|
You lose a few, you win a few.
I have a friend here in Sweden who teaches science in an overwhelmingly Muslim high school in one of Stockholm's immigrant areas. Some of her kids are brilliant, even if they get a bit distracted during Ramadan from the lack of food. She's just finished teaching genetics to her class of boisterous 15-year olds, and all of them now buy it (they let you know if they don't). Next up: Evolution. "There's no way we come from monkeys" is the current refrain." Give her a month, and they'll be discussing how we share 97% of the DNA of the great apes. She's a missionary of science, she is, and a heroine.
Creationism, whether Christian or Muslim, is a desparate last stand. Muslim fundamentalism is a symptom of weakness, anger born from intellectual sterility and the stunted cultural life it engenders, especially when placed in comparison with the vibrancy of western secularism. But so is Christian fundamentalism - it feeds off that same sense of victimization. The two fundamentalisms are in fact more alike than different. Adherents of both would prefer a theocracy, and neither kind can quite decide whether the greater enemy is secularism tout court or fundamentalists of a different ilk. About everything else, they are absolutely certain.
Do Sage7 and his ilk occasionally lapse into victim-speak, as in where he starts complaining about how schoolteachers hate Christians? Yes. But does that mean that fundamentalist Christianity "feeds off a sense of victimization"? I don't think so. Evangelical churches are growing very fast, and growing among populations which are by no means underprivileged. I'm not sure I can explain the growth of fundamentalist Christianity in the US, but I am pretty sure that putting it down to victimization is erroneous.
Posted by: Felix on November 9, 2005 07:44 PMTheocracy, shmocracy, Religious leaders given too much secular power have botched up plenty in the eyes of God. Look at Kings David and Solomon. Look at how happy Iran's citizens were when they gave over rule to the clergy. Or the many foibles of the Catholic Church.
No greater propensity for evil exists than when secular power is concentrated under the guise of heavenly decree.
As for Creationism, while you might say, "That about wraps it up for God." I think it's a bit far fetched to expect translations thousands of years old to reflect a scientific understanding as told to a bunch of shepards and such. Science and religion don't have to be in agreement for one to have faith, and faith without complete rationality isn't a waste of time.
The fundies and their ilk, put so much faith in written word that like the pharasees, they mistake the word for the spirit. Bunch o' panty waisters if you ask me.
Posted by: Gherimiah on November 9, 2005 08:49 PMI love when people claim that U.S. Christians are plotting to install a theocracy. Who precisely do you think authored - and voted to ratify - the Constitution?
Posted by: Sterling on November 10, 2005 01:11 AMI would like to know how you would describe the "vibrancy of western secularism". Is it drug addiction, alcoholism, broken marrianges, selfish individualism, depression, materialism? People wonder why Evangelical churches are growing so fast, it's because people are tired of empty secularism. We might share 97% of the physical DNA with apes, but apes were not created in God's image, meaning created with a soul-for fellowship with God. That's why evangelical churches are growing so fast, they preach the truth and it changes lives. My own church has grown from 350 to 6000 members in 13 years, and we're part of a denomination founded by SWEDES! Trust me there is no victim mentality involved.
Furthermore, creationism is no desperate, last stand. Quite the contrary, evolution/big bang is a hypocritical vehicle for "scientists" to find something, anything to support their disbelief in a higher power. There have even been a few honest scientists who have called evolution what it truly is,,,merely a philosphy. In order to believe in evolution, you don't have to belive that we came from monkeys, you have to believe that we came from ROCKS! It flies right in the face of the laws of biogenisis and atrophy. And don't go and label creationists as stunted or intellectually sterile. The amount of knowledge of biology available to Darwin verses what we have today is similar to the technological advancement of his ship The Beagle verses the technology of the 747. Had he fully understood the complexities of the human body as we understand them today I sincerely doubt he would have come to the conclusions that he did. Conclusions which "scientists" still desperately cling to today. You also not come to the conclusion that science and faith cannot coexist. After all, it was the Creator that set it all in motion, and as such, science (properly applied) and faith go hand in hand.
Posted by: Tim on November 10, 2005 02:43 AMThanks for commenting, Tim. It's always good to be reminded that a pre-enlightenment approach to God is not limited to the Arab Street.
But that still doesn't answer my question. Do you feel more affinity with Muslim fundamentalists, whose complaints about empty western secularism exactly match yours (though perhaps you disapprove of their methods of protesting the advance of secular ideas (science, democracy) into the Muslim world), or do you feel more afinity for atheists, whose world views are diametrically opposed to yours, and thus so are their ends, though perhaps you feel that their means are far more benign than those of fundamentalists.
So which do you prefer?
Posted by: Stefan on November 10, 2005 09:17 AMSterling, they were also racists. So they could be wrong on more than one front. You, however, are never racy.
Posted by: 99 on November 10, 2005 05:01 PMStephan, I do not prefer either one. First of all, Christians and Muslims do not share the same God. Allah and God as revealed in the Bible are not the same. Even though I don't consider Islam to be faith in God, I do respect their right to practice their religion in so far as it does not limit the rights of others. By that I mean violating the rights of other by political oppression, terrorism, degredation of women, etc.
I the same way, I do not agree with atheism, but I believe that people have that right to hold that view as well, but again, not to limit the liberties of others. Case in point, Ake Green, freedom of speech and freedom of religion are key elements of democracy and a free society. Comtemporary Swedish laws have apparently plunged your society back to the days of Oskar I when religious dissenters were thrown of Sweden by the Royal Court. Actions which were very beneficial for me since the private high school, university, and churches I've attended were all founded by religious dissenters from Sweden who left during the pietistic movement. At any rate, I am disappointed that barriers to democracy which are so prevelent in the Arab world are creeping into the western world, including my ancestral homeland. Tim.
Posted by: Tim on November 10, 2005 07:54 PMThat's not a counterpoint, 99. I wasn't praising them as infallible, merely suggesting that you've already seen the constitution that Red State Christians would enact if they had free reign to do so. It's the one they already did enact.
You've probably never read Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone Speech. Stephens and Judah P. Benjamin were regarded as the "brains" of the Confederacy. Benjamin's major task was to draw Britain into the war on behalf of the Confederacy through diplomacy and propaganda, and though he failed in that large task he was not without smaller successes, some of which Karl Marx observed.
Stephens' task, early on, was to to knit the Confederate States together through a common narrative. The states had not all seceded simultaneously, and as a result there was distrust between them, and confusion of purposes. The Cornerstone Speech is the simplest, clearest explanation of that as you will find. In it Stephens laid an error at the feet of Jefferson and the founders - namely that they believed that slavery would fade away as the equality of blacks became apparent to all. He said this:
So Stephens, who admits freely the centrality of slavery as a founding cause of the Confederacy, something modern Confederate sympathizers often deny, refutes your argument that the founders were white supremacists. He believes they were essentially unprejudiced regarding blacks.The prevailing ideas entertained by [Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time...Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew.
It's worth mentioning that many believe Stephens himself was not truly the bigot he comes across as in the speech, and that he had very mixed emotions about slavery. I doubt that's the case - it's an attempt to oversimplify the man. Plenty of otherwise very decent people saw very little wrong in the idea of perpetual servitude of blacks, for reasons described above by Stephens. People today shouldn't construe good treatment of slaves or an apparent absence of hatred for blacks as a lack of intellectual or moral backing for slavery.
Posted by: Sterling on November 10, 2005 07:57 PMTim,
1) I'm not Swedish.
2) I agree with you on ≈ke Green, and have blogged him extensively:
Posted by: Stefan Geens on November 10, 2005 08:46 PMStefan, I'm sorry, but I'm rather new to this blog and I didn't know exactly where you were coming from. Tim.
Posted by: Tim on November 10, 2005 09:35 PMBut Sterling, if they were not racists, then they must surely have been hypocrites.
Also, I do not think you can usefully identify the framers of the constitution -- qua constitution framers -- as christians. They did happen to be, but they also were english, which was probably more important in what they came up with in the final constitution. You may as well say the framers were "right handed" or "wore tights" (true) as meaningful as the fact that they were largely christians. You bigoted dipstick.
Posted by: eurof on November 11, 2005 09:19 AMStephens suggests that they were simply unable to come up with a solution. So perhaps they were less hypocrites than people turning a blind eye, hoping the thing would work itself out.
They were English, and English tradition is what set much of the form of the Constitution, that's true. But at the time England HAD a state religion, so I don't think you can chalk up the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of worship solely to English practice. Surely that had more to do with the colonial experience than the English one, and was a REJECTION of English practice.
What Jame leaves out in calling them "deists" is that the term "deist" in practice at the time basically meant "freethinking lapsed Anglicans". To the extent that they had a dogma at all, we would today probably consider them Unitarian/Universalists. Which can be summed up as "God created the universe but takes no active role; Christ's moral teachings form the bedrock of Western Civilization (along with Aristotle, Plato, Hammurabai, Moses, etc.), but he was only a man."
You swaggering ignoramus.
Posted by: Sterling on November 11, 2005 03:18 PMSterling your 'refutation' is kind of like the Times coverage of the Broad Channel parade incident a few years back (that was when some firemen found it amusing to recreate the death of James Byrd). The original comments of the participants were so howling ignorant that editorial comment would make them seem more intelligent than they actually were.
Your interpretive fantasy is interesting considering how much you pander to intellectual lightweights that argue that the Constitution must be accepted prima facie, until something inconvenient is stumbled across. Things like free speech and legally defining blacks as less than human. That there, I believe is the definition of racism ("Belief in the superiority of a particular race leading to prejudice and antagonism towards people of other races, esp. those in close proximity who may be felt as a threat to one's cultural and racial integrity or economic well-being" -- OED). You seem to try and be constructing 'racism' as a stance of vague emotive force, as it is often deployed by whiny self-important college students. But I'm talking about people who condoned the ownership of another human being in a society where property ownership was a qualification for participation in an emerging democracy (which, by defining blacks as property means they could never own property, and never vote -- were you asleep in History 101?). Regardless of what was in their hearts, what is germane is what they put on paper. And they put nothing on paper that was not absolutely, incontroverably racist.
You, after all, may have the kindest of thoughts in your heart for humanity, but on paper, sir, you are a wanker. And that is the what matters to the crowd you run with.
Posted by: 99 on November 11, 2005 03:35 PMI believe in strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution and its amendments: they mean what they say. What the Constitution DOES NOT say is that blacks are "less than human". And the Reconstruction-era amendments took care of whatever baggage was left in the document.
