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Comments · 14
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Re:One small victory for a man..
"Why not use a tool like science, when it is there, and it makes predictions about the world? Something religion never has done." I think you missed something... Particularly the Christian religion - exists on the basis of believers sharing their faith. It says nothing about "being ignorant about nature". In fact, it goes hand in hand with Christianity to understand the way the world works. The problem is when we decide "oh, based on current evidence, we can make these forensic claims using non-forensic reasoning and evidence." I think if you see the many christians who have propelled science to where it is, you might understand that it it's not exactly about "God made it, it works, stop thinking about it". Science and religion are not diametric opposites. It's when people blatantly dismiss perfectly logical arguments and evidences because it doesn't fit into their theory. To me, there is nothing inherently wrong with the facts misaligning with Christianity - because we can conjecture about the history and motives of certain individuals in history all day - but we don't know what happened, except fragments of writing. The "new testament" is the most historically accurate piece of historical writing we have. http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6068 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science
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Re:Non-human intelligencesBack in the day (ante bellum) there was some debate about that. At one time, The Supreme Court ruled that Blacks, when owned as slaves were not legally human.
Maybe soon we'll just learn enough of their language To translate So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
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Do no evil...
So much for Google's motto: "do no evil". This in fact shows just what an idiotic motto it really is, because the term evil is left undefined -- except to whoever gets to define it.
Stand to Reason offer good arguments against "gay" marriage, for the good of society (good == loaded term of course). -
Re:Everyone?
Well, some do, and some don't.
"Evangelicals" and "creationists" are both very broad brushing terms. Don't be so small minded as to think that they all conform to the caricature.
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Re:An overraction?From Greg Koukl's latest issue of Stand To Reason:
Whenever you hear the complaint, "Creation or intelligent design (ID) is not science," a subtle sleight of hand is in play. The ruse capitalizes on an ambiguity between two completely different definitions of science.
The first definition is the most well known. Science is a methodology - observation, experimentation, testing, etc. - that allows researchers to discover facts about the world. Any view that does not follow the right methodology is not science. Presumably, this is why evolution succeeds and ID fails.
The second definition of science involves the philosophy of naturalistic materialism. All phenomena must be explained in terms of matter and energy governed by natural law. Any view that does not conform to this second definition is also not science.
There are two requirements, then, for an investigation of the natural world to qualify as "scientific." First, one must use the right methods. Second, one must come up with the right kind of answers, those consistent with materialism. Usually, these two elements are not in conflict. Good methods produce answers completely consistent with matter in motion governed by natural law. But sometimes they are not compatible.
Evolution, arguably, is a case in point. At first blush, it seems like Darwinism is about scientific facts. But when facts suggest intelligent design, the second definition of science is surreptitiously invoked to label design as "unscientific" regardless of the integrity of the methods used to infer design. Take careful note here: When there is a conflict between methodology and materialism, the philosophy always trumps the facts.
Modern science does not conclude from the evidence that design is not tenable. It assumes it prior to the evidence. Any scientific methodology (first definition of science) that points to a designer of any aspect of the universe is summarily disqualified by scientific philosophy (second definition of science) as "religion disguised as science."
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Re:Ironic curiosity
You miss the point. Faith isn't scientific. If having faith brings you joy and peace, congratulations. But don't try to bring it into science, for faith requires belief without proof, and science requires proof before belief. Taking the concept from Carl Sagan, faith is usually prejudice and science is postjudice.
Actually, faith does not require belief without proof. Not in Christian terminology--i.e. not in the Hebrew or Greek of the Bible--and not even in English. I realize that in contemporary culture it has taken on that connotation, but it's actually not inherent to the word.
First, notice the way you had to qualify your definition, i.e. "belief without proof". You recognize that the word "belief", anyway, just indicates that you accept something to be true. It doesn't say anything about the justification for your belief, only that you have the belief. Well, in our translations of the Bible, "believe" and "faith" are both used to translate the same root word, in verb or noun form (pistis, pistia, etc.).
The actual meaning of "faith" is complex. It has more than one sense, both in the Biblical languages and in English. It can mean fidelity, loyalty, faithfulness. "I made the promise in good faith." "He has been a faithful companion." It can mean conviction of the truth of something. It can mean trust in something, or reliance on it. There's an interesting verse in Paul's letter to the Roman church, with three different uses: disbelieve, unbelief, and faithfulness--where the third use is referring to God's own "faith". That's right, God is said to have faith--and in that case it obviously has nothing to do with a blind leap. (Here's the verse, if you're curious, along with the language resources.)
An illustration. Most people will say that Christian faith is more than simple intellectual assent; it involves a trust component. Trust? Aren't I talking about blind faith now? No, not necessarily. As I said above, there's a sense of trusting in something, relying on it. I would compare it to trusting in the skill of a pilot and the construction of an airplane to take you safely where you're going. Your trust might be blind--perhaps if you're from an isolated tribal culture with no familiarity with modern technology. Or it might be extremely well-founded, based on a familiarity with the engineering of the manufacturer and the maintenance procedures of the airline and the training & experience of the pilot. Or it might be slightly less researched--maybe you just know that the airline has a good track-record, and so you just trust in all the rest. In other words, your faith can have different levels of warrant. And the more research you've done, the stronger your faith will be.
And that is precisely how I view Christian faith--made stronger by better evidence. I trust in the promises of God and the work of the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. I judge them to be trustworthy, and I judge myself to have good enough reason to exercise that trust.
If you want to read a defense of the idea that the Bible does not ask for a blind leap, but trust in a reliable source, you can check out this essay by Greg Koukl. (He makes a good positive case, though it's not exhaustive.) -
Re:Defending the indefensible
Young Earth creationism is particularly silly.
