Posted on 03/19/2010 4:56:11 PM PDT by chessplayer
What if Darwin's theory of natural selection is inaccurate? What if the way you live now affects the life expectancy of your descendants?
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
No they can't. We need devices that can sense them and then we can say they exist. If you hear radio waves in your head then it's a different topic...
I am asserting that we have unnamed senses, beyond the accepted five, which perceive things that we name, like "God" and "Spirit" - not that we perceive unnamed things.
And what proof do you have that such "senses" exist and are not the result of our fancy or even insanity?
I apologize if my rather terse style (which I prefer to think of as "pithy") confused you.
Likewise.
It is as if we have three models of Ford cars, and then we look at a fourth car that is almost identical to the first of the three cars. In fact the fourth car and the first car are more similar to each other than the first (which everyone agrees is a Ford) is to the second and third (which everyone agrees are both Fords).
Based on the above criteria, by what measure do you claim the fourth car isn't a Ford?
Creationists worship a lesser god. The Heavens proclaim the glory of God, not a god who is a trickster who plays with light.
Ahem...
“explain to me a single physical justification”
There's a reason I said "outside of these discussions."
You’re telling us with a straight face that you’ve never heard of the term *old earth creationist*?
I admit my post was unclear on that point; thank you for the opportunity to clarify. In the post I was responding to, Alamo-Girl only mentioned YECs versus "all who believe in Creation" as possible definitions for "creationist." That led me to base my post on the same dichotomy, which, as you point out, is inaccurate.
I use the term "creationist"--and, as far as I can tell, so do most "evos" here--to refer to anti-evolution creationists of all stripes, young earth, old earth, teenage earth, whatever. It is the case that YECs coined the modern use of the term and applied it to themselves. And most of the participation in these threads is by YECs, so their arguments are the ones that mostly get addressed. But there's no denial, tacit or otherwise, that OECs exist. To the extent they argue against evolution, evos address those arguments; to the extent they argue for an old earth, evos aren't going to disagree with them.
The theory that energy is conserved means that the system is self-perpetuating, that nothing is lost and that energy simply goes from matter (bound) to radiant energy (free). It's a closed, eternal, system.
Jeepers, kosta, rather than dictionary.com, couldn't you at least have consulted the Oxford??? Which gives the etymology and history of English words???
Jeepers indeed, betty boop. Dictionary,. com gives you the origin of the word. here is an example
jee·pers – interjection (used as a mild exclamation of surprise or emotion.)
Origin: 1925–30, Americanism; euphemistic alter. of Jesus
You just have to actually check out the site before you make statements about it.
I simply disagree with your definitions
Then why don't you write your own dictionary, publish it yourself (you should be familiar with that process), and see if your definitions become accepted. In the meantime, I will stay with the universally acknowledged definitions of the English language. Definitions given by dictionary.com are not mine; they reflect the definitions of Webster and Oxford dictionaries online.
You say the supernatural is not and cannot be in nature; nature and supernature are mutually-exclusive, "ontologically," as you say.
Why, even the Bible says that. "My ways are not your ways..." remember? Again, I ask, is God of this world? Is the potter ontologically the same as the pot? Is God "natural" or "supernatural?" Are "miracles" as "acts of God" events that are subject to natural, physical laws or in defiance of them?
Is a physical law (a universal) a part of nature, or not? We know a physical law is not "material."
Where is this idea coming from that the physical world involves only matter (as bound energy) and not also as radiant (free) energy? Now, the "laws" of nature are simply the observed pattern of how he physical world interacts. That's just the way the physical world is (even if you or I don't understand why).
And physical laws are "universal" only insofar as we have been able to observe and measure. Does that mean we have observed and measure everything? I don't think so. So we can't speak of universal laws. before the 20th century, Newtonian laws were considered "universal." As far as I know we have not come up with a universal theory yet.
So, is a physical law "natural" — or "unnatural" (or "supernatural" by your definition)?
A physical "law" is an observed phenomenological aspect of nature, and characteristic of it. "Supernatural' phenomena are in defiance of these observed aspects of this world, such as "talking" donkeys, in other words things that don't occur in this natural world (except apparently in the minds of some people).
Alamo-Girl: Excellent point. Ditto for mathematical structures, geometry, etc.
AG, geometry and math are not some "supernatural" abstractions, but representations of the observed real world. Two points and a line are not proven logically, but can be proven physically, for iof there is no corresponding physical aspect of the problem, it's proof is only hypothetical. The same can be said of circles, and other mathematical concepts.
