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Had a Run-In with a Famous Atheist

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Mallon

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I'm just really sick of hearing all the glories of evolution, and y'all going on and on, and not one of you have taken the time to really look to see what's being taught...want to talk about blind faith....
For what it's worth, Gwenyfur, I took high school biology. And I took university biology. And now I teach university evolution and ecology labs. And not once have I, my teachers, or my textbooks ever suggested that man is becoming like God.
So I resent your implication that none of us have ever examined what's being taught.
 
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Gwenyfur

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That sucks. I'm sincerely sorry to hear it. If they're teaching that we evolved from rocks, then the people who wrote the textbook don't understand that evolution, even from Darwin's initial conception, only deals with life. Very unfortunate, indeed, and I can see why this would lead to misconceptions on the part of creationists. Incidentally, what textbook was this?

I don't think that the evolution of the horse has been disproved. It might be that Haeckel's particular model for its evolution has been disproved, but I think disproving the evolution of horses would take some serious work. But as you say, this is a weakness of the textbook, not evolutionary theory.

And for the Big Bang, two questions: 1. what is so ridiculous about it, and 2. why was the Big Bang in a biology textbook?

Can you give a link to the Amazon page for the book?
Here's a link to purchase the book

big bang is considered to be a "neccessary" part of origins .... so it's in biology books ... go figure...
 
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Gwenyfur

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For what it's worth, Gwenyfur, I took high school biology. And I took university biology. And now I teach university evolution and ecology labs. And not once have I, my teachers, or my textbooks ever suggested that man is becoming like God.
So I resent your implication that none of us have ever examined what's being taught.

The link I referened in reply to Dannager is a link to a handout from her instructor...her senior year in highschool...
I'm not out on a limb on this one...

If you're an ethical instructor that teaches evolution as a theory, then great! Glad to hear it...and I hope you offer other possible origins in your classes as well...
 
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Dannager

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really...so humans evolving from monkeys to neadethals and homo sapien etc isn't becoming better, stronger, smarter, faster , godlike etc??? that's a new one.
Actually, no, we've become weaker as a species. We've become more intelligent, certainly. Godlike? Nah, we still haven't developed any amazing miracle powers like the creation of the universe or reviving the dead with a wave of the hand.
Actually, it was her idea...get over it...
Haha, oh, I see. In other words, you made sure she was prepared well in advance for the "evolution nonsense", right?
has already made up her mind to go into ministry...so yes another YEC missionary in the field winning souls for the L-rd, not sitting online being sarcastic and ridiculing an article of faith. I would call that being more successful than any scientist on the planet!
Well that's wonderful! Hopefully somewhere along the way she'll find the desire to explore science a little more in-depth and discover that her YEC leanings aren't properly placed.
more like "oh lookwhat we found in the wild...see what it can do!?? It has evolved so specifically to it's environment that it can ((fill in blank))...is it really so hard a leap to say "Wow, G-d really knew what He was doing when He create this!" but no...keep bowing to 'Science'.
Er...unless God's been creating new species over the last hundred years, you don't really have a point here. The nylonase bug in particular arose within the last half century. So, no, it's a pretty hard leap to say that God created it, since it was only "created" fifty some odd years ago. Please read up on these things. Please.
Hoops?? What hoops? G-d said it...period...and in case *you* haven't been paying attention, He said it more than once ;)
I've been paying attention. You, however, clearly missed a few things over the past few months, because I'm starting to repeat myself. You've already forgotten about nylonase, for instance.
More like rediculous to anyone with an iota of common sense. Me can reed inglisch duh!
Hey, the insults are uncalled for, Gwenyfur. Not only are you saying that myself and many other members of this forum don't have an iota of common sense, but that 99.9% of the scientific community doesn't have an iota of common sense. It's far more likely that you're simply incorrect than for this to be the case. How about calming down for a little bit, coming off the defensive, and listening to what we have to say because we're not trying to do you harm. We want you to be educated on this issue that you obviously care about, but right now you are pretty far from educated.
Just read this then tell me it's a "strawman"
Oh, Gwenyfur, why are you reading websites that lie to you?

Are you ready to listen? Because this might seriously cause you to question what you've been told. That page you linked? The one on secular humanism? I want you to look at the bottom of the first page. You see that paragraph:
AllAboutPhilosophy.org said:
Yet Evolution has not been proved. In fact, it seems that the Theory of Evolution is contrary to established science. George Wald, another prominent Evolutionist (a Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate), wrote, "When it comes to the Origin of Life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!" ("The Origin of Life," Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954).

