Kent Hovind
David Lee
I listened to a radio debate between Kent Hovind and Farrell Till and
one thing Hovind kept beating into the ground was "evolution is a
religion" and "creationism is a religion" blah, blah, blah, blah.
What this moron cannot seem to figure out is that religion can be a
very broad term and also can be very narrow in its meaning. "Religion"
has many definitions in Webster's Dictionary and to hop from one
definition of religion to another definition of religion in midstream
is extremely deceptive. The Constitution forbids that the legislative
branch shall pass no law favoring or harming "religion". Here, the
Supreme Court has interpreted religion in its very narrow sense, i.e.
the belief in, and worship of a deity and the attendant obligations
and rituals associated with it. Yes, creationism is definitely a
religious teaching.
What about Evolution? Since evolution falls under no definition of
religion with the possible exception of definition #7 (the zealous
pursuit and involvement in an activity) it can be called a religion in
the very broad sense as when someone zealously pursues it and is
preoccupied with it. In that case, it is a bird of a different color
and doesn't fall under the Constitutional ammendment. Had the founding
Fathers meant religion in its broad sense, they would have eliminated
Math, all Science, Grammar, Scholastic Sports, Automotive Mechanics,
Engineering, etc., as these are pursued by some as zealously as some
pursue evolution and would, under Hovind's definition, be called a
religion. Hell, political parties would then be classified as religion
and we couldn't teach our kids civics.
Andromeda
"David Lee" <david...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:896bd118c17bba7348f003e65d587a07@TeraNews...
DAVID
I listened to a radio debate between Kent Hovind and Farrell Till and
one thing Hovind kept beating into the ground was "evolution is a
religion" and "creationism is a religion" blah, blah, blah, blah.
What this moron cannot seem to figure out is that religion can be a
very broad term and also can be very narrow in its meaning. "Religion"
has many definitions in Webster's Dictionary and to hop from one
definition of religion to another definition of religion in midstream
is extremely deceptive. The Constitution forbids that the legislative
branch shall pass no law favoring or harming "religion". Here, the
Supreme Court has interpreted religion in its very narrow sense, i.e.
the belief in, and worship of a deity and the attendant obligations
and rituals associated with it. Yes, creationism is definitely a
religious teaching.
What about Evolution? Since evolution falls under no definition of
religion with the possible exception of definition #7 (the zealous
pursuit and involvement in an activity) it can be called a religion in
the very broad sense as when someone zealously pursues it and is
preoccupied with it. In that case, it is a bird of a different color
and doesn't fall under the Constitutional amendment. Had the founding
Dave Oldridge
@ID-182287.news.dfncis.de:
This is actually a classic equivocation fallacy. It's a kind of
rhetorical bait-and-switch used by dishonest debaters and is as old as
classical Greek philosophy (which correctly identifies it as a fallacy).
Essentially a proposition is set up under one definition of a word and
then the definition is switched and the claim is made that the proposition
retains its validity. It is such a common bit of rhetorical dishonesty
that the word has actually come into common use to simply mean lying!
Professional creationists seem to be awfully skilled in the use (abuse) of
logical fallacies like this. One has to wonder if there is not,
somewhere, a school out there teaching these people how to debate
dishonestly! Or maybe it's just a standard course in their seminaries or
whatever they call their colleges?
Whatever it is, I want none of it.
--
Dave Oldridge
ICQ 1800667
Paradoxically, most real events are highly improbable.
Skitter...@shadowwatch.org
Hmm....Maybe they have a big home school for it? ;)
> Whatever it is, I want none of it.
No honest person would.
Skitter the Cat
Raymond E. Griffith
Skitter...@ShadowWatch.org at Skitter...@ShadowWatch.org wrote on
5/1/03 2:53 AM:
Having attended a fundamentalist school (and I am quite fond of my alma
mater -- they are good people who truly want to honor the Lord), I never saw
any course in equivocation.
You have to understand that this is the way many people *think*. They have
grown up with certain perspectives, so that their thinking patterns are
almost genetically predisposed to a certain direction. A good book on the
history of Fundamentalism, The Battle for God, would be profitable to look
at.
They have a fixed perception which they are unable to change (like equating
evolution with abiogenesis). It is an axiom to the YECs that Evolution has
to be a religion. The reason they believe this is because they simply cannot
see someone being dedicated to a *science*. To them, dedication must be a
kind of *faith*.
They also tend to perceive evolutionists the way evolutionists perceive
creationists. Creationists tend to be dishonest and lie about the evidence
because they believe that to admit to the evidence that is there would be a
denial of faith. They believe this so strongly that they fool themselves
into not seeing the evidence that is present! But substitute evolutionists
into those last two sentences and you will get the creationist perspective!
Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances in
genetics and other areas. They see evolution as simply confined to
speculations about origins, as if we cannot possibly test or know or
understand anything about the past. They see it as the religion of science
because, to them, the determination of scientists to learn about and control
the world is a denial of God, His power, and His authority.
>
>> Whatever it is, I want none of it.
>
> No honest person would.
The funny thing is that the creationists say the same thing about the
evolutionists. And they believe it. They honestly believe they are being
honest. They do not have the capability to see how their mental processes
make them treat Scientific data, the Scriptures, and many other things
differently depending upon their comfort level with it.
For example, many fundamentalists claim to read the Scriptures literally,
"for what it says". The fact that they do so selectively and engage in very
liberal interpretations and additions to the meaning quite often is apparent
to everyone -- but themselves. They have grown up with this kind of
thinking, and to them it seems natural and right. The fact that this kind of
thinking would never work in the laboratory never crosses their mind.
So perhaps we should be charitable. I have come to the conclusion that they
can't help it. It would take a miracle to come out from it.
Raymond E. Griffith
>
> Skitter the Cat
Tim Simmons
"David Lee" <david...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:896bd118c17bba7348f003e65d587a07@TeraNews...
Tim S.:
This is just one of the many purposefully deceptive tactics of Christians to
try and convince the gullible that they are right and everyone else is
wrong/evil, etc.
They try to make the game equal - "Since religion is taking a bad rap, I'll
claim THEY are a religion too!"
It's sickening to me. I said a few weeks back that a good friend of mine
who was a Christian killed himself and his wife gave me one of his books -
"Does God Believe In Atheists?" by John Blanchard. As you might guess
simply from the title, it's just another piece of purposely deceptive
propaganda from a Baptist theologian whose support looks like a roll call at
the Southern Baptist Convention. The funny thing is that for all it's
hundreds of pages and tour of atheism throughout history (which does nothing
to defend a belief in a deity) he ends up in the 3rd to last chapter
claiming although many people did bad things either to support a warped
belief in religion or a false religion (heheh no TRUE Christian would ever
commit those crimes against humanity), atheism has killed more people in the
last 100 years than religion has in all of history!
Can you believe that? Did atheism march over land and sea to convert people
to atheism or kill them? He then goes on to equate Nazism with atheism
(even though Hitler believed himself to be a Christian) and so on and so on
and instead of presenting sound arguments for believing in the God of the
Bible he falsely bashes atheism, exonerates all Christians of criminal
actions throughout history and even after having the nerve to mention the
argument from the existence of evil he can't do anything but always try to
turn the argument back on the atheist as if things are just always equal and
you MUST see his logic (no logic, actually).
Here is his argument that God exists. You won't believe it.
"1 If God does not exist, transcendent, objective values of good and evil do
not exist.
2 Evil does exist.
3 Therefore objective values exist, and some things are really, basically,
fundamentally bad.
4 Therefore God exists."
Can you believe #1???? He can't believe a world without a god could have
evil in it. He can't envision a world without a god where creatures hurt
other similar creatures but have the intelligence to know it isn't right.
His first premise is illogical. Even if we define evil as not an immorality
but a catastrophe of nature we can certainly have that with no deity
involved.
He says other dumb things.
"If the believer has a problem in explaining the existence of evil in a
world created and ruled by God, the unbeliever has the much greater problem
of explaining how, in a world without God, he can speak of anything as being
good or evil. In order to use the problem of evil argument against a
theistic worldview, the atheist must show that his own definition of the
meaning of evil [talk about redundant] is meaningful, which is precisely
what he is unable to do."
Can anyone read that and keep a straight face? This is a person who has
deceived himself and has destroyed his own reasoning skills to maintain
loyalty to a myth that has practically no evidence to support it and much to
refute it. He is deceiving thousands with his blatant lies about the "evil"
atheism has done in the last 100 years while ignoring his own religion's
checkered past which has a few years on any organized and defined version of
atheism.
This book is almost 600 pages and after reading only 1/3 of a page, need
anyone read more?
I'd bet Holding and this guy would have a gay old time exchanging lies
around the campfire and raking in money from gullible supporters who either
can't see the flaws or just refuse.
Tim
Pastor Dave
Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
makes it a religion.
Pastor Dave Raymond
___
When Christianity becomes religion,
it leaves the heart hungry.
In the beginning, God created...
Don't tell me you believe the end,
if you don't believe the beginning.
David DeMar
<ma...@skeptical-christian.net> wrote in
news:b8puj1$cabuo$1...@ID-182287.news.dfncis.de:
> The Constitution forbids that the legislative
> branch shall pass no law favoring or harming "religion". Here, the
> Supreme Court has interpreted religion in its very narrow sense,
> i.e. the belief in, and worship of a deity and the attendant
> obligations and rituals associated with it.
So, I guess Buddhism isn't a religion because they don't worship a
deity?
Cloud McCloud
<tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
> Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
> sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
> in genetics and other areas.
Haha! That's funny!
Pastor Dave
Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote:
>They have a fixed perception which they are unable to change (like equating
>evolution with abiogenesis).
It's not a matter of "equating". It's simply that you
cannot have one without the other. If you wish to rule
out a Creator God, then you forced to follow the trail
back and explain how the first living thing got here,
to evolve into something else.
It is the evolutionists, who all know that they cannot
do that, that wish to separate the two, as if they are
completely unrelated, or they wave their hand and
dismiss the question, pretending that it doesn't
matter, when in reality, it is the ultimate question
that they will be presented with.
>It is an axiom to the YECs that Evolution has
>to be a religion.
When you believe what you believe by faith, which is
what those who believe in macroevolution must do, then
that qualifies as a religion.
>The reason they believe this is because they simply cannot
>see someone being dedicated to a *science*. To them, dedication must be a
>kind of *faith*.
"Science" is a methodology, not a conclusion. It makes
no conclusions about the data. Therefore, when one
claim macroevolution and cannot back it up, they are
clinging to their faith in the conclusions of others
and not to "science".
>They also tend to perceive evolutionists the way evolutionists perceive
>creationists. Creationists tend to be dishonest and lie about the evidence
>because they believe that to admit to the evidence that is there would be a
>denial of faith.
That is your conclusion and it is quite an arrogant one
at that. "Evolutionists are honest and all
Creationists are lying. They must be, because what I
believe is right and what they believe is wrong.". You
are quite guilty of the same attitude that you ascribe
to Creationists. You also falsely claim that they are
"lying". The Creationists I know, firmly believe what
they're saying to be the truth.
>They believe this so strongly that they fool themselves
>into not seeing the evidence that is present!
Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black!
Please show me one single clear and gradual progression
of fossils, from one kind to another (ape to man, land
dwelling mammals to whales, etc.). You can't do it.
You can only show me evidence of microevolution, which
Creationists state clearly, is a fact of science. Then
you'll try to tell me that there is no such thing as
macro and micro evolution, when in fact, we both know
that there is.
>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances in
>genetics and other areas.
"Sciences" are not conclusions and if you wish to claim
that evolution "unifies the sciences", then how is it
that you dare to claim that evolution and abiogenesis
have nothing to do with each other? That's a
contradiction and outright hypocrisy.
>They see evolution as simply confined to
>speculations about origins, as if we cannot possibly test or know or
>understand anything about the past.
And there is another false statement. No Creationist
ever said that you cannot "test or know anything about
the past". You're being dishonest now.
>They see it as the religion of science
Untrue. Science is wonderful. Conclusions about data
may not be.
>because, to them, the determination of scientists to learn about and control
>the world is a denial of God, His power, and His authority.
Wrong again. Bible believing Christians contributed
more to getting modern science going than atheists,
that's for sure. Who do you think started the great
learning facilities, such as Harvard and Yale, along
with science programs?
As for the authority and power of God, you deny that,
when you deny his written word to mankind, which
clearly states a six day Creation.
>For example, many fundamentalists claim to read the Scriptures literally,
>"for what it says". The fact that they do so selectively and engage in very
>liberal interpretations and additions to the meaning quite often is apparent
>to everyone -- but themselves. They have grown up with this kind of
>thinking, and to them it seems natural and right. The fact that this kind of
>thinking would never work in the laboratory never crosses their mind.
The fact is, that the Bible is normally very clear
about what is literal and what isn't.
>So perhaps we should be charitable. I have come to the conclusion that they
>can't help it. It would take a miracle to come out from it.
Your insults are noted.
Raymond E. Griffith
It is rather ironic, isn't it? But it is a fact. In researching human
diseases, much profitable work has centered on primates because of their
closeness to the human genome. In other animals, scientists have to be
more careful. A laboratory rat is similar to humans genetically in lots
of ways, but the differences tend to make the observations less
transferrable. But knowing the relationships and the relative distances
between the relationships has made identifications of the causes of
certain diseases much easier.
In most of the other sciences, evolution as applied to that branch of
science helps provide the continuity needed to understand what is
happening. Understanding the evolution of stars allowed us to predict
and actually map black holes.
Evolution is the only answer for the extreme biological diversity of
today's world, whether you believe in the Flood of Noah or not. In fact,
if you believe in the Flood of Noah, you must ascede to a rate of
evolution in the last few thousand years vastly exceeding anything that
we observe today. The numbers just don't work otherwise. Of course, the
desire to deny evolution makes a lot of creationists simply fudge or
ignore the numbers! Again, their mindset has been trained so that they
cannot even conceive of the difficulties of their position.
So yes, it is funny in a sad sort of way. I understand because I was a
fundamentalist and believed implicitly their literature. I even argued
with my professors about it.
Andromeda
"Pastor Dave" <nospam-pa...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4f32bvgu7hd8db4if...@4ax.com...
Helps
"Cloud McCloud" <cl...@cloud.com> wrote in message
news:asmdb0$ss23f$2...@news.tssrnet.com...
It really is: this is a grand unifier which has none of its supposed data
avaialble (ie fossil record as predicted by Darwin) and cuts the throat of
any grad student that says that the emperor has no clothes.
BTB, it is not evolution which is at question here really BUT ONLY EVOLUTION
as the mechanism for descent with change.
Survival of the fittest: a tautology
Canicus
<snip>
> When you believe what you believe by faith, which is
> what those who believe in macroevolution must do, then
> that qualifies as a religion.
<snip>
> "Science" is a methodology, not a conclusion. It makes
> no conclusions about the data. Therefore, when one
> claim macroevolution and cannot back it up, they are
> clinging to their faith in the conclusions of others
> and not to "science".
<snip>
> Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black!
> Please show me one single clear and gradual progression
> of fossils, from one kind to another (ape to man, land
> dwelling mammals to whales, etc.). You can't do it.
> You can only show me evidence of microevolution, which
> Creationists state clearly, is a fact of science. Then
> you'll try to tell me that there is no such thing as
> macro and micro evolution, when in fact, we both know
There is little or no difference between microevolution and macroevolution.
Macroevolution is simply a composite of many microevolutionary steps (the
organism changes slowly over time into something else). How, then, does
the organism stay within the context of "its kind" as I've usually heard it
put? Since microevultion changes small things about the organism, surely
these would add up to a big thing over time. Because of this, to accept
microevolution, but not macro, is, to me, a concession to evolution.
Likewise, what constitutes a kind? Science follows Aristotelean logic in
classifying animals and plants. Since there are other classification
schemes, what exactly constitutes a kind? This second question is at the
root of any discussion of fossil progression. Without a clear definition
of how to evaluate what an organism is, one can always say that it is not
an intermediary fossil. Thus, assuming the modern distinction between
birds and reptiles (an evolutionist must assume these things because all
animals are intermediary, and the discussion needs a fixed point), the most
common approach would be to claim archaeopterix is an intermediary. This,
however, is futile until you define a kind.
J M
<tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote:
>Cloud McCloud wrote:
>> On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
>> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
>> news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
>>
>>
>>>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
>>>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
>>>in genetics and other areas.
>>
>>
>> Haha! That's funny!
>>
>
>It is rather ironic, isn't it? But it is a fact. In researching human
>diseases, much profitable work has centered on primates because of their
>closeness to the human genome. In other animals, scientists have to be
>more careful. A laboratory rat is similar to humans genetically in lots
>of ways, but the differences tend to make the observations less
>transferrable. But knowing the relationships and the relative distances
>between the relationships has made identifications of the causes of
>certain diseases much easier.
>
It would make PERFECT sense that the creator would make similar
species of the same building blocks. Why start "from scratch" each
time?
>In most of the other sciences, evolution as applied to that branch of
>science helps provide the continuity needed to understand what is
>happening. Understanding the evolution of stars allowed us to predict
>and actually map black holes.
>
>Evolution is the only answer for the extreme biological diversity of
>today's world, whether you believe in the Flood of Noah or not.
Nonsense. Creation can EASILY acount for the various species. The
varieties within each species would be the only "evolution," depending
on environmental and other factors.
For a LONG time, the "scientists" believed that there was some
evolution at work in London and the surrounding area where the dark
moths and butterflys were found only in one area and the lightly
colored moths and butterflys were found only in another area.
Then someone with some SENSE put together that the birds could more
easily see the moths and butterflys that didn't blend into their
environment. DUH!
One scientist a few years ago wrote back to his bosses that he'd found
the duckbilled platypus. Other "scientists" including his bosses
scoffed. "It's not POSSIBLE for such a creature to exist. Stop
drinking so much, stay off the local dope, and come home!"
When he came home WITH the duckbilled platypus he'd found, the
"scientists" who'd laughed stopped laughing.
There will NEVER be any "evidence" found for creation so long as
"scientists" don't look for.it. Imagine the difficulty of finding the
needle in the haystack if you aren't searching for it.
In fact, if you believe in the Flood of Noah, you must ascede to a
rate of evolution in the last few thousand years vastly exceeding
anything that we observe today.
