The “Thermodynamics” of Spirit.

The “Thermodynamics” of Spirit.




In the realm of physics, we note that systems “lose” power, and that energy always moves in the direction of “concentration” to toward “dissipation” (or toward greater entropy)

Unless new energy is added to a system

Heat cools

Sound dims

Light fades

Water runs downhill.

Bodies decay

Systems move from higher organization to lower states of organization.

The Greater gives birth to the lesser.

The general framework of naturalistic evolution moves against the grain of numerous physical laws and postulates that disorder gives birth to order. Death gives birth to life. Chaos gives birth to purpose.

On the other hand, When we begin with the eternal God, the “flow” matches the idea we experience both in observation and by intuition: ie. -- that which is greater both precedes and feeds that which is lesser.



That which is LIVING gives birth to life.

God who is Personal, gives birth to personality

God who is VOLITIONAL – gives volitional capabilities to man

God who is CREATIVE – gives gifts of creativity to man

God who is Omniscient – gives knowledge to man

God who is Omnipotent – give power to man

God who sees, hears, tastes? Touches? Smells? Give birth to the sensory in man

God who is love – gives man emotive gifts.

God who is holy, endows men with various gifts ranging from wrath to governing authority.

Bible: What is the Fall?

Question:  What are the implications of the Fall, if -- according to every old earth model, death and suffering was a normal part of the pre-Fall Universe?


A review of The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller
Dutton, New York, 2008

reviewed by Lita Cosner  (Creation Ministries 7/9/10)

Evolutionary stance makes for flawed answers on suffering

Keller is a theistic evolutionist, which causes him to give wrong or incomplete answers to some of the questions he attempts to answer in his book. For instance, in his chapter on pain and suffering (ch. 2), he says that God sometimes allows evil to happen in order that He may turn it to good in some way, and that Jesus died on the cross undergoing tremendous suffering to save humanity, proving that God’s reason for allowing suffering is not that he does not love mankind. He also points forward to the hope of resurrection and the end of all suffering.

The starting point should have been that humans go through pain and suffering because we are all fallen and sinful, and fallen people are capable of committing acts of tremendous evil.

While there is nothing necessarily wrong with this answer, it is still incomplete, because he does not address the reason for pain and suffering—the Fall.3,4 The starting point should have been that humans go through pain and suffering because we are all fallen and sinful, and fallen people are capable of committing acts of tremendous evil. God is, of course, capable of overriding human will, but does not always do so, because He values human voluntary will (although it is impossible, of course, to know just how often God does intervene in situations). Another aspect of the Fall is that things do not work correctly at times, including our bodies, leading to disease and death. When these things happen and we feel as if it is wrong, as if it was never supposed to be like this, it is precisely because things are all wrong. Any answer to the question of pain and suffering that does not include this sort of explanation is seriously lacking.

Incompetent exegesis of Genesis creation account:

Keller’s incomplete answer to the question of pain and suffering was an error of omission, but his chapter on science and religion (ch. 6) contains many errors of commission. He handles the issue of miracles versus science well,5 but cites the predictable theistic evolutionist line on the Bible and evolution. He asserts that Genesis 1 is a poem (p. 93), that the interpretation is up for debate,6 and that many Christians with a high view of Scripture have no problem accepting evolution without embracing materialism (p. 87).

What is the Anthropomorphic Principle?

Question: What is the Anthropomorphic Principle?

Answer: The Anthropomorphic Principle suggests that the Universe appears to be find tuned to support human life…or that it was prepared for human beings.

If not ID: Ten Billion Monkeys in Ten Billion Rooms

The "infinite universes" theory is truly an amazing theory.


Just think about it, if there is an infinite number of universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible...It's actually happened!

It means that somewhere, in some dimension, there is a universe where the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last year. There's a universe where Jimmy Hoffa doesn't get cement shoes; instead he marries Joan Rivers and becomes President of the United States. There's even a universe where Elvis kicks his drug habit and still resides at Graceland and sings at concerts. Imagine the possibilities!

I might sound like I'm joking, but actually I'm dead serious. To believe an infinite number of universes made life possible by random chance is to believe everything else I just said, too.

Some people believe in God with a capital G.
And some folks believe in Chance with a Capital C. 

(Perry Marshall)

"Bad" Design

Neil deGrasse Tyson (The case for Bad Design)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCnGf37iiKU&feature=player_embedded

The Case to Design - Fine Tuning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY7iCkK2Kqw

http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/origins/quotes/universe.html

The Implications of Naturalism: No Free Will

The reality is, not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar. The laws of nature are uniform throughout, and these laws do not accommodate the concept of free will. […]  as living systems we are nothing more than a bag of chemicals.

