Creationism and life in general

[grannymh]

Who else was around?

Considering that I am older than dirt, it probably was me.

…Just taking time out to enjoy the beautiful colors of God’s creation.

Nature is a gift to remind us of the Giver.

Blessings,
granny

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey, I thought you guys had promised yesterday that you would stop saying who was Christian and who wasn’t. Your side wanted the “blasphemy” charge dropped.

I am not on any “side” but simply stating a fact - without any animosity or rudeness - that it is necessary to think of God as a loving Father if one is a Christian. Should I avoid stating the truth?

 

[StAnastasia]

Just out of curiosity (and independently of the above exchange), do you believe that there are any boundaries on what people must, and must not believe and still be “Christian?”

Yes.

Is it sufficient to just declare that one is a Christian?

 

[StAnastasia]

I am not on any “side” but simply stating a fact - without any animosity or rudeness - that it is necessary to think of God as a loving Father if one is a Christian

Yes, that is one model of God.

 

[StAnastasia]

What does panentheism have to do with this Catholic teaching?

Everything.

 

[tonyrey]

The hypothesis is that purposeful activity is not accidental but has a rational origin.

How much? I'll pm you with the details of my bank account. :)

Only baby minds can derive intelligence from that which lacks intelligence!

Yes, babies don’t have much intelligence at conception. Thanks for pointing that out even though it kills off your idea that intelligence doesn’t arise out of complexity.

Baby minds are not restricted to babies!

So reasoning is a purely impersonal, mechanical process with no element of intuition, insight, understanding or creativity?

You’d need to restate that, for example is reasoning even possible without understanding? But if you mean the act of reasoning requires complicated underlying mechanisms then yes.

How do “complicated underlying mechanisms” acquire intuition, insight, understanding and creativity?

So science is

an inadequate explanation of reality?Inadequate as in ridding the world of smallpox and putting a man of the moon?

Does that constitute the whole of reality?

So God created the universe with no goals?

I said evolution has no goals, which it doesn’t.

Isn’t survival a goal?

The question would then be about God’s goals in creating a universe which provides the conditions for evolution. Through Christ we can be fairly clear that our goals must ultimately be common (we are one humanity), but trying to state either individual goals for each of seven billion of us or for the entire universe would surely just be speculation.

So there is no evidence whatsoever about the nature of God’s goals in creating a universe which provides the conditions for evolution? Why didn’t He create a universe without evolution?

So God had no idea of what He was creating or why?

I pointed out that a designer must know the function before making a design, and so ID requires every living thing to have an objectively assigned function, which plainly they don’t have (outside of survival if you wanted to put it that way).

Why do you exclude survival? Isn’t living a function? Isn’t reproduction, nutrition, excretion and experiencing pleasure?
Must all living things have identical functions?

What does ID say about God’s purpose in creating the smallpox virus?

God did not create the smallpox virus. It was created as a result of the conditions necessary for evolution which do not guarantee immunity from disease.

So you have no idea of the probability of the development of an eye?

You asked for a precise probability, and I’ve no idea except it must be much higher than a snow leopard suddenly popping into existence, because it happened in many stages each of which had a high probability.

As Rossum would say, please produce your calculations!

Colour is not necessary for survival nor is it a necessary feature of the universe.

Color is a sensation, it doesn’t exist objectively.

Our eyes do not produce colours. They are the effects of different wavelengths of light.

You don’t think camouflage is important to survival? Or flowers aren’t colored to attract insects? When you next jump a red light and get slam dunked by a big rig, come back and tell me color isn’t necessary for survival.

Life survived before eyes developed. Therefore it is not necessary for survival nor is it a necessary feature of the universe.

Then you don’t have free will, you can’t choose what to think and all your conclusions are of dubious value. A biological computer doesn’t know it exists and has no insight or knowledge of reality.

That’s not an argument tony, it’s just a bunch of words.

Your evasion is just a bunch of words which convinces no one but yourself…

So God created the starting conditions and the laws of physics?

Who else was around?

You agree that God created the starting conditions and the laws of physics?

So the human mind is one of God’s children created by the starting conditions and the laws of physics?

Perfecto.

So the human mind consists of nothing but atomic particles?

 

[tonyrey]

Yes, that is one model of God.