Mathematical concepts become hypothetical when the subject they represent (the premises on which they are based) are hypothetical. The rules of reasoning are still the same (and based on real world deductions), but the results are not necessarily real because the premises are not necessarily real.
Points, circles, squares and triangles exist. Dark energy is a hypothetical concept, as interspace cosmic "aether" was, needed to balance out a formula.
Seems to me that people tend to torture words to suit their ideological or political objectives and so it is important to consider the original terms or accurate descriptions.
In all wakes of life and for all sorts of agendas.
For instance, journalists do not dare use the term "unborn child" - they must say "fetus" so they do not offend the feminists.
Look, the Church struggled with the concept of abortion for centuries. Although the church always opposed artificially ending pregnancy, the Church did not always consider it murder. St. Augustine asked "how can one kill that which is not alive?"
In fact, the whole doctrine of ensoulment is derived form the issue of abortion. The Church was not exactly sure when the soul "enters" the child. Because aborted babies in their early phases of pregnancy did not resemble something "human" and never survived on their own, the Church believed that they were not fully formed or created yet and that the they were without a soul, and therefore was neither alive nor human. Naturally, such babies could not be given Christian funerals and the act of abortion, although opposed on principle, was not considered murder, as St. Augustine aptly states.
The issue of whether it is murder or not kept going back and forth all the way to the 17th century when the Church, based on new findings of the medical science firmly established that the embryo is form the first moment of conception to be considered a (developing) human life. Of course it's human, it's not chicken! And on that basis alone abortion should have been considered murder from day one.
Modern-day abortionist politicians such as Pelosi seem to be in denial that an embryo is a developing human life and as such, by our moral codes, requires full protection.
Seems to me that all who believe in Creation could be accurately called "Creationist."
IIRC, the argument was that some believe God created the world and that from that world evolved all natural things. Creationist view is that God actually made (fashioned) everything. Creationists deny that man is an ape species and believe that man did not evolve, but was "made" form clay by God's very 'hands."
If that's what you see, kosta, that's what you see. Good luck!
Our respective worldviews are unquestionably diametrically opposed.
In regard to that observation, I'll let Eric Voegelin have the penultimate word:
In our capacity as political scientists, historians, or philosophers we all have had occasion at one time or another to engage in debate with ideologists — whether communists or intellectuals of a persuasion closer to home. And we have all discovered on such occasions that no agreement, or even an honest disagreement, could be reached, because the exchange of argument was disturbed by a profound difference of attitude with regard to all fundamental questions of human existence — with regard to the nature of man, to his place in the world, to his place in society and history, to his relation to God. Rational argument could not prevail because the partner to the discussion did not accept as binding on himself the matrix of reality in which all specific questions concerning our existence as human beings are ultimately rooted; he has overlaid the reality of existence with another mode of existence that Robert Musil has called the Second Reality. The argument could not achieve results, it had to falter and peter out, as it became increasingly clear that not argument was pitched against argument, but that behind the appearance of a rational debate there lurked the difference of two modes of existence, of existence in truth and existence in untruth. The universe of rational discourse collapses, we may say, when the common ground of existence in reality has disappeared. — "On Debate and Existence," 1967After all this time, dear kosta, you and I have still not found a common ground. Probably because I am a "religious person," and you are not.
On this point, the last word, from Abraham Pais' magnificent biography of Einstein, Subtle Is the Lord, here quoting from Einstein's article in Nature 146 (1941):
"A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require not are capable of rational foundation." Thus, according to Einstein, "a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist.... Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." By his own definition, Einstein himself was, of course, a deeply religious person.P.S.: It's nice to know "jeepers" is really recognized as a word.
//Why don't you explain to be a single physical justification for removing humans from the ape clade?
It is as if we have three models of Ford cars, and then we look at a fourth car that is almost identical to the first of the three cars. In fact the fourth car and the first car are more similar to each other than the first (which everyone agrees is a Ford) is to the second and third (which everyone agrees are both Fords)//
Just wow. You want to get an insight into the mind of an evolutionist, well there you have it in allmendream
What is their manner of existence, kosta?
I would say we never see these mathematic objects in nature in their "geometrically pure" forms (so to speak) — precisely because they are universals, or "supernatural" within the meaning I have indicated. All we see in phenomenal nature are approximations to these mathematical objects — their "natural" forms, which are not the mathematical objects at all: One never finds a "perfect triangle," a "perfect circle," a "perfect square" or even a perfectly straight line, for instance, in the natural world; but one does find a "perfect" triangle, circle, square, and straight line in Euclid....
