Was Charles Darwin a fraud?

[SelfSim]

Further to my post #717, @River Jordan made the claim (underlined):

There's a difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. The former is the method science is conducted under, the latter is a philosophical view. The two are not the same.

So, when the first two sentences there are expanded, this is what we get:

'There's a difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. The former Methodological Naturalism is the method science is conducted under, the latter philosophical naturalism is a philosophical view'.

The scientific method is not 'conducted under' any -ism.

Methodological Naturalism's claim is often cited as not assuming that: 'nature is all there is', rather it merely notes that: 'nature is the only objective standard we have'. However:
i) Both assertions invoke claims upon reality, (science does not commence by making any such claims);
ii) Both assertions invoke the absolutes of: 'all there is' and 'the only objective standard we have'. Science is not buit on absolutes. Scientific inferences are contextual and provisional, (whereas logical deduction is never either).
iii) Science distinguishes what nature is through testing. Science does not assume that nature exists independently from the mind of the human experimenter conducting/observing the results. (Science's experimental tools are also extensions of the human senses, developed to produce results that make sense to the human mind).
iv) Scientific thinkers distinguish 'objective' as being whatever is testable via the scientific method.
v) The widely taught and published scientific method does not mention either: 'Methodological Naturalism', or 'philosophical naturalism', or 'nature'. (See below pictorial of the scientific method):

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Precisely... but He chose us to testify about HIS superior wisdom - deliberately as according to your standards:

1 Corinthians 1:26-30 NIV
"Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption."

And with that, I will really say Adieu!

God bless all who will believe!
biblegateway.com

So God called on you to lie? Is that what you're saying? Because it sure as heck reads like it.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Darwin wasn't a fraud.

He was a nimrod.

And that's your opinion.

 

[Joseph G]

why don't you stick around and actually participate in the discussion rather than posting some bible quotes?

I'm right here, Hans. I just don't feel the need to belabor points when the misapplications and mischaracterizations are flying and it just becomes a game of intellectual one-up-manship. One can characterize my absences however they wish - I call it planting seeds and allowing it time to germinate. And I am quite happy to use Scripture and vids to present the Creator side of the discussion - I believe it to be quite potent to the eyes and ears of the genuine seeker.

I spend the majority of time in other forums anyway.

Besides, I have my own struggle with pride. When it devolves into trading ad hominems I began to feel pangs of guilt and the need to repent, back off for a while, and join back in with renewed resolve to present the love of Christ. I fail often, and need to extend the same grace to others that He extends to me.

I try hard to be mindful that one of God's particular definitions of love is this: it is not provoked.

God bless!

p.s. note that knowledge is grand, but it will pass away. Love is far superior, as it is eternal...

1 Corinthians 13 NKJV
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Besides, I have my own struggle with pride. When it devolves into trading ad hominems I began to feel pangs of guilt and the need to repent, back off for a while, and join back in with renewed resolve to present the love of Christ. I fail often, and need to extend the same grace to others that He extends to me.

Yet you refuse to admit that you were caught lying and have made no attempt to fix that. That smacks of nothing BUT pride.

 

[Joseph G]

Yet you refuse to admit that you were caught lying and have made no attempt to fix that. That smacks of nothing BUT pride.

Re-read the OP, guv'na.

"Is this true, folks?"

The only thing that I refuse to admit is that anybody's arguments present anything more conclusive than mere opinion based on one's prejudices - just like the ToE (macro).

I'm sorry if that provokes you.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Re-read the OP, guv'na.

"Is this true, folks?"

The only thing that I refuse to admit is that anybody's arguments present anything more conclusive than mere opinion based on one's prejudices - just like the ToE (macro).

I'm sorry if that provokes you.

And you were told REPEATEDLY that it wasn't true, that it was a lie, and you've refused to acknowledge anything anyone has said on it.

 

[Joseph G]

And you were told REPEATEDLY that it wasn't true, that it was a lie, and you've refused to acknowledge anything anyone has said on it.

Bingo. Re-read the prior responses as often as needed, W. until it sinks in. No conclusive proof has been presented, imho.

It appears that someone having a contrary opinion to you really aggravates you, but you're just gonna have to live with it. That's how a free open society works, friend.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Bingo. Re-read the prior responses as often as needed, W. until it sinks in. No conclusive proof has been presented, imho.

It appears that someone having a contrary opinion to you really aggravates you, but you're just gonna have to live with it. That's how a free open society works, friend.

