Social justice about increasing righteousness in culture

Pam continuing,

PH:" In our discussion of the Ark the same thing was done by both of you. You have already ruled out anything I could provide. You discount the supernatural providence of God in bringing the animals to the Ark...[etc.]"

PAM: "Because you're talking about magic, Peter. When you talk about a giant humanoid in the sky who creates and destroys and makes things happen out of nowhere and nothing, by sheer willpower, you're talking about hocus-pocus. This has no relationship to science."

Science should correctly reflect what is. What evolutionary science draws on in something that happened in the past that no one was their to witness. It draws it own conclusion on things that cannot be observed today because of the facts that animals and life do share commonalities, not because it has witnessed such things actually happening.

And it is not magic, its supernatural - beyond the natural.

PAM: "There is no such thing as evolutionary "progress." There is no goal, no standard of perfection to aim at. Natural selection favors what works best at the time and place in question. A fish can evolve eyes, which you might see as progress, but it can then lose them (see blind cave fish) if they become more of a liability than an asset. It may seem that evolution has been working toward the more complex, but this is an illusion. It started as simply as possible, so couldn't go in the direction of simpler. We are biased by our own size and our inability to see submicroscopic life. It's more abundant by far than all the visible life put together - and you couldn't go on living without it."

Well, if you think man is 'better' or more evolved than your simple basic algae, we are talking progress. Why does he have a value system that can determine the difference between good, better and best? And what is the standard that he uses to determine this qualitative measure? It is something that can be measured as to being better than something previous. Of course you raise a point that I have been arguing on for ages, that is 'how can something impersonal and non-living evolve into something living and personal?

Hi Pam, i only have time to briefly answer.

PH:"A list composed by creationist's does not count to you...."

PAM: "It doesn't "count" because it has such a blatant agenda, and it pads itself so obviously. Remember the blogger who pointed out that the numbers were off?

Is he an 'expert'?

PAM: "And their definition of "scientist," when it comes to signatories, is ridiculously broad:
http://www.mnscience.org/index.php?id=44"

From that piece of literature on this link it appears that the only scientists who can correctly read the evolutionary evidence are biologists, of which you are one!

Does science not overlap in any areas? Could you have biology without astrophysics?

PAM: "And again, we're not talking about natural, or any other kind, of philosophy, but of pure science."

As you said, horse poo.

Hi Walter,

Rushed, so here it is. You mentioned the Wedge document, but Phillip Johnston in his book, 'The Wedge of Truth' has a lot to say on this subject. I think he correctly identifies a lot of what is passed as science today is rationalization, not reason.

As for Pam's claim that evolutionary science is not philosophy, I find that a lark.

As Phil Johnston put it in 'The Wedge of Truth',

"The log [that the 'Wedge' is about to split] in this metaphor is the ruling philosophy of modern culture, a philosophy called naturalism or materialism or physicalism or simply modernism. Under any of these names this philosophy assumes that in the beginning were the fundamental particles that compose matter, energy and the impersonal laws of physics. To put it negatively, there was no personal God who created the cosmos and governs it as an act of free will...It is by building on that philosophic assumption that modernist scientists conclude that all plants and animals are the products of an undirected and purposeless evolutionary process - and that humankind is just another animal species, not created uniquely in the image of God.
This philosophy controls academic work not only in science but in all fields, including law, literature and psychology. It is promulgated throughout the education system and the mainstream media, and government backs it...The most important crack in the modernist log is the difference between two distinct definitions of science. On the one hand, modernists say that science is impartial fact-finding [as Pam has pointed out in her latest posts], the objective and unprejudiced weighing of evidence. Science in this sense relies on careful observations, calculations, and above all, repeated experiments [This kind of science doesn't sound like evolutionary science to me where conclusions are formed on commonality and similarity in different kinds are traced back to a common ancestry as one of its assumptions (and that common ancestry is not God]. That kind of objective science is what makes technology possible, and where it can be employed it is indeed the most reliable way of determining the facts. On the other hand, modernists also identify science with naturalistic philosophy. In that case science is committed to finding and endorsing naturalistic explanations for every phenomenon - regardless of the facts. That kind of science is not free of prejudice. On the contrary, it is defined by prejudice. The prejudice is that all phenomena can ultimately be explained in terms of purely natural causes, which is to say unintelligent causes." p 13-14.

Two

PH:"A list composed by creationist's does not count to you. That is because you continue to look for all the answers within the box that is natural philosophy."

It doesn't "count" because it has such a blatant agenda, and it pads itself so obviously. Remember the blogger who pointed out that the numbers were off? And their definition of "scientist," when it comes to signatories, is ridiculously broad:
http://www.mnscience.org/index.php?id=44

And again, we're not talking about natural, or any other kind, of philosophy, but of pure science.

PH:" In our discussio of the Ark the same thing was done by both of you. You have already ruled out anything I could provide. You discount the supernatural providence of God in bringing the animals to the Ark...[etc.]"

Because you're talking about magic, Peter. When you talk about a giant humanoid in the sky who creates and destroys and makes things happen out of nowhere and nothing, by sheer willpower, you're talking about hocus-pocus. This has no relationship to science.

PH: "You won't think outside your own box. You fail to see that sin is a promotion of self, and the evolutionary worldview offer man as the highest point of evolutionary progress that you know of so far. Of the vast and complex universe why are we, but a mere spec, so important?"

A) I don't think we're important at all in the great scheme of the universe. To the contrary. Nevertheless, we do have the largest brains on the planet (our only area of superiority), and I don't have access to extraterrestrials (assuming they exist), so I'm more likely to look to the work of humans to satisfy my curiosity than I am to ask, say, hermit crabs.

B) I don't believe in "sin," so of course don't consider it at all.

C) There is no such thing as evolutionary "progress." There is no goal, no standard of perfection to aim at. Natural selection favors what works best at the time and place in question. A fish can evolve eyes, which you might see as progress, but it can then lose them (see blind cave fish) if they become more of a liability than an asset. It may seem that evolution has been working toward the more complex, but this is an illusion. It started as simply as possible, so couldn't go in the direction of simpler. We are biased by our own size and our inability to see submicroscopic life. It's more abundant by far than all the visible life put together - and you couldn't go on living without it.

PH: ”1) All science starts from philosophy Pam. First the question has to be asked before the feasibility of it can be studied.”

No, Peter, this is just flat wrong, and a mistake you make over and over, ascribing your own religious methodology to scientists. They don’t start with a “philosophy” and attempt to prove it, as you do.

The beginning point of the scientific method is simply observation. Next comes a falsifiable hypothesis that explains all facets of what is observed. Then they attempt to falsify it.

If they succeed, then they go back to the observations, and try to come up with an alternative hypothesis. If they’re unable to falsify it, the hypothesis stands, and is published, after which their peers have their own shot at it.

