Abortion and Islamic thought

peter, pam,
when this runs out - probably any second now - go here:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/shmully_hecht/2010/06/we_are_the_caretakers_of_the_universe.html

test

Peter,

You said "I'd agree to read something of your choice (not too complicated please), if you would agree to read a few from the opposite end of the spectrum from my choice."

Sure, that's fair. I consider the first book a "gimme," because I've already read a good bit on your side of the fence, including the bible itself. But if you read two more, so will I.

The ones I've suggested for you are not complicated (they're written for the layman) and not long ones (I'll try to find a specific geology one using the same criteria). I'd appreciate the same consideration.

These days, I mostly listen to books, downloaded to iPod from Audible.com (I also buy hardcopy to refer to if it's anything other than light fiction), so if you can find something for me on their site, that would be a plus. Their collections are pretty extensive.

Audio books make my commute far less tedious - although yours may not work that way. ;)

"well, to be fair, i said something like that in response to peter's abiogenesis questions."

Aah, so that's what he twisted. :)

PH: ”Did you ever open up that site I supplied on hydraulic sorting? It showed how different layers could be formed in a quick space of time and how the bigger debris got caught in the top layers while the smaller debris was washed down stream...."

yes i did. i answered thus:

re berthault:

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.

from:
http://www.evolutionpages.com/berthault_critique.htm

"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
............

shall we talk about hydraulic sorting? ecological zonation?

like i've said, the flood is the most obviously false, most easily disprovable story in the bible (discounting the possibility that god's trying to fool us into thinking it didn't happen).

PH: ”Darwinian science has had a 150 years strangle grip in which to brainwash and indoctrinate on the way things might have been. Now some brilliant scientists are starting to question some of the starting points of this pseudoscience.”

PAM: How absurd. Stranglehold? Brainwashing? Indoctrination?....This much more rightly belongs to your side, where religion is pushed from the cradle on.
...............

indeed, pam. this is pure projection on peter's part. it is peter longing for the good old days when theocracy reigned and non/wrong-theists were punished. for thousands of years the church had the "strangle grip". the "church" WAS the establishment. people either joined the (the right) church or were considered a detriment to society, possibly evil..

i guess this is still the case...but in america the church has been stripped of it's power to punish, exile or kill wrong-church-goers or no-church-goers. to see modern examples of old-fashioned "strangle grip" societies with brainwashing and indoctrination you'd have to look to iran, pakistan, saudi arabia etc....

PH: ”You say the evidence that life emerged from non-life is from the lack of fossil evidence in the older rocks. What kind of explanation is that? It is an assumption unless it can be observed and demonstrated by science - a theory, a philosophical explanation of what might have been, a faith.”

PAM: Who said that? You’re really beating the hell out of these straw men, Peter.

Posted by: Pamsm | June 2, 2010 12:49 AM
..................

well, to be fair, i said something like that in response to peter's abiogenesis questions. i said:

"'life from non-life' is just what the evidence shows...that's all. no agenda, no presuppositions. old rocks - no fossils. new rocks - fossils. it's not faith, it's just evidence. evolution is also what the evidence shows. big life forms like whales and dinos and people and even "trees that bear fruit" NEVER appear in old rocks. the bottom 80% of rocks show nothing but single-celled fossils."

PH (on reasons for the flood): " ‘The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.’ (Genesis 6:5)”

" ‘Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.’ (Genesis 6:11-12)"

Yeah, yeah, we know. He was disappointed in his creation, and in his anger, he decided to destroy it. So emotional. And he apparently holds a grudge pretty well, because he didn’t destroy it right away, but gave Noah time to build the ark.

Noah was worthy of being saved because he was a good man – the only one, apparently. Although the first thing he did after landing the ark was to plant a vineyard (with what?), make wine, and get drunk and naked. One of his sons happens to see him like this, and this angers God, so he punishes – who? Noah? Nope. The son? Nope. He punishes the son’s son!

Well, alrighty then. Sure makes sense to me.

Oh, and BTW, what exactly did this wipeout accomplish? Is the world not "corrupt and full of violence" now? Wasn't it so pretty much immediately afterward? (See incident above.) But omniscient God with his infinite mind didn't see this coming? Just got totally blindsided?

Oh, Peter, Peter, how can you buy into this tripe?

PH: “What I am saying is evolutionary philosophy is not the only, or necessarily the most feasible explanation of why things are the way they are.”

But it’s the only one with any evidence to support it.

PH: ”Darwinian science has had a 150 years strangle grip in which to brainwash and indoctrinate on the way things might have been. Now some brilliant scientists are starting to question some of the starting points of this pseudoscience.”

How absurd. Stranglehold? Brainwashing? Indoctrination? People in this stupid country are so afraid of offending the religious right that the movie Creation, about a part of Darwin’s life, couldn’t even find a studio to release it. Finally some obscure little studio picked it up, but released it only briefly in a few large cities – it never came to the neighborhood theaters at all.

I’ve told you that I was never taught about evolution in school or any other place – I had to seek it out on my own. So where does all this brainwashing come in?

This much more rightly belongs to your side, where religion is pushed from the cradle on.

Brilliant scientists? Pseudoscience? Dream on.

PH: ”As for your 'probably morally too,' you want to judge God. His explanation is not sufficient for you.”

I haven’t heard any explanation from him. I’ve seen a book, filled with absurdities and contradictions, written (even you admit) by men. If he wants to reach me, I’m sure he could easily find a way to convince me (he has that “infinite mind,” after all). He knows where I live. I’m waiting.

PH: ”Did you ever open up that site I supplied on hydraulic sorting? It showed how different layers could be formed in a quick space of time and how the bigger debris got caught in the top layers while the smaller debris was washed down stream. Consider that microbes are in the soil before the Flood, naturally they are going to be on the bottom of the heap. When you consider that birds and water life could have spread across the face of the globe fast while man was left to the area in which he was first put by God, until God dispersed man, its not hard to reason why man is absent from most of the fossil record.”

Oh, man, Peter, I can’t believe you even wrote this. First of all, there was no “stream” in the Genesis flood story. “Hydraulic sorting” explains exactly nothing. There are both large and small fossils in more recent rock layers, and some very large ones well below the most recent.

Microbes are everywhere - soil, water, air, deep within the earth, on top of the highest mountains, all over your body - and inside your gut in numbers greater than all the people who have ever lived on Earth. They don’t fossilize very well (although we do have some), so the greater part of the evidence we have is stromatolites – structures made from the accretion of grains of sand by the biofilms of blue-green algaes. These have been found dating from 3.45 bya, to as recently as, well, yesterday. Their peak was 1.25 bya. In other words, they are in all layers.

