Teaching the Truth in Schools

Attempting to read it "in context," I am only able to understand it this far:a) The "hattat" offering is to absolve sin or wrong-doing that is brought upon the entire community by the actions of leaders or priests.b) A vessel that touches any part of the blood or flesh of the hattat offering "becomes holy" by some interpretations of the Hebrew phrasiology, or "must be in a holy state" by other interpretations, and then "must be kept apart."c) This particular offering appears to be the "holiest holy-portion" therefore apparently the scouring and rinsing of the copper or "brazen" vessel to purify it may be so that no remaining part regardless of how scant will come in contact with some other less holy offering if the vessels should get mixed up in a subsequent nomadic move.d) In the context of (c) I can see the "non-dietary" reason for destroying a porous clay vessel.Other than that scenario, I am at a total loss for an explanation.[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 12-08-2003]

That pretty much agrees with my reading. But clearly there is no real health benefit from having a special rule just for sacrifices. It is a rtiual observance and no more.

Martin J. Koszegi,A response to Message 65 as you promised, please.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

As I indicated, I have read Leviticus entirely multiple times--no less than eight times. The "taboos or superstitions" have to do with ancient (old covenant) Jewish religious law; obviously, one who rejects the story of the Bible, would categorize them as such. But aren't you going to respond to the question I posed? Is Jeffrey's claim that there are records of the ancient Egyptian era that give indication, for example, that dung was a part of the Egyptian medical practice, correct?
If it was, that does give us some idea of how inferior their medical beliefs and practices were (even though they had much better medical practices in some other areas). You also discounted or ignored my points about, despite the fact that there were "cleanliness rituals," the mere fact that they were rituals shouldn't automatically discount the net effect of practicing them, and then reaping their medical benefits. If these practices would keep people healthier than those who practiced inferior medical or cleanliness beliefs, it is still significant even if some today refuse to acknowledge it.

I do have my response ready on disk. I thought I sent a message to you indicating that I'm not up to snuff on how to get what I have on disk into my evc forum reply window for you. If you provided the information to me, but I missed it, tell me where it is and I'll get with it. I have some messages on my email list that I haven't been able to get to yet, but I'll check'm out.

Well if you're so familir with Leviticus so as not to need to read it again you know that 6:28 is a ritual observance and not a hygiene rule.If the Egyptians were genuinely inferior to the Hebrews medically then you need to deal with their achieveemnts - not their mistakes. Remember that Galen and Hippocrates were not even born. Medicine had a LONG way to go.And the fact is that many of the rituals do not have hygiene benefits. If some of the rituals happen to have bnnefits it does not mena that the creators of those rituals had knowledge of the health benefits. If the rule of 6:28 existed for the health benefits - as Grant Jeffrey says - then why was it not a general rule so that those benefits could be realised ? Obviously it did not.

I don't understand your reference to "going dormant". If you go to your word processor where the text is opened from the disk and you copy there then when you come to the forum reply window a paste should work.What is it that you are doing?