If it withstands all tests, and also tends to shed light in other disciplines, and to provide an overarching unification of same, and if it becomes even stronger as new evidence comes in, the hypothesis may achieve the status of a theory (as have gravity and evolution by natural selection).

PH: ”2) You immediately discount almost anyone who is a creationist as being a scientist.”

Because they aren’t. I don’t doubt that someone who believes in a literal bible can pass whatever tests are required to become a physicist, or a biologist, or whatever; but when he subverts that education to the proof of Genesis, he is not doing science.

Starting with a conclusion and attempting to prove it, is the very antithesis of the scientific method. Darwin spent many years making observations before he developed his hypothesis.

See cartoon here: http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/25_answers.htm

PH: ”3) It was people thinking outside the box that got the ball rolling. The problem is the funding is not available for those who think outside your evolutionary box.”

Oh, horse poop, Peter! Religion is the oldest box there is. And funding?? You love to point out that ¾ of the world population believes. Who do you think pays for all these churches, and the comfortable-to-opulent lifestyles of their pastors? If Oral Roberts could raise $9 million+ by claiming that God would “call him home” if people didn’t contribute those millions, how can you possibly think that believers wouldn’t cough up a bundle to have religion proved?

this thread is 2 weeks old. let's go here next:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/philip_g_davis/2010/04/celebrating_selfless_prayer.html

have you guys read the ID movement's "wedge document"? it was supposed to be an internal memo, but it "got out". it's hilarious/tragic.

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf

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

they come right out and say their goal is “To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies” and “replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.”

well, ok, i suppose if they've got scientific proof for that, it would be the right thing to do.

To that end, the documment lays out a three-phase strategy:

Phase 1) Scientific research and publishing – to make the case scientifically

Phase 2) Public relations – to popularize the scientific debate

Phase 3) Cultural confrontation and renewal – to enact laws promoting the new (old) supernatural science, thus enlarging (their) God’s role in science and society

again, this is a fine, arguably noble, enterprise which, if systematically implemented, could lead to a new scientific synthesis and a better understanding of the cosmos.

so how are they doing?

they’re doing great with phases 2 and 3, which is REMARKABLE given that THEY HAVE NO PHASE 1. they’ve just SKIPPED OVER THE SCIENCE part. they have written ominous-sounding popular books (not scientific papers, mind you) and have appeared on tv, and have made a hollywood movie about ID. since there’s no actual science, phase 2 is now: popularize the appearance of scientific controversy (just like the global warming denialists).

sheesh....again, we ask: where's the science?

(berthault DOESN'T COUNT. not because he's christian, even YEC maybe, but because none of his research overturns anything about the standard stratigraphy.)

...and their related study, "just how hard is it for a camel to pass through the eye of a neeedle?"

seriously, my point is that there is NO SCIENCE in what they're doing.

"The problem is the funding is not available for those who think outside your evolutionary box."

i recently heard "scientists" at the discovery institute were denied funding for their study entitled, "heavenly host carrying capacity of various sewing implements".

Hi Walter, Pam,

I'll have to make this quick since I'm working this weekend and 5:30am comes early.

PAM: "I asked you, Peter, to give me non-creationist references to real scientists who are beginning to doubt evolution. A list compiled by creationists does not count. Especially when its "scientists" include doctors of philosophy."

1) All science starts from philosophy Pam. First the question has to be asked before the feasibility of it can be studied.

2) You immediately discount almost anyone who is a creationist as being a scientist.

3) It was people thinking outside the box that got the ball rolling. The problem is the funding is not available for those who think outside your evolutionary box.

4) A list composed by creationist's does not count to you. That is because you continue to look for all the answers within the box that is natural philosophy.

In our discussion on the Ark the same thing was done by both of you. You have already ruled out anything I could provide. You discount the supernatural providence of God in bringing the animals to Noah, that the wild (at least) animals could have been babies, that from the domestic animals that milk could not have been used by the humans as food, that kind means the same thing as species, that God sustained/protected the Ark through turbulence and bad whether and a number of other factors.

You won't think outside your own box. You fail to see that sin is the promotion of self, and the evolutionary worldview offer man as the highest point of evolutionary progress that you know of so far. Of the vast and complex universe why are we, but a mere spec, so important?

No, the amazing thing is that God is mindful of man, that He cares about him, sustains and even saves man from his own self importance by revealing Himself to man. Now to bow to Him means relinquishing that self importance, something evolutionary man will fight tooth and claw not to happen.

PAM: "I'm also not so interested in what any given individual thinks (or even a thousand of them - a tiny percentage), but rather something showing a trend in scientific consensus. Can you provide that?"

In answer to the first part, this tiny percent is starting to ask some uncomfortable question to this evolutionary machine.

In answer to the second, maybe in 6 months or a year. After we finish this train of thought on this topic, Noah's Ark, and the Egyptian historical dynasties I think we should agree to meet January 1, or April 1, on Susan's 'Spirited Atheist' blog or some other agreed upon forum and continue our discussion. I should have formulated my entire response to 'Why Evolution is True' by then. I could post my points and await for your critique.

Another Berthault critique that makes some excellent points:
http://www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/creation/berthaul/henke.html

I asked you, Peter, to give me non-creationist references to real scientists who are beginning to doubt evolution. A list compiled by creationists does not count. Especially when its "scientists" include doctors of philosophy. I'm also not so interested in what any given individual thinks (or even a thousand of them - a tiny percentage), but rather something showing a trend in scientific consensus. Can you provide that?

And did you notice this entry in the blog?

14
bhinton
10/13/2006
2:37 pm
I counted 1940 names on Bergman’s list (copy, paste into TextPad, look at line count).
Seems to be a few short of 3000.

To which the apparent blog owner replies:

15
scordova
10/13/2006
3:51 pm
bhinton,
Thanks for pointing that out. Does any one else concur? Can any account for the discrepancy?
Sal

Then nothing more is said about it. Pretty telling.

I'll get to your specific questions, Peter, on Monday. I've got a busy weekend coming up, starting tomorrow.

peter, i said,
"i'm sorry the answer "lots of time" bothers you."

"lots of time" is not the WHOLE answer, but it's part of it. (and it didn't have to be that way - scientists could have found out that evolution happens really quickly, but that's not what the genetic and fossil evidence indicates).

so besides "lots of time" the are, as pam mentioned, certain physical properties of matter/energy. the idea that god made matter have these properties (i.e., the fine-tuned-universe theory) is light years different than genesis 1.

WALTER: "somewhere in there "consciousness" (i.e. "intent") develops."

PETER: How? Why? How does intent come from something unintentional? Can you explain it?