Except that it HAS been presented, since any actual reading of the information available shows that the OP video is a lie. Darwin did not commit fraud since he did the work himself, and the evidence from both Wallace and Darwin shows they worked closely together and collaborated together. That's not fraud. You refusing to acknowledge anything anyone has said, to bluntly ignore it, smacks of un-Christian pride and arrogance.

And when that 'contrary opinion' is an out and out lie, then it's reasonable for someone to challenge it as the lie it is.

 

[Joseph G]

Except that it HAS been presented, since any actual reading of the information available shows that the OP video is a lie. Darwin did not commit fraud since he did the work himself, and the evidence from both Wallace and Darwin shows they worked closely together and collaborated together. That's not fraud. You refusing to acknowledge anything anyone has said, to bluntly ignore it, smacks of un-Christian pride and arrogance.

And when that 'contrary opinion' is an out and out lie, then it's reasonable for someone to challenge it as the lie it is.

Sooner or later ya just gotta let that bone go, bro! 'Taint gonna work, Mcgee.

But hey... speaking of fraud - guess Who the only Man to walk this earth that wasn't a fraud? That's right - Jesus Christ! Everything He taught, He lived, all the way to the degree of dying for you and me - sinners all.

Here's a challenge for you. Examine His life here thoroughly in the Gospels and point out any lie, deception, distortion, point of pride or arrogance - or even the smallest sin. I declare to you right now that you can't.

Read in particular how He asked the Father to forgive us all while nailed to that cross - while He Himself was mocked and taunted and spat upon - already beaten and scouraged beyond recognition.

That is what men do who prefer to remain in darkness - to Truth and Love Himself.

Hated for no other reason than that He declared to us the true diagnosis for the human condition - and the perilous eternal fate hanging over our souls.

Loved by those who diligently searched for Him, and discovered that the Great Physician offers to be the Cure Himself - through His own blood.

Darwin can't do that. Nor Nietche, Einstein, Trump, Taylor Swift... name your favorite idol. Including Self.

Come on, big W, take the challenge! It's gonna be a rockin' time at the wedding feast of the Lamb!

God bless!

biblegateway.com

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Sooner or later ya just gotta let that bone go, bro! 'Taint gonna work, Mcgee.

But hey... speaking of fraud - guess Who the only Man to walk this earth that wasn't a fraud? That's right - Jesus Christ! Everything He taught, He lived, all the way to the degree of dying for you and me - sinners all.

Here's a challenge for you. Examine His life here thoroughly in the Gospels and point out any lie, deception, distortion, point of pride or arrogance - or even the smallest sin. I declare to you right now that you can't.

Read in particular how He asked the Father to forgive us all while nailed to that cross - while He Himself was mocked and taunted and spat upon - already beaten and scouraged beyond recognition.

That is what men do who prefer to remain in darkness - to Truth and Love Himself.

Hated for no other reason than that He declared to us the true diagnosis for the human condition - and the perilous eternal fate hanging over our souls.

Loved by those who diligently searched for Him, and discovered that the Great Physician offers to be the Cure Himself - through His own blood.

Darwin can't do that. Nor Nietche, Einstein, Trump, Taylor Swift... name your favorite idol. Including Self.

Come on, big W, take the challenge! It's gonna be a rockin' time at the wedding feast of the Lamb!

God bless!

biblegateway.com

Good to know that lying is perfectly all right as long as you're a Christian. How wonderful.

 

[Joseph G]

Good to know that lying is perfectly all right as long as you're a Christian. How wonderful.

The challenge remains open. Ta!

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

The challenge remains open. Ta!

You mean the challenge for you to admit that you were caught putting out a lie and refuse to acknowledge what anyone in this thread has told you about it? Yes, that challenge does indeed remain open. And you'd be a better Christian to accept that challenge.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm not sure if you are implying that mis-learning the ToE causes believers to lose faith because of their poor understandig, but I am aware of how mal-learning of the ToE does cause departures and it comes when religiously driven distortions of the ToE are taught and then when those so malinformed learn the reality of ToE and it drives them away from their religion. If religions lie about science (or history) and their congregants learn the truth and the leave, I guess that's how it works out.

Yes. This is a reasonable description of the social dynamics involved in both the understanding and acceptance of ToE by a number of Christians.

That's the way most of life is for me. Out in the real world very few people know that I am an atheist, and it was not much different in my old faith. But, here on CF, where our "faith badges" are on display by defaut (though currently a pull-down menu), I wouldn't want to be mistaken for a believer of any sort.

