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Eleve
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Not to put words in his mouth, but I think xix was talking about scientific conclusions.
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xixxvmcm85
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You cannot have reasonable discussion if you insist on setting up straw men. No where have I stated that I read the creation account literally, and I cannot fathom how you would come to such a conclusion considering that I’ve been defending organic evolution in this thread (as well as in others).
If you would like to read the Bible hyper-literally, then I won’t stop you. Understand though that this isn’t my position and it isn’t the position of mainstream Christianity.
Sort of ironic that you read the Bible just like a Fundamentalist does
Oh have we? Citation please. And before you post something extremely vague like the MU experiments which only showed that organic macromolecules are capable of generating naturally, I’ll remind you that your claim here is that Life itself can naturally arise. Your citation must account for the seven emergent properties of life:
- Living entities are composed of cells.
- DNA/RNA
- Self-reproduction
- Metabolism
- Osmoregulation
- Growth and division
- Animation
But this presumes that a natural explanation (if one were to be given) would be at odds with an external agent allowing for it to happen. As I pointed out to buffalo earlier, this is the border at which we cease doing science and we start talking philosophy. It’s disingenuous to claim that anything scientific renders God unnecessary as such a conclusion isn’t scientific!
No, I was talking about your erroneous conflation of evolution and other scientific hypotheses. You know, like when Creationists conflate the Big Bang, Panspermia, Abiogenesis, etc. with evolution.
Due to my philosophical school of thought. I’m not a materialist.
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Charles_Darwin
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I dont see any other way the bible can be viewed. If the book is filled with factal errors, which it is, then what weight can one place on any of it? How do you decide what is fact and what is fiction. And why is an omnipotent super being filling his book, which is supposed to be his word, with so many outlandish stories?You cannot have reasonable discussion if you insist on setting up straw men. No where have I stated that I read the creation account literally, and I cannot fathom how you would come to such a conclusion considering that I’ve been defending organic evolution in this thread (as well as in others).
If you would like to read the Bible hyper-literally, then I won’t stop you. Understand though that this isn’t my position and it isn’t the position of mainstream Christianity.
Sort of ironic that you read the Bible just like a Fundamentalist does
Oh have we? Citation please. And before you post something extremely vague like the MU experiments which only showed that organic macromolecules are capable of generating naturally, I’ll remind you that your claim here is that Life itself can naturally arise. Your citation must account for the seven emergent properties of life:
But this presumes that a natural explanation (if one were to be given) would be at odds with an external agent allowing for it to happen. As I pointed out to buffalo earlier, this is the border at which we cease doing science and we start talking philosophy. It’s disingenuous to claim that anything scientific renders God unnecessary as such a conclusion isn’t scientific!
- Living entities are composed of cells.
- DNA/RNA
- Self-reproduction
- Metabolism
- Osmoregulation
- Growth and division
- Animation
No, I was talking about your erroneous conflation of evolution and other scientific hypotheses. You know, like when Creationists conflate the Big Bang, Panspermia, Abiogenesis, etc. with evolution.
Due to my philosophical school of thought. I’m not a materialist.
This can be easily explianed if the book is not in fact anything to do with a god, but is the writings of ancient scientifically illiterate (through no fault of their own) people.
The reason you pick and choice from the bible is because you know plenty of it is nonsense. That is why you ignore genesis and accept evolution. The question is how do you pick and choose. Well you look at the evidence. So if the bible is so way off when it comes to all its scientific claims, and is so morally bankrupt in many other areas. Why not just let go, forget the bible and let logic, reason and evidence become the basis for your beliefs?
As for life, i dont agree we need to recreate all those steps. I think now can recreate RNA that makes a very strong case for abiogenesis of some form, but that is another debate.
sciencenews.net.au/scientists-create-artificial-selfreplicating-rna/
"In addition, once the replicators started going, they would occasionally suffer mutations - some would die out, but others would be more successful at replicating, thus coming to dominate the population.
After 77 generations, all the original replicators were gone - taken over by the new variants, stronger and mightier than before.
Whoa - if this isn’t a compelling case for evolution! Right before our eyes!""
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God unnecessary as such a conclusion isn’t scientific!**”
This is the biggest misconception surrounding atheists. I dont thing God is unnecessary, much like a dont think a magic green dog is unnecessary. I have just seen zero evidence to suggest a god is nesscessary. In short all an atheist is, is some one that rejects the claim that a god exists, because they have all failed to meet the burden of proof.
