Univ. of Kansas Takes Up Creation Debate

Yes, of course. Most Christians have the caveat that they believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, inasmuch as it is correctly translated. The translation from whatever early source you have is important, but my own little study of source documents from around the time of our nation's founding tells me language changes very much in just 200 short years, much less 2,000. And that's in political and social thought, not the much more difficult arena of religious thought. So there has to be a recognition not only of what the original words mean, but what they mean in the context of the times in which they were written. There is also a cultural context we sometimes employ, and sometimes ignore (but if we're honest, we'll examine whether it helps our case or not).

Some of the most productive exchanges I have had are with rabbis who shared the interpetation of their scriptures, an exercise which is sure to help expand your thoughts if you have only been exposed to Christian interpetations! For instance, all of that erotic poetry is really erotic, and not a metaphor for the relationship between the Church and Christ! "Song of Soloman" is at least one area of the Bible where Christians are quick to accept a metaphor instead of the most obvious answer ... Soloman was horny.

 

Noah's story is easy, because the text itself lends to a more allegorical reading if you are so inclined. Harder are the passages that conflict with science directly; somewhere, there is an incident where the sun is held still in the sky for four hours (or perhaps moves backwards in the sky) which of course could not happen without dire consequences for the natural world. This passage troubles me, because there is no indication the author believes anything other than that the sun moved backward in the sky. The only answer to this difficulty I can find is that the viewpoint of the person is what is being reported, just as we say the sun "rises" in the east and "sets" in the west. It does no such thing, but from our vantage point, we would describe it as doing so. Time also does not slow down when we see a car running a stop sign and headed for us, even though we describe it as so. But I think that's a weak argument.

 

I agree.

ID supporters mistake "evolution" as an alternative belief system (and since it's not Christianity, it's heathen) to what Christianity teaches... and by having evolution taught in public school, it's unfair to the one true faith, Christianity, and it's poisoning the kids...

What they are missing is that evolution was never meant to be a belief system. Anyone who believes in any scientific theory in the same way as a religion has got it all backward, and simply don't understand science.

It's not a choice for a student to believe one or the other... the two are absolutely 100% ORTHOGONAL.

I remember learning the scientific method very early on in my science classes in elementary school, and having it reinforced in middle and high school... and I came to the realization that what you learn from a science class isn't a belief system, and you aren't meant to be moulded into a particular faith...

rather, science, and the scientific method that you so described is the BKM (best known method) of exploring the world around us. It's a method for sharing, debating, and refining the best explanations we have.

And the content of any one theory isn't meant as a belief system unto itself... rather, any one prevailing scientific theory, be it evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics, etc etc... are the best that humankind can observe of the universe around us. Thinking in a scientific mindset means accepting these as the best that humans can do, but also to always be prepared for the day when new discoveries refine, or completely redefine the theory.

This is not faith... it's something completely different. I truly think the problem is that too many non-scientists have no idea that science is supposed to work this way, that imperfection in the explanation is expected, and serve as new frontiers to explore... Most people don't understand science like this, but they do understand faith, so when confronted with the question about evolution vs. creationism, they automatically think that evolution is a COMPETING faith to creationism, because that's all they know...

 

So was our 42nd president.

 

"Soloman was horny."

I guess that would qualify as an example of Occam's Razor.....

 

... And the guy who made these statements was brutally beaten this evening in a rural part of Douglas County, Kansas. Could be treated as a hate crime, I suppose.

What the heck is that bible teaching people these days?

*edit* The attack is said to have taken place during the early morning hours of Monday, Nov. 22, as opposed to the evening hours stated in initial reports.

 

The "ID" crowd contends that evolution as an explanation for observed nature has problems.

Well, "ID" has serious problems of its own:

1. No evidence.

2. Flawed syllogism:
Life too complex to have "evolved" so it must have been "designed."

First, there's only one premise, and it's wrong out of the box, making its argument in complete ignorance. Science has identified overwhelming evidence that complex life HAS evolved. Second, the conclusion that "design" is the only possible alternative to "evolution" doesn't follow even if the premise was correct: there's an entire universe of possibility that could be supposed other than "design."

The syllogism fails at an even deeper level. Design implies a designer. If you argue that something is so complicated that it could only have been designed, the designer must be at least complicated enough itself to be capable of design. Did this complicated designer evolve? Not if you argue that complexity can only be designed. So who designed the designer? And who designed the designer of the designer? Etc. It's a syllogism with one bad leg that flops in pointless, endless circles.

3. Not a SINGLE "problem" with evolution as identified by the ID crowd was discovered by the ID crowd. EVERY "problem" is a problem identified by scientists, who in refining and filling out the whys and hows of evolution encounter the inevitable bits of uncertainty and apparent disagreement as the stems of knowledge from different branches of science brush against each other. As the problems get resolved, some quickly, others over the course of years, not ONE has indicated that "ID" might be the superior theory; ALL resolve toward strengthening the explanation of evolution.

For an ignorant ID promoter to watch two experts argue over the meaning of a new observation that THEY discovered, that THEY have defined the parameters of, and usurp their argument as "evidence" that "ID" must be the answer is absurd, not to mention arrogant.