 

[tonyrey]

Nature is not a part of nature.

I am not personalizing nature. I am saying that the forces and processes that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world are not aware of anything.

Stephen Hawking is an atheist with no vested interest in promoting the scarcity of life.
Can you refute his argument?

Be delighted, point me to Hawking’s probability calculations.

Do you have any?

It is necessary to think of God as a loving Father - if you are a Christian…

Good, we’re agreed God is not a mother hen.

Do you believe God is a loving Father?

God created this physical universe with its existing laws of nature out of many possible universes . Why? For no reason or purpose whatsoever?

You can’t appeal to the laws of nature as either purposeless or as indicating any given purpose.

So you have no idea whether God created this physical universe for a reason or purpose?

I don’t know whether there’s a purpose outside of our own lives.

Do you believe God created us for no reason or purpose?

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia;7959819:

Do you have a different model?

Sure, many models: God is father and mother, lover and friend, advocate, creator, sustainer, sanctifier, shepherd, etc.

 

[ricmat]

Just out of curiosity (and independently of the above exchange), do you believe that there are any boundaries on what people must, and must not believe and still be “Christian?” Is it sufficient to just declare that one is a Christian?

tonyrey;7959901:

Sure, many models: God is father and mother, lover and friend, advocate, creator, sustainer, sanctifier, shepherd, etc.

Wow. Shepherd is in. Designer is out.

 

[StAnastasia]

StAnastasia;7960027:

Wow. Shepherd is in. Designer is out.

I like sheep. Not too fond of interior decor.

 

[ricmat]

I like sheep. Not too fond of interior decor.

The more you write posts like this, the more you equate “design of the universe” to “interior design” or “tinkering”, the more obvious it is to all that you are willfully and invincibly ignorant of what “design” is in the context of our discussions. All your posts on this subject lose credibility as a result.

 

[ricmat]

Note to all:

Starting with post 661 it looks like there are a series of formatting problems with the posts. If you quote a post from 661 to here, double check to be sure that it comes out right.

 

[StAnastasia]

The more you write posts like this, the more you equate “design of the universe” to “interior design” or “tinkering”, the more obvious it is to all that you are willfully and invincibly ignorant of what “design” is in the context of our discussions. All your posts on this subject lose credibility as a result.

Hey, I’m kidding - live a little! Of course I know what design implies. I just don’t think science will ever discover God; that’s a matter for theology.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Some people believe in a literal six day creation. My question is, so what? What practical problem could possibly be caused by this? Oh, I know some people are afraid this might end up in schools. I get that. But so far, I’ve seen zero credible evidence to suggest it is a significant problem.

Thoughts?

Peace,
Ed

A wide spread belief in creationism will imply that Christianity is creationism. If left unchallenged it will inflict great wounds in so far as the potentiality for faith is concerned. The person who accepts science as an honest and rational approach to physical reality will be left with no choice but to remain a non-believer because of the misleading idea that Christianity is essentially 7 day creationism. It needs to be made clear that the idea of the world being created in 7 days 10,000 years ago is not an infallible core teaching of the Catholic faith. If Christians choose to believe in a seven day young earth creationism along with geocentrism and a flat earth, then it needs to be made clear to the public that peoples belief in those things have nothing to do with the core teaching of the Catholic faith, but rather is to do with cultural influences and human traditions.

 

[edwest2]

I contest this view since it suggests that science, as opposed to God Himself, brings people to the faith. And once the door is opened, what is the rationalist to do? Accept the Eucharist, the practice of confession and Communion of Saints?

I am not promoting six day creationism. I am saying that science is not the bridge, accepting Jesus Christ and being baptized is. To say that science is the necessary apologetic ignores all the supernatural elements that come immediately after. That’s my point.

Peace,
Ed

 

[ricmat]

Speaking of Christian misrepresentation:

"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed — the 2008 creationist propaganda movie fronted by Ben Stein — is scheduled to be auctioned, lock, stock, and barrel, pursuant to the bankruptcy proceeding of Premise Media Holdings LP. According to a document (PDF) filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, on May 31, 2011, the trustee of the bankruptcy estate is seeking to auction “[t]hat certain feature-length motion picture (‘Picture’) ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ and all collateral, allied, ancillary, subsidiary and merchandising rights therein and thereto, and all properties and things of value pertaining thereto.” The auction is scheduled to take place on-line from June 23 to June 28, 2011.

