As a Christian, how many of you believe in evolution?

[sfs]

Weird. Well, I assume similar information is available elsewhere.

As it happens, this particular information is not available anywhere else.

I will study up some.

Excellent.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I did not say otherwise. You, on the other hand, seemed in the first few posts to assume this is the habit of those with a priori religious beliefs.

It is.

I don't know any creationist who has valid scientific objections to evolution theory. Every single last one of them, only rejects evolution beause they already dogmatically believe something else religiously.

This is why when they enter "debates", they can only engage in fallacy after fallacy and appeal to ignorance.

As is demonstrated on this subforum every single day.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Truth is, Tagli, IF (and I keep it that way for the sake of argument) there is indeed First Cause With Intent, then what is opposed to that is necessarily false. Simple, really --truth is truth.

What a meaningless tautology.
"IF I am right, then I am actually right!!!"

Well... yeah.

But I asked you for an example where science and religion stood on opposite sides of an argument and where religion turned out to be correct.

If you have such an example, it should not be starting with "if...".
If you don't have such an example, then just say so.

I was hoping to keep it theoretical, since it began that way, and I don't want to descend into an unnecessary and misleading discussion of religion vs science, because it is mostly a bogus issue

It is not at all a bogus issue.
The point I made is quite clear and true: whenever science and religion go head to head, there isn't a single case where the supernatural answer turned out to be the correct one. Not a single time.

, unless either "science" (not true science, but perhaps the scientific community, or pop science, or consensus) is wrong, or unless religion is wrong (and sometimes both), but here is a starter:

http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Science-Christian-Scientific-Revolution/dp/1596981555/bedeslibrary

"Few topics are as open to misunderstanding as the relationship between faith and reason. The ongoing clash of creationism with evolution obscures the fact that Christianity has actually had a far more positive role to play in the history of science than commonly believed. Indeed, many of the alleged examples of religion holding back scientific progress turn out to be bogus. For instance, the Church has never taught that the Earth is flat and, in the Middle Ages, no one thought so anyway." Science owes much to both Christianity and the Middle Ages : Soapbox Science

Yeah, let's all pretend that all the book burnings and the oppressiosn of the science that the church thought was "heretical", never happened.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I am genuinely curious. If I hear of the invention of new math to explain beginnings without God, without myself enjoying the math skills to prove any of it wrong, common sense says that if they must explain away the laws of physics to prove God unneeded, they are fooling themselves, or, more likely, that those actually doing the science are merely pursuing a path of study, and those watching them are putting words to it. So far, I've heard nothing disproving Genesis 1. And yes, I have looked.

Science's purpose is not to disprove religions.

And claims, religious or otherwise, aren't "true" or even "valid" just because no explicit disproof is available. Claims fall and stand on their own merrit. And the burden of proof is in the camp of the one making the positive claim.

So to say that "genesis 1 hasn't been disproven", is rather meaningless - especially if the implication is "therefor it's valid/rational to believe genesis 1 is accurate".

There's only one thing that makes the acceptance of a claim as accurate valid. And that is supportive evidence for it.

I love bones. Specially dinosaur bones. And thoughts about ancient times before recorded history. But so far, what I have been told has been sketchy at best. I admit I don't know much about the genome studies, but what I have heard only proposes possibilities, and proves nothing. So I remain skeptical of what others call PROOF, particularly when science does not admit to proof.

Scientific theories aren't ever "proven", only supported.
There's no such thing as "proof" in the natural sciences, when it comes to building models to explain reality.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

accepting of all possibilities except the absurd (which isn't a possibility at all, after all).

This implies that you would know in advance what is absurd and what isn't.
It also implies that that which is seen by your human brain to being "absurd", is actually valid enough to call it impossible.

This seems to be of the same species as the idea of "common sense says X and science Y, therefor science can't be correct".

The fact is that throughout history, every other major breakthrough turned worldviews (at least in the fields in question) upside down. Many a time, it turned out that reality was completely counter-intuitive. Or "absurd", if you will.

Before Einstein, everybody would have called it absurd that the flow of time relative to observer is actually influenced by speed and gravity.

Before Quantum Mechanics, everybody would have called it absurd that a particle could show up "here", while at the same time being measured "there". In fact, quite a few physicists continue to call that absurd. There's this quote that comes to mind of which I forgot who said it, but it goes: "Quantum physics is absolutely ridiculous. The most ridiculous thing about Quantum Physics? The fact that it actually works..."


Or to quote Lawrence Krauss: "The universe has a much bigger imagination then we puny humans do..."