Ah, ok. I see.

I've got no other use for it. I struggle often to not think less of people for having it.

And I often struggle to not think less of people who, for no other reason that pure disinterest, aren't open to a broader view of various academic subjects. .... but even so, I do get the practicality of focusing on one's work for the sake employment and for the reason that scientists usually specialize in one or two fields so they can offer knowledge and skills that are marketable.

Obviously, I lack the qualities of determination and focus, and sheer acumen, that you have...................................

To be clear, I was offering my first potential guesses on your motivation for posting the Dawkins video. Was it just Dawkins alignment with your social politics or was there more? (Just tryin' to figger out what ya tryin' to learn us.)

No, it was a simpler reason than that: I only posted that specific and truncated video because it demonstrates that Dawkins recognizes how social issues can be embedded within the larger frame of what may be touted as "objective science."

I didn't do it for any reason pertaining to whatever-------as some of you like to label it--------politicism he might advocate for presently.

I don't know this guy.

You don't have to know him, but Herbert Spencer was a secular polymath who, in following Darwin, coined the term, "Survival of the Fittest." He's also known for contributing to the ideas of 'Social Darwinism.' ........ it's just a part of the history of the interpretation of the ToE, Hans.

The ways modern physics has been abused are legion. I'm for knocking down any attempts to misapply or distort sciences for various religious, political, or social reasons.

So am I. Oh, so very much so, am I.

I guess I should have also included "noobs". In my experience everyone either agrees with him, fights him, or doesn't know any better. I thougth you knew his MO better. From what I can read between the hidden posts, he is at his usuall thing of attacking science, particuarly by denegrating scientists -- in this case one of the standard attack on Darwin (just like the OP, though you and I and many others here know that the science isn't dependent on the man, but on the data). That whole business with Mrs. Hope and the Beagle captain.

yes.

Don't know them.

You don't have to know him. It's simply an allusion to a villian from Spider-Man lore.

I don't know anything about these "millenials". Never learned about them.

That's ok. Just know that the academic, theological study of the topic of Eschatology is wide and diverse.

From my experiential perpsective you are all apostates and splitters from the "one true Church(tm)". I might have been classified as a dutiful, but disinterested Catholic with no interest in matters theological. I didn't even have to consider "evangelicals" or "creationists" (the former being a "foreign" exotic and the latter, I thought, an all-but-extinct species found only in the most backward corners of the nation) until I got to graduate school. Despite having a large number of Luterans in my own family, I have no idea what they believe. When you guys talk about theology stuff it is like the adult characters in Peanuts. As for him, I have given up any possiblitiy of useful interaction with him.

Peanuts? What a gracious analogy, Hans. Good grief!

A modern day prometheus, you might say.

Actually, no. Mary Shelley was deploring the possibility of scientific overreaching..................................and she was right to deplore it, and she had good reason to.

Cheers.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I can feel your concern about separation and I see how it drives certain interactions with a nameless poster that I may have over interpreted. My own personal experience has a hard time jibing with this "wedge" as I was never put under *ANY* religious or faith-based pressure to consider speciation as of divine origin. No sermons, no RE lessons, nothin'. By the time I was 10, I was what some here would call a "full blown Darwinist". When I learned of creationism, none of it seemed necessary (even "theistic evolution") to keep the faith.

Nor was I put under any religious or faith-based pressure to consider speciation as being of divine origin. If I recollect rightly, I was already making inroads to being the 'general evolutionist' I am still today by about age................oh, what was it?.................age 6 or 7? Yeah.

Needless to say, those Planet of the Apes movies, 1970s Star Trek re-runs, educational Dinosaur books, Marvel comic books, love for Star Wars, and the fact that my dad had worked for NASA as a computer operations supervisor in the 1960s, set me up for taking whatever Carl Sagan had to say quite seriously when my dad introduced him to me and we watched the newly minted Cosmos series together. At that point, the icing on the cake was my discovery of some of Arthur C. Clarke's fiction. ... and I guess Biology class in public school.

In fact, other than coming across a few Bible Stories books at the local dentist office as a child, I didn't get plied with any formal teaching about Creationism until I stepped into a Bible College for a year at age 19. No, I'd say that except for that 2 or 3 year hiccup, I've pretty much been an evolutionist most of my life.