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/10/4499.full.pdf+html

The limits and domain of Science

The difference between physics and metaphysics. . . is not that the practitioners of one are smarter than the practitioners of the other. The difference is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory. (Carl Sagan)

YEC (Critique)

For a larger defence of Young Earth Creationism (and a response to the question, why does the Universe look old.) Albert Mohler (Pres Southern Baptist)

http://biologos.org/resources/albert-mohler-why-does-the-universe-look-so-old/

One of three questions asked by Karl of BioLogos

http://biologos.org/blog/how-should-biologos-respond-to-dr-albert-mohlers-critique-karls-response/

3. You speak of the apparent age of the universe as a logical necessity and I fully agree with you, up to a point. Certainly, if we were to wander into the Garden of Eden two weeks after the creation was completed, we would see two adults who looked at least 18 years old. But there are many other indicators of age that don’t lend themselves to this sort of explanation. Why would God create radioactive elements in the proportions to suggest the earth is 5 billion years old? Why would God create stars with half of their nuclear fuel already used up? Why would God pepper the heavens with debris that looks exactly like it came from stars that exploded billions of years ago? Why would God create continents that look exactly like they were joined millions of year ago?



Notes:

“How can an institution of higher learning permit the teaching of an aberrant misinterpretation and what I would consider an intolerable representation of the truth?” asks Swan. “What we’re faced with is a very interesting intellectual morass. What do you do with a professor who has gone wrong?”

For Swan, academic freedom is no defense for teaching creationism.

“If this is academic freedom, almost any bucket will go in. I can talk absolute nonsense to my class.”

“Do geologists allow a flat-earth advocate to teach? Would astronomers like astrologists? But this (creationism) differs because the evidence for it is not scientific, it is religious. Does a professor have the right to teach anything he wants? Can society afford to deny science?”

Creationists’ attacks on the holes in evolutionary theory enrage Swan who claims they employ a “You don’t know, therefore God” argument.

Douglas Post, professor of ecological and systematic biology, agrees, saying, “I don’t think there is any positive evidence to prove creationism. They rely on negative evidence. Their main argument is that you can’t prove that Darwin is correct. But I don’t think that just because you can’t prove Darwin you can automatically conclude that creationism is correct.”    http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/07/dean-kenyon-a-y.html

http://scepsis.ru/eng/articles/id_2.php

All the more interesting, then, to read his personal testimony in In Six Days. It is actually quite moving, in a pathetic kind of way. He begins with his childhood ambition. Where other boys wanted to be astronauts or firemen, the young Kurt touchingly dreamed of getting a Ph.D. from Harvard and teaching science at a major university. He achieved the first part of his goal, but became increasingly uneasy as his scientific learning conflicted with his religious faith. When he could bear the strain no longer, he clinched the matter with a Bible and a pair of scissors. He went right through from Genesis 1 to Revelations 22, literally cutting out every verse that would have to go if the scientific worldview were true. At the end of this exercise, there was so little left of his Bible that

... try as I might, and even with the benefit of intact margins throughout the pages of Scripture, I found it impossible to pick up the Bible without it being rent in two. I had to make a decision between evolution and Scripture. Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible. . . . It was there that night that I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including evolution. With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8816

The Galileo Challenge

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei

Faith and Science (Links)

Has Science Made Belief in God Obsolete? (1 of 4) by JP Moreland (Easily Digestable for the Non-scientist.)

The claim that "there is no knowledge of reality outside of the hard sciences", is self refuting. (Since Science itself cannot support this claim.)

part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwI6KX_XJqM&feature=related


Argument that the Universe had a beginning, from the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The Fine Tuning of the Universe.

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVh5w7UfJEc&feature=related
Biological Evidence:  Biological Information

Part4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7Md28jmhCw&feature=related
Conscious thought
(this claim seems the least credible to me...I tend to think of mental processes as anchored in physcial realities, undo the physcial, undo the conscious.

Science and certitude

"You’d think that, for a website devoted to reconciling faith with the facts of science, the idea of Genesis as inspirational fiction would not be negotiable. If anything is absolutely, rock-bottom true, it’s that life evolved, beginning about 4 billion years ago, and that the creation myth of Genesis can’t be true."

Faith and Reason Part 2

What is the role of reason in the acquisition of wisdom?
What is reason?
What are the limitations of reason?
Is reason the sole means by which we seek to discover truth, or is it part of a bundle?
What role does reason play in our reading of holy writ?
What role does reason play in apprehending faith?