“The high bidder will become the owner of the movie that The New York Times (2008 Apr 18) described as “[o]ne of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time … a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry … an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike” and that was denounced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for its “profound dishonesty” and condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its “outrageous” misuse of the Holocaust to “tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution.” (NCSE’s Expelled Exposed provides a collection of reviews, commentary, and resources documenting the extensive problems with Expelled.) Caveat emptor!”

ncse.com/news/2011/06/expelled-block-006695

I guess this is the other side of the story. The side that says the point Expelled was making is actually true.

“As John West has reported, the journal Applied Mathematics Letters has agreed to apologize after pulling a paper by University of Texas, El Paso mathematics professor Granville Sewell which was critical of Darwinian evolution. Sewell is author of In the Beginning: And Other Essays on Intelligent Design as well as three books on numerical analysis and dozens of articles in respected journals. As West reports, Applied Mathematics Letters** withdrew his paper not because it found any errors in the paper, or because the paper was not peer-reviewed, but because it had received a protest from the Darwin lobby**. Because of the journal’s inappropriate treatment of Dr. Sewell, it has now issued an apology to Dr. Sewell and paid his attorney’s fees in the matter to the tune of $10,000…Elsberry crowed about how his faction was able to prevent the publication of Sewell’s paper:
So what can one make of a recent attempt to publish a batch of 2LoT religious antievolution as if it were a genuine scientific contribution? E. Granville Sewell, a mathematician at the University of Texas at El Paso and “intelligent design” creationism (IDC) advocate, submitted a manuscript to Applied Mathematical Letters (AML) titled, “A second look at the second law”. AML apparently indicated acceptance of the manuscript to Sewell, leading to gloating on an IDC blog. That in turn led to action by David vun Kannon from the “After the Bar Closes” forum, who wrote the editors at AML to point out the problem. AML responded to vun Kannon, saying that they were withdrawing the manuscript.”

 

[ricmat]

follow up from previous post:

From here:

Lepiscopo points out that in retracting Sewell’s article, Applied Mathematics Letters “effectively accepted the unsubstantiated word and unsupported opinion of an inconsequential blogger, with little or unknown academic background beyond a self-professed public acknowledgment that he was a ‘computer science grad’ and whose only known writings are self-posted blogs about movies, comics, and fantasy computer games.” This blogger’s unsupported opinion "trumped the views of an author who is a well respected mathematician with a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Purdue University; a fully-tenured Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas–El Paso; an author of three books on numerical analysis and 40 articles published in respected journals; and a highly sought-after and frequent lecturer world-wide on mathematics and science.

 

[ricmat]

I contest this view since it suggests that science, as opposed to God Himself, brings people to the faith. And once the door is opened, what is the rationalist to do? Accept the Eucharist, the practice of confession and Communion of Saints?

I am not promoting six day creationism. I am saying that science is not the bridge, accepting Jesus Christ and being baptized is. To say that science is the necessary apologetic ignores all the supernatural elements that come immediately after. That’s my point.

Peace,
Ed

I basically agree with you Ed, but would make one distinction.

Noting and acknowledging God’s “order” in the universe is similar to noting and acknowledging the beauty of the universe. That God took chaos, and gave it order is what Genesis 1 is about (in a very general, non-scientific sense). We should acknowledge God’s work everywhere we see it, and in every form we see it. All glory to God.

To the extent that science allows us to better appreciate God’s handiwork, IMO that is good.

Of course, those of us here at CAF occasionally have disagreements about the minor details

I would add that order is related to design, and chaos is related to randomness. And yes, I know that it isn’t quite that simple.

 

[StAnastasia]

I contest this view since it suggests that science, as opposed to God Himself, brings people to the faith.

No, that is not what MindOverMatter2 is saying. The point is not that science brings people to the faith, but that people who see Christians arguing either that you must reject standard science in favor of a young earth, or that what we think about science is indifferent, will think that Christians are either ignorant or malevolently opposed to learning and education (Augustine himself spoke on this).

And once the door is opened, what is the rationalist to do? Accept the Eucharist, the practice of confession and Communion of Saints?