Boors, Cads and Cretins

peter, re: ZOMGitsCriss
she said (something like) "every piece of fossil ever found is a transitional"

to which you said,
"But the point Creationists are making is not a transition from one species to another over slow, gradual periods of time. We contend God made each kind distinct with common/similar traits so that each kind could interact and fit into the environment it shares with others, and with the ability to adapt within their kind to the extremes of any particular environment that can sustain that kind.

So she is not portraying our argument correctly."

i think you are misunderstanding. she was not portraying the biblical "argument", she was criticising the common creationist criticism of evolution: literal creationists often say, "if evolution happened, why are there no transitional fossils". get it?

when you read pam's link about whales, you'll see what a silly thing that is to say.

remember when i compared the history of life on earth to a film? what ZOMGitsCriss was saying about every fossil being a transition fossil is like what i said about how what you consider a "transitional" fossil is just a product of where you "stop the film". remember that?

peter,
that link was for pam...i don't want to distract you from focusing on your backlog of our old posts.

but since you did, i'll just take up one of your comments.

"The flat earth theory was a misinterpretation of figurative language signifying the compass directions in "four corners" rather than the earth being flat."

anybody who reads the bible knows the universe is shaped like a snow globe. earth is an island in the flat, round (or square, with "corners") "waters," covered by a "firmament" (rigid dome or tent) with stars on it. it is theoretically possible to reach the "ends" of the earth (possibly crashing into the sky, like truman) - but that is so far away, possibly over 1000 miles, no one could ever get there. there is a "foundation" "below" the earth and the waters holding everything "up."

between the earth and the foundation is an "underworld" - which everyone agrees is a bad, probably hot, place. god(s) and heaven are "above" the firmament, outside the dome [gen1, joshua10:12, 1ch16:30, job22:14, 37:18, psalms 19:6, 93:1, 96:10, proverbs 8:27, isaiah 40:22, daniel 4:11, 8:10, matthew 4:8, 24:29, mark 13:25, revelation 6:13, 7:10, 12:4, and many others].

these verses are not all specifically about geology and astronomy, but they all reveal the prevailing snow globe assumptions.

in matthew 4:8, the devil takes jesus to a "very high mountain" where he could see "all the kingdoms of the world." this is can’t happen on a spherical earth.

daniel 4:11 is a prophetic vision of a tree that grew so large "its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth." though this is "just" a vision, it reveals that daniel thought it was possible, albeit with god’s help, for a tree to be tall enough to be seen from everywhere on earth – like the earth is flat (or concave).

there was no need to say "the earth is flat" – everybody already "knew" that. the ancients thought that a tree that tall would hit the firmament – a dome which job 37:18 describes as "hard as a mirror of cast bronze." this conception of the cosmos was captured and canonized in scripture, and persisted largely intact through the dark ages.

it has taken scientists many centuries to convince theologians that the ancient mesopotamian cosmology described in genesis - revelation is wrong. even most, but not all, judeochrislamic fundamentalists now reject flat-earth/firmament theory.

sorry, i won't interrupt anymore. please continue reviewing our posts.

Hi Walter, Pam,

I also visited Youtube. I thought she made a lot of sweeping generalization with no support, but what can you do in six minutes of fame in which you share the spotlight with Kirk Cameron, a proven actor? (^8

Snakes and BS. Her angry exposes her bitterness, in my opinion.

Remember, she has her own philosophical bias. Her statement "Adolph Hitler's undeniable connection with Christianity" implies to me that she believes that he either a) supported Christianity, or b) was a Christian himself. Again the evidence supports neither of these premises. Outwardly he used Christian's in his rise to power, but inwardly he detested them.

http://townhall.com/columnists/DineshDSouza/2007/11/05/was_hitler_a_christian?page=full

Please see the video here on Hitler,

http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/contrasting-the-moral-values-of-an-authentic-christian-with-an-authentic-darwinist/

The Nuremberg records are also interesting,

http://creation.com/nazis-planned-to-exterminate-christianity

In the article I supplied earlier on mass murders in history the number of people given killed by the Salem Witch Trails was five, the Inquisition and Crusades also infinitesimal compared to the atheist regimes of the twentieth century.

The flat earth theory was a misinterpretation of figurative language signifying the compass directions in "four corners" rather than the earth being flat.

The Scriptures reveal the earth is round in Isaiah where reference is made to the "circle of the earth."

She says "the theory of evolution is biological" but "has nothing to do with the origins of the universe, which is cosmology."

