Yet *more* evidence for a young creation ...

[Roy]

I see Mikey has taken his clown act to Theology 201 where he hopes he can repeat his Creationist PRATTs with less chance of being scientifically refuted.

...and the insults, incompetence and intolerance have started already.

[rwatts]

I see Mikey has taken his clown act to Theology 201 where he hopes he can repeat his Creationist PRATTs with less chance of being scientifically refuted.

Brave, brave Sir Mikey.

If atheism is a religion, then can I go there?

[HMS_Beagle]

If atheism is a religion, then can I go there?

Hehehe. It would sure be fun to go try just to see how loudly the Fundy nutter screams.

[psstein]

YEC is an embarrassment to Christianity and (more generally) religious belief. There's more evidence for Jesus mythicism than for a young Earth (and there's no evidence for mythicism at all). YEC has negative evidence, actually.

OEC, while almost as untenable, at least doesn't have to throw out everything we know about physics and chemistry, just most of what we know about biology.

[rwatts]

Hehehe. It would sure be fun to go try just to see how loudly the Fundy nutter screams.

Well I'm often told that I worship myself. So I have a god to worship. Clearly I fit the bill.

[rwatts]

YEC is an embarrassment to Christianity and (more generally) religious belief. There's more evidence for Jesus mythicism than for a young Earth (and there's no evidence for mythicism at all). YEC has negative evidence, actually.

OEC, while almost as untenable, at least doesn't have to throw out everything we know about physics and chemistry, just most of what we know about biology.

It's why I have a lot of time for theistic evolutionists.

They make their faith central but understand that the provisional findings of science simply cannot be ignored.

Mind you, in defence of some creationists, I've met a few really decent ones who bear the fruit of the God I was taught to believe in. Let me put it this way - although I think their attitudes to science to be silly, they nevertheless present their faith in such a manner that God is not made to look like a dimwitted donkey in the presence of an atheist like myself.

I think too that we atheists need to stop and think a bit in how we deal with Christians and theists of other faiths. Some folk, in countering creationism, see the solution as countering religion in general. I think that is silly. Sure, if an atheist thinks religion can only be irrational and bad, then fine. However, I don't think any of us and our belief systems can claim to be completely rational and all good, anymore than religion can be deemed to be all irrational and all bad.

We need to encourage to good in religion and those followers who bear the fruit of the God they claim to worship. We need to discourage the bad in religion and those followers who show their God to be a dimwit.

Equally, while I understand that Christians see the outside world as being on the side of Satan, unsaved, sick, lost, in the dark etc., I think they need to be careful in how it colours their attitude to outsiders. That might be their belief system, but consider that "You are a child of Satan" or "You are a tool of Satan" is about the filthiest thing one human can say of another. "You are an idiot", "You are a moron" are sweet by comparison. If the Christian thinks that the former is acceptable because it is sincerely believed, then surely the latter is acceptable, providing it is sincerely believed.

Mature Christians know how to navigate such language which can potentially be very demeaning. Immature Christians don't know how to use such language and it the end it becomes another bludgeon which ends up making God look stupid to outsiders.

[psstein]

It's why I have a lot of time for theistic evolutionists.

They make their faith central but understand that the provisional findings of science simply cannot be ignored.

Mind you, in defence of some creationists, I've met a few really decent ones who bear the fruit of the God I was taught to believe in. Let me put it this way - although I think their attitudes to science to be silly, they nevertheless present their faith in such a manner that God is not made to look like a dimwitted donkey in the presence of an atheist like myself.

I think too that we atheists need to stop and think a bit in how we deal with Christians and theists of other faiths. Some folk, in countering creationism, see the solution as countering religion in general. I think that is silly. Sure, if an atheist thinks religion can only be irrational and bad, then fine. However, I don't think any of us and our belief systems can claim to be completely rational and all good, anymore than religion can be deemed to be all irrational and all bad.

We need to encourage to good in religion and those followers who bear the fruit of the God they claim to worship. We need to discourage the bad in religion and those followers who show their God to be a dimwit.

Equally, while I understand that Christians see the outside world as being on the side of Satan, unsaved, sick, lost, in the dark etc., I think they need to be careful in how it colours their attitude to outsiders. That might be their belief system, but consider that "You are a child of Satan" or "You are a tool of Satan" is about the filthiest thing one human can say of another. "You are an idiot", "You are a moron" are sweet by comparison. If the Christian thinks that the former is acceptable because it is sincerely believed, then surely the latter is acceptable, providing it is sincerely believed.