Where is this spot where God “first put” man on Earth? I’ve always read that the Garden of Eden was supposed to have been in modern-day Iraq. (Funny that the flood is supposed to have completely scrambled the planet, but those old countries came out right where they were before.) Yet the earliest fossils of modern humans are found in equatorial and southern Africa. And given the rate that you assumed for human reproduction in those times, there should have been quite a passel of them.

So, if “hydraulic sorting” brought them somehow to the top, what happened to all of the artifacts of their existence on the ground where they lived? No houses? Cities? Pot shards? Footprints? Not a single buried skeleton from their funerals over all those thousands of years? What did they do with their dead??

WALTER: "like i've said, the flood is the single least defensible event in the bible - in terms of evidence it should have left, and the evidence we actually have."

PH: ”I don't think it has been investigated to the extent that it could have. I think evolutionary science has made it impossible for mainstream science to do so from since the time of Darwin onwards. The paradigm shifted with Darwin's work. People tried to explain everything from a naturalistic viewpoint.”

How might it be “investigated,” Peter? How would you go about it? Design an experiment.

Science isn’t in the business of pushing a viewpoint. They do the research, and the chips fall where they may. They can’t, however, investigate anything supernatural, because there is no evidence of it, and because they have only natural tools to work with.

I’ve never seen, heard, or felt anything remotely supernatural in my life, so how would I investigate it? Design an experiment.

PH: ”What it shows is life arising quickly. How does evolutionary science justify life arising so fast? How does science demonstrate life evolving from non-life by repeatable, observable experimentation?”

Whoa. Define “fast.” The first signs of life are in rocks about 3.4 billion y.o. That’s roughly a billion years into the existence of Earth. Not all that fast.

As for the experimentation part – if you read the articles (especially the one about ice) I linked to yesterday, you’ll see that we’re not so far from that. You’re awfully impatient. You expect all the answers to every possible question immediately. This is a quest that hinges on recreating the exact conditions of the early days of the planet – give it some time. Only religion promises all the answers on demand. And then doesn’t deliver.

PH: ”You say the evidence that life emerged from non-life is from the lack of fossil evidence in the older rocks. What kind of explanation is that? It is an assumption unless it can be observed and demonstrated by science - a theory, a philosophical explanation of what might have been, a faith.”

Who said that? You’re really beating the hell out of these straw men, Peter.

PH: ”Well Pam says that matter could have possibly always existed, along of course with energy. But on these grounds she is relying on faith in a miraculous chance beginning of everything but matter and energy. How does matter and energy organize and create information? Her and your answer is it is here so it must have happened. Now that is really scientific.”

Nope. I said energy always existed, since it can be neither created nor destroyed (first law of thermodynamics). Not matter. But matter is made from energy, so it came second.

And you’re wrong about my answer (Walter’s too, I strongly suspect).

I don’t have the space or time to give you a blow-by-blow of every step in the process from energy to humanity (even assuming that I knew them all), but the information on much of it is available if you care to do the research. Take some chemistry and physics courses. Study the evolution of solar systems. Throw in some geology and biology. There will be some missing pieces, but you’ll have the bulk of it.

PH: ”You say that you do not rely on natural philosophy as your foundation, but just think of this - every science had its start in philosophy. Ideas start within the realm of possibility. It is just that some do not recognize that because they are so immersed in that philosophy.”

Naah. Every science has it’s start in observation, followed by wondering, thinking up a reason why it might be so, and then testing that hypothesis. That is not philosophy by any definition I’ve ever heard.

PH: ”I also find it amazing that you look at a simple cell, its DNA and molecular structure (something that Darwin had no idea was so complex) and you imaging that it came about by a chance process (and I say chance process because without a mind directing or organizing it, it is just a fluke happening for without mind there is no intent. Yet that is what science keeps looking for, the why? behind it all.)”

Not a “fluke” happening at all. Single-celled animals evolve, too. They haven’t just been sitting there all these years, happy with the status-quo. No one imagines that the first life-form was anywhere near as complicated as today’s bacteria. Actually, they’re an excellent example of evolution in action – all those little organelles that you see under the microscope are very likely the descendents of separate, and once free-living, other bacteria. Their ancestors were once engulfed by larger bacteria, but instead of becoming lunch, they entered into a symbiotic relationship, providing a service in exchange for the protection of being part of a larger body.

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

PH: ”One of the points I have made from the very beginning of my debates and discussions with atheists is that without God it is impossible to make sense of any of this.”

Yes, we know, we know. But we don’t agree.

PH: ”THE EVIDENCE does not speak for itself.”

No? Well it certainly does whisper mighty loudly.

PH: ”I don't know where God put the limits between kinds in their ability to adapt to different or isolated environments, but I know that man is not a primate, he was created unique from the animals. I don't disagree with you on the fact that we do adapt to our environments in different ways, and that isolation creates different features - just that these different features come from changes in kinds over millions of years by macro-evolution.”

No, you don’t know that man is not a primate – you believe that he’s not, which is something quite different. I know it’s a bit of an ego blow to stop thinking of your species as “special” and “different,” but acknowledging reality won’t kill you.

There are so many obvious clues to our origins. Many are found in DNA – not just the working genes we share with other primates, but the non-working “fossil” genes that we would have no other reason to share. But there are also things that you can see more easily – like the action of piloerectors – the muscles that give you “goose-bumps.” Why do you think you have those? Why would God give you such things?

When an animal with a coat of hair is cold, these muscles raise the hair on its body, trapping more air, for better insulation. They also come into play when that animal is frightened, or when it’s being aggressive, because the raised hair makes him look larger, which may cause his opponent to back off rather than fight such a large enemy (as in Poker, bluffing can be a winning strategy). The early mammals that had this trait were more successful than those without it, so it got passed down to later mammals – including us. But we have no longer have a hair coat, so it’s now a useless atavism.

We get goose bumps when we’re cold, but they don’t help keep us warm. We feel the hair rise on the backs of our necks when we’re spooked or very angry, but we’re not fooling anyone into thinking we’re larger.

PH: ”That is exactly what the theory of evolution is all about. It is about explaining the diversity of life on planet earth outside of God.”

