CPF

Ok I think this is where we left of in one of the discussions we had going, it's a bit long but I hope you take the time to respond as I was enjoying this one. Oh and I hope you and your family are well.

I for one like point counterpoint discussion, sometimes I even break paragraphs down and respond to different things within them. I know this can become quite tedious but it’s the way I communicate, I hope you cane bear with me as I really do enjoy (for the most part) our exchanges.

Originally Posted by CPF: The ToID does not suggest an afterlife, it simply suggests that their is evidence of design all around us. Now there are a myriad of religons that suggest an afterlife, one of which happens to be Christianity. Do you think God really honors prayers made on the "unlikely" chance he exists?



Yes in that person’s particular opinion it is, and in the opinion of others the ToE is nothing more than materialist fundamentalism, as I have said before we all have motives that drive us and while the evolutionists would like us to believe that theirs are purely noble while the bad I.D’ers are all devious, it is simply not the case. You see evolutionists always want to frame the debate as “Science vs. the Bible” because that is the debate they can win, so they do everything they can to keep it framed that way.

Also, did you ever stop to think that Evolution is more than simply science but a philosophy……dare I say a religion as well. Lets take the comments of Sir Julian Huxley at the commencement of the 1959 Darwin Centennial Celebration at the University of Chicago.

Future historians will perhaps take this Centennial Week as epitomizing an important critical period in the history of this earth of ours, the period when the process of evolution, in the person of inquiring man, began to be truly conscious of itself….This is one of the first public occasions on which it has been frankly faced that all aspects of reality are subject to evolution, from atoms and stars to fish and flowers , from fish and flowers to human societies and values-indeed. That all reality is a single process of evolution.
In 1859, Darwin opened the passage leading to a new psychosocial level, with a new pattern of ideological organization-an evolution centered organization of thought and belief.
In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created, it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.
Evolutionary man can no longer take refuge from his loneliness in the arms of digitized father figure whom he has himself created, nor escape from the responsibility of making decisions by sheltering under the umbrella of Divine Authority, nor absolve himself from the hard task of meeting his present problems and planning his future by relying on the will of an omniscient but unfortunately inscrutable, Providence.

And here is the kicker

”Finally, the evolutionary vision is enabling us to discern, however incompletely, the lineaments of the new religion that we can be sure will arise to serve the needs of the coming era.”

So you see, evolutionary naturalism is as much a religious philosophy as Christianity is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CPF: Well I am glad that you have taken the time to at least give I.D a chance (although I am sorry about the conclusions you have come to). How is I.D not subject to peer review? Maybe because the so called "legitimate" scientists don't consider those that support the ToID as peers and have absolutely no intention of honestly reviewing anything they have to say.



“Wedge scientists” have published more books than you could shake a stick at, not to mention hundreds of papers. As far as I can tell these documents are completely open to “peer revue”. It would appear that is exactly what the folks in the web page you posted have done. Also, I believe supporters of the ToID are discriminated against by the very journals you speak of, take Michael Behe’s experience for instance. http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_corr...cejournals.htm

The problem is that the ToE community does all it can to inject an “Inherit the Wind” stereotype into the debate, where the ignorant bigoted religious folks are the enemy, and the noble and just scientists are the heroes. The subject matter of I.D is never taken seriously by it’s “peers” because all the while the stereotype is being grown and perpetuated to the point that the stock reply you will get from Joe blow on the street is; “we don’t need to teach religion in science class”, because that is what he has been conditioned to think.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CPF I don't know that following Christ is the path of least resistance, I come accross quite a bit of resistance everywhere I go. Christians have been persecuted for their beliefs almost since the inception of the faith. We are told by Christ to expect to be hated.

Joh 15:18 "If the world hates you, you should realize that it hated me before you.
Joh 15:19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you do not belong to the world and I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.
Joh 15:20 Remember the word that I spoke to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
Joh 15:21 They will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.



The vast majority of people in America claim to be Christian but are nothing more than “socially Christian“, compartmentalizing their faith to where it exists on Sunday but is put away the rest of the week. I am finding it difficult to be a Christian in this world because the world is opposed to the message of Christ, It is exactly as he said it would be in the passages above.

I disagree with the gay lifestyle, I don’t criminalize it and I don’t think any woman “needs” an abortion, but at the same time I think education would be more effective than legislation.

Yes the message of the cross can be offensive, I mean nobody wants to be told they are going to hell, but if it is true that apart from Christ there is no hope of salvation, and I believe with all my heart that it is, then I would be doing the people I come across a great disservice if did not tell them about Him; wouldn’t I?

More to follow

__________________
There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end of it is the ways of death.

CPF

And here's the rest

Originally Posted by CPF No, the Christian life is certainly not the path of least resistance, as Christ said it is a narrow gate one must go through.

Mat 7:13 "Go in through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is spacious that leads to destruction, and many people are entering by it.
Mat 7:14 How narrow is the gate and how constricted is the road that leads to life, and few are the people who find it!"



Yes, but it is more difficult when your values and beliefs are dictated by someone higher than yourself and are therefore not subject to you or your circumstance.


