PHILOSOPHY IS KING

Willowtree,I deliberately did not read anyone else's post, so I hope I am not repeating anyone else. I thought I would give you my unadulterated and uninfluenced post.

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Evolution only disproves God IF the filter of your worldview INTERPRETS the evidence to say so ?

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I would have phrased it thus. "Evolution only disproves God if the proof of God is the lack of evolution." I see no problem with the coexistence of God and Evolution, or God and Gravity, or any other scientific theory.

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Because the scientific evidence was supposedly gathered and produced under the claim of Divine neutrality. Rational enquiry and methodological naturalism contain clauses that specifically state no position concerning the Divine is taken.

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The best I have ever seen a creationist state this position. Kudos.

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Because God, in Romans, says He can be deduced from what is seen/made.

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Romans 1:20

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"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse"

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Bzzzz. Wrong answer. Notice that God has "invisible attributes." My translation is that by "invisible", Paul is saying that man can never detect these attributes directly. Therefore, untestable by science. Secondly, why are there so many religious sects in and outside of christiandom that conflict on a theological basis. This is reason enough to conclude that God's supernatural influence is not obvious, and possibly contrived with the only variable being memmetic differences between cultures. The fact that no one has ever become a christian without being converted by a christian is testament to the lack of evidence in nature for the Judeo-Islamic-Christian God. However, the conversion of Paul is a good counter-example, but his conversion was not due to signs in nature but rather through personal revelation. To boil it down, every person has has equal access to the wonders of nature but not everyone becomes a christian.

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IF He is denied these two things then the punishment is the removal of the capacity to deduce Him in what is seen/made - "God sense removal".

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This doesn't apply to cultures who never heard of Jesus. They never had a chance to deny God but yet come to different conclusions with respect to the supernatural. Secondly, this is a circular argument. Breaking it down, the argument is thus. "If you believe in God, then you will believe in God. If you incapable of believing in God, then you won't believe in God." Kind of stating the obvious, isn't it?

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Crick will conclude everything but God. Here we have a brilliant person suffering the wrath of God for refusing to acknowledge God as God and being thankful.

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And creation scientists will conclude nothing but divine creation. We call that having your common sense removed. Kidding aside, Crick was speculating and nothing requires him to conclude what YOU want. However, if his speculations are to become theory then they need to be tested through scientific methodologies. Crick's speculations have no binding on scientific theory or acceptance.

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The so called "Divine neutral" clauses in RE and MN are in fact God exclusionary. This "a priori" decision to exclude God is the trigger that unleashes the wrath of God : God sense/insight removal

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And creation science, among christian fundamentalists, is Vishnu, Enkidu, Zeus, Leprechaun, Pink Unicorn, Divine Space Alien, etc. exclusionary. To quote Sir Stephen Henry Roberts, "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Put this into a scientific context and you will understand science's position. Creation scientists exclude other dieties, science goes even farther and excludes them all.

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Random, chance, accident, fluke, mindless, purposeless are all words that have a convenient twin meaning : the God of Genesis was not involved.

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Evidence brought us to the conclusion of random mutation and natural selection. Evolution is not random, but rather non-goal oriented. Evolution is the band aid of biological fixes, it can only adapt to the problem at hand in a way that is good enough.Secondly, the theory of evolution does not say that God was not involved, only that supernatural mechanisms were not involved. Big difference. As you have heard many times before, evolution could be the result of God creating physical laws that can only lead to evolution.

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But aren't you the people who suggest it is 66 seperate books, in which Esther is now not supposedly part of it? If they are all seperate, then information in the bible CAN confirm itself IF the books are seperate.

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The bigger question is whether or not these separate books were written as to not conflict with the other books. Also, if certain books did conflict with the accepted cannon, were these books discredited and removed from the collection? I think both scenarios are legitimate, and so the Bible should be considered one cohesive unit that has been constructed to remove any internal conflict. The New Testament was probably more susceptible to this than the Old Testament, given the selective nature by which New Testament cannon was made. For example, the Gospel of Thomas and possibly some books written by Paul and other figures were left out of the New Testament Cannon. Not only that, but New Testament Cannon might have been influenced by one ruler (forgetting specifics, but might be able to find them, Solon or something like that). Exclusion/inclusion or special editing may have resulted in a cohesive and non-contridictory cannon that we see today instead of the mish mash of privately held letters and gospels that belonged to early christians.

