Dr. Dino (Hovind) exposed?

[Sulfate]

Those of you who are against the literal interpretation concerning Genesis, what else are you theologically liberal about?

Do you deny the Virgin Birth? Do you deny that homosexuality is a sin or is it something to be embraced and applauded? Are you of the "Judgement must begin at the house of God" crowd or the liberals misquoting the "Judge not lest thou be judged" crowd? The latter applying only to a hypotcritcal judgement (ie, I being a drunk telling you to stop drinking).

My experience with Evoloutionary Theists is it allows for a more liberal view of Christianity. Their god is one of "trial and error" not one who got it right the first time around.

Ahh, never mind. I'm just throwing stuff out there. It's not like I am going to change your minds or that I really care about what you think anyway.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

Those of you who are against the literal interpretation concerning Genesis, what else are you theologically liberal about?

Do you deny the Virgin Birth?

Nope.

Do you deny that homosexuality is a sin or is it something to be embraced and applauded?

Undecided.

Are you of the "Judgement must begin at the house of God" crowd or the liberals misquoting the "Judge not lest thou be judged" crowd? The latter applying only to a hypotcritcal judgement (ie, I being a drunk telling you to stop drinking).

Can you spell "begging the question"?

My experience with Evoloutionary Theists is it allows for a more liberal view of Christianity. Their god is one of "trial and error" not one who got it right the first time around.

No. He got it right first time. That's why He doesn't have to tinker like the OEC God, or fake evidence like the YEC and OEC God.

It's not that evolution allows for a more liberal view. It's simply that conservatives tend to insist on literalism.

Ahh, never mind. I'm just throwing stuff out there. It's not like I am going to change your minds or that I really care about what you think anyway.

Oh good. Has someone lit the "haughty creationists please come and act all superior to evolutionists" beacon?

 

[lucaspa]

Those of you who are against the literal interpretation concerning Genesis, what else are you theologically liberal about?

Do you deny the Virgin Birth?

Nope.

Do you deny that homosexuality is a sin or is it something to be embraced and applauded?

Neither.

My experience with Evoloutionary Theists is it allows for a more liberal view of Christianity. Their god is one of "trial and error" not one who got it right the first time around.

This is ironic because the creationist god is the one of trial and error. Particularly the creationists like Phillip Johnson. Let Miller explain this:

http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/evolution/perspectives/kennethmiller.shtml

"Opponents of evolution have only two ways to explain away such facts of natural history [fossil record].
The first is to suggest that the record is genuine, but that new species, as they appear, are the products of "intelligent design."
This suggestion seems interesting until we consider what it implies about a "designer." It would mean, for an example, that the designer created four or five species many millions of years ago, all somewhat similar. All of those species became extinct. He then created a few more species, each only slightly different from those that had preceded them. They went extinct, too, and then he repeated the process again and again and again until he finally designed the modern horse less than 2 million years ago. Curiously, two things characterize this "designer's" work. First — lack of competence. More than 99% of the creatures he has designed have become extinct, and nearly all of them went to extinction in only a few million years. Second — a determination to mimic what we now call "evolution." Every time the designer produces a new species to replace one of his failed creations, the new species looks like a slight-modified version of the one that had just died out. In other words, the designer was determined to create in a way that would imply descent with modification. Such a designer would be both deceptive and incompetent, hardly an "answer" that creationists could present as a genuine scientific theory."

Whatever moral failings you think theistic evolutionists have (the questions about homosexuality and judging are about morals), at least we let God keep His majesty and power.

 

[lucaspa]

You are wrong. But, this is not the place for that discussion.

I think it is. Please go on.

If Genesis is not taken literally, what would it mean? Even something non-literal should have real meaning. What is the real meaning of the Creation account, when you're just not watering it down to fit Evolution? There are many references to the creation account through the Bible, does any of them imply a non-literal meaning?

1. The other references to creation in the Bible simply says God created. The reference by Jesus in Mark 10:1-10 is using Genesis as it is meant to be used, as theology.

2. Genesis 1 has deep meaning, which is overlooked when it is read literally. Genesis 1 is a magnificent monograph for monotheism. Whether you are theist, agnostic, or atheist, it is still a magnificent monograph for monotheism. Here are the theological meanings of Gensis 1:

Genesis 1 is not giving history, but the theological message that the Babylonian gods don't exist. It is doing so by making those gods be created entities of Yahweh. The intent of Genesis 1 is to defend the monotheism of the Hebrew people against the cultural assault of the Babylonians. It was written toward the end of or just after the Babylonian exile when many Hebrews were under pressure to convert to the Babylonian pantheon. Therefore it's intent is to show that the Babylonian pantheon does not exist and that Yahweh is the one, TRUE, God. It is a retrodiction of the knowledge of the Hebrews of Yahweh as Creator of THEM in Exodus back in time to the Creator of the universe.