What is the role of faith in the acquisition of knowledge?
What is provisional assent? How does faith differ from provisional assent?
What roll does faith play in giving credence to reason?
What role does faith play in taking us beyond reason?
What distinguishes good faith from bad faith? (Is all Faith equal?)
Is it possible to reason righty, or fully without Faith?
Faith occupies a realm which does not intersect with reason -- or NOMA


Most scientists, believers and nonbelievers alike, probably agree with the Non Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) view articulated by recently deceased Stephen J. Gould. In this view, science and religion should confine themselves to different domains. Science should deal with material world, while religion should deal with morality.

Richard Dawkins has pointed out that



• A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims.

He also notes that

There is something dishonestly self-serving in the tactic of claiming that all religious beliefs are outside the domain of science. On the one hand, miracle stories and the promise of life after death are used to impress simple people, win converts, and swell congregations. It is precisely their scientific power that gives these stories their popular appeal. But at the same time it is considered below the belt to subject the same stories to the ordinary rigors of scientific criticism: these are religious matters and therefore outside the domain of science. But you cannot have it both ways. At least, religious theorists and apologists should not be allowed to get away with having it both ways. Unfortunately all too many of us, including nonreligious people, are unaccountably ready to let them.

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Incompatibility.html

Faith is not reasonable (nor desirable)

Faith is not reasonable (but is desirable)

Faith is something to be held in opposition to Reason

Case Study: Soren Kierkegaard.

Christian dogma, according to Kierkegaard, embodies paradoxes which are offensive to reason. The central paradox is the assertion that the eternal, infinite, transcendent God simultaneously became incarnated as a temporal, finite, human being (Jesus). There are two possible attitudes we can adopt to this assertion, viz. we can have faith, or we can take offense. What we cannot do, according to Kierkegaard, is believe by virtue of reason. If we choose faith we must suspend our reason in order to believe in something higher than reason. In fact we must believe by virtue of the absurd.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/

“One should expect, if one is a believer, that with God all things are possible, even things which are physically and logically impossible (Anderson 48).”

But while having faith is tremendously difficult, Kierkegaard stands in awe of it: “to be able to lose one’s reason, and therefore the whole of finiteness of which reason is the broker, and then by the virtue of the absurd to gain precisely the same finiteness – that appalls my soul, but I do not for this cause say that it is something lowly, since on the contrary it is the only prodigy (Anderson 60).” (Philosophic 271).

It is difficult to find flaws with Kierkegaard’s argument and description of religion, since he is not speaking in rational terms, and not trying to convince his audience through the methods of logic. He does seem to be taking faith as a prima-facie good, and since the whole of his argument basically stems from the idea that faith is inherently worthwhile and beneficial, it’s a bit of shaky ground to be on. But that’s not really the point: faith, like Abraham’s situation, cannot be mediated, simply because it is by definition irrational and inexplicable. If I had not had direct experience with the kind of faith that Kierkegaard is talking about, I doubt that I would be able to understand him at all. But I know what it is to gain something by giving it up, and I know how you have to lose yourself in order to find yourself. It’s all subjective and it’s all irrational, and it’s something you’ll just have to take my word for. My word and Kierkegaard’s at least.

Faith and Reason (Questions)

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

Blaise Pascal

A Theology of Creation.

If we are to understand the nature of reality, we have only two possible starting points: either the brute fact of the physical world or the brute fact of a divine will and purpose behind that physical world.  

John Polkinghorne

“BIG MART” 5/27/02

I was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day;
(Whether in my mind or out of it I can not tell.)

What is Man?

I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand.    Oliver Wendell Holmes.

What is Faith?

The world of sense intrudes upon our attention day and night for the whole of our lifetime. It is clamorous, insistent and self-demonstrating. It does not appeal to our faith; it is here, assaulting our five senses, demanding to be accepted as real and final.

Genesis: Alternate Readings

Old Universe - Young Earth (Modified Gap Theory)

http://tasc-creationscience.org/other/plaisted/www.cs.unc.edu/_plaisted/ce/oldyoung.html


Sailhamer (Modified Gap theory)

Critiques of Sailhamer's position.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/rules.asp

http://www.mctsowensboro.org/mcts-blog/piper-sailhamer-and-creationism/

The Interface of Theism and Evolution: Notes

Atheist claims atheist bashing at evolutiong meetings.

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/atheist-bashing-at-the-evolution-meetings/


A strong biblical critique of BiloLogos (Theists who are Evolutionists.)
http://creation.com/biologos-evolutionary-syncretism

What is Evolution? (or, what are the mulitple meanings of the concept.)