Originally Posted by CPF: Well you have at least shown me something here, it doesn't matter what I post or what I show you, your mind is already made up and you will continue to argue that I am peddling religion regardless of anything I posit from this point on. I already addressed the whole "peer review" argument and you are certainly welcome to your opinion, the Lord knows I have my own regarding the ToE.



Where did I quote the Bible to prove a scientific point? I quoted the Bible in relation to a philosophical give and take we were having in relation to faith and religion not the ToID. I am a Christian so don’t be surprised if I tend to use the Bible to make a philosophical or spiritual point.

The supporters of I.D are not wrong simply because of some well crafted rebuttal, in fact I think they thrive on this type of attack. Check out Michael Behe’s response to Miller here [url]http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_responsetokmiller0101.htm[url] as a matter of fact he has responded to many of his critics http://www.arn.org/authors/behe.html Wells has responded to many of his critics as well http://www.arn.org/authors/wells.html Seeing as how Dembski’s critic’s refutation “would require too much space” I don’t think he found it worth responding to. Just because a theory has it’s detractors doesn’t mean it is quashed in one fell swoop. I will have to really think about what I feel is the best example of evolutionary failure and maybe offer it in a separate thread.

Originally Posted by CPF: Actually I think there is quite a bit that evolution has absolutely no explaination for, I think there are far to many assumptions made when the going gets a bit tough in order to make certain models work and again I think you are doing your darndest to try to dumb down I.D; did you read that paper by Dembski I posted? Have you really taken a serious look at some of the theories posited by the ToID?



That is the stock answer of the evolutionist, “given enough time anything, no matter how unlikely, can, and in fact does happen.” The problem is that the evolutionist offers little more than “variation on a common theme” to illustrate how complex biological systems “evolved”

We all know what design by an intelligence looks like, we see it in the things we have created ourselves. The ToID is simply the view that nature shows tangible signs of having been designed by a preexisting intelligence, in the same way the things we have made show the same tangible signs of intelligent design.

Patters that is exactly what the ToE does, it completely removes God from the equation. In the minds of the leading evolutionists there is no more need for God as everything can (supposedly) now be naturally explained. I agree that the majority of the country believes in God in some way shape or form but many have misunderstood the ToE as leaving room for some kind of faith. Nothing could be further from the truth in fact we need look no further than the 1995 official Position Statement of the American Biology Teachers or the NABT, that says

The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance this speaks directly to your comments above concerning chance, I guess these folks disagree with you,historical contingencies and changing environments.

Originally Posted by CPF Well your right about the "bonafide" scientists not wanting to debate I.D'ers and I do think it is related to a hyper sense of superiority that exists within the "evolutionary boy's club", but I also think that they got their butt's handed to them so many times early on in the movement that they have become a bit more leary of peddling their wares in the public square.



I’m sorry if I seem a bit defensive but I feel like I have been “under attack” lately and haven’t really liked the tone of the majority of the responses I have gotten recently. This could be due in part to my own tone and I will try to work on that but I really wish we could a bit more congenial in our interaction. Early on in the creation/ID movement many debates between the two sides were held, now it is very difficult to get an evolutionist to agree to a live debate. I feel it is because they did not fare well in that forum, but you are of course welcome to any opinion you choose. I have shown you that there are many things in the known universe that exhibit specific qualities associated with design to which your only response seems to be that we should simply have faith that science will find a naturalistic solution eventually, so there is no need to consider an alternative. Take care.

__________________
There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end of it is the ways of death.

PatsFanInEaglesLand

Why because he posts from a credible source, and you post from garbage sites?

Patters

CPF, I'll respond, but probably not for a few days, as it will take more than a few minutes. Looking forward to continuing the discussion. In the meantime, hope you have a spirited Christmas celebration!

PatsFanInEaglesLand

Sorry, liberal fanatics like yourself and others are the reason that there is a precieved problem in this country and if you can't find one, you will just make one up.

You are hateful man who just attacked a peaceful person like CPF, becuase you don't like his beliefs. You are a facist, and a giant hypocrite!

Your posts are backed up by fellow liars like yourself, you are a sick man who is so brainwashed by left wing hate sites.

All_Around_Brown

Thats pretty good stuff, CPF. I've been reading up on this stuff for awhile now (since our last discussion), and I believe I may have been mistaken on a couple of the natural selection things. I really think I owe you an apology for my hubris. I can't go into that now, (in a rush) but suffice to say I've had an epiphany.

I'm thinking of launching a website to muster up support for alternative biological theories, similar to ID but not quite (wouldn't want to step on their toes with the irreducible complexity stuff per se, but there are other areas that need addressing that biology currently doesn't address). The Kansas ruling opened up alot that wasn't accessible to scientists before. There will be many other possible things in the works. I've got alot of ideas on this, but I can't get into it now.

The basic problem is, I currently haven't much funding to get it off the ground. One proposal: homeostasis, for example, and its regulation-deregulation mechanisms which haven't been explained at all in biology. I'm thinking the Discovery Institute or one of their affiliates may provide some funds if I can provide a convincing grant proposal. I want to throw a few ideas by you to get accustomed to the kinds of questions I might have to answer when confronted.

