I, for one, know for absolute certain that repressed memories exist.
By way of introduction, I am not so certain.
I suffered a very traumatic and gory accident when I was 13.
I have experienced several intense, painful and traumatic accidents.
I have vivid memories of the details right up to and right after the event, but have absolutely no memory of the moment of the accident.
Do you remember a loud noise, which seemed to drown out everything around you?
I know for certain that I would have seen it with my eyes, and would have felt it, but yet I have no recollection of seeing it or feeling it.
It is likely you would have been looking at it. You might not have felt it, as pain takes some time to set in, especially if it is extreme pain. You may not have had enough time to have felt the event as it happened (sensory overload).
I can reasonably safely assume that I had recollection of the event immediately afterwards, as I recall immediately looking to the part of my body where it happened.
So you knew about the event, but can we be certain that you were conscious of the event as it happened? I don't believe that would be the case. I say this, based on my own experiences with sensory overload. Suppose that at the same time that this event was happening to you, your emotional state was sending very strong signals to your brain. It is possible that your emotions would swamp the other signals. You would lose the information in a white out.
So my mind must have blanked the event out sometime shortly after that.
I speculate that you only had a short-term memory of the event, which rapidly faded.
Repressed memories exist. I imagine it's to do with the mind blocking out events which are so traumatic that we wouldn't be able to cope with reliving them in thought.
If your memory were repressed, it would be a memory that something is inhibiting. My theory is that whatever memory you might have of the event is only a very weak signal, because your awareness of the event was limited, and hardly recorded.
Oh, for the record, my accident was having one of my legs sliced repeatedly by a boat propeller. It's the kind of thing you'd think you'd remember.
I think it depends on your state of mind at the time.
When I was about 15 years old, I was riding a moped down the right-hand side of a highway out in the country. I decided that I had to make a left turn ahead of some approaching traffic. As I made the turn, I heard car tires screeching on pavement behind me. I knew what was happening. I remember hearing the pitch of the screeching drop, as if the tires were sliding through gravel, instead of on pavement. I attribute this to a change in my sense of time (this has happened to me on several other occassions, particularly when I am in danger). I remember many little details from that point that could not have taken more than a few milliseconds to transpire. I looked down, and saw the front of the car (travelling somewhere around 40 mph by then) about 3 feet from my left leg. I was able to look up, plan a course of evasive action, and begin to tighten the muscles in my right arm as I attempted to turn the steering handles of the moped. I remember the muscles in my arm tightening. Then, I found myself in another world. I have three memories of what happened, but they are all like a dream-state or an alternate universe. In two of the dreams, I was aware of my body being in mid-air on its back. In one dream, I actually looked at my body floating in the air, as I watched it from the side of the road. According to a witness, I was unconcious for about 15 minutes, following my landing on the hood of the car as it continued across to the far side of the highway. When I awoke, I was standing on the ground on the other side of the highway from where I had been when I was struck by the car, across 3 lanes. Through all that, I was doing my best to stay mentally
1) As I said before, even mathematical proofs are useless to me if I don't believe in zero.
It is irrelevant whether any proof is of any benefit to you or not. The discussion is concerning the nature of proofs.
Seems to me this "universal truth" that you speak of would have to apply to everybody, regardless of belief system...
You might think of logical proof as being analogous to rocks. Maybe you don't believe in rocks, but they still exist and one could still land on your head or even kill you instantly. Your believe system is irrelevant.
2) you're splitting semantic hairs between proof and accepted theory, which is fine, I guess.
Far from splitting hairs, the difference between proof and accepted theory is my point.
3) I do indeed know what proof is.
You show no evidence of that. Indeed, what you say contradicts your claim.
The difference we're having is that you are viewing "proof" in a very narrow, mathematical/logical sense,
That is the only kind of proof there is when it comes to science and mathematics. The colloquial expressions of natural language are imprecise. Science and math require highly precise expressions, and the definition of proof has a very narrow meaning.
while I'm viewing "proof" in a much broader context as it applies to human behavior,
Frankly, that's gibberish. You are merely using the word in an informal, imprecise sense, and so, you are using language unsuitable for discussing science.
and therefore to human logic.
How many books on "human logic" have you seen? Can you name anyone working in the field of human logic? I don't believe you can answer those questions, because there is no such thing as "human logic."
4) At least I know how to turn my italics off...;)
That's nice.
ultimately, all logic is always built on a previously existing belief system - the part that comes after the assumption can be as logical as you please, if it's built on a faulty assumption than it really doesn't matter.
"Proposition 1: 'All unicorns are white.'
Proposition 2: 'This is a unicorn.'
Conclusion: 'This is white.'"
Thank you for making my point for me.
What? You believe that logicians believe in unicorns? I didn't invent that piece about unicorns, you know; that happens to be one of the illustrations that I found in one of my first books on classical logic. Rather, it illustrates that beliefs are irrelevant to proofs. No logician need believe in the existence of unicorns, but virtually all of them would agree that the statement I gave about unicorns is logically valid. Your beliefs have no bearing on the validity of proof; only logic matters.
He did not -- nor was it possible for him to -- prove his axioms. Therefore, belief that 1+1=2 lies in ones belief in the absolute truth of his axioms.
The truth of an axiom is assumed. More forcefully, the truth of an axiom is a given. It is not a matter of belief, opinion, like or dislike. There is no choice in the matter; indeed, there cannot be a choice, because (as you say) fundamental axioms are unproveable (that is, untestable).
As I said, logic is not subjective. It is not due to a matter of opinion or belief. What? Do you think that logicians actually believe in unicorns? But any logician who has ever lived should be able to make sense of the argument I gave earlier, that is:
Proposition 1: All unicorns are white.
Proposition 2: This x is a unicorn.
Conclusion: Therefore, this x is white.
As far as logic is concerned, I have proved that x is white in this argument. Your belief in any of the points of my argument is irrelevant. And, regardless of one's belief or opinion, the value of zero exists.
Pooua: "Proof is not just a bunch of assertions, nor is it arbitrary."
bechthros: Says you. Now think back to all the things in the past that have been "proven" (like the Sun revolving around the Earth, space being filled with "ether"... hell, the Nazis thought they "proved" that Jews were inferior). Now you're going to say those weren't proofs because there was stuff they didn't know back then.
No, I'm going to say that those weren't proofs, they were assertions, beliefs, theories and dogmas. None of those are proofs.
As I said before, you don't know what proof is.
Well, there's also stuff we don't know now. We are still basing our "proof" and "logic", at the end of the day, on assumptions and postulations.
Take a class in classical logic sometime. Yes, there really is such a thing. It might be titled, "Classical Logic and Critical Thinking." Check with the Humanities Department at your local college.
If you take a class in Classical Logic, one of two things likely will happen. You will either come out of the class saying that logic is simply a matter of opinion; or, you will pass the class.
And we keep finding out how wrong some of them are (just ask any astronomer, or any particle physicist).
Noteably, none of the physical theories that have been discarded were ever proven.
Pooua: "There is actually a methodical process of determining the truth or falsity of statements; this is called, 'logic.'"
But any process requires input. Ever hear of the GIGO effect? All logic is based on givens.
You need to learn the difference between valid propositions and the truth of arguments.
Proposition 1: "All unicorns are white."
Proposition 2: "This is a unicorn."
Conclusion: "This is white."
The logic is valid, regardless of the validity of the propositions. Though the argument may not model our physical Universe, the argument is still logically valid. By analogy, mathematical statements can be proved, even if those statements do not model our physical Universe. Scientific theories, which are only of significance if they acurately model the physical Universe, can nonetheless be proved either way (though it isn't worth the effort if the theory does not model the physical Universe). The proof we seek from scientific theories is proof that the theory accurately and precisely models our Universe. Thus, it is much more difficult to prove a scientific theory than to prove a mathematical statement.
For example, assume that I don't believe in science, math, or any other branch of "Western" logic
It doesn't matter what you believe, or even what you know. Truth exists independently of humanity.
because it conflicts with my religious beliefs
It also doesn't matter why you do or don't believe.