Mature Christians know how to navigate such language which can potentially be very demeaning. Immature Christians don't know how to use such language and it the end it becomes another bludgeon which ends up making God look stupid to outsiders.

I'm Catholic, actually.

Theistic evolution is the only scientifically and theologically defensible position. Unfortunately, people like Henry Morris, Ken Ham, and Stephen C. Meyer seem to have conned people into believing that you can't possibly support evolution and believe in God.

YEC requires almost all science to be wrong. OEC requires almost all of biology to be wrong. ID is chronically unfalsifiable, scientifically ignorant, and theologically (extremely) problematic.

[theophilus]

Theistic evolution is the only scientifically and theologically defensible position.

Here is some evidence that evolution is impossible.

http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v18i5f.htm

[Roy]

Here is some evidence that evolution is impossible.

http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v18i5f.htm

Did you post the wrong link?

[JonF]

Here is some evidence that evolution is impossible.

http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v18i5f.htm

Doesn't say anything about any impossibility of evolution.

Does have some blather about the origin of life, but no data or evidence.

[psstein]

Here is some evidence that evolution is impossible.

http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v18i5f.htm

Origin of life doesn't have anything to do with evolution, try again. I don't know why creationists can't figure it out.

Just because we don't yet have an answer doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. God tends to act through secondary causes, which are studied by science.

[rwatts]

Here is some evidence that evolution is impossible.

http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v18i5f.htm

In the context of life, all evolution requires are:-

1) Living organisms, that

2) reproduce, and

3) do so with some variation.

For all it cares, God or the gods could have popped life into existence from nothing, space aliens could have created life via test tubes, the earth may be fifty quadrillion zillion years old, plenty of time for life to have come about by random chance only.

No matter.

Evolution takes off once life gets going.


If you still don't understand the concept then consider the science of meteorology. No one tells meteorologists that they cannot research the origins of rain, thunder, lightning etc, without first proving the origins of the earth's atmosphere. God may have created the earth's atmosphere out of nothing. It may have arisen via outgassing from an early earth. No matter. To study the earth's atmosphere does not require an explanation of its origin.

So it is with evolution.


Doctors can study my body now and learn a lot about it. None of this necessarily requires that they know how my mum 'n dad managed to get me going. It could have been via the stork or a bottle of brandy and a wild party for all those doctors know.

[Roy]

Here is some evidence that evolution is impossible.

http://scienceagainstevolution.info/v18i5f.htm

I've done some digging.

Theophilus's cite starts:
"We first discovered the existence of the Origin of Life Prize in 2005, and told you about it in our August 1 and September 2 newsletters that year. At first, we assumed the prize was just a cheap creationist trick, using one million dollars to bait evolutionists, ..."

One tiny problem: It is a cheap creationist trick.

Tracking down the 'news' in theophilus's link leads here, and a few clicks away can be found details of both the prize and the organisation sponsoring it:

The Gene Emergence Project is one of the programs of The Origin-of-Life Science Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)3 science and education foundation with corporate headquarters near NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center just off the Washington, D. C. Beltway in Greenbelt, MD. 113 Hedgewood Drive, 20770-1610 Fax 301-441-8135

Searching for that uncovered this, in which the 'Foundation' is revealed to be run from a suburban house. This clearly isn't a corporate headquarters, and its department of protobiocybernetics and protobiosemiotics is clearly fictional, as is the gene emergence project. Nor does it look like the kind of entity that might sponsor a million-dollar prize, and anyway I can find no evidence that the 'prize' ever existed (which would explain why no entry ever got past screening), or was ever advertised in Science or Nature.

The person behind all this, David Abel, is the intelligent design creationist responsible for many of the Discovery Institute's claimed ID publications.

Theophilus, you got some 'splainin' to do.

Roy

[theophilus]

Origin of life doesn't have anything to do with evolution, try again. I don't know why creationists can't figure it out.

Life has to exist before any evolution can occur.

Just because we don't yet have an answer doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. God tends to act through secondary causes, which are studied by science.

Until we find the answer we have no right to claim that something has been proved scientifically.

[HMS_Beagle]

Life has to exist before any evolution can occur.

So? Atoms have to exist before any chemistry can occur but chemistry doesn't have to explain how atoms got here to be correct.

Until we find the answer we have no right to claim that something has been proved scientifically.

Good thing then no one in the scientific community claims the theory of evolution has been "proved scientifically". Science doesn't "prove" things. Science supplies positive supporting evidence, in this case overwhelming evidence that evolution has occurred over deep time.