She fails to see the connection between the two. It does have something to do with life on earth. In her, and your world view Pam, either life came from something (BB)that was the start of everything in the universe or life existed before the universe came into being. The teaching is that life came from the ingredients/matter created by the BB. In other words, the BB was the cause of life on our planet, so the two are related.

She says Scientist's don't believe "everything came from nothing." Actually some evolutionary scientist's have stated as much. I believe I can complete a list of quotes given time of some who do.

She says "every piece of fossil ever found is a transitional form from something else."

But the point Creationists are making is not a transition from one species to another over slow, gradual periods of time. We contend God made each kind distinct with common/similar traits so that each kind could interact and fit into the environment it shares with others, and with the ability to adapt within their kind to the extremes of any particular environment that can sustain that kind.

So she is not portraying our argument correctly.

That is just a few of my observations.

I do have to briefly comment on one part of Peter's latest:

"PAM: 'I did *not* say that believers were half-educated or simple-minded. On the contrary, many are very well educated and quite intelligent, otherwise.'
PETER:Except of course, mostly 'deliberately ignorant.'"

One can quite easily be intelligent and well-educated otherwise and still be deliberately ignorant of all knowledge to do with evolution.

I will (have done) read your side - you won't read mine. You instruct us to go to sites and "read the whole article and the links provided," but when I give you a site, you tell me that you "looked at it briefly."

This is deliberate ignorance.

Just so we're clear.

Hi Walter,
Yes, I did see the YouTube video - that one, and several of her others. She is very good - doesn't suffer fools gladly, does she?

"pam, my tongue is bleeding. is yours?"

I fear that I have bitten mine completely off...swallowing gouts of blood...getting weaker...

But I'll tie on a tourniquet and wait for the whales.

pam,
have you seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmHN3JtyUXg

it was linked to in that "origin of the specious" thread. man, her brain is pretty. she's made many other equally funny but poignant videos you could find if interested.

peter, keep going. we're reading.

pam, my tongue is bleeding. is yours?

PAM: " The only meaning or purpose that matters is that which you give to your own life."

Suppose my meaning or purpose is to commit mass murder. What difference does it make in the long run if I end my life and those of others if I choose to make this my purpose? That is the same beliefs that fueled communism and atheistic thought and life in the twentieth century, the bloodies on record.

Please read the whole article and the links provided at,

http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/who-is-more-responsible-for-the-mass-murders-of-history-christians-or-atheists/

PAM: "Might I remind you that you were not around, either, and you have no idea whether things happened the way the bible says they did, nor of how the bible texts came to be?"

No, I was not around, but God was. Without God there is no way of making sense of it. And I can have a true idea of the way things are and the way things happened only because of Him.

Your skepticism does not allow you to see the Bible in its true light.

PH: “No, it takes a great deal of faith to interpret the evidence the way you do. You put your trust in something that you were not around to witness and have no idea of how exactly it happened or why it is here. You cannot find purpose or meaning for it just happened.”

PAM: "I don’t have faith (by any definition), nor do I put my “trust” in anything of the sort. I consider the ultimate origin of the universe unknown, and possibly unknowable."

Again, you betray your world view by your lack of certainty, because your world view has no certainty to it, except what it feeds on from the Christian world view.

And you have oodles of faith. Remember the definition,

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See synonims at belief, trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.

I'll exclude you from # 4, and only because you are suppressing the knowledge of God (Romans 1:18-25).

PAM: "If a way is found to establish the BB as incontrovertible, that only pushes the question back to the moment before it occurred. This doesn’t bother me. Somehow physics brought the universe into being."

Again, your world view has no ultimate foundation. It rests on faith.

PAM: "Nor do I find a need for there to be “meaning” or “purpose” in it. Who cares?"

In a Godless universe, like you say, what does it matter. What one person does to another has no lasting implications - here today gone tomorrow - dust in the wind. That is precisely the question - why "SHOULD" anyone care? It is all meaningless, if you want it to be. It is a futile philosophy in the long run.

So God's knowledge is ultimate and original, ours is derived and limited. Only by correctly thinking His thoughts after Him can we truly know anything. We don't see how things are related in all details so the question is "how do you know that you are correctly seeing and interpreting the evidence as it truly is?

You don't.

You are my witness of these very things in the numerous statements you have made which betray your lack of certainty about anything. Your next statement is another betrayal of your world view.

PAM: "I recognize that those working in the field, who have knowledge and specific education superior to my own, think that this is what the current evidence indicates."

What the current evidence indicates. That could change as the interrelationship between the facts are better known. They think but don't have any certainty.