(and yes, I am playing Devil's advocate here). Assume I honestly don't believe that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Assume I don't hold as immutable that 1 is always greater than zero. Hell, assume I don't believe in zero. Now, prove anything to me. You can't do it.
You are very confused between proof and pursuasion! Proof does not matter what you know or believe; it exists whether humans do or not. What you are describing is pursuasion, a completely different topic.
People can be pursuaded that man evolved from lower life forms simply because the person telling them that it is so is very smart, good-looking and has a beautiful wife. But, smart, good-looking people married to beautiful women could also convince you to buy a defective automobile or give them your money on false pretenses. Pursuasion is not proof.
everything is subject to opinion.
Humans have opinions. Let's say that all living things have opinions. That still would not begin to cover a
...you are completely incapable of understanding the vast amounts of time that evolution naturally takes place in.
Time by itself means nothing to evolution. Evolution takes place through generations of populations. The key fact are numbers of generations, not billions of years. And, as it happens, there have been more generations of fruit flies exposed to mutating lab experiments over the last 110 years than are supposed to exist between humans and their common ancestor with apes. If evolution had any significant effect, those fruit flies would be something noteably different than fruit flies.
CB: No, I'm entirely correct that the evolution-based attack only exists because of the fundamentalist creationism viewpoint.
I know Christians who are evolutionists. I also know atheists, who point to evolution as "proof" that there is no God. After all, if natural forces are sufficient of themselves to produce all the life we see today, where is there a need for God? As many atheists have pointed out, the "God-of-the Gaps"--the attempt to fit God into the expanding edges of our knowledge--is futile, if not nonsensical. Regardless of the claims of the fundamentalists, if our Universe really is purely the result of materialistic forces, then God is obsolete, and atheists are just being difficult by making that point.
If the fundies had gotten on board with scientific reality like most other branches of Christianity, we would almost certainly not be having this conversation today.
Instead, our conversation today would revolve around a philosophy in which the concept of God would be, at most, a figure of speech. Christianity would be reduced to a mere social club. For, that is what Christianity is in these mainstream churches that have accepted secular humanism as truth.
However, I am well aware of the fact that Christianity in general is attacked, whether by extension of our connection to the fundies, or for other reasons.
Many great philosophers have noted that people who fearlessly advocate the truth are going to be persecuted. If Christianity is truth, it is to be expected that Christians who advocate it would be persecuted. In particular, Christianity--which demands the existence of a literal God interacting in the affairs of humanity--would be opposed very strongly by atheists and Materialists.
Pooua: The anti-Christians proceed by removing reference to God in all aspects of public life, not just in the classroom or in discussions of biology. Hence, God is not to be mentioned in government; the Ten Commandments are not to be allowed in courthouses (despite the fact that it is one of the foundational documents of our civilization); presidents are not to be given an oath of office that references God or uses a Bible; the Pledge of Allegiance is not to mention God; and so forth.
You're confusing public life with government.
You think I am confusing them. If these ideas are confused, it is not my confusion, for I am only telling you what I have read from the actual works of the people trying to remove Christianity from the public sphere. Government is only the start of the battle; the ultimate goal is the complete disfranchisement of Christianity, so that it dies out.
Sorry, but all of those examples are not just reasonable but necessary. Religion and politics should not mix.
Hardly anyone in this country thought so until the mid-19th Century. Most of the Founding Fathers expressed strong statements to the contrary. And, I will add that the idea that religion and politics must not mix is a morally destructive and pernicious idea.
Separation of Church and State is necessary for a free society in which religion can flourish
Many European have an established state church. Britain is one example. In contrast, at least one of the Soviet Union's constitutions specified the separation of church and state. So, I am inclined to dismiss your statement as incorrect.
-- or do you not understand that a the crossing of religion and government for so many years is part of why there have been general backlashes against Christianity since the Renaissance?
You are mistaken to believe that there has been general backlashes against Christianity.
Fleeing from government-specified religion was part of how our nation was born!
Obviously, there was more to it than what you acknowledge, or those who fled would not have set up their own governmental churches here. The context of your statement suggests that you believe these are examples of a "gen
Pooua: Bertrand Russell spent several years and actually proved, in the real and rigorous sense of the word, that 1+1 = 2
AC:You can't prove an axiom.
Who said that 1+1=2 is an axiom?
"Principia Mathematica is the book Russell wrote with Alfred North Whitehead where they gave a logical foundation of Mathematics by developing the Theory of Types that obviated the Russell's paradox. This assertion may become more convincing after a look at the page 362 of Principia Mathematica where Russell and Whitehead finally proved that 1 + 1 = 2."
"In 1913, Russell and Whitehead published "Principia Mathematica," a three-volume set considered one of the intellectual landmarks of the century that began from first principles and developed the laws of arithmetic (proving on Page 362 of Volume 1 that 1+1=2), but failing in the end to prove the internal consistency of mathematical logic and its ability to determine the truth or falsity of a given statement. The project drove Russell to the outer bounds of sanity."
AC: What Russell would have "proved" would look something more like...
Pooua: It would have looked like this!:
before we initiate we will admit 3 primitive concepts (this is you understand it without we need a explanation):
ZERO (denoted by 0);
NATURAL NUMBERS (N);
and IS SUCESSOR OF (this concept indicate a number that is the sucessor of another, and we will denote by "a" is the sucessor of "a");
finaly we define the operation sum by
i) a+0 = a (the sum of any number with zero is equals to the number)
ii) a+(b)=(a+b) (the sum of any number with a sucessor of other number is equals to the sucessor of the the sum of the numbers);
by notation you have:
0=1; 1=2; 2=3; etc....
now we can calculate 1+1 that is
1+(0)=> by definition (ii) of sum =>(1+0)
=>(1+0) => by definition (i) of sum =>(1)
=>(1) => by notation equals to 2.
and by this you can know all others sums.
note: you cannt say 0+a=a until you proof this is real. so by now, if you want calculate ], for example, 0+2 you must do:
0+2 => by notation => 0+(1)=> by definition (ii) of sum =>(0+1) => by definition (i) of sum =>
(1) => by notation equals to 2.
That's a mathematical proof, not a scientific proof, an example of the same word with two different meanings, like confusing free speech and free beer.
No, they are the same thing. If you understood logic--by which I mean, the study of evaluating the truth of statements--you would know that. They are EXACTLY the same thing. In fact, there is even a branch of mathematics, called, "Discrete Mathematics," in which all sorts of statements (mathematical, statements of weather, statements of conditions, etc.) are all subject to evaluation by the same set of rules. The rules of logic that govern mathematics are exactly the same set of rules that govern science.
Mathematical proofs are easy,
Not for normal people they aren't.
and everywhere. High school students are taught them.
What makes you think that high school students can't know the truth?
The scientific model, on the other hand, does not except absolute truth:
Nonsense! If science has no concept of truth--and there is only one kind of truth (that is, absolute truth)--then it is aimless. The problem that scientists have is that the requirements for proof usually exceeds the ability of scientists to meet them. But, even in theories that are eventually shown to be unrepresentative models of our Universe, the internal statements of the theories can be proven (that is, they are absolute truth within their parameters).
Einstein did not disprove Newton; rather Einstein's Relativity is a special case of Newtonian physics, an extension, not a contradiction. It is not an accident this is so; the reason Einstein could extend Newton's work is that Newton's work is logically consistent with reality.
everything is contingent and can it all be overturned tomorrow if the right evidence is found.
Have you ever thought of what that means regarding how scientists got their theories in the first place? Scientists don't produce their theories by getting stoned and reporting the hallucinations they have. The Universe works along consistent lines, and scientists use methodical, logical approach to model the Universe. Within the parameters of their observations, scientists can produce accurate models of our universe. BTW, that's what theories are; models of the Universe.
In the scientific view of the world, there is no such thing as absolute truth, the closest you can ever get is a "theory", and you can't prove theories, only observe that they match the evidence.
