This is your answer? Play the Muslim Fundamentalist card? That is not a difference of opinion. That is an insult toward Christianity. You don’t know me and I don’t know you, so I don’t think you should be confident enough to call me a theo-anything.I think I’ve addressed most or all of this previously and have nothing much to add.
You are obviously a theocrat - you want to live in a society that is a Christian version of Iran.
The US constitution doesn’t allow that. I’m for keeping religion out of politics and vice-versa.
Fair enough, difference of opinion.
Thank you. I could not have said it better.If God = true
then a country that excludes God
excludes truth.
If God =true
then science without God
excludes truth.
From what I can see from the other side of the pond, the atheist influence is increasing from a small base. There is a far larger proportion of churchgoing Christians in America than there are in England.I think the primary concern in the United States is the following: an increase in editorial content supporting anti-Christian views and atheism in particular.
And there are no Christian lobby groups? Focus on the Family and others? Sauce for the goose …The hiring by atheists in this country of a Lobbyist in Washington (a first here and never an inexpensive proposition).
It has been designed to appear credible - remember that Discovery Institute ID is far more of a political movement than a scientific one. There is veery little actual information theory in DI-ID, just the appearance of it. A cursory examination of either Shannon information or Kolmogorov information shows the evolutinary mechanisms are prefectly capable of increasing the amount of information in a genome. To my knowledge, DI-ID has not yet proposed any workable alternative measure of information.This involves information theory and appears credible.
“Non-Christian activities” would cover every Jewish, Moslem, (Mormon?), Hindu, Buddhist etc organisation. I suspect that there are more than two of them in total. How many Christian missionary organisations are there in America? It is in the nature of a free country that people who you disagree with will organise themselves into groups.In the United States, at least two Institutes that I am aware of are engaged in non-Christian activities.
The Pope has mede it clear that neither the universe itself nor anything it it can occur without God. However, God does not work at the level at which science works. We do not need to include the literal finger of God pushing planets round in their orbits; there is no God directly involved in the theory of gravity. The same goes for all of science, nothing happens without God, but God is working at a level invisible to science.Pope Benedict has made it clear that evolution cannot occur without God.
Most here believe that only gravitational theory as presented in the physics text is acceptable. You accept gravity textbooks without any explicit mention of God, why is an evolution textbook different? I would not trust a scientist to do good theology; nor would I trust a theologian to do good science. Better to keep their contributions separate. When I was a science teacher, I would have made a very bad theology teacher - especially bad at Chriatian theology. Better to keep the theological part in separate lessons and separate textbooks.Most here believe that only evolutionary theory as presented in the biology text is acceptable.
Agreed, but the additions the Catholics make to the textbook are different from the additions the Hindus would make, which are different from the additions the Taoists would make etc. Unless you want the textbooks to be unfeasibly large, it makes sense to separate the theology from the science.I say false because the evolution the Catholic Church accepts is not the textbook and only the textbook.
The media do like their headlines. The same thing happens in the other direction - a lot of the “Evolution completely rearranged - thousands die” headlines should actually be “Small change in a part of evolution - no-one killed”.Further, as a taxpayer, I would not vote to have ID/Stealth Creationism/Creationism into public schools. But, as someone who works in the media, I understand the methodology and I assure you that hysteria is being created about this issue that a reading of the facts would not confirm.
You can gain a very high degree of confidence, but you cannot check the action of gravity at every place and at every time in the entire life of the universe. We can never be certain what science will, or will not, discover in future so the acceptance of any theory must be provisional. Even in gravity, Newton was replaced by Einstein and we already know that Einstein was not completely correct - scientists are currently working on a theory of quantum gravitation to replace Einstein’s theory.Finally, the idea that science cannot prove a thing is complete and utter nonsense, and only adds to public confusion. I can reliably prove to my heart’s content, the action of gravity over and over.
That is, frankly, the only answer I think is warranted, and was certainly not meant as a personal insult or affront.This is your answer? Play the Muslim Fundamentalist card? That is not a difference of opinion. That is an insult toward Christianity. You don’t know me and I don’t know you, so I don’t think you should be confident enough to call me a theo-anything.
Please don’t incite fear among Christians.
