As an explanation of the existence of man, creation is superior to evolution

[o_mlly]

By which of the fundamental forces does the soul interact with the body?

The one you apparently do not yet know. By definition, immaterial action is independent of material forces. Have you corrected your error on world population that believe in creation yet?

You have obviously never performed an even mildly sophisticated measurement like a titration. There is a reason why spreadsheets have functions like the standard deviation.

"meaningless posts" = "meaningless posts" + 1

Hint: "titration" is a process, not a measurement.

 

[AV1611VET]

Any time that creationists try to define "kind" they end up shooting themselves in the foot.

Kind = Genus

Sorry, that is only moving the goal posts since there is no hard definition of "genus" either.

LOL ... this isn't I shooting myself in the foot.

This is you shooting me in the foot.

If you don't have a "hard definition of genus" (whatever that means), then that's your problem, not mine.

Academia seems to be having problems with definitions these days.

Ask Pluto.

 

[Ophiolite]

The one you apparently do not yet know. By definition, immaterial action is independent of material forces. Have you corrected your error on world population that believe in creation yet?

Since you are so fond of nitpicking minor discrepancies in member's posts, I'm sure you will be appreciative of a reciprocal gesture.

@Hans Blaster made no mention of material forces. They referenced fundamental forces. There is, excuse the pun, a fundamental difference.

And as to your petty comment on @driewerf 's titration, when I did experiments in the chem. lab at university one would ask "what did you get from the titration?", the process and the measurement both being encapsulated in the word. Perhaps you've never had the opportunity to carry out a titration yourself.

Perhaps it's not so nice to be on the receiving end of snark. At any rate I encourage you stop the provocative nitpicking and focus on an adult conversation, or we're going to see another thread closed.

 

[AV1611VET]

How do you tell if a population belongs to a specific "kind" or not?

I don't.

It's not my job to label these guys.

Remember back when Kylie showed me two animals and asked me if they were the same kind?

Remember my answer?

I said, "Tell me what their genus names are, and I'll tell you if they are the same kind or not."

Something like that.

 

[eleos1954]

One explanation is dependent on belief the other on evidence.
Evolution does not presume origin of life it merely goes forward with what is already there.
You appear to think that is a bad thing.
Humans can not escape bias, even theists are prone to bias. Science does have the scientific method to limit bias. What does religion have to limit bias?
Evolution does not pretend to know everything.
Again, evolution begins with first life, not before.
Some evolutionists are materialistic others are theistic. There are many Catholic theistic evolutionist like Kenneth Miller who received the University of Notre Dame’s 2014 Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics.
You are entitled to your opinion.

Again, evolution begins with first life, not before.

How does one start here when the environment for life to begin requires many environmental elements to exist providing for even the possibility for life to evolve into this and that in the first place?

 

[Subduction Zone]

LOL ... this isn't I shooting myself in the foot.

This is you shooting me in the foot.

If you don't have a "hard definition of genus" (whatever that means), then that's your problem, not mine.

Academia seems to be having problems with definitions these days.

Ask Pluto.

Wrong again AV. Your beliefs tell us that there should be a hard definition. You cannot find one. Evolution tells us that there should not be a hard definition and that is what we observe. You are an expert at trick shots when it comes to shooting yourself in the foot.

The fact that biologists do not have a hard definition of "genus" is not their problem at all since evolution predicts that that does not exist. It is a massive problem for you since your belief tells us that one should exist. You just shot yourself in the foot by ricocheting against two walls. Nice shot!

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't.

It's not my job to label these guys.

Remember back when Kylie showed me two animals and asked me if they were the same kind?

Remember my answer?

I said, "Tell me what their genus names are, and I'll tell you if they are the same kind or not."

Something like that.

Sorry, that is a fail. You are once again relying on a term without a hard definition. It is too bad that you keep repeating this trick shot into your own foot. How long has it been since you lost that last toe?

 

[Subduction Zone]

How does one start here when the environment for life to begin requires many environmental elements to exist providing for even the possibility for life to evolve into this and that in the first place?

Don't conflate the modern requirements for life with what would have been required in the past.