You have so "flattened the world" by your manner of thinking, you may have missed this important distinction. Indeed, probably you deny that there even is such a distinction.
It seems to me you deny a lot. What I can't figure out is what you affirm; or rather, on what basis you affirm it.
I've always been impressed, Betty, with Peter's words when Jesus asked if he would be deserting Jesus, too, like the fickle crowd. Peter says, "To whom would we go. Only You have the words of life."
And so our words to Kosta are words on which we've built our hopes. "Kosta, I'm not going down that empty road of 'nothing's out there'."
Only Jesus' story is a story of life. And I'm following "life" in the way that Hebrews 11 proclaims. "A stranger and pilgrim who believes in a city whose builder and maker is God."
There is no other Word of Life.
According to DNA we and chimps are more similar to each other than either is to any other ape.
By what physical criteria do you attempt to separate out humans from the other apes when the two MOST SIMILAR apes in DNA are humans and chimps?
Humans are biologically apes.
There is no scientific justification for removing them from that biological grouping.
I know that creationists are long on blather and short of facts and evidence, but you have not supplied any reason at all (other than your evident pride and self love) for removing humans from the ape group.
Then I'll go form up with the line on the right, dear shibumi!
YOU are not the crazy person here. You are not the one trying to live in denial of reality and ultimately denial of self.
I suspect that from more propitious beginnings, kosta has become a nihilist: he has "killed God." I can only wonder why he thinks this is a good thing to do.
Oh, I forgot: with God "gone," the categories of good and evil also magically disappear. So kosta can literally do whatever he wants, without consequences.
As Nietzsche well understood, with the "death" of God, all things are not only possible, but permissible; for with God "dead," we are "beyond good and evil."
What I don't understand is why anyone (no matter how much doubt they may have in their minds) would choose to deliberately walk down that road. Kosta seems to be on some quest for "truth", but he refuses to see the evidence for that truth or even to acknowledge that the evidence exists. Kosta appears to not be specifically searching for truth, since he has chosen to disregard the evidence, but his quest appears to be one of looking for reasons to doubt; reasons to confirm his skepticism.
As is clearly stated in Hebrews, FAITH is the EVIDENCE of things NOT seen.
A human can indenify himself as being the body of flesh and blood, which in some ways certainly resembles the bodies of apes, or he can identify himself as the eternal atma or soul, temporarily wearing or inhabiting an earthly body. People who are obsessed with ape-like thoughts, feelings and think “humans are apes” should consider this eternal truth:
“Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.” Bhagavad Gita 8.6
And another translation of the same verse:
“O son of Kunti, one attains a state similar to the object of constant thought that one remembers on leaving the body.”
So, those who focus on “I am an ape” will undoubtedly be born in the families of monkeys and apes. It is a law of nature.
I'm with Peter there. I have asked myself that question. I reach the same conclusion as Peter.
Thank you so very much, dear brother in Christ, for your witness and testimony:
"There is no other Word of Life."
Or are you talking about “thoughts” that happened BEFORE someone was born that would cause them to be “born in the families of monkeys and apes”?
And yes, our body is that of an ape. Physically we are an ape. Physically we must decline and die. But we have a soul given to us by God that is eternal.
Faith is simply a belief that what someone says is true, whether it's implied, or said explicitly. Faith is not evidence for what was said, or implied.
You’re missing the point.
This bit of ‘science’ allows them to justify telling you how to live your entire life.
There’s precious little science involved in Climate Change that stands up to the scientific method either, but they are prepared to spend trillions of dollars on it anyway.
It’s religion, not science. They even talk about climate change skeptics as ‘unbelievers’. It’s a faith.
Health care reform was about control, not about how much you spend at the doctor.
Notice there is NOBODY on either side of the aisle talking about lawyers anymore? Nothing about the cost of torts.
If you don’t have the facts, pound the law. If you don’t have the law, you pound the table until somebody changes that law.
Time is God’s creation, He is Time’s master, not its servant. He can make Time do whatever He wants it to do. If He wants to create all kinds of bodies simultaneously, there is nothing to stop Him.
“The Blessed Lord said: Time I am, destroyer of all the worlds...”
“...among subduers [another translation: controllers] I am time...”
“I am also inexhaustable time...”
(From the 10th and 11th chapters of B.G.
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