Genesis 1 therefore follows the order of creation in the Enuma Elish with the intent of destroying the Babylonian gods by having each of those gods be a creation of Yahweh, and therefore not a god. The Enuma Elish starts out with the two main gods of Tiamet and Apsu, which are sweetwater and saltwater and are comingled, making chaos. They give rise to the second generation of gods who fight among themselves and make more chaos and have kids which are the third generation of gods. It is the third generation that is the Babylonian pantheon, the other gods having been killed by them.

So, first Yahweh creates light and separates light from darkness, making order out of chaos and thus destroying the first generation of gods. Then Yahweh separates the water (Apsu and Tiamet), thus destroying them as gods. Genesis 1 proceeds then to eliminate the rest of the gods. For instance, Marduk is the god of plants and agriculture. Well, Yahweh creates the agricultural plants (herbs and fruit) in verse 11. Marduk can't be a god in his own right if he is one of Yahweh's creations. So now plants are not a god, but simply a created material entity. The sun goddess is Marduk's younger sister. So the sun gets created after plants becaue the sun goddess comes after Marduk. You can't have a sun goddess if the sun is a created material entity.

In the Enuma Elish, the gods create humans to be their menial servants and playthings. But in Genesis 1:26-27 people are created for their own sake, AND are not only given their independence but actual dominion of their own. Not only that, but Yahweh looks on all the material universe and pronounces it "good". The universe is good, not evil. Another contradiction to the Enuma Elish.

Now, ALL these theological messages -- one God, God created everything, sun, moon, animals, plants are material objects and not gods, people not the plaything or menial servant of God, Creation being good -- are just as valid in modern science as they were in the Babylonian universe.

 

[lucaspa]

There is little, if any, published research on Evolution. Rather, we have many examples of studies put into the context of the Evolution religion.

Define "Evolution" with the capital E. Define "Evolution religion". There are many studies conducted specifically to test evolution as a scientific theory. Again, go to PubMed, enter "evolution" as your search term. Scroll thru and tell us which studies you think are "put into the context of the Evolution relgion" and why.

Examples of studies directly testing evolution. The titles tell it all:
1. G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980.
2. Speciation in action Science 72:700-701, 1996 A great laboratory study of the evolution of a hybrid plant species. Scientists did it in the lab, but the genetic data says it happened the same way in nature. Follow up paper in PNAS http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/20/11757
2a. Hybrid speciation in peonies http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/061288698v1#B1
2c. http://www.holysmoke.org/new-species.htm new species of groundsel by hybridization
8. "Intense natural selection in a population of Darwin's finches in the Galapagos" by Boag, PT and Grant, PR appeared in Science vol 214 pp 82-85, 1981.
11. JM Thoday, Disruptive selection. Proc. Royal Soc. London B. 182: 109-143, 1972.
12. KF Koopman, Natural selection for reproductive isolation between Drosophila pseudobscura and Drosophila persimilis. Evolution 4: 135-148, 1950.
13. LE Hurd and RM Eisenberg, Divergent selection for geotactic response and evolution of reproductive isolation in sympatric and allopatric populations of houseflies. American Naturalist 109: 353-358, 1975.
1a. http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature716_fs.html Hox protein mutation and macroevolution of the insect body plan. Ronshaugen M, McGinnis N, McGinnis W. Nature 2002 Feb 21;415(6874):914-7
3. SL Rutherford and S Lindquist, HSP90 as a capacitor for morphological evolution. Nature 396: 336-342, Nov.26, 1998.
JB Losos, KI Warhelt, TW Schoener, Adaptive differentiation folowing experimental island colonization in Anolis lizards. Nature, 387: 70-73,1997 (May 1)
1a. JB Losos, Evolution: a lizard's tale. Scientific American 284: 64-69,March 2001.
2. Reznick, DN, Shaw, FH, Rodd, FH, and Shaw, RG. Evaluationof the rate of evolution in natural populations of guppies (Poeciliareticulata). Science 275:1934-1937, 1997.
2. G Arnqvist, Comparative evidence for the evolution of genitalia bysexual selection, Nature 393, 784-786: 1998 (June 25).
3. E Pennisi, Females pick good genes in frogs, flies. Science 280:1837-1838, (19 June) 1998.
4. Daniel E. L. Promislow, Emily A. Smith, and Louise Pearse Adult fitness consequences of sexual selection in Drosophila melanogaster PNAS 95 10687-10692. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/18/10687?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=Promislow&searchid=QID_NOT_SET&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0
12. G Wagner, Complexity matters. Science, 279, Number 5354 Issueof 20 February 1998, pp. 1158 - 1159
13. D-E Nilsson and S Pelger, A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B. 256: 53-58, 1994.
14. J Diamond, Evolving backward. Discover 19: 64-71, Sept. 1998. Discusses loss of eyes in the blind mole rat. But is not indiscriminateloss of eye. Rather it is addition of info.
15. SA West, EA Herre, and BC Sheldon, The benefits of allocating sex. Science 290: 288-290, Oct. 13, 2000.