PAM: "I’m willing to defer to them, while keeping an open mind and a healthy dose of skepticism."

Your mind is not open. It has been molded into an evolutionary framework that everything you look at you look at though those impaired glasses.

PAM: "It is sufficient to me to know that the universe exists, and that stars and their associated planets can form from interstellar dust and that they can form galaxies. I know that matter arises from energy, and that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. I know that the elements of which everything is composed, are formed in the furnaces of the stars. This is good enough. I’m much more interested in what happens in this galaxy, in this solar system, on this planet."

You don't know all these things. You interpret the data and make your assumptions based on your world view. You do not see how it is all related. It is an educated guess, a subjective opinion unless it has an objective, ultimate absolute reference point. That is God.

Contuning,

PH: “Where does life originate from Pam? Where did this singularity originate from Pam? Why did it explode?”

PAM: "These two questions are unrelated. The BB has nothing to do with the origin of life. I don’t think you’d find many astrophysicists willing to characterize the BB as an “explosion”, either. More like an expansion."

How can the two questions be unrelated? If the universe came into existence was there life before it or not? If life had no beginning then it is not empirical, because your framework believes that life originated after the BB. There is an essence to life that is not material in this case since, unless it was contained in this point of singularity that whimpered into existence and started to expand, it had a physical beginning.

PAM: "I am *not* an astrophysicist, and don’t pretend to know what existed prior to the BB, or even if said bang occurred."

That is my point all along. You don't know, but you presume to know and build your world view on something that has no foundation. What is the foundation that life is built on? You don't know. Where did it originate from? Man without God begins with himself/herself and no outside help.

The Christian has an answer that can make sense of life and truth and knowledge. As Robert Reymond said in Faiths Reason for Believing,

"God's knowledge - intuited in the sense that He never had to learn anything through a learning process - encompasses all possible and actual knowable data. He knows to perfection and without qualification all things....God has never investigated any datum in the universe independent of Him. God has never learned anything through the discursive process or through research. God has never had to recall anything to mind simple because He has never forgotten anything....All created things fall within the compass of His knowledge because nothing in the universe is outside of His plan and will. It is God's plan and will that executes the plan that makes all things what they are. This means, as we have already affirmed, that God knew all created things in all possible actual; relationships even prior to their creation, and it is because of His plan that all things are finally and actually what they are....It is an epistemological axiom that unless there is comprehensive knowledge of all things somewhere there can be no knowledge anywhere. This is because all knowledge data is inextricably interrelated....The Christian, however, understands that because there is absolute knowledge with God real and true knowledge is possible for man (of course, never exhaustively) since God who knows all data in all their relationships and therefore possesses true knowledge of all things is in a position to impart any portion of that knowledge...to man...in Holy Scripture." p. 346-346

Hi Pamsm (September 1, 2009 2:02 AM ),

PAM: "Now to some of your specific points:"

PH: “And you think that because people do not look at life the same way you do that they are ‘half-educated’ simple-minded people who believe in fairy tales, yet once upon a time, billions and billions of years ago, presto, a point of singularity exploded into the known universe. BANG!”

PAM: "Huh?
You twist my words – I said that any half-educated person who came across the bible as an adult (rather than being indoctrinated as an uncritical child) would recognize it as fable."

Here is one of your statements,

PAM: "I find that most evangelicals, especially YECs are exactly that - deliberately ignorant."

There are lots of people who come across the Bible as an adult and have life transforming experiences that have investigated and found it to be true. Remember atheism is a small minority in the world of faith.

PAM: "I did *not* say that believers were half-educated or simple-minded. On the contrary, many are very well educated and quite intelligent, otherwise."

Except of course, mostly "deliberately ignorant."

PAM: "But early indoctrination is tough to overcome, and some have become masters of compartmentalization."

Yes, it is. From the young age of toddlers we set our children down to mindless TV programs that promote evolutionary ideology.

PAM: "And what has the Big Bang to do with any of this?"

Everything. It is the currently accepted view of modern science and as a majority view the question is, either the universe had a beginning by a chance happening or there is intent and plan behind it. Either life always existed or it had a beginning.

PAM: "I don't see how one can know what to believe without knowing what the choices are. This is baffling to me. And more than a little frightening."

Without an objective authority or standard or measure what makes you think your belief is true? You look at everything from a naturalistic set of eyes. How do you know that is right?