Far be it for me to criticize Christian practice, but these separations would likely be a lot less if (at least some more) churches weren't preaching against well established science like ToE.

I agree. But unfortunately, both Tradition and Method get in the way of how we understand either the ToE or the Bible, or in how we think either applies in everyday life.

 

[AV1611VET]

And that's your opinion.

Of course it is.

 

[BCP1928]

Nor was I put under any religious or faith-based pressure to consider speciation as being of divine origin. If I recollect rightly, I was already making inroads to being the 'general evolutionist' I am still today by about age................oh, what was it?.................age 6 or 7? Yeah.

Needless to say, those Planet of the Apes movies, 1970s Star Trek re-runs, educational Dinosaur books, Marvel comic books, love for Star Wars, and the fact that my dad had worked for NASA as a computer operations supervisor in the 1960s, set me up for taking whatever Carl Sagan had to say quite seriously when my dad introduced him to me and we watched the newly minted Cosmos series together. At that point, the icing on the cake was my discovery of some of Arthur C. Clarke's fiction. ... and I guess Biology class in public school.

In fact, other than coming across a few Bible Stories books at the local dentist office as a child, I didn't get plied with any formal teaching about Creationism until I stepped into a Bible College for a year at age 19. No, I'd say that except for that 2 or 3 year hiccup, I've pretty much been an evolutionist most of my life.




I agree. But unfortunately, both Tradition and Method get in the way of how we understand either the ToE or the Bible, or in how we think either applies in everyday life.

So what is the controversy about, really? That's what I don't get. The whole thing seams to stem from a ludicrous and unnecessary interpretation of Genesis which had to be appropriated by Evangelicals from Seventh-Day Adventism for no apparent purpose but to defend Dispensationalism, which is itself ludicrous and unnecessary. But that doesn't seem to explain the intensity of the contest. No essential Christian doctrine is at stake, the right-wing politics which Evangelicals have currently taken up do not absolutely require it. You say you went to Bible school, how did they try to sell it to you?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

So what is the controversy about, really? That's what I don't get. The whole thing seams to stem from a ludicrous and unnecessary interpretation of Genesis which had to be appropriated by Evangelicals from Seventh-Day Adventism for no apparent purpose but to defend Dispensationalism, which is itself ludicrous and unnecessary. But that doesn't seem to explain the intensity of the contest. No essential Christian doctrine is at stake, the right-wing politics which Evangelicals have currently taken up do not absolutely require it. You say you went to Bible school, how did they try to sell it to you?

In sum, it's the same controversy it has always been historically since Paul the Apostle fell off his horse. It's just that after Darwin, secular assumptions that are common within all of the sciences have taken the ascendancy in Western Culture, throwing cognitive dissonance into the public discussion and causing a lot of more 'literal' Christians to feel that their entire Worldview is threatened, not just their faith.

Add to this the additional layer of Eschatological and Prophetic readings of the Biblical Theology, and we can see a heightened onset of fear and suspicion that further drives the intensity and convictions in the ToE controversy.

In other words, some Christians see the ToE as a work of the Devil. I don't. But they do.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I'm right here, Hans. I just don't feel the need to belabor points when the misapplications and mischaracterizations are flying and it just becomes a game of intellectual one-up-manship. One can characterize my absences however they wish - I call it planting seeds and allowing it time to germinate. And I am quite happy to use Scripture and vids to present the Creator side of the discussion - I believe it to be quite potent to the eyes and ears of the genuine seeker.

Most of the rest of us call it post and run. And all you posted was a link to web site I can't read anyway.

I spend the majority of time in other forums anyway.

Besides, I have my own struggle with pride. When it devolves into trading ad hominems I began to feel pangs of guilt and the need to repent, back off for a while, and join back in with renewed resolve to present the love of Christ. I fail often, and need to extend the same grace to others that He extends to me.

Guilt would be a good feeling for your contribution.

I try hard to be mindful that one of God's particular definitions of love is this: it is not provoked.

God bless!

p.s. note that knowledge is grand, but it will pass away. Love is far superior, as it is eternal...

Not relevant.

1 Corinthians 13 NKJV

Oh look, there was one of those markers to indicate I don't care what comes next.

[scripture removed]

 

[Joseph G]

Most of the rest of us call it post and run. And all you posted was a link to web site I can't read anyway.

Popular opinion isn't my 'god'. Deduce whatever you wish. Cheers!

1 Corinthians 4:1-5 NKJV
"Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.

For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord.
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God."