When you say this, "And they put nothing on paper that was not absolutely, incontroverably racist," it is obvious your intent is to discredit them, and the American Constitutional tradition, by denying they hold any moral authority. But no one is infallible, and few today attempt to hold up Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, the Adams', Madison, etc., as anything but complex individuals with failings. As an example, Karl Marx was a bigot and an anti-semite, but we don't fall back on that argument because we don't need to. You attack the Founders as racists because you otherwise have no intellectual tools to challenge what they did. The last person to successfully mount any kind of intellectual challenge to them was Charles Beard, and that was more than 90 years ago.
I threw out Stephens as an example of someone who was a historically-significant, highly educated, actual verifiable racist. He explained in the Cornerstone Speech where he diverges intellectually from the founders. He diverges on the matter of race. You can take it or leave it, but there's no justification to write it off as an ignorant rambling of no substance - it is probably the clearest statement made of the issues that spawned the Civil War, it's the yin to the Emancipation Proclamation's yang.
Posted by: Sterling on November 11, 2005 03:55 PMSaw this on Instapundit. NPR: a journal associated with the Smithsonian published a peer-reviewed article on the Cambrian Explosion by a Discovery Institute fellow, Stephen C. Meyer. The editor of the journal, who is a shared employee of the Smithsonian and the National Institutes of Health, was then the victim of a targeted campaign of smearing and harassment by the Smithsonian. It's a pretty remarkable story, and the letter from the Office of the Special Counsel made my jaw drop open.
Posted by: Sterling on November 11, 2005 05:26 PMYour ability to compartmentalize is astounding Sterling. I didn't say that the Founders were bad, only that they were racist, in the narrowest and broadest sense of term, based on the available evidence relevant to our exchange (the laws of the country at the time it was founded).
My father is racist, by many definitions. I have been also, but for both of us, it is mostly in the squishly liberal arts tradition (internal prejudice, etc.), but I don't believe in a sense that is relevant in law (not hiring or promoting a person of color, etc.). That doesn't make him bad or me), only ignorant of some things, and fully capable of change. Che sera, etc.
The Founders were Christian, Aglican and Racist. Easily observable, and that was the world they created: one where land-owners, women and blacks could not vote. The world changed, as did the Constitution, and the democracy we have now, in its successes and failues, is markedly distinct from that one. I am not saying they were 'wrong' or inevitably flawed. It was a good start, and others improved upon it. Whether or not they would have come round on equality of gender, race, or even property ownership isn't that interesting to me, but then again, I don't want to live in 1805, like you and Scalia.
So yes, perhaps a theocracy would end up looking a lot like 1805. But considering all the progress we've made since the, I don't see your point as compelling in any way, and many of the advances (if one would choose to characterize them as such) have come both as a result of the organized beliefs and efforts of Christians, and others, for whom faith was perhaps irrelevant in the quest of a broader notion of democracy. If the establishment of theocracy similar to the founding of our nation were to happen today, I would lose many rights (voting, first and foremost), and therefore, it's pretty easy for me to say, well, your point is rather dull for the purposes of this discussion.
Posted by: 99 on November 11, 2005 06:36 PMTim:
Welcome to MemeFirst. Whoever you are, I would be pleased if you stay with us for a while.
Nominally I am an Evangelical Christian... I refer to myself as a Biblical Christian.
When GWB won a second presidential term, there was bewilderment here about the ëEvangelicalsí. For about a year I have done my best to explain to MemeFirst crew the real nature of Evangelical Christianity. I did this because when I first visited here there was a great deal of ignorance and misinformation about Evangelical Christians. And, as you can see from this thread, some have ignored much of what I have said. But not all, and not always.
I have explained that God created people for the express purpose of each of us making a choice between loving God or loving themselves as they choose between Him and attractive alternatives God provided. I made it clear that it is important for them to accept the sufferings of Jesus as loving payment for their sin. And to also accept the lordship of Jesus into their lives out of gratitude and a desire to return that love. I have explained that true Christianity is love motivated, not based on religious performance. And... much more... but you get the drift.
ìIn order to believe in evolution, you don't have to believe that we came from monkeys, you have to believe that we came from ROCKS!î
Well stated. I have been making a case against evolution based on the extreme improbability that non-life could accidentally evolve into life that artfully intermingles DNA from multiple sources and reproduces accordingly.
EFCA?
In Godís care...
Posted by: Sage7 on November 12, 2005 06:48 AMStefan:
ìCreationism, ..., is a desperate last stand.î
You wish!!!! Advancing science is making evolution ever more doubtful, despite claims to the contrary.
ìThere is cause and effect on the macro level, but dig down deeper and you get probabilities.î
Science does not deny cause and effect at the fundamental particle level of reality. Probabilities are not nothingness, they are evidence of principles in action. My discussion with Felix raised the point that these principles are necessarily un-natural. I called it ëspiritualí. (From archives 11/5, Beheíded #36, #42, #58, #59, #62, #65, #67) I am grateful to Felix for that scientific enlightenment.
ìDIg even deeper, and we might hit bottom when it comes to simple iterated processes that create complexity a la Stephen Wolfram's Rule 30.î (Beheíded #27)
And you might not. You are not the only one hoping Wolframís ideas will come up with a new way for evolution to occur. It is a desperate last stand for evolution! Wolframís cellular automata have no operational antecedent, no process of its own besides algorithms that recursively produce arbitrarily complex dead patterns.
Arbitrarily complex patterns in nature are *not* what life is made of. DNA entails sophisticated computational operations that repeatedly achieve a variety of complex objectives. How can I help you understand the distinction between operational complexity(life) and arbitrarily complex dead patterns? Sterling made a solid point on this (Beheíded #32), but apparently you did not grasp its significance.
Change of subject....
ì... Christian fundamentalism - it feeds off that same sense of victimization. The two fundamentalisms (Christian and Islam (Sage7)) are in fact more alike than different. Adherents of both would prefer a theocracy,...î
I have told you before: Christianity and Islam are opposites. I am sorry to say it, but you speak from ignorance. Remember ìALLAHíS LOVEî and my response thereto (BTW, I cannot find these posts in the MF archives.). Christians do NOT want a theocracy, Radical Islam DOES. You have been told these things before. Sterling pretty much proved it to you in #4... but you did not want to hear it.
Your comment about feeding off of victimization is a typical and despicable tactic of Liberalism. . If you hit me and I complain about it, then I am ìfeeding off my victimizationî. But if I do nothing to resist, you can just hit me again. By design, a no win situation for your opponent!
I can now tell you that since I mentioned public school teachers abusing Christian students, a case of that has come to my attention. I have a relative that is a student in a California high school. She is a straight A student... until she encountered a liberal teacher. She said, speaking of her school work assignments, ìIt seems there is nothing I can do to please him.î. Her parents had her removed from his class to another teacher. This liberal teacher was also bashing Bush as part of his classroom presentation. Can you imagine the furor if a school teacher bashed a democrat in their publicly funded classroom? The good news: she no longer doubts her parents on what kind of people inhabit liberal extremism.
Do you really believe Christians should just be quiet about being abused and not resist? Do you not care about what happens to us? Well, you gave me a clue when you said:
ìBut purpose is an illusion that we labor under.î (Beheíded #27)
And when I asked you to list some purposes in life you had chosen for yourself, you did not answer. I asked that twice! So I take it you have given yourself no purpose at all... beyond self gratification. When you asked me what kind of person I would be if in fact I knew there was no God; I said I might be much like you... but now I would say: ìNot *that* badî. Do you realize how selfish that is? Why not give yourself to some cause that helps someone beside yourself? You sound nihilistic, not caring about any one or any thing. If you are, I worry about you!
Posted by: Sage7 on November 12, 2005 09:34 AMWow, sage7, you've really figured me out. That bodes well for your claims about God, that other entity you haven't yet met.
You seem to equate atheism with nihilism by default, circumventing the humanist tradition in a single bound.
Re Muslims vs. Christians vs. atheists, don't you at least grant Muslims that however misguided the origins of their belief might be, they at least produce a moral code that is similarly conservative as yours? That is more than you can say about atheists, who share neither your beliefs nor your conservative morals.
"Arbitrarily complex patterns in nature are *not* what life is made of."
You're right, life is made of patterns that replicate themselves. These tend to be complex in nature, but don't have to be. These patterns don't need to be encoded in DNA (they can be encoded in computer bits, for all I care) but if you need them to be encoded in DNA, by all means let them be. The material that is used to encode the patterns is irrelevant, as far as I am concerned -- it really is all just about reducing entropy, locally and briefly, and self-replicating patterns do that job remarkably efficiently. In that way life certainly is "special," but not because it is hard to do, as it isn't, as scientists have already shown.
Regarding who is making the last stand, I think the march of science over the past 200 years has done a remarkable job of draining the swamp of ignorance in which fundamentalist beliefs about the natural world have festered. There are now no more flat-earthers and no more geocentrists -- their puddles have long ago dried up. There are only a couple of puddles left, and in one of them creationist ideas are flapping around ever more energetically as their room for maneuvre diminishes with the decades. Of course, creationist ideas have evolved (the horror!) into something able to survive in the ever smaller puddles -- intelligent design -- but in the end, this won't amount to growing legs and walking out of the puddle, because that would amount to capitulation.
Posted by: Stefan on November 13, 2005 06:20 PMMuslims vs. Christians vs. atheists, don't you at least grant Muslims that however misguided the origins of their belief might be, they at least produce a moral code that is similarly conservative as yours? That is more than you can say about atheists, who share neither your beliefs nor your conservative morals.
This is just another example of a European failing to understand American conservatism. American conservatism is an entirely different thing than European conservatism, because American conservatives strive to conserve the U.S.' classic-liberal tradition in the face of socialist "progressives". The last gasp of European-style nationalist/elitist conservatism in the U.S. was the "American Party", aka the "Know-Nothing Party", which faded from the landscape about 150 years ago.
The misunderstanding shows up all the time in your posts, Stefan, and often in the posts of 99 and others who really have far less excuse for not knowing any better. In America it is the conservatives who embrace freedom of speech, of worship, of movement, to bear arms, of property, etc., whereas it is the left which advocates speech codes, the abolition of religious worship and of personal firearms ownership, limitations on social and physical mobility and government control of private assets.
Protestant churches (and Quakers) in this country have been the guardians of liberty and tolerance since before the founding of the United States.