Sure, it is easy to be mislead. That is why there are so many different Jesus' preached. That is why there are so many different views of life and origins. But how do you justify your (scientific) knowledge as truth when it is always being revised? The authoritative source for finding out who Jesus is the Bible. And faith is a gift of God as is regeneration - the new life - and it comes through the Spirit and the Word.

PAM: "So maybe one of you believers (Peter?) can tell me what's up with this head-in-the-sand attitude, and why I should respect the opinions of anyone who thinks that way."

There are those who are Christians, just like those who investigate science who are young or immature in their belief. There are also those who have thought the issues through and dug deep to expose the evolutionary hype-hypothesis.

Hi Pam (August 28, 2009 12:07 AM),

PAM: "This is a point worth expanding upon. I find that most evangelicals, especially YECs are exactly that - deliberately ignorant."

Again you are making generalizations and categorizing most Christians by those you know or have read as ignorant, somewhat because they don't think like you.
How do you know that you are not the one who is ignorant? You have admitted you don't know God.

PAM: "I have a friend at work who is a Seventh Day Adventist."

Not biblical.

PAM: "I have offered to loan her books so she can better understand where I come from. Books such as "Godless" by Dan Barker, or "Jesus Interrupted" by Bart Ehrman (both former evangelicals and accomplished biblical scholars)."

Bart Ehrman and Dan Barker have a beef about Christianity. I have listened to a couple of their debates on the net. Please put "http://www." before addresses, except for the last one - just "http://" for that,

brianauten.com/Apologetics/wilson-barker-debate.mp3

aomin.org/podcasts/20090303.mp3

aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3520

aomin.org/podcasts/20090113fta.mp3

brianauten.com/Apologetics/licona-answers-ehrman.mp3

pleaseconvinceme.blogspot.com/2009/09/responding-to-bart-ehrman.html

PAM: "I *have* read both sides, and have offered to read more - any book she suggests. She knows I've read the bible, and that my early education included years of church and Sunday school."

Okay, you've read both sides, but how well do you understand the Christian faith? You are an outsider looking in. The evidence is there, but you bring your own bias to any argument. There is no such thing as neutrality if you are a thinking human being.

Hmmm... much talk about me and my supposed views. Like Walter, I'm tempted to respond, but you're already too far behind. I'll wait until you get past the whales and the flood.

peter,
'preciate your replies. i'm itching to respond, but i'll let you catch up a bit first.

Continuing,

But continuing along the same lines, that of our evolutionary mutual desire for survival and hence our empathy and thoughts of wellbeing that we all share, while I was down in Florida, I came across a snippet from USA Today, Friday September 25, in which a columnist from the New York Times, Rich Lowry, made the comment on Obama's naïveté,

"Obama's mistake is in believing 'the interests of nations and peoples are shared.' The aren't. Georgia has an interest in becoming a strong nation capable of defending itself; Russia has an interest in quashing it. China has an interest in dominating all of East Asia; Japan and other neighbors have an interest in containing it. Iran has an interest in gaining a nuclear weapon; Israel - and the United States - has an interest in stopping it...The president wasn't wrong to talk sweepingly of peace..."

I thought this was interesting because the way Pam looks at the world is different from the way the world actually is and the way it actually functions. So much for our innately inherent evolutionary ability that we all share as to looking out for the interest of others. Rather, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) or "there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit'. 'The poison of vipers is on their lips.' 'Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.' 'Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.' 'There is no fear of God before their eyes.'" (Romans 3:12b-18)

Here are some debates you might find interesting Walter,

http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/search/label/debate

Hello Walter and Pam,

WALTER: "thank god scientists don't just "throw their hands up" and say "god did it" every time there's something they don't understand - or we'd still have polio and horse-drawn carriages."

That is a generalization if you are implying Christian scientists just throw up their hands in explaining the yet unexplaable. They look for the way in which God did it through the observable universe and in the case of some Christians, in a way that does not contradict His word.

As for evolutionary science, no, they don't look to God. Instead, in many cases, they make up theories to support their deeply grounded core values and deepest convictions, that have nothing to do with true science.

WALTER: "i suspect in a few (5, 10, 20, 50?) years, scientists, not philosophers, will fill that gap and flew's DNA-assembling god will be out of work."

Yes, that is Pam's conviction also. You're looking for a material, empirical, phenomenal, time/space evidential answer to a (what Kant would call) "noumenal world", something innate, one that is beyond our sensory perceptions and experience, that we don't know of its nature without presupposing God.