Nonsense! Theories could (in theory, pardon the pun) be proven; only, the requirements of proof are very steep. Mathematics has a (temporary) advantage, in that most of our math is relatively simple expressions of logic. Indeed, mathematics can be used to model our Universe, just as English statements can, and those mathematical models are just as prone to proof or falsification as the English statements.
It doesn't matter what Bertrand Russell believed! It doesn't even matter whether Bertrand Russell ever lived! 1+1=2 even if humans never existed. It is not a matter of opinion; this is an inherent nature of logic. All the Bertrand Russell did was discover the proof. I emphasize the word, "discover." It wasn't something he made up or created or formulated; he discovered a fundamental property of the Universe.
Frankly, if you guys understood logic, you would know better than these statements you are making.
Proof is not just a bunch of assertions, nor is it arbitrary. There is actually a methodical process of determining the truth or falsity of statements; this is called, "logic." Only statements that test true according to the rules of logic are true. What is more, statements that test true according to the rules or logic ARE TRUE. It isn't a matter of opinion. In fact, the reason that you are able to participate in this forum is that the evaluation of truth and falsity of expressions can be tested by machines. The results of these tests are not subject to opinion.
Ultimately, this produces a strain of, say, staphlococcus (sp?) that laughs at penicillin (sp?), and since species are simply our classification of organisms based on certain characteristics -- presto! a new species of bacteria. Get it?
You should have learned what the definition of a species is before you began arguing for evolution. Or, more to the point, you should have learned what is not a good definition of a species.
Staph aureus is a type of bacterium. Whether it is vulnerable to penicillin or resistant to penicillin, it is still Staph aureus; it is not a new species, even if a population of it develops resistance to penicillin.
Besides, drug resistance may be reversible. Part of the reason that drug resistance is reversible is that many organisms turn on and off various gene expressions as the environment requires. Drug resistance does not require new genetic information encoded in the organism; the population inherently carries the information needed to resist drugs that hurt it.
DNA, the agent of heredity (as much a theory as evolution is, I might add),
Where do you get that idea? DNA is a tangible object. Evolution is a process, an abstraction. It is an apples-and-oranges comparison.
I know that ID really means that life is too complex to have arrisin (sp?) by chance but rather required an Inteligence to allow it to happen -- but that is untestable, unrepeatable, and un-observable,
ALL theories of human origins are untestable, unrepeatable and unobservable! What human was around to witness the birth of the first human? How could you evolve another first human? The experiment has run its course, and now all you can do is forensics.
and make no predictions about future observations -- so it isn't science and has no place except in philosophy or religeon classes.
ID can make predictions at least as well as evolution can.
The confusion here always seems to be the automatic assumption that 'God' is the Christian god
That assumption was not made nor implied, but was explicitely denied in the article. You are the only one who has made the leap in that direction.
Theres no reason to believe that the 'Intelligence' that possibly created the universe has any compassionate feelings towards humans or is just off doing his own thing.
Irrelevant.
Can't see any needed link between ID and Christianity / Islamism / whatever.
Your confusion is that you assume that ID (that is, "INTELLIGENT DESIGN") only means "the Christian God created the Universe." You just acknowledged that an intelligence may have created the Universe; that's all the more that ID posits.
Pooua: The laws we have are based on our theory of government and rights. If you believe that human rights come from sets of people, then you will produce very different laws than if you believe that human rights come from God.
WKJ: Maybe, maybe not.
There isn't as "maybe" to it; change the foundation and you change the results.
We as a country (I am assuming you are American) got our "murder is bad" belief from Christian tradition. This same belief can be derived (and has been) from other sources long before Christianity existed. Whether those previous cultures came to that conclusion from the Sun God or Tree God or just plain logic seems rather arbitrary to me.
OK, choose the most trivial single issue within a system that you can and pretend that this shows that different foundations may result in identical systems, but you are blinding yourself to what should be obvious. For one thing, who is defining murder? Is it murder to send a widow to be burned to death, simply because her husband has died? But, don't let obvious differences in systems mislead you into thinking that different foundations necessarily produce different systems!
Others think that such laws can be derived on a purely logical basis, simply by looking at what helps and what hurts society.
Again, this will result in different expressions of what is murder. For one thing, it places the needs of society above individual human rights.
I won't advocate that any one of these are correct - but neither would I say that Christianity is the only source of such laws when clearly it is not.
And I will say again, that you will not understand our legal system if you do not understand our philosophical foundation, which includes Christianity. You appear to be determined to avoid reaching that conclusion at all costs.
The implementation must derive from the foundation. If you do not understand the foundation, then you cannot completely understand the implementation.
The implementation is what it is. It can be perfectly understood regardless of one's religious background.
No, that results in mechanical recitation. It results in judges who consider the Constitution to be a "living document" that is amenable to modern ideas, instead of being interpreted based on original intent. It results in a public that does not understand what its rights and duties are, and so ultimately loses access to their rights.
Pooua: I believe that the preservation of our Liberty depends on the understanding of our people as to the theory behind our laws.
I agree - but I think the theory behind our laws is to not let anyone impose their beliefs on you:)
That should not mean preventing the state from admitting that our laws are based on our religious foundation, or explaining the role that Christianity has in our nation's history, or in making laws that are religiously-informed.
Pooua: I don't, especially if it requires leaving the public ignorant of how we got where we are!
This is obviously the main point where we disagree. Yes, we got here because of X, but many implementations of X in the Old World were downright evil. Our founding fathers (despite being influenced by X) realized that society would benefit from not having religious beliefs imposed on its citizens.
One of your problems is that you don't know our religious foundations, and so you don't understand our history or our culture. You don't realize that the Founding Fathers of the U.S. frequently used government tools to advance Christianity, including the distribution of Bibles and the making of laws. You may not even realize the reason slavery is now illegal in the world is that evangelical Christian organizations made it a prime issue.
It's that simple... People are certainly free to practice X, just as they are free to practice Y. The point is that no one religous belief should be i
Unfortunately, your focus on contradicting me has rendered you unable to grasp the difference between a proveable statement of logic and an unproveable model of the world.
Afterall your obviously different than your parents and it is easily showable that your DNA is more or less a combination of theirs with some randomness thrown in (in the form of mutations etc...).
That hasn't really been all that "easily showable." Even the most obvious cases of genetic mutations take quite a bit of work to isolate (though this is getting much easier, due to advances in technology).
So for the sake of argument we'll focus on those typically few random mutations of which about 90% tend to be neutral, 5% tend to be harmful and in severe cases the individual will die extremely premature or the individual will not reproduce. The other 5% are good mutations.
Your numbers are odd. For one thing, beneficial mutations account for a lot less than 5% of all mutations. But, proceeding...
So starting right there, Bad genes, by design of evolution, are weeded out slowly but surely (more or less).
Unless the reason for the bad gene is a flaw typical of the good gene, or the bad gene does not diminish reproduction. Huntington's Disease is said to be one genetic mutation that evolution won't weed out of the population, because it affects the individual long after typical reproductive years.
This is the premise of evolution on any scale. Now you try to differentiate between Micro and Macro evolution. This is akin to stating that because the atom is so small, and made up of nothing but a few basic particles, that they couldn't obviously combine to form something unique and different on a much larger scale.
Actually, it is akin to claiming that collections of atoms may form into many varieties of rocks, but aren't likely to form into complex machines on their own.
Micro and Macro evolution are the same thing just as matter is matter on any level you look at it.
Except that they aren't, and that is the core of the discussion.
Perhaps numbers will help to better illustrate the point. Lets say that instead of having a perfect 50/50 split of genes from your parents, you instead had nearly a 50/50 split with.0001% variation due to random genetic mutations. That is 1 part in 1 million, a very small amount.
OK, and if humans have only 35 thousand genes, a variation of 1 part in 1 million has a very low signal-to-noise ratio. For all practical purposes, that mutation is not going to be expressed.
