The Dover trial

[HereIStand]

The independent creation of each species is not the only option for a creator. More broadly, identifying a natural cause for a phenomenon does not deny or rule out simultaneous divine causality. I fully expect that the same will be found for abiogenesis and in general that the universe will appear to us to be a "closed system" of natural causality. You are the one who is assuming that anyone who comes to such a conclusion does so in order to eliminate the necessity for a God.

Applying simultaneous natural and divine causes to the origin of life leaves an invisible creator that one can take or leave.

 

[Speedwell]

Applying simultaneous natural and divine causes to the origin of life leaves an invisible creator that one can take or leave.

Exactly. The existence of God cannot be proven or demonstrated scientifically. One must have faith.
Of course, that poses a difficulty for culture warriors who want to impose their version of Christianity on the rest of us.

 

[Go Braves]

Wonderful news. Any time evolutionists and climate changers feel threatened, things are moving in the right direction.

Evolutionists? Climate changers? Do you have names for folks who don't believe the earth is flat too?

 

[HereIStand]

Exactly. The existence of God cannot be proven or demonstrated scientifically. One must have faith.
Of course, that poses a difficulty for culture warriors who want to impose their version of Christianity on the rest of us.

Christianity is difficult distinguish from Deism if the Creator is invisible, or can be set aside. This poses a difficulty for those trying to harmonize Genesis with natural selection.

The culture war has been won by liberal Protestants. But one can dissent from the majority.

 

[Speedwell]

Christianity is difficult distinguish from Deism if the Creator is invisible, or can be set aside. This poses a difficulty for those trying to harmonize Genesis with natural selection.

I don't think there is any danger of confusing deism with Christianity. Deism does not offer us salvation and eternal life through the death and resurrection of the Son of God.

The culture war has been won by liberal Protestants. But one can dissent from the majority.

As someone who is not a liberal Protestant, I do not feel that I have lost. Maybe it's just conservative Evangelicals who are losing--not a prospect which disturbs me greatly.

 

[USincognito]

Assuming that life generated itself, or was imported from another planet, is a religious mindset. God is removed from the equation. Yes, it would be helpful if believers in evolution would identify their religious prejudice, and stop trying to pass themselves off as disinterested seekers of truth in white lab coats.

Your comments are heavy with emotional rhetoric and loaded verbiage, but light on actually addressing evolution. If you think it's all smoke and mirrors, try addressing the substantive claims rather than personal peeves and boogie men.

 

[USincognito]

To omit God from a framework means that He is in effect excluded from it. To allow Him in at all subverts the whole framework.

Does omitting God from plate tectonic theory mean that God is "denied"?
Does omitting God from germ theory of disease mean that God is "denied"?
Does omitting God from dynamo theory mean that God is "denied"?

Or are you dishonestly reserving your high dudgeon for evolution because you don't like it in particular?

 

[USincognito]

That doesn't make any sense. Does the germ theory of disease exclude God? Does the theory of relativity? Why should the theory of evolution? I suspect that what you are on about is not the existence of God but about your interpretation of scripture--if so, you should own up to it.

Dagnabbit! You beat me to it.

 

[USincognito]

Not all science deals with the origin life. Medicine and engineering for instance. To the extent though that a science touches on the origin of life, then it can't be (from a secular standpoint) extricated from evolution. Yes, I plead guilty to an interpretation of Scripture confirming God-created life.

Evolution doesn't deal with the origin of life and in fact isn't effected one iota by the source of the origin of life. If you think otherwise, then explain how evolution is effected if God creates the first primordial organism 3.5 billion yeas ago?

 

[USincognito]

But Darwin explicitly excludes a Creator, calling it "erroneousness" that "each species has been independently created." That doesn't leave much wiggle room. Evolution tacitly approves of the idea of idea of a closed-system in which the here and now is all there is.

1. Darwin was not Saint Paul and Origin is not an epistle.
2. Read this:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. - Charles Darwin, Origin​

 

[HereIStand]

Evolution doesn't deal with the origin of life and in fact isn't effected one iota by the source of the origin of life. If you think otherwise, then explain how evolution is effected if God creates the first primordial organism 3.5 billion yeas ago?