And once again, it does not matter. Evolution deals with life after it already existed. The source of that original life does not matter. It could have arisen naturally, which is what the current evidence indicates. It could have been the result of alien seeding, though there is no real evidence of this. Or the first life could even have been created by a god. And there is no evidence of that at all. What we do know is that at one point there was life on the Earth and that earlier there was not. We know that some sort of "abiogenesis" event occurred. That is a separated, but related, problem that scientists are trying to solve right now. It is not a problem for evolution since it does not care what the original source of life was.

 

[Hans Blaster]

The one you apparently do not yet know. By definition, immaterial action is independent of material forces. Have you corrected your error on world population that believe in creation yet?

2. I never said "believe in creation" it was about the number of people that disagree with your god, or any of the other gods. No religion has a majority, so every basic god belief is a global minority. The majority of humans do not believe in the divinity of Jesus. The majority of humans do not accept Mohammad as the true prophet of Allah. The majority of humans do not accept the Hindu gods. Etc., etc., etc. [It would help if you didn't respond to multiple questions from different posts at the same time. In this case you didn't even quote my post that you were responding to.]

1. Anything that can act on matter *must* have a physical manifestation that we could potentially detect because it acts on matter. What physical forces that *could* act on body-sized matter with enough impact to alter the behavior of that flesh have been or could be detected. So are we talking about one of the 4 known forces, or an undiscovered one? If it is undiscovered, why hasn't it been detected if it can affect body-sized masses?

 

[Phred]

This is pure, unadulterated bullpuckey. Arguing that a story with no evidence to support it is superior to several scientific theories based upon "It doesn't take into account the structure of creationism" is just sad. It's the mindset of the crowd that would be burning witches if they were allowed to.

 

[Frank Robert]

How does one start here when the environment for life to begin requires many environmental elements to exist providing for even the possibility for life to evolve into this and that in the first place?

That is a question that has nothing to do with evolution. That evolutionary sciences deny having knowledge of origins of life does not deflect from what it does know nor does it make a case for creationism. A theistic evolutionist would likely say "it's evident that God gave us the laws of nature to enjoy" The difference between theistic evolutionists and creationists is belief in where God starts natural processes.

For more info on Theistic evolution see Biologos. A good forum where scientists, theists, atheists and lay persons interact is Peaceful Science.

 

[Halbhh]

As an explanation of the existence of man, creation is superior to evolution.

1) Creation is a unified explanation of all that is. Evolution attempts to explain only a fragment of what is, ie., the diversity of life on earth, and presumes, without explanation, the prior existence of that which is necessary for the origin of life to have emanated from the natural order.

2) Bias is intrinsic to a scientific explanation for the observed diversity of life. Constrained to the material, evolutionists’ hypotheses (as they ought) posit only material causes for observed material effects. However, working under the principle of uniformity, the scientist introduces bias as he shapes the evidence and strains reason to conform to his proposed hypotheses. Rather than follow the evidence, the evidence is made to follow the hypothesis.

3) Creation explains the orderly operation of natural laws as rooted in and emanating from an unchanging rational ground. Evolution has no explanation.

4) “Mind from matter” presents a difficult and unresolved problem for evolution. Evolution proposes that “mind” spookily emerged from matter only in the most recent geological moments of time. Creation proposes the intuitive "mind from Mind".

5) When the evolutionary scientist cannot provide natural explanations for observed effects, he often masks his ignorance with flowery language, eg., “order emerges from the interactions of multiple subsystems as a result of their intrinsic properties, without external guidance …”. Rather than assign the observed effect to a super-natural or unnatural cause the scientist presumes a natural cause without identifying it.

6) Creation is not a scientific explanation for the existence of man. However, the forced scientific explanation for man's existence lacks intelligibility and strains credulity.

For believers, all natural processes are God's "good" design, if we believe in Him.

So, that's not only physics and chemistry, but every natural process, including evolution, if He chose, unfolding perfectly , like a flower from a seed.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Anthony Flew was a well respected atheist that supposedly became a theist towards the end of his life. Christians like to imply that he became a Christian. I think that their reasoning might be:

"The only real God is our God so if Anthony Flew believed in God towards the end of his life he must have been a Christian."

The article that he linked indicated that Flew might not even have been a theist. He appears to have had dementia towards the end of his life and others may have taken advantage of that. For years his supposed conversion towards the end of his life has been used as "evidence" by believers. Now it appears that they may not even have that illogical belief.

