Christian Evolutionists?

[phank]

If you had the ability to create the universe to function a certain way, the way it’s functioning now, why wait billions of years to reach this point when you could create it in that state right now?

And why not? Once we start letting our imaginations wander, we can dream up anything. But the exericse is rather hollow if you respect evidence.

They of course were wrong in their evaluation of the man, but they simply chose to dismiss one explanation in place of another. That isn't God's fault, nor is he “jiggering reality.”

Except in your fantasy, this god created a man to SEEM old when he was actually not old. This is deceptive. This is the ESSENCE of deception. If you wish to dismiss reality on the grounds that a deceptive god may have poofed in every conceiveable indication of something other than what it IS, have fun.

[phank]

My belief in the truth of the Bible does not rest primarily on the Bible's internal testimony. As you say, that would be circular logic. Rather, I accept the Bible on faith.

And your faith is based on what? Let's say there WAS no bible. How, then, would you have been trained as you have?

Many things cross my mind. But what God did is not more self-interpreting than what God said. Less so, really

Give me a break. You are dismissing ALL OF REALITY because it fails to ratify your own personal misinterpretations. This is arrogance beyond idiocy.

since sometimes we're only looking at the vestiges left behind from what God did in the past, not even watching God do things in real-time.

So you think the bible lied about there being sermons in stone? You need only PAY ATTENTION. And as I wrote earlier (and you seem to have forgotten), we watch many of these phenomena in action, we subject them to empirical test. Your ancient fables are wonderful ways to communicate a moral philosophy - even Christ used parables and everyone understood they were useful fictions. They are not history, they are useful pedagogical fictions.

And, if you look around at your fellow Christians, they have the wit to realize this. You are in error. Your own god's reality tells you this in countless ways, with everything that exists everywhere. You choose to deny him, preferring instead the comfortable Absolute Certainty available to anyone who chooses not to THINK. Your own god would be ashamed of you. You were blessed with a mind (or potentially so). Exercise it.

[shunyadragon]

Who says that . . . I can't recall ever having read that position from any tWebber .. . but my memory is not all that good. Perhaps its been said in so many words. But I recognize the circular reasoning in it . . . it's about as obvious as the wart on my nose, ha ha.

RBerman and Jorge.

[seanD]

And why not? Once we start letting our imaginations wander, we can dream up anything. But the exericse is rather hollow if you respect evidence.

Except in your fantasy, this god created a man to SEEM old when he was actually not old. This is deceptive. This is the ESSENCE of deception. If you wish to dismiss reality on the grounds that a deceptive god may have poofed in every conceiveable indication of something other than what it IS, have fun.

I don't agree that it is deceptive. Granted, if God didn't say anything to the contrary and thus we were left with our own knowledge to evaluate his creation, then you have an argument. But he gave us a choice.

[phank]

I don't agree that it is deceptive.

If everyone is deceived, it's deceptive.

Granted, if God didn't say anything to the contrary and thus we were left with our own knowledge to evaluate his creation, then you have an argument. But he gave us a choice.

If you mean, we have the option to THINK, then yes, I agree. No need to exercise that option, of course, if it makes you Uncertain.

[rogero]

Sorry, Roger. As I said a couple of pages back, I'm only fielding questions from one non-Christian at a time in this thread, and phank has the floor currently.

One of the most excellent examples of Fundy subterfuge. hehehe...

Ok, when you're done with your devastating repartee with the current "non-Christian" you can answer my simple questions.

Roger

P.S. Fundies are such a hoot, aren't they? ;-)

[seanD]

If everyone is deceived, it's deceptive.

If you mean, we have the option to THINK, then yes, I agree. No need to exercise that option, of course, if it makes you Uncertain.

It isn't really decpetion when not everyone makes the same choice. Your critique and view of the choices doesn’t make it any less of a choice. There are those who are just as intelligent and rational as you who have looked at the same evidence you have, but who have made the opposite choice. It’s merely the law of choices. God just favors people who will trust in what he says in spite the inevtiable adversity against it.

[phank]

It isn't really decpetion when not everyone makes the same choice.

Please. If the man looks 40, and has every conceivable indication of that age, they he is a deception. And a very deliberate deception.

There are those who are just as intelligent and rational as you who have looked at the same evidence you have, but who have made the opposite choice. It’s merely the law of choices. God just favors people who will trust in what he says in spite the inevtiable adversity against it.

I personally would find it difficult to have faith in a god who favors people who fall for tricks. Of course, from my viewpoint, you are patting yourself on the back and praising yourself as "favored" because you have tricked yourself. If you prefer to believe in what you THINK your god said, rather than what you can SEE that he DOES, of course there is no penetrating this. Bless you, go in peace.

[RBerman]

One of the most excellent examples of Fundy subterfuge. hehehe...

