Posted on 07/30/2008 7:56:37 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Feedback archive → Feedback 2008
Christopher Hitchens—blind to salamander reality
A well-known atheist’s ‘eureka moment’ shows the desperation of evolutionists
In a recent article in the leftist online magazine Slate, prominent atheistic journalist Christopher Hitchens (b. 1949) thinks he has found the knock-down argument against creationists and intelligent design supporters. Fellow misotheist Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) and another anti-theist Sir David Attenborough (b. 1926) agree. Not surprisingly, there have been questions to us about this, so Dr Jonathan Sarfati responds. As will be seen, their whole argument displays ‘breathtaking inanity’ and ignorance of what creationists really teach, and desperation if this is one of their best proofs of evolution...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationontheweb.com ...
What a steaming pile.
Defending a myth with a fiction. Creation "science" at its best.
Creationism doesn't harm Christianity because the same Bible that tells us about Christ, tells us about God creating the universe and everything in it. As a matter of fact, Jesus Himself refers several times to creation and the creation account.
Your initial comment was: "I don’t know, I’ve yet to see a single contribution by Creationists and ID people to science. ". Now you're just claiming that it's IDers? Why are you changing your story?
ID and Creationism harm Christianity because they promote lifefless, bloodless deism which is worse than atheism.
How so?
==This is like claiming that clerks in the Swiss patent office made pioneering contributions to relativity.
Hmmm...Einstien, by no means a believer in organized religion, came to the conclusion that the Universe is the handiwork of a divine intelligence:
“Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order. This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.”
Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein, Crown Publishers, New York, NY, USA, pp. 36-39, 1954.
Sounds kind of like an ID scientist, no?
I use the term in this sense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_science
“Fundamental science is the part of science that describes the most basic objects, forces, relations between them and laws governing them, such that all other phenomena may be in principle derived from them, following the logic of scientific reductionism. There is a difference between fundamental or pure science and practical science; sometimes called by the two phases pure science and applied science.[1] Pure science, in contrast to applied science, is defined as a basic knowledge it develops. Basic science is the heart of all discoveries, and progress is based on well controlled experiments. Pure science is dependent upon deductions from demonstrated truths, or is studied without regard to practical applications.”
The current version of ID is pure religion, cooked up after the Edwards decision of the US Supreme Court in an effort to sneak religion back into the schools.
You don't believe it, just look up “cdesign proponentsists” for the sordid details.
And they began to make real progress when they finally escaped the stiffling thumb of religious control. I think it was called The Enlightenment.
And many of our modern theocrats want to take us back to those bad old days.
PS My original point that many Creation Scientists pioneered major scientific disciplines still stands. If your goal is to rewrite history, it won’t work on this thread—GGG
As I posted earlier, yes, many ID proponents are motivated by religion.
Look, the big bang theory was motivated by religion. If you look at the history of the idea, you’ll find that its development was theologically motivated. That doesn’t mean it isn’t science.
The part that asks for Genesis 1 or Genesis 2 for the “right” Creation story. They’re different, you know...
And why should we accept and teach the Biblical Creation story over the Hindu, or Inuit, or Mayan, or Egyptian Creation stories?
Modern scholarship on the middle ages has overturned arguments such as the one you are making.
Creation "science" is the antithesis of science, and is the opposite of the scientific method.
Check out the Institute for Creation Research website! (excerpts below). They are doing pure apologetics, not science.
Where in there does it advocate following the scientific method, which proceeds from observation and data to theory?
Tenets of Scientific Creationism
- The physical universe of space, time, matter, and energy has not always existed, but was supernaturally created by a transcendent personal Creator who alone has existed from eternity.
- The phenomenon of biological life did not develop by natural processes from inanimate systems but was specially and supernaturally created by the Creator.
- Each of the major kinds of plants and animals was created functionally complete from the beginning and did not evolve from some other kind of organism. Changes in basic kinds since their first creation are limited to "horizontal" changes (variations) within the kinds, or "downward' changes (e.g., harmful mutations, extinctions).