When all is said and done, IF the existence of First Cause With Intent is true, science will take us that direction. But the noise may well not.

It sounds like you really would like that to be true, ha?
Pretty big "if" though.

 

[durangodawood]

In common language, we often use figures to make a point. I don't think the people that Jesus was talking to would have expected him to list pros and cons of snakes, nor to delve into a discussion of the goodness of God in creating the dangerous and deceptive things of life before calling someone a snake.

Well its not just about Jesus's talking ministry. He knew it would be committed to scripture and analyzed in that context too.

Also, I get how the viper is dangerous, but how is it deceptive?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Okay. Why would that preclude scientists publishing the results of said observations and experiments?

Nothing, if indeed that is the results and publication. How many corrections or redefinitions of theories take place? THAT is science --always improving knowledge, or at least whittling down toward bare truth. And even if nothing biased is published, are you saying nobody takes the publication and makes more of it than it deserves?

 

[xianghua]

It is.

I don't know any creationist who has valid scientific objections to evolution theory.

realy? here are at least few of them:

1) we know that things like sonar and motors are the result of design. we find such systems in nature so only design can explain the existence of such systems.

2) a creature cant evolve into a different creature because there are no small steps from one creature to another one. if we had a self replicating car for instance it will never evolve into something like an airplane.

3) according to this paper we will need about 10^77 mutations to evolve a specific functional protein:

Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds. - PubMed - NCBI

it means that we will need a lot of time to evolvle even a single protein.

 

[pitabread]

1) we know that things like sonar and motors are the result of design. we find such systems in nature so only design can explain the existence of such systems.

And by this logic my house can fly since it's painted the same color as my airplane.

False Equivalence Fallacy

2) a creature cant evolve into a different creature because there are no small steps from one creature to another one. if we had a self replicating car for instance it will never evolve into something like an airplane.

And another example of the False Equivalence Fallacy.

3) according to this paper we will need about 10^77 mutations to evolve a specific functional protein:

That paper is an example of post-hoc probability calculations that don't actually mean anything useful.

It's like if calculated all the events leading up to your birth and the calculation was a probability of 1 in 10^1000, and therefore I concluded your existence was impossible.

It's a bad argument.

 

[pitabread]

Nothing, if indeed that is the results and publication. How many corrections or redefinitions of theories take place? THAT is science --always improving knowledge, or at least whittling down toward bare truth. And even if nothing biased is published, are you saying nobody takes the publication and makes more of it than it deserves?

But you previously said:

By "true science" I mean, simply science --just science. Not noise about science, not the scientific community, not pop science, not consensus, not published works, not accepted dogma, not even application of learned beliefs. It really has nothing to do with people's opinions. Only science.

If scientists can't publish their findings, how are we else supposed to learn about their findings?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Science's purpose is not to disprove religions.

And claims, religious or otherwise, aren't "true" or even "valid" just because no explicit disproof is available. Claims fall and stand on their own merrit. And the burden of proof is in the camp of the one making the positive claim.

Granted, but the claim that proof must be present in order for rational belief to prevail is also misleading. We need not prove what we believe, though it is good to have reason to believe it. And THAT, I do have.

So to say that "genesis 1 hasn't been disproven", is rather meaningless - especially if the implication is "therefor it's valid/rational to believe genesis 1 is accurate".

There's only one thing that makes the acceptance of a claim as accurate valid. And that is supportive evidence for it.

I never meant to imply that "therefore it's valid", in that context. I agree that is bad logic. The same goes for those who claim since religion is false, therefore whatever the scientific community (or even science, for that matter) comes up with is true.

I disagree supportive evidence is only thing that makes acceptance valid. The logic may be terrible, and the belief ignorant --yet if what is believed is true, it is by definition valid, and so it is valid to accept that truth.

My personal take on such a situation is that such truths are maybe always poorly conceived or poorly understood and certainly poorly defined. This is one of my biggest problems with Christian thinking nowadays --that since "we have the truth" others are to be criticized for their lack of belief --and thus we (Christians) ignore the fact that we ourselves are nowhere near to understanding what we believe. (We, for example, believe the Gospel, and yes indeed I believe the Gospel is true, yet I don't understand it --it takes me all the way back to why God would create and how it is even possible for the creature to be able to rebel against the Creator --I find it impossible to fathom. (Yet, my lack of understanding does not invalidate it.))

 

[xianghua]

And by this logic my house can fly since it's painted the same color as my airplane.

how it has any connection to the fact that a sonar system or a spinning motor are evidence for design?

