Warcraft3

Well as far as purely natural explanations go....your choices are evolution and............well............. evolution.

Oh, right right right. I so totally forgot about my low standards of justification that I failed to see your superiority. Wow. You are an excellent debator wdog. You have convinced me of my errors and now I will be up all night long crying my deceived eyes out.

Wow, you really have no idea what I believe, do you? I recommend you either ask me or read previous posts I have made. Try this forum or TheologyWeb and you may get a picture of exactly where I stand. I am not trying to undermine anything here.

Well congratulations, you are now an official member of the.......
I think I am better than you, so I will just insult you without actually having any dialogue with you club.

Good job.

Thats nice. I feel just terrible that you think I am so silly. No, really I do. Here I go feeling terrible............


Now if we can dispense with the insults, maybe we can talk about theistic evolution----the topic of the thread.


Russ
"Strumming the ole violen"
:boohoo:

Warcraft3

Yes some of them do take such positions, unfortunately. I am blessed enough to have friends who are atheists who do not hold such opinions.

I have shared miracles (I would call them miracles) with non-theists and have often been shocked by their "explanations" of them. They yell at me for the "God of the gaps" fallacy, yet when they use the "not able to be known natural cause of the gaps" fallacy I am supposed to invite them over for a spot of tea and tell them how wonderful they are.

Not all of them do it, but some do. It is unfortunate to be sure.

***If anyone would care to read two of my "miracles" they are posted over on TWEB in the "Personal miracles that cant be adequately explained without invoking God" thread. Look on page 3.***


Russ
"Strumming the ole violen"
:boohoo:

KnightWhoSaysNi

Yo steadele,

How's the reserves? I used to be in the Royal Canadian Army Cadets when I was a teen by the way (that's when I learned the military life just wasn't for me! )

As far as theistic evolution goes, I generally don't have much of a problem with it. Denis Lamoureux's view on evolution (i.e., the 'framework hypothesis') would probably make the most sense to me if I was a Christian trying to reconcile science with Genesis.

However, although I agree that evolution does not disprove theism, I think it does kinda show that theism isn't really quite necessary. It's like God putting everything on autopilot. Human beings are no longer the centre of the universe but merely become part and product of the natural world. I have to agree with Dawkins when he asserts that evolution permits him to be an "intellectually fulfilled atheist."

Also, I hope that wdog's jab doesn't dissuade you from posting here. We're for the most part an easy going bunch, but don't take it personally if you get jumped on by someone a little more aggressive.

Oh, by the way, your links didn't quite work. Infidels used the same VB code as Tweb, as far as I know.

P.S. Any chance were you able to see Kenneth Miller's presentation where he gave a rebuttal of Behe?

Warcraft3

Hey man whats up?

Quote:

How's the reserves? I used to be in the Royal Canadian Army Cadets when I was a teen by the way (that's when I learned the military life just wasn't for me! )

Its not too bad overall. Sometimes I see alot of politics and other bull@#$% that I really dont like, but that is something I have to live with I guess. When I am doing Army stuff I am known for being extremely realistic, not taking any bull, complaining alot, joking around alot, and being a little "rough around the edges". I have gotten myself in trouble a few times for not respecting rank, but everyone knows that I really mean well and try to look out for my fellow soldiers.

Despite all the things I do not like about it I have recently considered the possibility of reenlisting when my time is up. I may take the officer route, since I have a college degree, but I havent made up my mind yet.

I would say that I am proud to be a part of it, although at times it is a pain in the behind.

Yeah, I am still looking at four views currently: 1. The framework view (Lamoureux) 2. The view held by Glenn Morton (which reminds me I am supposed to send him another email next month) 3. The progressive creationist view held by Hugh Ross and 4. The Intelligent Design viewpoint (I like what "Mike Gene" has to say regarding ID).

So I am looking at them, although I need to spend more time on them and will do so when my home comp gets repaired.

I have read some stuff by Dawkins and he troubles me a bit. He seems to have an axe to grind and so I take his stuff with a large grain of salt. Like, too large to fit into a salt shaker.

Oh no man, it really doesnt bother me in a personal sense. I have a thick skin and an easy going sense of humor. These topics are pretty important ones and emotions come into the picture at times. I both understand it and expect it. I love using sarcasm myself and laugh when someone pulls a good one on me. I have lost battles of wit to both atheists and Christians alike, but I have not yet lost the war

Oh, no ,they werent real links man. I was just being my sarcastic self.

Yeah I remember when someone gave me that link (was it you?) I planned on listening when I got back from my two weeks of "fun in the sun" with the Reserves. But, alas, my hard drive crashed and my home computer (which cost me like over $3000) is now at Best Buy getting fixed. I hope they are fixing it anyway. They better be. Hmmm..... I better call them and find out what the status is on that stupid comp.......