- The first human beings did not evolve from an animal ancestry, but were specially created in fully human form from the start. Furthermore, the "spiritual" nature of man (self-image, moral consciousness, abstract reasoning, language, will, religious nature, etc.) is itself a supernaturally created entity distinct from mere biological life.
- The record of earth history, as preserved in the earth's crust, especially in the rocks and fossil deposits, is primarily a record of catastrophic intensities of natural processes, operating largely within uniform natural laws, rather than one of gradualism and relatively uniform process rates. There are many scientific evidences for a relatively recent creation of the earth and the universe, in addition to strong scientific evidence that most of the earth's fossiliferous sedimentary rocks were formed in an even more recent global hydraulic cataclysm.
- Processes today operate primarily within fixed natural laws and relatively uniform process rates, but since these were themselves originally created and are daily maintained by their Creator, there is always the possibility of miraculous intervention in these laws or processes by their Creator. Evidences for such intervention should be scrutinized critically, however, because there must be clear and adequate reason for any such action on the part of the Creator.
- The universe and life have somehow been impaired since the completion of creation, so that imperfections in structure, disease, aging, extinctions, and other such phenomena are the result of "negative" changes in properties and processes occurring in an originally-perfect created order.
- Since the universe and its primary components were created perfect for their purposes in the beginning by a competent and volitional Creator, and since the Creator does remain active in this now-decaying creation, there do exist ultimate purposes and meanings in the universe. Teleological considerations, therefore, are appropriate in scientific studies whenever they are consistent with the actual data of observation. Furthermore, it is reasonable to assume that the creation presently awaits the consummation of the Creator's purpose.
- Although people are finite and scientific data concerning origins are always circumstantial and incomplete, the human mind (if open to possibility of creation) is able to explore the manifestations of that Creator rationally, scientifically, and teleologically.
Creation "science" is pure religious apologetics, designed to support a priori religious belief at the expense of real science.
If "Creation Scientists pioneered major scientific disciplines" its because they ignored creation "science" and followed the scientific method instead.
“The so-called Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth century has been misinterpreted by those wishing to assert an inherent conflict between religion and science. Some wonderful things were achieved in this era, but they were not produced by an eruption of secular thinking. Rather, these achievements were the culmination of many centuries of systematic progress by medieval Scholastics, sustained by that uniquely Christian twelfth-century invention, the University.”
Perhaps the following will help:
Another evolutionist "myth". Christianity never objected to science, as it was always held and still is that the discovery of TRUTH will eventually lead to God, because God is TRUTH.
==And why should we accept and teach the Biblical Creation story over the Hindu, or Inuit, or Mayan, or Egyptian Creation stories?
Scientists should also be free to subject the non-biblical creation accounts to the scientific method, if they so desire. But I don’t see scientists clamering to do so...there’s no demand.
I see. So the issue is that the Bible that we have - the KJV and all other translations - is inaccurate as written. We need to go back to the original Hebrew to get it right.
And of course, we are assuming the Hebrew is correct, as it was orally passed down for generations before being written down.
So do we take the Creation story literally, or figuratively? If figuratively, then why is the theory of evolution inconsistent with the Creation story?
Some people would rather believe what they were taught in elementary school than to believe Scripture and take a second look at the evidence in favor of creation as described in the Bible....
Another evolutionist "myth". Christianity never objected to science, as it was always held and still is that the discovery of TRUTH will eventually lead to God, because God is TRUTH.
Giordano Bruno.
Galileo.
1. Einstein was a clerk in the patent office. His scientific ability was in no way retarded or advanced by his position. Believing in god was not his selling point for advancing his theories.
2. Every scientist may have believed in divine providence and may have mused about it but none claimed that their beliefs were supported by Science or hard experiment. I know of NO great scientist (& there are been some like Gauss & Maxwell whose sheer brilliance beggars belief) who published a paper detailing an experiment or even an intent connecting God to the creation of the Universe.
If you find a SCIENTIFIC PAPER in any journal (Nature has been around for over 150 years now) where Einstein,Bohr,Maxwell,Gauss,Newton et. al. purports to even suggest a theory that says God created the universe, please show me the citation.
A philosophical musing is not a scientific theory,
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