Your point? YOU as other pseudo-scientists ASSUME that life is
"evolving" or growing at the same rate now as it always did. Not
necessarily so. And that comes from a nuclear physicist friend of mine
who worked on the Manhattan Project. I'm assuming you know what the
Manhattan Project was. In fact, one of the last times I saw him, he
was working on a NEW "Fat Man".
The numbers just don't work otherwise. Of course, the
>desire to deny evolution makes a lot of creationists simply fudge or
>ignore the numbers!
Ditto the evolutionists who will go to practially ANY lengths to prove
God/The Creator doesn't exist.
You also don't account for how many scientists are Creationists, such
as my nuclear physicist friend as mentioned above. And you forget, in
your ranting against creationism that at least 3 of the shuttle
astronauts who recently died in the latest shuttle disaster were
Creationist Christians.
Again, their mindset has been trained so that they
>cannot even conceive of the difficulties of their position.
Ditto. There has been EXHAUSTIVE study of creation/science. You
believe what you choose to believe, we do as well. But your mistake is
to believe erroneously that there is NO proof whatever for creation;
that simply isn't so. We continue to prove creation, and the
pseudo-scientist evolutionists go back to the drawing board to "prove"
once again that creation isn't true. This is merely an attack on God,
not on science.
Moon dust is a proof of a very young universe; a can of tuna fish can
be used to disprove evolution and prove creation. And there is valid
evidence that, not only did man live concurrently with the dinosaurs
(that means at the same time as), but some dinosaurs--the smaller
ones, even live today.
Some lizards are ANCIENT lifeforms. Scientists cannot date the age of
sharks, other than they've been around "pre-historically", and
crocodiles and alligators also qualify.
Another life form the "scientists" ignore is the teradactyls that are
alive and well in the jungles of South America. Ignoring those facts
that poke the largest holes in your theories is NOT science.
>
>So yes, it is funny in a sad sort of way. I understand because I was a
>fundamentalist and believed implicitly their literature. I even argued
>with my professors about it.
What changed your mind? It wasn't science!
John W
J M
wrote:
And survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the deaf
classical musician. Was it Beethoven?
Survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the blind musicians,
Ronny Milsap, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.
Who on this earth would want to live in a world without Ronny Milsap,
Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles?
Not to mention the SEVERAL Idiot Savants whose gifts are music. I've
seen two blind idiot savants who are GIFTED concert pianists.
I am mentally ill myself; of that, I've made no secret. Yet I've
changed history already. And my writing CONTINUES to change the
culture locally.
By YOUR definition of "survival of the fittest" there would be no sick
or lame or otherwise "infirm" among us. Yet even the Downs Syndrome
folk can contribute. I see them in stores, as clerks, I rode the bus
with one a few weks ago, a pretty young lady of 24 who had a boyfriend
and was on her way to her job. We carried on a VERY nice conversation.
She is no idiot. While her IQ may be below average, if she has an IQ
of 100, she can contribute.
Don't forget the Downs Syndrome young man who had his own TV series
seveveral years ago, for several years. Although it never caught on,
it gained CRITICAL praise.
Don't fool yourself; "survival of the fittest" is merely a theory, and
an unproven one at that..
John W
Andromeda
"J M" <jus...@nobody.com> wrote in message
news:ohq2bv45aggp0h1gn...@4ax.com...
> classical musician. Was it Beethoven?
Yes, Beethoven ...
Michael
<tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote:
> Cloud McCloud wrote:
> > On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
> > <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
> > news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
> >
> >
> >>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
> >>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
> >>in genetics and other areas.
> >
> >
> > Haha! That's funny!
> >
>
> It is rather ironic, isn't it? But it is a fact. In researching human
> diseases, much profitable work has centered on primates because of their
> closeness to the human genome. In other animals, scientists have to be
> more careful. A laboratory rat is similar to humans genetically in lots
> of ways, but the differences tend to make the observations less
> transferrable. But knowing the relationships and the relative distances
> between the relationships has made identifications of the causes of
> certain diseases much easier.
Not sure that it has anything to do with evolution, the DNA of mice and
men have a common Creator.
>
> In most of the other sciences, evolution as applied to that branch of
> science helps provide the continuity needed to understand what is
> happening. Understanding the evolution of stars allowed us to predict
> and actually map black holes.
Stars do not evolve anymore than a toddler evolved into a adult. What a
toddler does is already programmed into the DNA by the Creator, there is
no process of evolution taking place. Accurately map black holes? No
one has yet proved that they even exist, and their theory is based upon
physics calculations in the legacy of Einstein, not evolution.
>
> Evolution is the only answer for the extreme biological diversity of
> today's world,
Of course, the Creator is an equally valid alternative.
whether you believe in the Flood of Noah or not. In fact,
> if you believe in the Flood of Noah, you must ascede to a rate of
> evolution in the last few thousand years vastly exceeding anything that
> we observe today.
So exactly where do we observe family to family evolution today? Are you
saying that tomatoes are morphing into giraffes again? Intraspecies
variations all pre programmed into the DNA is observed, but that is not
evolution.
Where can we see this? If there is no evolution, whether or not one
believes in the flood, there is no need for evolution to have occurred
withing any time period.
The numbers just don't work otherwise.
Of course not, there was no evolution.
Of course, the
> desire to deny evolution makes a lot of creationists simply fudge or
> ignore the numbers!
What numbers? If the species and families were Created, the numbers
simply make fundie evolutionists fudge or ignor the reality.
Again, their mindset has been trained so that they
> cannot even conceive of the difficulties of their position.
Fundie evolutionary mindset has been trained so that they
cannot even conceive of the difficulties of their position.
>
> So yes, it is funny in a sad sort of way. I understand because I was a
> fundamentalist and believed implicitly their literature. I even argued
> with my professors about it.
You were smozzed. That is funny in a sad sort of way. BTW if you were
really a fundamentalist and not a troll, you would have said "I understand
because I was a fundamentalist and believed implicitly my literature."
--
Michael
People who donšt read newspapers are better off than those
who do because it is better to be uninformed than misinformed.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Dave Oldridge
4ax.com:
> On Thu, 01 May 2003 10:10:28 -0400, "Raymond E. Griffith"
> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote:
>
>>Cloud McCloud wrote:
>>> On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
>>> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
>>> news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
>>>>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
>>>>in genetics and other areas.
>>>
>>>
>>> Haha! That's funny!
>>>
>>
>>It is rather ironic, isn't it? But it is a fact. In researching human
>>diseases, much profitable work has centered on primates because of their
>>closeness to the human genome. In other animals, scientists have to be
>>more careful. A laboratory rat is similar to humans genetically in lots
>>of ways, but the differences tend to make the observations less
>>transferrable. But knowing the relationships and the relative distances
>>between the relationships has made identifications of the causes of
>>certain diseases much easier.
>>
>
> It would make PERFECT sense that the creator would make similar
> species of the same building blocks. Why start "from scratch" each
> time?
Hmmm. Lessee. You're claiming that the mutation that gives anthropoidea a
need to eat vitamin-C or suffer from scurvy was CREATED separately in both
chimps and humans and that the system was partially constructed with the
correct genes for three of the necessary enzymes and then broken by
smashing up the same gene in both species. On purpose? And you want us
to WORSHIP the idiot who did this?
Personally, I'd rather accept this as evidence that shows we descend from
a common ancestor. Especially since it's accompanied by literally
hundreds of similar examples of errors that are copied into both genomes.
Your notion seems to be blasphemous.
>>In most of the other sciences, evolution as applied to that branch of
>>science helps provide the continuity needed to understand what is
>>happening. Understanding the evolution of stars allowed us to predict
>>and actually map black holes.
>>Evolution is the only answer for the extreme biological diversity of
>>today's world, whether you believe in the Flood of Noah or not.
> Nonsense. Creation can EASILY acount for the various species. The
> varieties within each species would be the only "evolution," depending
> on environmental and other factors.
Creation doesn't account for the genetics. Not unless you want to imply a
horrible blasphemy.
> For a LONG time, the "scientists" believed that there was some
> evolution at work in London and the surrounding area where the dark
> moths and butterflys were found only in one area and the lightly
> colored moths and butterflys were found only in another area.
> Then someone with some SENSE put together that the birds could more
> easily see the moths and butterflys that didn't blend into their
> environment. DUH!
Which is, actually, natural selection at work. Moths that hang out in the
wrong coloured places end up being bird food more often than those that
blend. That's exactly what Darwin wrote about.
> One scientist a few years ago wrote back to his bosses that he'd found
> the duckbilled platypus. Other "scientists" including his bosses
> scoffed. "It's not POSSIBLE for such a creature to exist. Stop
> drinking so much, stay off the local dope, and come home!"
>
> When he came home WITH the duckbilled platypus he'd found, the
> "scientists" who'd laughed stopped laughing.
Of course. Physical evidence always trumps bookworms.
> There will NEVER be any "evidence" found for creation so long as
> "scientists" don't look for.it. Imagine the difficulty of finding the
> needle in the haystack if you aren't searching for it.
Believe me, "scientists" are looking for it. If there were any scientific
evidence for special creation, don't you think the professional
creationists would be trumpeting it from the rooftops? Instead they are
reduced to telling one fib after another attacking evolution.
> In fact, if you believe in the Flood of Noah, you must ascede to a
> rate of evolution in the last few thousand years vastly exceeding
> anything that we observe today.
>
> Your point? YOU as other pseudo-scientists ASSUME that life is
> "evolving" or growing at the same rate now as it always did. Not
No, that's not an assumption. The rate measured from the fossil record is
about .6 darwins and that's the same rate we're observing in nature now.
> necessarily so. And that comes from a nuclear physicist friend of mine
> who worked on the Manhattan Project. I'm assuming you know what the
> Manhattan Project was. In fact, one of the last times I saw him, he
> was working on a NEW "Fat Man".
Apparently your friend is good at physics. He should either steer clear
of biology or do his homework before pontificating, though. His
qualifications are probably not as good as mine and MY first science is
physics.
>> The numbers just don't work otherwise. Of course, the
>>desire to deny evolution makes a lot of creationists simply fudge or
>>ignore the numbers!
>
> Ditto the evolutionists who will go to practially ANY lengths to prove
> God/The Creator doesn't exist.
Wrong again. Science doesn't care about your theology (even though the
Church would probably deem you heterodox). It doesn't care about MY
theology either (and the Church would probably deem mine orthodox).
Science is the study of PHYSICAL nature. Its evidence is physical in
nature and its findings are about physical nature, not about theology.
> You also don't account for how many scientists are Creationists, such
> as my nuclear physicist friend as mentioned above. And you forget, in
> your ranting against creationism that at least 3 of the shuttle
> astronauts who recently died in the latest shuttle disaster were
> Creationist Christians.
Hmmmm.....sure you're not exaggerating? I mean ALL Christians believe
that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. What
we're discussing here, though is the physical events that mark that
creation.
>> Again, their mindset has been trained so that they
>>cannot even conceive of the difficulties of their position.
> Ditto. There has been EXHAUSTIVE study of creation/science. You
I find that difficult to believe. The bulk of creation science so-called
that I read is very superficial. It tends to jump to conclusions on the
basis of very poorly-understood evidence, as long as the conclusions seem
to support the theological claims of the heresy.
> believe what you choose to believe, we do as well. But your mistake is
> to believe erroneously that there is NO proof whatever for creation;
> that simply isn't so. We continue to prove creation, and the
> pseudo-scientist evolutionists go back to the drawing board to "prove"
> once again that creation isn't true. This is merely an attack on God,
> not on science.
I have yet to see any hard evidence for creation that you could test
scientifically. What I see a lot of is stuff like this:
> Moon dust is a proof of a very young universe; a can of tuna fish can
> be used to disprove evolution and prove creation. And there is valid
> evidence that, not only did man live concurrently with the dinosaurs
> (that means at the same time as), but some dinosaurs--the smaller
> ones, even live today.
There is about 4.5 billion years worth of moon dust. That's right. You
have been lied to by professional liars who have been corrected over and
over again. Sensible creationists don't use this hustle any more because
it stopped working years ago. You see the astronauts actually left
apparatus on the moon that measures the ACTUAL infall and guess what, it's
quite consistent with other estimates of the moon's age.
I have no idea how you could disprove evolution with a can of tuna.
Sounds like you're peddling something a lot smellier than tuna to me.
> Some lizards are ANCIENT lifeforms. Scientists cannot date the age of
> sharks, other than they've been around "pre-historically", and
> crocodiles and alligators also qualify.
Not so.
> Another life form the "scientists" ignore is the teradactyls that are
> alive and well in the jungles of South America. Ignoring those facts
> that poke the largest holes in your theories is NOT science.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Nobody has found any such thing. And even if we did, it
would be proof of the survival of pterodactyls, not disproof of evolution.
>>So yes, it is funny in a sad sort of way. I understand because I was a
>>fundamentalist and believed implicitly their literature. I even argued
>>with my professors about it.
>
> What changed your mind? It wasn't science!
Actually what blew me right off of fundamentalism in my youth was the
preacher standing up in his pulpit and preaching hatred of every religion
but our own pathetic little sect. The science was causing me doubts, but
he made me certain. I suffered at their hands, and would have probably
ended up an agnostic or atheist if God had not directly intervened and put
me to work in HIS cause. But that's another story.
--
Dave Oldridge+
Dave Oldridge
> On Thu, 1 May 2003 11:10:22 -0500, "Helps" <wcl...@charter.net>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Cloud McCloud" <cl...@cloud.com> wrote in message
>>news:asmdb0$ss23f$2...@news.tssrnet.com...
>>> On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
>>> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
>>> news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
>>>
>>> > Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of
>>> > the sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great
>>> > advances in genetics and other areas.
>>>
>>> Haha! That's funny!
>>
>>It really is: this is a grand unifier which has none of its supposed
>>data avaialble (ie fossil record as predicted by Darwin) and cuts the
>>throat of any grad student that says that the emperor has no clothes.
>>BTB, it is not evolution which is at question here really BUT ONLY
>>EVOLUTION as the mechanism for descent with change.
>>Survival of the fittest: a tautology
>>
> And survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the deaf
> classical musician. Was it Beethoven?
You really do like to display your ignorance blatantly, don't you?
> Survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the blind musicians,
> Ronny Milsap, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.
>
> Who on this earth would want to live in a world without Ronny Milsap,
> Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles?
Not me. Survival of the fittest is not a program for action. It simply
happens. The child with a mutated gene that cannot metabolize sugar dies
in the womb too early to call it a miscarriage. Sad? Maybe. True? Yep!
Happens more than we like to think. And trillions of sperm and billions
of ova are lost to human reproduction every month. Blind or not, all of
these people were successful at surviving. Beethoven has living
descendants.
> Not to mention the SEVERAL Idiot Savants whose gifts are music. I've
> seen two blind idiot savants who are GIFTED concert pianists.
That's nice.
> I am mentally ill myself; of that, I've made no secret. Yet I've
> changed history already. And my writing CONTINUES to change the
> culture locally.
Hmmmm...you'd probably get me to agree to the first part of that, though
you are a bit more coherent than the average creationist who posts in
these echoes.
> By YOUR definition of "survival of the fittest" there would be no sick
> or lame or otherwise "infirm" among us. Yet even the Downs Syndrome
> folk can contribute. I see them in stores, as clerks, I rode the bus
> with one a few weks ago, a pretty young lady of 24 who had a boyfriend
> and was on her way to her job. We carried on a VERY nice conversation.
> She is no idiot. While her IQ may be below average, if she has an IQ
> of 100, she can contribute.
And many of them do.
> Don't forget the Downs Syndrome young man who had his own TV series
> seveveral years ago, for several years. Although it never caught on,
> it gained CRITICAL praise.
>
> Don't fool yourself; "survival of the fittest" is merely a theory, and
> an unproven one at that..
No, it's more of a tautology than a theory. The genes that survive to
reproduce themselves are the "fittest." Human ideas about fitness may not
have much to do with that particular reality. Who is fittest? The macho
warrior who goes out and gets himself killed without having any children,
or the girl who stays home and is mother to three children, raising them
to be successful parents themselves?
Evolution says the girl is.
--
Dave Oldridge
Dave Oldridge
@twister.tampabay.rr.com:
Some Buddhists would argue exactly that. But Buddha was somewhat non-
commital on the subject of deities. Basically he said that unless you
were enlightened, talking about deities was entirely meaningless
speculation.
John Ings
<nospam-pa...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>They have a fixed perception which they are unable to change (like equating
>>evolution with abiogenesis).
>
>It's not a matter of "equating".
Of course it is!
>It's simply that you cannot have one without the other.
Why not? God could have created the first simple life on earth, then
sat back to see what would evolve.
> If you wish to rule out a Creator God,
A creator God is not ruled out by science. Only a Creator God who did
his creating in the manner described in the Babylonian mythology of
Genesis.
>then you forced to follow the trail
>back and explain how the first living thing got here,
>to evolve into something else.
And the trail is there to follow.
>It is the evolutionists, who all know that they cannot
>do that,
But they can, and did.
>that wish to separate the two, as if they are
>completely unrelated,
It's doubtful that they are unrelated, but it's possible. In any case
evolution is an undeniable fact, however the first life originated.
>>It is an axiom to the YECs that Evolution has
>>to be a religion.
>
>When you believe what you believe by faith, which is
>what those who believe in macroevolution must do,
When it's been observed? Hardly.
>then that qualifies as a religion.
Not in the sense that the word religion is normally used. Religion is
usually taken to involve worship, prayer, altars and suchlike.
>>The reason they believe this is because they simply cannot
>>see someone being dedicated to a *science*. To them, dedication must be a
>>kind of *faith*.
>
>"Science" is a methodology, not a conclusion. It makes
>no conclusions about the data.
Balderdash. Science is a methodology leading to inferences and
conclusions.
>Therefore, when one
>claim macroevolution and cannot back it up, they are
>clinging to their faith in the conclusions of others
>and not to "science".
But they can back it up. There exists whole libraries of evidence.
>>They also tend to perceive evolutionists the way evolutionists perceive
>>creationists. Creationists tend to be dishonest and lie about the evidence
>>because they believe that to admit to the evidence that is there would be a
>>denial of faith.
>
>That is your conclusion and it is quite an arrogant one
From my obsevations of Creationist publications I'd say it's quite
accurate.
>at that. "Evolutionists are honest and all
>Creationists are lying.
Who said that?
> They must be, because what I
>believe is right and what they believe is wrong.".