Ok, when you're done with your devastating repartee with the current "non-Christian" you can answer my simple questions.

Roger

P.S. Fundies are such a hoot, aren't they? ;-)

Roger, there are too many polite atheists here to talk to; there's no reason for me to engage you at all. So I'm not going to. Bye!

[phank]

Roger:

Let me help you out here.

RBerman:

1) What's an "evolutionist?"

2) What are your presuppositions?

[phank]

Roger, there are too many polite atheists here to talk to; there's no reason for me to engage you at all. So I'm not going to. Bye!

And so we get yet another Free Home Demonstration of how creationists deal with uncomfortable questions. Bears an amazing similarity to their posture toward reality and evidence and such.

[RBerman]

Roger:

Let me help you out here.

RBerman:

1) What's an "evolutionist?"
2) What are your presuppositions?

I'm not going to treat you as his sock puppet, phrank. Besides which, I already discussed my big presupposition, and you already said you didn't like it.

And so we get yet another Free Home Demonstration of how creationists deal with uncomfortable questions. Bears an amazing similarity to their posture toward reality and evidence and such.

It has nothing to do with uncomfortable questions, of which I haven't seen any yet. It has everything to do with cordial interactions.

[Tiggy]

It has nothing to do with uncomfortable questions, of which I haven't seen any yet.

Except for all the ones you avoided.

It has everything to do with cordial interactions.

Yeah, we know. For a Creationist it's perfectly OK to dodge!, duck!, dip!, dive, dodge! as long as you do it politely.

- T

[phank]

OK, I'll try again. I agree with you about worldviews here, to some extent.

In the scientific view, there is one reality and only one. It's a very complex reality, and requires a lifetime of study to ferret out even small parts of it, but slowly it happens. In the religious view, there are many realities - as many as there are faiths. The way something becomes true in religion is by SAYING it's true, and sincerely believing it. Science relies on evidence, religion on faith. Problem is, the religious mind takes it for granted that the scientific mind shares the religious worldview. As Xru implied, religion is not only BASED on assumptions and presuppositions, it is entirely COMPOSED of them. The error lies in thinking this is the only possible view, that science shares it, and that what we have is a simple viewpoint-based swearing contest. The concept of the scientific method remains incomprehensible to the religious mind, since the scientific method is irrelevant and utterly useless to religion.

Furthermore, although disputes are common in both science and religion, the resolution of these disputes is instructive. In science, disputes are necessary, beneficial, and welcomed. Because in science, any dispute focuses attention on the merits. At least ONE side of the dispute must be wrong, and proper application of the scientific method can determine which it is. Or it can determine that both are wrong, because the underlying reality was more complex than either one thought. So this leads to more disputes, which focuses research most wonderfully, and progress is made.

Contrast with religion, where the disputes are not scientific disputes, and empirical testing does not apply. Religious disputes tend to be bitter, uncompromising and ruthless. They are invariably settled in one of two ways: force, or schism. There IS no underlying reality to act as arbiter, there are only the constituent assumptions, interpretations, and presuppositions. And whereas science makes progress, religions splinter over questions millennia old. And once again, the religious worldview thinks this is the only way things can be, and invariably sees scientific disputes (which guide research) as religious disputes (which divide people according to preference).

But science is NOT religion; the two are vastly different. All properly formed scientific questions have a single, correct answer. That answer might be hard to find. Even forming scientific questions properly is difficult where knowledge is inadequate. But hazy questions become focused, and leading questions are stripped of false assumptions as investigation continues, because there is in fact only one natural world, and it's self-consistent, so there really IS in the end a single, correct answer.

The point I'm getting to here, finally, is that there are two different worldviews here because there are two different worlds. Theological questions, or at least most of them, lie beyond the competence of science even to address. The age of the earth, the evolution of species, the building of mountains, THESE science can determine correctly. The nature of gods, the delineation of right and wrong, the problem of evil, THESE issues science must remain silent about.

Conflict happens when EITHER science attempts to speak beyond its competence (for example, in saying anything about gods), OR when religion stumbles into the territory of science (for example, in making claims about the age of the earth). Both of these are category errors. Science and religion have different goals, and work by different methods. I can't tell you there are no gods, because this is a matter of faith. You can't tell me the earth is young because this is a matter of empirical fact. There are certainly religious scientists, but (with some wacko creationist exceptions, who do not practice science) they understand that science can't investigate their soul, and religion can't investigate evolution. The scientist in them wants to figure out how things work. The believer in them wants to feel he's helped improve the human condition as his god wills.

[rogero]

Roger, there are too many polite atheists here to talk to; there's no reason for me to engage you at all. So I'm not going to. Bye!

Well bye and bye, There are too many issues. What is your interpretation of a "literal" Genesis? Is there more than one story Or is a seamless historical narrative? Cough it up, Fundy Boy.