See that quotation attributed to George Wald? Yeah, that one? That's a lie. First off, see how it says it was in the May issue of Scientific American? It wasn't. "The Origin of Life" was in the August issue. Furthermore, that quotation above doesn't even appear in the article. Wald never said it. What he did say is the following:
[QUOTE="The Origin of Life", George Wald]

The great idea emerges originally in the consciousness of the race as a vague intuition; and this is the form it keeps, rude and imposing, in myth, tradition and poetry. This is its core, its enduring aspect. In this form science finds it, clothes it with fact, analyses its content, develops its detail, rejects it, and finds it ever again. In achieving the scientific view, we do not ever wholly lose the intuitive, the mythological. Both have meaning for us, and neither is complete without the other. The Book of Genesis contains still our poem of the Creation; and when God questions Job out of the whirlwind, He questions us.
Let me cite an example. Throughout our history we have entertained two kinds of views of the origin of life: one that life was created supernaturally, the other that it arose "spontaneously" from nonliving material. In the 17th to 19th centuries those opinions provided the ground of a great and bitter controversy. There came a curious point, toward the end of the 18th century, when each side of the controversy was represented by a Roman Catholic priest. The principle opponent of the theory of the spontaneous generation was then the Abbe Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian priest; and its principal champion was John Turberville Needham, an English Jesuit.
Since the only alternative to some form of spontaneous generation is a belief in supernatural creation, and since the latter view seems firmly implanted in the Judeo-Christian theology, I wondered for a time how a priest could support the theory of spontaneous generation. Needham tells one plainly. The opening paragraphs of the Book of Genesis can in fact be reconciled with either view. In its first account of Creation, it says not quite that God made living things, but He commanded the earth and waters to produce them. The language used is: "let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.... Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind." In the second version of creation the language is different and suggests a direct creative act: "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air...." In both accounts man himself--and woman--are made by God's direct intervention. The myth itself therefore offers justification for either view. Needham took the position that the earth and waters, having once been ordered to bring forth life, remained ever after free to do so; and this is what we mean by spontaneous generation.
This great controversy ended in the mid-19th century with the experiments of Louis Pasteur, which seemed to dispose finally of the possibility of spontaneous generation. For almost a century afterward biologists proudly taught their students this history and the firm conclusion that spontaneous generation had been scientifically refuted and could not possibly occur. Does this mean that they accepted the alternative view, a supernatural creation of life? Not at all. They had no theory of the origin of life, and if pressed were likely to explain that questions involving such unique events as origins and endings have no place in science.
A few years ago, however, this question re-emerged in a new form. Conceding that spontaneous generation doe not occur on earth under present circumstances, it asks how, under circumstances that prevailed earlier upon this planet, spontaneous generation did occur and was the source of the earliest living organisms. Within the past 10 years this has gone from a remote and patchwork argument spun by a few venturesome persons--A. I. Oparin in Russia, J. B. S. Haldane in England--to a favored position, proclaimed with enthusiasm by many biologists.
Have I cited here a good instance of my thesis? I had said that in these great questions one finds two opposed views, each of which is periodically espoused by science. In my example I seem to have presented a supernatural and a naturalistic view, which were indeed opposed to each other, but only one of which was ever defended scientifically. In this case it would seem that science has vacillated, not between two theories, but between one theory and no theory.
That, however, is not the end of the matter. Our present concept of the origin of life leads to the position that, in a universe composed as ours is, life inevitably arises wherever conditions permit. We look upon life as part of the order of nature. It does not emerge immediately with the establishment of that order; long ages must pass before [page 100 | page 101] it appears. Yet given enough time, it is an inevitable consequence of that order. When speaking for myself, I do not tend to make sentences containing the word God; but what do those persons mean who make such sentences? They mean a great many different things; indeed I would be happy to know what they mean much better than I have yet been able to discover. I have asked as opportunity offered, and intend to go on asking. What I have learned is that many educated persons now tend to equate their concept of God with their concept of the order of nature. This is not a new idea; I think it is firmly grounded in the philosophy of Spinoza. When we as scientists say then that life originated inevitably as part of the order of our universe, we are using different words but do not necessary mean a different thing from what some others mean who say that God created life. It is not only in science that great ideas come to encompass their own negation. That is true in religion also; and man's concept of God changes as he changes.[/QUOTE]
As you can see, the quotation your website used wasn't even accurate as a paraphrase much less a direct quotation. So, Gwenyfur, why are you reading websites that lie to you?

