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Author Topic:   The Evolutionistic Faith
manfree 
Inactive Member


Message 16 of 32 (80564)
01-24-2004 10:32 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by sidelined
01-24-2004 10:16 PM


Re: What I meant...
Trying to make an honest living

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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4060 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 17 of 32 (80569)
01-24-2004 10:57 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Chiroptera
01-24-2004 5:49 PM


All one needs are bone fide miracles, events that simply cannot be explained through natural laws (including the potential for human error).
Easier said than done. If all the stories I've heard from people are true, then it seems pretty conclusively proven to me that bona fide miracles have happened. However, how are you going to prove such a thing. A person said that a couple helped him with his car on the road, diagnosed his small daughter with appendicitis, and then directed him to a hospital. The couple turned out to be the founders of the hospital, long since dead.
However, the guy could have been lying. He could have been hallucinating. He could have been wrong in recognizing the couple as the ones who founded the hospital.
A doctor had a heart attack and wrecked his car. A truck driver found him on the deserted side road, saying he'd gotten a CB call from the doctor. However, the doctor had no CB and had sent no call. Did it really happen? We have only the doctor's word.
I prayed for my nephew's eyes in response to a letter from my sister. He had an infection that had taken all the sight from one eye and 50% from the other (so said her letter). When I prayed, I told the folks with me that I felt like something happened, but I couldn't get everything out when I prayed. It felt like something was undone. The next letter was only a week later. My nephew had only a small infection left, and all his eyesight had returned. The infection had been increasing for six months, and my sister's letter had seemed hopeless. Did my prayers have anything to do with the recovery? Obviously, I'm going to think so, but how can anyone prove it.
Bona fide miracles, even when they do happen (assuming they really did) are unlikely to lend themselves easily to proof, because they are not repeatable.

This message is a reply to:
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4060 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 18 of 32 (80573)
01-24-2004 11:06 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by apostolos
01-24-2004 8:56 PM


Re: What I meant...
of the posts so far have, to some degree, expressed the type of answers I was looking for.
I don't think it's fair to say "to some degree." One poster, at least, said that since there's really no evidence for God, in that poster's opinion, he doesn't choose to believe in something with no evidence. That's a pretty direct answer.
Also, your original post begins with at least a slight misconception. Maybe most of the evolutionists on this site are unbelievers, but it's certainly not all. I, for example, am a believer in God and in his Son, Yeshua. Statistics say that about half of all scientists believe in God. Among non-scientists, more than half of evolutionists believe in God. (90% of Americans believe in God, and 47% believe in evolution, that means that even if all atheists believe in evolution, which is likely, then 37% of those 47% of evolution-believing Americans believe in God. That's almost 80%.)
Based on what I've seen in other threads, that's the most common answer you'll get from the atheistic/agnostic evolutionists. They see no evidence for the God of the Christians or any other God, so why believe? They see no evidence for the great pink unicorn who rules Pluto, and they don't believe in him, either. Those two beliefs seem the same to them. No evidence for or against, so you can choose to believe, but why would you?

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Mike Holland
Member (Idle past 484 days)
Posts: 179
From: Sydney, NSW,Auistralia
Joined: 08-30-2002


Message 19 of 32 (80576)
01-24-2004 11:13 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by apostolos
01-24-2004 8:56 PM


Re: What I meant...
OK, Russ, here is my attempt to answer your question.
I guess I am an atheist. But I do not claim that there is no God. I simply claim that I have no belief in the subject. My choice was not between having faith in this or having faith in that. It was simply a decision not to have faith.
OK, no doubt some will quibble about the definition of faith, and assert that one must have faith in something. Well, you could say that I have faith that tomorrow I will still be me, and the sky will still be blue (or grey). But that is extrapolation from years of experience, and I don't regard it as faith when it is based on accumulated evidence.
That better?
Mike.

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MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1393 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 20 of 32 (80611)
01-25-2004 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by apostolos
01-24-2004 8:56 PM


Re: What I meant...
quote:
I can see now why this can create confusion but try to think of it as if I had asked atheistic plumbers.
In fact, this clarifies it quite well. You're asking the plumbers why they're atheists. This differs quite dramatically from accusing the methodology of plumbing itself of being atheistic or making people atheists.
Quite literally, the methodology of plumbing, and evolution, and anything else aspiring to be scientific is essentially atheistic. Would you want your plumber to tell you that your garbage disposal is possessed by demons? Or that mere hydraulics is insufficient to explain the complexity of household plumbing systems, etc.? There's obviously no reason to include a deity in plumbing. Why is it okay for certain methodolgies to be atheistic and not others?

The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 21 of 32 (80615)
01-25-2004 9:16 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by apostolos
01-24-2004 8:56 PM


Re: What I meant...
What you meant still isn't clear.
When you describe evolution as a "worldview" what do you mean ?
Evolution as it is usually used in these discussions refers to a scientific theory dealing with the changes, and especially the diversification, in the fauna and flora of the Earth over time. It is not so all-encompassing as to be reasonably described as a worldview.
So youii need to carify if you were referring to evolution in that sense or some other sense in which the "worldview" label would be accurate - and to describe what that sense is.