That's just for starters. But long enough demonstrate my point. Each and every study was undertaken to specifically test one or more parts of evolution.

 

[lucaspa]

If I cited Hovind and told you that there is a mammoth where one part was dated at 29500 and another part at 44000. You would reply that Hovind's citation does not belong to his claim so that my claim is still without varification.

My reply is that Hovind misstated. The two parts came from two different mammoths. Hovind misstated the article he meant to cite.

lucaspa: Do you notice how you make the discussion personal

Evolution is unscientific and blatantly false.

Change of subject. My quote refers to your statements that Hovind was being called a liar. That is personal. Instead, we are talking about Hovind's claims and statements. Those are false.

Now, apparently that argument was very good because you don't address it but change the subject and make claims about evolution.

If your statements are true, then you should have no trouble posting data that shows this. Please go ahead.

You said, "Hovind markets his positions, claims, and arguments as Christianity and they are nothing but false witness." That sounds exactly like you're calling Hovind a total liar,

Look again. I am saying the positions, claims, and arguments are false witness. That can be evaluated completely separate from Hovind's personality. It could be that Hovind is a liar. That is, he knows the truth but deliberately lies. Or he could be honest in that he sincerely thinks the claims, positions, and arguments are true. Neither has anything to do with whether the claims, arguments, and positions are false witness. We are not talking about Hovind as a person, but about the statements.

lucaspa: claims are independent of the person advocating them.

That's a difference without distinction. If you say his claims are nothing but lies then you are calling him a liar.

Not at all. The claim that Christianity is a religion of love is independent of the people who say it. That the Crusaders slaughtered thousands of unarmed women and children when they captured Jerusalem in 1099 does not mean that Christianity advocates loving your neighbor. Christianity is independent of you (fortunately for Christianity). We can reach the conclusion that you are a horrible Christian but Christianity is still valid.

The reverse applies to Hovind. I don't know Hovind's mental state. I'm not a telepath. He could be lying. He could also be sincere, not know the statements are untrue, and therefore honest. Which it is is a matter between Hovind and God. I'm not making it personal. You are. Because that allows you to avoid dealing with the statements.

Unfortunatly, the link that supposedly is Hovind's reply does not work. So, I do not know Hovind's reply.

That itself should tell you something.

"Most textbook pictures of peppered moths show specimens that have been manually placed on tree trunks. Since 1980, however, it has become clear that peppered moths do not normally rest there."

http://www.arn.org/docs/wells/jw_pepmothshort.htm

But, the important thins is that Evolutionists are total liars who pass off a shift in population as proof that humans are the children of apes. There no new information in the peppered moth example.

You really shouldn't call evolutionists liars right after posting a quote from Wells (I thought you didn't know his work?) that is denied by the observations I posted. You have just undeniably shown that Wells spoke an untruth. Now, since you keep insisting on making it personal, you have just shown that a creationist -- Wells -- is a liar. Thanks for the help.

Now, where has a scientist ever said that the shift in alleles was "proof that humans are the children of apes"? Please find the quote. That statement is itself not true. The peppered moth clearly shows that natural selection exists. That's all. That humans and apes share a common ancestor (the statement "humans are the children of apes" is a separate falsehood) is based on other evidence.

Yes, there is new information. Information is generated whenever there are choices. The amount of new information is -log(base 2) (M/N) where M is the number selected and N is the number possible. Now, for one generation of peppered moths, there will be N offspring but only M will survive to reproduce. That means M/N is a fraction, which means the log is a negative number, and - (a negative number) = a positive number. An increase in information. So, for 100 born with 50 light and 50 dark and 10 light and 40 dark survive to breed, that is -log(base2) (50/100) = - (-1) = 1. One bit of new information in that generation alone.

Agnostic is just another word for Atheist. Gould was also a commited socialist. Yeah, validity for religious knowledge, as long as you keep your religious knowledge to yourself.

Agnostic was coined by Thomas Huxley because he did not want to be called an atheist and wasn't. He was tired of people like you mislabeling him an atheist. An atheist believes God does not exist. An agnostic does not know whether God exists or not. Big difference.

Now, from Gould:
"We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domains. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers. " Stephen Jay Gould in the essay "William Jennings Bryan's last campaign" in Bully for Brontosaurus, 1991, pp. 429-430.

You really should research what you are saying before you embarrass yourself so thoroughly.

I was pointing out that Creationists don't do much of that. Creationists quote Evolutionists to use them as hostile expert witnesses, not to try to show that they are "total liars" (although, they are).

Creationists take the words out of context to make the evolutionist seem to say something he did not. That makes the creationists total liars in your vocabulary.

This whole thread is an example of an Evolutionist exercise in avoiding the real issue of the scientific quality of Evolution,

The thread is an example of an evolutionist examing the quality and accuracy of the claims of creationists. And finding them lacking.