Now you go on to reproduce 2 children, one dies from a genetic disease, the other reproduces also with a 50/50 split and.0001% variation. Over the course of 40,000,000 years (more accurately, generations) this comes out to a 4000% difference amongst the initial parents and the newest generation of offspring.
Your example requires us to assume that none of the mutations are ever corrected (despite the fact that genetics has methods of correcting errors) and that these mutations actually build up in time without sterilizing or killing the population. Indeed, it is possible that species are able to alter their rate of mutation and have some control over which mutations they allow to be expressed. The real world could be a lot more complex than evolutionists ever imagined.
That is a huge difference and our genes are not nearly close to being 4000% different than pigs and apes, so clearly although the mathematical model provides an ideal scenario, it shows that with even very minor variations, over the course of time different species will emerge.
There are natural limits to biological change. That puts a crimp in theories of common descent.
Who does a detective trust in a murder case? The physical evidence or the witness?
Why should he trust either? If physical evidence and deduction are so good, why are about half of all murder cases unsolved? There is a difference between witnessing a crime as it occurs, and deducing what happened from the physical evidence. The older the evidence, the less reliable it is.
Pooua: In terms of a godless, natural-force-only Universe, statements such as the heart of the Declaration of Independence have no meaning. I could cite many more examples, but this one example is sufficient to show that you are incorrect.
WKJ: No, not quite, because the true meaning of the declaration of independance lies in our laws - not in this (admittedly beautiful) line.
The laws we have are based on our theory of government and rights. If you believe that human rights come from sets of people, then you will produce very different laws than if you believe that human rights come from God.
Again, the best thing about our founding fathers is that they seperated the foundation from the implementation.
The implementation must derive from the foundation. If you do not understand the foundation, then you cannot completely understand the implementation.
Yes, I agree that the basis of our laws is the Judeo/Christian tradition. That does not logically indicate that such belief systems should be instilled on the populace,
I believe that the preservation of our Liberty depends on the understanding of our people as to the theory behind our laws.
if you believe in the seperation of church and state in public arenas, which I certainly do.
I don't, especially if it requires leaving the public ignorant of how we got where we are!
Pooua: But, more to the point, it would be a very bad school system if it forbade the teaching of the foundations, as is the case on this topic.
WKJ: Not if you view the foundations as somewhat arbitrary.
I don't so view it, and you don't give me any reason that I should.
Yes, our foundations are X... but that does not mean that the same conclusions could not have been met if they weren't Y.
Quite to the contrary, if you believe that human rights come from popular opinion, then you can justify the denial of certain rights by saying that the majority opposed. Some people make such arguments, but that is not the basis of our government. Our outcome is not arbitrary; it is a logical extension of its foundations. Logic is not an arbitrary practice!
Again, advanced civilizations have existed long before X;) Just because X played an important role in our (what I believe to be) somewhat advanced society does not mean X is the only path, and hence, should be instilled over the populace.
An academic point is that this rootlessness you describe is the heart of historic Liberalism.
Outcomes are the results of preceding actions. Though there may be a few simular conclusions reached by various civilizations, none of them will reach all the same conclusions we hold dear, because they have different principles.
I believe the founding fathers emphasized freedom of religion because they knew exactly how dangerous and horrible public enforcement of religion could be, and I am happy to take their word for it (our country was born from the need to escape from religious persecution, after all).
Wouldn't it be horrible to suffer under unjust laws? Does that mean that all laws should be disbanded? I do not believe so. Nor do I believe that our Judeo-Christian foundations should be expunged from public view under the guise that this protects religions or our society.
Just as we should fight to protect freedom of religion, we should also fight to make sure no one attempts to instill a religious belief on us or our children.
We should also fight attempts to force a religious vacuum. Morality and law cannot exist in such a vacuum, as they are the expression of religious belief.
Yes, and we regard most of those civilizations to have been brutal and barbaric, though those practices did not bother their contemporaries until Judeo-Christianity came along. Examples are numerous (the games of the Coliseum, human sacrifices of the Incas and Aztecs, the practice of Sati
If fundamentalist Christians would not insist on a foolish dogmatic literal interpretation of a translation of Genesis then that attack would be toothless.
If secular humanism only attacked fundamentalist Christianity, I might be inclined to think you are correct. However, that is not the case. The anti-Christians proceed by removing reference to God in all aspects of public life, not just in the classroom or in discussions of biology. Hence, God is not to be mentioned in government; the Ten Commandments are not to be allowed in courthouses (despite the fact that it is one of the foundational documents of our civilization); presidents are not to be given an oath of office that references God or uses a Bible; the Pledge of Allegiance is not to mention God; and so forth.
There is no theory of common descent that does not include humans.
We have observed speciation in other species.
Most of these events are actually the formation of sub-species. At this point, this argument becomes one of semantics; what is a species? Rather than argue along that line, I will point out that my original statement has not been negated by your statement, because you are not addressing common descent, but only subsequent speciation. It remains unknown whether all forms of life evolved from a common ancestor, though that is the claim of the theory of common descent.
It happens, it is fact.
It is a fact that one type of bird has been observed to give rise to another, slightly different type of bird. This is not the same thing as common descent, and it remains unproven whether common descent is even possible, much less whether it actually occurred.
Did it happen with humans? Well, that's just a theory, but the only objection to the idea that humans evolved similarly to other animals including those we have obsereved is dogmatic.
That would be a sloppy way of thinking in other branches of science; it is not sufficient to claim that a theory must be accepted as an historical fact simply because no one has produced an alternative theory. Claiming that observed examples of speciation (or sub-speciation) demonstrates the process that led to humans is an argument by a hyper-extended analogy.
If it is very easy, it isn't correct or useful. Life is far more complex than simple chemistry. What evolutionists do, instead, is present schematic models. However, these models break down on closer examination.
And you can go watch various stages of it if you happen to own a really good submarine.
If you think so, then you don't know what you are seeing.
There are underlying assumtions (axioms?) that any rational thought is predicated upon, be it mathematical or spiritual.
What is proof? It is the logical form showing the only correct answer based on given propositions. This is fundamentally different from scientific theory, in which one of several possible models that fits data is preferred. 1+1=2 is proved because that is the only logical conclusion based on the initial propositions. Common descent with modification is not proved, because there are too many alternatives possible.
Pooua: "It is impossible to understand our system of laws and human rights without understanding our Judeo-Christian foundation."
WKJ: "No, it isn't."
Pooua: If you do not understand our Judeo-Christian foundation, you will be unable to understand a simple phrase like,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
In terms of a godless, natural-force-only Universe, statements such as the heart of the Declaration of Independence have no meaning. I could cite many more examples, but this one example is sufficient to show that you are incorrect.
WKJ: And regardless, no matter what the foundation of our laws may indeed be, that does not mean you should require that those foundations be taught outright.
It wouldn't be much of a school system if it did not teach the foundations. But, more to the point, it would be a very bad school system if it forbade the teaching of the foundations, as is the case on this topic.
WKJ: A pagan society could also determine similar laws, even though the foundations may seem very different.
There may be the occassional simularity, but it would not be our system of laws and our understanding of human rights. In particular, our understanding of human rights differs greatly from those who claim that people--whether governments or the majority of voters--are the source of human rights, as we see in the culture war.
WKJ: And keep in mind that there were advanced civilizations long before Christianity.
Yes, and we regard most of those civilizations to have been brutal and barbaric, though those practices did not bother their contemporaries until Judeo-Christianity came along. Examples are numerous (the games of the Coliseum, human sacrifices of the Incas and Aztecs, the practice of Sati, etc.).
WKJ: I reiterate - no one should be denied religious expression, and we should all fight and die to protect that right if necessary -- but that is NOT what is at issue here.
Then why did you bring up the issue of separation of Church and State? You asked me a question, and I answered it, and now you say that issue has nothing to do with this issue.
Pooua: That would be an argument for the elimination of the public school system.
WKJ: I think this point is only valid if you do not see the difference between a religous belief and a scientific one.... If it does require someone to share your faith, I am still not convinced why that should be taught in public schools.