It's like if calculated all the events leading up to your birth and the calculation was a probability of 1 in 10^1000, and therefore I concluded your existence was impossible.

not realy. if we can calculate what is the number of functional sequences vs the non functional, we can calculate how many mutations we will need to find a functional sequence. so if we have about 10^50 possible functional sequences in the sequence sapce we can know that we will need more then the age of the universe to evolve even a single functional gene (depend on the function).

 

[Mark Quayle]

Scientific theories aren't ever "proven", only supported.
There's no such thing as "proof" in the natural sciences, when it comes to building models to explain reality.

Agreed

 

[Mark Quayle]

This implies that you would know in advance what is absurd and what isn't.
It also implies that that which is seen by your human brain to being "absurd", is actually valid enough to call it impossible.

This seems to be of the same species as the idea of "common sense says X and science Y, therefor science can't be correct".

The fact is that throughout history, every other major breakthrough turned worldviews (at least in the fields in question) upside down. Many a time, it turned out that reality was completely counter-intuitive. Or "absurd", if you will.

Before Einstein, everybody would have called it absurd that the flow of time relative to observer is actually influenced by speed and gravity.

Before Quantum Mechanics, everybody would have called it absurd that a particle could show up "here", while at the same time being measured "there". In fact, quite a few physicists continue to call that absurd. There's this quote that comes to mind of which I forgot who said it, but it goes: "Quantum physics is absolutely ridiculous. The most ridiculous thing about Quantum Physics? The fact that it actually works..."


Or to quote Lawrence Krauss: "The universe has a much bigger imagination then we puny humans do..."



It sounds like you really would like that to be true, ha?
Pretty big "if" though.

All true, except for your apparent idea of the sort of thing I might be referring to by "absurd". An example of what I am talking about, is the supposed proof that there can be no omnipotent being --"could such a being create a rock so big he could not lift it?" The question is absurd in more than one way. It assumes validity to a self-contradictory concept. It also ignores that such a being would have no reason to do so, and certainly not for the purpose of entertaining the mental vagaries of lesser beings; and since such a being (the very inventor of "what is", or he is not self-existent God) has no reason for doing so, the proposed scenario is a non-thing by definition, and therefore absurd.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Well its not just about Jesus's talking ministry. He knew it would be committed to scripture and analyzed in that context too.

Also, I get how the viper is dangerous, but how is it deceptive?

Read Genesis about the serpent. Very beautiful, but treacherous.

I had one of my inmate crew working with me one day in a ditch, neither of us realizing there was a Cottonmouth behind him in a hollow in the ditch wall. When I saw it, undisturbed and peaceful, I told him gently to come on out with me, and after he did, I told him to turn around. He had a definite reaction to what he saw. The aspect was peaceful, even pretty, but we knew better than to trust peace with a viper.

 

[Mark Quayle]

But you previously said:



If scientists can't publish their findings, how are we else supposed to learn about their findings?

I never said they can't publish their findings. I am saying those are not of themselves science --they may well be useful in our scientific method, but they are not themselves science.

 

[Mark Quayle]

As it happens, this particular information is not available anywhere else.

Excellent.

From what I gather so far, the site I can't seem to get onto, is by a man who believes science and theism (at least) do work together, and so is attacked by both Atheists and Theists. I happen to agree with him, though without reading his stuff, I don't know if we agree for the same reasons.

 

[durangodawood]

Read Genesis about the serpent. Very beautiful, but treacherous.

I had one of my inmate crew working with me one day in a ditch, neither of us realizing there was a Cottonmouth behind him in a hollow in the ditch wall. When I saw it, undisturbed and peaceful, I told him gently to come on out with me, and after he did, I told him to turn around. He had a definite reaction to what he saw. The aspect was peaceful, even pretty, but we knew better than to trust peace with a viper.

Yeah I get that the serpent generally is a symbol of deceit. But earlier here it seemed someone challenged whether God created a beast that is actually wicked.

Also, I cant consider hiding for safety, nor stealth in hunting, as indicative of a deceitful character. Those are just normal behaviors that any hunting animal, including humans, will do.

 

[pitabread]

how it has any connection to the fact that a sonar system or a spinning motor are evidence for design?

It's pointing out the logical flaw in your arguments.

According to your logic, my house can fly.

So thank you, I've always wanted a flying house.

not realy.

Yes, really. Post-hoc probability calculations are not useful in this circumstance.

The probability of your existence is highly unlikely, but yet you still exist. So any such probability calculation of your existence is meaningless.

 

[pitabread]

I never said they can't publish their findings. I am saying those are not of themselves science --they may well be useful in our scientific method, but they are not themselves science.

This seems like a silly semantics argument.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to argue for here.