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Your reference to circular argument doesn't make sense.
  —Willowtree

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Perhaps it is not a circular argument, but it is still seriously flawed. How about this:If you deny the Leprechaun's place as the divine creator, then he will strip away your Leprechaun sense so that you can no longer sense him.Or better yet, If you deny that I, Loudmouth, am the creator, then I will strip away you Loudmouth sense so that you will not be able to sense my purpose in nature.In fact, why don't you insert any person or any diety you want into that phrase. And guess what, the statement works equally well proving that I, a leprechaun, or God created the earth. If it works equally well for any person/spririt/diety, then it works for none of them.And before you ask, if you think that I am uncapable of creating a universe, this is only because I have stripped away your Loudmouth sense, so don't even go there.

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The reportive and emotive defintion of "evolution" and its accompanying adjectives (random, chance, accident, fluke, mindlessness, purposeless ) all have the dual meaning that a Creator/God of Genesis WAS NOT involved.

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You forgot selection, adaptation, increased fitness, and under the influence of universal laws. These are non-random, non-chance attributes of evolution that you seem to ignore. Also, are we denying god when we randomize study groups in a drug testing protocol? Are we denying God when we use Newtonian physics for measuring inertial forces? Are we denying God when we look for disease causing bacteria? Simply put, there is not a reliable way to apply God to any scientific law, and hence is applied in none.

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Romans, under the claim of being God's word, reveals WHY so many people fail to deduce God as the ultimate Creator : Because God has removed their "God sense" as a penalty (His wrath) FOR rejecting Him.

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We are arguing about philosophy, but this doesn't mean we can abandon logic. My word says that I, Loudmouth, am the creator, and if you deny me I will take away your Loudmouth-sense. Now, how are we to test, philosophically, which statement is the TRUTH? How, through the philosophy of science, are we to judge the two statements? This should be the focus of your argument. Not what God said, but how can it be a reliable platform for scientific investigation given the fact that any diety or person can make the same claim as creator.

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IF you say "science takes no position concerning the Divine" then you are ignoring previous posts and clinging to that which has been refuted.

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Maybe I should clarify. Science takes no position concerning which is the correct diety. In doing so, science must ignore all dieties and rely on the only objective set of observations available to it, repeated observations that can be shared between observers. Dieties and religious revelations do not fit this criteria. Science would consider a dieties influence if the diety were observable through physical senses and effected nature in a predictable, repeatable fashion. Since the only example of organisms being created ex nihilo is from an ancient text whose veracity can never truly be tested, we have no observations to go from.

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Nevermind that the total amount of evidence by volume is meagre to make this claim, yet it is made because the God of Genesis is not an option. WHY ? Their "receiver" has been removed AKA "God sense" for flipping God off.

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Using your same logic, I will argue that creationists have been stripped of their God Sense because they deny how God created life on this planet.My evidence is that young earth creationism goes against what we find in God's creation. By denying God's creation, creationists have been stripped of their ability to understand evolution and its signifigance within God's plan. So it is not your fault, Willow, that you are not able to understand the evidence supporting evolution. It is your a priori rejection of God's plan through natural evolution that has resulted in God sense removal. God's plan can be seen through his creation, and it is creationists who are denying it because their own arrogance (which God also dislikes) will not allow them to be descendents of animals.

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If you want to hold to the dogma that mankind descended from an animal then this position is contrary to Genesis. Where do you get your beliefs about God from ? If you say Genesis, then I only want to point out that Genesis has God creating Adam suddenly AND THEN God created the animals. Now, if you or anyone wants to dismiss this as the error of literalism I challenge you to provide your alternative interpretation OF WHAT I SAID.

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My own interpretation (and certainly not the final and best) is that when God "created man in his image" this did not mean that we were made to look like him. Instead, we were given the reasoning and moral judgement that God also has. So man's physical form could have been descended from animals but his mental abilities were bestowed by God. I think this fits in fine with both the Genesis account as allegory as well as the theology of the Bible. This also fits with the Tree of Knowledge, as we gain knowledge of sin and death that seem to be limited to the human species. I look at Genesis as a recounting of man's arrival as a sentient being, not a special physical form made from dust.Just as a side note, if you are not a YEC, what flavor are you? You may have described it earlier, or in a different thread, so I apologize if I am making you repeat yourself.

WillowTree,I have addressed Behe's claims in another thread which I started (Behe's Irreducible Complexity Is Refuted). As you can guess, I am opposed to ID theories, even opposed to calling them science. But, this aside I will try and give brief comments on Behe and others from post 71 with the caveat that further discussion be in the above thread or in a new thread (tyring to clean up my topic drift habits).