Not really. The study of evolution has nothing to do with God, and doesn’t care whether such a being is discovered to be the cause of the beginning of life, or something else is. Scientists just look for answers, and go where the evidence leads – wherever that may be. Evolution is just the study of life on Earth, and what has happened to it from the first living thing (or, as Walter aptly put it, the second one) up to today. It doesn’t concern itself with origins – that’s another field of study.

PH: ”Without the first life form on earth there would be no supposed macro-evolution, so it is all linked back to the foundation you start on. And you start with the foundation of matter or energy, or energy and matter, or energy, matter and natural laws producing information, intelligence/reason? How would a mindless, chance, random happening ever get to this place in the first place? One of the magic ingredients is 'natural selection,' another is 'genetic drift,'
a third is time.”

Nothing magic about those ingredients. All quite natural. And genetic drift is not an element of evolution, it’s a trait that gets carried along because the genes that are selected happen to be close to it on a chromosome. As stated before, intelligence and reason (and logic, abstraction, mathematics, etc.) are just products of a well-developed brain, which is, in turn, just a product of many layers of improvements on a nervous system.

Walter,
Too bad, indeed! I'd love to see that!

But he's probably too busy to keep his finger in the dike until august, when the relief wells are ready.

pam,
a couple days ago i saw a story about these people who were praying together for god to "plug that oil leak with his finger." wouldn't THAT be somthin'? too bad prayer doesn't work...

great posts, pam. that link about the possible origins of life in ice was very interesting. it kind of makes sense too - given that many meteors/comets etc...seem to have "organic" molecules present.
...................

here's hoping predictions for an active hurricane season are wrong. here's hoping there's not a single hurricane. if there's got to be, here's hoping it stays out of the gulf.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/noaa_gulf_of_mexico_oil_spill_8.html

incredibly depressing tracker (not updated since may 29 for some reason):
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/gulf_of_mexico_oil_spill_anima.html

so, peter, if you and yours really have any influence with "the man upstairs", uh... use it now!

.................

re camping with crazy, but extremely nice, biblical literalists, or "plain language-ists", if you prefer...:

a great time was had by all. i really don't discuss theology with these people anymore. the pastor was there, and we've had all these discussions before. there's another guy who was there with whom i've also had these discussions. they're well aware, as i've told them repeatedly in other forums, that i think they're all crazy and governed by wishful/lazy thinking. nonetheless, we all had fun and "fellowship" as they like to say.

PH: ”How does information arise except by mind ordering it? You have one of two possibilities - God or chance. Either a Mind is responsible for all you see, or chance is. You can't have it both ways.”

Another false dichotomy. Neither is true. Chance played a part, but the fundamental nature of the elements involved, coupled with time, opportunity, and natural selection is more to the point.

Walter: ”the self-replicating properties of dna DO seem 'miraculous' to me. i personally really can't imagine how it evolved. scientists assume dna evolved from something simpler, possibly rna or something. but even imagining rna happening 'by itself' seems miraculous to me…”

PH: ”Either life had a beginning or it has always existed. Same with the universe. You are the ones claiming that life came from the non-living. So how does that happen? Where is it demonstrated? I'm sure I'll get the same old response - 'Science is close to answering this question.' That is faith.”

Not faith, just a statement of fact. I know you’ve seen this article before, Peter, so this link is for Walter: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/did-life-evolve-in-ice/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=
And here’s one on RNA for both of you: http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/jeffares_poole.html

More tomorrow.

PH: ”The ironic thing is that these naturalistic philosophers who want to test everything that they believe in by empirical standards of empirical evidence cannot do so on the very thing they rely upon most - logic or reason. In a materialistic world show me the immaterial, abstract, intangible we call reason.”

Who said that the world was entirely “materialistic”? Logic and reason are two of a number of products of the brain (and not just the human brain, although we do it best). Again, this is a false dichotomy. You may see this as a conundrum, but science doesn’t. There are many ways of studying and testing brains, too, you know.

PH: ”I can't wrap my head around infinity being a finite being. God is infinite. I believe that by faith since I can't comprehend it. How can I grasp infinite with a finite mind? How do I grasp infinite love? I can only grasp as much as I know of love.”

How about this: Infinity isn’t real, it’s just a concept. Kind of like time. It’s always now. And if you’re trying to ascribe “infinite love” to bible God, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Not too loving to destroy everyone, including the animals. Surely a being with an “infinite mind” could have thought of a better way to handle the situation.

Imagine this: To remember an infinity of past time would take an infinite amount of time.

PH [to Walter]: ”Pam argued with me that the kind of science she (and you for that matter) believes in is not philosophical naturalism. I have pointed out to her (and you are included) that these events - the origin of the universe and spontaneous generation or life from non-life - are not events that can be duplicated and verified by the scientific method. Therefore, it is a philosophical bent that Darwin made possible.”

Tired, tired argument. You don’t have to witness or recreate an event in order to know that it took place. There is evidence.
Let me give you an actual court case: A woman driving to meet a friend, calls that friend on her cell and tells her that she’s feeling ill. She says that her husband absolutely insisted that she take her vitamin pill before she left, even though she was running late, and was out he door – he made her come back to take it. She’s wondering if the vitamin pill is why she feels sick.
She then drives off the road, wrecking her car. The first responder finds her vomiting, but with only minor injuries. She’s hospitalized, where she dies.
When detectives hear the friend’s story, they have the body tested, and find cyanide. They go the house, and take the bottle of vitamins. They find that a number of the capsules are filled with cyanide. They also learn that hubby has been having an affair, and that wifey was well-insured.
Do you need to be an actual witness, or to recreate the events, in order to know what happened here? Do you not think you could render a verdict?

Hi Pam,

Give me a few days to digest and think about your comments and then I'll do my utmost to respond.

PH: ”But half the mind game is constructing complicated scenarios of what might have been. ‘Once upon a time, a long, long time ago...bang - it happened, for no rhyme or reason it just was.’”

No rhyme or reason? Now there’s where you’re wrong. Remember all those “finely tuned laws”? There’s the rhyme – there’s the reason. Energy, and any element that it produces, has certain properties, and reacts certain ways under given circumstances. That’s all.

PH: ”Here the atheist sits, thinking thoughts about origins that had no thoughts about him. Incredibly, out of the mindless past came the thinking atheist!”

I know you think this sounds like a great mystery, but when you take the time to learn about it and understand it, it’s not really incredible at all.