It certainly makes for a more enjoyable discussion. Thanks for that.Different people have different styles. I live in England so I am under less immediate threat of creationsm/ID being legislated into my tax funded schools than some in the USA. That might enable me to take a more relaxed view of the issues.
rossum
Agreed. It makes for a very weak case in defense of Darwinism when the defender bristles at any criticism of the theory.There are always people in these threads that overstate the solidity of Darwinism…
I think that does describe some people that we’ve seen. I’ve interpreted it as a reaction against the notion that some have of Catholics being narrow minded. Or perhaps (more likely) some Catholics who live in places where there are a lot of Bible fundamentalists want to prove that they’re not at all like them. In both cases, they’ll have an exaggerated devotion to Darwinian theory. It’s not objective or balanced enough – and not open-minded either in my opinion.Some people consider it a great testament to their open-mindedness to be Catholics who vigorously stump for Darwinian othodoxy.
That is an excellent insight. I hadn’t thought of that before. It’s true though. The defenders of the theory sometimes have a very strict conformity to the artificial limits of Darwinism. They won’t explore beyond that – and in most cases, won’t admit that there are some problems that Darwinism is likely never to be able to solve. I can respect people who are “conservative” in that way – they remain loyal to what they were taught and don’t want to rebel against it. But in this case, a bit of skepticism would be a great benefit.For the moment, for a skeptic to become, say, an evolutionary biologist, would be a difficult life-decision, because real skepticism is not tolerated in that field right now. Hence, in my opinion, one could say that real curiosity is not tolerated there, either.
That is the very reason I started it in the first place, I kept seeing the same debate going from thread to thread, much of the time pushing what’s going back and forth completely off topic. In this thread, it’s completely on topic to discuss it, that is what it’s here for. At least this thread has not turned into a viscious battle, of which is the result of many of those other threads, so I do give you guys points in that regard.I’m afraid it was already a debate a long time before you started this thread, Brian.
Not as sad as those who resort to personal attacks and insults when they cannot defend their position.Now you are playing the Nazi card. Your appeals are primarily to emotion and not intellect.
I know what I was taught but it has been partially adopted by the atheists here and elsewhere. You are a bag of chemicals programmed by your genes and respond to outside stimuli. You have no other purpose than to successfully reproduce.
Sad. Very sad.
The laws of nature and of science apply across the board, regardless of one’s religious beliefs.
You are incorrect, there is evidence for macroevolution.Macro-evolution,or above-species evolution,is not a fact of nature,and there is no evidence for it.
You are incorrect. All the observed instances of speciation result (obviously) in a new species. You are correct in the the new species will be a member of some higher taxon that also contains the original species, which is possibly what you mean by “general species”. One species of fruit fly can evolve into a different species of fruit fly, but the new species is still a member of the genus Drosophilia. That meets the scientific requirement for macroevolution - the appearance of a new species.All of the observed instances of speciation are just changes that stay within the general species.
You are incorrect. There are new species which cannot breed with their originals: Brisk Biters.Speciation never leads to the evolution of a new self-sustaining species that is totally unable to breed with the parent species. The farthest that speciation goes is to partial genetic isolation between two groups,or to hybrids that are weak,malformed and infertile.
As far as I am aware, nobody has ever done any experiments to confirm or to deny your statements. Are you aware of any evidence?Humans are self-sustaining and are totally unable to breed with any other life form,
The evidence indicates that we do, for example we have an identical gene for Cytochrome-C and our Chromosome Two is two different chimp chromosomes joined end-to-end. The evidence indicates that our physical bodies share a common ancestry with chimps.so we have no common ancestry with apes and chimpanzees.
Perhaps someone should synthesize the differing 2% human DNA that makes a man a man and not a chimp.The evidence indicates that we do, for example we have an identical gene for Cytochrome-C and our Chromosome Two is two different chimp chromosomes joined end-to-end. The evidence indicates that our physical bodies share a common ancestry with chimps.
rossum
Straight out of the ‘Creationism’ textbook, and every word complete nonsense.Macro-evolution,or above-species evolution,is not a fact of nature,and there is no evidence for it. All of the observed instances of speciation are just changes that stay within the general species. Speciation never leads to the evolution of a new self-sustaining species that is totally unable to breed with the parent species. The farthest that speciation goes is to partial genetic isolation between two groups,or to hybrids that are weak,malformed and infertile.
Humans are self-sustaining and are totally unable to breed with any other life form,so we have no common ancestry with apes and chimpanzees.