I am unconvinced that children should be taught in classrooms in which discussion of God is banned.
The only reason evolution and the scientific community can be considered enemies of Christianity is because certain subsets of Christianity insist on promoting a dogmatic view of the world that contradicts basic facts.
No, that is not the only reason. Another reason--the one that I spoke of in my post--is that people who hate Christianity are using evolution and the scientific community as tools in their attack against Christianity. It does not matter at all to these enemies of Christianity that the very sources they are using are Christian sources. What matters to them is that they can exclude or eliminate the reference of God from public discourse.
The legal system isn't intended to be anti-Christian, either, but the enemies of Christianity certainly try to force that use!
what are you trying to say, that ID, is an actual "theory" ?!?
It would be well to point out another development on this front:
"NEW YORK Dec 9, 2004 -- A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.
"At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England."
Slashdot Mirror
By way of introduction, I am not so certain.
I suffered a very traumatic and gory accident when I was 13.
I have experienced several intense, painful and traumatic accidents.
I have vivid memories of the details right up to and right after the event, but have absolutely no memory of the moment of the accident.
Do you remember a loud noise, which seemed to drown out everything around you?
I know for certain that I would have seen it with my eyes, and would have felt it, but yet I have no recollection of seeing it or feeling it.
It is likely you would have been looking at it. You might not have felt it, as pain takes some time to set in, especially if it is extreme pain. You may not have had enough time to have felt the event as it happened (sensory overload).
I can reasonably safely assume that I had recollection of the event immediately afterwards, as I recall immediately looking to the part of my body where it happened.
So you knew about the event, but can we be certain that you were conscious of the event as it happened? I don't believe that would be the case. I say this, based on my own experiences with sensory overload. Suppose that at the same time that this event was happening to you, your emotional state was sending very strong signals to your brain. It is possible that your emotions would swamp the other signals. You would lose the information in a white out.
So my mind must have blanked the event out sometime shortly after that.
I speculate that you only had a short-term memory of the event, which rapidly faded.
Repressed memories exist. I imagine it's to do with the mind blocking out events which are so traumatic that we wouldn't be able to cope with reliving them in thought.
If your memory were repressed, it would be a memory that something is inhibiting. My theory is that whatever memory you might have of the event is only a very weak signal, because your awareness of the event was limited, and hardly recorded.
Oh, for the record, my accident was having one of my legs sliced repeatedly by a boat propeller. It's the kind of thing you'd think you'd remember.
I think it depends on your state of mind at the time.
When I was about 15 years old, I was riding a moped down the right-hand side of a highway out in the country. I decided that I had to make a left turn ahead of some approaching traffic. As I made the turn, I heard car tires screeching on pavement behind me. I knew what was happening. I remember hearing the pitch of the screeching drop, as if the tires were sliding through gravel, instead of on pavement. I attribute this to a change in my sense of time (this has happened to me on several other occassions, particularly when I am in danger). I remember many little details from that point that could not have taken more than a few milliseconds to transpire. I looked down, and saw the front of the car (travelling somewhere around 40 mph by then) about 3 feet from my left leg. I was able to look up, plan a course of evasive action, and begin to tighten the muscles in my right arm as I attempted to turn the steering handles of the moped. I remember the muscles in my arm tightening. Then, I found myself in another world. I have three memories of what happened, but they are all like a dream-state or an alternate universe. In two of the dreams, I was aware of my body being in mid-air on its back. In one dream, I actually looked at my body floating in the air, as I watched it from the side of the road. According to a witness, I was unconcious for about 15 minutes, following my landing on the hood of the car as it continued across to the far side of the highway. When I awoke, I was standing on the ground on the other side of the highway from where I had been when I was struck by the car, across 3 lanes. Through all that, I was doing my best to stay mentally
It is irrelevant whether any proof is of any benefit to you or not. The discussion is concerning the nature of proofs.
Seems to me this "universal truth" that you speak of would have to apply to everybody, regardless of belief system...
You might think of logical proof as being analogous to rocks. Maybe you don't believe in rocks, but they still exist and one could still land on your head or even kill you instantly. Your believe system is irrelevant.
2) you're splitting semantic hairs between proof and accepted theory, which is fine, I guess.
Far from splitting hairs, the difference between proof and accepted theory is my point.
3) I do indeed know what proof is.
You show no evidence of that. Indeed, what you say contradicts your claim.
The difference we're having is that you are viewing "proof" in a very narrow, mathematical/logical sense,
That is the only kind of proof there is when it comes to science and mathematics. The colloquial expressions of natural language are imprecise. Science and math require highly precise expressions, and the definition of proof has a very narrow meaning.
while I'm viewing "proof" in a much broader context as it applies to human behavior,
Frankly, that's gibberish. You are merely using the word in an informal, imprecise sense, and so, you are using language unsuitable for discussing science.
and therefore to human logic.
How many books on "human logic" have you seen? Can you name anyone working in the field of human logic? I don't believe you can answer those questions, because there is no such thing as "human logic."
4) At least I know how to turn my italics off... ;)
That's nice.
ultimately, all logic is always built on a previously existing belief system - the part that comes after the assumption can be as logical as you please, if it's built on a faulty assumption than it really doesn't matter.
"Proposition 1: 'All unicorns are white.'
Proposition 2: 'This is a unicorn.'
Conclusion: 'This is white.'"
Thank you for making my point for me.
What? You believe that logicians believe in unicorns? I didn't invent that piece about unicorns, you know; that happens to be one of the illustrations that I found in one of my first books on classical logic. Rather, it illustrates that beliefs are irrelevant to proofs. No logician need believe in the existence of unicorns, but virtually all of them would agree that the statement I gave about unicorns is logically valid. Your beliefs have no bearing on the validity of proof; only logic matters.
The truth of an axiom is assumed. More forcefully, the truth of an axiom is a given. It is not a matter of belief, opinion, like or dislike. There is no choice in the matter; indeed, there cannot be a choice, because (as you say) fundamental axioms are unproveable (that is, untestable).
As I said, logic is not subjective. It is not due to a matter of opinion or belief. What? Do you think that logicians actually believe in unicorns? But any logician who has ever lived should be able to make sense of the argument I gave earlier, that is:
Proposition 1: All unicorns are white.
Proposition 2: This x is a unicorn.
Conclusion: Therefore, this x is white.
As far as logic is concerned, I have proved that x is white in this argument. Your belief in any of the points of my argument is irrelevant. And, regardless of one's belief or opinion, the value of zero exists.
bechthros: Says you. Now think back to all the things in the past that have been "proven" (like the Sun revolving around the Earth, space being filled with "ether"... hell, the Nazis thought they "proved" that Jews were inferior). Now you're going to say those weren't proofs because there was stuff they didn't know back then.
No, I'm going to say that those weren't proofs, they were assertions, beliefs, theories and dogmas. None of those are proofs.
As I said before, you don't know what proof is.
Well, there's also stuff we don't know now. We are still basing our "proof" and "logic", at the end of the day, on assumptions and postulations.
Take a class in classical logic sometime. Yes, there really is such a thing. It might be titled, "Classical Logic and Critical Thinking." Check with the Humanities Department at your local college.
If you take a class in Classical Logic, one of two things likely will happen. You will either come out of the class saying that logic is simply a matter of opinion; or, you will pass the class.
And we keep finding out how wrong some of them are (just ask any astronomer, or any particle physicist).
Noteably, none of the physical theories that have been discarded were ever proven.
Pooua: "There is actually a methodical process of determining the truth or falsity of statements; this is called, 'logic.'"
But any process requires input. Ever hear of the GIGO effect? All logic is based on givens.
You need to learn the difference between valid propositions and the truth of arguments.
Proposition 1: "All unicorns are white."
Proposition 2: "This is a unicorn."
Conclusion: "This is white."