Martin J. Koszegi writes:quote:
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Is it worse to assume that supernatural forces exist and are responsible for the existence of the physical world, or to assume that they do not exist?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If everything came into existence on its own and somehow developed into the universal
product that is before us, then the biggest beef I have with nats (i.e., that if existence is beholden to a Creator, their definition of science would never be able to
recognize evidence of his work) is irrelevance personified. But you see, I think that science is a channel that runs through the midst of the two assumptions (that yecs and nats hold, for example). Fine, let science ignore such action as special creation . . . that is, let science ignore it to the degree that it ignores the philosophy of the nats, which is, by the way, riddled with unprovable assumptions. Naturalism is no more synonymous with science than creationism.Creationists study things that happen all on their own. If things are studied from a creationist perspective, it doesn’t mean that planets and such will whirl out of their orbits in a train rhythm to the Somba or something. From the creationist perspective, God made physical matter to operate according to the laws that science studies. Predictable. Provable. Etc. Just like how naturalists study. But neither the creationist’s or the naturalist’s underpinning assumptions are science. Each group looks at what is, although with these different unscientific assumptions about ultimate origins. That’s part of the reason why naturalistic and creationistic astrophysicists, for example, agree about the nuclear processes that occur in the unseen and untestable center of the Sun (and about a vast amount of other things as well).I divide knowledge into three basic categories. First, empirical science is composed of knowledge that is always uncontroversially verifiable. Secondly, extrapolative rationale extends exclusively from empirical science to make logical inferences about phenomena’s that cannot be observed directly. Extrapolative rationale is legitimate to the degree that it extends from empirical (uncontroversially verified) science data considered independently from assumptive claimsthe third categorywhich offers supernaturalist or metaphysical philosophy in an attempt to harmonize empirical science and extrapolative rationale details with the favored supernaturalist or metaphysical philosophy. An example of such an assumptive claim is The mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution.Definitions of science that favor one such supernaturalist (creationism) or metaphysical philosophy (naturalism) over another represents an irrational bias. If I’m reading you correctly, you’re suggesting that even if God exists (just as you exist), He didn’t have anything to do with the universe coming into existence (just as you have nothing to do with what I have for breakfast). Physical matter, the laws of nature, etc., all came into being due to time and chance alone, and God, if He exists, was pretty much taken by surprise when it all happened (that is, if he had the wherewithal to notice our existence at all). Anyway, to answer your latter question, God sustains all things, but he made dependable, predictable laws of nature that allows us to study how He made things to be. The fact that He’s free to step in on occasion and interrupt those laws (to do a miracle, such as make a shadow caused by the sun to go in an unnatural direction for a time), doesn’t throw science into an exercise of capriciousness. It’s an exception.quote:
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Both beliefs use the physics of the universe as the means to formulate ideas that relate to origins (or whatever).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Translation: you don't agree with me (i.e., you have been influenced to think in a way that favors the philosophy of naturalism--you might not venture out of that box much). Please verify the following, thus alienating the following from the realm of mere belief (or faith): quote:
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Both sides can make the assumption that the others' fundamental assumption(s) are without justification.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I agree totally. Science doesn't "say" (imply, or support the seeming absolutes) that I listed above that belong to the metaphysical creed of naturalists who excommunicate those heretics from their abbeys who don't fit into their box.quote:
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So my point now isn't so much that science needs to assume the presence of supernatural forces, but that it's equally true that science shouldn't do the opposite--as it does in textbooks, for example.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I borrowed two high school Biology texts in response to this challenge. I think we both realize that there are ways to accomplish the essence of your latter quotations in textbooks other than stating the belief so directly. (I'm wondering if you would concede that.) Both of the texts were published by Prentice Hall, the first one I cite, in '91, and the second one in '98. Men named Miller and Levine are credited with being the primary writers for each. I wasn't surprised by what I found in the texts because I'm familiar with this sort of thing that has been going on in the classrooms in the name of science (of all things). Here's the first one: Note that there are only hypothesis for how this occured. But that it did occur is no mere hypothesis. Indeed, it "must somehow" have happened (or else some fundamental assumptions that us nats have about the meaning of science would be wrong, and that is unthinkable).Here's the other one that I came across, but that isn't quite so blatantly honest and direct--i.e., not so entertaining, but sad--about what nats think (perhaps because of the need to tighten up their story these days, to not admit again the infinite understatement that there's a "step in our story" that "is the most difficult to understand completely"): Yes, sort of like the absolutely pure science that requires physical matter to have created itself from nothing in a primordial explosion.------------------ OK, I'll bite. What does --RTFM stand for? I really hope, though, that you aren't going to get blasphemous.

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Here's the other one that I came across, but that isn't quite so blatantly honest and direct--i.e., not so entertaining, but sad--about what nats think (perhaps because of the need to tighten up their story these days, to not admit again the infinite understatement that there's a "step in our story" that "is the most difficult to understand completely"):

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How could this multi-step biochemical machinery ever have gotten started in the first place? . . . Recent evidence suggests that RNA molecules can grow and duplicate themselves entirely on their own! (406-407)

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If nats could easily explain it I would be worried because it is such a complicated scenario. You will notice in your quote that it says "Recent evidence suggests (emph mine)". In science, this does not mean that they are saying it did happen this way. I do not see any concrete language being used. It is not an act of tightening up the ship, but rather putting ideas out for further experimentation.The tough part about abiogenesis is this, if we are able to create a self-replicating reaction in a test tube we still don't know if that is how life originated here on earth. All it proves is that those reactions can naturally occur. That's the conundrum.

Martin J. Koszegi responds to me:

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If everything came into existence on its own and somehow developed into the universal
product that is before us, then the biggest beef I have with nats (i.e., that if existence is beholden to a Creator, their definition of science would never be able to
recognize evidence of his work) is irrelevance personified.

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This sentence makes no sense.Are you saying that there needs to be a "purpose" to something in order for it to exist? If so, why?

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Creationists study things that happen all on their own.

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How can they when they are studying god, who does not act on his own but on his whim? Didn't you read my post? Not only does science ignore supernatural entities, it ignores natural ones, too, when they act in capricious ways.If you are responsible for personally, consciously, and deliberately knitting two atoms of hydrogen to an atom of oxygen in order to make a molecule of water, then there is very little point in trying to extend that action to anything else or making any prediction about it because it is all dependent upon you. If you don't do it, it doesn't happen.Science is the study of things that happen without the interference of conscious beings deliberately and personally interfering with the process.