But on second thought, if you want to compare traditions, by all means feel free to compare the conservatism of Protestant America with the conservatism of the Islamic Middle East. The difference is obvious to anyone with eyes to see.
Posted by: Sterling on November 13, 2005 08:29 PMLet's compare positions on abortion, on the role of religion on the state, on homosexuality, on sex outside marriage, on the biblical injunction for wives to obey their husbands, by all means.
Posted by: Stefan Geens on November 13, 2005 08:44 PMStefan:
ìWow, sage7, you've really figured me out.î
No, I have not, and desperately wish I did! I do know some relevant and general things about humanism. If you follow ìthe humanist traditionî, why did you not cite as one of your chosen purposes some way of advancing or benefiting humanity? I circumvented the humanistic incentive because it seemed that you did. But now you claim to follow the humanist tradition... well, not really, you just said I circumvented it. So I am left confused about what you are really all about.
I should not have presumed nihilism without getting from you a *direct* answer to the following question: Have you truly made *no* choice of purpose for yourself at all? Or did you just not get around to mentioning even one of them however humble it might be? Please answer that question. It makes a big difference. Without that clarification, I do not know how to constructively communicate with you on vital issues.
You might be able answer that one and still not answer this one: Are you a humanist?
ìRe Muslims vs. Christians vs. atheists, don't you at least grant Muslims ... at least produce a moral code that is similarly conservative as yours?î
On the surface yes, they do some right things but for the wrong reasons. Biblical Christianity encourages people to: accept Godís love gift where Jesus paid the price of justice for them, and to respond to that and serve Him out of loving appreciation. Muslims have no comparable mechanism for moral justice, and that dramatically separates the character of the two faiths.
This is not to say that every Christian understands that, as we have seen legalism creep back into Christian practices even today. It seems to be an instinctive thing to do... ë Just gotta *earn* Godís favor...í . The Bibleís book of Galations is a response to legalism as it explains that those practices are a spiritual dead end. Gal 2:16,20
BTW, did you remove my response to ìAllaís Loveî from the MF archives? If so, did you do so of your own accord, or someone elseís? Did some Muslims ëaskí you to remove it?
ìYou're right, life is made of patterns that replicate themselves.î
I did not say that. And your saying that indicates you do not grasp what is going on in the DNA biological machinery. This, even though I have tried a number of times to fire your imagination on that topic. If I can find something that might get through to you, I will make you aware of it.
ìThese patterns don't need to be encoded in DNA ...î
That is true only for dead patterns. All of life owes its existence to DNA. EVERY life form, no exceptions.
Please re-read Sterlingís post #22 in this thread. You really need to absorb the meaning of what he explains there. Your understanding and appreciation of those facts are essential to keep you from making some major future mis-steps.
In Godís care...
Posted by: Sage7 on November 14, 2005 04:01 AMI don't remove stuff from MemeFirst. In the exceptional cases that I have, it's after consultation with everyone.
It looks like my definition of life is broader than yours, more conceptual. I'm not going to call aliens "rocks" when they show up with silicon superconducting metabolisms, all 1/2 inches of them, in their carbon-nanotube spaceships.
You'll be the one having the interminable discussions as to whether they have souls or not, not I. We'll probably agree in the end that they don't :-)
Sage, I believe the comment to which you are referring can be found here.
Posted by: Felix on November 14, 2005 02:38 PMStefan:
So... I shall remain ëdesperateí. It is a particular kind of desperation. The kind you feel when you throw a life preserver to someone who really needs it, but they ignore it thinking they are not near death.
But of course I shall continue knowing that I serve Jesus as best I know how. I am grateful for the opportunity to explain Biblical things to MemeFirst.
Someday you may have:
1. An epiphany of understanding, or
2. A very real encounter with God, as a few people do, or
3. A very painful encounter with the consequences of your own choices, one that opens your eyes.
When that happens you will be ready because you have let me explain that:
1. God/Jesus loves you and will do what is ultimately right for you.
2. The price of justice for your sin has already been paid by Jesus Christ.
3. It applies when you humbly realize you need forgiveness and accept it.
4. Personal pride is your greatest barrier to making that fateful invitation.
5. You do not EARN your way in Christianity.
You just accept the forgiveness and Lordship of Jesus Christ.
6. You will want to serve God out of gratitude and
completing the human-God love relationship.
7. The Holy Bible is food for Christian living,
so study it for the rest of your life.
ìI don't remove stuff from MemeFirst.î
OK. I am glad to hear that. Would you be kind enough to explain why I can not find it by searching for terms therein, like: ìAllaís Loveî and others. I searched using MemeFirst search, and also Google searching in www.memefirst.com.
ìIt looks like my definition of life is broader than yours...î
That is just an escape route. Stop running away! You know that I refer to life on earth as defined by the latest science of the race homosapiens. And that is the definition that matters in this debate. It looks like we will be having company:
Associated Press: Harvard University is joining the long-running debate over the theory of evolution by launching a research project to study how life began. The team of researchers will receive $1 million in funding annually from Harvard over the next few years. The project begins with an admission that some mysteries about life's origins cannot be explained. "My expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard.
I got this from http://www.caseforacreator.com/home.php but there is no date or URL for this item:
This should be fun! I expect to see some scientific artful dodging along the way. You know, like the redefinition of ëtheoryí by the National Academy of Sciences.
It's true that Google seems not to have cached http://www.memefirst.com/001093.html. Maybe even Google averts its eyes when Sterling goes on the rampage?
Posted by: Felix on November 15, 2005 01:50 PMStefan
I found the AP article about Harvard starting a multi-million dollar research effort. It is called the "Origins of Life in the Universe Initiative"
Note the absence of objectivity:
ì"My expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard.î
Dr. Liu has already stated what he expects the results to be. He did *not* say he would follow wherever the evidence would lead him. If he sees evidence contrary to his expectations, what will he do with it? Will we ever even know about it? Will it get defined into something else?
I believe Dr. Liu could miss real evidence of intelligent creation while believing he is exercising scientific integrity, so deep is his conviction that God is an absolute impossibility.
My expectation is that we will be able to reduce the results to be self-fulfilling prophecy. We will not *know* anything more than we did before about lifeís real origins. There will be confident assertions of success along with critical unexplainables in their results, just as we have today.
The bad part is that we will have to wait for years for significant results.
The sad part is that we can watch them do it to themselves.
My hope is that you will see through their manipulations even if you want their expected results as badly as they do. As for myself, I will be an *honest* skeptic. I will even put a check on my own expectations. I ask the same of all the MemeFirst crew and passengers.
Posted by: Sage7 on November 16, 2005 07:50 AMTell you what, have Intelligent Design come up with a hypothesis he can test, and I'm sure he'll have a stab at it. As it is, all he can ever do is keep on bisecting those explanatory gaps until they get so small that we can move on to the next hide-the-deity game.
I suppose I will write up some kind of "What I believe" post sometime, but I'd do it on my own blog, www.stefangeens.com when I do. Luckily, I'm of the opinion that the presence or absence of personal ethics or ethical societies here on Earth has no bearing whatsoever on the chances of there being a deity. In other words, whether or not I have a purpose in life, and whether or not this purpose is creative, generous, kind, cruel or selfish, that doesn't alter the odds of whether there is a God or not.
Tell me Sage7, do you think that the following argument is valid:
!) If God did not exist, life would be unbearable/meaningless/purposeless/nihilistic
2) Life must not be unbearable/meaningless/purposeless/nihilistic
Ergo God exists.
Sage, you seem to think the world is full of atheists. It isn't. There are one or two here at MF, to be sure. But the vast majority of people on this planet are religious, and I daresay that includes Dr Liu. You say that he has a "deep conviction that God is an absolute impossibility" -- but you have no reason to believe that. He's just doing science, which is all about explaining things. God is not an adequate explanation for a scientist, because God is not falsifiable. There is nothing anti-God in what Dr Liu or what any other scientist is doing.
Posted by: Felix on November 16, 2005 02:07 PMStefan:
ìTell me Sage7, do you think that the following argument is valid:
!) If God did not exist, life would be unbearable/meaningless/purposeless/nihilistic
2) Life must not be unbearable/meaningless/purposeless/nihilistic.
Ergo God exists.î
It is not valid.
Notice that I stressed that people (and you in particular) have the ability to choose purpose for themselves whether or not God exists. Only extremely selfish individuals fly off tangentially into nihilism. Such individuals tend to not choose purpose for themselves, especially socially constructive purposes. And you said:
ì... purpose is an illusion that we labor under.î (Beheíded #27)
And you implied that you had not chosen a purpose by not answering my question to cite even one that you have chosen for yourself. You could have cited your effort to adjust societyís sense of property (per www.stefangeens.com). What would be wrong with citing that? Or, are those labors driven by an illusion? What are you thinking?
In Godís care...
ìGod is not an adequate explanation for a scientist, because God is not falsifiable.î
If all scientists believed this, evidence of intelligent creation would never be discovered by science, even if it is really there! They would consistently interpret evidence of intelligence in creation as something other than that. They would have to, or give up that belief, or be inconsistent which is unscientific.
Fortunately, not all scientists have put on blinders to certain ëunwantedí results. But Dr. Liu has.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiable
ì
Falsifiability is an important concept in the philosophy of science that amounts to the apparently paradoxical idea that a proposition or theory cannot be scientific if it does not admit the possibility of being shown false.
Falsifiable does not mean false. For a proposition to be falsifiable, it must be at least in principle possible to make an observation that would show the proposition to be false, even if that observation had not been made. For example, the proposition "All crows are black" would be falsified by observing one white crow.
Falsificationists claim that any theory that is not falsifiable is unscientific. Psychoanalytic theory, for example, is held up by the proponents of Karl Popper as an example of an ideology rather than a science. A patient regarded by his psychoanalyst as "in denial" about his sexual orientation may be viewed as confirming he is homosexual simply by denying that he is; and if he has sex with women, he may be accused of trying to buttress his denials. In other words, there is no way the patient could convincingly demonstrate his heterosexuality to the analyst. This is an example of what Popper called a "closed circle". The proposition that the patient is homosexual is not falsifiable.
î
Evidence of God is in fact in the profound improbability of accidental creation of the reality we observe, especially the accidental creation of life from non-life. Therefore evidence of God is falsifiable by showing that all of observable reality can indeed be created by accident. A huge part of that would be to prove that life was accidentally created from non-life.