The logic is valid, regardless of the validity of the propositions. Though the argument may not model our physical Universe, the argument is still logically valid. By analogy, mathematical statements can be proved, even if those statements do not model our physical Universe. Scientific theories, which are only of significance if they acurately model the physical Universe, can nonetheless be proved either way (though it isn't worth the effort if the theory does not model the physical Universe). The proof we seek from scientific theories is proof that the theory accurately and precisely models our Universe. Thus, it is much more difficult to prove a scientific theory than to prove a mathematical statement.
For example, assume that I don't believe in science, math, or any other branch of "Western" logic
It doesn't matter what you believe, or even what you know. Truth exists independently of humanity.
because it conflicts with my religious beliefs
It also doesn't matter why you do or don't believe.
(and yes, I am playing Devil's advocate here). Assume I honestly don't believe that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Assume I don't hold as immutable that 1 is always greater than zero. Hell, assume I don't believe in zero. Now, prove anything to me. You can't do it.
You are very confused between proof and pursuasion! Proof does not matter what you know or believe; it exists whether humans do or not. What you are describing is pursuasion, a completely different topic.
People can be pursuaded that man evolved from lower life forms simply because the person telling them that it is so is very smart, good-looking and has a beautiful wife. But, smart, good-looking people married to beautiful women could also convince you to buy a defective automobile or give them your money on false pretenses. Pursuasion is not proof.
everything is subject to opinion.
Humans have opinions. Let's say that all living things have opinions. That still would not begin to cover a
Time by itself means nothing to evolution. Evolution takes place through generations of populations. The key fact are numbers of generations, not billions of years. And, as it happens, there have been more generations of fruit flies exposed to mutating lab experiments over the last 110 years than are supposed to exist between humans and their common ancestor with apes. If evolution had any significant effect, those fruit flies would be something noteably different than fruit flies.
I know Christians who are evolutionists. I also know atheists, who point to evolution as "proof" that there is no God. After all, if natural forces are sufficient of themselves to produce all the life we see today, where is there a need for God? As many atheists have pointed out, the "God-of-the Gaps"--the attempt to fit God into the expanding edges of our knowledge--is futile, if not nonsensical. Regardless of the claims of the fundamentalists, if our Universe really is purely the result of materialistic forces, then God is obsolete, and atheists are just being difficult by making that point.
If the fundies had gotten on board with scientific reality like most other branches of Christianity, we would almost certainly not be having this conversation today.
Instead, our conversation today would revolve around a philosophy in which the concept of God would be, at most, a figure of speech. Christianity would be reduced to a mere social club. For, that is what Christianity is in these mainstream churches that have accepted secular humanism as truth.
However, I am well aware of the fact that Christianity in general is attacked, whether by extension of our connection to the fundies, or for other reasons.
Many great philosophers have noted that people who fearlessly advocate the truth are going to be persecuted. If Christianity is truth, it is to be expected that Christians who advocate it would be persecuted. In particular, Christianity--which demands the existence of a literal God interacting in the affairs of humanity--would be opposed very strongly by atheists and Materialists.
Pooua: The anti-Christians proceed by removing reference to God in all aspects of public life, not just in the classroom or in discussions of biology. Hence, God is not to be mentioned in government; the Ten Commandments are not to be allowed in courthouses (despite the fact that it is one of the foundational documents of our civilization); presidents are not to be given an oath of office that references God or uses a Bible; the Pledge of Allegiance is not to mention God; and so forth.
You're confusing public life with government.
You think I am confusing them. If these ideas are confused, it is not my confusion, for I am only telling you what I have read from the actual works of the people trying to remove Christianity from the public sphere. Government is only the start of the battle; the ultimate goal is the complete disfranchisement of Christianity, so that it dies out.
Sorry, but all of those examples are not just reasonable but necessary. Religion and politics should not mix.
Hardly anyone in this country thought so until the mid-19th Century. Most of the Founding Fathers expressed strong statements to the contrary. And, I will add that the idea that religion and politics must not mix is a morally destructive and pernicious idea.
Separation of Church and State is necessary for a free society in which religion can flourish
Many European have an established state church. Britain is one example. In contrast, at least one of the Soviet Union's constitutions specified the separation of church and state. So, I am inclined to dismiss your statement as incorrect.
-- or do you not understand that a the crossing of religion and government for so many years is part of why there have been general backlashes against Christianity since the Renaissance?
You are mistaken to believe that there has been general backlashes against Christianity.
Fleeing from government-specified religion was part of how our nation was born!
Obviously, there was more to it than what you acknowledge, or those who fled would not have set up their own governmental churches here. The context of your statement suggests that you believe these are examples of a "gen
AC:You can't prove an axiom.
Who said that 1+1=2 is an axiom?
"Principia Mathematica is the book Russell wrote with Alfred North Whitehead where they gave a logical foundation of Mathematics by developing the Theory of Types that obviated the Russell's paradox. This assertion may become more convincing after a look at the page 362 of Principia Mathematica where Russell and Whitehead finally proved that 1 + 1 = 2."
Russell's Paradox
"In 1913, Russell and Whitehead published "Principia Mathematica," a three-volume set considered one of the intellectual landmarks of the century that began from first principles and developed the laws of arithmetic (proving on Page 362 of Volume 1 that 1+1=2), but failing in the end to prove the internal consistency of mathematical logic and its ability to determine the truth or falsity of a given statement. The project drove Russell to the outer bounds of sanity."
Honolulu Star-Bulletin: No certainty exists in search for truth
AC: What Russell would have "proved" would look something more like...
Pooua: It would have looked like this!:
before we initiate we will admit 3 primitive concepts (this is you understand it without we need a explanation):
ZERO (denoted by 0);
NATURAL NUMBERS (N);
and IS SUCESSOR OF (this concept indicate a number that is the sucessor of another, and we will denote by "a" is the sucessor of "a");
finaly we define the operation sum by i) a+0 = a (the sum of any number with zero is equals to the number)
ii) a+(b)=(a+b) (the sum of any number with a sucessor of other number is equals to the sucessor of the the sum of the numbers);
by notation you have:
0=1; 1=2; 2=3; etc....
now we can calculate 1+1 that is
1+(0)=> by definition (ii) of sum =>(1+0) =>(1+0) => by definition (i) of sum =>(1) =>(1) => by notation equals to 2.
and by this you can know all others sums. note: you cannt say 0+a=a until you proof this is real. so by now, if you want calculate ], for example, 0+2 you must do:
0+2 => by notation => 0+(1)=> by definition (ii) of sum =>(0+1) => by definition (i) of sum => (1) => by notation equals to 2.
No, they are the same thing. If you understood logic--by which I mean, the study of evaluating the truth of statements--you would know that. They are EXACTLY the same thing. In fact, there is even a branch of mathematics, called, "Discrete Mathematics," in which all sorts of statements (mathematical, statements of weather, statements of conditions, etc.) are all subject to evaluation by the same set of rules. The rules of logic that govern mathematics are exactly the same set of rules that govern science.
Mathematical proofs are easy,
Not for normal people they aren't.
and everywhere. High school students are taught them.
What makes you think that high school students can't know the truth?
The scientific model, on the other hand, does not except absolute truth:
Nonsense! If science has no concept of truth--and there is only one kind of truth (that is, absolute truth)--then it is aimless. The problem that scientists have is that the requirements for proof usually exceeds the ability of scientists to meet them. But, even in theories that are eventually shown to be unrepresentative models of our Universe, the internal statements of the theories can be proven (that is, they are absolute truth within their parameters).
Einstein did not disprove Newton; rather Einstein's Relativity is a special case of Newtonian physics, an extension, not a contradiction. It is not an accident this is so; the reason Einstein could extend Newton's work is that Newton's work is logically consistent with reality.
everything is contingent and can it all be overturned tomorrow if the right evidence is found.
Have you ever thought of what that means regarding how scientists got their theories in the first place? Scientists don't produce their theories by getting stoned and reporting the hallucinations they have. The Universe works along consistent lines, and scientists use methodical, logical approach to model the Universe. Within the parameters of their observations, scientists can produce accurate models of our universe. BTW, that's what theories are; models of the Universe.