PH: ”The biggest assumption is that all this complexity, order and information can come from mindlessness. They assume there is no god, that science, or at least evolutionary science, for that is the science we are talking about, is a good enough explanation to eliminate the need for God. And yet the greater the telescope the further out and more complex the universe all is, and the greater the microscope the more complex and organized the microscopic is.”

To a point, maybe. We see more universe with better telescopes, but it’s not something radically different – just more of the same. And bacteria are fairly complicated (compared to amoebae), but why should this surprise? They’ve been evolving, too – for lo, these 3.5 billion years. And, BTW, I don’t “assume” there’s no god, I just don’t see any need for one in the equation. And the God of the Christian bible is certainly not the one I would think of if I did see a need for one.

PH: ”The assumption that this information arose and ordered itself from chance just does not make sense. Which came first the laws or the chance?”

False dichotomy. And the word “laws” is too anthropomorphic. Energy came first, then matter (the elements of the periodic table), which have properties and relate to each other in certain ways (your “laws”). At the same time, chance was playing a part – as it does in your day-to-day life. The universe evolved. Everything evolves – the universe, the solar system, the planet, life, hairstyles, music, the design of automobiles…everything. Evolution just means “change over time.”

PH (to Walter): ”I know you and Pam, and every other atheist I've communicated with on these forums understand the simplicity of the gospel, the message, for you all have reacted in harsh condemnation of God's actions. You wish to condemn Him, not love Him. If He is make-believe why even bother? What difference will it make? Why do you keep condemning a God who is not real? There is enough that enslaves you without even worrying about a fictitious being. And yet every one of you does.”

No Peter, it’s not God who we condemn, nor who worries us. It’s people who think like you, who organize to bring down educational standards and push their religion into politics and law.
If you would all keep your religion to yourselves, I would be more than happy to have you believe whatever you want to, and to worship in any way that you see fit, as long as it doesn’t hurt any other person or animal.

In the US, we see very wealthy religious institutions, supported by our tax dollars (since they pay no taxes) trying to influence elections and to make changes to our laws, and even to our constitution (which currently prohibits such things). It makes us angry.

PH: ”The funny thing about an atheist is that he will spend years of his life investigating this universe, trying to find meaning in it all, but for what? Why this search? Does he want to hedge his bets just in case he is wrong? No, it is because no matter how much he tries to believe otherwise these nagging doubts keep hounding him. What if, What if? Why should there be justice? How can I justify what I believe? Why should I do what is good? Behind all of science lies these hidden moral questions with no one to answer them but God, no other standard that can make sense of them.”

I can’t speak for all atheists, but I’m certainly not interested in hedging any bets. Nor am I looking for “meaning.” I investigate for the love of knowledge. That’s all. I’m a curious person, and I like to know how things work. Nothing is “nagging” at me, I assure you. The idea is actually quite amusing. I have no trouble understanding where morality or a sense of justice comes from, and I‘ve explained it to you too many times to be sucked into typing it all out again.

PH: ”The same applies to the natural philosophy of Darwinian evolution. They are already being asked embarrassing questions that they know not how to answer.”

Nonsense. Name one.

PH: ”First, in order to make the claim that God is a trickster, she [Me] would have to have an intimate knowledge of God. Yet, this is something that she has claimed she does not have, for she does not 'believe in Him.' For someone who does not know or believe in Him she is making a lot of assumptions about Him. She is speculating about Him in the same way that she claims I speculate about science, that is without knowing what I'm talking about. She bases her understanding on her perspective of God; a twisted, unhealthy perspective, for she does not ascribe to God the greatness and majesty, power and might, sovereignty and standard, wisdom and intelligence, humbleness and grace that are His alone. She says things about Him which are not true.”

Wow. Once again, I haven’t called God a trickster. To me, he is a fictional character, so I don’t ascribe any characteristics to him, good or bad. Now, if you want to talk about the characteristics of that fictional character as he is described in the bible, and by people who believe he’s real (no speculation necessary on my part), then yeah, I’ve got plenty to say about him, and not much of it’s good.

WALTER: "rather than me, you should have a discussion with a mormon or muslim or a wiccan or whatever."

PH:”I have, many times. One thing about it, they can't all be right because they all disagree in vital matters. I think we could establish that much, could we not?”

Ummmm…I think that was precisely Walter’s point. How clear could God’s revelation be if there are literally thousands of diametrically opposed interpretations of it?

PH: ”Where does this genetic information come from, where is it acquired from, in the first place in a process that began and continues by random, undirected means?”

C’mon Peter, you know the answer to this. It comes from DNA, which very likely came from RNA (viruses are the simplest form of life, and are built by RNA – the only life form we know that doesn’t have DNA.
Both are just nucleic acids strung together. Paired with others, in the case of DNA. But all forms that are built by DNA, also have RNA, and can’t function without it. The codes work to produce proteins, which is what all life is made of. They work very much like digital binary code.

All that was necessary to start evolution was the ability of these nucleic acid chains to reproduce themselves, and the occasional failure to do it perfectly.

Because of natural selection, there is absolutely nothing random or undirected about evolution. Reproductive success decides everything.

PH: ”As I have said before (and will continue to push this point), one of the things that evolutionary science assumes is that similarity and commonality equals origin from common ancestry by natural descent, hence, a means that is not from God.”

Not at all. As I pointed out night before last, similarity may not indicate a close relationship at all. If different animals have the same problems, they may very well come up with the same solutions, completely independently. There are ways to look much deeper than superficial similarities. The book you’re reading (you are still reading it, right?) should clue you in to some of those methods. And not everyone agrees that natural means can’t come from God. Some think that is how he works.

PH: ”Your understanding of God as a trickster just confirms His word.”

What??? I think you misunderstood something. Walter said (and I agreed) that science assumes that the things we see were not planted by some cosmic jokester to fool us into thinking that the earth is old, and that species evolved from one another.

PH (quoting Johnson again): "...the board greatly improved the intellectual content of the standards on these subjects by encouraging teachers to raise three important considerations that many science educators do not want the students to think about: 1) the mechanisms of micro-evolution do not necessarily explain how macro-evolution can occur, especially when the latter category involves not merely speciation but the creation of new complex organs; 2) natural selection adds no new genetic information to the organism; and 3)a vast historical scenario like 'evolution' necessarily involves a degree of speculation that is absent from, say, the typical chemistry experiment …”

There is nothing that educators “don’t want students to think about” – thinking is what they’re all about. And the items listed are specious at best. 1) Mechanisms of “micro-evolution” (there isn’t actually any such thing) are precisely the same as those for “macro-evolution” – it is all the same process. Large changes are neither more nor less than accumulated small changes (look at morphed photos). And “new complex organs” are nothing more than previously simple organs (sometimes ones that had a completely different purpose in earlier ancestors) with multiple layers of improvements, naturally selected. 2) This is a nonsense statement. Of course “natural selection” doesn’t “add information” – but genetic changes can and do. Natural selection then acts on those changes to determine which will be passed down to future generations - those that confer reproductive advantages, no matter how slight, will accumulate in the population. 3) No it doesn’t. It works with observation of the evidence and testing of the hypotheses, just the same as does chemistry.