Would you help me with some of the more complex divinity stuff if the folks over there quiz me on it after submitting my proposal? As you know, I have difficulty with the scriptures and stuff. Obviously, I'll work you into the grant and we should be rewarded handsomely if they fund the homeostasis work.

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Harry Boy

Jesus H. Christ:
Happy birthday Jesus.

Regards.
Harry Boy

JLC

To cpf and aab: Thank you for one of the more interesting and useful discussions I've seen here. Your willingness to focus on actual facts/issues as opposed to allowing the discussion to sink into the muck as, unfortunately too many do here, has been a breath of fresh air. Good debate should force us to take a look at what we believe and expose it to others, as you have done.

Don't quit now!

JLC

So I'm thinking, America (in its current version, a little over 200 years old) was established by Christians on the foundation of Christian teachings. It was a foundation that was strong enough to see it through all of the hazardous times that our 200+ years have encountered. I'm convinced that no one/no other country will ever defeat us. If there is an attack that will destroy us, it will come from within. There is more than a little evidence that that attack has occurred and is occurring.
Do you realize how silly your argument about "religious fanatics bringing this country down" sounds?! This country was founded by religious fanatics - yes, Christians - whose strength and vision provided a base and direction for us to follow.

You may not like religious fanatics, but to blame them for the problems in our country today is disingenuous.

Patters

ID implies there's an intelligent designer, which to my way of thinking is not scientific. If ID purported to prove that an intelligent designer exists, that's another story, but instead ID simply says, Look how complicated these things are. There had to be an intelligent designer. To me, then, ID starts with a religious premise.

As far as God honoring prayers made on the unlikely chance he exists, well, I think we each create God according to our own values. So, if God exists, then he'll be an awfully liberal and open-minded entity. There are many liberal Christians who rely heavily on the word of Christ as the basis for such views.

The essay I linked to provided ample evidence of the relationship between Christian fundamentalist and ID. The court in Dover, PA came to a similar conclusion, namely that board members lied about their religious convictions in making their case in favor of teaching ID. While it would be understandable that many fundamentalist Christian scientists would be attracted to ID, are there many who are not Christian or not religious?

As far as evolution being a philosophy, well I think it could be for some, but I would agree it's a theory, and I would agree that it's possible there are superior explanations to evolution than what Darwin and his successors came up with. But, so far from everything I've read, it appears that TOE is able to explain the vast majority of issues. In fact, even on the weird issues that IDers point to (like trilobyte eyes and DNA complexity), there are some very good theories out there. Of course, with newer issues, such as DNA, it will take time for science to solve all the riddles.

With a group that has strong religious backing, I would bet that just about anything anyone writes gets backing. I wonder if the number of scholarly publications by ID scientists is the same as scholarly papers on TOE (relative to the size of the respective scientific communities)?

I'll try to investigate that one further. I think the issue may be that IDers do not develop ways to test their theories, which is required for acceptance in the scientific community. From what I've read on this matter, several of the Nobel prize winners in Physics, for instance, were not people who came up with a theory, but people who figured out how to test a theory. I think this is where ID is lacking.

I don't think it's discrimination so much as it is the very high standard set for evolution to win acceptance that is the standard that ID must meet. I think IDers must come up with ways to test its hyptheses. I'm not sure they have.

A large number of scientists are atheist or agnostic. Are there any prominent atheist scientists who subscribe to ID? They could help ID with its credibility problem, or ID scientists could do more to distance themselves from Christian fundamentalist groups. I don't think the scientific community is absolutely against ID, but I think they have made clear there is no easy road for IDers, just as there was no easy road for Darwin.


Christian culture and values gave rise to some of the worsts persecutions in all of history. Hitler, Stalin, King Leopold of Belgium, and others came from Christian nations. Christian nations started WWI and II, used the A-bomb, slaughtered the American Indians, organized the Inquisition, and committed as many crimes as anyone. You can distance yourself from evil by saying they were not Christian, just as many Muslims distance themselves from bin Laden by saying he is not a true Muslim. You can say true Christians are persecuted, and I can say true liberals are persecuted. But, I don't know where it gets anyone, or does it gives you a sense of moral superiority.

Like I said, many devout Christians have liberal interpretation of the words of Christ, and this has been used to help the poor in Latin America, for instance, fight repressive governments.

I do understand that you are devout and sincere in your views, and I would guess you are burdened by embarrassments like Pat Robertson in the same way people like me are burdened by embarrassments like Jane Fonda.

Not at all. If for me to be "saved," I would have to reject values and beliefs that are part of my moral universe, I would not do it. I'd rather not be saved. It's your belief that your interpretation of the Bible is the correct one that causes the problem. I know people who are as devout as you, yet they are as liberal or even more liberal than me. I think you should expose yourself to Christian liberal thinking before trying to save people, because you may, just may not be inviting them onto the right path, despite your good intentions.