"conscious/intent" sure seems pretty magic. do you think plants have it?

do you know about the "history of the brain"? pam talked about how complex brains look like simple brains with layers added on. http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/cosmic_evolution/docs/images/imgs_lrg_ver3/6_40.jpg

certain worm brains are just a lump at one end of a nerve chord. they get fancier from there. as i said, somewhere in there consciousness develops. sure, human consciousness is pretty awesome and fun, but plenty of other animals have consciousness.

i'm sorry the answer "lots of time" bothers you. as to "why?", i'm reminded of the guy (sorry, i forget who) who said something like, "ask a scientist why the pot of water boils and he will talk about heat transfer, latent energy and vapor pressure. ask a philosopher/theologian and he'll say 'because i wanted some tea.'"

re berthault:
http://www.evolutionpages.com/berthault_critique.htm

the guy's clever (in a contra 9th commandment sort of way). he is a real scientist with a few published papers in real journals. in the papers he makes extremely modest claims about unusual deposition that could happen under certain circumstances. THEN in his NON-SCIENTIFIC writing, he takes the results of his scientific experiments WAY beyond what they indicate - saying this is what happened everywhere, even in places where the circumstances and rock structure is entirely different.

"All the experimental work on which he bases his claims was carried out fifteen years ago or more, and reported at the time in French journals (4), (5), (6). He was careful, in those papers, not to make the radical claims that he and his followers have become known for. The assertion that his work has fundamental implications for geology was made later, in informal presentations and communications, on his website and by his creationist colleagues, quite outside the scientific peer review process. In the last few years, he has published three papers (7), (8), (9) in Chinese and Russian journals. None of these later papers report any new experimental work, and they contain nothing more than highly speculative and tendentious interpretations of his earlier work. Owing to their complete lack of new findings and their very poor quality, it is not surprising that these more recent papers are quite unpublishable in mainstream geology journals (and you can be sure that if Berthault could have published in Sedimentology, Geology, Journal of Geology or Sedimentary Geology then he would)."

and

"Berthault and his supporters suggest (9), (33) that the sorting of fossils in the geological column is a consequence of ecology and hydraulics – ie organisms are buried where they live, or where they can reasonably be expected to be transported in the putative floods. But this is simply unsustainable. Even in the Grand Canyon, Berthault’s prime example, the fossil species support the chronological rather than the hydraulic sorting of fossils – as they do everywhere in the world...."

peter, again, see those pesky "varves" mentioned about 2/3 of the way down in a section titled, The geological column contains deposition mechanisms that lie outside the processes that Berthault investigated

"Considering that numerous scientists (around 1000 last time I checked the Discovery site) are willing to put their signature on a document to the effect that they no longer regard evolution as adequate in explaining the complexity of life."

again, how many named "steve"? (there are over 1100 steves on this list...)
http://ncse.com/taking-action/project-steve

as we've explored before, the composition of these lists is rather asymmetrical: plenty of theists among the steves, no atheists among the "dissenters". obviously this doesn't prove anything about the content of their arguments, but you're the one who goes on and on about people's "motivation" and who/what "influences" them.

Hi Walter,

ME: "This is most puzzling. How does unthinking, unreasoning energy...evolve laws and life and logical mind into being?"

WALTER: "oh brother....you're arguing against a straw man, sort of. it's like those people who say, "we've never seen a fish give birth to a lizard." well, that's a simple cartoonish way of distorting the science."

WALTER: "it takes many steps and a long time to get from "molecules" to any kind of organism, and a long time to get from a simple organism to a complex organism like a worm, and a long time to get from a worm to a fish to reptile to a mammal to a human mammal. the steps are so gradual that even "mirco"evolution takes many many generations. you know all this, right?"

I think you are side stepping the issue by relating it to evolution. Again your magic formula is time. But it doesn't answer how. It just speculates that in the same way that macro-evolution is supposed to happen. Where is the evidence, or is it all taken with a grain of faith, a mustard seed?

WALTER: "somewhere in there "consciousness" (i.e. "intent") develops."

How? Why? How does intent come from something unintentional? Can you explain it?

WALTER: "consciousness seems to develop slowly. nearly all organisms "respond" in some way to their environment. but is it consciousness?"

Very vague.

WALTER: "those little plankton creatures do a daily migration up and down in the oceans in response to light. do they consciously choose to do that? i don't know. i'd say probably not - it's probably just an involuntary reaction."

Isn't God wonderful?

WALTER: "i guess you're thinking in a mind/body duality sort of way. you think of your body as a vehicle being driven by this little guy that lives behind your eyes called your soul. people used to think s/he lived in our hearts or other places. this is where philosophers were thousands to hundreds of years ago. scientists have come to learn that "little guy" is just your brain."

There is more to it than that. That we know "ought" and can think intelligently and rationally (at times) is something that speaks of conscious and consciousness.

WALTER: "there's nothing wrong with that. human brains are somewhat of a "miracle" i suppose. much better than dog or bird brains. human brains are the best brains we know of."

Yes, created in His image and likeness, different from the animals! The whole of life is miraculous. It speaks of something outside of the natural realm.

Part 2

PAM: "Because natural selection, which likewise has no intent, but merely preserves that which functions well and reproduces the most, has shaped us to be what we are."

I'm thinking on this one. There is a lot beneath the surface I have yet to unpack. I might be ready by the fall to stick my foot in my mouth.

PAM: "Our brains work electrochemically. You know what computers can do with nothing but ones and zeros - ons and offs...well, brains work in similar fashion."

Yeah, sure, after someone has programed the computer after first designing it. Sorry, the analogy doesn't work for me. You are comparing something that was designed with intent with something that was not. Can you think of a better analogy?

PAM: "The brain stem (medulla), which controls breathing and heartbeat, evolved first, and then layers were added on, each improving on the older model. We got the cerebellum (motor control, emotions, primitive thinking) and finally the cerebrum, with all our voluntary and higher thought functions (reasoning, planning, problem-solving)."

How any of this could, let alone did, come about without God is beyond me. Life from non-life, something yet to be demonstrated, and that through natural means, not through artificial means. Chemicals mixing together with energy and electricity and bang, all of a sudden living matter! All this speculation of how things might have been. Your faith is amazing!

Finally, before I hit bed Pam,

Part 1

PAM: "Peter,
To take Walter's explanation a step further, no "intention" is necessary anywhere along the way. Elementary particles are just forms of energy, and they react to each other in certain ways to make up atoms, which also react to each other in certain ways ("stealing" electrons from each other, splitting each others' nuclei, etc.) to make the various elements. The elements also react with each other chemically and electrically to form every sort of matter."

Why do they react in CERTAIN ways? Why is there uniformity there? What makes their molecular bond hold together? Why do these atoms act according to certain laws? Without intent surely there is only chance? Why do they show intelligence and design by their structures and the way they react and combine or rebel?