PH: ”And he goes on to uses examples in this kind of speculation in another portion of his book. That is the commonly used examples of evolutionary science of change within a kind, such as the pepper moth, or the finch, or the fruit fly, to imply these changes are the same kind that lead to the conclusion of a common ancestor billions of years ago and thus changes of kinds along the way, rather than just changes within kinds.”

The reason that these examples are used so frequently, is that they are evolutionary changes that we can see in a single human lifetime, and they are clear responses to environmental pressure. No one expects you to take them as examples of speciation. They just show how the changes begin that may eventually accumulate to the point where species do diverge. And until you can coherently define what a “kind” is, don’t expect me to take that seriously.

WALTER: "i'm going camping with this weekend with our church youth group. so can't read/comment further 'til tuesday or so. it will be me, my wife, 4 other adults, and about 20 kids. my wife and i aren't YECs, but the rest of the gang is. we're going to the appalachian mountains, and i can't share with the kids the real history of the 400,000,000+ year-old mountains....most geologists call the appalachian mountains the oldest in the world."

"The real history."

That will be an interesting encounter. I'm hoping that your philosophy and questions will meet some solid resistance/replies, but I fear most YEC's are ill prepared and their faith will be shaken. That is reality. The number of Christians going to secular university and remaining Christian is small.

Once I found out that Flood geology was one of your main sticklers I began to focus on it and the claims of Darwinian philosophy more thoroughly. It is a complicated subject. There is still a long ways to go and the issues are not easy on either side. But I'm interested to know if you see the problems that your worldview creates, since you read into the evidence and presuppose so much, all under the mask of 'science'?

Both Pam and you presuppose that life can arise from non-living matter. Where is the evidence?

You both presuppose that all this order, all this complexity is a matter of chance plus natural laws. You both say that all this intent and information arranging itself is not from mind, but from matter (and energy) as you mindfully examine the issues and as you string together similarities and commonalities to the conclusion that we are all related to a common ancestor, a blob of chemical matter that became living. Where is your evidence?

'It is here so it must have happened!'

Great science!

You both presume that something without intent can organize randomly because that is what you see it doing. In a chance universe (one that has no intent - it just is, it just happens without reason) why are there laws and uniformity in nature? Why do some molecular bonds pair together? Why does the universe hold together? What makes it hold together? Why is there gravity? Why is there energy? Why is there matter?

How can an amoral process produce morality? What is the standard it uses to judge 'good' on? If our decision is based on someones perception, what makes it the standard.(Look around the world and see how much strife there is on a common value. Pam's argument is weak.)

It just seem ludicrous on the number of things that you both assume in order for them to be. And all without Mind, and yet you think. I'll probably go blue waiting for a reasonable response, because these are the kinds of questions Darwinian evolution does not have the answers for. It assumes.

Hi Walter,

WALTER: "i've answered those questions many times."

I disagree Walter, you have side stepped the real issues or admitted to lack of certainty on them. When I sit down later and try and put this year long communication between the three of us all together I'll point these things out to you again.

WALTER: "i cannot invent certainty where the science doesn't warrant it - that's what religion is for..."

That is my point Walter. Your faith in natural philosophies can only take you so far whether you want to admit it or not. You have faith in Darwinian science that does not have certainty on these issues because beginnings are not scientifically verifiable in that they cannot be duplicated and repeated. We don't know all the variables behind them. Where you start is where your bent lies. You start without God and with everything having a natural beginning whereas Christians start with God and a supernatural beginning.

PH: ”Phil notes … that Davies believes that the fine tuning of the universe to support and sustain life in which he identifies dozens of mathematical relationships and constants that have to be set exactly so. Without a Divine Designer these are just coincidences in a chance universe. The improbability is idiotically high.”

No it’s not. You’re assuming that life is the goal. It isn’t. There is no goal. There is no one to set goals. The relationships are what they are, and what can happen, will happen. Sorry to burst your self-important bubble.

Things have properties, Peter. Kittens are soft, rocks are hard, water is wet, fire is hot. Elements born of energy have properties, too. Properties that result in physical (and mathematical) relationships. Their natures give them their properties. No person or humanoid being had to “write the laws.” If the properties were such that life was impossible, there just wouldn’t be life. We wouldn’t be here to ask the question.

If you want to look at probabilities, Peter, think for a moment of the odds against your being here. For that to happen, every one of your ancestors (whether you look back 6,000 years, or 3.4 billion) had to survive to reproductive age, find precisely the right mate, and have sex at precisely the right moment. One little break in the chain – one little fish fry getting eaten, one baby falling on its head, or one woman with a headache on the wrong night – and you don’t exist. The odds against your being here are astronomically high. Kind of like the odds against life getting started naturally.

But here’s the thing – you weren’t the goal. Nature doesn’t care if you’re here – if you weren’t, someone else would be, and that would be fine. When you look at it that way, the odds aren’t so high. It was quite likely, in fact, that someone (or some thing) would be. If your mother hadn’t agreed to sex on the fateful night that produced you, she likely would have gotten pregnant sometime later, and some other person would be walking around now. Or not. All the same to nature.

PH: “Before you explain the origins of life you have to explain the origins of the universe in your scheme of things, for life does not happen without the universe in your scheme of things. If there is no rational principle (which comes from God) then it boils down to chance and chemical laws operating together to produce the immense complexity that will later become life. Is that where you want to take this?”

In a word, yes.

And I actually don’t have to explain the origins of life, or the origins of the universe in order to know that evolution happens, happened, is happening. They are separate things. However earth came to be, however life arose, that life started evolving and has not stopped doing so to this day.

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

Sciences don’t technically overlap – certainly you can have biology without astrophysics – they have nothing to do with one another.

A great overarching theory can serve to unite branches of science, but the studies are separate.

ME: 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: ”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.”