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If things are studied from a creationist perspective, it doesn’t mean that planets and such will whirl out of their orbits in a train rhythm to the Somba or something.

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Sure it does. If god wants them to do that, then they will. God makes them move, so if god wants them to move, they move.

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From the creationist perspective, God made physical matter to operate according to the laws that science studies.

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But that's irrelevant. Are those laws maintained by god or do they function all on their own?If I toss a handful of coins on the ground, do they land in their final position all on their own does god come down and personally, deliberately, and consciously make them land that way?My computer needs me to turn it on, but I become irrelevant to its boot process after that. I'm not the one making electrons move through the wires, powering up the hard drive, sending signals through the cables. It's doing that all on its own completely independent of me. That doesn't mean I don't exist and it doesn't mean I can't interfere with it. But it does mean that it does what it does all on its own.

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Definitions of science that favor one such supernaturalist (creationism) or metaphysical philosophy (naturalism) over another represents an irrational bias.

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Incorrect. Definitions of science that rely upon outside conscious forces deliberately and personally intefering with process are necessarily not science. Science studies things that happen on their own without the interference of conscious entities.Besides, you have made a logical error of equivocation. You have confused the methodology called "naturalism" with the metaphysics called "naturalism." There is a difference between saying, "There are things that happen on their own," and saying, "Everything happens on its own."

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If I’m reading you correctly, you’re suggesting that even if God exists (just as you exist), He didn’t have anything to do with the universe coming into existence (just as you have nothing to do with what I have for breakfast).

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No.What I am saying is that the existence of beings that are capable of making things happen does not mean they are omnipresent and acting in every single instance.God might have had something to do with the creation of the universe, but that doesn't mean god had anything to do with anything else. That doesn't mean god doesn't exist. It simply means that god is only involved in some things but not others...other things that happen all on their own without god.And science seeks to understand those things that happen without god.

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Anyway, to answer your latter question, God sustains all things, but he made dependable, predictable laws of nature that allows us to study how He made things to be.

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That doesn't answer the question.If I take a handful of coins and toss them on the ground, do they land in their final position all on their own, or does god come down and personally, deliberately, and consciously make them land the way they do?You keep talking about how "dependable" the universe is...that implies that god has no choice in those things. Even if god wanted to, he couldn't change the nature of the universe because those things are "dependable." Is that what you're implying?

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The fact that He’s free to step in on occasion and interrupt those laws (to do a miracle, such as make a shadow caused by the sun to go in an unnatural direction for a time), doesn’t throw science into an exercise of capriciousness.

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But it does mean science has to ignore it just as it ignores you.So the question is: Is there anything at all that isn't being deliberately, personally, and consciously made to happen by god? Because if it is, then it is a capricious whim of god and doesn't help us to know what things are like when they behave all on their own.

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Translation: you don't agree with me

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Ah, but the difference is that I actually give you a reason why. You simply assert that I'm wrong without justification.

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Please verify the following, thus alienating the following from the realm of mere belief (or faith):

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--chemicals have an observable tendency or ability to form living cells, and single-celled organisms have an observable tendency or ability to form complex plants and animals;

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Define "living."You seem to be heading down the path of claiming that evolution requires abiogenesis and that abiogenesis is something more than an hypothesis.As for the second part, all one needs to do is watch sexually-reproducing species reproduce. You, for example, started from a single cell and progressed through purely chemical means to become a complex, multi-cellular animal.

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--reproduction can produce radically new organs or organisms one tiny step at a time or all at once;

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That's been observed over and over again:Observed Instances of Speciation
Some More Observed Speciation EventsIshikawa M, Ishizaki S, Yamamoto Y, Yamasato K.
Paraliobacillus ryukyuensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a new Gram-positive, slightly halophilic, extremely halotolerant, facultative anaerobe isolated from a decomposing marine alga.
J Gen Appl Microbiol. 2002 Oct;48(5):269-79.
PMID: 12501437 [PubMed - in process]Kanamori T, Rashid N, Morikawa M, Atomi H, Imanaka T.
Oleomonas sagaranensis gen. nov., sp. nov., represents a novel genus in the alpha-Proteobacteria.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2002 Dec 17;217(2):255-261.
PMID: 12480113 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]Fudou R, Jojima Y, Iizuka T, Yamanaka S.
Haliangium ochraceum gen. nov., sp. nov. and Haliangium tepidum sp. nov.: Novel moderately halophilic myxobacteria isolated from coastal saline environments.
J Gen Appl Microbiol. 2002 Apr;48(2):109-16.
PMID: 12469307 [PubMed - in process]Golyshin PN, Chernikova TN, Abraham WR, Lunsdorf H, Timmis KN, Yakimov MM.
Oleiphilaceae fam. nov., to include Oleiphilus messinensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel marine bacterium that obligately utilizes hydrocarbons.
Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2002 May;52(Pt 3):901-11.
PMID: 12054256 [PubMed - in process]Ivanova EP, Mikhailov VV.
[A new family of Alteromonadaceae fam. nov., including the marine proteobacteria species Alteromonas, Pseudoalteromonas, Idiomarina i Colwellia.]
Mikrobiologiia. 2001 Jan-Feb;70(1):15-23. Review. Russian.
PMID: 11338830 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Stackebrandt E, Schumann P.
Description of Bogoriellaceae fam. nov., Dermacoccaceae fam. nov., Rarobacteraceae fam. nov. and Sanguibacteraceae fam. nov. and emendation of some families of the suborder Micrococcineae.
Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2000 May;50 Pt 3:1279-85.
PMID: 10843073 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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--"simple" life forms can be transformed into the highly complex organisms that inhabit the planet today; natural selection in combination with random mutations, has the kind of creative power needed to make complex plants and animals out of much simpler predecessors.