As you say,

PAM: "They just do."

That again is very scientific.

PAM: "If you put hydrogen and oxygen together and apply heat, you get water. It is just the nature of the thing."

Nature or design?

PAM: "If it were otherwise, what we know as the universe wouldn't be here, but maybe something else would be."

But it is and that is the best explanation you have? "They just do."

PAM: "We are electrochemical. That's all."

That is your belief. Three quarters of the world believes otherwise, that we are more, that we have spirit and soul.

PAM: "But not, as you like to characterize it "just bags of chemicals." We are organized in the way we are, and have the form and nature that we have, because of evolution."

Organization from a mindless process that began from a mindless explosion with no order or nature. Something does not add up here.

Hi Pam,

I see both yours and Walter's argument supplies the magic ingredient of evolution - time.

PAM: "So.... when you ask "How does unthinking, unreasoning energy do anything, let alone evolve laws and life and logical mind into being?"

PAM: "...the only answer is that it does it because it can."

Very scientific!

PAM: "If you do enough "science experiments" for a long enough time, amazing things can happen. Kind of like the old monkeys with typewriters thing."

That's the answer! Get enough monkeys on a typewriter and eventually, over billions of years, once the typewriter has magically formed from matter, start pecking away until presto! a coherent sentence is formed by chance!

PAM: "Earth had the right elements for life as we know it, and was in the "goldilocks zone" for our particular star, and ws the right size to hold an atmosphere. Chemical reactions were happening everywhere, every day. Amino acids were being formed, and chaining. One of them just happened (monkeys, typewriters) to lead to a chain of self-replicating RNA, or some precursor thereof. All it took was ONE."

Why? How did it come to have the right elements? Did they just mysteriously appear? Seems very speculative science to me.

PAM: "But none of this had to lead to life. I'm sure that somewhere, in some galaxy, there's a similar situation where life hasn't happened, and never will. Probably many such."

You may be interested in the Middle Knowledge view. Ronald Nash did a lecture on it that I quite enjoyed. (Goggle)

PAM: "We're just a happy little accident. So be glad you're here - you so easily could have missed out."

Brilliant! You have made my day. Happy, happy.

Hi Pam,

Peter, you said:
"One hundred and fifty plus years of looking at life through the closed and faulty foundation of macro-evolution is slowly cracking at the seems. Lots of scientists are reevaluating their position..."

PAM: "Can you give us some evidence for this that doesn't come from a creationist Web site?"

Pam, we are going to look at the evidence from two distinct vantage points. Why does it always have to be from inside the evolution box? As I have said before, your worldview does not explain the vital questions of life, its complexity, how it arose in the first place, how intelligence, intent, logic, personality, morality, uniformity in nature and a host of other difficulties all arose from a mindless, impersonal, unthinking, unintentional, amoral, chaotic, irrational explosion or whimper that is commonly referred to as the Big Bang.

PAM: "I think this is just a deliberate rumor passed by the creationist leaders down through the ranks of their wide-eyed followers. It simply has no basis in reality."

Considering that numerous scientists (around 1000 last time I checked the Discovery site) are willing to put their signature on a document to the effect that they no longer regard evolution as adequate in explaining the complexity of life, I don't think it is rumor. I think there is something there that makes them question evolution as the answer. The rumblings have started.

Here's something I found interesting. Please follow the presentation from Introduction to References in the following concerning the geological column that has been used to explain the age of the earth since the 17th century.

http://www.sedimentology.fr/

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/bergmans-dissent-from-darwin-list-at-3000-10000/

http://icon-rids.blogspot.com/2010/04/by-darwin-or-intelligent-design.html

i haven't read carl zimmer's book. sounds interesting.

Peter, you said:
"One hundred and fifty plus years of looking at life through the closed and faulty foundation of macro-evolution is slowly cracking at the seems. Lots of scientists are reevaluating their position..."

Can you give us some eveidence for this that doesn't come from a creationist Web site?

I think this is just a deliberate rumor passed by the creationist leaders down through the ranks of their wide-eyed followers. It simply has no basis in reality.

"...you think of your body as a vehicle being driven by this little guy that lives behind your eyes called your soul. people used to think s/he lived in our hearts or other places. this is where philosophers were thousands to hundreds of years ago. scientists have come to learn that 'little guy' is just your brain."

Walter,
Have you read Carl Zimmer's book Soul Made Flesh - The Discovery of the Brain and How it Changed the World?

It's right along those lines, and really fascinating. Some of the things people once believed are quite astounding!

Two

So.... when you ask "How does unthinking, unreasoning energy do anything, let alone evolve laws and life and logical mind into being?"

...the only answer is that it does it because it can. If you do enought "science experiments" for a long enough time, amazing things can happen. Kind of like the old monkeys with typewriters thing.

Earth had the right elements for life as we know it, and was in the "goldilocks zone" for our particular star, and ws the right size to hold an atmosphere. Chemical reactions were happening everywhere, every day. Amino acids were being formed, and chaining. One of them just happened (monkeys, typewriters) to lead to a chain of self-replicating RNA, or some precursor thereof. All it took was ONE.

But none of this had to lead to life. I'm sure that somewhere, in some galaxy, there's a similar situation where life hasn't happened, and never will. Probably many such.

We're just a happy little accident. So be glad you're here - you so easily could have missed out.

Peter,
To take Walter's explanation a step further, no "intention" is necessary anywhere along the way. Elementary particles are just forms of energy, and they react to each other in certain ways to make up atoms, which also react to each other in certain ways ("stealing" electrons from each other, splitting each others' nuclei, etc.) to make the various elements. The elements also react with each other chemically and electrically to form every sort of matter.

They just do.

If you put hydrogen and oxygen together and apply heat, you get water. It is just the nature of the thing. If it were otherwise, what we know as the universe wouldn't be here, but maybe something else would be.

We are electrochemical. That's all. But not, as you like to characterize it "just bags of chemicals." We are organized in the way we are, and have the form and nature that we have, because of evolution. Because natural selection, which likewise has no intent, but merely preserves that which functions well and reproduces the most, has shaped us to be what we are.

Our brains work electrochemically. You know what computers can do with nothing but ones and zeros - ons and offs...well, brains work in similar fashion. The brain stem (medulla), which controls breathing and heartbeat, evolved first, and then layers were added on, each improving on the older model. We got the cerebellum (motor control, emotions, primitive thinking) and finally the cerebrum, with all our voluntary and higher thought functions (reasoning, planning, problem-solving).