Since Dr. Liu and his kind are setting out to demonstrate that life can be, and was, created by accident, they are attempting to falsify the existence of a God that created life. Therefore, it is inconsistent for them to say that such a God is not falsifiable. Either that, or both are true, meaning that a life creating God exists together with accidental creation of life. So if they instead choose to be consistent, they agree that a falsifiable life creating God may exist, and they should be looking for evidence of that God.
By the principle of unfalsifiability: That God does NOT exist is unfalsifiable, because it is impossible to prove a negative. But it is reasonable to accept the probability that God DOES exist.
Posted by: Sage7 on November 17, 2005 07:13 PMYES, you are right, Sage! Well done on understanding that. It IS unfalsifiable to say that god does not exist. It is why Agnosticism is the only true faith. All else is, ironically, heresy, with the one exception as described below.
But your next statement is wrong, you have not yet proved the probability of the existence of god. Natural phenomena's earliest origins beyond the laws of physics remains unexplainable -- the question of who or what determined the laws of physics from which all else follows is merely moot. Speaking existentially, frankly it is only merely probable that you yourself exist. I can not actually prove that you do. However, following DÈscartes, I can be absolutely certain that I do.
Therefore it is rational to tinge my agnosticism with a healthy dose of SELF-worship. I have in the past repeatedly invited you to join me in venerating all that is Eurof before you die and it is too late. I find it deeply sad that you have not done so. I suspect at some point, one distressing event or another will help you see what you have been missing, so at least I am consoled that I have laid the groundwork for your eventual conversion. Pip pip!
Posted by: eurof on November 17, 2005 07:38 PMEurof:
It is so good to hear from you. I have genuinely missed your attitude and humor since I have not heard directly from you since before you went on vacation.
ìBut your next statement is wrong, you have not yet proved the probability of the existence of god.î
I did not claim to have ëproved the probability of the existence of godí. A copy of that ënextí statement follows, please read it again.
ìBut it is reasonable to accept the probability that God DOES exist.î
And reasonable it is, given the gaping holes in evolutionísí claim of the spontaneous generation of life.
To the strong atheist that proposition is absurd. But we know that the strong atheistic position is itself absurd (it is an unfalsifiable position). A rational and honest atheist will move on to agnosticism, or at least to a weak (non militant) atheism.
ìIt is why Agnosticism is the only true faith.î
I have always been told agnosticism means ìI do not know and I do not care... on the issue of Godís existenceî. Is that a close enough summary of Wikipidiaís definition? Is your definition any different from this? Assuming not, I continue...
...the only true Faith? Faith in what? How can I have faith in something I do not recognize as significant? Faith is a choice to trust in *something* and make possibly expensive personal decisions guided by that faith.
Being less arrogant than strong atheism, agnosticism and weak atheism allow curious investigation of propositions relating to spiritual things.
God told us about Himself in His Word (the Holy Bible) and then took the position that the Bible alone is sufficient information upon which to base our *faith* in Him and His salvation. That may not seem reasonable to humans. But it is His show, He can run it any way He wants! Many, perhaps all, of those people who study its message in genuine humility come to realize that this is true. Those too proud to accept its message do so at their own peril.
Yes, it appears to be a filter... Yes, it is not scientifically satisfying...but is also does not contradict true science. There is simply no room for human ego, whether it is buttressed by science or not.
If the Bible is sufficient, perhaps I waste my time arguing that the biological machinery of DNA could not have been accidentally created by non-life. My hope is to create enough plausibility for intelligent creation and therefore curiosity in people that they will someday study the Bible with a humble attitude. One that would allow considering the possibility of God. Why humble? How silly is human pride in the face of an intelligence that created the universe! I hope that my severely brief explanations of Biblical Christianity will help them when they do study the Holy Bible. Also, to help them to understand Biblical Christians.
ìNatural phenomena's earliest origins beyond the laws of physics remains unexplainable -- the question of who or what determined the laws of physics from which all else follows is merely moot.î
If it is not God, you are probably correct. If it is God, it is not moot. But researching that domain may be hopeless. IF the Flatlander model applies wholly, humans cannot measure any aspect of any additional dimension(s). The best we could then do is observe unexplainable disturbances and events. Most of those just reveal human ignorance of the reality we *can* measure. But others infer from their character that additional dimensions actually do exist. For just that reason physicists today are seriously considering additional dimensions that intersect our three and time. Please visit the following two sites to see for yourself. To entice you, I took quotes from each:
ìAlso of great interest to many following progress at RHIC is the emerging connection between the colliderís results and calculations using the methods of string theory, an approach that attempts to explain fundamental properties of the universe using 10 dimensions instead of the usual three spatial dimensions plus time.î
ìThe possibility of a connection between string theory and RHIC collisions is unexpected and exhilarating,î Dr. Orbach said. ìString theory seeks to unify the two great intellectual achievements of twentieth-century physics, general relativity and quantum mechanics, and it may well have a profound impact on the physics of the twenty-first century.î
These are quotes from ëRHIC Scientists Serve Up ìPerfectî Liquid.í
BTW, I am not claiming those additional dimensions are all spiritual. I am saying that it is a reasonable expectation that some, or maybe even all of them, are manifestations of God. God told us:
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualitiesóhis eternal power and divine natureóhave been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." (Romans 1:20). In my post #65 in Beheíhed I tried to show how God gave us a peek at His perspective of creation in Hebrews 1:1-3.
ìFor most of us, or perhaps all of us, it's impossible to imagine a world consisting of more than three spatial dimensions. Are we correct when we intuit that such a world couldn't exist? Or is it that our brains are simply incapable of imagining additional dimensionsódimensions that may turn out to be as real as other things we can't detect?î This quote was taken from NOVA, so it is quite digestible. Please go check it out.
In Godís care...
"I did not claim to have ëproved the probability of the existence of godí. A copy of that ënextí statement follows, please read it again.
ìBut it is reasonable to accept the probability that God DOES exist.î
And reasonable it is, given the gaping holes in evolutionísí claim of the spontaneous generation of life."
NO Sage, here you are wrong: if evolution is not true, it is STILL no more reasonable to assume your god exists than it is to suggest that I am a divinity in my own right. Or that there is a type of pan-dimensional porridge from which everyting is formed.
You have done nothing to replace evolution other than make some unprovable assertions about the bible's veracity, which (considering the book starts somewhat implausibly) do not convince, frankly.
By agnosticism being the only true "faith", I mean "religion".
But I am happy that I have been missed, just as you must have been happy that the world did not end last month. I have decided to contribute a bit more now that I am not working quite so hard. This site desperately needs me, the readership in both numbers and quality has plummeted since I took my breather -- they have had to change the basis of recording it, always a bad sign.
"I have always been told agnosticism means ìI do not know and I do not care... on the issue of Godís existenceî. Is that a close enough summary of Wikipidiaís definition? Is your definition any different from this? Assuming not, I continue...
...the only true Faith? Faith in what? How can I have faith in something I do not recognize as significant? Faith is a choice to trust in *something* and make possibly expensive personal decisions guided by that faith."
Sage, two things about what you wrote. Firstly, I consider myself agnostic in that I claim no knowledge of the origins, or more accurately, the "purpose" of life outside of treating others well. That is not to say I don't care, or that I don't seek out answers to the "big questions." I consider the human race a collective intelligence, and a good idea, no matter the source, is still a good idea and one that should be incorporated. I see no contradiction in most religions other than the name and settings of the stories. That is my defintion of agnosticism. I don't rule out the possibility of an intelligent designer. That would be great if there is one, I'd like my consicousness or some variation thereof to continue past my physical death. Who wouldn't?
The second part about faith. You write, "How can I have faith in something I do not recognize as significant?" Well, that may be true, but again, so what? Who says having faith in something is a requirement? Or that your faith is better than a Buddhist's or a Hindu's? It's all just mankind fishing about for answers. Which goes back to my collective mind theory. Why exclude what the Buddha has to offer because the Bible claims exclusive rights to God's biography?
Posted by: sac on November 21, 2005 04:57 PM"I don't know and I don't care" is apatheism, not agnosticism.
Posted by: Stefan on November 21, 2005 05:30 PMEurof: If evolution did not create life...
ì
ìBut it is reasonable to accept the probability that God DOES exist.î
ìAnd reasonable it is, given the gaping holes in evolutionísí claim of the spontaneous generation of life."(Sage7)
ìNO Sage, here you are wrong: if evolution is not true, it is STILL no more reasonable to assume your god exists than it is to suggest that I am a divinity in my own right.î
ì
It appears to me that both you and dear Stefan do not even begin to appreciate how amazing creation is, especially the creation of life. What follows is based on the notion that you overcame this unawareness. Hypothesize it if you must to get what I am trying to convey to you in the next paragraphs.
If evolution is not the explanation of life, then *whatever* IS the explanation has to be up to the task of achieving these amazing creations. Even today the smartest humanoids on earth are still working to understand how it all works, let alone know how to duplicate it from scratch. Sorry, you do not qualify for the job of creator of the universe.
When you state ì... I am a divinity in my own rightî it is a severe insult to the actual Creator, even if it is only said in jest. It is based on ignorance about what was created, and the character of the real Creator. So, I hope you can be forgiven... Well, I am sure you would be forgiven, if you gave the real Creator credit for what He has accomplished, both in creation and in His paying your bail out of injustice... and you accepted that bail for yourself.
The point is that our reality is filled with amazing intellectual accomplishments. This fairly screams ìintelligent designerî to all who view the evidence objectively. The fact that ONE and the same tool (DNA) is the basis for *every* life form screams: ìONE intelligent designerî. I agree this does not take you all the way to the God described in the Bible. But the Bible itself makes up the difference if you can read it without your ego judging it before you ever consider the whole** of it in humility.
Again, God told us in Romans 1:20:
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualitiesóhis eternal power and divine natureóhave been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
Many people disdain the notion of intelligent design because it offends their ego and threatens them with faultless moral accountability. Eeuuw! So they expend a great deal of effort to assert that our reality, and this life itself, is the product or purposeless accident. That greatly underappreciates the amazing aspects of creation. That is one important aspect of their worldview. These people have invested a great deal in teaching their worldview, and you have bought into it. It is too bad, and so sad...
But the student can look for evidence of duplicity in their teachings. One bit of such evidence we have already discussed: that they literally degrade science in order to teach their unsubstantiated world view. Re: the redefinition of the word ëtheoryí by the ëNational Academy of Sciencesí to suggest that their unsubstantiated theories should have the same respect as substantiated ones. How revealing is that of their lack of integrity???? Only evolutionists actually use this revised definition. No other branch of science needs it or wants it.