A nicely stuffed strawman you've set up there. Now let's phrase it the
way it would be said--
"The majority of scientists are honest and the majority of Creationist
propagandists are dishonest. The majority of those who believe the
Creationist propagandists, like the ones commonly found in newsgroups,
are merely scientifically illiterate dupes. "
> You
>are quite guilty of the same attitude that you ascribe
>to Creationists. You also falsely claim that they are
>"lying".
No, it's the Creationst press that lies.
>The Creationists I know, firmly believe what
>they're saying to be the truth.
Because you don't know shit from shinola about science. But many who
publish the stuff you believe have to know they are lying unless their
scientific degrees are phony like Hovind's.
>>They believe this so strongly that they fool themselves
>>into not seeing the evidence that is present!
>
>Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black!
No it isn't.
>Please show me one single clear and gradual progression
>of fossils, from one kind to another (ape to man, land
>dwelling mammals to whales, etc.). You can't do it.
Because it isn't there and proving it happened that way is NOT
necessary to proving evolution, as you've been told so many times that
now you ARE edging toward dishonesty. You can't set up your own
private version of evolutionary development and then claim evolution
doesn't happen because it doesn't happen your way.
>You can only show me evidence of microevolution
No we can show you macroevolution, observed and documented. The very
thing you're claiming is impossible while failing to show any reason
that it should be.
> which reationists state clearly, is a fact of science.
Because it is.
>Then
>you'll try to tell me that there is no such thing as
>macro and micro evolution, when in fact, we both know
>that there is.
Stuffing another strawman are we?
>>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
>>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances in
>>genetics and other areas.
>
>"Sciences" are not conclusions
Sciences present conclusions.
>and if you wish to claim
>that evolution "unifies the sciences",
I'll leave Raymond to defend that stance.
I don't quite accept it myself.
>then how is it
>that you dare to claim that evolution and abiogenesis
>have nothing to do with each other?
I don't say they are not related. But I will continue to object
whenever Creationists term the origin of life 'evolution'.
>>They see evolution as simply confined to
>>speculations about origins, as if we cannot possibly test or know or
>>understand anything about the past.
>
>And there is another false statement. No Creationist
>ever said that you cannot "test or know anything about
>the past".
I've seen that statement in newsgroup posts many times.
>>They see it as the religion of science
>
>Untrue. Science is wonderful. Conclusions about data
>may not be.
Your ignorance of what science is and is not appears to be extremely
limited.
>>because, to them, the determination of scientists to learn about and control
>>the world is a denial of God, His power, and His authority.
>
>Wrong again. Bible believing Christians contributed
>more to getting modern science going than atheists,
>that's for sure.
Yeah, but they didn't believe the Bible the way you do
>Who do you think started the great
>learning facilities, such as Harvard and Yale, along
>with science programs?
The church. But the academics then turned and bit their masters.
Harvard and Yale and the European universities were indeed started by
the churches, and were expected to turn out nice Bible-believing
Christian scholars. Only it turned out that scientific discovery tends
to belie the biblical version of things. First the astronomers found
that reality didn't match what the Bible claimed. Then the geologists
rebelled against biblical dogma. Then the biologists. Lately it's been
the archaeologists. No wonder that 60% of university professors say
they have no belief in a personal God. If it weren't for seminaries
associated with many universities, the percentage would be higher.
As H.L. Mencken put it--
"The truth is that every priest who really understands the nature of
his business is well aware that science is its natural and implacable
enemy . . . The truth is that Christian theology like every other
theology, is opposed to the scientific spirit, it is also opposed to
all attempts at rational thinking."
But don't leap up and claim that proves science is against God.
It's Christian theology and the Bible that has withered in the flame
of scientific investigation, not God.
>As for the authority and power of God, you deny that,
>when you deny his written word to mankind, which
>clearly states a six day Creation.
No 'Pastor'. Denying the Bible isn't denying God.
>>For example, many fundamentalists claim to read the Scriptures literally,
>>"for what it says". The fact that they do so selectively and engage in very
>>liberal interpretations and additions to the meaning quite often is apparent
>>to everyone -- but themselves. They have grown up with this kind of
>>thinking, and to them it seems natural and right. The fact that this kind of
>>thinking would never work in the laboratory never crosses their mind.
>
>The fact is, that the Bible is normally very clear
>about what is literal and what isn't.
And it clearly says the world is round and flat with a dome over it.
But as Raymond observes, you guys get conveniently selective about
that wowser.
>>So perhaps we should be charitable. I have come to the conclusion that they
>>can't help it. It would take a miracle to come out from it.
>
>Your insults are noted.
As is your scientific ignorance.
>In the beginning, God created...
Maybe. But not the way the Bible says...
>Don't tell me you believe the end,
>if you don't believe the beginning.
I don't believe the beginning, the end or the middle.
## The mind of the Creationist is like concrete: Mixed up and set.
Dave Oldridge
> On Thu, 01 May 2003 07:22:18 -0400, "Raymond E.
> Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote:
>
>
>>They have a fixed perception which they are unable to change (like
>>equating evolution with abiogenesis).
>
> It's not a matter of "equating". It's simply that you
> cannot have one without the other. If you wish to rule
> out a Creator God, then you forced to follow the trail
> back and explain how the first living thing got here,
> to evolve into something else.
It may come as a surprise to you that evolution is not the same thing as a
"wish to rule out a Creator God." It's an observation about how
biological diversity arises and changes through time.
>
> It is the evolutionists, who all know that they cannot
> do that, that wish to separate the two, as if they are
> completely unrelated, or they wave their hand and
> dismiss the question, pretending that it doesn't
> matter, when in reality, it is the ultimate question
> that they will be presented with.
This is gobbledygook. Do you write anything that rhymes? If you do, then
the above might make a start on some mediocre amphigory.
>>It is an axiom to the YECs that Evolution has
>>to be a religion.
>
> When you believe what you believe by faith, which is
> what those who believe in macroevolution must do, then
> that qualifies as a religion.
Macroevolution is demonstrated by the genetics of living organisms and by
the fossil record. The fact that YOU don't believe it is connected to the
fact that you will not even consider the evidence but prefer to lie about
it.
>>The reason they believe this is because they simply cannot
>>see someone being dedicated to a *science*. To them, dedication must
>>be a kind of *faith*.
> "Science" is a methodology, not a conclusion. It makes
> no conclusions about the data. Therefore, when one
> claim macroevolution and cannot back it up, they are
> clinging to their faith in the conclusions of others
> and not to "science".
Wrong. Science uses its data in logical inferences all the time. And it
erects theories that are consistent both with the data themselves and the
logical inferences deduced from them. And we CAN "back up" the claim that
macroevolution has occurred.
Let's go through this again.
Are chimps and humans the same or different "kinds?"
If they are different, then science has ALREADY falsified the theory that
the biblical statement that animals reproduce after their own kind is a
rigid law of nature (rather than just a general comment on how it
generally works).
>>They also tend to perceive evolutionists the way evolutionists
>>perceive creationists. Creationists tend to be dishonest and lie about
>>the evidence because they believe that to admit to the evidence that
>>is there would be a denial of faith.
> That is your conclusion and it is quite an arrogant one
> at that. "Evolutionists are honest and all
> Creationists are lying. They must be, because what I
> believe is right and what they believe is wrong.". You
> are quite guilty of the same attitude that you ascribe
> to Creationists. You also falsely claim that they are
> "lying". The Creationists I know, firmly believe what
> they're saying to be the truth.
Scientists certainly do lie from time to time for the same reasons that
professional creationists probably do it. But the methodology of science,
when properly applied tends to expose these lies sooner or later.
Professional creationists, on the other hand do not use the scientific
method and tend to recycle the same old refuted lies time and time again.
In fact a great deal of the apologetic seems designed to appeal to the
emotions of the uneducated rather than to actually convince the scientists
of their alleged "errors." That alone implies that the professional
creationists know what they are doing and know that it is an evil thing
they are doing.
>>They believe this so strongly that they fool themselves
>>into not seeing the evidence that is present!
> Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black!
> Please show me one single clear and gradual progression
> of fossils, from one kind to another (ape to man, land
> dwelling mammals to whales, etc.). You can't do it.
Depending what you mean by "kind" we can do it. But you see the fossils
are only markers on the genetic landscape revealed by studying the genes
themselves, which carry living fossils of everything that has happened to
the ancestors of the present organisms.
> You can only show me evidence of microevolution, which
> Creationists state clearly, is a fact of science. Then
> you'll try to tell me that there is no such thing as
> macro and micro evolution, when in fact, we both know
> that there is.
I have shown you strong evidence that humans and chimps share a common
ancestor. That evidence gets stronger every day as more of the chimp
genome is sequenced. Already there are numerous viral insertions that
form a smoking gun. If humans and chimps can evolve from a common
ancestor in less than 10 million years, what diversity would you expect in
70 million years, or in 500 million years? Why does the fossil record,
spotty as it is, still support this picture?
>>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
>>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances in
>>genetics and other areas.
> "Sciences" are not conclusions and if you wish to claim
> that evolution "unifies the sciences", then how is it
> that you dare to claim that evolution and abiogenesis
> have nothing to do with each other? That's a
> contradiction and outright hypocrisy.
It's not that they have nothing to do with one another, it's just that
creationists tend to get the dependency relationship backwards. We do not
need abiogenesis to see that evolution is occurring and has occurred in
the past. But those scientists studying abiogenesis do need evolution.
By that I mean the question they are trying to answer is how evolution got
started in the first place. You are acting like the old duffer who denied
that airplanes could fly because he'd never seen one take off. The fact
that he could see airplanes in the sky was irrelevant to his "reasoning"
and he would only accept the notion that they could fly if he could see
one take off.
>>They see evolution as simply confined to
>>speculations about origins, as if we cannot possibly test or know or
>>understand anything about the past.
> And there is another false statement. No Creationist
> ever said that you cannot "test or know anything about
> the past". You're being dishonest now.
Uh, I HAVE heard SOME creationists make exactly this claim.
>>They see it as the religion of science
>
> Untrue. Science is wonderful. Conclusions about data
> may not be.
If you dispute the conclusions, then you need to show your logic. If you
cannot, then you might as well just be blowing bubbles for all the cogency
your words have.
>>because, to them, the determination of scientists to learn about and
>>control the world is a denial of God, His power, and His authority.
> Wrong again. Bible believing Christians contributed
> more to getting modern science going than atheists,
> that's for sure. Who do you think started the great
> learning facilities, such as Harvard and Yale, along
> with science programs?
I tend to agree, though I would drop the "Bible believing" part because
the Church has never imputed infallibility to scripture, though it
generally seems to impute it to a general ecumenical council.
> As for the authority and power of God, you deny that,
> when you deny his written word to mankind, which
> clearly states a six day Creation.
But, you see, it doesn't. At least not in the literal sense you mean.
Indeed, the Bible warns us in another metaphor that, to God, a thousand
years is but a day. And I wouldn't cavil at a billion years having the
same significance because, you see, I don't think God sees OUR timelike
dimension as timelike at all.
>>For example, many fundamentalists claim to read the Scriptures
>>literally, "for what it says". The fact that they do so selectively
>>and engage in very liberal interpretations and additions to the
>>meaning quite often is apparent to everyone -- but themselves. They
>>have grown up with this kind of thinking, and to them it seems natural
>>and right. The fact that this kind of thinking would never work in the
>>laboratory never crosses their mind.
>
> The fact is, that the Bible is normally very clear
> about what is literal and what isn't.
But then, if, as you claim, Genesis 1-11 is meant to be a literal account
of creation, it is a false one. Because the physical evidence shows it to
be false. So you're left with either admitting that the Bible is false,
or that you have not interpreted it correctly. Or else you're telling us
that the physical evidence is a lie. Now that physical evidence is, in
fact, what God has (according to the Bible) created Himself. Thus you
have a book that says God did one thing and the thing itself implies the
book is wrong. There are three possibilities here:
1. The book is wrong.
2. Your understanding of the book is wrong.
3. God is deceptive.
Apparently you prefer #1. but haven't the guts to admit it to your
"sheep" so you run around casting aspersions on those who study the
physical evidence in the hope that nobody will notice your cowardice.
Now, you could try entertaining #2. That would not require you to abandon
the book but it would require you to abandon your own self-worship and to
admit that you had erred. That may be more than your meager supply of
courage is capable of.
Then again, you could try #3. But the only people I see trying to run
that one by me are outright demonolaters.
Of course part of this dilemma is caused by the claim that God wrote
Genesis 1-11 in the first place. Nowhere is that claim made by God. It
is always made by men.
>>So perhaps we should be charitable. I have come to the conclusion that
>>they can't help it. It would take a miracle to come out from it.
>
> Your insults are noted.
Hmmmph! Salvation is always a miracle when it occurs. It's the greatest
of them all.
Reuben Hick
> What this moron...
REUBEN
What a statement of irony, later in the post you say that in identifying a
religion when "someone zealously pursues it and is preoccupied with it".
Your first statement about Dr. Hovind is that he is a "moron". Without
substantiation, your assessment is typical of one who is so "zealously
preoccupied" with a contrary view that one irrationally lashes out at those
who do not agree with your feelings.
>DAVID
> cannot seem to figure out is that religion can be a
> very broad term and also can be very narrow in its meaning. "Religion"
> has many definitions in Webster's Dictionary and to hop from one
> definition of religion to another definition of religion in midstream
> is extremely deceptive.
REUBEN
Yes it could be, but how does this apply to Hovind? Isn't it being
deceptive to make gratuitous statements about someone with the expectation
that the reader will uncritically assume your statements apply to the object
of your scorn?
>DAVID
> The Constitution forbids that the legislative
> branch shall pass no law favoring or harming "religion".
REUBEN
You are really being deliberately deceptive now.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
This means that the US Congress cannot setup Washington DC as its own
Vatican, or create a Church of the United States. It does not, and history
bares this out, prohibits the government for "favoring" a particular
religion. It is either a deliberate attempt on your part to lie, or you may
genuinely be ignorant of the religious history of the united States, and the
Christian requirements encoded in the various State Constitutions. In the
Declaration of Independance direct references to the Creator God is
mentioned. in the USC, direct reference was made to Jesus Christ as Lord
over the united States is made. If you had troubled yourself to read the
biographies of this nation's forefathers, you would discover that most and
almost all were prominent Christian men. Many of these men also started or
managed Christian ministries. For people who genuinely believe in God, it
would be contrary to their nature to deny Him in this nation's founding
documents, particularly when they truly believed that their actions were
directed by God.
>DAVID
> Yes, creationism is definitely a religious teaching.
REUBEN
Being a religious teaching does not also make it irrelevant or false. Quite
simply, if God is real and is who He says He is, then one must conclude that
Creationism is the best explanation of origins since this same God revealed
this as truth.
>DAVID
> What about Evolution? Since evolution falls under no definition of
> religion with the possible exception of definition #7 (the zealous
> pursuit and involvement in an activity) it can be called a religion in
> the very broad sense as when someone zealously pursues it and is
> preoccupied with it.
REUBEN
This is a blind spot in your reasoning.
In Evolution, you have all of the basic tenets of a religion.
Evolution has a god called "Chance".
Evolution has a faith system that requires perfect belief in
uniformitarianism, billions of years, beneficial mutations, information from
nowhere, matter ex nihilo, impossible odds, uncaused causes and a host of
other totally unprovable actions and violations of physical laws and logic.
Evolution has its priests: you can find these ministers in biology
classrooms, media, government publications, etc.
Evolution has its Bible: Darwin's Book "On the Origin of the Species by
Means of Natural Selection, Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the
Struggle for Life"
Evolution has its own excommunication process.
Evolution has its philosophy that attempts to answer the questions: Who Am
I? Where Did I Come From? Where Will I Go? and Why Am I Here? (in each
case the answer is rather grim)
Evolution has its own code of morality: described quite plainly in the
Humanist Manifesto, and demonstrated in projects like human eugenics,
euthenasia, and collectivism.
>REUBEN
> In that case, it is a bird of a different color
> and doesn't fall under the Constitutional ammendment.
REUBEN
You have already exposed yourself as not being a Constitutional scholar, so
your conclusions are irrelevant wishfull rantings of a person with an
emotional commitment to an unstable religion of despair.
Roadrunner
"Raymond E. Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in message
news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net...
You really think all that. That I call ignorance! It's completely besides
the point.
>
> >
> >> Whatever it is, I want none of it.
> >
> > No honest person would.
>
> The funny thing is that the creationists say the same thing about the
> evolutionists. And they believe it. They honestly believe they are being
> honest. They do not have the capability to see how their mental processes
> make them treat Scientific data, the Scriptures, and many other things
> differently depending upon their comfort level with it.
>
> For example, many fundamentalists claim to read the Scriptures literally,
> "for what it says". The fact that they do so selectively and engage in
very
> liberal interpretations and additions to the meaning quite often is
apparent
> to everyone -- but themselves. They have grown up with this kind of
> thinking, and to them it seems natural and right. The fact that this kind
of
> thinking would never work in the laboratory never crosses their mind.
>
> So perhaps we should be charitable. I have come to the conclusion that
they
> can't help it. It would take a miracle to come out from it.
Is that so? I'm not a christian, however what I do know is that evolution
is a fraude. The facts of this earth tell a very different story.
Steven J.
>
> >Survival of the fittest: a tautology
>
>
> And survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the deaf
> classical musician. Was it Beethoven?
>
Note that survival of the fittest is not really a tautology -- that
is, the fittest are not defined, retroactively, as "whatever
survives." Survival of the fittest means that some variations within
a population help individuals (in that environment -- a trait which is
fitter in one environment may be less fit in another) leave more
descendants, consistently. That is, survival is not random with
respect to hereditary variation. It's better for mammals to have
thick white fur in the arctic winter than thin, brown fur. Mutations
which tend to make their fur thicker or whiter will be consistently
favored. This is why the peppered moth is a favored example of
natural selection -- you can look at the pictures (the black and grey
moths on soot-covered and lichen-covered bark, respectively), and
*see* why one color scheme is fitter in one environment, and less fit
in the other.
Note also that survival of the fittest is not a moral principle. It
is a description of how the world works, not how evolutionary
biologists would like it to work. You can't reason from "mindless
nature wouldn't favor individuals with this trait" to "therefore *I*
shouldn't favor them, either." Any decision you make regarding
selection is as "natural" as any other; you can't serve the
(nonexistent, as far as we can tell) goals of natural selection.