We are not the only animal with a cerebrum. Hagfishes and lampreys (the jawless fishes) have them, though they're primitive. Ray finned fishes have larger ones, amphibians and reptiles larger still. But nothing approaches the size of the cerebrum in mammals, especially primates, and humans take it to almost ridiculous proportions (although dolphins are pretty close).

some simple, beautiful organisms.
http://frazer.northerncoloradogrotto.com/2010/02/22/extreme_plankton_closeup/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/3884055/Plankton-captured-in-stunning-close-up-photographs.html

peter, i said,
"it takes many steps and a long time to get from "molecules" to any kind of organism, and a long time to get from a simple organism to a complex organism like a worm, and a long time to get from a worm to a fish to reptile to a mammal to a human mammal. the steps are so gradual that even "mirco"evolution takes many many generations. you know all this, right?"

and these small, simple organisms don't fossilize very well. nonetheless, evidence currently shows that some kinds of simple life forms evolved relatively quickly (only 500,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 years) after earth's formation. evidence also shows that life remained small and simple for billions of years, only recently (about 600,000,000 years ago) became complex and multi-cellular.

"This is most puzzling. How does unthinking, unreasoning energy...evolve laws and life and logical mind into being?"

oh brother....you're arguing against a straw man, sort of. it's like those people who say, "we've never seen a fish give birth to a lizard." well, that's a simple cartoonish way of distorting the science.

it takes many steps and a long time to get from "molecules" to any kind of organism, and a long time to get from a simple organism to a complex organism like a worm, and a long time to get from a worm to a fish to reptile to a mammal to a human mammal. the steps are so gradual that even "mirco"evolution takes many many generations. you know all this, right?

somewhere in there "consciousness" (i.e. "intent") develops. is a worm conscious? i don't know. probably depends on what you mean by "conscious". an "consciousness" is probably not a quantum (i.e. either/or) thing. consciousness seems to develop slowly. nearly all organisms "respond" in some way to their environment. but is it consciousness?

those little plankton creatures do a daily migration up and down in the oceans in response to light. do they consciously choose to do that? i don't know. i'd say probably not - it's probably just an involuntary reaction.

now, how 'bout a dog? does he consciously decide to jump on the bed? i'd say yes. so, i'd say a dog has consciousness, i.e. intent. so, consciousness, or "intent" as you say, comes somewhere between plankton and a dog.

i guess you're thinking in a mind/body duality sort of way. you think of your body as a vehicle being driven by this little guy that lives behind your eyes called your soul. people used to think s/he lived in our hearts or other places. this is where philosophers were thousands to hundreds of years ago. scientists have come to learn that "little guy" is just your brain.

there's nothing wrong with that. human brains are somewhat of a "miracle" i suppose. much better than dog or bird brains. human brains are the best brains we know of.

Hi Walter,

WALTER: "gullible indeed. i suppose it's more a matter of mind over mind.... there are just SO MANY "problems" w/noah's ark....as we are just beginning to discuss. but, as someone said on that website, peter and his sort get to "bring in a miracle whenever the going gets rough..."

Your worldview has much the same kind of gullibility in explaining origins, as I mentioned to Pam in my last reply.

Hi Pam,

I read your web link article on Noah's Ark. I see a lot of fault with it. I think one of the blog's from the article near the bottom, possibly obtained from CARM, offers some possible answers.

Again, the Bible only gives some much information. What I find ironic thought is you, using information, logic and intelligence, arguing for a causality that has no grounds for any of these. This is most puzzling. How does unthinking, unreasoning energy do anything, let alone evolve laws and life and logical mind into being?

peter, you said,
"One hundred and fifty plus years of looking at life through the closed and faulty foundation of macro-evolution is slowly cracking at the seems."

HA! cracking at the seams?!?! hardly! evolution is on firmer ground now than it has ever been. more and more confirmation just keeps pouring in. DNA is a prime example - and collins' book explains this.

you said,
"Lots of scientists are reevaluating their position..."

really? how many named steve? ;-)

man...can't believe the series is 3-3 now!

peter, you said,
"I'm about to read some of Francis Collins, an OEC..."

well, should be a good read. are you reading The Language of God? i mentioned earlier that i read that at the suggestion of some of my church buddies (YECs, like yourself - i guess they thought i could relate to collins better than, say, wells, gish morris, morris et al).

i learned lots about DNA, but not much in the way of theology. i kept expecting him to make some kind of scientific argument for god, but his appeal was basically the "moral" argument: because we know right from wrong, there's a god. (not only did he think that meant there is a god, but somehow he saw that as evidence for the christian god. weird.)

gullible indeed. i suppose it's more a matter of mind over mind.... there are just SO MANY "problems" w/noah's ark....as we are just beginning to discuss. but, as someone said on that website, peter and his sort get to "bring in a miracle whenever the going gets rough..."

Hi Walter,

WALTER: "well, peter, that's life. you crave "certainty" so much you've invented it."

I'm just pointing out the language of faith that this author you provided uses.

WALTER: "i imagine you were reading along and everything was fine then you got to the "100,000 years" part and, well, your that's-not-a-biblically-sanctioned-date alarm went off."

It went off before that. That just raised the level from a code yellow to a code red. But like I said, I'm about to read some of Francis Collins, an OEC, among others, because most Christian scientists are OEC's and they are putting the wedge into the old evolutionary grinding mill. As I said, in response to Pam, I think this is the first step needed in breaking the evolutionary stranglehold on science.

One hundred and fifty plus years of looking at life through the closed and faulty foundation of macro-evolution is slowly cracking at the seems. Lots of scientists are reevaluating their position, however, one of the gate keepers of society - higher learning - has a strong grip on what influences the world.

I'll admit, we don't have all the answers, but we point to the One who does. This infuriates the militant secular humanists/atheists who have a hatred towards religion and Christianity.

But one thing is clear, even moderates like you and Pam are not open to the supernatural. You funnel all through your narrow system, just as I do.

Ultimately, for objectivity there has to be an absolute objective standard. Evolution, based on (starting with) contingency and unguided, undirected processes cannot produce certainty. What holds it all together??? And why??? And for how long???

Why did this energy, in a point of singularity explode or whimper into forming this vast universe? What intent was there to make it do so? And if there was no intent, why did it produce intent in its creatures? How and why did an unintentional singularity come to produce laws and information and organization out of chance and chaos and randomness? All of this is tied into evolution, because you can't have one without the other.

Note too, that Mt. Ararat was not so named until the 11th century. No one knows where the biblical one was.

Oh, man, that was great (Elvis sightings)!

I especially like the Elvis who steals all the food from the Chinese buffet.

There is just no end to human gullibility, is there?