**As before, I suggest you start reading the Bibleís New Testament first because it is easier to digest. Get a Bible with cross-references from the New Testament into the Old Testament in the margins, and it will, if you have the humility for it, explain much of itself. It is only a suggestion, but if you want do do it the hard way, be sure to finish it. Also remember, there is a spiritual deceiver who will distract your every attempt to give the Bible a humble reading. So it is not easy to do.
I, for one, do not take the days of creation listed in Genesis as literal 24-hour days. Not that God could not do that, but I have reasons to suspect that He did not. Similarly, I think the situation illustrated by the story of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve did in fact happen to illustrate the principle that the created beings could make moral choices, and Godís attitude regarding those choices. It is that principle of the story that is relevant to humans today.
"It appears to me that both you and dear Stefan do not even begin to appreciate how amazing creation is, especially the creation of life."
Had a bit of an epiphany here. No Sage7, not that kind of epiphany. Let's pretend I believe in God for a second. In which case, I could plausibly believe that the creation of life is indeed an amazing process, and thank God for it, because he made the laws of physics that make life possible. He embodies the laws of physics, if you will, and all the amazing things that can be done with these laws honor him, etc.
So the evolution debate is really about differing versions of God, for most people. Do we insist on a God that can violate the laws of physics at will, or do we see God as being responsible for the laws of physics?
Insisting that the laws of physics don't suffice in explaining the phenomena around us is a prerequisite for positing a God that can interefere on our world at will, which is in turn what the old and new testaments posit (regarding the virgin birth, the resurrection, etc.) So you're really just trying to shore up the continued possibility of your beliefs, and a proper scientific curriculum be damned.
Posted by: Stefan on November 22, 2005 07:45 AMSAC:
ì
Firstly, I consider myself agnostic in that I claim no knowledge of the origins, or more accurately, the "purpose" of life outside of treating others well. That is not to say I don't care, or that I don't seek out answers to the "big questions." I consider the human race a collective intelligence, and a good idea, no matter the source, is still a good idea and one that should be incorporated.
ì
My complements, that seems to me to be pretty well thought out statement.
ìI see no contradiction in most religions other than the name and settings of the stories.î
That is because you are not informed well enough about their key beliefs that make them different from each other.
ìThat is my defintion of agnosticism.î
And I accept it. Because of yours and Stephanís objections, I will drop that ësummaryí of agnosticism. Thank you both for upgrading my understanding and verbalization of that issue.
ìI don't rule out the possibility of an intelligent designer. That would be great if there is one, I'd like my consciousness or some variation thereof to continue past my physical death. Who wouldn't?î
Yes, I believe any well informed rational person would.
CHANGE OF SUBJECT
I have decided to break my promise to you, and I apologize for committing to something that I am now not willing to complete. I should have known... should have readily predicted... that the nature of the prophecy I chose would attract lots of opposition. It is a validation of Jesus as God, and as the ìsuffering servantî. So all of the enemies of Jesus Christ got very exercised about ways to deny its validity.
As I mentioned, there are over 500 web sites dedicated to that prophecy, most of them citing it as evidence of Jesus as God. I visited hundreds of them, trying to collect points of view and organize a synopsis of them all, pro or con, complete with references back to sources. After a few tens of hours it became clear to me that the critics may have been successful in the sense they have made the issue so complicated it cannot be used as a simple proof. Christians squabbling over details of it did not help either. That does not say the prophecy is not correct, for in fact there is a subset of interpretations that do in fact produce amazing results, results accurate to much less than 1%. That is indeed impressive.
As my synopsis got more and more complicated, I began to realize that I could not present it effectively in this kind of forum. It was no longer a brief summary or overview. And, I realized that for the many hours I had already put into it, I would have to put into it many times more than that amount of time to complete it. That, and the fact that if anyone was ever to be impressed by my results, they would have to do a lot of work themselves just to watch me deal with every class of attack. I surmised that no-one on MF would bother with that.
I prayed for help and guidance on the matter, and finally came to believe it was OK for me to back out of this commitment. But, this apology had to be done. I could not just abandon it without explanation. So, I am sorry to have let you down.
Posted by: Sage7 on November 22, 2005 07:50 AMStefan:
ìLet's pretend I believe in God for a second. In which case, I could plausibly believe that the creation of life is indeed an amazing process, and thank God for it, because he made the laws of physics that make life possible. He embodies the laws of physics, if you will, and all the amazing things that can be done with these laws honor him, etc.î
That says you understand some important implications of God as the Creator of our reality.
ìSo the evolution debate is really about differing versions of God, for most people.î
Not that I have heard, and I do not follow how you got to that conclusion. So, I need help here. Maybe you can break that leap into smaller steps for me.
The only things humanity can know about God is that:
1. God is unfathomably super-natural in His intelligence and capability
as is evident in the amazing facts of creation.
2. We can know what He has told us of Himself and His expectations of us.
Everything else that may be said of God is human invention... and is often worthless.
ìDo we insist on a God that can violate the laws of physics at will, or do we see God as being responsible for the laws of physics?î
Yes and yes. It sounds like you believe that you have a ëgotchaí there. A dilemma for those who believe in miracles of God that, among other things, violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I agree that everything natural obeys the laws of nature, which are ultimately the laws of physics that God established. But why do you expect God, who is obviously super-natural, to also be subject to the laws of nature? If God were confined to nature, He would not be super-natural, and could not have created nature. Or, why would God create nature and then confine Himself to it?
ìInsisting that the laws of physics don't suffice in explaining the phenomena around us is a prerequisite for positing a God that can interfere on our world at will, which is in turn what the old and new testaments posit (regarding the virgin birth, the resurrection, etc.) So you're really just trying to shore up the continued possibility of your beliefs, and a proper scientific curriculum be damned.î
Again I do not follow your logic. The only scientific curriculum that I challenge is one that departs from the scientific method for political purposes, especially for key issues in evolutionary ëscienceí. ëShore upí is meaningful only from your perspective. I would say that nature itself, as proper scientific research is discovering, allows for the intervention of a supernatural.
Posted by: Sage7 on November 23, 2005 05:20 AMSage7,
"2. We can know what He has told us of Himself and His expectations of us."
"Everything else that may be said of God is human invention... and is often worthless."
Can you really say those two sentences one after the other and keep a straight face? Or don't you even get what I'm hinting at?
WaPo columnist Charles Krauthammer, a conservate and religious, doesn't mince words in his derisiion of "Intelligent Design".
Posted by: Stefan Geens on November 23, 2005 08:20 PMSage, are you really as paranoid as you sound? "The only scientific curriculum that I challenge is one that departs from the scientific method for political purposes" you say. Do you honestly believe that everybody who purports to believe in evolution in fact is following some kind of nefarious atheistic political ulterior motive?
Posted by: Felix on November 24, 2005 01:56 AMSage 7 said
"The fact that ONE and the same tool (DNA) is the basis for *every* life form screams: “ONE intelligent designer”.
Actually it screams: "All life forms on the planet have evolved from an original organism."
How that original organism got there is up for grabs but you're fighting the wrong battle regarding the mechanism for its transformation.
Posted by: Jame on November 25, 2005 05:07 AMWhat's more, Sage, the arguments for intelligent design are generally based on things like creation of life, bacterial flagellums and whatnot -- stuff which was around for millions of years before humanity. In other words, your arguments would have applied long before life had any purpose, no? So an intelligent designer does not imply that life has purpose or meaning.
Posted by: Felix on November 25, 2005 03:43 PMFelix-
If "purpose" exists at all it would have been part and parcel of the whole creation gambit from the off, surely, not grafted on later in the form of humanity? It is foolish to equate "meaning" with humanity.
The period you refer to as "long before life had any purpose", even though you conjure it up only to dismiss it, is a lazy trick. Or did sage7 refer to such a period? On a pedantic note, you say sage`s arguments "would have applied" at this period (as if this discredits them). All of our arguments once made apply everywhere. They do not come into being except by our articulation of them. In the same way, meaning may be given to life only by an articulation of it. Scientific discourse is not fitted to articulate meaning in this way. Poetry, music and ritual do it better.
To say that an intelligent designer would design a creation without point, or purpose, or sigificance - aspects that the created might not themselves understand, being mere parts of a divine design of some sort - is merely to say that he is unintelligent, or to imply that he does not, in fact, exist.
Jame-
You think you have a trump when you say that science to you screams out that we have all evolved "from an original organism".
Maybe. But doesn't that cry of primal scientific triumph in itself suggest to you that said organism (or its originator, even if they are described in terms of causes) had been originally designed?
You must grant that genial original organism some originality, some measure of cool or chutzpah, or, at the very least - having evolved out of some externalised origin - a construction of conscious or unconscious genius.
(Written slightly intoxicated. I hope some essence of the meaning is still in there.)
Posted by: Claude de Bigny on November 25, 2005 06:45 PMStefan:
ìCan you really say those two sentences one after the other and keep a straight face?î
Yes.
Or don't you even get what I'm hinting at?î
I get that you think that God did not inspire the Bible, that it is solely a human product. You are wrong about that... because you *want* to be wrong about that... you know what I mean. I encourage you to study the Bible with humility... that means with *no* bias for or against the Godly inspiration thereof. As per ** in #40.
On Krauthammerís rejection of intelligent design... I quote him from the article you referenced:
ìIt is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today."
That is a crass and dismissive MISrepresentation. I like much of Krauthammerís political opinion, but he is no scientist and has bought into the propaganda against ìintelligent designî. In this article I believe he is doing the biding of some other person or persons. There is a real war for public opinion going on.
Again, ìintelligent designî is in principle a simple proposition. Evolution cannot explain crucial steps postulated by evolutionary theory, especially the spontaneous generation of life. The functional complexity that cannot have evolved is evidence of intelligent design. No God specified.
In the case of DNA, there is an extensive coordinated sequence of operations that perform with the purpose of generating life forms specified by documented design data in the form of DNA code. DNA machinery reproduces by deftly selecting from two different sources of DNA design information to come up with the design of the next generation, which is therefore *not* a literal copy of either original DNA source. That is generational reproduction, not recursive replication.
Evolutionary science has demonstrated evolution only as improvements in living organisms. That evolution mechanism depends on life. Before there was life, nothing could evolve by that mechanism. Sans intelligent design, only accident could have formed the ìfirst organismî, which must include that elaborate DNA machinery that can generationally reproduce. Oh.. where did the other one come from? The probability of that accident, or these accidents, is impossibly small.
