ACLU Vs Creationism

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Orogeny:
So do you believe that God created an aged universe to deceive us?

Peace

Tim
Why is it that if I propose God did something scientists cannot figure out, you think it must be deception? As we have both agreed on, scientists have been wrong before. That doesn’t mean that God deceived them.

Here is a link to some science that disagrees with dating methods used to justify old earth.

christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html
 
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Orogeny:
Just a question, and I don’t mean this to be condescending or anything like that, but do you have a scientific background? You keep making the claim that a scientific challenge to evolution would be doomed, yet that is not necessarily true. If the science is good, the challenge will succeed, although it may take many years.

Peace

Tim
Not worried in the least about how smart you may think I am.

I do not do science for a living.

I do read some scientific publications.

Scientific challenges to evolution are doomed per people that know more than me such as Philip Johnson who wrote

“Darwin on Trial”

“Reason in the Balance”
 
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Orogeny:
Science should trump EVERYTHING in science class.

Tim
You keep assuming that I’m saying all alternate theories need to be taught in science class and I’ve repeatedly said that they do not have to be in science class - they can be in other classes - the problem being that the ACLU and public education generally will not allow alternate theories as they us a religious litmus test on ANY competing theory of human origin, even if it can be backed with evidence.
 
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miguel:
I think I already framed the challenge in my earlier post. For example the simplest creature, a single cell amoeba (bear with me here, it’s only been 30 years since HS biology), has many complex functions (e.g., food capture, mobility, digestion, reproduction, etc.) all of which are necessary to its survival. Each of these functions by itself is highly complex. But you need all of these functions working together (an even higher level of complexity) to form a living organism. And even with the current state of scientific knowledge, we still can’t make an amoeba from scratch. So if scientists are going to say in a classroom that inanimate matter can make one, they better have the model and the evidence to back it up. Otherwise, don’t even go there.
Also, we have to assume, using evolutionary theory, that something extremely intelligent (humans) evolved from something with the most minimum of intelligence - I’d say that would make evolution a miracle - something that would require belief in God - therefore God must be true - so why should we not allow knowledge about God in our schools?
 
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gilliam:
Why are you so afraid of intellegent design? You are a Catholic are you not? You do believe in God do you not? Couldn’t God cause a design? Definately a theological possibility. Until evolution is proven as a Law and not simply a theory, it needs to be taught as a theory amoungst a number of theories, not as a law. Personally, I don’t fear evolution, but I don’t fear intellegent design either.
Boy, you go away for a day, and you have a hundred posts to read.

Maybe an analogy will help. Why not teach homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle to heterosexuality? After all, they’re both just lifestyles; there’s no reason to teach one lifestyle without talking about all of them as equally valid, right? Wrong - this is moral relativism. The truth is that there are moral absolutes - some things are right and some things are wrong.

Well, teaching any random idea that someone comes up with as an equally valid “scientific” theory alongside evolution is just scientific relativism, and it is just as wrong as moral relativism. In science, there are scientific absolutes, right and wrong answers.

Now, because of how God set up the universe, the scientific method may lead to all sorts of incorrect conclusions, but nobody will know for sure until we get to heaven. But in the meantime, there is an academic displine called science, and it uses the scientific method exclusively. The application of that method has lead to great advances in our country, and I would hate to see China become the world’s scientific leader because we are unable to teach the subject of science in America.
 
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Brad:
So what you are saying is that something that has been taught as science for 1,000+ years (Aristotle example) can be proven wrong one day.
A better example would be Newtonian physics. This was believed to be absolutely correct for 300 years, so much so that Kant turned it into a philosophical absolute. Now it is unclear if we will ever know the “true” equations of physics, or if we will just keep on discovering closer and closer approximations. (Some equations, such as Einstein’s G=8piT, are generally believed to require some adjustment yet to be determined.)

The important point about Aristotle is that the ancient Greeks didn’t have the scientific method. Aristotle was a smart guy, so everyone listened to him about heavier objects falling faster than lighter objects. Performing experiments to validate or falsify such statements wasn’t an idea that was important to the ancient Greeks. The advent of the scientific method in the middle ages, with Galileo performing his experiments about how fast objects really fell, was a key turning point in the history of science.
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Brad:
So, tell me again - why should the 4,000+ years of moral teachings from the Bible which never change (and which can be proven scientifically to lead to a much healthier (phsically and mentally) - if followed - be trumped by the teachings of science, which may say all their stuff is way wrong in 1,000 years or so?
Faith and science don’t contradict each other, so there is no question of science “trumping” faith or morals. God exists, whether universal common descent is true or false.
 
