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SpiritMeadow
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Then why do you continue to pervert, twist and obfuscate the Church’s teaching until it conforms to your personal beliefs?
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hecd2
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No problem - don’t worry about it. You haven’t led me off on a tangent, you’ve spelled it perfectly well, and I didn’t need to put any time into the post you are replying to here.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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hecd2
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True, and some people bring religious bias and some people bring atheistic or agnostic bias. But ALL modern scientists, whether they are believers or unbelievers apply methodological atheism, and many scientists *derive *their world view from their observations of the natural world.
Wrong - academic scientific research exists for itself.
Well, Richard Dawkins is a very distinguished biologist, but Sam Harris is a philosopher, not a scientist. But why shouldn’t scientists express their world view whatever it is, when they are not doing strict science? What can possibly be wrong with that?
What’s on earth is wrong with that? There have been many, many people who have used their observations of the natural world to say “When I look at the natural world, it is obvious that there is a God”. It goes back to Aquinas and before, its greatest 17th century proponent was William Paley, it is called Natural Theology and it is still proposed by good scientists like Simon Conway Morris, although it has, in general, been discredited for 150 years.
That might be so for you, but it is not so in general, nor does it have the slightest influence on what is true or false.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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hecd2
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But that is just as true of those who hold to the last fading shreds of Natural Theology. The fact is that real scientists of all persuasions can work together because they all leave their belief at the laboratory door. I fail to see what the problem is with Richard Dawkins creating a foundation to promulgate what he conscientiously believes (or doesn’t believe) based on his observation of the natural world. The Church has created countless institutions to promulgate its beliefs.
Th fact is that belief makes claims (such as the efficacy of prayer and the existence of miracles) that impinge on the observable natural world, and as soon as it does that, it becomes the business of science.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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hecd2
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I don’t often disagree with you but I do here. Anyone who has actually read Dawkins will realise that he is perfectly aware of the difference between methodological and metaphysical atheism. His metaphysical atheism arises from the evidence as he perceives it. It is not an unwarranted switch from the purely technical methodological atheism to which all scientists subscribe.
There is a move afoot to claim that he is philosophically naive which ignores the fact that several very well respected philosophers agree with him. Why is Dawkins arrogant in his evangelical atheism and any number of believers, including, for example, Ratzinger and Schoenborn, not arrogant in their evangelical theism? I would claim that at least Schoenborn is more arrogant than Dawkins, because Schoenborn persists in dabbling in scientific subjects where he is demonstrably out of his depth, and where he keeps bringing the Church into disrepute.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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hecd2
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Well possibly. Mutations do occur more readily when organisms are stressed, and some parts of the genome mutate easily and some are very strictly conserved. Also, there are other indications that mutations can occur where they are needed such as the fact that the position of nucleosomes is encoded in the DNA. All of this, however, can itself have evolved.
Mutations are part of nature - they are copying errors and are inevitable.
The evidence does not support this view. Beneficial mutations do not occur more readily than neutral or deleterious ones. Rather the opposite, really, in all circumstances.
Sunburn is a deterministic physiological response to UV light, that is outside the germ line and as such is irrelevant this discussion. Don’t you think melanine production and the melanine pathway has evolved? Melanoma, however, is a skin cancer caused by exposure to UV light which results in mutations in skin cells. No-one can say in advance who will get it and who won’t as it is random amnd unpredictable.
Well we are kind of doing full circle. I have pointed out with references and evidence that mutations are random with respect to phenotypic benefit and you have repeated the speculation you started with as if you hadn’t absorbed anything of what I’d said along the way. I have a dreadful feeling of deja vu. If it helps you, let me state that I do not think that mutations are uncaused.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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hecd2
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However, you do not have the authority to determine science’s field of competence.
It’s a terribly impoverished world view that demands that we twist and deny the plain natural evidence before us to protect belief in the literal truth of words written by those who thought the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is equal to three, or who have nothing to say of astronomy or electricity, or DNA or geology or oncology, or, for heaven’s sake, vitamins and antibiotics.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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drpmjhess
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Alec, I appreciate your perspective. I agree that there is probably as much arrogance on the part of Schoenborn as on that of Dawkins. And I understand why he is so angry with Behe. His review of the latter in the New York Times, however, seems just plain mean and ad hominem. Even when I met Richard he seemed hostile, angry and contemptuous, not gentle and conciliatory. I don’t know whether it is his atheism that has made him so or his frustration with ID, but it does not help his cause. The atheists I work with in my organization are for the most part kind and compassionate, with a couple of exceptions. Then again, I’ve known and worked with priests who were arrogant, hostile, and downright dishonest, so it is probably just a question of human nature.