I repeat, to support the claim of the spontaneous generation of life, evolutionary science has to demonstrate one or more evolutionary mechanisms that do not depend on life and that could have produced the first and most primitive DNA biological machinery.
And then Krauthammer goes into the issue raised here by Felix, that of falsifiability. Thanx to Felix, I addressed that already in #34 of this thread.
BTW...
ìSo the evolution debate is really about differing versions of God, for most people.î
You have still not explained what you meant by this statement.
Nor did you answer why you expect God who created the laws of nature to also be subject to the laws of nature? Re: #43
In Godís care...
Jame:
That first organism... just came together by accident? Are you too oversimplifying the complexity of that first organism? Every cell of that organism has the complexity of an entire city. The more science advances, the more operational complexity they discover, and the more unlikely is spontaneous life.
I recently heard of a study of blood clotting. It took many pages to explain the many conditions and processes essential to achieve appropriate clotting. The first life form to depend on blood was doomed if all of the clotting mechanisms were not correct. And the evolutionists say... Oh! Well, that too is just a really lucky accident. How many highly improbable accidents must be discovered before you become incredulous?
Posted by: Sage7 on November 26, 2005 08:02 PMFelix:
ìDo you honestly believe that everybody who purports to believe in evolution in fact is following some kind of nefarious atheistic political ulterior motive?î
No. Many who support evolution do not know of its weaknesses or its implications. They just believe what they were taught for decades... supposedly on the basis of sound science.
Many folks are unaware of it, but there is a culture war against Christians going on in America. Some leading evolutionists (NAS and others) play a major role in that battle by doing a hard sell on the claim that evolution is more accomplished than it really is as it claims it can explain the origin of all life (implying God is not needed.) Thus... my counterattacks on that issue in this thread and others.
But the battle involves many more people groups than just them. Generally it comes from the militant atheists*. They do not like how Christians vote and that they are hard to herd. They want to control their children, all children, for indoctrination and exploitation. *They are too proud to realize the significance of the fact that their own position is not falsifiable. The latest form is the assault on the word Christ or Christmas in the public square.
You saw Stefan accuse us of ëvictim speakí and say that we ëfeed off that same sense of victimizationí. Re: #0. We often hear that whenever we point out any form of persecution. It is intended to suppress our speaking out about it. But in a sense Stefan is right, Christianity is in fact stimulated by persecution. Christianity does best when it is under persecution. The insincere, which are a handicap anyway, fall away and the sincere get more sincere and energized. As a social movement Christianity gets stronger... even if it has to go underground, as it did in China. That has been our repeated history down through the centuries.
We understand why we are persecuted. Jesus said that the world system would always hate Him, and those who follow Him. Pride/ego is of course the major reason. People are repulsed by the notion that they will be held flawlessly morally accountable before a just Judge. They are repelled by the prospect of a life of struggling with oneís own evil, and needing Godís help to overcome it. As a consequence, they tend to deny evil itself, and thereby fail to learn of the insidious nature of evil. Because of that, they are often more likely to fall victim to evil.
Think of evil as being the character of choice or will that sooner or later causes sorrow.
And remember, there is that deceiver of humans, the arch enemy of God, the prince of this world, orchestrating it all.
(Matt 13:21, Luke 6:22, John 15:18-22)
SO I guess I was right about the victim speak.
Posted by: Stefan Geens on November 27, 2005 10:58 AM"They are too proud to realize the significance of the fact that their own position is not falsifiable" -- actually, an atheistic position is easily falsifiable. All God needs to do is show himself.
Posted by: Felix on November 27, 2005 09:05 PMFelix:
ì-- actually, an atheistic position is easily falsifiable. All God needs to do is show himself.î
True, but God purposefully wants you to play His game, not He your game. At a time of His choosing, you *will* get to see Him face to face. But if you continue in that egotistical posture, it will be at the judgment.
As you know, what God is seeking from you is *faith* that the Word of God is trustworthy. And that Word tells us that we need to respect God for who He is and what He has done for each of us. In genuine humility you need to realize that by Godís standards you are horribly guilty of causing great sorrow for Himself and those He loves, you are worthy of Godís horrible wrath, but that He has lovingly paid the price of justice on your behalf so that you may go into the heavenly company of flawlessly righteous God and other cleansed souls.
Godís hope is that you will respond in love to his gift of love and accept his forgiveness and Lordship. What do you give to a God that has everything? You give him the most valuable thing you have... which is yourself!
Currently you profess no love of God or humble gratitude for Godís courtship of your soul. So your judgment experience is not likely to be favorable. You are a bit like Thomas...
John 20:
24But (AJ)Thomas, one of (AK)the twelve, called (AL)Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
25So the other disciples were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in (AM)His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, (AN)I will not believe."
26After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, "(AO)Peace be with you."
27Then He said to Thomas, "(AP)Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing."
28Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
29Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? (AQ)Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."
It is stupid to be egotistical in the presence of an intelligence that is capable of creating us and our entire reality. Yet by design human nature entices us into that disposition. We need to choose Him over the many prideful temptations he has set in our path. Else, our choosing Him instead has no value. That is why I argue so strongly for you to realize that you were indeed created by God... for a purpose... to complete a holy love relationship.
In Godís care...
Felix: Arrogance:
BTW: The atheistic position is not falsifiable BY HUMANS.... It says that ëI am certain that there is NO god...í when that certainty is impossible. Thus militant atheism is extremely arrogant and intellectually inexcusable. But that does not slow them down any. Arrogance is blinding.
In Godís care...
The atheistic position is indeed falsifiable by humans. How many saints are there? All of them, as I understand it, need to have performed a documented miracle. If documentable miracles are going on the whole time, it shouldn't be hard to falsify atheism.
As for the impossibility of certainty, that is what is known as militant agnosticism.
Posted by: Felix on November 28, 2005 03:39 AMClaude:
ìWritten slightly intoxicated. I hope some essence of the meaning is still in there.î
You did make sense... to me at least. I appreciated these points:
1. If "purpose" exists at all it would have been part and parcel of the whole creation gambit... We got a whole universe created, and earth is relatively a spec of dust within it. Nonetheless, we live on a ìFortunate Planetî as the book of that title describes. Apparently Godís purpose at least focused on earth.
2. If an argument is to be made that applies only under certain circumstances, integrity demands that those circumstances be stated with the argument. I think I obeyed that rule.
3. Scientific discourse is, *by design*, not fitted to articulate meaning, only cold hard facts.
4. An designer who would design a creation without a point, or purpose, is not really very intelligent.
I also appreciate your points to Jame, but you know that because I made similar points to him in my own post to him.
Several of your posts have you commenting on your intoxicated state. That spurs me to ask a question. Do you believe that helps you glorify God with your life? I doubt it, since as you indicate, oneís performance while intoxicated is degraded. We know that sometimes that degradation can produce tragic results.
When a person accepts that Jesus loves us sacrificially, and we return that love... the natural response is to live a life of gratitude for Him having saved us from due judgment, and from ourselves. That includes living a life that is a credit to Him, one that brings no disgrace to Him.
That, even though we as humans are chock full of faults and sometimes plagued by self doubt or hatred. We are able to do this by engaging Him intimately into our lives to help us fight our faults.
This is that fight that scares people off if they are too proud to admit they have such problems. Or too proud to endure the humiliation of working through a problem one difficult aspect at a time.
But therein lies the power of Biblical Christianity. God kindly shows us the way, step by step, as he helps us to deal with the issues involved. Though some steps may be painful, the process is joyful spiritual growth. Growth that builds confidence in oneís self enabled by the Holy Spirit to overcome. Often a wonderful byproduct is that peace that passes understanding. This is why millions of Christians cannot be budged from their faith.
Sage7
Thank you for your comments.
Re: Intoxication. No, I don't think being pissed helps me glorify God with my life. It is merely a gambit I occasionally resort to to make my life more agreeable.
Posted by: Claude de Bigny on November 28, 2005 08:45 AMSage (who else?),
You wrote:
"Again, ìintelligent designî is in principle a simple proposition. Evolution cannot explain crucial steps postulated by evolutionary theory, especially the spontaneous generation of life."
Once again, as far as I can tell, evolution theory makes no claims on explaining the origin of life. Please, and I mean this sincerely, either give me an example of evolution theory attempting this, or focus your argument somewhere else. As you say, the origin of life seems to be the focus of ID, and I say, let them have at it. Just don't impose this as science, and I don't mean that science in "above" or more accurate than religion, just that's it's a different field altogether.
You also wrote:
"Many folks are unaware of it, but there is a culture war against Christians going on in America. Some leading evolutionists (NAS and others) play a major role in that battle by doing a hard sell on the claim that evolution is more accomplished than it really is as it claims it can explain the origin of all life (implying God is not needed.) Thus... my counterattacks on that issue in this thread and others."
This is highly paranoid. What you call a "culture war," I call disagreement. Can we disagree without being "at war?" Your line of thinking here is the very fucking reason for a lot of bad shit in this world.
Posted by: sac on November 28, 2005 05:15 PMFelix:
ìOnce again, as far as I can tell, evolution theory makes no claims on explaining the origin of life.î
And once again, proponents of evolution officially teach right up to the line and then imply the rest. Many less sophisticated teachers take the implications as fact and teach them as facts in our schools.
I think I said something like that before. So I guess I need to show you what I am talking about. Here is an example from the National Academy of Sciences.
ìFor those who are studying the origin of life, the question is no longer whether life could have originated by chemical processes involving nonbiological components. The question instead has become which of many pathways might have been followed to produce the first cells. Will we ever be able to identify the path of chemical evolution that succeeded in initiating life on Earth? Scientists are designing experiments and speculating about how early Earth could have provided a hospitable site for the segregation of molecules in units that might have been the first living systems. The recent speculation includes the possibility that the first living cells might have arisen on Mars, seeding Earth via the many meteorites that are known to travel from Mars to our planet.
Of course, even if a living cell were to be made in the laboratory, it would not prove that nature followed the same pathway billions of years ago. But it is the job of science to provide plausible natural explanations for natural phenomena.î ( ìScience and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition (1999)î, page 6-7, started in next to last paragraph on page 6)
I believe it is clear that the writers of this statement believe the proposition that: a natural pathway of chemical evolution succeeded in initiating life on Earth. It is also clear that this NAS statement was designed to suggest that this proposition is certainly true, but without actually saying what they are suggesting. Do you see it?