Please don’t ever accept an assignment to serve on a jury, Peter, if you don’t believe that evidence can lead to the truth. The problem is that you take the bible as evidence, when all it actually is, is hearsay – something that (fortunately) no court of law allows.

And “commonalities” don’t necessarily lead to conclusions of relationship. There is convergent evolution. Like flying squirrels and sugargliders. A lot alike, but one is a modern mammal, the other a marsupial. Not so closely related. Now common DNA is another story…

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

The difference is not apparent to me.

Peter, you have been nothing if not prolific. I spent some days mining your posts for the bits I wanted to reply to, and I came up with 16 pages! Clearly, I will have to let some of it slide – but not all.

PH (quoting Phil Johnson, with his own interpolations in brackets):

“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.”

Regardless of the FACTS??? And just what might those “facts” be?

Science seeking a “naturalistic” explanation has nothing to do with “naturalistic philosophy,” it is simply the only way there is to do science. I have asked you in the past to give me a testable, falsifiable, supernatural hypothesis. You haven’t done it, nor has anyone else.

To the extent that religious tenets can be tested, they have been. Remember the study concerning prayer and hospital patients? It was a large study commissioned by the Templeton Foundation, and found that prayer had no effect either way on those who didn’t know whether they were being prayed for or not (some were, some weren’t), and had a slight negative effect on those who knew people were praying for them.

There are also the predictive tests, although not carried out scientifically. Jesus supposedly said that the “end times” would occur in the lifetimes of those he was speaking to – but they didn’t. And religious “prophets” of nearly every Christian sect have been predicting the end for every generation since.
http://www.bible.ca/pre-date-setters.htm

But somehow it never happens. Over two thousand years, and counting.

Here’s a prediction for you: In 2013, the world will still be trundling along in its usual way, and no one will have been “raptured.”

pam?

peter,
i've answered those questions many times. i cannot invent certainty where the science doesn't warrant it - that's what religion is for...

i'm going camping with this weekend with our church youth group. so can't read/comment further 'til tuesday or so. it will be me, my wife, 4 other adults, and about 20 kids. my wife and i aren't YECs, but the rest of the gang is. we're going to the appalachian mountains, and i can't share with the kids the real history of the 400,000,000+ year-old mountains....most geologists call the appalachian mountains the oldest in the world.

WALTER: "i know you think these are earth-shattering questions you've been "firing". "life from non-life?" and "intelligence from non-intelligence" and so on. i know they sound clever and all, but they're really not."

Clever enough that you have not even attempted to explain them, other than mere opinion, nor can you. Your foundation rests on chance and uncertainty. These are the type of questions that philosophers have been tackling since the dawn of time. If there is no absolute, objective standard for morality then meaning and purpose are whatever you make them, each to his own. The only thing that governs you not imposing your subjective standard is the rule of the society you live in, and that by force. Look around at every society that has existed in human history and the variances that come from each one, the troubles in the world because of each one. It is a game of power politics. The strong govern the weak. The leader(s) choose the rules. And yet each individual has a moral conscience that he knows he should not cross. Where does this innate sense of right and wrong come from in a world governed by evolution? From matter and energy by random chance. It just does not add up and you say it must be because it is. What kind of science is that?

WALTER: "infact they're mostly nonsense along the lines of "how do you get blue from non-blue?" we've answered them numerous times but you dislike, and therefor ignore the answer."

Not as nonsensical as proposing a system of thought that has no ability to answer any of them. That is irrationality itself, to say that we are here but have no way of explaining why. It just happened. They aren't non-questions, they are the questions that man without God has been perplexed about since the time of the Fall. Science arose from such questions as these, from trying to think God's thoughts after Him and explain existence. It cannot be done outside of God. What purpose and meaning is there? What you make? Why? What does it matter when you are gone? Nothing. A better place in whose opinion?

With evolutionists it is always the promise that scientists are on the verge of answering these questions, or the dismissal of such questions that you are making here - one or the other.

Hi Walter,

WALTER: "i said,
"the flood is the single least defensible event in the bible...""

From a naturalistic explanation of everything. You discount the supernatural and yet you use terms like miraculous to describe the physical and are as puzzled as your evolutionary colleges.

WALTER: "...certainly scientifically indefensible, and probably morally too...."

Walter, you are looking at every detail from your naturalistic perspective, so naturally you won't see the supernatural. Science doesn't have all the answers, neither do Christians. But we look to the God who does.

As for your 'probably morally too,' you want to judge God. His explanation is not sufficient for you.

"The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." (Genesis 6:5)

"Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways." (Genesis 6:11-12)

PS. By evolutionary I mean macro-evolution, not micro-evolution. I agree that animals, plants, man, all living things have the ability to change within the limits that God created them, but not change from one kind to another.

Hi Walter,

WALTER: "btw, it's "johnson" - phillip johnson - no "t". (not to be confused with philip johnson - one "l" - the architect.) i saw "johnston" on a couple of your earlier posts and assumed it was a typo, but, like a dna mutations, the error is now being reproduced...."

Sorry, I keep thinking of a gentleman at work who spells his name Johnston - my error. It is not paying attention to detail.

WALTER: ""life from non-life" is just what the evidence shows...that's all. no agenda, no presuppositions. old rocks - no fossils. new rocks - fossils."

What are you talking about Walter??? It doesn't show anything of the sort. That is the way you (evolutionary science) interpret it. What it shows is life arising quickly. How does evolutionary science justify life arising so fast? How does science demonstrate life evolving from non-life by repeatable, observable experimentation?

You say the evidence that life emerged from non-life is from the lack of fossil evidence in the older rocks. What kind of explanation is that? It is an assumption unless it can be observed and demonstrated by science - a theory, a philosophical explanation of what might have been, a faith.

WALTER: "it's not faith, it's just evidence."

Evidence, but of what? You are drawing conclusions on things not repeatable by science. You are looking back on what might have been and philosophizing over how it got here.

WALTER: "evolution is also what the evidence shows. big life forms like whales and dinos and people and even "trees that bear fruit" NEVER appear in old rocks. the bottom 80% of rocks show nothing but single-celled fossils."

Did you ever open up that site I supplied on hydraulic sorting? It showed how different layers could be formed in a quick space of time and how the bigger debris got caught in the top layers while the smaller debris was washed down stream. Consider that microbes are in the soil before the Flood, naturally they are going to be on the bottom of the heap. When you consider that birds and water life could have spread across the face of the globe fast while man was left to the area in which he was first put by God, until God dispersed man, its not hard to reason why man is absent from most of the fossil record.

