Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
No, manichaeism is the belief that the war is between the flesh and the spirit as well as a denial that Jesus came in the flesh. Just about every heresy depends on something true, otherwise they wouldn't go very far.That's Manichaeism. It's been extinct since the 3rd century. Something about heresy...?
That was the outcome of Kitzmiller vs. Dover. The guys at the Discovery Institute advised Dover School Board to avoid letting the issue go to court, knowing the inevitable outcome would be the exposure that ID is a subterfuge to get creationism in public schools. As IDer Philip Johnson later admitted, that decision was a "train wreck" for intelligent design.When I first heard of "intelligent design" I'd been reading up on "creation science" for a year or so and "ID" just seemed like the obvious evolution of "CS" that I rejected it right away.
ID and similar do more of a disservice to faith-based belief than provide any real benefit. All they do is perpetuate an idea that somehow evolution is counter to faith, so we either shoe-horn in a rider of divine intervention to evolution or we acquiesce to atheism. It seems to me things would be far better if we simply acknowledge that science doesn't have the tools to answer questions about God, but that it does have the tools to describe observable processes and not try to shoehorn theological questions into the mix.That was the outcome of Kitzmiller vs. Dover. The guys at the Discovery Institute advised Dover School Board to avoid letting the issue go to court, knowing the inevitable outcome would be the exposure that ID is a subterfuge to get creationism in public schools. As IDer Philip Johnson later admitted, that decision was a "train wreck" for intelligent design.
Wrong. Science is not the reason they go to atheism. It is the theory of evolution that is taught that they go to atheism.Science is the reason they go to atheism today.
Specifically evolution.
I have not studied Wittgenstein.The problem is that different people, even Christians such as myself, may have a different conceptualization about what truth is and how truth claims work and are even justified, especially where truth may reportedly lead us to, or be a manifestation of, actual knowledge.
This is where the intricacies and polysemous qualities of a truth come to a head and meet the road. And not everything that Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christians assert can be born out as evidentially true where words themselves are seen to have some sort of 'concrete' quality that they might not actually have. And that's where the problem lies.
Have you ever studied Wittgenstein?
Sadly, this is why you dismiss creation. Because your view of science cannot allow for a cause that is not from naturalism. Right away, you were close-minded to any other view that could be outside of naturalism, even if it made sense.that I rejected it right away
Colossians 2:8 is a clear warning. Not just against ‘bad philosophy,’ but against any system of thought rooted in man’s ideas rather than Christ. When Christians say it’s only about ‘bad uses’ of philosophy, they risk watering down Paul’s very point: to stay alert to teachings that sound wise but pull us away from the authority of God’s Word.Paul was referring to "bad uses," NOT philosophy on the whole. We need to get that straight through our thick skulls.
That is up to you.Thank you for this suggestion. I recognise and applaud your intent in making it. I raise my hat to you.
However, in the context of this thread and my commitment to @Jerry N. to view the video and comment on it I am left appalled, astounded and aghast. I take my commitment to view the video to be done with the highest level of objectivity I can mount and with careful consideration of all the points raised. That requires multiple views and careful examination of each argument, each sentence, in some cases each word. To treat it in the cavalier mannner you describe would be fine for addressing uncontroversial points, or the typical YouTube dross. It is wholly out of place in the present context. I am troubled that you would consider this gimic a bona fide method for serious study.
If morality is just a personal compass, then no action, no matter how horrific, can be objectively wrong. If there's no higher standard beyond human opinion, then even the Nazis’ atrocities were just "different values," not truly evil. That’s the danger of moral relativism: it removes any firm foundation for condemning injustice. Evolution may try to explain how we got morals, but it can't tell us why something is right or wrong. Without God, there’s no absolute standard, just preferences. And that’s not enough when real evil exists.Nonsense. We (I generalise) don't care what your God, or any of the thousands of other Gods do or do not like. It is irrelevant to us. We care about what our own moral compass tells us is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. My own compass is partially informed by the Sermon on the Mount, but I do not consider it to be the word of God, rather the thoughts of a compassionate and thoughful fellow human.
This was the mid to late 1990s, Kitzmiller was in 2005. The first ID stuff was coming out, but what I was mostly seeing was "creation science" as we were a bit behind the times locally. Another popular thing was the "polonium halos". The best online resource was TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution ControversyThat was the outcome of Kitzmiller vs. Dover. The guys at the Discovery Institute advised Dover School Board to avoid letting the issue go to court, knowing the inevitable outcome would be the exposure that ID is a subterfuge to get creationism in public schools. As IDer Philip Johnson later admitted, that decision was a "train wreck" for intelligent design.