Logic would be from the noumenal world, in that we don't know where it came from (outside of God). There is nothing empirical about logic - it is a concept. How in a "brute fact" empirical world did logic develop? If we are here by chance (no intent, plan or purpose originally created us)how do we get logic? Why "should" one biological bag of matter agree with another in a chance universe where anything is possible? Pam would answer because of our need for survival and sense of "do unto others." I hope to look at her belief in future posts, since she has a lot of baggage I need to unpack and emphasize in explaining this and I have to find the quotes from her that I'm looking for.

Hi Walter,

Did you open the link to Discovery Institute? It is just a brief clip.

I thought of two more, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who are ID supporter's but not Christians. I realize their example is very controversial because of their views that oppose Big Bang cosmology. There are many others and as my mind is trigger I will jot them down.

But the point is that the idea of Darwinism is starting to be questioned very intensely and new avenues are starting to be investigated as to how we got here. This is a young endeavor compared with evolutionary science that has over one hundred and fifty years to establish itself as the main (majority) view of science. And Darwinism was made possible by the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason on which humanism attempted to answer the perplex questions of life. It was the seed for Darwinism.

The consequence of ideas is a fascinating subject. Dig deeper into whom and what influences a person and you start to unravel their inner core values. This is the case with Darwinism.

Until we start thinking God's thoughts after Him we are going to be wrong in establishing the true view of science. It just becomes a battle of he said, she said philosophy where one side is pitted against the other. I can get many "experts" as Pam can to push the antithesis of the evidential argument for evolution. That is not what I want to do.

How can truth be discovered by subjective opinion? Which one becomes the standard? And WHY?

That is why I prefer the presuppositional argument. It cuts to the chase by demonstrating that without an objective, ultimate, omniscient standard truth cannot be known.

Robert Reymond wrote books that investigate this subject, Faith's Reason for Believing, The Justification of Knowledge : An introductory study in Christian apologetic methodology, and John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Only by God's revelation can we arrive at truth. I'll try to develop this idea later by feeding off and utilizing some of their thoughts and discussions and also those of Bahnsen and Van Til.

An e-mail to Discovery Institute might provide a bigger breakdown of who is who in the ID movement. I'll do that for you and see if I get a response. You want scientists who believe in ID who are not Christians.

The reason, I feel, that the ID movement is gaining strength is because it questioning many of the problems with Darwinian philosophy and science. As mentioned before, it does not answer who this intelligent designer is. It is diverse, since not all in the movement are Christians. Each brings to the table his particular world view, like Michele Behe (Catholic), Phil Johnston (Evangelical Christian), Antony Flew (Deist) and Fred Hoyle (?).

I wonder too how many in the link to the list you provided of ID scientists (many posts ago) are Christians?

peter,
good to see you posting again. antony flew, i suppose, is a good example of a non-judeochrislamic ID proponent. nontheless he is (was) not a scientist (i didn't specifically ask for "scientists", so you get credit for this one).

from a letter he wrote to richard carrier:
"My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew

so, flew, a philosopher, since he personally can't imagine how DNA evolved, sees DNA's complexity as evidence for god. that's "god of the (molecule-sized) gaps". and indeed, that's a good "gap", for now. DNA's pretty complex.

thank god scientists don't just "throw their hands up" and say "god did it" every time there's something they don't understand - or we'd still have polio and horse-drawn carriages.

i suspect in a few (5, 10, 20, 50?) years, scientists, not philosophers, will fill that gap and flew's DNA-assembling god will be out of work.

anyway, thanks for the reply, and keep at it.

Hi Walter,

Just a quick post until later today. You wanted to know of some ID believers who were not Christians - Antony Flew for one.

Quoting from Robert Reymond, Faith's Reason for Believing, p.341-342, on ID,

"The force of this argument (Irreducible complexity) has not been lost on octogenarian Antony Flew - for decades the icon and champion of atheism for unbelievers - who recently declared that the intelligent design argument for God's existence convinced him that he had to abandon his avowed atheism (he is now a deist, which admittedly is as far as the argument will carry, but not a Christian)!"

Robert Reymond goes on to explain why the ID movement does not necessarily point to the one and only true God and his views, in my opinion, are very convincing, since he works from a presuppositional basis that the Bible is the word of God. An ID argument does not necessarily lead a person to the God of the Bible based on its arguments.

"While Intelligent Design scientists know that ID does not prove the existence of any one specific God, the living cell does demonstrate that things did not simply evolve to the state they are in today." p. 340

Here is a link from the Discovery Institute that explains its position.

http://www.discovery.org/v/20

I agreed, many of ID's proponents are professing Christians, but I don't want to make a sweeping generalization like you want to in saying most for I don't know that.

peter, pam, onofrio(?), mary,
let's use david's thread (this one) 'till it "times out". if david has a new one, we'll just move to there. if david doesn't have a new thread, we'll meet up at susan's newest thread and pick new, empty thread on which to continue.

