composed of genes with their own selfish motives has a single agenda. In the case of the genes the fact that their fates all depend on the survival of the body forces them to cooperate. In the case of the different parts of the brain, the fact that the brain ultimately controls a body that has to be in one place at one time may impose the need for some kind of circuit, presumably in the frontal lobes, that coordinates the different agendas of the different parts of the brain to ensure that the whole body goes in one direction. In How the Mind Works I alluded to a scene in the comedy movie All of Me in which Lily Tomlin's soul inhabits the left half of Steve Martin's body and he takes a few steps in one direction under his own control and then lurches in another direction with his pinkie extended while under the control of Lily Tomlin's spirit. That is what would happen if you had nothing but completely autonomous modules of the brain, each with its own goal. Since the body has to be in one place at one time, there might be a circuit that suppresses the conflicting motives…"(end snip)
I think that if these guys existed a few thousand years ago, wore sandals, and tended sheep while writing these crazy ideas - these guys would never get the attention that ‘they’ believe they deserve. We probably would not even discuss their ideas - but because they did not tend sheep a few thousand years ago…
Einstein, Newton, Pascal, et al. did not attempt to solve human consciousness and morality via science - this is why Darwinism is separate.
OK, somebody's got to say it: "But they're STILL fruit flies."
Happy?
PINKER: "It's a very interesting question. Yes, there is a sense in which the whole brain has interests in common in the way that say a whole body composed of genes with their own selfish motives has a single agenda. In the case of the genes the fact that their fates all depend on the survival of the body forces them to cooperate. In the case of the different parts of the brain, the fact that the brain ultimately controls a body that has to be in one place at one time may impose the need for some kind of circuit, presumably in the frontal lobes, that coordinates the different agendas of the different parts of the brain to ensure that the whole body goes in one direction. In How the Mind Works I alluded to a scene in the comedy movie All of Me in which Lily Tomlin's soul inhabits the left half of Steve Martin's body and he takes a few steps in one direction under his own control and then lurches in another direction with his pinkie extended while under the control of Lily Tomlin's spirit. That is what would happen if you had nothing but completely autonomous modules of the brain, each with its own goal. Since the body has to be in one place at one time, there might be a circuit that suppresses the conflicting motives…"(end snip)
Oh my, Heartlander, re: this Dawkins/Pinker exchange: Isn't it an excerpt from their famous The Guardian-Dillons "debate," entitled "Is Science Killing the Soul?" of a few years back (1999?) It was truly memorable. Still I made a bound hard copy....
The conclusion I have been able to reach (so far) in reading these lines is that here we are exposed to the thought of two thoroughly indoctrinated "collectivists." Plus a second conclusion: This was no "debate."
Thanks for the great post!
An example is that scientists have made the distinction between a wolf and a dog as seperate species but have not done that with the three main branches of humans. Yet, I'd hazard a guess that there's not any more variation between *dog* and *wolf* than any of humans three variations.
Viruses being incomplete have the ability to join with other viruses to create viruses that have more information than before they joined, thus a virus that was not airborne but deadly may become airborne when it joins with a virus that is airborne such as a cold. This may happen if one host has both viruses at the same time. (It also makes me wonder about the true nature of current sicknesses caused from vegetables as they are often genetically modified using viruses particles). They usually do not last and "burn" out rather quickly. Even when this happens it is not new information but rather a joining of two compatible information pools, both being viruses and remaining so.
Often the word mutation is loosely applied. For evolution to take place new information would have to constantly be added to organisms bringing them from the very simple (though really incredibly complex, even the simplest) to the infinitely complex. Survival and specialization depends on the manifestation of myriads of traits already hidden within the gene pool waiting to become evident as differing environment caused the necessary traits to flourish. Also, extinction, of course, may take place.
No 'ette' - LC
But, by using the backspace key, one doesn't get a peek into my thought processes; as slow as they are.
Ah... the wonders of the inner ear and it's balancing mechanism to keep us bi-peds upright most of the time!
LOL!
....as are most generalities ;^)
No 'ette' - LC
This proves that *I* am the master of slow thought processes.
And for a peek into *them* I will vouchsafe this little tidbit, since both my feet are already in my mouth half-way up the shin:
I have always associated yourself, Alamo-Girl, and BettyBoop; and hence thought of 'Elsie' as female. No doubt there were lingering associations to the advertising figure "Elsie the Cow" as well...
Red faced (through the grey_whiskers) Cheers!
Flime ties; weather yer havin' fun 'er not!
Long threads always have some amount of misattribution of quotes.
Guess it's my turn to be the dufus this week!
Cheers!
Bless me Father, for I have sinned.
(Stole most of it from another Freeper - modified some of it.)
There weren't millions of species that needed to go on the ark.
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