Oh those clever etcetera--What RAZD said

If it were perfect we would not have the array of opinions we do. The fact that a couple of people agree with you (you forgot to add Mark24) does not necessarily mean you are right, though it should have easily refuted your claim that the only people who would take your position are creationists.Yet you make it again? Why do you insist on denying the ability of people not of your opinion to be able to make reasonable assessments of anything? And if they say anything it is kneejerk bashing of you?As I have said whether RAZD made the mistake you claim or not has no bearing on the EvC debate at all, and so I have no "political" reason to cover for him.This is about logic, and I think your analysis of what he said was wrong. Check out my last two replies to Pars on this. My guess (or hope) is Pars may change his mind after taking another look see. Its been disputed.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Wrongly disputed. The array of opinions is based on some kind of misreading, I don't know what, perhaps a confusion of terms or something like that. Nobody has yet even grasped my analysis. Until you do you can't say it is wrong.

I thought I did.

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I did not make a distinction between "the origin of life" and "abiogenesis."

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You made a distinction bewtween abiogenesis and in your words "life happening". And the latter should be read as referring to the origin of life - how else could life be said to "happen" in the context of discussing abiogenesis and creation.

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I see no other way of reading it than what I spelled out. I do not understand the problem.

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Here's the problem. You assumwd a contradiction - one not required by the actual text. Therefore your reading is incorrect and even irrational. If you claim that you are incapable of reading it in any other way you are asserting that you are incapable of reading the post correctly because of our own irrational nature. I'll leave you to decide if that is really what you wanted to say..

That's what I suggested. Someone is misreading what was said. Why is it impossible that you were the one misreading it? I said I agreed that what you claimed would be a BtQ fallacy was one. My problem was whether what you claimed he was saying was actually what he was saying.I gave my reasoning to you and now to Pars who also agrees with your read.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Sorry, RobinR yes you did.

I apologize to you and to any others whose posts I haven't read through carefully, which probably explains why I haven't addressed all the points you keep raising. There is a LOT to read through and I do sometimes just pick out particular posts to answer in detail and skim others for main points, and may miss a lot. I also intend to get back to them but sometimes the accumulated backlog is just beyond me. I even now intend to get back to them but I can't promise anything.This message has been edited by Faith, 10-07-2005 05:32 PM

I assumed nothing. There IS a contradiction in the text. I demonstrated it. The problem seems to be that you share the confusion between statements about the origin of life and the existence of life which is what led to the question-begging. I'm sorry PaulK, I disagree with your assessment and refuse to read another word you have to say on this subject since as usual you have become abusive on top of misunderstanding what is being said.

Okay, that is fair. Now I want to ask you a favor, that you be fair in the future.Please do not use overstatements if you are not reading everything. Also do not condemn people immediately, or assume bias based on position in the EvC debate. Truly part of you thesis was knocked down as you have some evos agreeing with you, even if I am not one of them.And in the future cut me a break. I am someone who has repeatedly commended your writing ability, and backed a POTM for you, despite disagreements. Please do not write off disagreements from me as being based on automatic bias. Or at least do not do so as answer to my posts.I think you would be very annoyed if my immediate responses to you were "that figures because you will lie to protect your theory". Even if that were so, deal with the argument and not the person.I still say you have a great writing style, now you need to work on the logic and debate style.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

It isn't in principle impossible, it simply is not the case here. PS, RR and I agree on what he was saying. He was probably being a bit careless or he wouldn't have put it quite as he did, but he did say the same wrong thing TWICE, equating abiogenesis with the simple existence of life, which does show that in his mind they are as good as synonymous. I just read Parasomnium's latest post and agree completely. He is saying exactly what I've been saying.I have little patience with your answer but I will try to struggle through it.

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I assumed nothing. There IS a contradiction in the text. I demonstrated it.

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Both statements are false. The contradiction was assumed. not demonstrated.

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The problem seems to be that you share the confusion between statements about the origin of life and the existence of life which is what led to the question-begging.

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This is also false. To speak of life "happening" - as you did - surely refers to an event - and thus the origin, not the current existence. THge sdispute between creationism and abiogenesis is over HOW life originated, not whether it had an origin or not. This whole dispute is a fabrication and an evasion.

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I'm sorry PaulK, I disagree with your assessment and refuse to read
another word you have to say on this subject since as usual you have become abusive on top of misunderstanding what is being said.

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This is also false. I did not become abusive (indeed I have restraiend myself in all my dealings with you), I did not even criticise you - I simply pointed out the implications of your own statement. I specifically left the question of whether that was meant up to you. You seem to feel free to attack others - one of the purposes of this thread is to belittle people who disagree with you. Yet when a statement is made that you take as critical of you you start whining about abuse. Beleive me, if I wanted to become abusive it would be a lot worse than anything you've seen. And it would be no less than you deserve.But thanks for confirming once agian that "question begging" is just a lie you use to dismiss points you don't want to - or can't deal with.
Maybe you've forgotten your past use of this tactic. I assure you that I have not.

Yes, Paulk, as he has told us before, has illustrated his exemplary moral character.

I think you might be saying that just to make me feel better.

I might be. As I've been reviewing everybody's input on this, I realize that you come at it differently than I do. I agree with you however, and you do support my point but from a somewhat different angle.

I have been struggling through both threads, copying out posts of various contributors (holmes, modulous, razd, parasomnium, robinrohan) with the plan of answering all the posts of each in one summary post, but it has become overwhelming and I am giving up. For one thing a few seem to have changed their approach over a series of posts, so answering the earlier ones may not be relevant anyway.If anyone wants to attempt to restate his current position in the most pithy terms, we can start from there again.Please give your post a title that shows whose it is or at least what your main point is so I can keep track better.I think Parasomnium has understood most clearly what I'm saying, and Robinrohan has somewhat understood it, but I'm not sure about holmes and Modulous although both said there's SOME case to be made for my position. (Somebody mentioned a post of Modulous' as particularly pertinent but I never got to that one.)I don't see anything to the opposition posts, frankly, all a matter of addressing the science/probability factor in RAZD's post, which is not relevant to my point, or some kind of misunderstanding that I haven't pinned down. So if my opponents will try to restate their case again in the most condensed way possible, let's run this thread out to the end.I don't mind doing this myself, although I'm sure others are burnt out on it. I just don't have it in me to review the whole thing from the beginning and try to catch up on posts I didn't deal with in depth.
====So, if anyone is interested in starting over from this point, here is the original post of RAZD's, with the relevant parts bolded, and I am including the previous paragraph in case it makes the context clearer: RAZD's post #41 on thread Evolution in the VERY beginningIn saying RAZD is begging the question that is under dispute I am not focusing on the scientific aspects of the mathematical model or probability as such. The model could be merely the opinion that abiogenesis "cannot happen," and the situation would be the same.Thanks.This message has been edited by Faith, 10-08-2005 02:33 AM