>
> Survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the blind musicians,
> Ronny Milsap, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.
>
Strictly speaking, for that to be true blindness would have to be
hereditary (since natural selection applies to gene frequencies within
a population), and blind individuals would have to have fewer
descendants than those without the allele (gene) for blindness.
>
> Who on this earth would want to live in a world without Ronny Milsap,
> Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles?
>
Well, logically, if you were, you wouldn't miss them. Since they're
here, natural selection says nothing about how they should be treated.
>
> Not to mention the SEVERAL Idiot Savants whose gifts are music. I've
> seen two blind idiot savants who are GIFTED concert pianists.
>
You seem, again, to be confusing natural selection with a moral code
-- trying to derive "ought" statements from "is" statements alone.
This does not work.
>
> I am mentally ill myself; of that, I've made no secret. Yet I've
> changed history already. And my writing CONTINUES to change the
> culture locally.
>
> By YOUR definition of "survival of the fittest" there would be no sick
> or lame or otherwise "infirm" among us. Yet even the Downs Syndrome
> folk can contribute. I see them in stores, as clerks, I rode the bus
> with one a few weks ago, a pretty young lady of 24 who had a boyfriend
> and was on her way to her job. We carried on a VERY nice conversation.
> She is no idiot. While her IQ may be below average, if she has an IQ
> of 100, she can contribute.
>
Natural selection is not about contributions to society, or the rights
of individuals. It is about how populations change over time, because
not all genes are equally likely to be passed to descendants.
>
> Don't forget the Downs Syndrome young man who had his own TV series
> seveveral years ago, for several years. Although it never caught on,
> it gained CRITICAL praise.
>
> Don't fool yourself; "survival of the fittest" is merely a theory, and
> an unproven one at that..
>
Natural selection no more tells us to discriminate against the
handicapped, than gravitational theory tells us to push them off
buildings.
>
> John W
-- Steven J.
Steven J.
don't. All versions have, however, the "attendant obligations and
rituals." All deal with how humans *ought* to live.
-- Steven J.
David Lee
Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
makes it a religion.
David Lee
No, ahem, it does NOT. Just believing something on faith does not make
it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the definiton of
religion that says believing in anything on "faith" alone as you call
it makes it a religion. There is no such defintion. It is a defintion
made up out of thin air by Creationists. If I believe on "faith" that
my car will start up when I turn the key that does NOT magically make
it a religion. If I believe, on "faith", that the I will get shocked
if I stick a wire in the electric outlet in my room that does not make
it a religion. You can stomp your foot, shake your fist, contort your
face and insist a thousand times that believing anything on faith
makes that a religion you better back it up with a defintion out of a
dictionary and stop making up your own. The only time faith becomes a
religion is when it is combined with belief in a deity, stupid.
Consider this example. You and I are on the 64th floor of a Manhattan
skyscraper and there is no balcony. You, on "faith" step out and
plummet to your death. Your "faith" that there was a balcony there
didn't change the fact there was none there. That is the kind of faith
Creationists have. Blind Faith.
Now there is another kind of "faith" falsely so called, but I will use
it anyway, for sake of argument. Scientific "faith" applies when I see
a balcony attached to the side of the building. Due to my past
experiences with balconies I have built up a number of experiences and
have well grounded "faith" that this balcony will hold my weight.
Unlike your foolish plunge to death, I exercise "faith" based on
experience and step out unto the balcony. Is it possible that my
"faith" could fail me? Yes, it is. This balcony could be the one that
gives way, sending me to my death. But I have a reasonable expectation
due to life's experience and I would be a fool to shun balconies on
the mere possibility it would not hold my weight.
Now here is an assignment for you Dave. Without going to
fundamentalistic, Creationistic Dictionaries, make the effort to use a
REAL dictionary, one that is used by scholars of all stripes and the
rank and file of the english speaking world. Find the definition that
says just believing something on "faith" makes that a religion. I
don't want to hear your foolish opinions, I want a definition. You are
NOT God. Don't try to act like it. You don't make the decision on the
meaning of the word. If you want to get together with your
fundamentalist co-horts and write your own damn dictionary.
Faith becomes a religion only when applied to a theistic pursuit.
Science can be a religion, but not because of "faith". If one is
consumed with desire and pursues science with the desire one would
pursue a God, then, to *him*, science is a religion, but it is a
different *definition* of religion. So grab a logic book, turn to the
section on logical fallacies, and read the section on "equivocation"
and read it, study it, digest it. Then, maybe, just maybe, you will
cease making an ass out of yourself. Not all words are locked unto the
same definition. "Religion" can mean something in one sentence and
something else in another. For example, baseball is a "religion" to
me. Baseball does not require faith, just devotion. I really feel
sorry for you. You are so deceived and you are willing to use logical
fallacies such as the fallacy of equivocation to try to score points.
It will not work with me.
I have faith you will continue to make inane posts on these
newsgroups. That doesn't make it a religion. Look up the Bible
definition of religion. It appears in the KJV and has its definition
in the Strong's concordance. You can use that if you wish. But don't
make up your own defintions of religion. And if you persist, well dump
your s@#t on someone else, not me. I don't cater to intellectual
morons.
And by the way, take your buns over to talk.origins and try some of
those silly arguments over there. If you have been there already, try,
try again.
I get so sick of these morons who think theyy know so much about
evolution and science but really know nothing. Dave, please get
Pastor Dave Raymond wrote:
___
When Christianity becomes religion,
it leaves the heart hungry.
-------------------
David Lee
Go read what the Bible says about pure religion. You haven't a clue
what you are talking about. And, again, read in a dictionary what
"religion" means, not what you WANT it to mean. I get so sick of these
Christians who say "Christianity is NOT a religion, it is a
relationship." Well, it may be a relationship, but that doesn't change
the cold hard fact it is also a religion, as declared in the Bible
itself and in any dictionary. But Christians of this stripe ignore
definitions and create their own. But when it is convenient, they will
adhere to a dictionary and insist you use the meaning of the word
found in it. I remember a debate Mr. Hovind had with an atheist.
Hovind used the dictionary to claim the proper defintion of atheist
was to state positively there is no God. He defended that position
tenaciously by repeating what the definiton was. Less than 30 minutes
later, he repeated the same charge that Pastor Dave made. He refused
to listen to the dictionary definition and was challenged to find his
spin on the word "religion" in the dictionary. He refused. I think
Hovind is basically dishonest.
Oh Dave, spend some time on your knees and ask God to give you
understanding, and petition Him for wisdom while you are at it..
-------------------
David Lee
Die Moralitaet ist das Kind von dem Erbarmen und dem Mitleid. Der
gesunde Menschenverstand und Herr Weishet sind dessen Grossvaeter, die
Einfuehlung und die Liebe sind die Grossmuetter.
Roadrunner
> Pastor Dave barfed:
> Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
> makes it a religion.
> No, ahem, it does NOT. Just believing something on faith does not make
> it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the definiton of
> religion that says believing in anything on "faith" alone as you call
> it makes it a religion. There is no such defintion. It is a defintion
> made up out of thin air by Creationists. The only time faith becomes a
> religion is when it is combined with belief in a deity, stupid.
World Book dictionary: 'a particular system of religious belief and worship'
The deity would be 'evolution'
Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but evolution
I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
Raymond E. Griffith
peg...@privat.utfors.se wrote on 5/1/03 9:17 PM:
Well then, what are you? And if you don't believe in evolution, why do you
support the "Christian" view of creation as espoused by Christian
fundamentalists? After all, you put up Hovind's web site.
It does not seem reasonable for you to say you are not a Christian but
support the Christian fundamentalist version of creationism. So, what are
you?
Andromeda
"Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se> wrote in message
> Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but
evolution
> I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
You say you're not a Christian... you sound like one.
What is *godlike* about the big bang?
Were the first one-celled organisms on earth (4bya), "god's children" in the
eyes of evolutionists?
What evolutionist have you lately seen, sacrificing animals or babies to
un-named god or gods. For this cause, it is not a religion, no more than
say, the multiplication tables or chemistry or physics, or calculus. There's
as much *religion* found in evolution to evolutionists, as any of us see
god(s) out of the thin air...
Meanwhile, please explain what you're referring to, when you've stated
evolution is not scientific? What's unscientific about it...? the one-celled
organisms four billion years ago, or the dinosaurs 65 million years ago...
or was it man, a mere 4 million years ago. Sounds like evolution to me.
Andromeda
More like *who* are you... could it be Kent Hovind, using a public library
computer?
Roadrunner
"Raymond E. Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in message
news:BAD744A6.4104C7%tiffirg...@ctc.net...
Ever heard of common sense? You look at the physical evidence on this planet
and may be coming from elsewhere. Then you may decide solely based on
logical deduction if it resembles more the evolution idea or the creationism
idea. Please do not attemp to put me in some box which you then can
categorize, this is of no importance, common sense is. It is also of no
basic importance if it was evolution or creation, it's much more interesting
to study WHY people believe the things they do.
Roadrunner
"Andromeda" <ma...@skeptical-christian.net> wrote in message
news:b8si9p$ct30s$1...@ID-182287.news.dfncis.de...
>
> "Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se> wrote in message
>
> > Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but
> evolution
> > I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
>
> You say you're not a Christian... you sound like one.
So, you are saying that I sound like a Christian for reason of me rejecting
the evolution theory?
What's wrong with common sense?
>
> What is *godlike* about the big bang?
> Were the first one-celled organisms on earth (4bya), "god's children" in
the
> eyes of evolutionists?
> What evolutionist have you lately seen, sacrificing animals or babies to
> un-named god or gods. For this cause, it is not a religion, no more than
> say, the multiplication tables or chemistry or physics, or calculus.
There's
> as much *religion* found in evolution to evolutionists, as any of us see
> god(s) out of the thin air...
That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and solely a
system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe of ours.
Evolution is not provable, That's all.
>
> Meanwhile, please explain what you're referring to, when you've stated
> evolution is not scientific? What's unscientific about it...? the
one-celled
> organisms four billion years ago, or the dinosaurs 65 million years ago...
> or was it man, a mere 4 million years ago. Sounds like evolution to me.
Scientific is provable to be true, without reasonable doubt. All dating
methods are based on presumptions ans unchanged conditions. it at least has
been proven dat they were not always the same and therefore the datings are
quite fallible.
>
> www.skeptical-christian.net
>
>
Roadrunner
> More like *who* are you... could it be Kent Hovind, using a public library
> computer?
>
> www.skeptical-christian.net
>
>
I don't think that Kent Hovind would do such a thing actually, why should
he.
http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/creation.html
Somewhere on that site is a picture of me too....
Raymond E. Griffith
peg...@privat.utfors.se wrote on 5/1/03 9:52 PM:
Yes, I have heard of common sense. I use it, too. And each one of Hovind's
physical reasons for creationism on the web page you posted is flawed or
outdated. It contains the same old *LIES* that has marked the creationist
movement and its leaders from the 1960s. Many of the arguments on this page
are arguments abandoned by ICR, an acknowledged leader in the Creationist
movement.
But sorry, I think that you probably are a Christian, posing as a
non-Christian in order to make a point. Would that be a sheep in wolves'
clothing? As for putting you in a box, why, I'll feel as free to put you in
a box as you feel free to put me into one.
However, I invite you to use your stunning intellect to discuss the
evidences for creation. Please prepare your scientific evidences, and be
ready to discuss the implications they present. Be ready also to discuss
issues such as the dates your evidences are from, and what the most recent
research in the matter is.
By the way, sir. How about a bit of personal information? Age, education?
Anything that would mark you as a person of expertise in a certain area?
Even the creationist leaders claim their doctorates, you know. So a bit of
knowledge about whom I am dealing with would be welcome.
Andromeda
> That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and solely a
> system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe of ours.
> Evolution is not provable, That's all.
Not provable? Neither is religion.
Since you define evolution as *religion*.
Please define what science is then.
Fossils are tangible, unlike faith.
were not always the same and therefore the datings are
> quite fallible.
>
So is prayer sometimes.
Andromeda
Well, I didn't find you, but I sure found Kent Hovind listed at the top.
>
Roadrunner
planet
> > and may be coming from elsewhere. Then you may decide solely based on
> > logical deduction if it resembles more the evolution idea or the
creationism
> > idea. Please do not attemp to put me in some box which you then can
> > categorize, this is of no importance, common sense is. It is also of no
> > basic importance if it was evolution or creation, it's much more
interesting
> > to study WHY people believe the things they do.
> >
> >
>
> Yes, I have heard of common sense. I use it, too. And each one of Hovind's
> physical reasons for creationism on the web page you posted is flawed or
> outdated. It contains the same old *LIES* that has marked the creationist
> movement and its leaders from the 1960s. Many of the arguments on this
page
> are arguments abandoned by ICR, an acknowledged leader in the Creationist
> movement.
Common sense did not abandon them...
>
> But sorry, I think that you probably are a Christian, posing as a
> non-Christian in order to make a point. Would that be a sheep in wolves'
> clothing? As for putting you in a box, why, I'll feel as free to put you
in
> a box as you feel free to put me into one.
I have not accepted Christ as my saviour as Christians do. I do not pray and
I do not visit any church for that purpose. Putting in a box, creates a
fixed condition. Objectivity has the tendency to vanish if we do so. I did
not put you in any box, you say I did, this is not the same.
>
> However, I invite you to use your stunning intellect to discuss the
> evidences for creation. Please prepare your scientific evidences, and be
> ready to discuss the implications they present. Be ready also to discuss
> issues such as the dates your evidences are from, and what the most recent
> research in the matter is.
Again, is that of any importance? Why are you so eager to defend your view?
I simply urge people not to be fixated about anything. You are assuming I am
Christian when I am not. As evolutionist assume this universe is billions of
years of old when this is not provable.
>
> By the way, sir. How about a bit of personal information? Age, education?
> Anything that would mark you as a person of expertise in a certain area?
> Even the creationist leaders claim their doctorates, you know. So a bit of
> knowledge about whom I am dealing with would be welcome.
I put out Kent Hovind's seminar on my homepage, there is some data about me
too there. Age? Who cares, again putting in some box. Education? Common
sense is not based on knowledge, it is simply an ability to deduct. Children
are often much smarter then grown-ups even with their may be limited factual
knowledge.
>
Roadrunner
Roadrunner
> > system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe of
ours.
> > Evolution is not provable, That's all.
>
> Not provable? Neither is religion.
> Since you define evolution as *religion*.
> Please define what science is then.
> Fossils are tangible, unlike faith.
It's the way these are interpreted, what makes up the religion. Never the
fossiles themselves.
>
> were not always the same and therefore the datings are
> > quite fallible.
> >
>
> So is prayer sometimes.
I don't pray!
David Jensen
in <Mhksa.6445$dP1....@newsc.telia.net>:
>
>"Andromeda" <ma...@skeptical-christian.net> wrote in message
>news:b8si9p$ct30s$1...@ID-182287.news.dfncis.de...
>>
>> "Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se> wrote in message
>>
>> > Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but
>> evolution
>> > I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
>>
>> You say you're not a Christian... you sound like one.
>
>So, you are saying that I sound like a Christian for reason of me rejecting
>the evolution theory?
Some sort of religiously biased writer.
>What's wrong with common sense?
Common sense, unaffected by knowledge is a special kind of foolishness.
Common sense tells us that nuclear weapons don't exist, that the sun
goes around the earth, that the sun is not a fusion reaction. Common
sense is limited and appealing to it is a limitation.
>> What is *godlike* about the big bang?
>> Were the first one-celled organisms on earth (4bya), "god's children" in
>the
>> eyes of evolutionists?
>> What evolutionist have you lately seen, sacrificing animals or babies to
>> un-named god or gods. For this cause, it is not a religion, no more than
>> say, the multiplication tables or chemistry or physics, or calculus.
>There's
>> as much *religion* found in evolution to evolutionists, as any of us see
>> god(s) out of the thin air...
>
>That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and solely a
>system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe of ours.
>Evolution is not provable, That's all.
The theory of evolution is the model that best fits all of the evidence
about the history of life on earth. As with all scientific theories,
that means that it is proven in a legal or testing sense, but not in a
formal or logical sense.
>> Meanwhile, please explain what you're referring to, when you've stated
>> evolution is not scientific? What's unscientific about it...? the
>one-celled
>> organisms four billion years ago, or the dinosaurs 65 million years ago...
>> or was it man, a mere 4 million years ago. Sounds like evolution to me.
>
>Scientific is provable to be true, without reasonable doubt.
What?
>All dating methods are based on presumptions ans unchanged conditions.
That is not a presumption, but an observation about the behavior of the
universe. If you have contrary evidence, provide it, your mindless
speculation is not a valid objection.
> it at least has
>been proven dat they were not always the same and therefore the datings are
>quite fallible.
How fallible? What are the the error bars?
David Jensen
>> > That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and solely a
>> > system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe of
>ours.
>> > Evolution is not provable, That's all.
>>
>> Not provable? Neither is religion.
>> Since you define evolution as *religion*.
>> Please define what science is then.
>> Fossils are tangible, unlike faith.
>
>It's the way these are interpreted, what makes up the religion. Never the
>fossiles themselves.
Please provide a shred of evidence to support your wild assertions.
>> were not always the same and therefore the datings are
>> > quite fallible.
>> >
>>
>> So is prayer sometimes.
>
>I don't pray!
I guess you just live under a bridge.
Roadrunner
"David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
news:3sm3bvs1ooeknhbph...@4ax.com...
Get educated first. You are only opposing but not adding anything to it.
You will find some data here:
http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/hovind_seminar/seminar_introduction.html
Why is it always so that those who support get so sarcastic about things,
are they afraid of something. What do they want to prove?
Common sense is logical deduction, no more, no less......
Roadrunner
Why the sarcasm??
David Jensen
I am educated about Slimeball Hovind. He is not a doctor, his PhD is a
fraud. He knows nothing about science and teaches nonsense in place of
it. He has a fairly long rap sheet.
Anyone who thinks that Hovind's nonsense is educational was miseducated
as a child.
>Why is it always so that those who support get so sarcastic about things,
>are they afraid of something. What do they want to prove?
>
>Common sense is logical deduction, no more, no less......
As the saying goes Garbage In Garbage Out. That's why common sense
applied to ignorance is worthless.
David Jensen
>"David Lee" <david...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:2b933e90.03050...@posting.google.com...
>> Pastor Dave barfed:
>> Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
>> makes it a religion.
