I listened to half of that sermon.
Sorry, I'm not impressed.
He begins by quoting an ad for a biology book, then summarize evolution as "slime to monkey, and man", and then lists an imaginary chain : "protozoa becomes bacteria, bacteria becomes plankton, plankton becomes fish, fish becomes amphibian, amphibian becomes reptile, reptiles become birds, birds become mammals", which is a stawman of evolution.
More, this guy not only misrepresents science, but he deliberately misrepresents what a scientist said.
He quotes Nobel Prize winner Dr. Wald as saying :
"There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation arising to evolution."
You shouldn't direct atheists to this kind of sermon.
I know what evolution is about, apparently this guy does not, or is not interested in portraying it truthfully.
Quotes by other people are easy to track and verify.
Whatever his message was, I stopped listening to him. Maybe I missed something very important in the last half of that sermon, that's his loss, I don't care.
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of ani-mals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a dis-graceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and ob-viously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scrip-ture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they under-stand neither what they say nor the things about which they make as-sertion
If I hadn't met intelligent and honest Christians, I would have concluded that Christianity is an anti-intellectual and dishonest cult. I think people like your preacher are a danger to your religion.
Who are these scientists and what exactly is their evidence that points towards a supreme being?
As others have said, I believe that the diversity of life comes from evolution, the origin of life comes from abiogenesis, that the universe comes from the big bang, and I dont know where the big bang came from. There are plenty of possibilities and we may never know which one is right, but I dont think a god started the big bang.
"Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others." ???
The Pasteur experiment had little to do with abiogenesis. What he showed was that microorganisms do not arise out of nothing. Wow...shocking. His experiment ultimately led to the germ theory of disease; microorganisms reproduce generating new microorganisms.
The diversity of life on Earth is, in my opinion and through logic, due to evolution.
Tof explained it very well.
Tof Said: If I hadn't met intelligent and honest Christians, I would have concluded that Christianity is an anti-intellectual and dishonest cult. I think people like your preacher are a danger to your religion.
I find deism to be the limitations of rational discovery of who God may be; beyond that we're left to ourselves and our own experiences.
I cannot accept abiogenesis, nor a self-caused universe. Evidence for such claims are based only on scientific worldviews holding fast a naturalistic creed; to call a man a machine is much too far for my taste -- and this is certainly my own opinion.
Moreover, to say that we don't know what caused the big bang seems a misnomer. To ask what is before the big bang in reference to non-spiritual discernment is very much like asking -- as some scientists like to claim -- what's north of the north pole. We are never going to find something that caused the genesis of all somethings. We have a metaphysical transcendence, or an example of anti-induction: which is far more faith based than the world of religion.
As for evolution, why not? The problem is not the process, but the sudden illogical initiation of this process.
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The brain is the most complex thing in the universe -- and it's right behind the nose. -- La Science des Reves
Moreover, to say that we don't know what caused the big bang seems a misnomer. To ask what is before the big bang in reference to non-spiritual discernment is very much like asking -- as some scientists like to claim -- what's north of the north pole.
The way the current theories are structured suggests that there was not a "before the big bang;" that time started at the big bang. The question that is as yet unanswered is what happened at time zero.
I find deism to be the limitations of rational discovery of who God may be; beyond that we're left to ourselves and our own experiences.
I view deism, like all belief systems, as a conclusion from observations.
The observations in this case are that a God is necessary as an initiator of the universe, but that He is nowhere to be found today.
Originally Posted by Received
I cannot accept abiogenesis, nor a self-caused universe. Evidence for such claims are based only on scientific worldviews holding fast a naturalistic creed; to call a man a machine is much too far for my taste -- and this is certainly my own opinion.
I cannot reject abiogenesis.
I think a direct divine intervention is redundant, because there is a secondary divine intervention we already know of (chemistry) that can produce life from non-life. Moreover, I don't think that a miracle is described in scriptures that could illustrate the transition of non-life to life.
A deity as the cause for the Big Bang, I can consider, because we lack knowledge regarding the alternatives.
I think it all boils down at what his knowledge, and what is belief.
I think we have sufficient knowledge of chemistry in regards to abiogenesis to exclude a direct divine intervention.
I don't think we have sufficient knowledge in physics to exclude a divine prime mover.
As for the "man is not a machine", please, I think you can do better than that. Science has limits, it concerns itself only with objective and intersubjective experience. Our experience of life is not limited to these subsets.
Originally Posted by Received
Moreover, to say that we don't know what caused the big bang seems a misnomer. To ask what is before the big bang in reference to non-spiritual discernment is very much like asking -- as some scientists like to claim -- what's north of the north pole. We are never going to find something that caused the genesis of all somethings. We have a metaphysical transcendence, or an example of anti-induction: which is far more faith based than the world of religion.
You lost me here with your last sentence. Could you rephrase it, please?
Originally Posted by Received
As for evolution, why not? The problem is not the process, but the sudden illogical initiation of this process.
To me, there is no problem with an initiation, because I view evolution as a property of life. Once you have life, you have evolution.
Creationist and reactionist are acronyms of each other. This must be gods way of telling us something. The language certainly couldn't have evolved to be the way it is.
I'm not an atheist by any stretch. I'm a pagan, and what I really enjoy about being a pagan is that there is not contradiction between divine creation and evolution. Everything was part of divine plan, the divine is part of every creation, humans are no better than that which came before us, nor were we specifically chosen by evolution to be the top of the order. Science is just another way of understanding the Lord and Lady's creation, no better or worse than spiritual ways of looking at the natural world. from an atheistic perspective, i dont see any problem in the orgins of life. Evolution a pretty solid theory, as is that of the Big Bang theory. (Wiccan with a physics minor, go fig') As far as the point between zero-time and plank-time (a term used by string theorists), we really are unable to peice together what must have happened.
Hey midnight star,
Have you read Three Roads to Quantum Gravity by Lee Smolin? Its an excellent book published in 2002 about the latest research in string theory, M theory and quantum gravity. From the sounds your post I think you would really like it.
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