Hi friends,

I'm back from a week in Florida, refreshed! It looks like I have some catching up to do. Wednesday is my best day this week. Unfortunately time is not as abundant as in the summer months.

I tried sending a post on both Susan's forum and this and nothing took on the 17th, before I left.

Hi Mary - I welcome your perspective, and support in what we do agree on, the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I think in some areas we will be coming at things from vastly different outlook.

Sounds OK to me, assuming he writes every week - some don't.

If not, we can find each other again on Susan's, and choose another spot.

i'll propose now that if this thread "times out" before peter comes back we'll continue on whatever is david wolpe's newest thread. ok?

Mary_Cunningham, you said,
"...at some point would like to join to discuss unbelief & belief from a Catholic viewpoint."

well, we'd (i'd at least) welcome that. we were going gangbusters for a while there and have moved threads several times to keep the conversation going after a thread expired. stay tuned...

pam,
yeah, i came back from the weekend's vacation hoping to see some peter comments. i originally thought this past week was his vacation and that he would be able to post while on vacation, but then i got the impression the vacation is this upcoming week, and that he won't be able to post. so i guess i'm all confused.

anyway, hopefully he'll get back to posting. he seems concientious about adressing all of our posts, so...we'll see.

Looks like Peter has left the building.

I'll be AFK myself from Wednesday to Sunday of next week.

Guess we'll get it together at some point...

Hi WIFC, Peter & Pam,

Am traveling for the next few weeks & at some point would like to join to discuss unbelief & belief from a Catholic viewpoint.

Unfortunately, as I do not think ID is a viable theory I couldn't add much here. Also, in any discussion that is heavily dependent on knowledge of the OT I would be a weak contributer.

Good on philosophy and the origins of religion and morality.

Best,

MC

"and finally, the lest interesting possibility is that what the ancients wrote down was actually not inspired by god."

:D

pam,
isn't it funny how ALL the creation stories from all over the world focus the story on their little corner of the world?

polynesians say something like, "god made the oceans, then our island popped up, with palm trees and such, then "adam and eve" popped up." not only that, they ALL got it horribly worng. they all reflect prevailing incorrect cosmology. imagine if there were scripture that told us about dinosaurs or gravity or electricity or about the periodic table and atomic structure. THAT would be freaky-provacative scripture.

why didn't this happen?

from god's perspective, at the time, i guess cosmologically accurate scripture would not have been believable. now, it just seems like he was trying to confuse us. and he did. science has had to "fight" scripture every step along the way as we've learned about planets and plate tectonics and so on.

as i suggested above, it could be that god was confusing us then by giving us false cosmologies, or, as peter might suggest, he's confusing us NOW and one (and only one) of those ancient cosmologies is actually right. theoretically, it could even be the ancient mesopotamian cosmology captured in the bible.

another possibility is that some ancient religion actually did get the cosmology right, but all it's adherents died out.

and finally, the lest interesting possibility is that what the ancients wrote down was actually not inspired by god.

peter,
did you hear about this?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091702573.html
let me engage in a little creationist-style quote-mining:
the article "admits",

"This scrambles the picture of mega-predator evolution"

and

"The orthodoxy in paleontology has been that T. rex got its peculiar body shape....as a side effect of evolving into a giant animal."

and

"This animal really changes the way we look at...evolution."

and

"The new finding has some quirky elements that may raise questions in the scientific community."

and

"Where are the raptor-size versions, the minis, of these other predators? Where are the minis of brachiosaurus? Are we just missing them in the fossil record?"

my favorite is "...may raise questions in the scientific community" - pure gold. sounds like michael denton (of ID "fame") was right: evolution is a theory in crisis...

how come the bible never mentions dinosaurs?

remember, if you claim the vague references (to a croc and hippo, common animals in egypt) in job40 are dinoasaurs, it means they were ON THE ARK.

don’t you think if dinosaurs were living alongside humans the early books in the bible would mention them - maybe giving tips to the ancients on how to avoid them? those who mocked elijah would have been eaten by a t.rex, not a silly bear. we should find dinosaur references in egyptian, chinese and indian art and writing too. there should be ancient religions that revered dinosaurs. stone age man drew mastodons not tyrannodons.

the fact is the ancients knew nothing of dinosaurs, and there is no place to “put” them in the biblical chronology.

peter,
or are these the "three branches" of ID from that website?