>
>> No, ahem, it does NOT. Just believing something on faith does not make
>> it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the definiton of
>> religion that says believing in anything on "faith" alone as you call
>> it makes it a religion. There is no such defintion. It is a defintion
>> made up out of thin air by Creationists. The only time faith becomes a
>> religion is when it is combined with belief in a deity, stupid.
>
>World Book dictionary: 'a particular system of religious belief and worship'
>The deity would be 'evolution'
The claim is false. Evolution is something that has happened in the past
and is happening today. It was discovered about 150 years ago and all of
the evidence gathered since then has confirmed it.
>Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but evolution
>I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
I suppose Hovind isn't really a Christian either, but your behavior
appears to be religiously motivated.
David Jensen
Once again, we see that those who support knowledge and science are
willing to use their own names, while the forces of ignorance hide
behind pseudonyms.
David Jensen
The Ignorant Mystic?
Roadrunner
Again sarcasm, and empty words. Kent's PhD is basically of nó importance,
I've seen evolutionist's debating with him and getting overwhelmed, not
knowing what to say anymore. Much more convincing.
I wrote a piece about my findings about this controvery, you may want or may
not want to look at it. I'm going in for the night (or rather morning)
http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/creation.html
Roadrunner
Really? I give freely my homepage and other information about myself. Waht
did you do?
Again sarcasm and empty words to cover up ignorance
Raymond E. Griffith
peg...@privat.utfors.se wrote on 5/1/03 10:26 PM:
Hmmm. I really doubt that you are truly *objective*. Now I believe that
reality exists no matter what our perceptions might be. This is why science
is careful to measure, to repeat observations, and to find the facts. These
facts are verified by further observations.
>>
>> However, I invite you to use your stunning intellect to discuss the
>> evidences for creation. Please prepare your scientific evidences, and be
>> ready to discuss the implications they present. Be ready also to discuss
>> issues such as the dates your evidences are from, and what the most recent
>> research in the matter is.
>
> Again, is that of any importance? Why are you so eager to defend your view?
> I simply urge people not to be fixated about anything.
So for you, "truth" does not exist? I rather see things differently.
> You are assuming I am
> Christian when I am not. As evolutionist assume this universe is billions of
> years of old when this is not provable.
Actually, it is quite reasonable, given the evidences of age. "Proof" is the
subject of mathematics or of whisky. Science wants evidence, the facts, the
real world and how it works. There is sufficient evidence of old age to
swamp any objections or evidences of young age.
>
>>
>> By the way, sir. How about a bit of personal information? Age, education?
>> Anything that would mark you as a person of expertise in a certain area?
>> Even the creationist leaders claim their doctorates, you know. So a bit of
>> knowledge about whom I am dealing with would be welcome.
>
> I put out Kent Hovind's seminar on my homepage, there is some data about me
> too there. Age? Who cares, again putting in some box. Education? Common
> sense is not based on knowledge, it is simply an ability to deduct.
Heh. OK, now I can "box" you. The ability to deduct is based upon knowledge.
There is no deduction without a knowledge of the general, and there is no
induction without a knowledge of the specific. If you have no knowledge, you
have no deductive ability worth mentioning.
> Children
> are often much smarter then grown-ups even with their may be limited factual
> knowledge.
Oh, please stop! I can't take so much humor!
Some children may be smarter than some grown ups. So what? "Often" does not
make a general case or a rule. I have often observed children who thought
they were smarter than grown-ups, though -- and have seen them make complete
fools of themselves. Age and experience does have its advantages.
Well, if you believe that evidence is unimportant, and that pure thought
without knowledge is preferable, you go right ahead with your fantasies.
>>
>
>
David Jensen
Because I have a hard time believing that you actually take the nonsense
you write seriously. If you have any familiarity with science, you know
that Hovind is hopelessly and dishonestly wrong. That is why I think
that you are just having us on.
Roadrunner
Then yu've got the wrong impression.....
David Jensen
>
>"David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
>news:gqn3bv0lhoao1ij48...@4ax.com...
>> In alt.talk.creationism, "Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se> wrote
>> in <c9lsa.6453$dP1....@newsc.telia.net>:
...
>> >Common sense is logical deduction, no more, no less......
>>
>> As the saying goes Garbage In Garbage Out. That's why common sense
>> applied to ignorance is worthless.
>
>Again sarcasm, and empty words. Kent's PhD is basically of nó importance,
>I've seen evolutionist's debating with him and getting overwhelmed, not
>knowing what to say anymore. Much more convincing.
Hovind hasn't ever won a scientific discussion.
>I wrote a piece about my findings about this controvery, you may want or may
>not want to look at it. I'm going in for the night (or rather morning)
>http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/creation.html
Young Earth Creationism is a religious belief. What does it have to do
with science?
David Jensen
That was after I made my comment. It appeared to me that in this one,
you were just being coy. Sorry.
>Again sarcasm and empty words to cover up ignorance
No. Young Earth Creationism has nothing to do with science. That is a
fact. There is a secondary problem that adherents to this religious
teaching want to impose their religious teaching on science education in
the US. That is a problem.
David Jensen
What non-religious reason do you have for trying to persuade people that
the theory of evolution and the evidence that it is derived from is
religious?
Elmer Bataitis
> "Cloud McCloud" <cl...@cloud.com> wrote in message.
> > On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
> > > Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
> > > sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
> > > in genetics and other areas.
> > Haha! That's funny!
> It really is: this is a grand unifier which has none of its supposed data
> avaialble (ie fossil record as predicted by Darwin) and cuts the throat of
> any grad student that says that the emperor has no clothes.
Gee, so all these scientists for the past 200 years have been lying? Why
do you think this?
> BTB, it is not evolution which is at question here really BUT ONLY EVOLUTION
> as the mechanism for descent with change.
> Survival of the fittest: a tautology
Not really a tautology but depends critically on what one means by
"fittest".
***************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis “Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!”
Planetech Services -Hobbes
585-442-2884
"...proudly wearing and displaying, as a badge of honor, the
straight jacket of conventional thought."
***************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis
> It would make PERFECT sense that the creator would make similar
> species of the same building blocks. Why start "from scratch" each
> time?
Is God omnipotent or not? How much "work" would He be saving Himself??
> >In most of the other sciences, evolution as applied to that branch of
> >science helps provide the continuity needed to understand what is
> >happening. Understanding the evolution of stars allowed us to predict
> >and actually map black holes.
> >Evolution is the only answer for the extreme biological diversity of
> >today's world, whether you believe in the Flood of Noah or not.
> Nonsense. Creation can EASILY acount for the various species. The
> varieties within each species would be the only "evolution," depending
> on environmental and other factors.
Unfortunately, speciation has been observed.
> For a LONG time, the "scientists" believed that there was some
> evolution at work in London and the surrounding area where the dark
> moths and butterflys were found only in one area and the lightly
> colored moths and butterflys were found only in another area.
> Then someone with some SENSE put together that the birds could more
> easily see the moths and butterflys that didn't blend into their
> environment. DUH!
Yup. Get eaten and it's difficult to pass on your genes.
> One scientist a few years ago wrote back to his bosses that he'd found
> the duckbilled platypus. Other "scientists" including his bosses
> scoffed. "It's not POSSIBLE for such a creature to exist. Stop
> drinking so much, stay off the local dope, and come home!"
> When he came home WITH the duckbilled platypus he'd found, the
> "scientists" who'd laughed stopped laughing.
Oh so "scientists" of 1700's were not as good as ones today?
> There will NEVER be any "evidence" found for creation so long as
> "scientists" don't look for.it. Imagine the difficulty of finding the
> needle in the haystack if you aren't searching for it.
Creationism; "finding the needle in the haystack". You'd think
scientists of the 1500- 1600 and 1700's were all athiests. They weren't.
> In fact, if you believe in the Flood of Noah, you must ascede to a
> rate of evolution in the last few thousand years vastly exceeding
> anything that we observe today.
> Your point? YOU as other pseudo-scientists ASSUME that life is
> "evolving" or growing at the same rate now as it always did.
There are biological measures that can be checked.
> Not
> necessarily so. And that comes from a nuclear physicist friend of mine
> who worked on the Manhattan Project.
And nuclear physiciusts are qualified to speak on molecular biology because...?
> I'm assuming you know what the
> Manhattan Project was. In fact, one of the last times I saw him, he
> was working on a NEW "Fat Man".
??? Is this guy dead ???
The Manhatten project ended in 1946/7 or 60 some odd years ago. If he
started working on it in 1942 as a post grad he was at least 24 years
old. Born 1918 or so. Now about 85 or better.
Elmer Bataitis
> On Thu, 1 May 2003 11:10:22 -0500, "Helps" <wcl...@charter.net>
> >> > Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
> >> > sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
> >> > in genetics and other areas.
> >> Haha! That's funny!
> >It really is: this is a grand unifier which has none of its supposed data
> >avaialble (ie fossil record as predicted by Darwin) and cuts the throat of
> >any grad student that says that the emperor has no clothes.
> >BTB, it is not evolution which is at question here really BUT ONLY EVOLUTION
> >as the mechanism for descent with change.
> >Survival of the fittest: a tautology
> And survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the deaf
> classical musician. Was it Beethoven?
It obviously didn't.
> Survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the blind musicians,
> Ronny Milsap, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.
It obviously didn't.
> Who on this earth would want to live in a world without Ronny Milsap,
> Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles?
> Not to mention the SEVERAL Idiot Savants whose gifts are music. I've
> seen two blind idiot savants who are GIFTED concert pianists.
> I am mentally ill myself; of that, I've made no secret. Yet I've
> changed history already. And my writing CONTINUES to change the
> culture locally.
> By YOUR definition of "survival of the fittest" there would be no sick
> or lame or otherwise "infirm" among us.
Whose definition? Maybe you should reread the thread.
> Yet even the Downs Syndrome
> folk can contribute. I see them in stores, as clerks, I rode the bus
> with one a few weks ago, a pretty young lady of 24 who had a boyfriend
> and was on her way to her job. We carried on a VERY nice conversation.
> She is no idiot. While her IQ may be below average, if she has an IQ
> of 100, she can contribute.
> Don't forget the Downs Syndrome young man who had his own TV series
> seveveral years ago, for several years. Although it never caught on,
> it gained CRITICAL praise.
> Don't fool yourself; "survival of the fittest" is merely a theory, and
> an unproven one at that..
What do animal breeders do? Not a theory at all. Reality. The "fittest"
in this case is what the breeders want. In nature, it's what nature wants.
Elmer Bataitis
> I'm not a christian, however what I do know is that evolution
> is a fraude. The facts of this earth tell a very different story.
Gee really? How many hours of geological studies have you had?
bardi
"Elmer Bataitis" <nyli...@frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:3EB1EB27...@frontiernet.net...
> J M wrote:
>
> > It would make PERFECT sense that the creator would make similar
> > species of the same building blocks. Why start "from scratch" each
> > time?
>
> Is God omnipotent or not? How much "work" would He be saving Himself??
>
I sincerely doubt if that came into play. However, if one believes in a God
who promotes Free Will, than evolution makes a great deal of sense. Which
might be why Charles Darwin stated that his theory made him feel closer to
God.
>
> Oh so "scientists" of 1700's were not as good as ones today?
>
Define good. Obviously the scientists of the 1700s did not have the research
of..well,the scientists of the 1700s to build on. Mankind's physical
knowledge has increased dramatically since,and in part due to, that time.
Elmer Bataitis
> > Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
> > makes it a religion.
> > No, ahem, it does NOT. Just believing something on faith does not make
> > it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the definiton of
> > religion that says believing in anything on "faith" alone as you call
> > it makes it a religion. There is no such defintion. It is a defintion
> > made up out of thin air by Creationists. The only time faith becomes a
> > religion is when it is combined with belief in a deity, stupid.
> World Book dictionary: 'a particular system of religious belief and worship'
> The deity would be 'evolution'
> Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but evolution
> I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
Evolution is the heritable genetic change in a reproducing population
over time. This is a *FACT*. There is a theory of evolution which
explains the fact of evolution by noting genetic variations, mutation,
genetic drift, natural and sexual selection and luck.
JISTASKKIN
"Raymond E. Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in message
news:BAD74B65.4104CF%tiffirg...@ctc.net...
> in article Rbksa.6444$dP1....@newsc.telia.net, Roadrunner at
> peg...@privat.utfors.se wrote on 5/1/03 9:52 PM:
>
> >
> > "Raymond E. Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in message
> > news:BAD744A6.4104C7%tiffirg...@ctc.net...
> >> in article kGjsa.6443$dP1....@newsc.telia.net, Roadrunner at
> >> peg...@privat.utfors.se wrote on 5/1/03 9:17 PM:> >>> news:2b933e90.03050...@posting.google.com...
Raymond has issues with whomever doesn't agree with him. Show Raymond how
his logic is wrong, how what the Bible says disagrees with him and he will
go into fits.
Steven J.
> On Thu, 01 May 2003 10:10:28 -0400, "Raymond E. Griffith"
> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote:
>
> >Cloud McCloud wrote:
> >> On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
> >> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
> >> news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
> >>
> >>>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
> >>>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
> >>>in genetics and other areas.
> >>
> >>
> >> Haha! That's funny!
> >>
> >
> >diseases, much profitable work has centered on primates because of their
> >closeness to the human genome. In other animals, scientists have to be
> >more careful. A laboratory rat is similar to humans genetically in lots
> >of ways, but the differences tend to make the observations less
> >transferrable. But knowing the relationships and the relative distances
> >between the relationships has made identifications of the causes of
> >certain diseases much easier.
> >
>
> It would make PERFECT sense that the creator would make similar
> species of the same building blocks. Why start "from scratch" each
> time?
>
Some have to do, as Dave Oldbridge points out, with why identical or
very similar nonfunctional DNA and morphological structures are used
in different species. But some have to do with why the Creator
apparently did not simply reuse the same building blocks for similar
or identical purposes.
There is an enzyme, used by virtually all known species, called
cytochrome-c. It's function does not vary from one species to
another, but oddly, its structure does. The human version is slightly
different from the baboon version, a bit more different from cow or
horse versions, and progressively more different from the various
reptile, amphibian, and fish versions, etc. Human cytochrome-c is
identical to chimpanzee cytochrome-c (as most of our proteins and
enzymes seem to have identical homologues in chimps), but the gene
that codes for this enzyme is different in one base pair between the
two species. This does not sound like what one would expect from
common design.
On the morphological level, there are striking examples. Both
cephalopods (octopuses and squids) and vertebrates use "box-camera"
type eyes. But they are not identical in fine detail. The most
striking difference is that in vertebrates, the nerves from the
retinal receptors exit from the front of the retina, requiring a
"blind spot" where they exit the eye as the optic nerve. In
cephalopods, the nerves exit from the rear of the retina, requiring no
blind spot. It looks as if Whoever or whatever designed eyes did
indeed start from scratch when designing vertebrate eyes, rather than
simply reusing the cephalopod design. The same, of course, applies to
pterosaur wings and bat wings, or the panda's thumb (a modified wrist
bone) and the primate thumb (a modified finger).
>
> >In most of the other sciences, evolution as applied to that branch of
> >science helps provide the continuity needed to understand what is
> >happening. Understanding the evolution of stars allowed us to predict
> >and actually map black holes.
> >
> >Evolution is the only answer for the extreme biological diversity of
> >today's world, whether you believe in the Flood of Noah or not.
>
> Nonsense. Creation can EASILY acount for the various species. The
> varieties within each species would be the only "evolution," depending
> on environmental and other factors.
>
I'm not sure you understand the meaning of the word "species." Horses
and donkeys, for example, are as much separate species (albeit with a
more recent common ancestor) as horses and bluebirds. For that
matter, the development of new local varieties within a single species
would itself be (micro)evolution. Certainly the development of
tigers, ocelots, and house cats from a single ur-felid would be
evolution -- branching descent from a common ancestor. Most
biologists would call the latter "macroevolution," since they use that
term to describe the evolution of a new species, rather than limit it
to a new "kind" (a term with no clear definition).
You seem to be defining "evolution" to mean only change from one
"kind" to another. Biologists define it as change in the mix of
traits in a population over time, whether that means peppered moths
changing from mostly grey to mostly black, and back again, or horses
and rhinoceroses arising from a common ancestor (the original
population splits -- and splits again and again -- and each
subpopulation changes over time until something like _Hyracotherium_
gives rise to all the different modern perissodactyl species), or
humans and dandelions evolving from an even older common ancestor.
>
> For a LONG time, the "scientists" believed that there was some
> evolution at work in London and the surrounding area where the dark
> moths and butterflys were found only in one area and the lightly
> colored moths and butterflys were found only in another area.
>
> Then someone with some SENSE put together that the birds could more
> easily see the moths and butterflys that didn't blend into their
> environment. DUH!
>
That *is* evolution. Depending on the environment, one variant lives
to produce more offspring (so its genes become more common), and the
other often dies off before reproducing (so its genes become less
common).
>
> One scientist a few years ago wrote back to his bosses that he'd found
> the duckbilled platypus. Other "scientists" including his bosses
> scoffed. "It's not POSSIBLE for such a creature to exist. Stop
> drinking so much, stay off the local dope, and come home!"
>
> When he came home WITH the duckbilled platypus he'd found, the
> "scientists" who'd laughed stopped laughing.
>
> There will NEVER be any "evidence" found for creation so long as
> "scientists" don't look for.it. Imagine the difficulty of finding the
> needle in the haystack if you aren't searching for it.
>
In what respect is the platypus -- a survival from the time when all
mammals wer egg-laying -- support for creationism?
>
> In fact, if you believe in the Flood of Noah, you must ascede to a
> rate of evolution in the last few thousand years vastly exceeding
> anything that we observe today.
>
> Your point? YOU as other pseudo-scientists ASSUME that life is
> "evolving" or growing at the same rate now as it always did. Not
> necessarily so. And that comes from a nuclear physicist friend of mine
> who worked on the Manhattan Project. I'm assuming you know what the
> Manhattan Project was. In fact, one of the last times I saw him, he
> was working on a NEW "Fat Man".
>
If you assume that a few thousand "kinds" aboard the Ark in ca. 2500
BC gave rise to all the species we see today, you'd expect to see, in
ancient Egyptian wall paintings, ancient animals rather more different
from today's than is in fact the case.
>
> >The numbers just don't work otherwise. Of course, the
> >desire to deny evolution makes a lot of creationists simply fudge or
> >ignore the numbers!