I think this is so weird. When a baby is born, everyone is praising the Lord, amazing, beautifully made, stitched together in the womb etc. and when a scientist talks about cell division, and egg fertilization and the heart beat, it's all good. Nobody fights for microscopic miracles in the mix. The natural processes themselves are acceptable.ID and similar do more of a disservice to faith-based belief than provide any real benefit. All they do is perpetuate an idea that somehow evolution is counter to faith, so we either shoe-horn in a rider of divine intervention to evolution or we acquiesce to atheism. It seems to me things would be far better if we simply acknowledge that science doesn't have the tools to answer questions about God, but that it does have the tools to describe observable processes and not try to shoehorn theological questions into the mix.
ID was obviously fake science, especially to a professional. At least the earlier stuff (creation science) admitted it was religion but in science garb. Now we know that ID is nothing different from "creation science".Sadly, this is why you dismiss creation. Because your view of science cannot allow for a cause that is not from naturalism. Right away, you were close-minded to any other view that could be outside of naturalism, even if it made sense.
Colossians 2:8 is a clear warning. Not just against ‘bad philosophy,’ but against any system of thought rooted in man’s ideas rather than Christ. When Christians say it’s only about ‘bad uses’ of philosophy, they risk watering down Paul’s very point: to stay alert to teachings that sound wise but pull us away from the authority of God’s Word.
Evolution is one of the clearest modern examples of this. It presents a story of origins built on naturalism, not Christ, and asks us to reinterpret the plain reading of Genesis to make it fit. That’s not harmless philosophy; it’s ‘vain deceit’ by Paul’s own definition.
Jesus and the apostles treated Genesis as real history because they quoted from it and referred to its people and events as literal, historical realities, not parables or myths. If we start letting human theories shape how we read God’s Word, we’ve already started down the path Paul warned about.
So, it means deceptive philosophy. AV1611VET has used Col 2:8 in the correct manner. To say otherwise is, once again, watering down God's word. Sadly, once a person has watered down Genesis, they will be more willing to water down the rest of scripture to fit their ideology. And I am not saying this to get a dig in at you. I am saying it so that you may see your folly. Blessings.
I have no problem understanding that the intricate aspect of a leaf is the product of the creating force within life itself. For me, it's the same with the stars and everything else in the Universe. So as you can see, it's the nature of the Creative force with in the Universe where my blind faith sits as the birthing of new life forms never ever ends in its infinite possibilities. That's looking through the window that science has opened up to me.My point is that understanding how a leaf grows from a seed doesn’t explain the origin of the intricate information system within the seed. Saying 'we know how leaves are formed' is like saying you understand how a 3D printer works, but ignoring where the software, design, and engineering behind it came from. Complex, information-rich systems don’t arise by accident, and pretending they do isn’t science, it’s blind faith in materialism.
I was not really wanting to continue debating evolution as it was going nowhere, taking too much time and people were not posting hard evidence.We also see macroevolution, the evolution of new species. Would you like some examples?
Keeping in mind that the kind of transformation takes place by repeated speciation. It doesn't happen all at once.I was not really wanting to continue debating evolution as it was going nowhere, taking too much time and people were not posting hard evidence.
But sure, you're welcome to share examples. But please make sure they show real macroevolution: that is, one kind of creature turning into a fundamentally different kind (e.g., reptiles to birds, or land mammals to whales), not just variation within a species or minor adaptations. I’m not denying variation or even speciation in a limited sense. I’m asking whether these changes truly demonstrate the kind of large-scale transformation Darwinian evolution claims.
Let me ask you a question, what do you think makes that kind of "large-scale" transformation different that a series of small-scale changes can't add up to such a change? What specifically do you believe makes those changes special and not just a matter of accumulating gradual changes?I was not really wanting to continue debating evolution as it was going nowhere, taking too much time and people were not posting hard evidence.
But sure, you're welcome to share examples. But please make sure they show real macroevolution: that is, one kind of creature turning into a fundamentally different kind (e.g., reptiles to birds, or land mammals to whales), not just variation within a species or minor adaptations. I’m not denying variation or even speciation in a limited sense. I’m asking whether these changes truly demonstrate the kind of large-scale transformation Darwinian evolution claims.
You're like the guy who claims it's impossible for mountains to erode into low hills, because no one's ever seen it happen. Do you really think that's an effective argument? Seriously? How do we know this happens? We see erosion pulling down land all around us. We have many, many transitional forms between high mountains and low hills. Deposits at the foot of mountains show that they are being eroded and washed down to lower levels. Stuff like that. Evolution is like that. We see it happening. We have many, many transitional forms showing it happened. We have genetic data showing the same phylogenies as those predicted by evolutionary theory. Too much evidence for mere hand-waving.I was not really wanting to continue debating evolution as it was going nowhere, taking too much time and people were not posting hard evidence.