What I am saying is evolutionary philosophy is not the only, or necessarily the most feasible explanation of why things are the way they are. Darwinian science has had a 150 years strangle grip in which to brainwash and indoctrinate on the way things might have been. Now some brilliant scientists are starting to question some of the starting points of this pseudoscience.

Part 2

WALTER: "forget their absolute ages for a moment. the rocks show a clear sequence** of fossils. i know i've mentioned this before. it's just evidence, that's all."

Yes they do, and it is speculation on how they got to be the way they are since these conditions cannot be duplicated. We are looking back on conditions that we know little about, conditions that are not repeatable.

WALTER: "any rational person looking at the sequence of rocks can see the sequence."

It is what caused the sequences that you and I are in debate about, not that they are there.

WALTER: "it's not the devil whispering in scientists' ears, it's just the evidence. even before darwin, people noticed this sequence. that's the evidence."

It was Darwin's philosophical bent that began to dominate what people thought on how these things came to be, until today, in which people are starting to question things that Darwin knew nothing about, such as the complexity of a cell and the intelligence involved in everything from the simplest organisms to the vastness of the universe itself. Somewhere along the line God was taken out of the equation.

WALTER: "the "buffoonery" comes when you try to say "on the third day, god created fruit trees." that may have been "acceptable" based on the (lack of) evidence 3,0000 yrs ago, but now it's buffoonery."

God is the only reasonable explanation. You have yet to demonstrate life coming from non-life or how a universe and matter can form mind, intelligence, logic and intent. How the hell (pardon the expression) does the personal come from the impersonal, logic from non-structured chaos, uniform laws from chance and random happenstance?

You want to assume that information and intelligence comes from a natural source, but don't call it science unless you can demonstrate it.

None of this adds up.

WALTER: "**even price, whitcomb, morris, gish et. al. acknowledge the sequence. if you want to, we can talk about "flood geology" and "ecological zonation" and "differential hydraulic sorting" - the biblical literalists' explanation of this PLAIN-AS-DAY sequence."

I'm not a literalist, if by the term you mean someone who takes everything as literal without discernment for the different figures of speech used in the Bible. I prefer the term 'plain language' to literal language. There is a difference that I would be glad to expand upon. The narrative of Genesis 1-11 is historical in nature. That is the kind of language it is.

WALTER: "like i've said, the flood is the single least defensible event in the bible - in terms of evidence it should have left, and the evidence we actually have."

I don't think it has been investigated to the extent that it could have. I think evolutionary science has made it impossible for mainstream science to do so from since the time of Darwin onwards. The paradigm shifted with Darwin's work. People tried to explain everything from a naturalistic viewpoint.

i said,
"the flood is the single least defensible event in the bible..."

...certainly scientifically indefensible, and probably morally too....

peter,
to make italics: before the text you want italicized, put an "i" between a "less than" and a "greater than" symbol. then, after the text you want italicized, put a "/i" between a "less than" and a "greater than" symbol.

to do bold, use a "b" instead of an "i".

if that doesn't make sense, look it up. i can't show you because if i do it the symbols disappear and the text becomes italicized.... you can test it by hitting "preview" instead of "submit".

btw, it's "johnson" - phillip johnson - no "t". (not to be confused with philip johnson - one "l" - the architect.) i saw "johnston" on a couple of your earlier posts and assumed it was a typo, but, like a dna mutations, the error is now being reproduced....
----------------------

"life from non-life" is just what the evidence shows...that's all. no agenda, no presuppositions. old rocks - no fossils. new rocks - fossils. it's not faith, it's just evidence. evolution is also what the evidence shows. big life forms like whales and dinos and people and even "trees that bear fruit" NEVER appear in old rocks. the bottom 80% of rocks show nothing but single-celled fossils.

forget their absolute ages for a moment. the rocks show a clear sequence** of fossils. i know i've mentioned this before. it's just evidence, that's all. any rational person looking at the sequence of rocks can see the sequence. it's not the devil whispering in scientists' ears, it's just the evidence. even before darwin, people noticed this sequence. that's the evidence.

the "buffoonery" comes when you try to say "on the third day, god created fruit trees." that may have been "acceptable" based on the (lack of) evidence 3,0000 yrs ago, but now it's buffoonery.
-----------------
**even price, whitcomb, morris, gish et. al. acknowledge the sequence. if you want to, we can talk about "flood geology" and "ecological zonation" and "differential hydraulic sorting" - the biblical literalists' explanation of this PLAIN-AS-DAY sequence. like i've said, the flood is the single least defensible event in the bible - in terms of evidence it should have left, and the evidence we actually have.

hi pam, peter,
here's the old thread:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/pamela_k_taylor/2010/05/abortion_and_islamic_thought.html

Hi Pam,

PAM: "After that, Peter, if you want to take a long break from evolution, that's fine with me, but I think if it's going to be that long, you should add a couple more books to your reading list. Something (anything, really) on the history of geology, or just straight geology (since that was what started the ball rolling - not Darwin - and something about what DNA has to say about evolution."

I'd agree to read something of your choice (not too complicated please), if you would agree to read a few from the opposite end of the spectrum from my choice.

PAM: "I would recommend Relics of Eden by Daniel J. Fairbanks (who happens to be quite religious)."

Yes, I'm sure he approaches it from a comfortable slant to the evolutionist.

Part 2

PAM: "In the meantime, there's plenty for us to discuss about the bible, without bringing evolution into it at all."

Yes, that is true. We are able to discuss and yet disagree. For instance, Walter wants me to peg the year DOT, in reference to when the Flood was. I can't do that. I can only offer what God's word implies, considering that there may very well have been gaps in the genealogies, or something that he will not consider, the current trend and dating methods are wrong in reference to the written artifacts of say China or Egypt. I'm looking into the dating methods to see what sense I can make of them. I might not be ready to tackle this question at this time, since Walter felt my explanation was insufficient. I still want to see what kind of weight he has for his. The question is can he show me something factually conclusive that is beyond mere opinion?

It is the same old debate in which for every 'scholar' he can bring forth that supports his view there is a 'scholar' that refutes it. Since no one was around today at that time frame, we both rely on circumstantial evidence. He looks at it from his foundational starting point with the blinders on, and I look at it from the foundation of God's word.