>
> Ditto the evolutionists who will go to practially ANY lengths to prove
> God/The Creator doesn't exist.
>
Given that many evolutionist do believe that God exists, this seems an
unlikely motive for them to have.
>
> You also don't account for how many scientists are Creationists, such
> as my nuclear physicist friend as mentioned above. And you forget, in
> your ranting against creationism that at least 3 of the shuttle
> astronauts who recently died in the latest shuttle disaster were
> Creationist Christians.
>
Far, far fewer scientists are creationists than accept the theory of
evolution.
>
> >Again, their mindset has been trained so that they
> >cannot even conceive of the difficulties of their position.
>
> Ditto. There has been EXHAUSTIVE study of creation/science. You
> believe what you choose to believe, we do as well. But your mistake is
> to believe erroneously that there is NO proof whatever for creation;
> that simply isn't so. We continue to prove creation, and the
> pseudo-scientist evolutionists go back to the drawing board to "prove"
> once again that creation isn't true. This is merely an attack on God,
> not on science.
>
> Moon dust is a proof of a very young universe; a can of tuna fish can
> be used to disprove evolution and prove creation. And there is valid
> evidence that, not only did man live concurrently with the dinosaurs
> (that means at the same time as), but some dinosaurs--the smaller
> ones, even live today.
>
The moon dust argument was discredited long ago; if you go to Answers
in Genesis <http://www.answersingenesis.org>, you will find it among
their "arguments creationists should not use. It was based on early
and faulty estimates of the infall of dust on the moon; later
measurements of the rate made the amount of dust on the surface
consistent with a four billion-year-old moon. The only small
dinosaurs alive today are birds.
If you'd like to explain how a can of tuna fish confirms the
predictions of creationism (if you'd like to detail some of the
predictions of creationism -- most creationists insist that no
possible evidence could show creationism was false, which implies that
it makes no predictions), we'd love to see it.
>
> Some lizards are ANCIENT lifeforms. Scientists cannot date the age of
> sharks, other than they've been around "pre-historically", and
> crocodiles and alligators also qualify.
>
Some orders, families, even genera have endured for scores of millions
of years with little morphological change. The species are generally
of much more recent vintage; modern sharks and lizards are not the
same species as their Mesozoic counterparts.
>
> Another life form the "scientists" ignore is the teradactyls that are
> alive and well in the jungles of South America. Ignoring those facts
> that poke the largest holes in your theories is NOT science.
>
I've wasted all this time responding to a troll, right? You don't
really believe that there are pterodactyls soaring over the Amazon
(entirely unnoticed by _National Geographic_, strangely)? Of course,
if there were, that would only prove that, like crocodilians, the
pterosaur order survived the K-T boundary extinction. It would not
disprove evolution, any more than alligators or horseshoe crabs do.
>
> >So yes, it is funny in a sad sort of way. I understand because I was a
> >fundamentalist and believed implicitly their literature. I even argued
> >with my professors about it.
>
> What changed your mind? It wasn't science!
>
> John W
-- Steven J.
Matt Silberstein
<jus...@nobody.com>:
>On Thu, 01 May 2003 10:10:28 -0400, "Raymond E. Griffith"
><tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote:
>
>>Cloud McCloud wrote:
>>> On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
>>> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
>>> news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
>>>>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
>>>>in genetics and other areas.
>>>
>>>
>>> Haha! That's funny!
>>>
>>
>>It is rather ironic, isn't it? But it is a fact. In researching human
>>diseases, much profitable work has centered on primates because of their
>>closeness to the human genome. In other animals, scientists have to be
>>more careful. A laboratory rat is similar to humans genetically in lots
>>of ways, but the differences tend to make the observations less
>>transferrable. But knowing the relationships and the relative distances
>>between the relationships has made identifications of the causes of
>>certain diseases much easier.
>>
>
>It would make PERFECT sense that the creator would make similar
>species of the same building blocks. Why start "from scratch" each
>time?
So humans and chimps are similar, right? Now why did the creator
put in the same changes in the non-coding areas of the genome?
Why do humans and chimps have the same change that prevents us
from making our own vitamin C? Why even bother to put in that
gene?
>
>>In most of the other sciences, evolution as applied to that branch of
>>science helps provide the continuity needed to understand what is
>>happening. Understanding the evolution of stars allowed us to predict
>>and actually map black holes.
>>
>>Evolution is the only answer for the extreme biological diversity of
>>today's world, whether you believe in the Flood of Noah or not.
>
>Nonsense. Creation can EASILY acount for the various species. The
>varieties within each species would be the only "evolution," depending
>on environmental and other factors.
Creation, sufficiently undefined, can account for anything. And,
therefore, accounts for nothing. To the extent that creationism
is science it has been refuted. To the extent that it has not
been refuted, it is not science.
>For a LONG time, the "scientists" believed that there was some
>evolution at work in London and the surrounding area where the dark
>moths and butterflys were found only in one area and the lightly
>colored moths and butterflys were found only in another area.
>
>Then someone with some SENSE put together that the birds could more
>easily see the moths and butterflys that didn't blend into their
>environment. DUH!
Yep, it is called natural selection. It is one of the major
factors identified by Darwin.
>One scientist a few years ago wrote back to his bosses that he'd found
>the duckbilled platypus. Other "scientists" including his bosses
>scoffed. "It's not POSSIBLE for such a creature to exist. Stop
>drinking so much, stay off the local dope, and come home!"
>
>When he came home WITH the duckbilled platypus he'd found, the
>"scientists" who'd laughed stopped laughing.
Do you have a point to this?
>There will NEVER be any "evidence" found for creation so long as
>"scientists" don't look for.it. Imagine the difficulty of finding the
>needle in the haystack if you aren't searching for it.
Funny, but the creationist don't seem to look for evidence for
creation either. They have money to print books attacking
evolution, but nothing for experiments to support creationism.
Evolution is the unifying principle of all modern biology.
Scientists working on curing diseases, from Malaria to TB to AIDS
to SARS, all use evolution as part of their work. They take it
into account when examining the pathogen, when devising
treatments, everywhere. If evolution is wrong and creationism is
right then creationists can save millions of lives. So why isn't
there a single experiment by these creationists set up to help
cure a disease?
> In fact, if you believe in the Flood of Noah, you must ascede to a
>rate of evolution in the last few thousand years vastly exceeding
>anything that we observe today.
>
>Your point? YOU as other pseudo-scientists ASSUME that life is
>"evolving" or growing at the same rate now as it always did.
No, they *examine* the evidence. That life evolves is *observed*.
The rate of evolution is determined from the evidence. Unlike
creationists they don't assume their conclusion.
>Not
>necessarily so. And that comes from a nuclear physicist friend of mine
>who worked on the Manhattan Project. I'm assuming you know what the
>Manhattan Project was. In fact, one of the last times I saw him, he
>was working on a NEW "Fat Man".
???? How old are you? Are you trolling?
>The numbers just don't work otherwise. Of course, the
>>desire to deny evolution makes a lot of creationists simply fudge or
>>ignore the numbers!
>
>Ditto the evolutionists who will go to practially ANY lengths to prove
>God/The Creator doesn't exist.
Funny, I know several working biologists who accept evolution and
believe in God. Some are even Christians. And I have never read a
single scientific paper that said a thing about God. You are
saying things that simply are not so. As you repeat them you come
close to bearing false witness.
>You also don't account for how many scientists are Creationists, such
>as my nuclear physicist friend as mentioned above. And you forget, in
>your ranting against creationism that at least 3 of the shuttle
>astronauts who recently died in the latest shuttle disaster were
>Creationist Christians.
Please support this with the references. I suspect you are making
it up, but I don't know.
>Again, their mindset has been trained so that they
>>cannot even conceive of the difficulties of their position.
>
>Ditto. There has been EXHAUSTIVE study of creation/science.
And it was rejected well over 100 years ago.
>You
>believe what you choose to believe, we do as well. But your mistake is
>to believe erroneously that there is NO proof whatever for creation;
>that simply isn't so.
Then please supply evidence *for* creation. Not supposed evidence
against evolution. You said there was evidence for creation,
provide references to that *evidence*.
>We continue to prove creation, and the
>pseudo-scientist evolutionists go back to the drawing board to "prove"
>once again that creation isn't true. This is merely an attack on God,
>not on science.
>
>Moon dust is a proof of a very young universe;
No, it is not. You were lied to.
>a can of tuna fish can
>be used to disprove evolution and prove creation.
Please do so.
>And there is valid
>evidence that, not only did man live concurrently with the dinosaurs
>(that means at the same time as), but some dinosaurs--the smaller
>ones, even live today.
They call them birds.
>Some lizards are ANCIENT lifeforms. Scientists cannot date the age of
>sharks, other than they've been around "pre-historically", and
>crocodiles and alligators also qualify.
All life today stems from life 65 million years ago. Some have
not changed all that much externally. But a lot of that has to do
with our human-centric viewpoint. For most people all lizards
look alike.
>Another life form the "scientists" ignore is the teradactyls that are
>alive and well in the jungles of South America. Ignoring those facts
>that poke the largest holes in your theories is NOT science.
You have to be trolling.
[snip]
--
Matt Silberstein TBC HRL OMM
We are not here to judge other people,
we are just here to be better than they are.
Dave Oldridge
news:bBisa.6438$dP1....@newsc.telia.net:
> Is that so? I'm not a christian, however what I do know is that
> evolution is a fraude. The facts of this earth tell a very different
> story.
I think you're a fraud. Your apologetic is straight creationist boiler-
plate. That stuff is invented by fundamentalists (I won't dignify them
with the name Christian) turned con artist.
--
Dave Oldridge
ICQ 1800667
Paradoxically, most real events are highly improbable.
Dave Oldridge
news:kGjsa.6443$dP1....@newsc.telia.net:
> "David Lee" <david...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:2b933e90.03050...@posting.google.com...
>> Pastor Dave barfed:
>> Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
>> makes it a religion.
>
>> No, ahem, it does NOT. Just believing something on faith does not
>> make it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the
>> definiton of religion that says believing in anything on "faith"
>> alone as you call it makes it a religion. There is no such defintion.
>> It is a defintion made up out of thin air by Creationists. The only
>> time faith becomes a religion is when it is combined with belief in a
>> deity, stupid.
>
> World Book dictionary: 'a particular system of religious belief and
> worship' The deity would be 'evolution'
>
> Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but
> evolution I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
So what IS your religious perspective? Are you a member of the Church of
Wilful Ignorance or something? Clearly the framers of the US constitution
have referred to "religion" as the kind of religion that establishes
itself in conjunction with state authority. In other words, it was
originally aimed at denominational Christianity, but can easily be
extended to mean other organized or semi-organized systems of worship and
ethics. However it was NOT EVER intended that it should be applied to any
branch of natural science, which is what you are trying to do. You are a
fraud. The only thing religious about evolution is that it is based on
science that exposes some of the false prophets of false religions where
they have made scientifically testable claims and been found false.
Dave Oldridge
news:Onksa.6446$dP1....@newsc.telia.net:
>>
>> More like *who* are you... could it be Kent Hovind, using a public
>> library computer?
>>
>> www.skeptical-christian.net
>>
>>
>
> I don't think that Kent Hovind would do such a thing actually, why
> should he.
> http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/creation.html
>
> Somewhere on that site is a picture of me too....
So you're a scientologist. I doubt even Hubbard would have been as prone
to sophistry as you seem to be, though. And the only thing HE did well
was write some passable sci-fi. And it's only passable, not great.
But I doubt Hubbard would follow Hovind and repeat his lies. Hubbard was
too smart for THAT!!!
Dave Oldridge
news:Rbksa.6444$dP1....@newsc.telia.net:
>
> "Raymond E. Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in message
> news:BAD744A6.4104C7%tiffirg...@ctc.net...
>> in article kGjsa.6443$dP1....@newsc.telia.net, Roadrunner at
>> peg...@privat.utfors.se wrote on 5/1/03 9:17 PM:
>>
>> > "David Lee" <david...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> > news:2b933e90.03050...@posting.google.com...
>> >> Pastor Dave barfed:
>> >> Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
>> >> makes it a religion.
>> >
>> >> No, ahem, it does NOT. Just believing something on faith does not
>> >> make it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the
>> >> definiton of religion that says believing in anything on "faith"
>> >> alone as you call it makes it a religion. There is no such
>> >> defintion. It is a defintion made up out of thin air by
>> >> Creationists. The only time faith becomes a religion is when it is
>> >> combined with belief in a deity, stupid.
>> >
>> > World Book dictionary: 'a particular system of religious belief and
> worship'
>> > The deity would be 'evolution'
>> >
>> > Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but
> evolution
>> > I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
>> >
>>
>> Well then, what are you? And if you don't believe in evolution, why
>> do you support the "Christian" view of creation as espoused by
>> Christian fundamentalists? After all, you put up Hovind's web site.
>>
>> It does not seem reasonable for you to say you are not a Christian
>> but support the Christian fundamentalist version of creationism. So,
>> what are
> you?
>
> Ever heard of common sense? You look at the physical evidence on this
> planet and may be coming from elsewhere. Then you may decide solely
> based on logical deduction if it resembles more the evolution idea or
> the creationism idea. Please do not attemp to put me in some box which
> you then can categorize, this is of no importance, common sense is. It
> is also of no basic importance if it was evolution or creation, it's
> much more interesting to study WHY people believe the things they do.
In order to actually do that, you have to know WHAT things they believe.
Attacking straw men is utterly pointless. But it IS a common frailty and
one that latter-day creationists exploit a lot. Maybe this type of
sophistry is also taught in their academies of illogic?
Dave Oldridge
news:pHksa.6447$dP1....@newsc.telia.net:
>> > Ever heard of common sense? You look at the physical evidence on
>> > this
> planet
>> > and may be coming from elsewhere. Then you may decide solely based
>> > on logical deduction if it resembles more the evolution idea or the
> creationism
>> > idea. Please do not attemp to put me in some box which you then can
>> > categorize, this is of no importance, common sense is. It is also
>> > of no basic importance if it was evolution or creation, it's much
>> > more
> interesting
>> > to study WHY people believe the things they do.
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Yes, I have heard of common sense. I use it, too. And each one of
>> Hovind's physical reasons for creationism on the web page you posted
>> is flawed or outdated. It contains the same old *LIES* that has
>> marked the creationist movement and its leaders from the 1960s. Many
>> of the arguments on this
> page
>> are arguments abandoned by ICR, an acknowledged leader in the
>> Creationist movement.
>
> Common sense did not abandon them...
>
>>
>> But sorry, I think that you probably are a Christian, posing as a
>> non-Christian in order to make a point. Would that be a sheep in
>> wolves' clothing? As for putting you in a box, why, I'll feel as free
>> to put you
> in
>> a box as you feel free to put me into one.
>
> I have not accepted Christ as my saviour as Christians do. I do not
> pray and I do not visit any church for that purpose. Putting in a box,
> creates a fixed condition. Objectivity has the tendency to vanish if
> we do so. I did not put you in any box, you say I did, this is not the
> same.
>
>>
>> However, I invite you to use your stunning intellect to discuss the
>> evidences for creation. Please prepare your scientific evidences, and
>> be ready to discuss the implications they present. Be ready also to
>> discuss issues such as the dates your evidences are from, and what
>> the most recent research in the matter is.
>
> Again, is that of any importance? Why are you so eager to defend your
> view? I simply urge people not to be fixated about anything. You are
> assuming I am Christian when I am not. As evolutionist assume this
> universe is billions of years of old when this is not provable.
>
>>
>> By the way, sir. How about a bit of personal information? Age,
>> education? Anything that would mark you as a person of expertise in a
>> certain area? Even the creationist leaders claim their doctorates,
>> you know. So a bit of knowledge about whom I am dealing with would be
>> welcome.
>
> I put out Kent Hovind's seminar on my homepage, there is some data
> about me too there. Age? Who cares, again putting in some box.
> Education? Common sense is not based on knowledge, it is simply an
> ability to deduct. Children are often much smarter then grown-ups even
> with their may be limited factual knowledge.
Kent Hovind first came to my attention when someone cited his fraudulent
$250K challenge to "prove" evolution where he defines the "proof" as
proving that God did not create the universe. This is fraudulent for a
number of reasons. First, due to Hovind's ongoing problems with the US
Federal government, he has had to declare assets in public court cases and
he either does not HAVE the $250K or he has been lying under oath about
not having it. Second, and perhaps more important, the "proof" that he
requires is not evidence for evolution but evidence for some sort of
atheistic cosmogenesis that, even if it were true would not be evidence
for evolution (or against it). And HE gets to decide who the judges will
be AND what will be presented to them. That's not a challenge, it's a
piece of propaganda. He can't lose and he knows he can't lose.
But, if he would submit himself to a reasonable jury on the question "do
humans and chimpanzees share a common genetic ancestor?" With the same
rules for discovery and points of law that govern a civil suit, he'd
likely lose. The evidence for that was strong back when he first
published his "challenge." It has gotten a lot stronger and continues to
do so as we sequence the chimp genome and match it with our own.
Some of the more interesting smoking guns are the parts where the chimp
and human genomes are identical but differ from those of other mammals and
even of other primates. Some of that is important with respect to the
differences between the chimp/human branch and the gorillas and orangs,
but some of it is just scratches on the negative--viral insertions
inherited from a common ancestor.
Another problem I have with Kent Hovind is that he lies a lot. I watched
him on my TV tell us about what's wrong with 14C dating. The fact is all
the man did was betray his ignorance of 14C dating, how and why it's done
the way it is and what it can be used for and not used for. In other
words, far from being an expert, as he claims, he is totally ignorant of
the subject.
And then there's his PhD. Ask him where to get a copy of his thesis
sometime. The last person I know of who got a straight answer at all was
told that it isn't finished yet. One immediately wants to know what kind
of university issues degrees on the basis of unfinished work!!!
And then, after regaling me with lies about 14C dating, Hovind told me
with a straight face that the government was watching him through his TV!
It's amazing! This man is onto the best con game available in the USA.
Nobody will EVER bust him for lying about science in the name of religion
(though he needs to watch the civil torts). Yet he's too stupid to pay
his taxes!
I'm sorry, son, you need a better class of hero! I could offer you a
couple or three of mine. There's Polkinghorne, of course. Then there's
Gandhi, and a whole host of saints like Francis of Assisi. Even Aquinas
and Augustine have their places in the history of western thought. But
Hovind will never be more than a joke.