Here's an interesting blog discussion of the feasibility of the ark:

http://www.skepdic.com/comments/noahcom.html

pam,
http://www.elvissightingbulletinboard.com/SightingLog.shtml

pam,
gee, it's been a while (5-10 yrs?) since the last time the ark was discovered.... and what's not to believe this time?! they have pictures of little rooms and some hay too! wait...is that an olive branch i see on the floor?

my two favorite lines are:

"It's not 100 per cent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it,"

see how he maintains the proper scientific skepticism required to further evaluate the find? wonder when the peer-reviewed paper will come out? and will it appear in "nature" or "scientific american"....? or perhaps hershel shanks' (he of all the oded golan frauds) "biblical archaeology review"....

the other great line is:

"The team said the wood appeared to be cypress although, according to the Bible, the ark was built from gopher."

this shows how they're not letting the biblical narrative influence their scientific opinions. besides, "gopher" could just be a translation artifact....

omg, pam, too funny. thanks for that.

"i imagine you were reading along and everything was fine then you got to the "100,000 years" part and, well, your that's-not-a-biblically-sanctioned-date alarm went off."

I think this is the crux of the matter, Walter.

My SDA friend at work just shuts down at the mention of more time. She was watching the recent series Life on Discovery channel, because I'd mentioned the amazing cinematography to her. But when they said that certain animals had been doing certain things "for millions of years," she quit watching it. This degree of head-in-the-sandism is difficult for me to comprehend.

Peter makes evolution his whipping boy for all the ills of sciences that make parts of the bible questionable - he thinks that evolutionary thinking colors all the branches of scientific and other inquiry.

What could have less to do with evolution than archaeology?? It's entirely human-oriented, and works with a completely different time scale. It doesn't deal in deep time at all. Still, it goes beyond the biblical one, using tens of thousands of years.

What he should resent is geology, with maybe a bit of astronomy and physics thrown in.

It was the gift, from these sciences, of deep time that made the development of evolutionary theory (among others) possible.

Interestingly, when used to date things like the shroud of Turin, creationists think carbon-14 dating to be completely unreliable, but when it suits their needs, it becomes solid as a rock, as with the discovery (yet again!) of Noah's Ark on Ararat.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1269165/Noahs-Ark-discovered-4-800-years--4-000m-mountain-Turkey.html?ITO=1490

it's hilarious that you think it's more likely that god poofed the universe, the earth and life into existence in 7 days 6000 yrs ago than it is that the days of the week are named for the 7 visible-to-the-naked-eye "heavenly" bodies.

"As you can see, the language is filled with speculation. It is pretty vague stuff."

well, peter, that's life. you crave "certainty" so much you've invented it.

i imagine you were reading along and everything was fine then you got to the "100,000 years" part and, well, your that's-not-a-biblically-sanctioned-date alarm went off.

Hi Walter,

ME: "Why seven days a week as the prevailing time frame throughout most of the worlds civilized cultures?"

WALTER: "here's part of something i once wrote on that subject:

Seven is kind of a magic number in many religious texts. Why? For all of human history, until 1690 when Uranus was discovered with a telescope, there were seven “bodies” roaming the heavens: the Sun, the Moon, and the five wandering stars (planets)....Naturally, the ancients thought these moving things were, or were controlled by, Gods. The Sumerians, having invented writing around 3500 B.C., are the first culture we know of to have a day for each body/God, but it’s easy to imagine this concept going back much, much further. it's basically,

1)sun-day
2)moon-day
3)mars-day
4)mercury-day
5)jupiter-day
6)venus-day
7)saturn-day"

Maybe you should consider the other scenario, that God instituted it at the start and as the population grew and cultures became apparent, what He inaugurated was twisted into religious folk law and myth.

Walter, I followed your link. What some people will do to discredit the Bible. This guy is steeped in possibilities. His language speaks doubt.

"It is plausible to suppose that the association of planets and days of the week arose in prehistoric times as follows:
At some point in the evolution of humans, perhaps as far back as 100,000 years ago, they acquired sufficient intelligence to observe their environment and start to think about it.
Probably the planets were seen as divine beings long before the rise of Mesopotamian civilization, beings who were more than what the modern mind understands by the term "gods".

It is plausible to suppose that the earliest calendars were simple tallies of days from one new moon to the next

This was probably the first attempt by humans to divide the sequence of days into periods.

This might have given rise to a calendar

The origin of the 7 day week is sometimes attributed to dividing the 29 or 30 days of a lunation by four, to get a number close to seven.

Counting and addition may have been the most advanced mathematical concepts for many thousands of years before the idea of division (as a numerical operation) was discovered.

One might conclude that the fact that humans have long used a week of seven days is thus the result of accident, namely, that the solar system is the way it is, with five of the nine planets being sufficiently close to Earth to be visible with the naked eye.

Whether or not this is so, the "sacredness" of the number seven, and the fact that there are seven days in a week, is due to the association of the seven celestial beings..."

As you can see, the language is filled with speculation. It is pretty vague stuff.

I'm going to have to cut it short tonight. I'm playing golf early.

Pam I see your responses. Let me digest them.

pam,
i have a theory that god used another "firmament" (a rigid, water-proof barrier) to protect certain plants from the flood - maybe sort of like how he "parted the waters" later.... this is a favored apologetic strategy: supposing things the bible DOESN'T say DIDN'T happen - the bible doesn't say god didn't protect the plants this way.....

or...well...he could have just "poofed" all the plants back into existence after the flood. of course this solution makes one wonder why he had noah bring all those animals on the ark in the first place - why not just re-poof (the first "poof" was during gen1) the animals into existence? hhhmmm....but then one might wonder why he even had to resort to something so clumsy as a global flood. why not just "poof" the evil humans out of existence?

you mentioned volcanic activity and rapid deposition. don't forget about continental dash theory.

Walter,
You asked Peter what plants would survive 9 months submersion. I always laughed when someone related the story of the dove bringing back the olive leaf.

If creationists think that the flood laid down all the sediments that make up the geological strata - all of those thousands of layers that one sees when looking at the Grand Canyon - laid them down, made them rock, and then cut through them, too - how the hell did an olive tree survive all that in full leaf? And not only an olive tree, but all of the forage required for all the plant-eating animals once let out of the ark?

And remember, they also postulate enormous volcanic activity, covering everything with igneous rock.

Not to mention (as you did) all the instant extinctions when the carnivores began to eat.

Nope, if Genesis doesn't embarrass them, then they are truly shameless.

pam,
for this reply, i will use the letter q instead of quotation marks. in your sample sentence i see:

q q i say q usually, q q

I think I figured out the problem (and I see that my copied "problem text" looks normal to you).

I changed my encoding to UTF8.

But I think it's always been the way it was, so why the sudden problem?

Part of my love/hate relationship with computers...

"it must be something funky on your end. i don't see any weird "translations" in peter's post. looks pretty normal to me - i can see quotation marks and all."

