Posted on 12/30/2001 2:08:09 PM PST by Exnihilo
Could've fooled me. Do a Google search for "neutral monism" and see what turns up. (Admittedly, Bertrand Russell said that he was an agnostic rather than an atheist, but I think it still stands as a counterexample.)
My favorite explanation for evolution runs this way. You have two computers, and one unfinished computer in the corner. To make an operating system for it, you pirate half the code from one and half the code from the other system and randomly mish mash them together. And hope that it works. (Hopeful monster). Or it's an asexual system, the first system copy&pastes it's o.s. onto the new system.. how many of these could go on without errors? Not many, and not reliably. Evolution is the same way, no matter how badly they try to say it isn't. And it is a religion. It takes faith to believe in it.
They really hate it when you point out that their god is an amoeba.
Seems that if you are directing the mutation and doing the selecting it would also appear that -- whether you intended it or not or would even admit it for that matter-- you have actually lurched straight into making the case for Intellegent Design!
How convenient to misstate the 2nd Law, eh? :-) The REAL 2nd Law says something more like, to paraphrase, "all complex systems require outside energy input and/or an outside entropy sink to keep from degenerating." Or IOW, "all living things must eat." We get our outside energy from the Sun, via plants & other tasty animals that also eat them, & give off heat in the process, which is radiated out into space. Computers use 110 volts & likewise heat up in the process. The Thermodynamics Police are happy.
Please check out these links, from The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource (12th ed.):
No, that's your assumption. If it were true, then the bacteria's genome would have to carry around with it every gene that any bacteria could possibly have in any particular environment! Do you really want to claim that actually happens?
Seems that if you are directing the mutation and doing the selecting it would also appear that -- whether you intended it or not or would even admit it for that matter-- you have actually lurched straight into making the case for Intellegent Design!
They're not directing the mutations. They simply let the natural mutation rate start pumping out mutations at random, just like it does in the wild. And of course they provide a selection pressure. It's an experiment, after all!
If the very fact that it's an experiment (which is designed by definition) invalidates the experiment, then that invalidates all experiments any scientist has ever conducted about anything. You really don't wanna go there, do you???
19 posted on 12/30/01 4:36 PM Pacific by jlogajan
Cargo cult---you...hale/bopp-darwin---waiting for your mothership(crashed...ssshhh)!
hahhahahahahaha---HAHAHHAHAHAAHA---hah!
Oh-Oh...I see something "coming"...
We have stolen your placemarker and wont return it unless you give us 1,000,000 dollars
Arrgh! Why do you guys always echo the same logical errors! It's like you study from the same flawed talking points. ick.
Okay, here's the deal. You're as scr*wed as the rest of us if you pick the wrong god to honor and if the REAL god is a vengeful god.
For instance, do you think your Christian god would look kindly on moon worshippers who sacrifice fellow humans? Well, suppose the moon worshippers are right and the moon god is as vengeful toward you as your Christian god would be vengeful toward them!
Can we get past this "no downside" fallacy you religionists always spout? It is so obviously logically flawed that I can't believe people beyond 3rd grade keep falling for it.
I've noticed this tactic is quite common among the anti-evolutionists on these threads. You are not the only one who claims he or she is not a "creationist" but refuses to be pinned down on what you actually believe -- other than it isn't evolution.
Another Liar for the Lord.
They don't see it that way. Here's what I posted a couple of days ago in another thread:
You need to understand how truly deranged creationists really are, before you can judge them as "honest" or "dishonest." I've tried (as a compasionate man) to think of what it would be like to be a creationist. To begin with, having been intellectually abused as a child, I would have virtually no power of reason (but I wouldn't be aware of this). I would have no idea how to determine fact from fiction. I wouldn't know the difference from reality and fantasy. I would be terrified by the world around me -- much like a savage in a thunderstorm -- and I would desperately crave some comfort that could make sense of it all and bring clarity to my horrifyingly frightening vision of the world. So I would grab at any package of dogma that came my way. I would cling to it, like a drowning man in a shipwreck who clings to some piece of floating debris, and I would furiously resist any attempt to pry it from my hands. (It would be all the more wonderful if the package of dogma told me that by so clinging I was being righteous and would receive my reward in the hereafter.)
I would be aware that there are others out there who don't share my worldview. In my simplified mind, I would assume that they are followers of some competing dogma package. My own dogma package would tell me they are evil, and of course I would blindly accept that. It would be totally beyond my abilities to grasp that what those others call the "scientific method" and "logic" and other such terms are anything other than arbitrary dogmas of a hostile faith. After all, faith is all I know -- all I can know, all anyone can know. Or so I've been told, and how can I figure out that I've been told a pack of lies?
It's not a pretty picture, but in most cases I think it's bang-on accurate. So I wouldn't classify creationists as being dishonest. They're frightened; they're desperate; and they're doing the best they can with what they have.
One things for sure.....1 day you'll know for sure which of us is wrong.....
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