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Again, observed all the time. Here's a page from a professor of biology: Can new genetic information and complexity evolve by known biological mechanisms? Yes.

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Science doesn't "say" (imply, or support the seeming absolutes) that I listed above that belong to the metaphysical creed of naturalists who excommunicate those heretics from their abbeys who don't fit into their box.

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This sentence no verb.Could you rephrase, please?Could you show me a single scientist who, when shown to be correct, wasn't accepted by the rest of science? Do not confuse the brou-ha-has that surround the overturn of a paradigm with the actual overturning of it.

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Show me an example. Where is there a single textbook that says, "Since god does not exist," or, "Thus, god does not exist"?

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I borrowed two high school Biology texts in response to this challenge.

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Good, but you still didn't show me any such thing.Your argument is akin to saying that because you believe the earth is flat by fiat of god, then having a textbook that says the earth is round is tantamount to saying that god does not exist.The evidence points to a conclusion that DNA and RNA evolved. There's still more work to do, yes, but that doesn't mean we ignore the data that we have.And here's a hint: The general consensus in science these days is that the first life wasn't based upon DNA or RNA. So even if god created life, that doesn't mean god created DNA. You still have a gap to put your god in.

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OK, I'll bite. What does --RTFM stand for?

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You don't know?RTFM is a common acronym used by tech support types to refer to what they want to say to those who ask questions that are easily answered if only the person had bothered to consult the documentation:Read The Fucking ManualSome other utterances of frustration are the "I-D-ten-T" problem (which, when written out, spells "id10t" which looks an awful lot like "idiot," don't you think?) and "PEBKAC": Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair (which is where the user typically exists).

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I really hope, though, that you aren't going to get blasphemous.

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I've got an idea: Why don't you let me worry about my relationship with god. You won't be able to help. If god thinks I'm being blasphemous, I'm sure god will let me know.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Unless I'm even more confused than my usual, this Dr Miller is a rather vocal theist who has also written a popular book explaining how his beliefs allow for both the Christian God and modern biology.

You are correct Coragyps, Kenneth R. Miller, author of several science textbooks with Richard Levine is the same Ken Miller who wrote "Finding Darwin's God"http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/cv/index.html Here is an excerpt from the first chapter of "Finding Darwin's God"------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

From Finding Darwin's God:"It once was possible to point to a humble seed and invoke the attention of the Almighty as the only possible explanation for how such an ordinary object could grow into a mighty tree. Today we look into the seed itself, examine the program of gene expression that begins at germination, and seek our answers in the rich complexities of molecular biology and biochemistry. This does not mean that we have reduced the seedling to mere chemistry or physics. It means instead that we have elevated our understanding to appreciate the living plant in a way that lends wonder and delight to our view of nature."------------------
The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall

Kenneth R. Miller - Finding Darwin's God
EvC Forum: Kenneth R. Miller - Finding Darwin's GodMoose

Martin,As others have pointed out, Kenneth Miller is a Brown University researcher who exemplifies a not-so-rare phenomenon in the scientific community: a devout believer who has a realistic outlook on what science is and isn't. I highly recommend Finding Darwin's God if you're interested in understanding evolutionary biology from the standpoint of a Christian.What will it take to convince you that mature faith doesn't demand that believers rant against a crude caricature of scientific researchers like your 'nats?' The fact that Miller (and countless other believers who have no problem reconciling their belief and their scientific understanding) can do successful research alongside nonbelievers is a sign that your accusations of naturalistic brainwashing are completely false. Certainly creationism can't claim to be as objective a template for scientific research if it demands that everyone subscribe to the tenets of fundamentalist Christianity.Contrary to your claim, naturalism most certainly is synonymous with science. It is the foundation of scientific methodology, merely because nothing else works. Scientists understand this, whether they are believers or not.------------------
The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall[This message has been edited by MrHambre, 12-10-2003]