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Author | Topic: Theistic Evolution vs. Intelligent Design | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Bruce1651 Junior Member (Idle past 6063 days) Posts: 4 From: United States Joined: |
The creator can't be all that bright, he was dumb enough to create a being with the intellegence to destroy everything he created (The A-bomb). Bottom line: You have no choice - if that is what your creator is like - you've got to work with it. It's not my idea of God. Deity (if one exists) must reasonably be a whole lot brighter than us wouldn't you agree? Perhaps we need to keep our options open as to who is more intelligent. Do you believe in ID wrt the universe?
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SRO2 ![]() Inactive Member |
Nah, I'm a heathern Atheist. I could never make any sense out of God... and I know the standard answer to that too (I can't possibly)...well thats not good enough...for a creator to exist he has to make sense to me. I don't blindly accept things that I don't understand as being the truth.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: |
You are mistaken; an agnostic only asserts that it is unkown WHETHER god exists. Atheism says it is unknowable, and must therefore not be considered. This Atheist says there is no god.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
Wrong; that is not necessary or implicit to the atheist position.
This message has been edited by contracycle, 07-27-2004 08:13 AM
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: |
Wrong; it is. That being what 'atheist' means and all.
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gbunty Inactive Member |
I downloaded alot of hovind mp3 talks who in spite of his rhetoric seemed to talk alot of sense. Hovind relies on strictly verbal communication: live presentations, debates, audio tapes. He is very skilled at making his rhetoric sound sensible if a person is not very knowledgeable about the scientific background (or rather lack of it) behind his claims. He studiously avoids putting much in writing, and will not engage in a written debate. In a written format, his claims can be researched at leisure and shown to be false. So it would be good for you to listen carefully to those mp3s, taking notes of the points made, and then checking them out. You will find on analysis that most of his "sense" is style rather than substance.
I have never had a problem with evolution but it was nice to hear someone make the Bible sound so literal. As a Christian myself, I have never understood the attraction of a literal bible. Didn't Jesus tell us "the letter kills"? That is certainly my experience of biblical literalism.
I guess the main thing to me is that God is at the origin of all things as Creator and He sustains all he has created whether by natural law or miraculous power. Hey, any Christian (and Jew and Muslim) will go along with that. Doesn't have to be tied to a literal reading of the bible. A few comments on some of the questions you addressed to rubistars.
"One thing I had a serious problem with was that they firmly declared that there were two kingdoms, plants and animals. I knew from my earlier class that this was wrong. I knew that bacteria and protists and fungi were in different kingdoms. This was my first dose of skepticism regarding creationists." I'm not a scientist. Could you make it a little clearer what the problem is? OK, you said you were converted from the drug culture in the 70s.I expect that means you were in high school then or earlier and haven't studied science since. So like myself, and many generations before us, you probably learned that all living things are either "plant" or "animal". That classification dates from the 18th century, (I think---whenever Carl van Linne lived---who devised the tradtional scientific system of classifying creatures into species, genera, families, orders, classes, phyla, kingdoms.) And it made sense before the invention of the microscope and the discovery of microscopic life. But after a century or so of trying to shoehorn things like amoebas, ciliates, algae, and bacteria into the plant/animal slots, and of finding how different fungi are from green plants, a more realistic classification system, (called the 5 kingdom system) was proposed and has been largely accepted. In this system we have plants, animals, fungi, protists and monera. Another system proposed still more recently is based on the type of cell found in living things. It divides the monera (the simplest cells without nucleus or organelles) into two domains: archea and bacteria, while everything else goes into a third domain -- the eukaryota--since they are all composed of one or more complex cells with a nucleus and several organelles. Now classification is a human activity. Nature doesn't care how we divide up her creatures in order to make sense of what we see in them. An amoeba is an amoeba whether we call it a protozoa (animal) or protist. A mushroom is a mushroom whether we place fungi with the plants or give them a kingdom of their own. Classification is for our convenience, so if the 5-kingdom or 3-domain system helps us to understand species better, why not go with it? What is the point of Hovind insisting that we can have only plants or animals when so many living things just don't fit comfortably into either of those slots?
"and then chose the first hominid that was fully human to be Adam and then the story went from there." at what point does one decide true "hominidity" No matter how you slice it, it is going to be arbitrary. Is true "hominidity" something that is physically visible? or is it a certain level of intelligence? or is it a spiritual quality? Biology can only deal with the first of these, and since there is a fairly smooth continuum of development from ape to human characteristics, it is rather arbitrary when to begin calling hominid fossils "human". That, of course, is what one would expect if the human body has evolved from a primate ancestor. Neither intelligence nor spirituality can be measured directly from physical evidence. The best one can do is use cultural criteria, such as tool-making (shows intelligent foresight) and ritual burial (indicates spiritual concepts).
and is there not a theological problem in that death came through the sin of the first man whereas in this case death existed before Adam? Only if you subscribe to a theology which says that not only did no humans die before Adam sinned, but that no plant or animal life died either. The latter idea is not necessitated by either the creation stories nor Paul's letters. And it is contra-indicated by the command given to living creatures to "multiply and fill the earth" and by the indications that both humans and animals required the sustenance of food.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: except that it does not. It says A- theist; not a theist. It does not say "disbeliever" or "infidel". This is a common theist slander of atheists, however. Theists have a tough time coming to grips with the fact that others simply don't believe, rather than disbelieve.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: |
Quite frankly, if you think Atheists don't 'believe there is no god' you're using a radically non-standard definition of Atheist.
You're "Atheism says it is unknowable, and must therefore not be considered" describes a form of Agnosticism.
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CK Member (Idle past 4454 days) Posts: 3221 Joined: |
sounds quite standard to me. Atheists have a disbelief in God rather than a Belief that God does not exists. Those are two quite difference things.
Theists try and say that Atheists have a belief in an attempt to prove them as just another religion. This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 07-28-2004 05:40 AM
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: |
sounds quite standard to me. Atheists have a disbelief in God rather than a Belief that God does not exists. Those are two quite difference things. No, I and other Atheists believe there is no god. Some may wish to phrase it differently as 'no belief in god' but it amounts to the same thing and both are different to what Contra has put forward. I believe there is no god in exactly the same way I believe there are no alien abductions, fairies at the bottom of the garden or invisible monkeys tap-dancing on my monitor.
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CK Member (Idle past 4454 days) Posts: 3221 Joined: |
you speak for all atheists? You speak for me?
When did I vote you in?
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: |
Did I say 'all other atheists'? No, I didn't.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: |
And hang on second, you and Contra already presupposed that you could tell me what atheists do or don't believe so get off you're high horse.
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CK Member (Idle past 4454 days) Posts: 3221 Joined: |
Well it's you who would claim that there is no difference between belief and disbelief:
The american Atheist society would disagree with you: Page not found - American Atheists Those people disagree with you: BestWeb.com - Lease or Buy Domain Names - Best Web Limited At best you are a strong atheist as defined here: News Wire » Internet Infidels This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 07-28-2004 06:32 AM
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: |
From your first link:
If your questions are not asked with the specificity necessary to answer them, please be aware that we will correct you. An "Atheist" is not a "what." An "Atheist" is a person who has a lifestyle premised on the weltanschauung of materialism. That is, we accept "objective reality" in living our lives and we reject any phantasmagoria of the imagination of theistic fold. We live in the real world. Theistic folk live in a world of make believe. To put it simply, an Atheist says to you, "What you see is what you get...." An Atheist uses reason to solve human problems, to make his way in life, to seek happiness, to live with the human community. We eschew the irrational idea of theism. (Emphasis mine) In other words a atheist believes there is no god.
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