1)natural process because, before history began, the universe was designed so this would happen

2)natural process that, during history, was supernaturally guided in a natural-appearing way to produce a particular natural-appearing result that was desired

3)detectable design-directed action during history by a supernatural agent...which was necessary because undirected natural process would not produce the feature
____________________

if so, the first two are beyond the purview of science. it could be that god is guiding evolution in an undetectable way. by definition we'll never know. type 1 and 2 are not disprovable, and therefore not useful scientific ideas.

so, i presume we're talking about type 3.

pam, you said,
"I have long thought that religion is neither more nor less than a means of gaining power and controlling people. It has probably been so since the first primitive tribesman realized that he could have that power by claiming to have a special pipeline to the gods that people invented to try to explain and deal with the forces of nature.

indeed, god and government were married a looooooonng before jefferson et. al divorced them.

Hmmm...that (the movie) may have been early twentieth-century China, on second thought.

Excellent points, Walter.

I have long thought that religion is neither more nor less than a means of gaining power and controlling people. It has probably been so since the first primitive tribesman realized that he could have that power by claiming to have a special pipeline to the gods that people invented to try to explain and deal with the forces of nature.

It was win-win for these guys. If their importunings worked (rain for the crops, say) there was proof-positive of their power! If they didn't work, it was because the people didn't believe strongly enough - they were doubters, or that some one of them had trucked with the evil spirits.

Churches make money. Some are incredibly wealthy and their leaders live like kings (Pope, evangelical mega-church leaders). They have every incentive to keep the faithful faithful, and to increase their numbers.

Thus, they discourage any contact with anything that might cause an inkling of doubt. Science books are the work of the devil.

I remember a scene from the movie "The Painted Veil" about an English doctor fighting cholera in 19th century China. His wife was rhapsodizing about the good things that the nuns at the Catholic school were doing for the Chinese children. He said "But they're turning them all into little Catholics."

Indeed.

BTW, Peter is Canadian. Don't know what bible he uses, but it isn't KJV.

i said,
"he [hitler] tapped into peoples' racism and "us vs. them" mentality ..."

the other thing he "tapped" was "nationalism", or, if applying the term to say, george washington, "patriotism".

peter, you said,
"If you haven't noticed your country and my country use much of the world's resources..."

what's your country? if you mentioned it, i missed it. (btw, i asked you another simple question i haven't seen your answer for: which bible version do you use?)

you said,
"The reason why our consciences register murder and theft as wrong is because we as humans are created in the image and likeness of God."

no, the reason is because, selfishly, we don't want to be murdered or robbed. and we don't want our children to be murdered, etc... it's simple, really. reciprocity, the golden rule, don't steal.

you said,
"I just use him [hitler, again...] because he is an example of where a society can fall when it has no absolute, objective moral standard and measure to base evil on. It was a society well educated and in evolutionary doctrine."

i don't think hitler was atheist - and he rose to and held power using "religious modalities".

from mein kampf: "The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will."

anyway, hitler's "word" (get it?) provided the "absolute objective moral standard". he tapped into peoples' racism and "us vs. them" mentality and milked it for all it's worth (like the bible, with believers and unbelievers). hitlers "objective moral standard", which COULD NOT be questioned was that aryans are good, and others are bad. the reward for going along with nazism was being allowed to live (heaven). the penalty for being "other" was death/subjugation (like joshua et. al.).

to be clear:
hitler = god
mein kampf = bible
aryan, good; others, bad = moral standard
(non-negotiable, like religious "objective standards")

so, if you can check your "presuppositions" at the door, you'll see that the stereotypical examples of "godless societies" (nazism, north korea, communism etc...) are not really godless, they just have NEW gods called "hitler", "kim jong-il", and "lenin" whose pronouncements are treated with the "absoluteness" as your god's words.

peter, you said,
"Murder and theft are justifiable depending on the circumstances in any society without an objective, absolute fixed and just measure or moral standard. It is a question of the "haves" and the "have nots", the law of the jungle, the survival of those who can best adapt to the circumstances and get away with what they can without getting caught..."

huh? like i said, "muder" and "theft" ARE absolutes in that no culture (i know of) deems them acceptable behavior. they're universal, right? do you seriously know of a civilization with any staying power (and staying power the key here, if we're talking about the evolution of morals in society) where it is acceptable to just up and murder your neighbor? for no good reason?

you talked about "getting caught" - do you see how that implies a moral standard? "getting caught" means "caught doing something unacceptable". if it were "morally ok", there's no need to worry about "getting caught". in the "law of the jungle" there's no getting caught, but there is in the law of the city.