But Darwin's book wasn't The Species, but the Origin of. It was clearly concerned with the origin of life, and in the ongoing struggle of each race to compete for the planet's limited resources.

 

[HereIStand]

Your comments are heavy with emotional rhetoric and loaded verbiage, but light on actually addressing evolution. If you think it's all smoke and mirrors, try addressing the substantive claims rather than personal peeves and boogie men.

There is survival of the fittest. But it's Christianity's job to counter this aspect of our fallen humanity, not celebrate it.

 

[HereIStand]

1. Darwin was not Saint Paul and Origin is not an epistle.
2. Read this:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. - Charles Darwin, Origin​

Interesting. It seems Darwin was a bit of a theist. Wonder why his followers haven't been. With the Darwin bumper fish, and Richard Dawkins flamboyantly anti-Christian rhetoric.

 

[USincognito]

But Darwin's book wasn't The Species, but the Origin of. It was clearly concerned with the origin of life, and in the ongoing struggle of each race to compete for the planet's limited resources.

No, it was not. The title is the "Origin of the Species", not the "Origin of Life".

 

[essentialsaltes]

Explain in your own words how exactly that proves evolution, and without assumption.
...
And no, I don't understand it. I've offered to listen a few time if someone wishes to dumb it down, and explain it but it never really went anywhere.

You once asked me to explain as if to a 5 year old. Did you understand my explanation?

 

[USincognito]

There is survival of the fittest. But it's Christianity's job to counter this aspect of our fallen humanity, not celebrate it.

Huh?

Interesting. It seems Darwin was a bit of a theist.

A the time Origin was published, Darwin was a unorthodox Christian. Not sure what that has to do with the fact that Darwin is not some spiritual leader or whatever you seem to be implying.

Wonder why his followers haven't been. With the Darwin bumper fish, and Richard Dawkins flamboyantly anti-Christian rhetoric.

Again, no idea what any of this has to do with the fact that Darwin is not a spiritual leader nor is he held a some sort of law giver or whatever straw man version you imagine him to be. That said, I see you're still using hyperbolic and emotional language rather than addressing any evidence for evolution.

Any chance you can actually address the evidence rather than attack people?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Interesting. It seems Darwin was a bit of a theist. Wonder why his followers haven't been.

Because science and theology are two separate things.

With the Darwin bumper fish, and Richard Dawkins flamboyantly anti-Christian rhetoric.

OK, that's one. But polls show that roughly half of biologists are theists and half aren't. 'Darwin's followers' are diverse, just like bowlers are diverse. Because there is no connection between bowling and gods or evolution and gods.

 

[JackRT]

Darwin proposed an idea not an ideology.

 

[HereIStand]

Because science and theology are two separate things.



OK, that's one. But polls show that roughly half of biologists are theists and half aren't. 'Darwin's followers' are diverse, just like bowlers are diverse. Because there is no connection between bowling and gods or evolution and gods.

Then why do evolutionists object so strongly to creationism, or even intelligent design? As Ben Stein has shown, even the bare mention of God in a university science class can place ones tenure in jeopardy.

 

[Speedwell]

Then why do evolutionists object so strongly to creationism, or even intelligent design? As Ben Stein has shown, even the bare mention of God in a university science class can place ones tenure in jeopardy.

Because it's bad science and because of the political agenda which goes with it. "Bible-believers" want to teach their creationism in public school science classes along with fundamentalist prayer and Bible study which they think has some kind of a right to be there, to the exclusion of the beliefs of other children. They have associated themselves with an egregious right-wing political agenda, pro-gun, pro-death penalty, pro-war and opposed to such things as union membership, child labor laws, workplace safety legislation, environmental regulation and the minimum wage, and they use the Bible, only the "literal and inerrant" Bible will work, to justify that agenda, making it part and parcel of their version of Christian doctrine.

You, yourself, have made reference to a "culture war." Don't the rest of us get to fight back? Look at it this way: Seventh-day Adventists don't eat meat; they think the Bible tells them not to. And you know what? Nobody else cares. But what do you suppose would happen if they got belligerent about it and started agitating to have meat dishes taken out of public school cafeterias? Denounced meat-eating as part of a worldwide atheistic plot to deny the Bible?