Who Has the Most Metaphysical FAITH--EVO or YEC?

To make a grand-mega-ToE from a micro-ToE, that takes many leaps of faith as I already mentioned.Where has this all this holy faith come from, to wit, to overcome these specific hundreds (and by interpolation millions) of empirical ToE barriers, improbabilities, gaps, links, chains, entropies, irreducibilities, and the like?Who then has the most holy (i.e., profound incredible) metaphysical faith concerning our black box. What faith (re-)moves their mountains of improbability?:
1) The atheistic-existential empirical ToE-ist,
2) The outlandish theistic-gap-ToEist with his/her innumerable god-of-the-gaps presumptions,
3) or, peradventure, the poor wretched YEC? (that's me in the corner...)Seems to me the holiest believer (the one with the most holes) is: 2 > 1 > 3.I (#3), an untoward YEC, can only believe a few redemptive miracles, while the theistic-EVO (#2) is filled with hole-ly redemptive faith. But #1, the micro/mega ToE-ist must believe everything spontaneously did unwind to become this painful cosmos, via aspects of material science alone.Now say science were true, and every man a liar. Most of us don't really believe in science for science's sake. Our idols are movies, lovers, friends, refreshments from the curse, etc. Science is played into our schemes and dreams, especially after we've opted out of the race for higher truth (God), methinks.Science: will it stand the test of the space-time continuum as we know it? Or will the idol (existential empirical philosphy = real science) finally revert to another scienti-ficticious idol ... to consume upon our lusts?All rebuts, etc. are welcome.

Unfortunately I'm not in one of the fora or boards where I could characterise your entire post as meaningless drivel. Therefore I will simply repeat the observation that your strawman version of evolution and the "gaps" which you have previously copied from elsewhere is extensively and substantively erroneous. Thus the comparisons you make and the conclusions you claim are meaningless.Perhaps you should check if your facts are correct before leaping into faith. Again I suggest you select a limited number of your "gaps" or "leaps of faith" and discuss the evidence which supports those assertions.

I looked at the elements in your list that actually dealt with evolution (and most of them did not) and it seems that you need faith to believe that the list is accurateYou would also need a great deal of faith to assume that the problems raised - even if they were genuine problems and not errors made by the author you quoted - could be explained better by YECs. For instance the view of the fossil record requires faith that God miraculously sorted the fossils - and you eould also need to believe that God miraculously set the ages of the rock and many more. When you are forced to invoke ad hoc miracles simply to evade falsification of your beliefs, when there appears to be no justification in reason or even scripture to justify such miracles it seems to me that you put vast faith in your own beliefs to a point which at least approaches self-worship.

Good question Phillip.You won't get a meaningful discussion from the 2 or 1 crowd, because, as so eloquently stated above, there are ZERO gaps in the "microbe to man" story (ToE). There is also no such thing as metaphysics or faith according to the evolutionist.Thus, there must be two black boxes? But the black box of 2 and 1 clearly hold more metaphysical faith in the microbe to man story than the black box of 3 for the aforementioned reasons.

Even better(less holy!) would be the theory that the world was created exactly four seconds ago by the Tooth Fairy's pet Galactic Goat.Only one miracle required there.PE

You don't really understand theistic evolution, do you Philip?It's based on a complete rejection of any "God of the Gaps" fallacies.There is no natural phenomenon to which I respond with "Ah! That's the bit God did". I look for naturalistic descriptions of all natural phenomena. I do not look to science to prove the existence of God, and I do not look to God as a natural explanation.

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You won't get a meaningful discussion from the 2 or 1 crowd, because, as so eloquently stated above, there are ZERO gaps in the "microbe to man" story (ToE). There is also no such thing as metaphysics or faith according to the evolutionist.

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Rubbish. Of course there are gaps. Loads of them. No branch of science has perfect knowledge.However, why does a gap in our knowledge HAVE to = Godidit?The short answer is, it doesn't.A gap in our knowledge is just that; something we don't know.How do we tell the difference between something we do not know because we haven't figured it out yet, don't have the smarts to figure out, or all the natural evidence for it has been destroyed, from something that Godid?We can't, so unless you have some positive evidence that God did something, you don't have anything.Lack of evidence in a field of science does not constitute positive evidence for another theory.