Dave Oldridge
news:a2msa.53939$8r5.4...@news1.telusplanet.net:
Jist has issues with truth. Show him anything that disagrees with his pet
heresy and it automatically is deemed to disagree with "what the Bible
says" according to "St. Jist." Of course the fact that "St. Jist" can't
even read Usenet posts in English and get them right uniquely qualifies
him to interpret ancient Hebrew and Greek metaphors.
Dave Oldridge
news:Mhksa.6445$dP1....@newsc.telia.net:
>
> "Andromeda" <ma...@skeptical-christian.net> wrote in message
> news:b8si9p$ct30s$1...@ID-182287.news.dfncis.de...
>>
>> "Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se> wrote in message
>>
>> > Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian, but
>> evolution
>> > I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
>>
>> You say you're not a Christian... you sound like one.
>
> So, you are saying that I sound like a Christian for reason of me
> rejecting the evolution theory?
> What's wrong with common sense?
Actually you don't sound like a Christian, you sound like a heretic.
>> What is *godlike* about the big bang?
>> Were the first one-celled organisms on earth (4bya), "god's children"
>> in
> the
>> eyes of evolutionists?
>> What evolutionist have you lately seen, sacrificing animals or babies
>> to un-named god or gods. For this cause, it is not a religion, no
>> more than say, the multiplication tables or chemistry or physics, or
>> calculus.
> There's
>> as much *religion* found in evolution to evolutionists, as any of us
>> see god(s) out of the thin air...
>
> That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and solely a
> system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe of
> ours. Evolution is not provable, That's all.
In science, nothing is "provable" so you are essentially claiming that
science is a religion. But that's NOT what the framers of the US
constitution meant by "religion."
Science does not operate by "proving" theorems as is done in mathematics.
Instead, it operates by DISPROVING theories that do not explain the data,
while retaining those that continue to have explanatory value.
>> Meanwhile, please explain what you're referring to, when you've
>> stated evolution is not scientific? What's unscientific about it...?
>> the
> one-celled
>> organisms four billion years ago, or the dinosaurs 65 million years
>> ago... or was it man, a mere 4 million years ago. Sounds like
>> evolution to me.
> Scientific is provable to be true, without reasonable doubt. All
> dating methods are based on presumptions ans unchanged conditions. it
> at least has been proven dat they were not always the same and
> therefore the datings are quite fallible.
1. Radiometric dating methods are based on the observation that the
forces that control the statistical probability of decay have not changed
(to at least 17 figures) over the past 4 billion years, a past which we
can observe directly with telescopes.
2. Radiometric dating methods depend also, of course, on some sort of
geochemical event resetting the particular radiometric "clock." It is the
time since resetting that the methods attempt to estimate.
3. Hovind correctly states that the quantity of 14C in the atmosphere
varies over time. What he does not tell you is that scientists know this
and have spent a great deal of time and effort measuring it in places like
ice cores, tree rings and many other sources of information about it so
that the 14C column is now very well calibrated.
4. Hovind practically totally ignores the physics of isochron dates. I
would strongly suggest you study these physics before making an ass of
yourself about them.
(But then maybe making an ass of yourself is your goal in life).
Dave Oldridge
@newsc.telia.net:
>> > That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and solely
a
>> > system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe of
> ours.
>> > Evolution is not provable, That's all.
>>
>> Not provable? Neither is religion.
>> Since you define evolution as *religion*.
>> Please define what science is then.
>> Fossils are tangible, unlike faith.
>
> It's the way these are interpreted, what makes up the religion. Never
the
> fossiles themselves.
That's nice. But if you want to critique an interpretation of a fossil
you need to do so with reference to the fossil itself, not just waving
your hands.
>> were not always the same and therefore the datings are
>> > quite fallible.
>> So is prayer sometimes.
>
> I don't pray!
I'm sure you probably can't.
Dave Oldridge
news:Walsa.6454$dP1....@newsc.telia.net:
>
> "David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
> news:n6n3bvcjdi2kq4vps...@4ax.com...
>> In alt.talk.creationism, "Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se>
>> wrote in <8Oksa.6449$dP1....@newsc.telia.net>:
>>
>> >> > That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and
>> >> > solely
> a
>> >> > system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe
>> >> > of
>> >ours.
>> >> > Evolution is not provable, That's all.
>> >>
>> >> Not provable? Neither is religion.
>> >> Since you define evolution as *religion*.
>> >> Please define what science is then.
>> >> Fossils are tangible, unlike faith.
>> >
>> >It's the way these are interpreted, what makes up the religion.
>> >Never the fossiles themselves.
>>
>> Please provide a shred of evidence to support your wild assertions.
>>
>> >> were not always the same and therefore the datings are
>> >> > quite fallible.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> So is prayer sometimes.
>> >
>> >I don't pray!
>>
>> I guess you just live under a bridge.
>>
>
> Why the sarcasm??
It's his subtle way of calling you a troll. A troll in Usenet parlance is
someone who posts something totally out to lunch for the purpose of
trolling for replies.
(It's a play on words, you see).
Dave Oldridge
news:wnlsa.6456$dP1....@newsc.telia.net:
>
> "David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
> news:gqn3bv0lhoao1ij48...@4ax.com...
>> In alt.talk.creationism, "Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se>
>> wrote in <c9lsa.6453$dP1....@newsc.telia.net>:
>>
>> >
>> >"David Jensen" <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
>> >news:3sm3bvs1ooeknhbph...@4ax.com...
>> >> In alt.talk.creationism, "Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se>
>> >> wrote in <Mhksa.6445$dP1....@newsc.telia.net>:
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> >"Andromeda" <ma...@skeptical-christian.net> wrote in message
>> >> >news:b8si9p$ct30s$1...@ID-182287.news.dfncis.de...
>> >> >>
>> >> >> "Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se> wrote in message
>> >> >>
>> >> >> > Now, who is the stupid? And by the way I am not a Christian,
>> >> >> > but
>> >> >> evolution
>> >> >> > I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> You say you're not a Christian... you sound like one.
>> >> >
>> >> >So, you are saying that I sound like a Christian for reason of me
>> >rejecting
>> >> >the evolution theory?
>> >>
>> >> Some sort of religiously biased writer.
>> >>
>> >> >What's wrong with common sense?
>> >>
>> >> Common sense, unaffected by knowledge is a special kind of
>> >> foolishness. Common sense tells us that nuclear weapons don't
>> >> exist, that the sun goes around the earth, that the sun is not a
>> >> fusion reaction. Common sense is limited and appealing to it is a
>> >> limitation.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >> What is *godlike* about the big bang?
>> >> >> Were the first one-celled organisms on earth (4bya), "god's
> children"
>> >in
>> >> >the
>> >> >> eyes of evolutionists?
>> >> >> What evolutionist have you lately seen, sacrificing animals or
> babies
>> >to
>> >> >> un-named god or gods. For this cause, it is not a religion, no
>> >> >> more
>> >than
>> >> >> say, the multiplication tables or chemistry or physics, or
>> >> >> calculus.
>> >> >There's
>> >> >> as much *religion* found in evolution to evolutionists, as any
>> >> >> of us
>> >see
>> >> >> god(s) out of the thin air...
>> >> >
>> >> >That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and
>> >> >solely a system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical
>> >> >universe of
> ours.
>> >> >Evolution is not provable, That's all.
>> >>
>> >> The theory of evolution is the model that best fits all of the
>> >> evidence about the history of life on earth. As with all
>> >> scientific theories, that means that it is proven in a legal or
>> >> testing sense, but not in a formal or logical sense.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >> Meanwhile, please explain what you're referring to, when you've
> stated
>> >> >> evolution is not scientific? What's unscientific about it...?
>> >> >> the
>> >> >one-celled
>> >> >> organisms four billion years ago, or the dinosaurs 65 million
>> >> >> years
>> >ago...
>> >> >> or was it man, a mere 4 million years ago. Sounds like
>> >> >> evolution to
> me.
>> >> >
>> >> >Scientific is provable to be true, without reasonable doubt.
>> >>
>> >> What?
>> >>
>> >> >All dating methods are based on presumptions ans unchanged
>> >> >conditions.
>> >>
>> >> That is not a presumption, but an observation about the behavior
>> >> of the universe. If you have contrary evidence, provide it, your
>> >> mindless speculation is not a valid objection.
>> >>
>> >> > it at least has
>> >> >been proven dat they were not always the same and therefore the
> datings
>> >are
>> >> >quite fallible.
>> >>
>> >> How fallible? What are the the error bars?
>> >
>> >Get educated first. You are only opposing but not adding anything
>> >to it. You will find some data here:
>> >http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/hovind_seminar/seminar_introduction.ht
>> >ml
>>
>> I am educated about Slimeball Hovind. He is not a doctor, his PhD is
>> a fraud. He knows nothing about science and teaches nonsense in place
>> of it. He has a fairly long rap sheet.
>>
>> Anyone who thinks that Hovind's nonsense is educational was
>> miseducated as a child.
>>
>> >Why is it always so that those who support get so sarcastic about
>> >things, are they afraid of something. What do they want to prove?
>> >
>> >Common sense is logical deduction, no more, no less......
>>
>> As the saying goes Garbage In Garbage Out. That's why common sense
>> applied to ignorance is worthless.
>
> Again sarcasm, and empty words. Kent's PhD is basically of nó
> importance, I've seen evolutionist's debating with him and getting
> overwhelmed, not knowing what to say anymore. Much more convincing.
It is very frustrating to debate professional creationists. In fact
that's why I won't do it. Not in the kind of time-limited public debate
forum that they favour. And the reason is dead simple. It takes about
half an hour to carefully build the groundwork to refute a lie that it
takes Hovind half a minute or less to tell. Such "debates" are simply
places for Hovind to sell his videos and gain followers who are impressed
with his sophistry.
When creationism has been subjected to the scrutiny of the courts in the
US, it has invariably lost. And its track record in peer reviewed science
journals is terrible. To put it bluntly they mostly don't submit their
garbage for peer review and then complain that they couldn't get it
published!
> I wrote a piece about my findings about this controvery, you may want
> or may not want to look at it. I'm going in for the night (or rather
> morning)
>
> http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/creation.html
Nothing here about why you worship a "hero" with a phony PhD.
Seriously, my doctorate from UBS in Advanced Pedantics is just as good as
his so-called degree.
Roy
J M wrote:
> And survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the deaf
> classical musician. Was it Beethoven?
It was. But since he didn't become deaf until he was in his 40s,
it didn't affect his early career.
> Survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the blind musicians,
> Ronny Milsap, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.
Why? Being blind isn't fatal. Nor does it affect reproduction. In the
ancient world
it might have affected survival chances, but not today.
> Who on this earth would want to live in a world without Ronny Milsap,
> Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles?
>
> Not to mention the SEVERAL Idiot Savants whose gifts are music. I've
> seen two blind idiot savants who are GIFTED concert pianists.
>
> I am mentally ill myself; of that, I've made no secret. Yet I've
> changed history already. And my writing CONTINUES to change the
> culture locally.
>
> By YOUR definition of "survival of the fittest" there would be no sick
> or lame or otherwise "infirm" among us. Yet even the Downs Syndrome
> folk can contribute. I see them in stores, as clerks, I rode the bus
> with one a few weks ago, a pretty young lady of 24 who had a boyfriend
> and was on her way to her job. We carried on a VERY nice conversation.
> She is no idiot. While her IQ may be below average, if she has an IQ
> of 100, she can contribute.
If she has an IQ of 100, she doesn't have a below average IQ.
>
> Don't forget the Downs Syndrome young man who had his own TV series
> seveveral years ago, for several years. Although it never caught on,
> it gained CRITICAL praise.
>
> Don't fool yourself; "survival of the fittest" is merely a theory, and
> an unproven one at that..
Since technically you can't prove scientific theories, but only disprove
them, your statement is effectively tautological...
--
Roy
John Baker
>
> Again sarcasm, and empty words. Kent's PhD is basically of nó importance,
> I've seen evolutionist's debating with him and getting overwhelmed, not
> knowing what to say anymore. Much more convincing.
Hovind is a fraud who couldn't hold his own against a reasonably intelligent
12 year old in an honest scientific debate. Note the operative term,
'honest.' It's one Hovind is totally unfamiliar with. He's never once agreed
to debate when he can't pick the venue and make the rules. Sure
"evolutionists" are struck speechless. We simply can't believe Hovind's
utter stupidity, or more to the point, we can't believe anyone would take
him seriously. That some people apparently do leaves us at a loss for words.
The man is a liar and a charlatan whose abysmal scientific ignorance should
be apparent to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the subject.
The only thing Hovind really excels at is selling a lie to the gullible,
scientifically illiterate fundies who actually believe he knows what he's
talking about. The Kent Hovind Sure-Fire Method of "winning" debates
consists simply of telling so many lies during your turn at the podium that
it's impossible for your opponent to refute them in the time allotted.
John Baker
> >
> > >>
> > >> More like *who* are you... could it be Kent Hovind, using a public
> library
> > >> computer?
> > >>
> > >> www.skeptical-christian.net
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >I don't think that Kent Hovind would do such a thing actually, why
should
> > >he.
> > >http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/creation.html
> > >
> > >Somewhere on that site is a picture of me too....
> >
> > willing to use their own names, while the forces of ignorance hide
> > behind pseudonyms.
>
> Really? I give freely my homepage and other information about myself. Waht
> did you do?
The "Pot And Kettle Argument" cuts no ice here, RR. <G>
>
>
Pastor Dave
<cani...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>Pastor Dave wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> When you believe what you believe by faith, which is
>> what those who believe in macroevolution must do, then
>> that qualifies as a religion.
><snip>
>> "Science" is a methodology, not a conclusion. It makes
>> no conclusions about the data. Therefore, when one
>> claim macroevolution and cannot back it up, they are
>> clinging to their faith in the conclusions of others
>> and not to "science".
><snip>
>> Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black!
>> Please show me one single clear and gradual progression
>> of fossils, from one kind to another (ape to man, land
>> dwelling mammals to whales, etc.). You can't do it.
>> You can only show me evidence of microevolution, which
>> Creationists state clearly, is a fact of science. Then
>> you'll try to tell me that there is no such thing as
>> macro and micro evolution, when in fact, we both know
>
>There is little or no difference between microevolution and macroevolution.
That is what you'd like everyone to believe and you
have done exactly as I stated evolutionists would,
which is to try to deny the difference.
>Macroevolution is simply a composite of many microevolutionary steps (the
>organism changes slowly over time into something else).
That is your CLAIM. Now PROVE it. Show me one single
clear and gradual progression of fossils, from one kind
to another (ape to man, land dwelling mammals to
whales, etc.).
>How, then, does
>the organism stay within the context of "its kind" as I've usually heard it
>put? Since microevultion changes small things about the organism, surely
>these would add up to a big thing over time. Because of this, to accept
>microevolution, but not macro, is, to me, a concession to evolution.
"Surely"? In other words, your speculating. That
isn't proof.
What you do, is as I said. You show examples of
microevolution and then CLAIM macroevolution. Tell me,
if it's so well supported, why is it that no one can
show me one clearly proven example of macroevolution?
Pastor Dave Raymond
___
When Christianity becomes religion,
it leaves the heart hungry.
In the beginning, God created...
Don't tell me you believe the end,
if you don't believe the beginning.
Andromeda
"Roy" <rthe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3EB25E11...@hotmail.com...
> > Don't fool yourself; "survival of the fittest" is merely a theory, and
> > an unproven one at that..
>
> Since technically you can't prove scientific theories, but only disprove
> them, your statement is effectively tautological...
Survival of the fittest is indeed a fact of nature. We see it all around us
in the animal kingdom. Now humans are sometimes (mind you, sometimes) a
little different than the animal, but not much. They've got what's called
"intellect" and you can take the ugliest man, and give him talent, and a
charming personality, and sheez, he'll be surrounded by women. :)
Also, so goes for procreation and "survival of the fittest" - depends what a
species finds attractive. e.g., for peacocks its their plumage... clip the
eyes out of those feathers, and its going to be a lonely mating season for
the peacock... for the human animal, sometimes its their ability to make
music, to create art, to write, to sing, and sometimes, its how rippling
those muscles are, ROTFL, sometimes, the ability to make money is the key to
attracting a mate. Depends what stirs the heart and soul, of a woman.
Pastor Dave
Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote:
>Cloud McCloud wrote:
>> On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
>> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
>> news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
>>
>>
>>>Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
>>>sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
>>>in genetics and other areas.
>>
>>
>> Haha! That's funny!
>>
>
>It is rather ironic, isn't it? But it is a fact. In researching human
>diseases, much profitable work has centered on primates because of their
>closeness to the human genome. In other animals, scientists have to be
>more careful. A laboratory rat is similar to humans genetically in lots
>of ways, but the differences tend to make the observations less
>transferrable. But knowing the relationships and the relative distances
>between the relationships has made identifications of the causes of
>certain diseases much easier.
>
>In most of the other sciences, evolution as applied to that branch of
>science helps provide the continuity needed to understand what is
>happening. Understanding the evolution of stars allowed us to predict
>and actually map black holes.
Here you become the hypocrite again. You claim that
abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution and now
claim that cosmic evolution has to do with biological
evolution.
>Evolution is the only answer for the extreme biological diversity of
>today's world, whether you believe in the Flood of Noah or not. In fact,
>if you believe in the Flood of Noah, you must ascede to a rate of
>evolution in the last few thousand years vastly exceeding anything that
>we observe today. The numbers just don't work otherwise. Of course, the
>desire to deny evolution makes a lot of creationists simply fudge or
>ignore the numbers! Again, their mindset has been trained so that they
>cannot even conceive of the difficulties of their position.
Untrue. In reality, one doesn't have to assume
anything but microevolution, which is a fact of
science. The fact is, that if you take away the Flood,
the population numbers of humans don't work.
>So yes, it is funny in a sad sort of way. I understand because I was a
>fundamentalist and believed implicitly their literature. I even argued
>with my professors about it.
And then you denied the truth, in favor of a worldly
interpretation, without proof and yet claim not to be
doing it by faith.
Pastor Dave
<tor...@fuse.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>"Elmer Bataitis" <nyli...@frontiernet.net> wrote in message
>news:3EB1EB27...@frontiernet.net...
>> J M wrote:
>>
>> > It would make PERFECT sense that the creator would make similar
>> > species of the same building blocks. Why start "from scratch" each
>> > time?