I wonder if you would accept a scientific hypothesis on the same standard of evidence you use to accept your god…
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kalt
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The same way you come to scientific conclusions–study.
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Charles_Darwin
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kalt
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kalt;5382791:
Then we do agree, and you should stop looking at the Bible as a science book. Problem solved.
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Charles_Darwin
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Charles Darwin;5382862:
Yes i do, and you should stop looking at it as the word of an omnipotent super being. We should see at as what it is, a very interesting book of stories documenting myths of ancient tribes.kalt;5382791:
Then we do agree, and you should stop looking at the Bible as a science book. Problem solved.
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buffalo
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kalt
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Charles_Darwin
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Charles_Darwin
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xixxvmcm85
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Because God didn’t write the Bible, he inspired many groups of human beings to do so. Infallibility doesn’t necessarily accompany inspiration. We’re not Muslims, we don’t believe some angel came down and whipered to someone word for word what to write.
I determine what is fact and fable the same way anyone would determine what is fact and fable in a human account: via reason. That particular myths were included into the Bible in order to convey a moral story doesn’t bother me. It might bother the Fundamentalist, but not me no more than it bothers me that parents in our culture recount Grimm’s Fairy Tales to their children to convey particular mores.
Because I’m not a materialist like you. I thought we’ve gone over this. Restricting my knowledge to only the empirical negates the spiritual aspect of life.
I read that a number of months ago. Very interesting indeed but it falls short of your claim about life (for which we have a set of emergent properties defined in biology) being demonstrated to arise naturally. You’re conflating the two after I explicitly warned you not to. I’m perfectly open to the possibility that life could arise naturally, and such a conclusion wouldn’t trouble my belief in God.
I never claimed that was how atheists operate. I pointed out that one cannot falsify or prove supernatural entities such as God based on the paradigm of science, for science is inherently materialistic. It has no mechanism by which to even test “God”, so it’s nonsensical to say God has “failed to meet the burden of proof”.
Of course I wouldn’t as the former is a physical claim about the material world and the latter is one of the spiritual aspect of existence. You and Buffalo are a lot similar than you’d likely admit: While he’s here insisting that science must make room within its discipline for “revelation” and other spiritual, non-scientific claims, you’re here insisting that “revelation” and other spiritual, non-scientific claims are negated by science. You’re both zealots here on opposite poles and it seems I’m the only one pointing out that Philosophy and Science are two different disciplines with two different domains.
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Eleve
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Doesn’t the Church teach that Scripture is infallible?
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xixxvmcm85
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I’m very sorry. I completely butchered my intention here by not keeping a good eye on my vocabulary. The Church does indeed teach that the Bible is infallible but she doesn’t teach that what the Scriptures say, point blank, at their words face value is necessarily infallible, rather that what the human authors under the direction of the Holy Spirit with regard to culture, history, and context intended is infallible. In this sense, infallibility takes on a much more nuanced view than the simple Fundamentalist style “Whatever the KJV Bible says in English point blank is what I’ll believe without any critical examination”.
Allow me to quote the Catechism:
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tijeras
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Please check out what Dr. Ken Miller has to say about evolution, creationism, and intelligent design. He’s a biologist, a professor at Brown University and a practicing Roman Catholic.
He’s written two books on the subject: Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, and Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.
He’s talking at the University of San Diego on Friday, October 30th. If you can’t make it to that, look for the streaming video a few weeks after the event at this website: www.sandiego.edu/cctc.
Also, keep in mind that the Bible uses different literary forms and genres. We always take the Bible seriously, but not always literally. We take the historical books literally. The first two chapters of Genesis, if taken literally, contradict each other (don’t throw stones at me: go read it and write down the order in which things are created and compare. Also, do you really believe in the whole thing about the “dome that separates the waters”? Where do our space shuttles go and why don’t they get wet?, as Brother Guy Consolmagno, Ph.D., S.J., the curator of the Vatican’s meteorite collection, says).
The creation stories in Genesis are not meant to be taken literally. What they’re trying to say is that God created everything, everything God created is good, and humans are the highest point of that creation, etc. It’s like when Romeo calls Juliet the Sun: he doesn’t mean she’s a burning ball of plasma, literally. He’s talking about something ineffable and using metaphor to convey it. Likewise with the creation stories in Genesis: It’s religious truth, not scientific truth, with which those stories are concerned.