In the scientific view of the world, there is no such thing as absolute truth, the closest you can ever get is a "theory", and you can't prove theories, only observe that they match the evidence.
Nonsense! Theories could (in theory, pardon the pun) be proven; only, the requirements of proof are very steep. Mathematics has a (temporary) advantage, in that most of our math is relatively simple expressions of logic. Indeed, mathematics can be used to model our Universe, just as English statements can, and those mathematical models are just as prone to proof or falsification as the English statements.
It doesn't matter what Bertrand Russell believed! It doesn't even matter whether Bertrand Russell ever lived! 1+1=2 even if humans never existed. It is not a matter of opinion; this is an inherent nature of logic. All the Bertrand Russell did was discover the proof. I emphasize the word, "discover." It wasn't something he made up or created or formulated; he discovered a fundamental property of the Universe.
Frankly, if you guys understood logic, you would know better than these statements you are making.
Proof is not just a bunch of assertions, nor is it arbitrary. There is actually a methodical process of determining the truth or falsity of statements; this is called, "logic." Only statements that test true according to the rules of logic are true. What is more, statements that test true according to the rules or logic ARE TRUE. It isn't a matter of opinion. In fact, the reason that you are able to participate in this forum is that the evaluation of truth and falsity of expressions can be tested by machines. The results of these tests are not subject to opinion.
You should have learned what the definition of a species is before you began arguing for evolution. Or, more to the point, you should have learned what is not a good definition of a species.
Staph aureus is a type of bacterium. Whether it is vulnerable to penicillin or resistant to penicillin, it is still Staph aureus; it is not a new species, even if a population of it develops resistance to penicillin.
Besides, drug resistance may be reversible. Part of the reason that drug resistance is reversible is that many organisms turn on and off various gene expressions as the environment requires. Drug resistance does not require new genetic information encoded in the organism; the population inherently carries the information needed to resist drugs that hurt it.
DNA, the agent of heredity (as much a theory as evolution is, I might add),
Where do you get that idea? DNA is a tangible object. Evolution is a process, an abstraction. It is an apples-and-oranges comparison.
I know that ID really means that life is too complex to have arrisin (sp?) by chance but rather required an Inteligence to allow it to happen -- but that is untestable, unrepeatable, and un-observable,
ALL theories of human origins are untestable, unrepeatable and unobservable! What human was around to witness the birth of the first human? How could you evolve another first human? The experiment has run its course, and now all you can do is forensics.
and make no predictions about future observations -- so it isn't science and has no place except in philosophy or religeon classes.
ID can make predictions at least as well as evolution can.
Which is not to say that an intelligent designer was not involved. Apparently, you don't know what intelligent design is.
I've studied the entire human genome thoroughly,
That's an absurd statement.
and found no evidence of intelligent design.
That's a thoughtless statement.
You want to impress me?
No; I want to enlighten you to the reality that evolution is not the final word for theories of biological origins.
That assumption was not made nor implied, but was explicitely denied in the article. You are the only one who has made the leap in that direction.
Theres no reason to believe that the 'Intelligence' that possibly created the universe has any compassionate feelings towards humans or is just off doing his own thing.
Irrelevant.
Can't see any needed link between ID and Christianity / Islamism / whatever.
Your confusion is that you assume that ID (that is, "INTELLIGENT DESIGN") only means "the Christian God created the Universe." You just acknowledged that an intelligence may have created the Universe; that's all the more that ID posits.
WKJ: Maybe, maybe not.
There isn't as "maybe" to it; change the foundation and you change the results.
We as a country (I am assuming you are American) got our "murder is bad" belief from Christian tradition. This same belief can be derived (and has been) from other sources long before Christianity existed. Whether those previous cultures came to that conclusion from the Sun God or Tree God or just plain logic seems rather arbitrary to me.
OK, choose the most trivial single issue within a system that you can and pretend that this shows that different foundations may result in identical systems, but you are blinding yourself to what should be obvious. For one thing, who is defining murder? Is it murder to send a widow to be burned to death, simply because her husband has died? But, don't let obvious differences in systems mislead you into thinking that different foundations necessarily produce different systems!
Others think that such laws can be derived on a purely logical basis, simply by looking at what helps and what hurts society.
Again, this will result in different expressions of what is murder. For one thing, it places the needs of society above individual human rights.
I won't advocate that any one of these are correct - but neither would I say that Christianity is the only source of such laws when clearly it is not.
And I will say again, that you will not understand our legal system if you do not understand our philosophical foundation, which includes Christianity. You appear to be determined to avoid reaching that conclusion at all costs.
The implementation must derive from the foundation. If you do not understand the foundation, then you cannot completely understand the implementation.
The implementation is what it is. It can be perfectly understood regardless of one's religious background.
No, that results in mechanical recitation. It results in judges who consider the Constitution to be a "living document" that is amenable to modern ideas, instead of being interpreted based on original intent. It results in a public that does not understand what its rights and duties are, and so ultimately loses access to their rights.
Pooua: I believe that the preservation of our Liberty depends on the understanding of our people as to the theory behind our laws.
I agree - but I think the theory behind our laws is to not let anyone impose their beliefs on you :)
That should not mean preventing the state from admitting that our laws are based on our religious foundation, or explaining the role that Christianity has in our nation's history, or in making laws that are religiously-informed.
Pooua: I don't, especially if it requires leaving the public ignorant of how we got where we are!
This is obviously the main point where we disagree. Yes, we got here because of X, but many implementations of X in the Old World were downright evil. Our founding fathers (despite being influenced by X) realized that society would benefit from not having religious beliefs imposed on its citizens.
One of your problems is that you don't know our religious foundations, and so you don't understand our history or our culture. You don't realize that the Founding Fathers of the U.S. frequently used government tools to advance Christianity, including the distribution of Bibles and the making of laws. You may not even realize the reason slavery is now illegal in the world is that evangelical Christian organizations made it a prime issue.
It's that simple... People are certainly free to practice X, just as they are free to practice Y. The point is that no one religous belief should be i
Unfortunately, your focus on contradicting me has rendered you unable to grasp the difference between a proveable statement of logic and an unproveable model of the world.
That hasn't really been all that "easily showable." Even the most obvious cases of genetic mutations take quite a bit of work to isolate (though this is getting much easier, due to advances in technology).
So for the sake of argument we'll focus on those typically few random mutations of which about 90% tend to be neutral, 5% tend to be harmful and in severe cases the individual will die extremely premature or the individual will not reproduce. The other 5% are good mutations.
Your numbers are odd. For one thing, beneficial mutations account for a lot less than 5% of all mutations. But, proceeding...
So starting right there, Bad genes, by design of evolution, are weeded out slowly but surely (more or less).
Unless the reason for the bad gene is a flaw typical of the good gene, or the bad gene does not diminish reproduction. Huntington's Disease is said to be one genetic mutation that evolution won't weed out of the population, because it affects the individual long after typical reproductive years.
This is the premise of evolution on any scale. Now you try to differentiate between Micro and Macro evolution. This is akin to stating that because the atom is so small, and made up of nothing but a few basic particles, that they couldn't obviously combine to form something unique and different on a much larger scale.
Actually, it is akin to claiming that collections of atoms may form into many varieties of rocks, but aren't likely to form into complex machines on their own.
Micro and Macro evolution are the same thing just as matter is matter on any level you look at it.
Except that they aren't, and that is the core of the discussion.
Perhaps numbers will help to better illustrate the point. Lets say that instead of having a perfect 50/50 split of genes from your parents, you instead had nearly a 50/50 split with .0001% variation due to random genetic mutations. That is 1 part in 1 million, a very small amount.
OK, and if humans have only 35 thousand genes, a variation of 1 part in 1 million has a very low signal-to-noise ratio. For all practical purposes, that mutation is not going to be expressed.
Now you go on to reproduce 2 children, one dies from a genetic disease, the other reproduces also with a 50/50 split and .0001% variation. Over the course of 40,000,000 years (more accurately, generations) this comes out to a 4000% difference amongst the initial parents and the newest generation of offspring.