Well lets go into a bit more detail. Firstly since you won't discuss the points it seems that you want us to accept on faith everything the author says - except when you disagree with the author in which case he is definitely wrong.Not exactly consistent. So already you are asking us to have extreme faith in your opinion as the final word.Unfotunately it seems that you don't know enough to spot the errors or to even reasonably analyse the points you youreslf quoted. So you are askign us to have unquestioning faith in you despite clear evidence that such faith would be badly misplaced.Let's look at one of the claims - in fact one of the BETTER claims:"The Darwin model, and in fact every other evolutionary model, cannot explain the so-called big bang in biology, in a short space of time, some 10 million years, there came into being a vast array of more complex multicellular creatures. This burst of creativity is still something of a mystery from a scientific point of view."What he is talking about is the "Cambrian Explosion" which represents the first appearance IN THE FOSSIL RECORD of most of the animal phyla.We do NOT in fact know how far the fossil record reflects what actually happened.Moreover it is NOT a basic failure in Evolutionary theory. The biggest problem is lack of information - the fossil record has many limitations - old rocks are often altered or recycled, losing fossils, very small creatures are almost never found as fossils and soft parts are preserved only in unusual situations to name some that are relevant. And the biochemistry and genetics have to be reconstructed from modern life after 500 million years of evolution.But to sum up the situation.Old Earth Creationists interpret the Cambrian Explosion as an actual sudden appearance. This is intuitive and explains one puzzle but only at the cost of making the unparsimonious assumption of divine intervention, nor can they explain much else.Evolutionists have a number of possible explanations which may explain the Cambrian Explosion, and there is evidence for at least some of them. Firstly there is the idea that the real timescale was longer and the fossil record simply fails to show earlier life. If the Cambrian Explosion in fact represeted a general tendancy to increase in size or develop mineralised exoskeletons or shells then we would expect the fossil record to show little in the way of earlier life. In fact there are some fossils which support the view that multicellular life existed earlier and attempts to date evolutionary divergences through analysing genes also support this view. There are also posisble explanations for a rapid evolutionary rate - such as the development of Hox genes and a greater tolerance for large mutations (there is evidence for a doubling of the entire genome).The rest is pretty much what we would expect - we have relatively simple life, changing over time, and reasonable precursors of the life found in succeeding periods.So Evolution is better off than OEC here.But what about YECs - YECs can't appeal to the OEC explanation. The "sudden appearance" must be an illusion, more so than any evolutionist would suggest. The modern organisms that live in similar habitats - or their ancestors which must be very similar - must have come into existence at the same time. And if the fossil record is attributed to the Flood - as is usually the case - then the YEC must explain why these strange organisms - and no signs of more modern life - just happen to be found only in rocks which seem to be very old, as we would expect to find if evolution, not creation were the case.To conclude then, on this point it is the YEC who must appeal to faith. The evidence is far from an insurmountable problem for evolution - but it represents a very serious problem for YEC. Indeed it is severe enough that it is arguably a refutation of YEC in itself, from which faith is the only escape.

Paulk: I'll focus on your conclusion due to time constraints, thank you for your detailed rebuttal. You state:"To conclude then, on this point it is the YEC who must appeal to faith. The evidence is far from an insurmountable problem for evolution - but it represents a very serious problem for YEC. Indeed it is severe enough that it is arguably a refutation of YEC in itself, from which faith is the only escape."--Arguably numerous insurmountable refutations exist for the mega-ToE-ist, YEC, OEC, and all, methinks by this logic, Paulk.--But I've long hypothesized/concluded, based on the data (similar to that which I cited), that the ToE works for relatively short intervals only (e.g., on the order of mere millenia), due to decay forces per se, even in a uniformitarian model.--Some powerful orderly force had to wind-up (un-evolve?) the cosmos/black box first ... before it unwinded (decrementally?) (evolved/devolved) into this. For example:--Raw inorganic Chemistry, for example, in all its periodic splendor, shows immense peculiar order that does not fit the evo scheme well: Something like: 7 rows, 7 columns+the noble gases + 10 columns of trans-metals beginning the 4th row, 14 Lanthanoids and Actinoids, etc. These peculiar harmonies, symetries, and proportions seem bound and finished. Such chemical excellency is empirically difficult to conjure up in a ToE, might you not agree?--Or say you did hypothesize a purely existential empirical scheme for the periodic table to exist, e.g., via the arbitrary protons, neutrons, etc. colliding after the Big-Bang/Creation. Then you'd have to hypothesize on some very peculiar mysterious quantum excellencies (harmonizing, symetry-forming, proportionizing forces, etc.) that "just exist" (quoted to broaden the meaning) in raw protons and sub-atomic particles.--Now all us chemists get bogged down on quantum theory, Paulk, because its a great mysterious black box theory. Metaphysics and faith must come into play in this arena. (We might talk physics and relativity in an analogous manner.)--I conclude the ToE becomes a complete failure hypothesis, at least in explaining quantum chemistry and/or the periodic table.--Interestingly (on a metaphysical note if you will), the periodic table data does manifest these and other peculiar numerical arrangements and patterns that are consistent with non-arbitrary, so-called 'numerological', proofs of their ID as touted by the Bible.