Where they say ì...the question is no longer whether life could have originated by chemical processes involving nonbiological components.î they imply that scientific investigators no longer harbor that question because it is certainly no longer an issue. And they imply that scientists have gone on to more relevant questions since the former one has been effectively answered in the affirmative. Then they change the question for the reader, leave their suggestion in tact, and indicate that the reader too should go on to the more relevant questions they supply. Questions that presume the former question was answered with a ëyesí. The non analytical mind just picks up the notion that *real science* has accepted that the first question has been answered in the affirmative... when no such thing has been accomplished.
If you wish to say my analysis of this paragraph is just paranoid, I will gently place you into the category of persons who are willfully naive. I will then wonder how to help you escape from this fateful frame of mind.
But if you *did* see it when I asked above, I apologize for overexplaining.
But just to make sure... Imagine that you and I were debating some issue X, and you asked me how I know X is true, and I really did not want to deal with that issue. How would you accept my response if I said: ìThat is not the right question to ask, instead, you should ask these other questions (without pointing out that these other questions are sensible only if we presume that X is true).î I do not think you would buy it. You could rightfully accuse me of trying to mislead, and of being deceitful in my tactics. And is this not exactly the technique that NAS is using here?
And when they say:
ìBut it is the job of science to provide plausible natural explanations for natural phenomena.î
are they not saying they will never recognize evidence of the supernatural even when they see it? They have decided in advance the non-existence of the supernatural. And yet they tell us that science goes where the evidence leads. Well, here is a case where they do not take their own advice....
Iíll deal with the culture war issue in my response to SAC.
ìBut it is the job of science to provide plausible natural explanations for natural phenomena.î
Sage, do you disagree with the above statement? Is that not the job of science? Shouldn't scientists try to find scientific explanations for as many phenomena as possible? Haven't countless phenomena once thought to be supernatural been proven otherwise by scientists throughout history? Are you saying scientists should not venture into the origins of life because it offends some religious folk?
Anyway, I did not find a mandate in the passage you quoted stating that evolution can most defintely explain the origins of life. In fact, the sentence right before the one you re-quoted states:
"Of course, even if a living cell were to be made in the laboratory, it would not prove that nature followed the same pathway billions of years ago."
What I take from that is that scientists are aware of and accept the possibility that for all of their knowledge and experiments, they may very well be WRONG. How wonderfully agnostic of them.
Ultimately, I agree with you regarding the origins of life, that science probably can't explain it, and certainly hasn't yet, so that in classrooms, biology teachers should go right to the edge and then give a lesson on how that's as far as we SCIENTIFICALLY know right now. I'm just astounded that you see some sort of assault on the Christian religion in this country when Chrisitans comprise the vast majority of the population, and an even greater majority of the political and ecomomic power. Christians, devout and near fundametalists at that, completely control the White House and most legislative bodies. What more do you want? A tacit endorsement by the government that yes, you guys are right, all those other religions, while we must tolerate them like errant children, are still wrong? Like many European countries do? But wait, those godless Euros don't go to church. So how to explain it all?
Posted by: sac on November 29, 2005 04:32 PMSac, as an example take the upcoming release of The Chronicles of Narnia. Disney dithered on this for years before finally taking a stake in it. It took the combined success of The Lord of the Rings and the Passion to convince it to finally take the "risk" of bankrolling an openly Christian movie.
The U.S. has something like 100 million truly enthusiastic Christians, one in three, and another 100 million or so who self-identify as Christian but don't attend church regularly. There are much smaller demographic niches that are targeted consistently by Hollywood - children, for instance - why so little attention to Christians?
As another example, I had the opportunity to watch archival footage of Bishop Fulton Sheen on television over Thanksgiving, and I was amazed. Sheen was a figure of stature greater than Milton Berle and Edward R. Murrow in early television, and yet he is ignored today. But I was astounded, watching him, at how gifted he was at television presentation. I've never seen such a magnetic TV personality.
Don't hold your breath waiting for George Clooney to make a movie about Bishop Sheen. Don't expect to ever see a television industry tribute to his role in its formation. They can't indict him for hypocrisy or bigotry, as with Father Coughlin, so the cognoscenti just ignore him and hope everyone will forget. The most watched TV personality of the 1950s has become an un-person.
Posted by: Sterling on November 29, 2005 07:45 PMSterling, Christians just aren't used to their beliefs not getting tacit approval. Also, most creators of media content aren't overtly religious. Not a conspiracy or an assault against Christianity, just a fact. If Christians want movies and books and television with Christian themes, they can create their own, which they are doing quite successfully. If it makes money, Hollywood will follow. And anyway, while "Hollywood" as a concept is a monolithic entity, Hollywood in reality is just a collection of private companies. Surely you of all people, Sterling, would not begrudge a private company to do business as it sees fit.
SAC:
ì
ìBut it is the job of science to provide plausible natural explanations for natural phenomena.î (NAS)
Sage, do you disagree with the above statement?
î
The problem with this statement is in the ambiguity of the word ënaturalí. That greatly impacts the *interpretation* of scientific evidence. Especially in the matter of deducing causes.
Many times in human history people have attributed supernatural causes for facts later discovered to be a product of ënaturalí causes. So of course there is lots of skepticism about searching for evidence of the supernatural. At the same time science cannot know that a supernatural intelligence did not design some of the complex systems whose cause is currently a mystery.
Science has a dilemma here. Either they allow the possibility of un-natural cause to be considered as they look for causes, or they do not. If they do allow consideration of un-natural causes, that may unfortunately cause an actual natural cause to remain undiscovered. If they do not allow consideration of un-natural causes they may well mis-interpret evidence that is in fact evidence of an un-natural cause. They could miss the most important discovery in the history of humankind.
The militant atheist will immediately pick the latter, believing that there is nothing supernatural there to be discovered. But that contradicts that edict of science to not rule out beforehand what might be discovered! If they violate a rule that they advise others to follow, they are hypocrites... But they do, so they are.
Others would prefer to at least keep an open mind on the subject of un-natural causes. That does not mean science should stop looking for natural causes. It does mean that the science community should actually allow the scientific pursuit of evidence that might indicate creative intelligence. That means that scientific efforts to find evidence of un-natural causes to publish papers in scientific journals when they had something credible and substantive to present. That is, get back to real scientific debate even when looking for intelligent design, not just reject ID as the enemy of science, which it is not.
I believe that what NAS considers ënaturalí are things our scientific tools can measure. That would limit all considerations of cause to be confined to our reality of three dimensions and time.
The problem with that posture is that other branches of science *are* openly considering what NAS by that standard would have to call extra-natural phenomena. That is, dimensions of existence that are beyond our ënaturalí three dimensions and time. Re: #36 after the phrase ëNatural phenomena's earliest originsí. (Please go there and reread that portion and follow the two links provided there.)
There I mentioned that the joker in the deck is that probably humans can only observe mysterious ëdisturbancesí from other dimensions in our three dimensions and time existence. While most mysterious disturbances probably have causes in our reality, the character of some appear to have causes from additional dimensions that intersect our reality. Human ability to make measurements in those other dimensions are limited to experiments we can perform within the framework of our reality. But through mathematics, humans have already been able to characterize what may be in those other dimensions, and correlate those projections with disturbances we can measure in our reality.
The fact that we can only measure disturbances from those dimensions in our reality does not mean those other dimensions are not ënaturalí. Thus, I would say that what is going on in those additional dimensions are as ënaturalí as a sunny day in our reality. That would be true even if some of those dimensions are manifestations of God.
--
ìWhat I take from that is that scientists are aware of and accept the possibility that for all of their knowledge and experiments, they may very well be WRONG. How wonderfully agnostic of them.î
My point is that NAS folks and their kind are not stupid, but they are willfully deceitful. They want people to believe what they believe even though they have no proof of it.
This statement still leads the reader to believe that *some* natural sequence could create life. Again they embed the suggestion that what they believe (but cannot prove) is possible, even if they might do it differently from nature. They use hidden suggestions like this and what I demonstrated in #62 to accomplish that goal of persuasion. How wonderfully disingenuous they are.
In Godís care...
SAC: Sorry to alarm you...
ìWhat you call a "culture war," I call disagreement. Can we disagree without being "at war?" î
Of course we can, and do. Right here on MemeFirst as a case in point.
I did not invent that term, it is common to a number of news sources. It is not a shooting war of course. It is a decades old effort by militant atheists to remove all evidence of Christianity from the public square in America. In recent years it has grown constantly more intense. It is a minority trying to change America into a very different kind of nation, into something more like France. Never mind that most Americans do not want this change. They are elitists who consider Christians to be stupid scum who do not vote as they should. Specifically, Christians do not want *them* in power.
Much of it is a relentless battle in the American court system. But some is just pressure on whomever can remove a Christian symbol from the public square. The most recent battle is to stop public institutions from using the word ëChristmasí in the public square. It is to be replaced by the word ëHollidayí. Have you not seen that in the news? If not, you have not been watching Fox news. The liberal main-line media are not likely to report it.
These elites come mostly from the ultra liberal left and use the gay community as a bludgeon. And of course, you canít have a war without opposition. Christians have responded belatedly by raising legal groups to resist this abuse of the court system. I mean abuse via liberal judges who create new law from the bench, law that would never be voted into law in congress or in any broad public forum. The elites exploit exceptional cases to make normative law, and get these cases before their liberal judges.
As best I can tell, the ACLU is one of the primary instigators. Through their efforts Prayer in public schools is prohibited. Private prayers by public officials are prohibited. The boy scouts have been threatened with extinction. And I believe the content of sermons are threatened with lawsuits. Displays of the ëten commandmentsí are removed from public buildings, even though American law is based on that tradition. The ACLU works hard to change laws that arise from Christianity, like those that protect children from sexual abuse by adults. In Canada pastors have been jailed for reading from the Bible passages that condemn homosexuality, and the ACLU wants that to happen in the U.S..
Another arm is political correctness to replace Christian morality. In P.C. all of the guidelines advocate impersonal morality, and advocates no interpersonal moral accountability as Christianity does. According to P.C. you should not offend anyone... except moralists.
There are other dimensions of this conflict, but I expect this enough to answer your question.
Does this make you want to support the ACLU, or to oppose it?
In Godís care...
Posted by: Sage7 on November 30, 2005 08:30 AMSage, do you honestly believe all of what you write? WHERE are you getting your information? I defy you to back up any of these assertions:
"Private prayers by public officials are prohibited." -- Are you saying that when someone is elected they can no longer pray? That, say, George W Bush can't say his prayers before going to bed?