But sure, you're welcome to share examples. But please make sure they show real macroevolution: that is, one kind of creature turning into a fundamentally different kind (e.g., reptiles to birds, or land mammals to whales), not just variation within a species or minor adaptations.
Today's winner. Most creationists some up with some imagined wall beyond which further variation is impossible. But they can never document such a thing.Let me ask you a question, what do you think makes that kind of "large-scale" transformation different that a series of small-scale changes can't add up to such a change? What specifically do you believe makes those changes special and not just a matter of accumulating gradual changes?
I think most creationists have learned to avoid that one; so many of them have been burned over it, that most of them leave it alone.Another popular thing was the "polonium halos".
Some have become a bit leery of those guys, since DI fellow Michael Denton wrote a book asserting the fact of biological evolution.A lot of creationist seem to stay away from ID. I think they thought it too "secular" and not properly biblical. Then they learned it was "hidden/stealth creationism" and they've been all over it since.
Why does that matter?You think bacteria on specks of dust make ethical decisions? Or have personalities that can form relational bonds?
Logically, there isn't much to pay attention to.Not even those bacteria on specks of dust escape God's vision, no matter too small, nor too big.
We're only special to each other. There is no evidence that anyone supernatural or extraterrestrial is paying attention to anything we do.But that you must belittle yourself to such a degree speaks volumes of the lengths you'll go to make such denials. Nothin special bout humans, nothing matters right?
Why shouldn't it?Why does that matter?
Oh? You mean biological factories don't carry out all sorts of fascinating operations?Logically, there isn't much to pay attention to.
That's quite the claim. I am under the impression that there is a fairly decent circumstatial case for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so long as we don't dismiss resurrection as impossible due to prior presuppositions. But you go on making bold claims about no evidence as if you have some kind of definitive position on the matter.We're only special to each other. There is no evidence that anyone supernatural or extraterrestrial is paying attention to anything we do.
Keeping in mind that the kind of transformation takes place by repeated speciation. It doesn't happen all at once.
That’s a good question, and it gets to the heart of the issue.Let me ask you a question, what do you think makes that kind of "large-scale" transformation different that a series of small-scale changes can't add up to such a change? What specifically do you believe makes those changes special and not just a matter of accumulating gradual changes?
Erosion illustrates how existing structures break down over time, consistent with the law of entropy. But evolution isn’t about things falling apart, it’s about complex systems building up, organs, body plans, and genetic information. That’s not a good analogy; it assumes what it needs to prove, that natural processes can increase specified complexity, not just wear things down.You're like the guy who claims it's impossible for mountains to erode into low hills, because no one's ever seen it happen. Do you really think that's an effective argument? Seriously? How do we know this happens? We see erosion pulling down land all around us. We have many, many transitional forms between high mountains and low hills. Deposits at the foot of mountains show that they are being eroded and washed down to lower levels. Stuff like that. Evolution is like that. We see it happening. We have many, many transitional forms showing it happened. We have genetic data showing the same phylogenies as those predicted by evolutionary theory. Too much evidence for mere hand-waving.
Darwin’s four key points (variation, inheritance, overproduction, and differential survival) aren’t controversial in and of themselves, we observe microevolution all the time. What’s debated is whether these small-scale changes can accumulate to explain large-scale innovations, like new organs, body plans, and information-rich systems. That leap is where the real contention lies and where the evidence gets thin.BTW, you were going to show us which of Darwin's four points of evolutionary theory have been refuted. What do you think?
Similarity doesn’t prove ancestry. It’s an interpretation based on the assumption of evolution. The same similarities can also be explained by common design. After all, an engineer will reuse successful structures in different machines. And when you dig deeper, many bird features (like feathers, flight capability, metabolic rate, bone structure) are vastly different from reptiles, not just similar. The burden of proof is on showing a plausible, step-by-step path from land-based reptiles to powered flight, not just pointing to surface-level resemblances.As you probably heard, birds are dinosaurs. Reptiles, in other words. As I asked, no one seems able to show even one feature of birds that is not also found in at least some other dinosaurs. Which seems like pretty good evidence. Can you think of even one? If you can't, isn't that good evidence that birds are dinosaurs?
While Intelligent Design pushes back against chance evolution, it still allows for millions of years of death before humans, which contradicts the Bible. Scripture teaches that death entered the world through Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12). If evolution and death happened before the Fall, then the Gospel loses its foundation. ID might argue for a designer, but it doesn’t uphold the biblical account of creation, sin, and redemption.A lot of creationist seem to stay away from ID. I think they thought it too "secular" and not properly biblical. Then they learned it was "hidden/stealth creationism" and they've been all over it since.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?