"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."   Richard Dawkins http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_21_3.html

We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged. (A Scientific dissent from Darwinism, signed by over 100 advanced degree scientists.)

Challenges to Evolution

Irreversible Complexity--Evolution Loses Another Round

by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

Scientists discovered something remarkable in a recent study—evolution can’t be reversed. In tracing the supposed evolution of a common protein, they introduced mutations to move the protein “backward” to each of its hypothetical transitional stages and discovered that each one wouldn’t work. What does that mean to the theory of evolution?

Objections to Macro Evolution

Since then, nearly all criticisms of evolution have come from religious sources, rather than from the scientific community.[4] Although most religions accept the occurrence of evolution, such as those advocating theistic evolution, some members still reject it in favor of creationism, the view that God created the world largely in its current form.[5] The resultant creation-evolution controversy has been a focal point of recent conflict between religion and science.

 In contrast to earlier objections to evolution that were either strictly scientific or explicitly religious, recent objections to evolution have frequently attempted to blur the distinction between the two. Such objections have often centered on undermining evolution's scientific basis, with the intent of combating the teaching of evolution as fact and opposing the spread of "atheistic materialism".[6] Modern creationism is characterized by movements such as Creation Science, neocreationism, and Intelligent Design which argue that the idea of life being directly "designed" by a God or intelligence is at least as scientific as evolutionary theory, and should therefore be taught in public schools. Their arguments against evolution have become widespread, and include objections to evolution's evidence, methodology, plausibility, morality, and scientific acceptance. The scientific community, however, does not accept such objections as having any validity, citing detractors' misinterpretations of scientific method, evidence, and basic physical laws.[7]

Methods used to discredit those who oppose macro evolution

Confuse (or purposefully blurr distinctions between differing definitions of evolution)

State that there is no credible controversy: Implicit suggestion that anyone who questions the validity of evolution is functionally “unscientific”

Claim that all objections to evolution are religiously motivated.

Assume that religion is only credible when it operates outside the realm of observation.

'False' Gene Discovery Confirms Creation Prediction

'False' Gene Discovery Confirms Creation Prediction

Evo: What is Natural Selection

"The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of livings things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. (Stephen Myers)


What is meant by the term “Natural Selection” (and what explanatory power does it posses in the overall theory? In what major way is the concept limited?

In what sense is the idea of Natural Selection a “tautology” and why is natural selection (in itself) incapable of directing or advancing evolutionary change?

The Jordan observation of the distracting hand. In magic, a “prestidigitator” may ask you to watch his hands, as if his hands, at that moment, were the focal point of the magic maneuver. In most cases however, the “watch my hands” command is meant to take your eyes off of action elsewhere. In the case of evolution, it is my general sense, that attention is often placed on Natural Selection and removed from the far greater problem of random mutation (including the character and latitude of mutation.) My own thinking has led me to believe that Natural Selection is the most certain, indeed, the absolutely unquestionable component of evolutionary theory. It is also a limited concept, and has within itself, none of the generative (or creative) power associated with the evolutionary model.

Natural Selection is totally passive, it can only be said to “act” upon what is already there.

Matteo (Blog comment) The problem with Natural Selection is that is merely another name for death, and as such is a destructive force, not a constructive one. Its fans keep speaking of it as a probability enhancer or probability multiplier, making possible that which pure chance could never accomplish.


But this is akin to saying that the monkeys at the typewriters will more quickly produce Hamlet, provided you regularly massacre the majority of them.

Are evolution and a belief in God compatible?

You’d think that, for a website devoted to reconciling faith with the facts of science, the idea of Genesis as inspirational fiction would not be negotiable. If anything is absolutely, rock-bottom true, it’s that life evolved, beginning about 4 billion years ago, and that the creation myth of Genesis can’t be true.  Jerry Coyne, Commenting on BioLogos ( Francis Collins: A site given to theistic evolution)

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/485753-biologos-don%E2%80%99t-tell-people-that-genesis-is-fiction


Despite my initial links, there are really two questions here.  Is belief in God and evolution possible (or viable), and is such belief compatible with the Christian scriptures.  In as much as we can point to many individuals who embrace both the Christian faith and evolution, the possibilty of holding to both is a certainty.  "How" those who do so is another question.   It also very certain that Evolution and the Genesis account, as read (in a direct hisorical sense) are at odds.  The question then becomes, how do Christians who embrace both full bodied evolution and the authority of scriptures do so.  At minimum, they must read Genesis as something other than a direct historical account.  At max... they may just assume Genesis to be a soley human document.