Anyway.......I promise you I will listen to Millers presentation as soon as I get my computer back.


Russ

Doubting Didymus

I confess I don't understand what you mean. Behe's argument as I understood it is that structures that are irreducibly complex can not be built in incremental steps. Thats a demonstratably false argument, and the page I linked to showed exactly how IC structures CAN be built up in said steps. I can't see what you mean, therefroe, when you say that this "does not in principle destroy the argument of IC". What is left of Behe's argument, if it can be shown that IC can be built by evolution? I'm not terribly familiar with the ID movement, is Behe making additional claims that I'm not aware of? I thought the whole point was that IC was supposed to be something evolution can't explain.

Regarding the suppositions, you must have noticed that the author took care to ensure that each of his hypothetical steps was a selective advantage over each previous form. Obviously, dealing with a completely fictional situation, the entire thing is a supposition, but what part of it do you think is an unwarranted supposition?

wdog

I am not trying to insult anyone russ, just my observation. My mother for instance needs little justification for her beliefs but I never insult her for it.

Am I better than anyone? depends on what you mean by that, I simply will demand more evidence than most people which is why I am now an agnostic instead of the christian I once was.

no russ, that is not how science works. the choices are simply the ones that best model the evidence and produce reliable predictions. The universe of choices is almost infinite, in fact science changes almost everyday. I choose to accept what the scientific consensus is since it has been far more reliable than any other source of knowledge that we have. You do to russ, whether you choose to 'believe' it or not. When you go to the doctor or even turn on your computer, you are implicitly accepting that science is reliable enough to underpin the engineering behind the technology.

Do you somehow choose to undermine science, yes you do. Hugh Ross has been discredited by the scientific mainstream yet you hold him up as some sort of model to follow. In fact I cannot think of a single person who has ever taken religion as a starting point as produced a single idea, theory, or even empirical result that has been useful to the development of science. I have read Hugh Ross and he simply doesn't pass the stink test for justification, you seem to want embrace people like him simply because he is approaching the subject with a creationist bent. Why would an intelligent person give a lot of weight to discredited arguments like those of Ross? Especially given the dismal record of how well religion has described the natural world?

I don't mean to imply it isn't healthy to challenge the findings of science, people do it all the time. In fact one could make themselves famous in the world of scinec if they can overturn a well accepted theory (supported by lots of evidence and well tested, like evolution). The problem with creationism is that it, like most challenges, has failed. The evidence and rules of science refutes it as a viable theory yet people like you still try and maintain it simply because you 'believe'.

wdog

my comment was in reference to the link, not you. As far as what you believe, I don't really care, I am only interested in any evidence you have but unfortunately you have presented nothing original.


who said anything about a debate? you don't have anything to debate.

wdog

emotional,

inserting god doesn't drive me mad, it just isn't useful. I used to want to do it myself, you see my path was that I wanted to become a christian apologist and have good reasons (justification) and not just believe. The probelm with inseting a god into things like evolution is that it doesn't work. or if you want to simply say that evolution is simply the way god wants us to see it, then inserting god is gratuitious.

I challenge you, since I don't want to research myself exhaustively, to give me one solid scientific result that has arisen by inserting god or any religion. We could go over the long sad history of how religion has misled people (flat earth, etc.), but I know you are sick of that sh*!

please don't use creationism either, it is not a solid result

emotional

That's a real question raised about theistic evolution: why do people find it so unspeakable? Instead of seeing it as a viable option, both atheists and creationists regard theistic evolution as a wishy-washy compromise that doesn't stand up to reality. Beats me why. I regard theistic evolution as the truth, not as a soppy compromise. God behind evolution is just as reasonable as Richard Dawkins behind the biomorphs simulation.



Why? The only reason I see why this should be so is that it conflicts with a neat, orderly philosophy of how things should be (ie Occam's Razor).



I really don't see it that way. I assume a Creator who created everything ex nihilo 15 billion years ago and set all the laws of nature so that evolution may occur.

Why attack theistic evolution? Many people want to keep their faith in God and the afterlife (me included), and theistic evolution is a perfect way to do so. If the option of theistic evolution is undermined, those who wish to keep faith will drift towards the anti-science of creationism instead. You don't want that, do you?

Lobstrosity

Just out of curiosity, do you hold that all organisms on Earth go on to an afterlife when they die? If not, exactly where is the line drawn between those who can go and those who cannot? (For example, if only humans can go, who was the first "human" permitted into the afterlife?)