Your example requires us to assume that none of the mutations are ever corrected (despite the fact that genetics has methods of correcting errors) and that these mutations actually build up in time without sterilizing or killing the population. Indeed, it is possible that species are able to alter their rate of mutation and have some control over which mutations they allow to be expressed. The real world could be a lot more complex than evolutionists ever imagined.
That is a huge difference and our genes are not nearly close to being 4000% different than pigs and apes, so clearly although the mathematical model provides an ideal scenario, it shows that with even very minor variations, over the course of time different species will emerge.
There are natural limits to biological change. That puts a crimp in theories of common descent.
Why should he trust either? If physical evidence and deduction are so good, why are about half of all murder cases unsolved? There is a difference between witnessing a crime as it occurs, and deducing what happened from the physical evidence. The older the evidence, the less reliable it is.
WKJ: No, not quite, because the true meaning of the declaration of independance lies in our laws - not in this (admittedly beautiful) line.
The laws we have are based on our theory of government and rights. If you believe that human rights come from sets of people, then you will produce very different laws than if you believe that human rights come from God.
Again, the best thing about our founding fathers is that they seperated the foundation from the implementation.
The implementation must derive from the foundation. If you do not understand the foundation, then you cannot completely understand the implementation.
Yes, I agree that the basis of our laws is the Judeo/Christian tradition. That does not logically indicate that such belief systems should be instilled on the populace,
I believe that the preservation of our Liberty depends on the understanding of our people as to the theory behind our laws.
if you believe in the seperation of church and state in public arenas, which I certainly do.
I don't, especially if it requires leaving the public ignorant of how we got where we are!
Pooua: But, more to the point, it would be a very bad school system if it forbade the teaching of the foundations, as is the case on this topic.
WKJ: Not if you view the foundations as somewhat arbitrary.
I don't so view it, and you don't give me any reason that I should. Yes, our foundations are X... but that does not mean that the same conclusions could not have been met if they weren't Y.
Quite to the contrary, if you believe that human rights come from popular opinion, then you can justify the denial of certain rights by saying that the majority opposed. Some people make such arguments, but that is not the basis of our government. Our outcome is not arbitrary; it is a logical extension of its foundations. Logic is not an arbitrary practice!
Again, advanced civilizations have existed long before X ;) Just because X played an important role in our (what I believe to be) somewhat advanced society does not mean X is the only path, and hence, should be instilled over the populace.
An academic point is that this rootlessness you describe is the heart of historic Liberalism.
Outcomes are the results of preceding actions. Though there may be a few simular conclusions reached by various civilizations, none of them will reach all the same conclusions we hold dear, because they have different principles.
I believe the founding fathers emphasized freedom of religion because they knew exactly how dangerous and horrible public enforcement of religion could be, and I am happy to take their word for it (our country was born from the need to escape from religious persecution, after all).
Wouldn't it be horrible to suffer under unjust laws? Does that mean that all laws should be disbanded? I do not believe so. Nor do I believe that our Judeo-Christian foundations should be expunged from public view under the guise that this protects religions or our society.
Just as we should fight to protect freedom of religion, we should also fight to make sure no one attempts to instill a religious belief on us or our children.
We should also fight attempts to force a religious vacuum. Morality and law cannot exist in such a vacuum, as they are the expression of religious belief.
Yes, and we regard most of those civilizations to have been brutal and barbaric, though those practices did not bother their contemporaries until Judeo-Christianity came along. Examples are numerous (the games of the Coliseum, human sacrifices of the Incas and Aztecs, the practice of Sati
If secular humanism only attacked fundamentalist Christianity, I might be inclined to think you are correct. However, that is not the case. The anti-Christians proceed by removing reference to God in all aspects of public life, not just in the classroom or in discussions of biology. Hence, God is not to be mentioned in government; the Ten Commandments are not to be allowed in courthouses (despite the fact that it is one of the foundational documents of our civilization); presidents are not to be given an oath of office that references God or uses a Bible; the Pledge of Allegiance is not to mention God; and so forth.
There is no theory of common descent that does not include humans.
We have observed speciation in other species.
Most of these events are actually the formation of sub-species. At this point, this argument becomes one of semantics; what is a species? Rather than argue along that line, I will point out that my original statement has not been negated by your statement, because you are not addressing common descent, but only subsequent speciation. It remains unknown whether all forms of life evolved from a common ancestor, though that is the claim of the theory of common descent.
It happens, it is fact.
It is a fact that one type of bird has been observed to give rise to another, slightly different type of bird. This is not the same thing as common descent, and it remains unproven whether common descent is even possible, much less whether it actually occurred.
Did it happen with humans? Well, that's just a theory, but the only objection to the idea that humans evolved similarly to other animals including those we have obsereved is dogmatic.
That would be a sloppy way of thinking in other branches of science; it is not sufficient to claim that a theory must be accepted as an historical fact simply because no one has produced an alternative theory. Claiming that observed examples of speciation (or sub-speciation) demonstrates the process that led to humans is an argument by a hyper-extended analogy.
If it is very easy, it isn't correct or useful. Life is far more complex than simple chemistry. What evolutionists do, instead, is present schematic models. However, these models break down on closer examination.
And you can go watch various stages of it if you happen to own a really good submarine.
If you think so, then you don't know what you are seeing.
What is proof? It is the logical form showing the only correct answer based on given propositions. This is fundamentally different from scientific theory, in which one of several possible models that fits data is preferred. 1+1=2 is proved because that is the only logical conclusion based on the initial propositions. Common descent with modification is not proved, because there are too many alternatives possible.
WKJ: "No, it isn't."
Pooua: If you do not understand our Judeo-Christian foundation, you will be unable to understand a simple phrase like,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
In terms of a godless, natural-force-only Universe, statements such as the heart of the Declaration of Independence have no meaning. I could cite many more examples, but this one example is sufficient to show that you are incorrect.
WKJ: And regardless, no matter what the foundation of our laws may indeed be, that does not mean you should require that those foundations be taught outright.
It wouldn't be much of a school system if it did not teach the foundations. But, more to the point, it would be a very bad school system if it forbade the teaching of the foundations, as is the case on this topic.
WKJ: A pagan society could also determine similar laws, even though the foundations may seem very different.
There may be the occassional simularity, but it would not be our system of laws and our understanding of human rights. In particular, our understanding of human rights differs greatly from those who claim that people--whether governments or the majority of voters--are the source of human rights, as we see in the culture war.
WKJ: And keep in mind that there were advanced civilizations long before Christianity.
Yes, and we regard most of those civilizations to have been brutal and barbaric, though those practices did not bother their contemporaries until Judeo-Christianity came along. Examples are numerous (the games of the Coliseum, human sacrifices of the Incas and Aztecs, the practice of Sati, etc.).
WKJ: I reiterate - no one should be denied religious expression, and we should all fight and die to protect that right if necessary -- but that is NOT what is at issue here.
Then why did you bring up the issue of separation of Church and State? You asked me a question, and I answered it, and now you say that issue has nothing to do with this issue.
Pooua: That would be an argument for the elimination of the public school system.
WKJ: I think this point is only valid if you do not see the difference between a religous belief and a scientific one. ... If it does require someone to share your faith, I am still not convinced why that should be taught in public schools.
I am unconvinced that children should be taught in classrooms in which discussion of God is banned.
No, that is not the only reason. Another reason--the one that I spoke of in my post--is that people who hate Christianity are using evolution and the scientific community as tools in their attack against Christianity. It does not matter at all to these enemies of Christianity that the very sources they are using are Christian sources. What matters to them is that they can exclude or eliminate the reference of God from public discourse.
The legal system isn't intended to be anti-Christian, either, but the enemies of Christianity certainly try to force that use!
It would be well to point out another development on this front:
"NEW YORK Dec 9, 2004 -- A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.
"At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England."
ABC News: Famous Atheist Now Believes in God