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Orogeny:
That is what science is - a study of natural things. The supernatural cannot be dealt with by science.

Peace

Tim
Then perhaps the problem is that most scientists over-generalize their studies. They call science the search for truth, but don’t specify what kind of truth, nor do the kind of people involved in these evolutionary education debates acknowledge that there is more to truth than their studies can uncover. They fail to acknowledge that there are limits to what they can know by the mere “study of natural things.” They fail to acknowledge at time that there are things worthy of study other than natural things.

From my experience at university it seemed that those who are involved in cosmology (and evolutionary studies) spend so much time hunting down new theories of explaining a purely materialist universe that they never consider that there might be limits to what humans can know. If it is material, we should be able to deduce it, given enough time and brain power. But if it isn’t, if fundamentally there is Mystery at the center of the universe then a wise person would acknowledge that there are some things we will never understand and be mostly content with that.

So then the problem is not actually “science” but the scientists and their insistence on a limited, atheistic worldview.
 
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Orogeny:
Science should trump EVERYTHING in science class.

Tim
True, if science were ordered into its proper place in the curriculum that would be no problem. I think what has happened though is that the natural sciences have replaced theology as the core ethic of modern schooling. It is the font of knowlege for the average American student. No other source of information on human origins is offered nor is it allowed. It fills the “God-shaped hole” that was created when the study of theology was kicked out of the classroom.
 
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Catholic2003:
Boy, you go away for a day, and you have a hundred posts to read.

Maybe an analogy will help. Why not teach homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle to heterosexuality? After all, they’re both just lifestyles; there’s no reason to teach one lifestyle without talking about all of them as equally valid, right? Wrong - this is moral relativism. The truth is that there are moral absolutes - some things are right and some things are wrong.

Well, teaching any random idea that someone comes up with as an equally valid “scientific” theory alongside evolution is just scientific relativism, and it is just as wrong as moral relativism. In science, there are scientific absolutes, right and wrong answers.

Now, because of how God set up the universe, the scientific method may lead to all sorts of incorrect conclusions, but nobody will know for sure until we get to heaven. But in the meantime, there is an academic displine called science, and it uses the scientific method exclusively. The application of that method has lead to great advances in our country, and I would hate to see China become the world’s scientific leader because we are unable to teach the subject of science in America.
What we as a nation choose to teach our children in public schools about any subject is somewhat haphazard. We choose to emphasize chemistry but not geology, English literature but not Canadian literature. There are sometimes good reasons for this and sometimes its just tradition. However, most of the people in this country would agree that there are basic things that should be common knowledge, the periodic table and Shakespeare among them, not so much the types of clay and basalt or the works of Maya Angelou.

My point is that we teach the kids what the general consensus believes to be good for them. The general consensus of Americans is that God or some other outside intelligence had something to do with the creation of the universe and man. Why can’t we teach it then? Conversely, most Americans would say that there is something not right about homosexual relationships or at least that it is not equal to heterosexual marriage. So why then are we being pressured to teach that?

Parents should have the right to inform the curriculum with their values. I think that it is similar to the deposit of faith. That which has been held everywhere and always to be true. God is the Creator, however slowly or quickly that creation may have happened. Marriage is the intended lifelong union of a man and woman for the purpose of creating a family. When we stray from that significantly then I think we are in trouble.
 
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Brad:
Why is it that if I propose God did something scientists cannot figure out, you think it must be deception? As we have both agreed on, scientists have been wrong before. That doesn’t mean that God deceived them.
Why else would that be done?
Here is a link to some science that disagrees with dating methods used to justify old earth.

christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html
I read your link. Did you read mine? The author of this paper is a Christian.

asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Also, christiananswers.net is affiliated with Answers in Genesis. I posted a link to their “Statement of Faith” in a previous post. Did you read it? Here is a portion of that statement that all “scientists” must agree to to be associated with AIG:
D) GENERAL
  1. The following are held by members of the Board of Answers in Genesis to be either consistent with Scripture or implied by Scripture:
    *]Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation.
    *]**The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.
    **
    *]**The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.
    **
    *]The ‘gap’ theory has no basis in Scripture.
    *]The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of Biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into ‘secular’ and ‘religious’, is rejected.
    *]By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.