Don’t fall into the idea that science and religion are enemies. Both are seeking the truth (ideally) so they can’t be fighting. Check out this link to help you out with this concept: www.sandiego.edu/cctc/videophotoofevents.php and watch Br. Consolmagno’s talk. There’s a lot in there that would surprise you I bet.
Please remember that science is trying to answer the question “how?” and religion is trying to answer the question “why?”.
He’s written two books on the subject: Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, and Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.
He’s talking at the University of San Diego on Friday, October 30th. If you can’t make it to that, look for the streaming video a few weeks after the event at this website: www.sandiego.edu/cctc.
Also, keep in mind that the Bible uses different literary forms and genres. We always take the Bible seriously, but not always literally. We take the historical books literally. The first two chapters of Genesis, if taken literally, contradict each other (don’t throw stones at me: go read it and write down the order in which things are created and compare. Also, do you really believe in the whole thing about the “dome that separates the waters”? Where do our space shuttles go and why don’t they get wet?, as Brother Guy Consolmagno, Ph.D., S.J., the curator of the Vatican’s meteorite collection, says).
The creation stories in Genesis are not meant to be taken literally. What they’re trying to say is that God created everything, everything God created is good, and humans are the highest point of that creation, etc. It’s like when Romeo calls Juliet the Sun: he doesn’t mean she’s a burning ball of plasma, literally. He’s talking about something ineffable and using metaphor to convey it. Likewise with the creation stories in Genesis: It’s religious truth, not scientific truth, with which those stories are concerned.
Don’t fall into the idea that science and religion are enemies. Both are seeking the truth (ideally) so they can’t be fighting. Check out this link to help you out with this concept: www.sandiego.edu/cctc/videophotoofevents.php and watch Br. Consolmagno’s talk. There’s a lot in there that would surprise you I bet.
Please remember that science is trying to answer the question “how?” and religion is trying to answer the question “why?”.
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Charles_Darwin
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Im not a materialist, i have just seen zero evidence to suggest immaterial things exist.
Also i never claimed life had been generated?
As for sceince not being able to test god, i dont agree. How else would we test his existence, by what other method? Lets not forget there are many claims about god in the bible that would be open to scientific testing. So while we might not be able to directly test his existence by the man made standards many have imposed (How convenient), there are things we could test.
Do you believe in miracles? If so which ones, and why? Think about it.
Also i am NOTHING like buffalo i base my beliefs on reason and evidence, and unlike most here, including yourself, i NEVER claim absolute truth.
“you’re here insisting that “revelation” and other spiritual, non-scientific claims are negated by science”
NO IM NOT. I am say there is zero evidence to support such claims. No more, no less.
As for Philosophy and Science. When it comes to understanding the cosmos and the advancement of knowledge Philosophy does not compare to science. Nothing does. Why on earth, given the track record of science, would i want to dismiss its method in exchange for the “faith” of theology. Which in comparison has done nothing for humanity.
We dont need theology anymore, it was used by ancient tribes to answer the questions that science now answers. People like you sometimes amaze me more than the fundies. You can let go off all the nonsense in the bible, you accept that its a book of many myths. However you can’t let go of the biggest myth of it all, the myth that some omnipotent super being is up there controlling it all. Apply the same logic, reason and standards of evidence to that myth as you do to Noahs Ark.
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Charles_Darwin
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Ken miller uses the scientific method to discover. The fact he is a believer is irrelevant. “Why” is a nonsensical question, “how” is all we need ask.
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kalt
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kalt;5384806:
Oh, quit acting like a teenager. Don’t talk to me if you don’t want–Sheesh, how childish.
Asking the question has a very important purpose. You see, you are on the wrong forum. The Catholic Church doesn’t teach a literal interpretation of Genesis, and it doesn’t support religion being taught as science. As others have shown you here, the Church is not opposed to evolution theory.
I think you’re looking for the fundamentalist sites, or even some Protestant denominations’ sites.
You’re barking up the wrong tree.
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kalt
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Why isn’t a nonsensical question. It’s a question that, though this will annoy you to no end, can’t be answered by science. Science deals with the how of evolution–period.
Why is an excellent question that science has no ability to answer. It’s just not science’s thing.
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buffalo
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