"he boy scouts have been threatened with extinction" -- by whom? IIRC, all they were threatened with was gay scoutmasters, which might be a Bad Thing in your book, but it's hardly the same as extinction.
"I believe the content of sermons are threatened with lawsuits" -- well, it might be true that you believe it, but the content of your belief? Not so much.
"The ACLU works hard to change laws that arise from Christianity, like those that protect children from sexual abuse by adults" -- huh? What sex-abuse laws are the ACLU trying to change?
"In Canada pastors have been jailed for reading from the Bible passages that condemn homosexuality..." -- really? Name one such pastor.
"... and the ACLU wants that to happen in the U.S." -- really? The ACLU, which regularly defends Nazi speech, is campaigning against freedom of speech by pastors? Where? When?
It seems to me that in your desperation to be persecuted, you're setting up straw men left, right and center. The ACLU is not out to get you, Sage, it is not anti-Christian, and it is certainly not chock-full of atheists. What makes you think all these things?
"My point is that NAS folks and their kind are not stupid, but they are willfully deceitful. They want people to believe what they believe even though they have no proof of it."
sounds like a mirror image of what your "kind" are all about, except that you have even less proof of it.
Posted by: are you kidding me? on November 30, 2005 03:14 PMARE YOU KIDDING ME?:
"
"They want people to believe what they believe even though they have no proof of it."
sounds like a mirror image of what your "kind" are all about, except that you have even less proof of it.
"
I expected that rejoinder.
Indeed, religion is all about asking people to believe on the basis of faith and they are up front about that. In the case of Christianity, we openly encourage faith that the Bible was inspired by God.
However, science is supposed to be about evidence and proof. Scientists know they should not ask people to believe anything on the basis of faith. So they advance their unproved beliefs by asking people to consider questions that obscurely depend on the unspoken condition that their unproved belief is in fact true.
In Godís care...
yes, I do have faith in those who have consistently come through over thousands of years of human history with real answers to real questions: scientists.
Posted by: are you kidding me? on December 1, 2005 05:40 AMGreat article on Intelligent Design: http://nationalreview.com/comment/bethell200512010829.asp
Posted by: Sterling on December 1, 2005 08:35 PMThat is a good article. But as with all ID arguments, it doesn't argue FOR Intelligent Design, it argues AGAINST EvolutionISM. And I capitalize the -ISM because it is the philosophy that has been built around the theory of evolution that most ID proponents focus on. Why? Because they cannot deny the MANY and important scientific advances that have been based on the study and application of evolutionary science. And more importantly, they cannot counter some of evolutionism's broader scientifc claims with any scientific claims of their own because ID has none.
So what this article does better than most is point out the holes in the theory of evolution, holes that all scientists already accept and are working to fill. I agree the public should be made more aware of these holes and that may be the silver lining in all of this. But once again, ID is not a scientific theory and it most definitely should not be inlcuded in science classrooms.
Posted by: sac on December 1, 2005 09:25 PMI would argue, Sac, that while it is premature to teach I.D. in school, it is also premature to teach Darwinism.
Aside from some (not all) young-Earth creationists, I think everyone on both sides acknowledges, as an example, that human beings are closely related to chimpanzees. Nobody's trying to shut down that discussion. No one's burning "The Origin of Species".
Many parents do not believe God is dead or absent or a fiction, or that morality is a social construction. They understand that curriculum is frequently used by leftists to undermine traditional moral teachings, and they want to inocculate their children against that by insisting that both sides of the argument be taught.
This is eminently reasonable and the hysteria on the left betrays more interest in Darwinism's utility as an indoctrination than its merit as a theory.
Posted by: Sterling on December 1, 2005 11:18 PMFelix:
ìSage, do you honestly believe all of what you write?î
Yes.
ìIt seems to me that in your desperation to be persecuted, you're setting up straw men left, right and center. The ACLU is not out to get you,...î
That is *your* bias showing... Do you live in a cave with no TV or radio? Well, you could have a TV and watch only the liberal establishment news (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN... ). You are not likely to hear anything negative about the ACLU on their channels. To liberals/progressives, the ACLU is an heroic institution.
So let me address your challenges:
On ìPrivate prayers by public officials are prohibited.î
This comes from a personal experience I had some years ago. A co-worker of mine was also the part-time mayor of a small town nearby. The city council consisted of five (I think) people, all of whom were Christians and good friends. They often held city council meetings in their homes. All being Christians, it was natural that before they started city business, they would bow their heads and ask God for wisdom as they made their official decisions. That is all! They ran the city well and responsibly... no complaints beyond those common to the ordinary resolution of competing business issues and neighborhood issues.
But somehow word about this practice got to the ACLU. It sent a lawyer who threatened the town with a lawsuit they could ill afford financially if this city council did not stop this practice. They pleaded that as long as *all* council members were Christians that they be allowed to continue the prayers, promising that if in the future a non-Christian member became part of the Council, they would not make those prayers. But to no avial. They were forced to quit.
I never forgot that.
On ìThe boy scouts have been threatened with extinction.î
It sounds like you have nearly zero understanding of what the Boy Scouts of America is about. If you rip the soul out of something, you cannot expect it to continue to be what it always had been. In the eyes of BSA supporters, ACLUís imposition on the BSA to include people in positions of authority who were open enemies of BSA foundtions, that is sure death for honoring those foundations, and the character of the BSA. I suspect you do not get it because of the way you were raised.
This site expresses a Boy Scoutís frustration with the ACLU
On ìIn Canada pastors have been jailed for reading from the Bible passages that condemn homosexuality...î
I had forgotten the details of this situation. But you wanted a name, and it is in the following:
Here is a report of at least part of what actually happened. I have not kept up with the story.
On ìI believe the content of sermons are threatened with lawsuitsî
I think you already know that so called ìHate Crime Legislationî is aimed squarely at Christians. This is one place where the liberal elite use the gay community as a bludegeon against Christianity. The ACLU calls the Christian letters cited in the Canadian incident above as ìhate speechî. Jail... is the penalty.
ìHate Speech lawî gives government the permission to ëregulateí legitimate Bible exposition from the pulpit. What an outrageous and un-American imposition! Christians are fighting this in court. I am not up-to-date on the status of that case.
We do not mind government officials coming to our churches and hearing our sermons. We do mind them telling us what doctrines we may teach. This is liberals against religion and free speach.
It is not hate but love to try to persuade someone they are making a terrible mistake. Yes... I know 99ís arguments. A difference of opinion does not mean hatred. Face it! Homosexuality is disgusting and repugnant to almost any straight person, and it is from that (without Christian love) that ugliness arises.
On ìThe ACLU works hard to change laws that arise from Christianity, like those that protect children from sexual abuse by adults.î
I was not able to contact my source for this accusation, and there are many aspects of this issue. I think it best, and easier on me, if I just show you to some sites that expose what the ACLU is doing to Christians. That will include some aspects of ACLUís calousness about child protection.
A Christianís view of the ACLU.
The Traditional Values Coalitionís view of the ACLU.
Some of the passion illustrated.
Here is some background info on ACLU...
Here is an ad for a book that exposes ACLUís covert agenda.
An OíReilly FoxNews story on ACLU wrt child porn and the Minutemen.
I suggest you Google search for the following two essential words: ëACLUí and ëAnti-Christianí. When I did this there were over 116,000 hits! That indicates a great deal of interest in this issue! But the liberal news nearly ignores it. Do you think that might suggest to Christians that the liberal news is not friedly towards Christians? There are many issues of this kind with that character.
In Godís Care...
The ACLU is anti-Christian. It's so obvious that I can't imagine a coherent argument to the contrary.
Posted by: Sterling on December 2, 2005 04:40 PMI'm sorry, Sage, I really did have the intention of reading those links, but came across this in the 2nd paragraph of the 1st link:
"and it (the ACLU) knows nothing of true liberty, which can only be found in Jesus Christ,"
I hope you can tell by now that I am not anti-Christian at all, but statements like these shut down the dialogue instantly. That statement is out and out bullshit, and it is the basis of this person's, and yours I think, entire worldview. It is impossible to reconcile. I am officially done on this topic.
Posted by: sac on December 2, 2005 04:42 PMI should clarify:
A case could be made that the ACLU is anti-Christian, although I don't believe it is. Anti-religion in general, perhaps. What I mean by the previous post is that this Christ is the only way to liberty" is bullshit. Christ may be A way for a lot people, but the only way? Not in my experience.
Posted by: sac on December 2, 2005 04:45 PMSage7's Intellectual Rigor Index
Even though I image this is very old news for everyone else on this list, entering "ACLU Anti-Christian" (without quotes) in Google returns results that carry either or both terms. Searching with quotes is far more precise. In this case, the above searching for exact matches turns up 129 results (today)
Some other Search string results using Sage7's methodology:
Pat Robertson Anti-Christian: 63,300 hits
"Pat Roberson Anti-Christain": 3 hits
George Bush Anti-Christian: 232,000 hits
"George Bush Anti-Christian": 2 hits
Baptist Church Anti-Christian: 178,000 hits
"Baptist Church Anti-Christian": 1 hit
A little more on Sterling's and Sage7's collective reseach abilities. Five minutes on the ACLU site produced this:
The right of each and every American to practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all, is among the most fundamental of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The Constitution's framers understood very well that religious liberty can flourish only if the government leaves religion alone.
The American Civil Liberties Union has a long history of working to ensure that religious liberty is protected. From the famous 1920 Scopes trial-in which the ACLU challenged a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in schools-to the current Ten Commandments case before the Supreme Court, the ACLU remains committed to keeping the government out of the religion business and protecting every American's right to believe as he or she wishes.
Recent ACLU involvement in religious liberty cases include:
September 20, 2005: ACLU of New Jersey joins lawsuit supporting second-grader's right to sing "Awesome God" at a talent show.
August 4, 2005: ACLU helps free a New Mexico street preacher from prison.
May 25, 2005: ACLU sues Wisconsin prison on behalf of a Muslim woman who was forced to remove her headscarf in front of male guards and prisoners.
February 2005: ACLU of Pennsylvania successfully defends the right of an African American Evangelical church to occupy a church building purchased in a predominantly white parish.
December 22, 2004: ACLU of New Jersey successfully defends right of religious expression by jurors.
December 14, 2004: ACLU joins Pennsylvania parents in filing first-ever challenge to "Intelligent Design" instruction in public schools.
November 20, 2004: ACLU of Nevada supports free speech rights of evangelists to prea