>>
>> Is God omnipotent or not? How much "work" would He be saving Himself??
>>
>I sincerely doubt if that came into play. However, if one believes in a God
>who promotes Free Will, than evolution makes a great deal of sense.
How?
Pastor Dave
(Steven J.) wrote:
They have much in common, but it doesn't sound like
common design? Interesting.
Pastor Dave
<doldridgLE...@hfx.eastlink.ca> wrote:
>> Who on this earth would want to live in a world without Ronny Milsap,
>> Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles?
>
>Not me. Survival of the fittest is not a program for action. It simply
>happens.
And yet the world is full of the unfit, thereby
disproving your claim.
Pastor Dave
(Steven J.) wrote:
>Note that survival of the fittest is not really a tautology -- that
>is, the fittest are not defined, retroactively, as "whatever
>survives." Survival of the fittest means that some variations within
>a population help individuals (in that environment -- a trait which is
>fitter in one environment may be less fit in another) leave more
>descendants, consistently. That is, survival is not random with
>respect to hereditary variation. It's better for mammals to have
>thick white fur in the arctic winter than thin, brown fur. Mutations
>which tend to make their fur thicker or whiter will be consistently
>favored.
And yet we have the disabled, who have survived and yet
would be better of fully functional, in many cases,
thereby disproving your claim.
>This is why the peppered moth is a favored example of
>natural selection -- you can look at the pictures (the black and grey
>moths on soot-covered and lichen-covered bark, respectively), and
>*see* why one color scheme is fitter in one environment, and less fit
>in the other.
That experiment was a fraud. Even so, it is not
evidence of macroevolution, but rather, natural
selection. The birds eat what they can see.
Pastor Dave
<nyli...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>> It really is: this is a grand unifier which has none of its supposed data
>> avaialble (ie fossil record as predicted by Darwin) and cuts the throat of
>> any grad student that says that the emperor has no clothes.
>
>Gee, so all these scientists for the past 200 years have been lying? Why
>do you think this?
This is all you have to rely on, which shows the
weakness of your position.
Pastor Dave
(David Lee) wrote:
>Pastor Dave barfed:
> Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
> makes it a religion.
>
>David Lee
>No, ahem, it does NOT. Just believing something on faith does not make
>it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the definiton of
>religion that says believing in anything on "faith" alone as you call
>it makes it a religion.
Religion: A cause, principle, or activity pursued with
zeal or conscientious devotion.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=religion
Faith:
1) Confident belief in the truth, value, or
trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2) Belief that does not rest on logical proof or
material evidence.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=faith
Now, if you wish to deny definition #2, then please
show me even one single clear and gradual progression
of fossils, from one kind to another (ape to man, land
dwelling mammals to whales, etc.). If you cannot do
that, then #2 applies also.
Tom
> > No, ahem, it does NOT. Just believing something on faith does not make
> > it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the definiton of
> > religion that says believing in anything on "faith" alone as you call
> > made up out of thin air by Creationists. The only time faith becomes a
> > religion is when it is combined with belief in a deity, stupid.
>
worship'
> The deity would be 'evolution'
Tom: What are these religious systems. Statements such as this are the ones
creationists make when they have nothing of substance to offer, which is
most of the time.
>RR: Now, who is the stupid?
Tom: You still qualify.
>RR: And by the way I am not a Christian, but evolution
> I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
Tom: What do you find about evolution that isn't scientific RR?
>
Tom
> >> > >
> >> > > More like *who* are you... could it be Kent Hovind, using a public
> >> library
> >> > > computer?
> >> > >
> >> > > www.skeptical-christian.net
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> >
> >> > I don't think that Kent Hovind would do such a thing actually, why
> >should
> >> > he.
> >> > http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/creation.html
> >> >
> >> > Somewhere on that site is a picture of me too....
> >>
top.
> >>
> >
> >Did you?
> >http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/WHO_IS_THIS.html
>David: The Ignorant Mystic?
Tom: Now Dave, don't insult the guy. After all, he did have his picture
published on the internet and therefore must be quite famous.
Tom
> >
> > >>
> > >> More like *who* are you... could it be Kent Hovind, using a public
> library
> > >> computer?
> > >>
> > >> www.skeptical-christian.net
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >I don't think that Kent Hovind would do such a thing actually, why
should
> > >he.
> > >http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/interests/creation.html
> > >
> > >Somewhere on that site is a picture of me too....
> >
> > willing to use their own names, while the forces of ignorance hide
> > behind pseudonyms.
>
Waht
> did you do?
> Again sarcasm and empty words to cover up ignorance
Tom: Ignorance is entering a newsgroup with nothing to say but talking
anyway. When you get a few specifics come back and talk to us.
Helps
> On Thu, 1 May 2003 11:10:22 -0500, "Helps" <wcl...@charter.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Cloud McCloud" <cl...@cloud.com> wrote in message
> >news:asmdb0$ss23f$2...@news.tssrnet.com...
> >> On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
> >> <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in
> >> news:BAD67BA9.4103FD%tiffirg...@ctc.net:
> >>
> >> > Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
> >> > sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
> >> > in genetics and other areas.
> >>
> >> Haha! That's funny!
> >
> >avaialble (ie fossil record as predicted by Darwin) and cuts the throat
of
> >any grad student that says that the emperor has no clothes.
EVOLUTION
> >as the mechanism for descent with change.
> >Survival of the fittest: a tautology
> >
> And survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the deaf
> classical musician. Was it Beethoven?
>
>
> Who on this earth would want to live in a world without Ronny Milsap,
> Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles?
>
> seen two blind idiot savants who are GIFTED concert pianists.
>
> I am mentally ill myself; of that, I've made no secret. Yet I've
> changed history already. And my writing CONTINUES to change the
> culture locally.
>
> By YOUR definition of "survival of the fittest" there would be no sick
> or lame or otherwise "infirm" among us. Yet even the Downs Syndrome
> folk can contribute. I see them in stores, as clerks, I rode the bus
> with one a few weks ago, a pretty young lady of 24 who had a boyfriend
> and was on her way to her job. We carried on a VERY nice conversation.
> She is no idiot. While her IQ may be below average, if she has an IQ
> of 100, she can contribute.
>
> seveveral years ago, for several years. Although it never caught on,
> it gained CRITICAL praise.
>
> an unproven one at that..
>
The "Survival of the fittest" as a slogan is seemingly obvious.
This what is meant by a tautology. If you didn't survive you couldn't
reproduce, so you must have been the fittest in the first place. The
problem is that reproductive skills are not necessarily survival skills.
Secondly, the fossil record, if looked at dispassionately, would never have
produced the conclusion that evolution is the SOLE cause of descent with
change. The record shows huge time slots with NO change and then rapid
major shifts. EXACTLY opposite to Darwin's hypothesis. Read "Darwin on
Trial"
Thirdly, the level of complexity is such that step-wise small changes would
kill the animal before you got all the pieces together. As an example the
"clotting mechanism" is actually a dual systme to clot and another system to
breakdown clots. Each is independent. With out all three in balance we
would bleed or clot to death in minutes. Imagine the poor animal who got
one part of it installed before the other two. Suruval of the 'fittest'
indeed. Read Behe's 'Darwin's Black Box.'
Pastor Dave
<ma...@skeptical-christian.net> wrote:
>
>"Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se> wrote in message
>news:Mhksa.6445$dP1....@newsc.telia.net...
>
>> That's not the definition of religion. Religion is simply and solely a
>> system of beliefs. Not really provable in this physical universe of ours.
>> Evolution is not provable, That's all.
>
>Not provable? Neither is religion.
>Since you define evolution as *religion*.
>Please define what science is then.
Science is a methodology, not a conclusion.
>Fossils are tangible, unlike faith.
Then please show me one single clear and gradual
progression of fossils, from one kind to another (ape
to man, land dwelling mammals to whales, etc.).
Pastor Dave Raymond
Tom
>
> "Raymond E. Griffith" <tiffirg...@ctc.net> wrote in message
> news:BAD744A6.4104C7%tiffirg...@ctc.net...
> > in article kGjsa.6443$dP1....@newsc.telia.net, Roadrunner at
> > peg...@privat.utfors.se wrote on 5/1/03 9:17 PM:
> >
> > > "David Lee" <david...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > > news:2b933e90.03050...@posting.google.com...
> > >> Evolutionists believe what they believe by faith. That
> > >> makes it a religion.
> > >
make
> > >> it a rreligion. Get a Unabridged Dictionary and find the definiton of
> > >> religion that says believing in anything on "faith" alone as you call
> > >> it makes it a religion. There is no such defintion. It is a defintion
> > >> made up out of thin air by Creationists. The only time faith becomes
a
> > >> religion is when it is combined with belief in a deity, stupid.
> > >
> worship'
> > > The deity would be 'evolution'
> > >
> evolution
> > > I find not being very scientific. It's definitely religious.
> > >
> >
you
> > support the "Christian" view of creation as espoused by Christian
> > fundamentalists? After all, you put up Hovind's web site.
> >
> > It does not seem reasonable for you to say you are not a Christian but
> > support the Christian fundamentalist version of creationism. So, what
are
> you?
>RR: Ever heard of common sense? You look at the physical evidence on this
>planet and may be coming from elsewhere. Then you may decide solely based
on
> logical deduction if it resembles more the evolution idea or the
creationism
> idea. Please do not attemp to put me in some box which you then can
> categorize, this is of no importance, common sense is. It is also of no
> basic importance if it was evolution or creation, it's much more
interesting
> to study WHY people believe the things they do.
Tom: I see from your common sense statements that you know nothing of QM. I
also see that small things such as evidence do nothing for you. Typical
creationist.
Helps
>in this case is what the breeders want. In nature, it's what nature wants.
NON-SENSE!!!
Firstly, we are talking about speciation... NEW SPECIES, if fact new genera,
new families, new order, new phyla and new kingdoms.
Animal breeders fiddle with makeing changes within a species, small
potatoes.
Secondly, animal breeders are merely rearranging fixed material... its
called sexual reproduction.
At best they are taking the part of a truly discerning stud animal.
Thirdly "What Nature wants"? Who is this Nature you speak of? Personafying
the creation no more makes it a god than ignoring GOd makes him go away.
Please READ something before you get into this.
Darwin of trial by Smith
Darw2in's Black box by Behe
"Elmer Bataitis" <nyli...@frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:3EB1EC09...@frontiernet.net...
> J M wrote:
> > On Thu, 1 May 2003 11:10:22 -0500, "Helps" <wcl...@charter.net>
> > >"Cloud McCloud" <cl...@cloud.com> wrote in message
> > >> On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
>
> > >> > Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
> > >> > sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
> > >> > in genetics and other areas.
>
> > >> Haha! That's funny!
>
> > >It really is: this is a grand unifier which has none of its supposed
data
> > >avaialble (ie fossil record as predicted by Darwin) and cuts the throat
of
> > >any grad student that says that the emperor has no clothes.
> > >BTB, it is not evolution which is at question here really BUT ONLY
EVOLUTION
> > >as the mechanism for descent with change.
> > >Survival of the fittest: a tautology
>
> > And survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the deaf
> > classical musician. Was it Beethoven?
>
> It obviously didn't.
>
> > Survival of the fittest would eliminate, help me, the blind musicians,
> > Ronny Milsap, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.
>
> It obviously didn't.
>
> > Who on this earth would want to live in a world without Ronny Milsap,
> > Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles?
>
> > Not to mention the SEVERAL Idiot Savants whose gifts are music. I've
> > seen two blind idiot savants who are GIFTED concert pianists.
>
> > I am mentally ill myself; of that, I've made no secret. Yet I've
> > changed history already. And my writing CONTINUES to change the
> > culture locally.
>
> > By YOUR definition of "survival of the fittest" there would be no sick
> > or lame or otherwise "infirm" among us.
>
> Whose definition? Maybe you should reread the thread.
>
> > Yet even the Downs Syndrome
> > folk can contribute. I see them in stores, as clerks, I rode the bus
> > with one a few weks ago, a pretty young lady of 24 who had a boyfriend
> > and was on her way to her job. We carried on a VERY nice conversation.
> > She is no idiot. While her IQ may be below average, if she has an IQ
> > of 100, she can contribute.
>
> > Don't forget the Downs Syndrome young man who had his own TV series
> > seveveral years ago, for several years. Although it never caught on,
> > it gained CRITICAL praise.
>
> > Don't fool yourself; "survival of the fittest" is merely a theory, and
> > an unproven one at that..
>
> What do animal breeders do? Not a theory at all. Reality. The "fittest"
> in this case is what the breeders want. In nature, it's what nature wants.
>
> ***************************************************************
> Elmer Bataitis "Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!"
> Planetech Services -Hobbes
> 585-442-2884
> "...proudly wearing and displaying, as a badge of honor, the
> straight jacket of conventional thought."
> ***************************************************************
Helps
What is must have been what was the "fittest" to survive.
As such it is a useless concept. A mere restating of one statement as
another: animals exist, all animals had ancestors, therefore the animals now
must had had the best ancestors in the past.
It says nothing other than the obvious and has no power to predict, which is
the utility of any theory.
Thus the Theory of evolution is not even a theory
"Andromeda" <ma...@skeptical-christian.net> wrote in message
news:b8tqnd$dlvc3$1...@ID-182287.news.dfncis.de...
Pastor Dave
<nu...@bizniz.net> wrote:
>
>"Roadrunner" <peg...@privat.utfors.se> wrote in message
>news:wnlsa.6456$dP1....@newsc.telia.net...
>>
>> Again sarcasm, and empty words. Kent's PhD is basically of nó importance,
>> I've seen evolutionist's debating with him and getting overwhelmed, not
>> knowing what to say anymore. Much more convincing.
>
>Hovind is a fraud who couldn't hold his own against a reasonably intelligent
>12 year old in an honest scientific debate.
Well then, it's quite interesting that he does.
Pastor Dave Raymond
___
When Christianity becomes religion,
it leaves the heart hungry.
In the beginning, God created...
Don't tell me you believe the end,
if you don't believe the beginning.
Helps
Firstly, Darwin publish a little over 100 hundred years ago not 200.
Secondly, scientific unanimity has HARDLY been enjoyed by it and has been
increasing for 50 years, despite the overwhelming attempts to silence it.
Recently, a CA med school professor was sued because he refused to give a
recommendation (a routine procedure) to any med student who didn't BELIEVE
in the theory.
Thirdly, are you arguing from authority?
If so Read: Behe's "Darwin's Black Box, Ross's "The Genesis Question",
Smith's "Darwin on Trial"
Fourthly, you have made no attempt to define "fittest"
if you merely mean that those that survive must have been "fittest"
since they survived, you have made an excellent example of a tautology and
thus the theory is no theory at all as it has no power to predict and very
little to elucidate.
"Elmer Bataitis" <nyli...@frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:3EB1E6FE...@frontiernet.net...
> Helps wrote:
> > "Cloud McCloud" <cl...@cloud.com> wrote in message.
> > > On Thu 01 May 2003 07:22:18a, "Raymond E. Griffith"
>
> > > > Creationists cannot see how evolution has become the unifier of the
> > > > sciences, nor how evolutionary theory has driven the great advances
> > > > in genetics and other areas.
>
> > > Haha! That's funny!
>
> > It really is: this is a grand unifier which has none of its supposed
data
> > avaialble (ie fossil record as predicted by Darwin) and cuts the throat
of
> > any grad student that says that the emperor has no clothes.
>
> Gee, so all these scientists for the past 200 years have been lying? Why
> do you think this?
>
> > BTB, it is not evolution which is at question here really BUT ONLY
EVOLUTION
> > as the mechanism for descent with change.
> > Survival of the fittest: a tautology
>
> Not really a tautology but depends critically on what one means by
> "fittest".
David Jensen
<vb4uecn...@corp.supernews.com>:
>>What do animal breeders do? Not a theory at all. Reality. The "fittest"
>>in this case is what the breeders want. In nature, it's what nature wants.
>
>NON-SENSE!!!
>
>Firstly, we are talking about speciation... NEW SPECIES, if fact new genera,
>new families, new order, new phyla and new kingdoms.
Those occurred over the entire age of life on earth, not in one
generation.
>Animal breeders fiddle with makeing changes within a species, small
>potatoes.
But until very recently they could only use the variations the come from
nature.
>Secondly, animal breeders are merely rearranging fixed material... its
>called sexual reproduction.
The material isn't fixed over time, just in the particular animals.
>At best they are taking the part of a truly discerning stud animal.
>
>Thirdly "What Nature wants"? Who is this Nature you speak of? Personafying
>the creation no more makes it a god than ignoring GOd makes him go away.
Yes, it was a metaphorical personification, so what?
>Please READ something before you get into this.
>Darwin of trial by Smith
>Darw2in's Black box by Behe
Darwin has won. He discovered something and didn't know what the
mechanism was, but he described what was happening. Mendel discovered
how it happened. Watson, Crick, et al. discovered the detailed
mechanics. Each discovery showed how Darwin was right.
The critics of Darwin rely on the ignorance of their audience to buy the
stories they spin. Not only is there less to their criticism than meets
the eye, but none of the critics offer a scientific alternative to the
current theory of evolution.
Canicus
It is a logical conclusion if one does not have a mechanism that prevents
"microevolution" from becoming "macroevolution." There can be no
distinction without such a mechanism.
If I were to show you, without your defining exactly what a kind is, you can
claim that it is not. As I said in my post (the portions you did not
address), discussing it without first defining our terms is an exercise in
futility. Since it is necassary, you tell me first what a kind is so that
I can answer your question, otherwise I will be unable to demonstrate a
progression of fossils.
>
>
>>How, then, does
>>the organism stay within the context of "its kind" as I've usually heard
>>it
>>put? Since microevultion changes small things about the organism, surely
>>these would add up to a big thing over time. Because of this, to accept
>>microevolution, but not macro, is, to me, a concession to evolution.
>
> "Surely"? In other words, your speculating. That
> isn't proof.
>
> What you do, is as I said. You show examples of
> microevolution and then CLAIM macroevolution. Tell me,
> if it's so well supported, why is it that no one can
> show me one clearly proven example of macroevolution?
I will offer proof when you explain the standards by which you would
recognize such a clear progression. Will we progress on the basis of the
concept of kind I so often see in creationist literature, and if so,
exactly what constitutes it, or shall we proceed using the established
concept of species and geni to do it? We need ground rules before going
on, and when I have that, I will offer proof.