Sad what creationism can do to a mind, part 2

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Firstly, it's not the fault of the CEO of a multinational corporation that the junior draftsman in the overseas electrical CAD department made a typing error which resulted in a deficiency in the original design.

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Are you saying God had to work through incompetent assistants when he designed life? So much for the omniscience/omnipotence bit...

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2nd'ly, what you described sounds like the "glorious" product of your evo-god, random mutation NOT providing new information or beneficial information but rather destroying and making defects...lets fire the evo-god!

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Oddly enough, that's the kind of (unfortunate) thing I'd expect to see if evolution were true. It's a messy process that sometimes just doesn't work very well. Too bad there's no "evo-god" to blame things on. However, if your God exists, s/he's got a lot to answer for...

Hi zipzip (no, I'm not stalking you on the boards...),Would you care to take a shot at defining "absolute moral values"? Specific cross-cultural examples would be helpful. For instance, what are the absolute moral values shared between the !kung hunter, Fiji Island fisherman, Nepalese monk, Amazonian swidden agriculturalist, US stock broker, French missionary, Russian university student, Berber nomad, and Chinese peasant?

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The point is, Christianity (like some other faiths) is exclusive of all other belief systems. In Christianity, God is the author of absolute morals. So his absolute morals have at least a finite probabilty of being real. It makes no sense to look for conservation of absolute morals across different belief systems in this context, because all others would be false.

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I'm not sure if this was intended to be a response to my post as well, but I'd like to explore this position. I find it difficult to equate the concept of "absolute morality" with its apparent cross-cultural inapplicability. I think I'm missing something in your argument. IF the "absolute morality" you proclaim doesn't apply to ALL humans, then I'm not clear on how you can state that it is "absolute". You seem to be stating that "absolute morality" is entirely culturally subjective: Christianity is "right", the belief systems of the other 5+ billion people on the planet are "wrong" - an arguable point, to say the least. By extension, then, any morality intrinsic to these other cultures is, by definition, "wrong" if not immoral. Hence, there is no universal morality shared among all members of our species.Please correct me if I've misunderstood you.

[begin rant]And there are others who, recognizing the unity of life and mankind's inextricable place within it, seek to prevent, mitigate, or repair the devastation wrought by mankind on his fellow animals through the misguided, ignorant and inherently destructive belief that all other living things exist solely for man's exploitation and pleasure. A belief that is bound up in the egotistical, arrogant notion that humans are somehow "special" and apart from the natural world. [end rant]

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Originally posted by Mammuthus:
deleted by M due to yet another duplication event (followed by random mutation

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[This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 12-10-2002]

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Would that be a non-random mutation deletion? (Sorry, I'm in a weird mood.)

And let us not forget the creaton/anti-creaton waves/particles that appear every 26 million years, simultaneously causing global mass extinction and global mass speciation as they interact with the morphogenetic fields. {*Quetzal's brain implodes*}

Actually, sonnikke, the rather silly three (now four) "Borger retrospective" posts were directly in response to your statement "Hey, I miss Peter Borger too, he would BLOW you guys out of the water if he entered this discussion." As such, they were neither attacking you personally, nor even your continuing unsupported assertion about humans not being animals. Since you appear to think Dr. Borger is so incredibly wise and capable, it was quite within the guidelines to point out some of his, hmm, more interesting mistakes. Admittedly they were presented sort of "tongue in cheek", but they are nonetheless accurate restatements of Borger's theories. Feel free to read through any of the threads he started (especially "Molecular and genetic proof against random mutation" and Molecular and genetic proof of the multipurpose genome") to see if he's been misrepresented in any way.Beyond that, what makes you think that Peter would agree with you that humans aren't animals? It was certainly never one of his assertions if I recall correctly.

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Eeerrr, wasn't that simply a parody? He wasn't serious, was he? I was assuming it was a little bit of Australian humour - I certainly laughed.

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Nossir, he was quite serious. Scary, hunh? The galactic anti-creaton waves (or sometimes particles - he wasn't really clear) interacting with Earth-based morphogenetic fields were his explanation for mass extinctions which he claimed had a periodicity of 26 million years. The antithesis, creaton waves, again interacting with Earth's morphogenetic fields, were the cause of speciation. I opened a thread to discuss it, but he never responded. I was REALLY interested in this, hmmm, unique approach.{edited to add: btw: I think Peter's Norwegian, not Australian. North European in any event.}[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 12-11-2002]

Hi Syamasu,If you claim that your post #154 was misinterpreted, perhaps you would take a moment to clarify what you meant:

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Originally posted by Syamasu:

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Neither me or Sonnike, or the great majority of scientists (excluding Darwinists), and people generally, are "completely unable" to demonstrate why animals and humans should be in separate categories. It's essentially not religious, but plain, that they should be in separate categories.

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You state that it is "plain" that humans and animals should be categorized separately, yet provide no support for the claim. If it was as obvious as all that, the question wouldn't arise, correct?Here, you post the following as the criteria that distinguishes human from animal:

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. I previously posted what I thought the main difference was, which was just the same as everybody else here thinks, the intellectual capabilities.

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How do human intellectual capabilities make us "not animals", rather than merely very clever animals? What is the dividing line?You follow with this assertion:

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I was just saying that it's not a matter of some particular religious doctrine that humans and animals are distinct, but that this is plain fact common to people of all kinds of religion, or without any religion.

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It obviously isn't a "plain fact", or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I'll even grant that it might not be a matter of particular religious doctrine (although that's certainly the basis for sonnikke's position). Robinrohan, for example, is having some difficulty with the implications of this on another thread - and I don't believe it's from a particular religious point of view. However, simply re-asserting that the distinction is a "plain fact" doesn't support your case.

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Again, you obviously don't know what it means to argue with a moral risk...

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Nor do I. What DOES it mean to "argue with a moral risk"?{edited to add: Rats! Cross-posted with Mammuthus.}[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 12-12-2002]

No. Or rather, some animals are humans...

Nice tirade against the philosophy of secular humanism, if a tad long-winded. However, it is completely off-topic. For example, the only place you mention science at all is here: Guess what? No evolutionary biologist is seeking "things spiritual". They seek to understand the natural world (emphasis on natural) and the diversity of life. They ARE looking for a cure for cancer, among other things. Other than your dismissal of Popper's epistemology, you have not bothered to address the topic of the thread or even the topic of this forum: Is It [referring to evolution] Science? You certainly haven't offered any alternative, or even discussion.My question to you, then, is: was there a point in your post, and/or will there be one in our future?