That's like a dumb blonde watching two auto mechanics argue over whether his car's problem is an alternator problem or a voltage regulator problem and he says "You dimwits, obviously electricity isn't the problem, can't you see that the car's motor spirit is dead?"

4. Finally, the "I" of "ID" should mean "Idiotic" rather than "Intelligent," if life was, in fact, "designed." Look at the human eye. Every layer of its functioning parts is backward (as they would be if the eye evolved over millenia from a simple structure to ever increasing complexity). Light has to traverse the opaque cells and blood vessels of intervening structures that evolved later before it reaches the actual sensory cells that transmit the light impulses to the brain. An eye that had merely been designed, let alone "intelligently" designed, would be a substantially SIMPLER structure, not the hideously complicated mess it is.

++++++++++++++

The supreme absurdity is that the ID gang can't credit their "designer" with intellect enough to design the vast mechanism of evolution: no, their designer is a bumbling clod who designs inferior, separate little life forms one by one, tediously and stupidly. In essence they're saying their designer is no cleverer than they are. If ever there was a colossal insult to "higher intelligence," that one's hard to top.

When the ID crowd advances a theory with evidence, then they can start to be taken seriously. But right now their SOLE agenda is to publicize the "holes" in evolution identified, not by them, but by scientists.

Such a group doesn't deserve the time of day, and most definitely does not merit even one second of wasting a child's time in school.

Were it not for religion, such a transparent fraud would never have been taken seriously to begin with.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

Professor says he was beaten

 

Hmmm...

Merecki seems like a real jerk. Of course, that doesn't excuse the guys who beat him. But Merecki made his disdain for religious conservatives public with that e-mail. He should have just kept his opinion to himself and taught the class.

 

Beating up people who publicly express differing political beliefs is disturbingly reminiscent of the rise of Naziism in Germany prior to WW2.

It makes me unhappy to see this kind of behavior in the US.

 

I agree with you, but notice that the professor didn't just express a different view. He actually referred to "fundies" and wrote that his course would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." I'm not suggesting that he was asking for it, and again I'm not excusing the beating. If those guys are caught, I hope they go to jail. But Merecki's comments were very unprofessional for a university professor.

I'd love to sit in on a course like the one described... exploring creationism as modern mythology. But I wouldn't want Merecki as my professor. Not after finding out that his course is just a political stunt.

(EDIT: BTW, Kiloran, where did that cool avatar come from??)

 

Hmm, call me cynical but that story was awful sparse. A few bruises and sore spots does not a beating make. The Sheriff was suprisingly silent...He later apologized to the "fundies".. I am skeptical of the "beating".....this story needs follow-up......

 

Thanks!

I did a couple of exhaustive google searches on "animated avatar" in response to the 2005 Avatar Of The Year Contest, or default it to maggieddd's penguins? thread.

Here's a link to a few of my top contenders that didn't make the cut:
http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=1...ndpost&p=167393]

 

I think the biggest issue between evolution and creationism is that evolution implies indeterminism. If a God created a system in which evolution is the driving force behind life/us it implies that that God started the ball rolling but doesn't know where it's headed. This would, of course, be consistent with the free will argument. How can there be free will in a deterministic world? Evolution suggests that God is not omnipotent (or is it omniscient I can never remember, obviously I'm not ), if such a God exists. Either way it's in conflict with many peoples' view of God.

 

have there been any documented cases of siezures from that Avatar yet?

 

I haven't heard of any yetttttttttttttta.,,am;acmma''as;ldm';v m;
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Okay, so we're getting off-topic here, but...

Thanks for the heads-up!! I completely missed the contest. (EDIT: I meant to add that I love the one of Scruffy reading the "Zero-G Juggs" mag.....)

Oh, wait! I know how to get back on-topic...

Anyone know how to create an avatar of, say, Phillip E. Johnson duking it out with Charles Robert Darwin?

 

I could never figure out why Dorothy wanted to go back to Kansas.

 

Hasn't anyone read "Darwins's Black Box "written by Michael J. Behe? The book was on the New York Times best seller list for months a couple of years ago. Behe is a biochemistry scientist who has investigated the cell at its molecular level and said the complexity in the simplist cell could not have come about by accident. This book started the controversy over ID and evolution. Behe is not a Christian, but says it is IMPOSSIBE for life to have come about by hit or miss, hence, ID. Perhaps some of you should START reading before stating that only evolution is scientific. The whole ID controversy has come about because SCIENTIST are saying evolution is a joke. Evolution is nothing more than the theory of spontaneous generation (life coming from nonliving matter). Redi, Pasteur, and Spallanzani proved that life can only come from preexisting life. Evolution is nothing more than a refined regression to sixteenth-century scientific mentality, where spontaneous generation is again proposed.

And I thought Prii drivers were logical.

 

Get your facts straight.
Behe IS a Christian.
ID does not stand up to scientific scrutiny on its own merits.
Proponants like you and Behe can only justify ID by attacking a valid scientific theory instead of defending ID on its questionable merit.