Petrus
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hecd2
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Petrus,
I agree with you that it probably is a question of human nature. But I wouldn’t characterise Dawkins as dishonest, although he can be arrogant and hostile. His TV series on religion is probably his poorest work. But he can also be astonishingly insightful, and capable of conveying very complex concepts in the most delicate and illuminating way. And he is capable of deep and very genuine feeling as he demonstrates in his essays collected in “A Devil’s Chaplain” - not the best title to recommend it to a seminarian, but good all the same.
Above all, he is able to consider deep complexity in the natural world and create systematic hypotheses that draw it all together. And he writes about it wonderfully, in “The Selfish Gene”, “The Extended Phenotype” and “An Ancestor’s Tale”.Our greatest thinkers are not always the most likeable people - Galileo and Newton were not easy men to get on with.
I also think that he is quite sincere in his metaphysical views AND that those views are not unwarranted even if they are sometimes expressed in an unfortunate way. He is philosophically less naive than opponents claim.
Conversely, I have no time for Schoenborn. He displays his scientific ignorance every time that he opens his mouth on the subject of biology.
As for Behe, whatever credibility he had in the academy is long gone. He is utterly discredited since before Dover, with his own university department publicly disclaiming him and his dreadfully limp and confused recent work. He chose to write on a subject that he knows little about, and the reviews in the serious scientific press, Nature and Science, for example, absolutely and rightly macerated him. He gave up any claim to be treated as a serious scientist at the Dover trial and I have no problem with how Dawkins treated him, however roughly.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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drpmjhess
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Alec, I didn’t mean to imply dishonesty in Richard’s work, and when he sticks to the public elucidation of science, I agree that he is very lucid. However, honey attracts more than vinegar; perhaps he serves as a good foil for more humane and moderate advocates of evolution.
Michale Behe’s is a sad case. I don’t know why he came out with his second book; as a “face-saving” move it has only dug his hole deeper. A point I try to make in my public lectures is that creationism – whether in its “Young Earth” or its “Intelligent Design” variants – has yet to make a single contribution to science, whereas evolutionary biology has experienced an accelerating pace of prediction, confirmation and discovery. If theology is at all concerned with Truth in the biggest sense of that word, it cannot ignore a world view validated more and more each year.
I would be interested in your (and other people’s) perspectives on why most Christians made the move with relative tranquility from geocentrism to heliocentrism, from alchemy to chemistry, and from divine retribution to plate tectonics geology, and yet there is resistance to a parallel move in biology. Of course, not all have made this move: some of the citizens of Assisi declared in 1997 that the devastating earthquake there had been caused by God’s displeasure at how commercialized the town had become!
Petrus
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hecd2
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Yes and I have heard many blame Katrina on the ungodliness of New Orleans.
However, to answer your question, I think that the reason that it’s difficult for people is that a non-human primate ancestry for mankind impinges directly on what some people believe is necessary for the dignity and status of mankind. It is that, above all, which motivates young earth creationism (although I think the ID movement is also motivated by a desire to resurrect some sort of Natural Theology or teleological argument). After all, Charles Lyell agonised over this point while at the same time advising Darwin on how to manage the unexpected revelations in the Wallace paper. It was a major issue amongst the great biologists of the early 19th century, especially at the Anglican seminaries of Oxford and Cambridge which required assent to the Thirty-Nine articles in order to be accepted as a student, a fellow or a professor - the Oxbridge academics stood four-square against transmutational ideas for this reason and because they feared that it would lead to social collapse. Richard Owen, great comparative anatomist as he was, never found a way to reconcile evolution with his belief in man’s standing in the world. I think the tolling of this issue, the fear that once we have accepted that humans are in a biological continuum with the rest of creation, and that all human dignity and all moral restraint will be lost, echoes faintly even today. We have to remember that evolution was used as a social tool in the toolbox of ‘disreputable’ radicals and freethinkers as early as the 1830s. It is very late for me, so I have to leave this now, but will say more when I can.
By the way, do not be sanguine about the ideas that plate tectonics and acentrism are universally accepted in the Christian world. For an attack on the former, see Walt Brown (who proposes the ridiculous hydroplate theory in support of a recent global flood). For the latter, see our very own Catholic apologist, Bob Sungenis (who thinks Galileo was wrong and who is also a YECer)
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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wildleafblower
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Hi Petrus,
I know from another conversation we have recently had in the Sacred Scripture section that as a theologian you are a proponent of panentheism as is William Dembski who wrote, “In this essay I’m going to argue that intelligent design is not a form of natural theology. What’s more, I’m going to argue that Barbour’s theology of nature, as he calls it, is itself a form of natural theology, though the theology in this case is not traditional theism but the panentheism of process theology. First let’s turn to the charge that intelligent design is a form of natural theology. To be fair to Barbour, he does not say that my colleagues and I are actually doing natural theology. Rather, he says that we write in the tradition of natural theology. He therefore seems to allow that we are not committing the exact same mistakes (if in fact they were mistakes) as natural theologians of the past. On the other hand, in saying that we write in the tradition of natural theology, he suggests that our aims are substantially those of the old natural theologians.” (1)
I’m totally against Dembski’s point of view as you must already know.
for the reasons I mention above and on this url:forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=186089&page=11
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=186089&page=11
As a Roman Catholic woman I don’t support panentheism or pantheism. And, I’m NOT a God of the gaps kind of WOMAN.