My logical premise is that without an objective (by this I mean one outside of ourselves that is omniscient and unchanging, without bias in seeing the whole picture) standard we can never be certain on anything. But he does not act as if there is no certainty. He makes these bold claims, as do you concerning events and times beyond which any man was there to witness as to life and origins, and for him to history and civilization.

You say that you do not rely on natural philosophy as your foundation, but just think of this - every science had its start in philosophy. Ideas start within the realm of possibility. It is just that some do not recognize that because they are so immersed in that philosophy.

Sorry to harp on Phil Johnston, but I re-read 'The Wedge of Truth' not long ago and highlighted many of his salient points. Here is one of them,

"On the one hand, science means a practice of impartial empirical investigation and testing. On the other hand, science means a very partisan adherence to a philosophy variously called naturalism, materialism or physicallism. Refusing to recognize that there could be a difference between these two defiitions is at the very heart of the philosophy of scientific naturalism. My hypothesis was that the Darwinian theory and its accompanying definition of knowledge will collapse once the difference is recognized, with profound consequences for the life of the mind." p. 145-46.

Well put Phil!

Hi Walter, welcome back Pam,

WALTER: "you say johnson says,
"...they assume that it is produced by material (i.e., Darwinian) process..."

Well Pam says that matter could have possibly always existed, along of course with energy. But on these grounds she is relying on faith in a miraculous chance beginning of everything but matter and energy. How does matter and energy organize and create information? Her and your answer is it is here so it must have happened. Now that is really scientific.

WALTER: "huh? he equates "material" and "darwinian"? (first of all, no one says "darwinian" except anti-darwinists."

Whatever. The old smoke ploy to avoid the question. Darwinian evolution is the ploy that sidesteps the God question. As Phil put it in 'The Wedge of Truth,'

"The error is elementary, but it is one that countless Darwinists continue to make. Because they do not understand the difference between intelligent and unintelligent causes, they assume that unintelligent causes can do everything that intelligence can do - and maybe even more!" p. 135.

"The essential conflict does not turn on evidentiary details, but on fundamentally opposite ways of thinking...Is there an alternative to Darwinism? When Darwinists ask that question, they have in mind an alternative of the same kind, meaning a new scientific explanation that involves only law and chance." p 139, 141.

WALTER: "scientists don't call it that. we don't worship darwin... it's just "evolution" or...science....) now, if he's trying to equate darwinism and materialism with atheism, well, that's his choice, and yours too."

It is the mechanism that makes your worldview tick. Darwin provides the fuel the keeps your fire going. Similarity of kinds equals a common ancestor to you - your luca, if my memory serves me correctly?

Part 2

WALTER: "it's possible god has manipulated every genetic mutation ever. it's possible. or maybe he just manipulates certain important ones - like maybe to make flagella.... hahaha my point is, there are plenty of scientists who believe in "material (i.e. darwinian) processes" AND believe in god."

Yeah, like Miller and Collins. It is a compromise on God's word in my opinion. But to their credit, they also believe that God is behind it all.

I also find it amazing that you look at a simple cell, its DNA and molecular structure (something that Darwin had no idea was so complex) and you imaging that it came about by a chance process (and I say chance process because without a mind directing or organizing it, it is just a fluke happening for without mind there is no intent. Yet that is what science keeps looking for, the why? behind it all.)

WALTER: "you said johnson said,
"...THE SCIENTIST WHO BELIEVE THAT NATURAL SELECTION MADE THE BRAIN DO SO NOT BECAUSE OF THE EVIDENCE BUT IN SPITE OF THE EVIDENCE."

WALTER: "repeating something loudly does not make it true...'cept maybe in church...."

It is my way of emphasizing a point. I don't know how to italicize or use bold on this forum.

WALTER: "on the contrary: there is no evidence that REQUIRES we suppose god. you are free to do so, but it's not required by the evidence."

One of the points I have made from the very beginning of my debates and discussions with atheists is that without God it is impossible to make sense of any of this. He is necessary ultimately to make sense of anything. THE EVIDENCE does not speak for itself. People interpret it. I don't see how an atheist or materialist can justify origins of life or universe from the evidence they have. It all rests on faith, an educated guess along the lines that you start from - either from God, from the supreme supernatural Mind, or from chance and evolution over long periods of time from we don't know what.

Part 3

WALTER: "you said,
"Where does that information come from Walter? Can you answer that? Can you answer any of the questions I have been firing at you lately?"

WALTER: "i know you think these are earth-shattering questions you've been "firing". "life from non-life?" and "intelligence from non-intelligence" and so on. i know they sound clever and all, but they're really not. infact they're mostly nonsense along the lines of "how do you get blue from non-blue?" we've answered them numerous times but you dislike, and therefor ignore the answer."

It just shows that you are as buffooned as the next guy and have no answers that do not rely on an abundance of faith.

Either life had a beginning or it has always existed. Same with the universe. You are the ones claiming that life came from the non-living. So how does that happen? Where is it demonstrated? I'm sure I'll get the same old response - 'Science is close to answering this question.' That is faith.

WALTER: "the fact is the evidence supports evolution. scientists are still working on the origin of life - and that is a different question, even though you consider it all part of one question. i suppose you could say it's "evolution of molecules into life" or something - but THAT'S not what the theory of evolution is about. as i've mentioned numerous time before this "molecules into life" is a great "god gap." mebbe god did it?! dunno, could be - but that NOT what the theory of evolution is all about. evolution is not about the first life form on earth, but the second."

That is exactly what the theory of evolution is all about. It is about explaining the diversity of life on planet earth outside of God. Without the first life form on earth there would be no supposed macro-evolution, so it is all linked back to the foundation you start on. And you start with the foundation of matter or energy, or energy and matter, or energy, matter and natural laws producing information, intelligence/reason? How would a mindless, chance, random happening ever get to this place in the first place? One of the magic ingredients is 'natural selection,' another is 'genetic drift,'
a third is time.

It's all a big mistake in not recognizing similarity in kinds, but attributing it to similarity due to evolution of different kinds.

I don't know where God put the limits between kinds in their ability to adapt to different or isolated environments, but I know that man is not a primate, he was created unique from the animals. I don't disagree with you on the fact that we do adapt to our environments in different ways, and that isolation creates different features - just that these different features come from changes in kinds over millions of years by macro-evolution.

test~!

"...Muslim scholars were nearly unanimous..."

How many of those "Muslim scholars" were/are women?

What changed their "opinions"?

Why grapple with their opinions; why not grapple with your own opinions?

These "scholars" have no power over you unless you give them that power.