This message is a reply to:
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 22 of 32 (80648)
01-25-2004 1:05 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by apostolos
01-24-2004 8:56 PM


Re: What I meant...
quote:
Please examine my question again:
I am curious to know why you, as an evolutionist, have made the choice to exercise your faith in this way.

Well, in my case, it wasn't a choice. I used to be a fundmentalist Christian. I was a creationist. But then I realized that the available evidence supported the theory of evolution. I tried to fight against believing it, but I couldn't ignore the facts. Since my fundamentalist beliefs were the "all-or-nothing" inerrant, literalist approach to the Bible, once the Genesis was shown to be wrong, I lost my Christian faith. I didn't do it willingly. I fought against it. I tried to convince myself that the Bible was true by reading apologetics. I constantly prayed to God to given me the strength to retain my faith. But in the end I had to accept that I didn't believe in creationism or the Bible or in God anymore.
If there is a god, I can only say that she is the one to lead me to atheism - presumable she knows what's best for me (wink).

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 23 of 32 (80650)
01-25-2004 1:15 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by apostolos
01-24-2004 8:56 PM


Re: What I meant...
NosyNed writes:
It is a non-choice
apostolos writes:
This is not true and I will prove it with an illustration
An illustration "proves" nothing. But let me play with your analogy a bit.
You sit me down in front of an apple and an orange. I'm not hungry. I have never been hungry (I'm an android). I don't "get" the idea of eating. I don't have a choice to make. It isn't important. It doesn't matter.
In one form of you analogy the apple and an orange are both gods of different sorts. I look, when you insist, and can't see any difference between them. There is nothing to make a choice on. Maybe, if you insist, I flip a coin (as you did by being born where you did). I don't consider flipping a coin to be making much of a choice.
In the other form of you analogy (the one I think you meant), the apple is God and the orange is evolution. I don't see any apple. I can't touch any apple. There still isn't any choice.

Common sense isn't

This message is a reply to:
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apostolos
Inactive Member


Message 24 of 32 (81491)
01-29-2004 12:49 PM


I have been offline for a few days now, pardon the absence. I will try to respond to some of the replies very soon. That is, if there is still interest in continuing on this thread.
Russ

  
Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 25 of 32 (81532)
01-29-2004 4:37 PM


Thread moved here from the Miscellaneous Topics in Creation/Evolution forum.
Edited in note:
From message 14:
quote:
This is precisely why I put in the editorial note saying I originally meant for the thread to be in "Faith and Belief". I still would rather have it there if it can be moved, unless of course the Admins feel it belongs here more than there.
A little slow getting on it, but here you go.
Adminnemooseus
[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 01-29-2004]

Replies to this message:
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apostolos
Inactive Member


Message 26 of 32 (81646)
01-30-2004 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Adminnemooseus
01-29-2004 4:37 PM


thanks and sorry
I appreciate the thread being moved here since this is where I had intended to place it before making my error. However its movement comes at an unfortunate time. Due to the underestimating of academic duties I must withdraw from EVC indefinitely. I simply do not have the time to keep up on things here and stay ahead on the work I am doing. I don't know how long I will be away but it will be no short time, of this much I am sure. Please feel free to continue on in my absence, and I apologize for starting this thread and not seeing it through to the end.
Russ

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Replies to this message:
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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 27 of 32 (81647)
01-30-2004 10:39 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by apostolos
01-30-2004 10:37 AM


Re: thanks and sorry
Thanks for letting us know. Good luck with everything.

Common sense isn't

This message is a reply to:
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Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 28 of 32 (81670)
01-30-2004 12:56 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Chiroptera
01-25-2004 1:05 PM


Re: What I meant...
Why do you seem to have this need to missrepresent the god of the majority here by referring to the female gendor. It reminds me of the childish insultive phrase, "you're a sissy." Is that it? You're being childish here in your posts?

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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 Message 30 by Dan Carroll, posted 01-30-2004 1:45 PM Buzsaw has not replied
 Message 31 by Chiroptera, posted 01-30-2004 8:03 PM Buzsaw has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 29 of 32 (81680)
01-30-2004 1:34 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Buzsaw
01-30-2004 12:56 PM


Why do you seem to have this need to missrepresent the god of the majority here by referring to the female gendor.
The creation of life is a pretty female act, wouldn't you say?
"you're a sissy." Is that it? You're being childish here in your posts?
I guess if you're a sexist who views all that is female as "weak" then yes, you could probably view it that way.
But since God is without gender then neither pronoun really makes sense to me. Why get upset about what's essentially an arbitrary choice?

This message is a reply to:
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Dan Carroll
Inactive Member


Message 30 of 32 (81683)
01-30-2004 1:45 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Buzsaw
01-30-2004 12:56 PM


Re: What I meant...
gendor
Sounds like a He-Man villain.

This message is a reply to:
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