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wildleafblower
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Yeah, U can call me Wild but don’t take it literally.
True event - my older brother called me on the phone last week and reminded me that I was as a child rebellious! I reminded him our Dad named me after three very important women whose name is known as “rebellion”. 
And, I told him that I planned on living up to my God-given name in a sorta nice way.Steve, I think you’re capable of literally and figueratively ‘mopping the floor’
. Honestly, I’ve never known you to be out of your depth when presenting such worthwhile thoughts on a wide range of topics. May God continue to grant us all continued strength throughtout our life
I place my trust in Christ to send us the Holy Spirit of God to lead us every inch of the way ! A team effort is always welcomed.
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drpmjhess
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Wildleafblower, as you know, I regard pantheism as logically contradictory of the Christian doctrine of God as creator, whereas I view panentheism as a useful insight.As a Roman Catholic woman I don’t support panentheism or pantheism. And, I’m NOT a God of the gaps kind of WOMAN.
But let me ask you: if God is not everywhere in your view, does God hover somewhere off to one side of the universe? “Where” is a difficult question, of course, as it is hard to imagine a non-local God, and we are incapable of imagining non-locally. But as we are spatio-temporal beings, I do think panentheism is a useful way of conceiving the universe as existing within the all-encompassing divine reality. Where is God for you?
Petrus
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wildleafblower
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Humm. Petrus, I DON’T ‘read design in everything’.
Perhaps Petrus it is your belief in panentheism that makes you think it is ‘a useful way of conceiving the universe as existing within the all-encompassing divine reality’ which is causing you grief with scientists. etc. Think about it. (Please remember my Catholicism doesn’t include panentheism.)You may wish to consider your marketing stradegy targeting a population’s perception isn’t conducive in a real world.
Think about it.
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drpmjhess
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I never said I believe in panentheism (one believes in a person, not an framework); I simply maintain it can be a fruitful was of thinking theologically. And I am not in grief with scientists – I work with them to defend the teaching of evolution, and we agree to disagree about metaphysics.Humm. Petrus, I DON’T ‘read design in everything’.
You may wish to consider your marketing stradegy targeting a population’s perception isn’t conducive in a real world.
The logic (or perhaps the grammar) of your last line escapes me entirely. Can you please rewrite that?
Petrus
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wildleafblower
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I guess I need to take baby steps when dialoguing with you, Petrus. Petrus, you did state, “(1) I am a Roman Catholic theologian working with a wide range of scientists in an organization founded originally to promote better understanding of science on the part of Christians and members of other faith traditions. **The director hired me so that I could educate (a) scientists about what religious believers believe, **and ((b) religious believers about how scientists operate. You can imagine what a challenge this can be. I was caught between Fundies and atheists last Thursday at a university lecture!” (msg #151 on the topic Reconciling Evolution with Adam and Eve found on this url:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=186089&page=11
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=186089&page=11 )
Petrus what do you and ‘religious believers believe’ ?
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drpmjhess
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Your grammar and/or logic in the last line of post 516 are incoherent. If you can restate that for me, perhaps I can answer you.
Petrus
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SpiritMeadow
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I’ve read all these posts and haven’t a clue what you are getting at wild. Petrus never said he was a panentheist. He said it was a useful way in some ways of doing theology. That’s all.I guess I need to take baby steps when dialoguing with you, Petrus. Petrus, you did state, “(1) I am a Roman Catholic theologian working with a wide range of scientists in an organization founded originally to promote better understanding of science on the part of Christians and members of other faith traditions. **The director hired me so that I could educate (a) scientists about what religious believers believe, **and ((b) religious believers about how scientists operate. You can imagine what a challenge this can be. I was caught between Fundies and atheists last Thursday at a university lecture!” (msg #151 on the topic Reconciling Evolution with Adam and Eve found on this url:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=186089&page=11
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=186089&page=11 )
Petrus what do you and ‘religious believers believe’ ?
sorry you’ve gotten so hung up on this pantheism/panentheism confusion. What exactly are you worried about? Other than that you dont like either one?
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wildleafblower
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Petrus, please answer my question in message no. 517.
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