Why do you trust people who are willing to make up things, stick them in others' mouths, and say that the person said these things, just so that they can get you to believe in their point of view. Scientists don't do that. Scientists don't deceive the public (and when they do, on rare occasion, other scientists are the ones who expose them). You're being deceived by those people, Gwenyfur.
 
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Dannager

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The link I referened in reply to Dannager is a link to a handout from her instructor...her senior year in highschool...
I'm not out on a limb on this one...
What, the link to AllAboutPhilosophy.org? AllAboutPhilosophy.org is a fundamentalist Christian website, Gwenyfur. I seriously doubt that would have been handed out by a public school teacher unless it was part of a lecture on dishonest websites.
 
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Willtor

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Here's a link to purchase the book

big bang is considered to be a "neccessary" part of origins .... so it's in biology books ... go figure...

The Amazon page, unfortunately, doesn't list the TOC. Is it similar to this region-specific version of the text? Was there an extra section of the book that went into the Big Bang? What did it say about it that was ridiculous?
 
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Gwenyfur

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There was a section in the "Theory of Evolution" pages that stated that all life resulted from a "Big Bang" that was cause by a piece of highly compressed matter (something like this...it's NOT in front of me) no bigger than the period on this page.

That's the part that sticks...the universe??? from something the size of a .

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
 
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Gwenyfur

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What, the link to AllAboutPhilosophy.org? AllAboutPhilosophy.org is a fundamentalist Christian website, Gwenyfur. I seriously doubt that would have been handed out by a public school teacher unless it was part of a lecture on dishonest websites.

no I pasted the wrong bloody link...
it's been fixed
 
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Gwenyfur

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Actually, no, we've become weaker as a species. We've become more intelligent, certainly. Godlike? Nah, we still haven't developed any amazing miracle powers like the creation of the universe or reviving the dead with a wave of the hand.

Haha, oh, I see. In other words, you made sure she was prepared well in advance for the "evolution nonsense", right?

If you only knew...unfortunately...you've never taken the time to read my testimony so you wouldn't have a clue as to what I taught her in her younger years....you'd be surprised
Well that's wonderful! Hopefully somewhere along the way she'll find the desire to explore science a little more in-depth and discover that her YEC leanings aren't properly placed.
faith in an all powerful G-d is never misplaced...it's a shame you seem to think so...
Er...unless God's been creating new species over the last hundred years, you don't really have a point here. The nylonase bug in particular arose within the last half century. So, no, it's a pretty hard leap to say that God created it, since it was only "created" fifty some odd years ago. Please read up on these things. Please.

as for the nylonase bug...just because it was *discovered* 50 years ago doesn't mean it didn't exist before then...
and since we're at this point n blame thing here

explain frozen (not fossilized)palm leaves in antarctica
explain fossilized camels and bison in the arctic
explain a 300' red tree underground vertically in teh frozen tundra of canada...

I've been paying attention. You, however, clearly missed a few things over the past few months, because I'm starting to repeat myself. You've already forgotten about nylonase, for instance.

I did forget...you don't take the Tanakh literally...my bad...

Hey, the insults are uncalled for, Gwenyfur. Not only are you saying that myself and many other members of this forum don't have an iota of common sense, but that 99.9% of the scientific community doesn't have an iota of common sense. It's far more likely that you're simply incorrect than for this to be the case. How about calming down for a little bit, coming off the defensive, and listening to what we have to say because we're not trying to do you harm. We want you to be educated on this issue that you obviously care about, but right now you are pretty far from educated.
Well Dannager...you care so much about my education...amazing...you haven't a clue who I am...other than someone to talk down to...

Oh, Gwenyfur, why are you reading websites that lie to you?
:yawn:

oh yes, because scientists are infallible... and G-d's word is just a fairy tale...gotcha ;)
If that's the education you're pandering, I'm quite happy being "stupid" ;)
 
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Willtor

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There was a section in the "Theory of Evolution" pages that stated that all life resulted from a "Big Bang" that was cause by a piece of highly compressed matter (something like this...it's NOT in front of me) no bigger than the period on this page.

That's the part that sticks...the universe??? from something the size of a .

