Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Evolutionist · 12-28-2003, 10:41 AM

Quote:

A final thought-evolution has nothing to do with the existence or lack thereof of God. Evolution doesn't confirm or deny God, so how have many of you come to your atheistic views?

what makes you think that most atheists came to that conclusion as a direct result of accepting the fact of evolution?

one of the major evolutionary websites on the net (talk origins) is made up of atheist and theist volunteers- so i have no idea here you got this idea in your head from.

we're atheist mostly because theres no valid reason to be a theist (to simplify it to one sentence).

JohnC · 12-29-2003, 07:44 PM

I'm new here, but after having spent several hours pounding through this thread, I felt compelled to chip in with an observation.

If I had ignored everything except the assertions in 4God's first post, namely:

1. We all have faith in some thing
2. Humans have a natural desire to know the world about them inside and out.

It seems to me that just about any reasonable person would have been put on their guard after noticing the obvious generalisations in the above assertions (as you all did). Although I have enjoyed the debate, I am quite surprised that contributors have spent so much time on it. Is this level of dedication the norm around here or do you ever just shoot people down in flames right from the start and move on?

Feel free to shoot - I have asbestos underwear.

Happy New Year to all.

Yahzi · 12-29-2003, 10:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnC
Is this level of dedication the norm around here or do you ever just shoot people down in flames right from the start and move on?

When we do that, they complain that we are snippity.

variant 13 · 12-30-2003, 02:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnC
Is this level of dedication the norm around here or do you ever just shoot people down in flames right from the start and move on?

Well I'm unemployed and have no life at the moment so there's not much else to do. I'm reading a book at the sametime too.

cricket · 12-30-2003, 04:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnC
Is this level of dedication the norm around here or do you ever just shoot people down in flames right from the start and move on?

Yes.

4God · 12-30-2003, 05:22 AM

JohnC

Quote:

It seems to me that just about any reasonable person would have been put on their guard after noticing the obvious generalisations in the above assertions (as you all did). Although I have enjoyed the debate, I am quite surprised that contributors have spent so much time on it. Is this level of dedication the norm around here or do you ever just shoot people down in flames right from the start and move on?

perhaps if i had made my first statement then ran....this would have been a 10-15 post thread. But I believe you should answer critics and make attempts to back up your claims. Perhaps others do not.

evolutionist

blindwatchmaker...

Quote:

It is very easy to demonstrate that the creationist version of evolution is not the "real" one but it requires a small investment of time on your part.

Ok this is from...origins.org(http://www.origins.org/articles/thaxton_dnadesign.html)

Quote:

This development is highly significant for the modern origin of life discussion. Molecular biology has now uncovered an analogy between DNA and written human languages. It is more than an analogy, in fact: in terms of structure, the two are "mathematically identical." In the case of written messages, we have uniform experience that they have an intelligent cause. What is uniform experience? It simply means that people everywhere observe a certain type of event always in association with a certain type of cause. When we find evidence that a similar event happened in the past, it is reasonable to infer it had a similar cause. As I shall argue, based on uniform experience there is good reason to accept an intelligent cause for the origin of life as well.

This scientist "This paper was presented as part of the conference, Jesus Christ: God and Man, an international conference in Dallas, Texas, November 13-16, 1986. Dr. Thaxton was then Director of Research, The Julian Center, P.O. Box 400, Julian, CA 92036."
seems to have the creationist bent, but is a design theorist...however,on this same website, a creationist says

Quote:

Personally, my sympathies lie with a Genesis interpretation that is historical, literal, and with 24-hour days in the recent past. But the testimony of science, God's natural revelation, is often difficult to correlate with this view. The earth has many layers of sediments thousands of feet thick. How could one year-long catastrophe account for all this sediment? The answers may surprise you!

his grand canyon exploration.....

Quote:

Evolutionary geologists have described this sandstone as originating from an ancient desert. Remnants of sand dunes can be seen in many outcrops of the formation in a phenomenon called cross-bedding. There are many footprints found in this sandstone that have been interpreted as lizards scurrying across the desert.These footprints would seem to pose a major challenge to young- earth geologists who need to explain this formation in the context of Noah's flood. Since there are many flood-associated layers both above and below this sandstone, there is no time for a desert to form in the middle of Noah's flood. Recent investigations, however, have revealed that the cross-bedding can be due to underwater sand dunes and that some footprints are actually better explained by amphibians moving across sandy-bottomed shallow water. Perhaps this formation can be explained by sand deposited under water.

This explanation does not entirely solve the young-earth geologists' problem, because it is still difficult to determine where the amphibians came from and how they could be crawling around in shallow waters on top of sediments that would have to be deposited halfway through a world-wide catastrophic flood. But let's go on to another flood evidence. Earlier, I mentioned the Great Unconformity. This can be observed throughout the Grand Canyon where the Tapeats Sandstone, a Cambrian formation estimated to be 570 million years old, rests on top of any one of a number of Precambrian strata ranging from one to two billion years old.