"A gap in our knowledge is just that; something we don't know."--And here we might add is this Christian's bliss in ignorance. (Sorry, I speak metaphysically, and yet true)--Gap ignorance(s) require metaphysical faith-hypotheses to bridge, no? Yes? Of course? Maybe? Perhaps?--Yes, Amen, Halleluiah, Selah.

One miracle required on the tooth-fairy's pet galactic goat, true.--A seemingly fair rebuttal. But, then why aren't we caught up with its non-redemptive vision of the black-box data presenting us with a cursing, redeeming, baptizing-in-your-cross, etc.-type of existence? Your Goat becomes more of a redeeming Lamb in some hypotheses, no?Yes? Perhaps?, Could be? Almost persuaded? Later on that Phil?

Karl you stated:
You don't really understand theistic evolution, do you Philip?
It's based on a complete rejection of any "God of the Gaps" fallacies.There is no natural phenomenon to which I respond with "Ah! That's the bit God did". I look for naturalistic descriptions of all natural phenomena. I do not look to science to prove the existence of God, and I do not look to God as a natural explanation.I respond:
1) Wow, a theistic evo has awakened.
2) Perhaps I do indeed misunderstand the GOGaps fallacy. To me, that fallacy meant either:
A) There are relatively few true empirical gaps that do require God (which I think I currently lean toward)
B) There are no simply no empirical gaps in the Big-Bang hypothesis; all is totally explainable by science, no God, period.
C) There are many acts of God(s) in forming beneficial mutations/miracles that spontaneously makes the organism more beneficial in spite of selection pressures. E.g., the theistic evolutionist?
D) Another theistic ToE that you've drummed up: one that essentially sees God as completely out of the equation during natural events. This may be the supposed fallacy that Percy and perhaps (the anti-theistic) Schraf allude to. But Schraf, are you a theistic evo?
E) There are angelic twists of the fallacy as well.
F) Often, in Alabama-way we run across the God-did-it mentality (who shun the E-word in ignorant bliss); they seem to use the fallacy you mention to explain mysterious quantum chemistry, relativistic physics, electromagnetic theory, and other scientific theories and beauties that beg ID, trying to explain these excellencies per se ... while comforting their faith. This seems scientifically OK as long as pride doesn't cloud their reason, they don't try to raise the dead in my face, religiously pervert our children, and/or make money grow on their trees.
G) Some scientist(s)-falsely-so-called created a theory out of a hypothesis in a divine sort of way, like the mega-ToE from the ToE.
H) Doubtless there are other god-of-the-gaps fallacies floating around: Time would fail to elaborate on Muslim/Koran moon-gods, Buddhist pantheistic notions, Hindu carnations, Voodoo devil transformations etc.Essentially, all camps seem to violate the god-of-gaps fallacy when speaking of this black-box.

Phillip concedes that the list of gaps in the theory of evolution which he provided from some creationist source is poor and most have been rebutted previously. So, it seems quite obvious which "worldview" requires the most faith, particularly in the light of contradicting evidence - yec. Faith is belief without evidence, isn't it?

Firstly I note that you have no substantive rebuttal to the points I raised, showing that on one of the arguments you raised it is the YEC who has to rely on faith. If the points you raise in support of your position prove you wrong then surely you need to reconsider your position.Secondly you list a number of assertions:First that there are similar arguments against every view. However you name none, nor do you attempt to offer any explanation. I conclude that this assertion is the obvious falsehood that it seems to be.We have no evience that your "decay forces" are anything more than a hypothesis. Based on the real data you are left with only speculation iin the face of the contrary evidence.The cosmos itself is outside the scope of the theory of evolution however your arguments concerning that are somewhat less than compelling"Or say you did hypothesize a purely existential empirical scheme for the periodic table to exist, e.g., via the arbitrary protons, neutrons, etc. colliding after the Big-Bang/Creation. "Aside from the fact that we know that most elements are formed by nulear fusion of lighter elements - a fact you seem to be unaware of - are you really suggestign that the elements are arbitrary ? That they are not defined by the properties and interactions of the sub-atomic particles that constitute the atoms ? Surely a chemist would know better. But what sense can be made of your statement otherwise ? And how else can we make sense of your comment about numerology ?But the most bizarre claim is this :"I conclude the ToE becomes a complete failure hypothesis, at least in explaining quantum chemistry and/or the periodic table."The ToE does not even attempt to answer such questions and no sane person would remotely suggest that they fall within the scope of evolutionary theory. We can conclude then that your claims to be able to refute evolutionary theory are founded in ignorance and faith - since you lack even a basic understanding of the theory,

deleted due to duplication[This message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 02-07-2003]