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

I would have picked on the part that said that life resulted from the Big Bang (at least, if the contextual implication was as a direct result). AFAIK, no scientist holds that position, and I wonder where the authors could have gotten that idea in the research literature.

As to the Big Bang occurring starting from a singularity, I'll admit that it is quite unintuitive to me, and I'm a fairly intuitive person. But I'm also not an astrophysicist, and even if I were, I would be careful about applying my intuition in such a matter. When I was a sophomore, one of my friends confided in me that he had a hard time believing that all of the data in a computer was actually stored in binary. At the time it was quite unintuitive to me, but now it's my bread and butter (especially since my thesis deals with parser generators). A thing might be difficult to imagine, but if one has good reason to think it so, I'd advocate accepting it.
 
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Willtor

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as for the nylonase bug...just because it was *discovered* 50 years ago doesn't mean it didn't exist before then...

Nylon was invented less than 100 years ago. If the bug lived before that, it had nothing to eat.
 
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Dannager

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no I pasted the wrong bloody link...
it's been fixed
What does the Humanist Manifesto have to do with you claiming that evolutionary theory teaches we'll become gods? You might be able to claim that the Humanists believe that evolutionary theory teaches that we'll become gods, but a) that's not what you claimed and b) that's not what the Humanist Manifesto says.
 
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Dannager

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There was a section in the "Theory of Evolution" pages that stated that all life resulted from a "Big Bang" that was cause by a piece of highly compressed matter (something like this...it's NOT in front of me) no bigger than the period on this page.

That's the part that sticks...the universe??? from something the size of a .

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
Yes, right. Just because you don't understand something yet doesn't mean it's untrue. Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang for a basic understanding of what the Big Bang was.
 
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Gwenyfur

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What does the Humanist Manifesto have to do with you claiming that evolutionary theory teaches we'll become gods? You might be able to claim that the Humanists believe that evolutionary theory teaches that we'll become gods, but a) that's not what you claimed and b) that's not what the Humanist Manifesto says.

It's in plain english...pretty ahrd to misunderstand...unless you just want to justify it...

feel free...
 
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Gwenyfur

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Yes, right. Just because you don't understand something yet doesn't mean it's untrue. Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang for a basic understanding of what the Big Bang was.

this isn't about what the TRUTH of the Big Bang ...it's about HOW it's beign taught in text books...

and while what I typed was paraphrased....It's pretty hard to forget that .
ok...now that we're on the same line......
 
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Dannager

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:yawn:

oh yes, because scientists are infallible...
No, they're not. Did you miss the part where I said they're occasionally wrong, but other scientists inevitably expose them? But scientists are often correct, and it is, frankly, really dumb to just toss their ideas out.
as for the nylonase bug...just because it was *discovered* 50 years ago doesn't mean it didn't exist before then...
Gwenyfur, you really don't remember the nylonase bug, do you? We've talked about it before. If you'd been paying attention, you would have remembered that the nylonase bug can't have existed before that point, because it contains an enzyme designed to break down and digest nylon, which is a synthetic, man-made product that didn't even exist until the last century. Please, please stop being so defensive, Gwenyfur. We really can help you understand all of this better but you need to stop acting like we're the enemy.
and since we're at this point n blame thing here

explain frozen (not fossilized)palm leaves in antarctica
explain fossilized camels and bison in the arctic
explain a 300' red tree underground vertically in teh frozen tundra of canada...

doesn't quite fit with evolution......
Could you provide some links to those particular issues? I'm not readily familiar with them.
 
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Dannager

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It's in plain english...pretty ahrd to misunderstand...unless you just want to justify it...

feel free...
No, but I mean why have you brought up the Humanist Manifesto? None of us are Humanists, so what does it have to do with the conversation at hand?
 
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Dannager

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this isn't about what the TRUTH of the Big Bang ...it's about HOW it's beign taught in text books...

and while what I typed was paraphrased....It's pretty hard to forget that .
But that's a decent layman's explanation of the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang (although there wasn't really any "before", since time doesn't exist with everything compressed like that), the universe was compressed into an extremely small area. A phase transition caused it to expand extremely rapidly as the gravitational force separated from the electronuclear force.
 
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Gwenyfur

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No, but I mean why have you brought up the Humanist Manifesto? None of us are Humanists, so what does it have to do with the conversation at hand?

It actually does...the 2 are inherently linked....a lot of their premise is based on the theory of evolution...after all man is still evolving...what will he become next etc...
 
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