Here is an interesting argument against it from a Christian viewpoint. -
Re:destroyed?
Anybody who believes the universe is only 6000 years old really oughtta read this commentary.
You don't have to believe in the young earth nonsense to be a Christian. -
Re:Hmm...Actually, you lose because that doesn't look at the bigger picture. If you go back far enough you have 1 celled organisms according to evolution. These must evolve into something else, and eventually you have mdern day animals, insects, etc. So my argument is still correct. How do they know humans are related to monkeys? Is it because our DNA is similar or because we have similar triats? Ever consider these traits may have come from different origins? You also missed my point. If you believe in evolution, you must believe in macro-evolution. There is no if ands or buts about it. Somewhere along the lines species differentiate themselves from each other. You can't go from a one celled organism to modern day life without one species splitting into two.
You also didn't read my argument correctly. I never said fish become birds or the like. I am simply refering to stuff like what scientist call early humans are considered a common anncestor with apes and stuff like that. Last I heard life began in the sea according to scientists. If this is true, there must be a line of evolution from a creature of the ocean to birds. I never said it would be instantaneous, or one step. Most of the critics of evolution, such as myself, are simply pointing out stuff like the "very wide" gaps in the theory of how various things evolved. There are still a lot of missing links in the evolutionary chains. Mark my posts as flaimbait, but it still doesn't change the validity of my arguments.
Various links:
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id= 5451 This is a very good article. From the article:There is a problem looking for this missing link because you must already be committed to the idea that a missing link exists. This is an important observation because all analysis of early hominids are based on certain assumptions. The search assumes the truth of evolution, and it assumes, because of evolution, that if there are morphological similarities (similarities in the bodies) that these similarities imply a biogenetic relationship and ancestry.
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My problem with this point is that the picture is not just suggested--the picture in this case being evolution--it is asserted as being the only possibility. Then the evidence is made to fit, much of the time, into the picture in order to affirm evolution. I think fossil men is an example of those cases.
http://www.biblebelievers.com/powell2.html/ (a little more geared towards converting people to Christianity, but it has some interesting questions.
http://www.allaboutcreation.org/human-evolution.ht m/
You can do more research if you want, but I doubt you will because, like other worshipers of evolution, you think you are 100% correct. -
Re:Um - all involved have rightsAgreed, JavaRob. This is a much more productive conversation than the other one on this thread.
Your argument about the psycho wired to you is a variant of the Judith Thompson's classic "Attached Violinist" argument: You wake up one day to find that a famous violinist has been attached to your body. The terms are as follows: she must remain attached to you for nine months in order to live. After that time, she will be detached and you can go about your business. Thompson then asks: are you morally obligated to stay attached to the violinist?
Her answer is No.
The criticisms of that argument (sample link here) center around three questions:
1) Is the violinist situation exactly parallel to pregnancy? There is some doubt; after all, in *most* cases of pregnancy, the woman has engaged in an action which could arguably be construed as an invitation for the fetus to come in. Even sex with (failed) birth control is an action which entails known, forseeable risks.
2) Does the violinist have a moral obligation to allow you to detach? That is, there might be a paradox of obligations here
3) Even if 1) and 2) are granted in the pro-choice side's favor, is Judith's conclusion of "No" a sound one? That is, is it truly correct that control over the body for nine months trumps being *killed*?
4) (out of three!) The link above introduces a new wrinkle: what if the violinist were your own child? Would your moral obligations change then? It is possible -- reasonable! -- that we have a greater moral obligation to our "blood" family members, even ones we have never met, than we do to strangers.
Just thoughts.
Regards,
Jeff Cagle -
Re:Here we go again...
Perhaps a late entry - but here's an interesting discussion of keeping science and theology out of each other's playgrounds:
http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/science/scien ceh.htm -
Re:Um, what? Yes they did.I didn't say EGG cell. I said that the fertilized egg was a person. Not the ovum. A human is created at conception. Or in cloning, when an egg cell is given full genetic matereal. Your hangnail is not capable of becoming a mature human if it is placed in a womb. A blastulist is.
-philip
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Re:Um, what? Yes they did.Regarding the destruction of an egg cell, a woman's body does this every month, and a woman starts off with over 100,000 eggs, of which obviously almost all are destroyed at some point.
The egg is not just a cell. This is different. This cell is a person. If it is placed in the right environment, it will survive and develop into a man or woman. It is a person. It has exactally the same God given rights as any of us. It was a human being. They killed it... How is this not murder?
This person's right to live should be defended by law shouldn't it? Perhaps even by every one of us. I would hope that if we saw someone killing an innocent child on the street, we would defend it with our lives. Our society has started down the path of killing babies because we can live longer off their parts. May God have mercy on us all.-philip.
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Re:How I feel about it
I think you got the right idea, but the wrong conclusion. Porting may be hard, but it's next to impossible without the source. However, just look at cygwin, a posix-compatible layer on windows that makes it possible to compile alot of linux-tools on it. Many of these no longer require source-changes (merged with linux source). They are even working on an X-server, and have a fully downloadable/updateable distribution full of goodies like ls, cp, diff, vi, etc. Conclusion: Whatever "killer apps" linux gets, it will eventually be ported to Windows and/or other proprietary OSes because it is free and therefore can be ported. Cygwin is even funded by Red Hat, what business sense that makes I don't know, but it makes sense for free applications across platforms (=more freedom).
The point of free software is not "killer apps", lock-ins (or luring) and world conquest. The whole point is to educate people to see that free software (two-way sharing of code) can be beneficial to all, and get them involved in it. If people don't see this, they deserve to be stuck in whatever proprietary world they belong to. This is how the world works, not because it's evil. It's a classical mistake to throw pearls before swine.
- Steeltoe