  1. (emphasis added by me)

    They set the goal and then state that no evidence to the contrary is valid. Anyone who agrees to those terms is not a scientist.

    Here is the entire statement.

    answersingenesis.org/home/area/about/faith.asp

    Also note, since this is a Catholic forum, their anti-Catholic theology.

    Very few, if any, legitimate scientists dispute the radiometric dating methods.

    Peace

    Tim
 
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Brad:
Not worried in the least about how smart you may think I am.
I didn’t ask to determine how smart you are. I wondered because you seem to not understand how science works, yet you keep trying to argue scientific points.
Scientific challenges to evolution are doomed per people that know more than me such as Philip Johnson who wrote

“Darwin on Trial”

“Reason in the Balance”
Philip Johnson is a lawyer, not a scientist.

Peace

Tim
 
The Hidden Life:
Then perhaps the problem is that most scientists over-generalize their studies. They call science the search for truth, but don’t specify what kind of truth, nor do the kind of people involved in these evolutionary education debates acknowledge that there is more to truth than their studies can uncover. They fail to acknowledge that there are limits to what they can know by the mere “study of natural things.” They fail to acknowledge at time that there are things worthy of study other than natural things.

From my experience at university it seemed that those who are involved in cosmology (and evolutionary studies) spend so much time hunting down new theories of explaining a purely materialist universe that they never consider that there might be limits to what humans can know. If it is material, we should be able to deduce it, given enough time and brain power. But if it isn’t, if fundamentally there is Mystery at the center of the universe then a wise person would acknowledge that there are some things we will never understand and be mostly content with that.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the search for answers. There are limits to what humans can know, but unless there is an effort made to understand things, we will never know what those limits are.
So then the problem is not actually “science” but the scientists and their insistence on a limited, atheistic worldview.
I agree and have stated just that in other threads.

peace

Tim
 
The Hidden Life:
True, if science were ordered into its proper place in the curriculum that would be no problem. I think what has happened though is that the natural sciences have replaced theology as the core ethic of modern schooling. It is the font of knowlege for the average American student. No other source of information on human origins is offered nor is it allowed. It fills the “God-shaped hole” that was created when the study of theology was kicked out of the classroom.
Agreed. That doesn’t mean, however, that ID should be taught in science class.

Peace

Tim
 
The Hidden Life:
My point is that we teach the kids what the general consensus believes to be good for them. The general consensus of Americans is that God or some other outside intelligence had something to do with the creation of the universe and man. Why can’t we teach it then?
We would be teaching astrology on a par with astronomy if we went by the general consensus of Americans. Unfortunately, the scientific knowledge of the average American is abysmal, and having the ignorant teaching the young is just going to perpetuate this, to the detriment of the U.S. as a country. In old communist Russia, teaching Lysenkoism set Soviet biology back at least a generation. Politics makes bad science; so does everything else except actual science.

What’s wrong with using the consensus of Ph.D. biologists to determine the biology curriculum? For example, I sure don’t want all the people who think playing the lottery is a great idea to determine the mathematics curriculum. Why should people who don’t know the difference between a gene and a genome determine the biology curriculum?
 
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Catholic2003:
What’s wrong with using the consensus of Ph.D. biologists to determine the biology curriculum?
Still not my field, but I would think not all biologists agree to certain curriculum and that there are political polls within that agaust body. Good idea though as long as there was some way of neutralizing the political views.

For example a group of biologists who advocate embrionic stem cell research of new lines and creates a textbook that so advocates this murder, should not have their way. If it takes a High School drop out to be on the board to stop them, so be it.
 