It was a nice article to use against those that refer to Flew.

Thanks, and I'll go read the article. I gathered much of what you wrote from the references I've seen to Flew, but (not having read that article yet) I'm not sure why I should be bothered by him at all. I don't recall anyone ever recommending his writings on non-belief as must reads. Maybe that just because the arguments are basically the same and all each generation needs is a version with updated cultural references.

Perhaps if I'd left religion at the end of high school and joined the campus atheist club I'd have heard about Flew. As it was, by the time I cared even in the slightest about atheism beyond the "I don't believe in God and find religion to be false" aspect of being an atheist, Flew was dead and the "New Atheism" was passing its peak.

 

[Hans Blaster]

There were many questions about Flew towards the end of his life, and how much of those books he actually wrote.
The Case of Antony Flew

He said this with a laugh. When we began the interview, he warned me, with merry self-deprecation, that he suffers from “nominal aphasia,” or the inability to reproduce names. But he forgot more than names. He didn’t remember talking with Paul Kurtz about his introduction to “God and Philosophy” just two years ago. There were words in his book, like “abiogenesis,” that now he could not define.​

Very interesting. Thank you. I was prepared to be disappointed when Douthat was the author, but either he is better edited by The Atlantic, or the the fact that half of the text is quoted from a NY Times Magazine article. [It would seem that nearly every time I click on a Douthat editorial in the NY Times, I get about 2/3 the way through before I lose the plot and give up.]

The source material article is actually much more informative:

The Turning of an Atheist (Published 2007)

I was not expecting the surprise introduction of a new character half way through.

Spoiler

Richard Carrier

Now I have a much better idea who Flew was and why the evangelists want so hard for him to have turned to their side.

 

[o_mlly]

I don't feel like I should have to look up fairly common, widespread pieces of information like this. It's not hard to find and many people already know it.

Well, seeing as you got the ratio wrong, it seems like a good idea for you to look it up.

 

[o_mlly]

And only claims but no explanations. You spend your time being negative. So for the fourth (or fifth?) time...

?

You said there was an overlap between the theological and scientific explanations. What is that overlap? Let's look at the scientific aspect of your claims.

It would be a good idea for you to read the the OP (again?). It seems you have forgotten what was written.

 

[Frank Robert]

Very interesting. Thank you. I was prepared to be disappointed when Douthat was the author, but either he is better edited by The Atlantic, or the the fact that half of the text is quoted from a NY Times Magazine article. [It would seem that nearly every time I click on a Douthat editorial in the NY Times, I get about 2/3 the way through before I lose the plot and give up.]

The source material article is actually much more informative:

The Turning of an Atheist (Published 2007)

I was not expecting the surprise introduction of a new character half way through.

Spoiler

Richard Carrier

Now I have a much better idea who Flew was and why the evangelists want so hard for him to have turned to their side.

Thank you to. One of the reasons I come here is share in what others know and with what I know so its good to know that others feel similarly.

 

[o_mlly]

Yes, the majority of the OT is anonymous (much of the NT as well). So claiming a book is inspired by a god/s is putting the cart before the horse, don’t you think?

No, not at all. God inspires whomever He wills. His divine inspiration put Truth into the authors’ minds. Their human task was to find their prophetic voice and wrap into words the Truth given to them.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

In a previous post, your response indicated you do not grasp the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Maybe you'd better let the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy know they've got it wrong - I was using their 'simple formulation of the principle', which contradicts your claim for it.

The rest of your posts seems to show you want to escape the very debate you initiated.

I'm happy to continue any debate I initiate if it is conducted in a reasonable manner.

Unless you have another debate in mind, let's debate my post on judging explanations. If you don't agree that the criteria I presented were suitable for distinguishing between good explanations and bad ones, criticise them and/or suggest your own, and defend your title claim by those criteria.

Otherwise, I will have good reason to assume that you can't defend your claim given reasonable criteria.

If you have in mind a different debate that I initiated, give me a link to it and we can debate that too.

 

[AV1611VET]

You are once again relying on a term without a hard definition.

You keep saying "hard definition," like it's supposed to mean something.

Kind = Genus = Kind = case closed