"socially cohesive units" (cities, civilizations) are comprised of people who cooperate. it's all about cooperation. people come together and cooperate for their mutual benefit. cooperative societies thrive. societies with cooperative people thrive, and cooperative genes get passed on.

it's not only genes that get passed on. it's also ideas - what i call our "cultural chromosome". human animals are so clever we've invented writing and reading. for $5 (probably free on the internet) i can read the complete works of aristotle. amazing. every generation does not have to "start over" - we build on our ancestors' ideas. writing, reading, science, religion, art, math, clothes, architecture, agriculture, farming and yes MORALS are part of our cultural chromosome. this chromosome evolves much faster than our regular somatic ones... this partly explains how humans are so different from chimps even though our genes are so similar.

imagine if humans suddenly "lost" the cultural chromosome - we'd be right back where we were 100,000 (or pick your biblically acceptable number) years ago barely eking out a living, and living to a ripe old age of 25 or so.

peter, you said,
"The frightening thing about your "right" by cohesion and function is that it is a constantly changing flavor depending who is in power. There is nothing concrete to base it on, no foundational, objective standard and measure."

no, it's not. you make it sound arbitrary. as pam said, it's based on what's good for all people and society.

there are really only a very few moral "absolutes" humans have "discovered" (invented?) over the ages. "do unto others..." is the most famous one. i would argue that "don't steal" is the ONLY other one. think about it: murder is stealing life, lying is stealing truth, cheating is another form of stealing, rape is stealing. i think all "moral absolutes" are some variation of "don't steal".

i think you could go to ANY culture, no matter how isolated or different from ours and they'd have a moral concept about stealing (and murder and lying and cheating). they might not have a rule about rape since men generally make these rules and often regard women as possessions (like in the bible).

so, i think murder, stealing and lying are moral absolutes.

how 'bout "one god"? - nope, not universal.

how 'bout "no idols"? - nope, not universal, just a matter of preference, really.

how 'bout "do no work, but go to church on sunday (or saturday, or friday, or monday evening, or sometimes wednesday evening)"? - nope, not universal

how 'bout "honor you parents"? - generally a good idea, and some form of this probably is universal, because kids are dependent on parents and parents make the rules.

how 'bout "coveting your neighbor's whatever"? - well, i'd say coveting is not really a sin, unless you DO SOMETHING about it, e.g., steal (or have sex with) your neighbor's possessions, but "steal" has already been covered.

david wolpe,
nice essay. please pardon us while we (at the moment just "i") continue a conversation from another thread.

peter, (to pam) you said,
"Take a look around the world Pam. What a mess. There is no agreement on social cohesion and unity."

ive got to echo pam's sentiments on that one. the world IS "better" morally than a few hundred years ago or a few thousand years ago - it's just that we're so well-connected now. if a child is abducted in oregon, i'll hear about it in virginia.

as pam said, "baby steps". there have always been wars and famines and plagues and so forth (but curiously, no apocalypse yet...).

about what determines "good" and "bad" behavior in different societies, you said,
"For some it is flying planes into buildings, for others such as South Africa under Apartheid it is cohesion by dominance over "less favored races", and the same can apply to Hitler's Germany. For China's Mao, it is subjugation and dominance by military might, in Iran or Saudi Arabia it is dominance by a religious oligarchy."

aparthied, hitler, mao etc... ARE NOT examples of acceptable "alternate moralities". everyone knows these dictators are breaking the, pardon me, "natural law". the dictators even know it: that's why dictatorships must be IMPOSED, by FORCE. you don't think people in the communist soviet union felt "oppressed"?

peter,
hope you find your way here.

you said,
"I'm sure I can do better than this by identifying some of the non-Christian supporters of the ID movement if you want some specific names, but you can probably find that out as easily as I can. I do remember someone identifying some of these non-Christians, however. It might have been on one of the video presentations from the Discovery Institute???"

yes, specific names would be great. seems like all the guys i can find are christian. many are lawyers and philosophers and so forth: i.e., not scientists. you said that "asa" website had "three main branches" of ID support. are you talking about christian, jewish and muslim? those religions are all the same - in fact, i call them factions of one religion, judeochrislam.

you mentioned "discovery institute" and the "access research network" as ID groups. apparently the ARN is a discovery institute organization dressed in sheep's clothing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Research_Network