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Catholic2003:
Well, teaching any random idea that someone comes up with as an equally valid “scientific” theory alongside evolution is just scientific relativism, and it is just as wrong as moral relativism. In science, there are scientific absolutes, right and wrong answers.
Perhaps this is a question of terminology. It seems like the subject of evolution is too broad. A component of evolution is the study of human biological origins. Without question, this part of the scientific study is not considered scientific fact by a great number of scientists. So, then - maybe human biological origins should be taught in some other type of class. The problem is if God is mentioned as a factor in human biological origins, the study gets labeled “religion” and it cannot be taught. But this theory is just as valid as any theory of origins that evolution has come up with. We cannot eliminate a very real possiblity simply because it has what some consider a religous component. As I’ve argued before, we could make a case that most teaching of value has a religious component.
 
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Catholic2003:
The important point about Aristotle is that the ancient Greeks didn’t have the scientific method. Aristotle was a smart guy, so everyone listened to him about heavier objects falling faster than lighter objects. Performing experiments to validate or falsify such statements wasn’t an idea that was important to the ancient Greeks. The advent of the scientific method in the middle ages, with Galileo performing his experiments about how fast objects really fell, was a key turning point in the history of science.

Faith and science don’t contradict each other, so there is no question of science “trumping” faith or morals. God exists, whether universal common descent is true or false.
I don’t think this refutes my point. If science can have “key turning points” that completely change the discipline(and completely change the way we think about reality) in the past, it can certainly do likewise in the future.

Meanwhile the Bible has never changed (substantially) and it has helped more people live better lives than any other teaching in the past 2000 years.

Despite this overwhelming positive evidence for the Christian religion (call it a philosophy if you will), it cannot be taught.

Yet, science can be (and it should - science has much to offer that affects all of our lives)

This should not be.
 
The Hidden Life:
So then the problem is not actually “science” but the scientists and their insistence on a limited, atheistic worldview.
Bingo. Although I would add that it is the secularlists (which can be any discipline or profession) as the driving force behind promoting the naturalistic scientists.
 
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Orogeny:
I read your link. Did you read mine? The author of this paper is a Christian.

asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html
I’ll read part of it but not all.
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Orogeny:
Also, christiananswers.net is affiliated with Answers in Genesis. I posted a link to their “Statement of Faith” in a previous post. Did you read it? Here is a portion of that statement that all “scientists” must agree to to be associated with AIG:

(emphasis added by me)

They set the goal and then state that no evidence to the contrary is valid. Anyone who agrees to those terms is not a scientist.

Here is the entire statement.

answersingenesis.org/home/area/about/faith.asp

Also note, since this is a Catholic forum, their anti-Catholic theology.

Very few, if any, legitimate scientists dispute the radiometric dating methods.

Peace

Tim
Ok. You’ve told me that the scientists are not Catholic and that they believe in certain specifics of scripture (which, by the way, are not disallowed in the Catholic Church - I’m open to a 6 day creation or a 1 billion day creation).

Can you honestly tell me that many scientists coming through the universities do not presuppose the evolutionary theory of human biological origins? Just because they don’t have a “statement of faith” on paper does not mean it is not implied.

You’ve told me yourself (essentially) that a scientist is not a scientist if he/she does not accept radiometric dating systems. That sounds to me like an unwritten “statement of faith” to be held to with “religous assent” by prospective scientists (forgive my catechism language borrowing).

Can you refute the evidence they show that seriously question the dating methods - most especially evidence that is tossed out if it doesn’t meet a pre-specified criteria?
 
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Orogeny:
I didn’t ask to determine how smart you are. I wondered because you seem to not understand how science works, yet you keep trying to argue scientific points.
You do realize this is arrogance?

You are saying that I have to follow a certain code of practicing science in order to question scientific conclusions? That sounds again like a “statement of faith” requirement put onto those that wish to practice science. I wonder if Newton and Galileo were aware of exactly “how science works.” Considering I took science classes undergraduate - was that not far enought along that they should teach me how it works? When would that occur?
Why is it that professors in college don’t even know how science is supposed to work and yet they teach evolutionary theory as fact?

In any event, this is not my argument. I presume you know much more about areas of science than I do. My argument is that an alternative argument on human biological origins should be allowed to be taught in school.
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Orogeny:
Philip Johnson is a lawyer, not a scientist.
Sure he is. He has a voice on this topic. You have to accept his voice. If not, you can’t argue for allowing the ACLU to intervene in schools because you are not a lawyer.
 
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