Really? Weird. I'm seeing stuff like this (assuming this copy works):

"“I say “usually,”"

And I've never seen it before in this forum.

Cont'd

ME: Now I don't care how long these people lived (never mind that in GEN 6:3 God limits it to 120 years - his word didn't seem to be very good on that)...

PH: "I'm not following you?"

In GEN 6:3, pre-flood, God says the lifespan of man will be 120 years (although damned few can aspire to that), but in GEN 10 and on, we find people living to 600, 900, etc., so why did he bother?

PH: "Just think of the population of the Isrealites when they first came into Egypt, and then of the population of the Exodus. (See Exodus 1:5) They were in bondage 430 years (Exodus 12:40). Look at their population when they left, six hundred thousand men alone, plus women and children, probably well over a million (Exodus 12:37). Now these were people who were well persecuted and many of them died. So how many Eqyptians were there at the time of the Exodus?"

Prove that there was one. There's no evidence of them ever being in Egypt, nor of any of the rest of it, outside of the bible - not, to me at least, a very reliable source. It says a lot of other crazy stuff, too.

PH: "Again, it is possible that not all gens were accounted for (i.e. gaps), just the ones that were applicable to trace the ancestry of the comming Messiah or for other significant reasons."

No gaps. It's very specific as to the line down from Shem. It lists each father and son, and says how old the father was at the son's birth. It's also specific for the first few generations down from other Noachian sons. We know that Peleg was born 101 years post flood, and Abram 292 ypf. We also know that Nimrod, ggson of Ham, had Babel and Calneh ("in the land of Shinar") in his "kingdom", so we can tell that it was in his generation (and Peleg's overlapping one) the Tower of Babel thing happened.

Now, you said something to Walter about numbers increasing "exponentially," but, of course, they don't. There are also deaths, and infertility, and child mortality. The current worls population growth rate is 1.3% per year. The peak was 2.1%.

Although we now have birth control, we also have a much lower death rate, thanks to modern medicine and improved nutrition and sanitation, so they cancel each other out to some extent.

The highest I could find for a single country (Liberia) was 4.5%.That rate would double the population every 15 years. Even if we assume such a rate for the Noachians (not bloody likely at that time), there would have been (using your extremely generous 40-year generations (20 years is the norm), 19.5 doubling periods before Abram. I'll give you 20 though, for the sake of round figures. This gives us a total world population of 3,145,728. And at the time of Babel, there would have been fewer than 700 people extant. Those "cities" that made up Nimrod's "kingdom" surely weren't much - maybe 100 people in each one.

pam, you said,
"Peter's posts are full of weird HTML translations for such things as quotation marks,"

it must be something funky on your end. i don't see any weird "translations" in peter's post. looks pretty normal to me - i can see quotation marks and all.

Still not working, so I'm retyping it all piecemeal, as a test. :^(

PH: "That is assuming that Noah's wife did not have any more children..."

Noah was 500 years old when the supposed flood began - give the guy a break! GEN 10:1 says these are the generations of the sons of Noah. The bible says nothing of any further Noah progeny, and I don't think the sons were committing incest with their mother, so I'm assuming 3 fertile females - but it doesn't make that much difference.

I tried to post on Friday, but it kept getting rejected - something about corrupt script.

Now I see that Peter's posts are full of weird HTML translations for such things as quotation marks, so I don't know what's going on.

I'll try my post again after this.

btw, i don't think we missed pam's promised population post. i don't think she posted one - something must have come up.

peter, you asked,
"Why seven days a week as the prevailing time frame throughout most of the worlds civilized cultures?

here's part of something i once wrote on that subject:

Seven is kind of a magic number in many religious texts. Why? For all of human history, until 1690 when Uranus was discovered with a telescope, there were seven “bodies” roaming the heavens: the Sun, the Moon, and the five wandering stars (planets). These objects seemed to move by themselves against the backdrop of stars. Naturally, the ancients thought these moving things were, or were controlled by, Gods. The Sumerians, having invented writing around 3500 B.C., are the first culture we know of to have a day for each body/God, but it’s easy to imagine this concept going back much, much further. it's basically,

1)sun-day
2)moon-day
3)mars-day
4)mercury-day
5)jupiter-day
6)venus-day
7)saturn-day

http://www.hermetic.ch/cal_stud/hlwc/why_seven.htm

Finally,

PAM: “I also disagree with your first statement. There are plenty of religious people who maintain their faith while accepting evolution. You are part of a pretty small sect that insists on an absolutely literal interpretation of the bible.”

I prefer the term plain interpretation as opposed to literal since I work within the boundaries of meaning in language, and meaning being derived from the context, such as figures of speech as opposed to historical narrative. The important thing to determine is whether the text gives reason for an historical narrative or not.

Yes many do combined the two, but why do they do that? Reading God’s word plainly gives no reason for macro-evolution. We were created each to our own ‘kinds’ and in six days. The significance of the six days is that man would have a pattern in which he could work and then set aside a day of worship. Man has chosen not to do that.

One of the questions I would ask these Christian’s that accept evolution and try and reconcile it with God’s word is what use does an eternal Being have with time? If the days in which God ‘created the heavens and the earth and ALL that is in them’ (Exodus 20:11) are different from the days that man lives in – the twenty-four hour cycle of daylight and nightlight (Genesis 1:14), then how is man to determine how long to rest and how long to worship??? This is just one of many, many obstacles that face those who try to combine evolutionary thought with God’s revelation. And in the end it all boils down to which view you hold as your highest authority to be. If it is man then God is no longer your ultimate authority, as in your case.

Notice that a seven day week is not derived from the cycle of the moon around the earth, or earth around the sun, as are months and years. It is a distinction that God put in place that is different from the natural cycle. Why seven days a week as the prevailing time frame throughout most of the worlds civilized cultures?

PAM: “More on population tomorrow.”

Did I miss it, since the forum we were on expired?

Part 3

PAM: “They don’t care what the answer is, they just want to know it. They will publish their findings whether they support bible chronology or not. The bible is usually immaterial to their goals.”

The same applies to evolutionary scientists to some degree, so that is right. They claim unbiased interpretation, the neutrality of science, all the while altering the position, step by step, of those who came before them. Case in point, Gould and punctuated equilibrium and uniformatarianism.

And the fact is that many a believer tries to incorporate God’s word and macro-evolution, all the while holding the evolutionary view above that of what God has revealed. It takes a lot to reconcile the two together, as even Walter realizes, to his credit.

PAM: “I say “usually,” because there are archaeologists in Israel and Palestine who are there specifically to try to prove that the bible stories are real. These are church-supported digs. However, the archaeologists themselves are trained in the same way as the secular (and by that, I mean no axe to grind either way) archaeologists, and, to my knowledge, they have so far not found anything that constitutes proof of any of the NT stories, nor anything that conflicts with the timelines of earlier researchers.”

