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Member (Idle past 1163 days) Posts: 104 From: Ottawa, ON, Canada Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The opponent of Creationism is Naturalism not Evolution | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Richard L. Wang Member (Idle past 1163 days) Posts: 104 From: Ottawa, ON, Canada Joined: |
I’m the newest member of this forum, and this is my first post. I’m a retired scientist, creationist and Christian.
If my understanding is correct, the name of EvC Forum or Evolution versus Creation Forum contains an assumption: evolution essentially belongs to Atheistic view, so a Creationist must reject evolution. This is not true. Whether evolution is true or not is one thing; how to explain evolution is another matter: there can be an Atheistic explanation and a Theistic explanation. Of course, Neo-Darwinism’s interpretation of evolution is an Atheistic theory. On the other hand, the Catholic Church recognizes the existence of evolution: in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996, Pope John Paul II updated the Church's position to accept evolution of the human body: there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith, , some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. does this mean Pope John Paul II recognizes an Atheistic theory? Absolutely not. In the same address, Pope John Paul II rejected any theory of evolution that provides a materialistic explanation for the human soul: Theories of evolution which, because of the philosophies which inspire them, regard the spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a simple epiphenomenon of that matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Pope Francis has stated on October 27, 2014: " The evolution of nature does not contrast with the notion of creation, as evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve. (See: Evolution and the Catholic Church - Wikipedia) Therefore, evolution can be explained from a Theistic point of view, so evolution is NOT the opponent of Creationism. What is the opponent of Creationism? Naturalism. According to the Oxford English Dictionary Online, in philosophy, naturalism is the "idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world." Therefore, Naturalism believes that all natural phenomena, including the origin and evolution of life, have or will have scientific explanation based on the natural laws, while God does not exist. Jerry Coyne, the author of Why Evolution is True, believes that the battle with Creationists is a war: The battle for evolution seems never-ending. And the battle is part of a wider war, a war between rationality and superstition. In this war, if the Creationists don’t even know who the opponent is, how can Creationists win the battle?
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Richard L. Wang Member (Idle past 1163 days) Posts: 104 From: Ottawa, ON, Canada Joined:
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Thanks for everyone. I’m glad to find this little corner of the internet, where Theists and Atheists discuss their opposite views on science, rather than fight each other.
AdminPhat — Thank you for reminding me of the Forum Guidelines and, of course, I’ll follow it. I’m sorry for my replying late and for not responding one post by one post, because I’ll submit my post at least one day after it’s finished, and I type very slowly. I’ll submit my response tomorrow. Sorry again.
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Richard L. Wang Member (Idle past 1163 days) Posts: 104 From: Ottawa, ON, Canada Joined: |
In philosophy, Godless Atheists can think that Theism is wrong, not reality, or even anti-science, but it is Theism vs. Atheism, not Theism vs. reality or science. Similarly, in science, it is Creationism vs. Naturalism, not Creationism vs. reality or science. (Please don’t use Evil to describe Creationists; maybe I understand English too formally, for me, the meaning of the word evil very negative.)
The description of naturalism - given by the Oxford English Dictionary Online that naturalism is the "idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world." - is in philosophy. In fact, this is a scientific statement, so I take it as the description of naturalism in science as well. As I pointed out, the opponent of Creationism is Naturalism rather than Evolution. Therefore, Creationists need not challenge evolution. In my opinion, one can challenge evolution by raising this or that issue, but it is impossible to refute evolution. However, Creationism can refute Naturalism. Contrary to most people’s view, science is on the side of Creationism not Naturalism. Science reveals the creation of God. An example is the Big Bang theory. In the 1920s and 1930s, the mainstream cosmological theory was the steady state theory of the eternal universe. In 1931, the Belgian Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lematre proposed his Big Bang theory to explain the expansion of the universe observed by the American astronomer Edwin Hubble in the late 1920s. Proponents of the steady state theory had repeatedly opposed and even hinted that Georges Lematre, as a Roman Catholic priest, proposed the Big Bang theory for religious consideration, because the Big Bang theory shows that the universe had a beginning and a Creator. However, the Big Bang theory has been supported by many observations, and has become the mainstream cosmological theory. Robert Jastrow, an American astronomer, wrote in his book titled God and The Astronomers in 1978: For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. dwise1 — Thank you so much for kindly helping me to familiarize with the functions on the forum panel. I hold a Ph.D. in (Theoretical) Physics and my main field is applied theoretical chemical physics. I published a book (in Chinese) and dozens of papers; unfortunately, nothing important or influential. I am familiar with physics, chemistry, computational science, mathematics, logic. I know experiment. I self-study biology due to my personal interest. I’m a Creationist, different all Creationists you know. You will understand what my creationism is after I propose several topics for debate. I’m going to propose a series of topics. The answer for each topic is YES or NO. If YES, I won the debate on that topic; if NO, I lost, and I would state I was wrong. As human beings, we are far from perfect. We may make this or that mistake. Admitting mistakes is not shameful at all. One should be shamed if he/she denies or even covers up mistakes he/she made. ringo - (smile)
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Richard L. Wang Member (Idle past 1163 days) Posts: 104 From: Ottawa, ON, Canada Joined: |
It seems that almost all posts of this topic agree that the opponent of Creationism is Naturalism not Evolution, so this topic can be ended. Tomorrow, I’ll propose the first topic for our NvC debate. In order to facilitate people’s tracking and participation in this NvC debate, I will divide the debate into several small topics and number them with NvC-n.
Thanks to the Administration of this Forum and all the participants on this topic.
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Richard L. Wang Member (Idle past 1163 days) Posts: 104 From: Ottawa, ON, Canada Joined: |
Tangle — Sorry. We should go ahead. I like to discuss scientific issues, not philosophical concepts. In tomorrow’s post, I write that I like to simplify things, so I’m going not to talk about methodological naturalism, I don’t like to have many philosophical concepts involved.
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Richard L. Wang Member (Idle past 1163 days) Posts: 104 From: Ottawa, ON, Canada Joined:
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The debate I’m going to put forward focuses on Atheism vs. Theism in science, especially in biology, or Naturalism vs. Creationism, where Naturalism represents believing in Naturalism rather than using it as a method, or usually called as philosophical naturalism. In short, this debate will discuss whether the existence of God needs to be considered in the interpretation of the world. This is the main theme of this Forum and of interest to most participants. This debate does exclude all non-theistic things, such as methodological naturalism, writing code, car engineering, beating wife, etc. You can consider to propose such topic elsewhere if you like.
Your posts have some good points, you mentioned Premise. My first proposal topic is about Premise. Unfortunately, although I ask to stop using very negative words, you even use more very negative words, and in some cases, you put these very negative worlds directly on me without any evidence. What you have done violates the Rules of this Forum: 4. Points should be supported with evidence ; and 10. ... Please keep discussion civil. Argue the position, not the person. In order to keep discussion civil, please stop doing so again. If you insist on doing so, I can only ignore all your posts, even if there are good ideas.
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