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Michael Behe's IC systems, IF they are in fact IC, then his simple claim that these IC systems cannot be attributed to the slow step by tiny step evolutionary mutative process ?
  —WillowTree

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I will concede that these systems are Irreducibly Complex (IC), as defined by Behe. I will even concede that some IC systems pose a difficulty for DIRECT evolutionary pathways. However, what Behe and other IC proponents ignore is INDIRECT evolutionary pathways. That is, each part of the system may have been used for a different function before they became part of the IC system. If I remember correctly, Behe conceded that such pathways can result in IC systems but that indirect pathways are not possible. In other words, the whole IC argument rests on Behe's credulity of possible evolutionary pathways, not on a model or a logical and testable hypothesis.

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IDists have interpreted this evidence to clearly say, by deduction, that the alleged Creator was involved.

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Just as a note, in public IDists claim that an Intelligence is involved, not necessarily a diety. Of course, privately they are insinuating a role for a supernatural diety, but a diety is not necessarily required.

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Physicist Mark Perakh, in his 2004 book "Unintelligent Design" wants to refute Behe by redefining IC systems to already belong to Algorithmic Theory of Probability (ATP) which of course is a product of randomness/chance.

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Sounds like an interesting read. I am a little weak on my physics, but may be worth the effort. ATP sounds like a combo of natural selection and mutation which is not strictly an algorithm of pure chance. Chance/non-chance is a huge can of worms which would be better served in another thread.

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This refutation (providing that I have accurately represented his position) is in fact not a refutation, but an admission that the systems are IC (which Perakh assumes as he is not a micro biologist) and that the IC systems are to be arbitrarily assigned to randomness.

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Don't forget the non-random factor: selection. Fitness is not arbitrary and non-random, and it is selected for.

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This "refutation" completely ignores and fails to address Behe's claim against the long standing evolutionary processes of ultra-slow step by tiny step improvement. I was extremely disappointed to see Behe's claims sidestepped.

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You might want to check out my thread which is referenced above. If I have also sidestepped this claim, let me know or bring it up within the other thread.However, there is one claim that Behe doesn't back up. He claims that these IC systems had to come about "in one fell swoop". He never shows any evidence that these IC systems did come about in one fell swoop. This is a weak point for Behe, as he bases his whole theory on evidence that isn't there. In my opinion, until Behe shows how the flagellum came about in a saltation like matter, or in one fell swoop, his theory falls flat. Ditto for his other mechanisms. As an aside, I feel that Behe's use of IC systems that don't fossilize is a sidestep as well. In my thread I address the mammalian middle ear IC system and how it evolved from reptillian ancestors. Behe should pick systems that he can track in the fossil record, but he refuses to be pinned down by evidence. I don't see how the middle ear system is any different than his pet mousetrap IC system.

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Perakh is interpreting claims of Divine involvement, which are based upon evidence, that an IDer was not involved based solely on his worldview - fine.

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I haven't read Perakh's book, but I will go with my views on this one. The ID "theory" is not based on a testable hypothesis. What good is a theory if you can't test it? This is the problem, it is a claim by the IDists that such systems came about due to supernatural fiat. However, they themselves are not able to decide what is designed and what isn't designed. There is not a way to look at a stretch of DNA and decide if it is designed or not, at least within the confines of ID theory. All they seem to do is point a finger and arbitrarily call things designed. A testable theory/hypothesis would rid ID theory of its subjective nature by using objective evidence/models.To the admins and Willow, this is a one time deal within this thread. Hopefully this will be a teaser for going through the above mentioned thread on Behe or starting a new one. I will gladly reply to anyone with questions or criticisms, but only outside of this thread. Thanks.

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If the claim has no contradicting evidence against it then guess what ? - the claim has nothing refuting it. That is a plus for the claim. THEN other evidence that supports the claim helps the claim in its believability.

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I notice that you included EVIDENCE as part of the criteria. Evidence is much more important than the claim made by the tradition alone. For instance, if there was a tradition that UFO's came out of the skies and built the pyramids in Central America, would you swallow it whole? I would think not. The fact that you accept traditions that back your religious viewpoint while ignoring other traditions is a strike against you. Being open minded means accepting the traditions of other religions (such as Islam and Buddhism) as equal with your own religion. In my judgement, you don't hold other traditions as being equal, such as the enlightenment of Siddhara (Buddha). If a consistent claim is enough, do you believe in the enlightenment of Buddha.This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 05-18-2004 05:33 PM