There are lots of proofs. You are just closed to the evidence. You naturally are gravitating towards your preferred explanations. That is your nature since you put your own reasoning above that of God’s. You think you can make sense and tie together all the interrelated complexity by your own reasoning and with using that of finite man. The evidence you look at is not something that you witness now. You see similarity and you interpret that similarity as a process from a common ancestry that no man was alive to witness happen. Your faith is dependent on the minds of men – a changing faith that looks at all of life from the standpoint of natural philosophy, as nature as the one and only plausible explanation. Once you rule out the supernatural that is all that is left.

Part 2

It is amazing how Darwin looks at animals that share commonality and equates to such animals a common ancestor (not God) but nature. It is not God who selects the boundaries that each kind may adapt to, but Darwin and biological science to a large extent, since it is through him that science looks at nature.

That is the different paradigm that has hijacked science and taken it in this new direction, a direction that has now been established as the only plausible explanation for the past 150 plus years. Everything is funneled through this worldview. But in the last 15-20 years scientists are again questioning how a process that began by chance can produce such complexity and intricacy that is all so interrelated that it shouts of design. Darwin did not know how complex the cell really was.

Since you credit Francis Collins as a reasonable scientist I picked up his book (along with three others), ‘The Language of God’ that delves deeper into this subject, as well as Fazale Rana, ‘The Cell’s Design’ and Davis Young and Ralph Stearley, ‘The Bible Rocks and Time’ to try and push our understanding and paradigms further. Btw, these three books are no friends of YEC’s, but because of where you are at, my belief is that first the theory of evolution needs to be challenged along its existing basis before we branch off into how old the earth is.

PAM: “When archaeologists and other science-minded researchers go on their field trips, they don’t have the goal of discrediting the bible. Many are believers – even more among the early ones – and others just don’t think about religion much one way or the other. They are seekers of knowledge.”

This may be true, but the point is that they start from a certain position, the foundation of which is not negotiable, and that is that marco-evolution is a fact. All the evidence is interpreted along these lines. And if you include Christian believer’s in your generalization of believers, the ones who look at the earth as old still funnel their thinking through the paradigm of evolutionary thought to a great extent. The Establishment is not ready for radical change – you know, the kind that happened with Darwin. The young earth view was quickly drowned out at that time as the prevailing view held by scientists, for many of them where biblical believers.

PAM: “It doesn’t do much good to dig up artifacts or fossils if you can’t locate them in time. Many different dating methods are available – dendrochronology and radio-carbon are just two of many available to archaeologists.”

I’ll not comment on this yet.

Hi Pam (from the John Shelby Sponge post, April 22, 2010 6:35 PM),

ME: ”The point is the Bible discredits evolution and visa versa. They can't both be true and I think part of the quote I provided showed the bias of some of those who set out to discredit it. I think they had in mind what they were doing."

PAM: "Peter, this is sounding dangerously like a conspiracy theory. We don’t want to have to have the men in the white jackets come to pick you up just when you have a new grandson (Congratulations!)."

It is just plain reality. John Stott explains it nicely.

"12. Why God is not always known
Just as it is the nature of light to shine, so it is the nature of God to reveal himself. True, he hides himself from the wise and clever, but only because they are proud and do not want to know him; he reveals himself to 'babies', that is, to those humble enough to receive his self-disclosure ... The chief reason why people do not know God is not because he hides from them, but because they hide from him.
--From "I Believe in Preaching" (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982), p. 93."

Romans 1:18-19, 25 puts it even more bluntly,

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men [i.e , mankind/women] who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature [why things hold together, the intent and purpose of nature in all its vastness and diversity, its guidance and direction, its limits of kind, its similarity – all these things plus so much more display this power] – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse….They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen.”

The mind shift changed during the Enlightenment, but especially when Darwin’s mindset provided what was thought a reasonable explanation without God – Natural Selection and genetic drift.

It is funny that Darwin takes as a parallel to natural selection artificial selection, or animal husbandry, where man breeds into animals of the same kind size and shape variants, hardier types of plants, all by the use of intelligent input these changes and then tries to equate this with macro-evolution.

And even funnier is the fact that so many of his examples, when he isn’t taking a giant leap of faith, involves birds of a feather (the same kind, just different variations in adapting to the environment). The finch is still a bird, no matter how long or short the shape of its beak is. The peppered moth is still a moth, no matter what color it is. A bird is a bird, an insect an insect, an animal still an animal and man still a man, no matter how we differ because of the marvelous design God has incorporated into each one of us.

Hi Walter,

I'll get back to your posts later today or tomorrow. I just have to finish a reply to Pam first.

Btw, the 10,000,000 is just a figure to show what is possible. The point again, that I have made quite a few times already is that a vast number of people is possible in just a few hundred years. I don't know the exact math of it, but if you figure out that at age 13 or 15 a girl could conceive, then in a generation - 30-40 years that increases the gene pool quickly. Even if that number is five million or even two million, it is a large enough population to work with.

There are a number of other factors to consider here, such as disease and life spans, a genetically purer stock, healthier earth, etc.

As for the salty soil, salt is a product of chemical erosion. You just naturally think that the Flood water was as salty as the oceans are today.

I don't have all the explanations, no one does but God, and I trust Him at His word.

I'll try and address the rest later, friend.

for our convenience in referencing comments, here's a link to our previous thread:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_shelby_spong/2010/04/media_bias_against_the_catholic_church.html

peter,
well...no...i still don't think it's possible to go from 8 people (6 reproducing ones) to 10,000,000 in 200 years. i mean, i suppose it's theoretically mathematically possible.... but it's not realistic at all.

besides it never having having happened anywhere we know of, imagine the devastated planet ham, shem, japeth and the "wives" (whatever the heck their names were....was not recorded in HIStory) were faced with. the entire earth had just been flooded. what plants, without divine intervention, would survive 9 months submersion...? the soil must have been salty. how do you grow plants on that?! what did the tigers eat? if one tiger ate one gazelle, gazelles would go extinct....right? i mean there were only 2 gazelles, right? and on and on and on. i'm sure pam could pile many more totally impossible things....

Hi Walter,

I said: "The other point is that what you though was impossible is after all possible."

WALTER: "care to elaborate?"

Just that a substantial population could arise in a few hundred years from the original survivors of the Flood. Also the thoughts that the Egyptian culture seemed to spring from nothing. The culture from Mesopotamia is one offering as to how this happened - the influx of a large number of people, bringing with them the ideas of their particular culture.

Hi Pam, Walter,

We're off to see the grandson first thing in the morning and won't be back until Sunday. I'll try posting then.

FArnaz MAnsouri, go to On-Success for audition emergency room.