Our group observed a location in the Unconformity where the time gap between the two layers is estimated to be one billion years. It is very unusual, even for evolutionary geology, for two layers from periods so far apart, in this case one billion years, to be right on top of one another. It is hard to imagine that no sediments were deposited in this region for over a billion years! Evolutionary geologists believe that the upper sandstone was deposited over hundreds of thousands of years in a marine environment. However, we observed large rocks and boulders from a neighboring formation mixed into the bottom few feet of the Tapeats Sandstone. This indicates tremendous wave violence capable of tearing off these large rocks and transporting them over a mile before being buried. This surely fits the description of a flood rather than slow deposition. We spent nearly two hours at this location and we were all quite impressed with the clear evidence of catastrophic origin of the Tapeats Sandstone.

That the Coconino Sandstone likely had a water-deposited origin and that the Tapeats Sandstone was laid down in a great cataclysm are necessary elements for a young-earth flood geology scenario for the Grand Canyon.

I wish I could print the whole article. It seems to be that if i read both talkorigins, and orgins....they present two very compelling arguments that do not seem biased enough to imply dishonesty.

Also, I don't think the Scientific American is as impartial as you may think...

Quote:

Ideas deserve a fair hearing, but fairness shouldn't be an excuse for letting rejected, inadequate ideas persist. Intelligent design and other variants of creationism lack credible support and don't mesh with the naturalistic fabric of all other science. They don't deserve to be taught as legitimate scientific alternatives to evolution any more than flat-earth cosmology does.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...88EEDF&catID=2

which would imply that creationist theor/design theory has been rejected in the scientific community.....ack! gotta run...but i will be looking into this further.

variant 13 · 12-30-2003, 06:10 AM

Well not being good at the whole geology thing I'll skip most of it for people more knowledgeable.

But something does stand out that made me think:

Quote:

We spent nearly two hours at this location and we were all quite impressed with the clear evidence of catastrophic origin of the Tapeats Sandstone.

Wow a whole two hours, they really took their time there

Yahzi · 12-30-2003, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by 4God
It seems to be that if i read both talkorigins, and orgins....they present two very compelling arguments that do not seem biased enough to imply dishonesty.

If you read all the literature on both sides, then you would have a very different view.

Heck, if you just piled the literature for both sides up, and looked at the two piles, you'd have a very different view.

But keep reading. Ultimately you will notice a pattern: one side starts with an answer, and never changes its mind. Note that geology used to reject continental drift; yet, when presented with evidence, changed its collective opinion rather quickly. When have the creationists ever changed their theory in light of new evidence?

Evolutionist · 12-30-2003, 09:56 AM

4GOD:

Quote:

evolutionist

yes?

BruceWane · 12-30-2003, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by 4God
Also, I don't think the Scientific American is as impartial as you may think...

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...88EEDF&catID=2

which would imply that creationist theory/design theory has been rejected in the scientific community.....ack! gotta run...but i will be looking into this further.

No....what it implies is that creationist/design theory keeps re-presenting the same "evidence" over and over again, even though it has been thoroughly refuted - thus the phrase "fairness shouldn't be an excuse for letting rejected, inadequate ideas persist. "

It is perfectly fair for me to reject the statement "2 + 2 = 5" without a broad presentation of proofs if I have already shown the falsity of the statement previously - and it doesn't matter how many times you present the statement.

When new ideas, evidence, or theories are presented, they will be considered.

If anything, creationists should realize that they are creating bias against themselves in the scientific community by presenting over and over again theories and evidence that has been previously refuted. You might call it the "boy who cried wolf" syndrome. Instead, they seem to accept this bias, and consider the "repeat it until people believe it" syndrome to be of higher value. Sadly, they aren't entirely mistaken. Public opinion is more about psychology than anything, and both public and scientific opinion have the potential to get them where they want to go. They're just going for the softer target. Positioning themselves as martyrs oppressed by the scientific community is a very effective tenderizer of public opinion. Most people, but especially americans, love an underdog.

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12-29-2003, 07:44 PM	#102
JohnC Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: England Posts: 99	I'm new here, but after having spent several hours pounding through this thread, I felt compelled to chip in with an observation. If I had ignored everything except the assertions in 4God's first post, namely: 1. We all have faith in some thing 2. Humans have a natural desire to know the world about them inside and out. It seems to me that just about any reasonable person would have been put on their guard after noticing the obvious generalisations in the above assertions (as you all did). Although I have enjoyed the debate, I am quite surprised that contributors have spent so much time on it. Is this level of dedication the norm around here or do you ever just shoot people down in flames right from the start and move on? Feel free to shoot - I have asbestos underwear. Happy New Year to all.

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