A plea from a Christian (Rachel Held Evans) who embraces evolution, not to make evolution a Faith deal breaker.

http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/09/when_atheists_and_baptists_agree.html

Albert Mohler (head of the Southern Baptist Convention) respons:

http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/10/01/evolution-when-atheists-and-baptists-agree/

Rachel Evans responds to the response.  (I must add, while I am far from convinced of the the case for evolution) I deeply appreciate the tone or Rachel's Response.

http://rachelheldevans.com/al-mohler-response?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RachelHeldEvans+%28Rachel+Held+Evans+-+Blog+Posts%29








The Origin of the Species not only challenged prevailing scientific views but also shook the deepest roots of Western culture. Darwin’s view of life contrasted sharply with traditional beliefs of an Earth only a few thousand years old, populated by forms of life that been created at the beginning and remained unchanged ever since. Darwin’s book challenged a worldview that had been prevalent for centuries. (AP Biology 7th Ed, p439)



Challenge to religion is twofold.



1) Departed from the teaching of the Bible

2) Proposed adequate and comprehsive natural mechanisms, reducing or obliterating the need for a supernatural explanation KJ.





It is also irrelevant whether various religions differentiate between natural and supernatural. Once again, this is the TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, people. Wake up. The teleological argument demands a diametrical opposition between "designed" and "evolved". The terms are mutually exclusive. Something evolved doesn't have a designer, and is therefore not designed. Something designed has a designer, and is therefore not evolved. Evolution, by definition, does not progress through the arbitrary whims of a designer. Design, by definition, does not occur through the blind forces of evolution.



--69.209.242.45 04:19, 20 August 2005 (UTC)



Hmmmm, although I agree with the sentiment, there is no diametric opposition between design and evolution. Evolution does not exclude the possibility of design, it merely makes it redundant as an explanatory factor. Design does not exclude evolution, it just says that design at some point in time was involved with the origin of certain features of life/the universe. -Superiority 06:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted all this. It may be that some of it could be reinstated (in modified form), but most of it was simply a matter of misunderstanding. A lot of that was terminology (e.g., to call it the argument from design is question begging, as was explained at the time of the change; premises can't be logically sound — they're either true or false, accepted or not accepted), but also of matters such as the relationship between the design argument and evolution (many people believe that design does indeed occur through evolution; in fact, that's the main position among non-fundamentalist Christians). The article needs work, but as a process, not as one person coming in, swearing and shouting at us, and making wholesale mistaken edits. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:27, 20 August 2005 (UTC)



Excerpt from a Wikipedia discussion page (Teleological design). Comment posted August 2005








Now a third one of Darwin's great contributions was that he replaced theological, or supernatural, science with secular science. Laplace, of course, had already done this some 50 years earlier when he explained the whole world to Napoleon. After his explanation, Napoleon replied, "where is God in your theory?" And Laplace answered, "I don't need that hypothesis." Darwin's explanation that all things have a natural cause made the belief in a creatively superior mind quite unnecessary. He created a secular world, more so than anyone before him. Certainly many forces were verging in that same direction, but Darwin's work was the crashing arrival of this idea and from that point on, the secular viewpoint of the world became virtually universal.




ERNST MAYR: WHAT EVOLUTION IS

Introduction by Jared Diamond

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/mayr/mayr_index.html








Notre Dame ReSource: Evolution and Christianity

By: Dennis Brown

Date: July 18, 2005









A renowned philosopher from the University of Notre Dame supports recent comments by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn that belief in evolution as accepted by some in science today may be incompatible with Christian beliefs.



“Cardinal Schönborn has it right,” said Alvin Plantinga, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy and one of the world’s leading scholars in the philosophy of religion. “Evolution means different things to different people. Some of these things are perfectly consistent with Christian belief, but others are not.



“Some think of evolution as the theory of common ancestry: Any two living things share ancestors, so that we and the poison ivy in our back yard, as well as other living creatures, are cousins. This is surprising, but compatible with Christian belief.”



Problems arise, according to Plantinga, when “scientists and others take evolution to be a process that is wholly unguided and driven by chance, so that it is simply a matter of chance that rational creatures like us exist. This is not compatible with Christian belief, according to which God has intentionally created us human beings in His own image. He may have done so by using a process of evolution, but it isn’t by chance that we exist.”



Plantinga adds that the idea that “human beings and other living creatures have come about by chance, rather than by God’s design, is also not a proper part of empirical science. How could science show that God has not intentionally designed and created human beings and other creatures? How could it show that they have arisen merely by chance. That’s not empirical science. That’s metaphysics, or maybe theology. It’s a theological add-on, not part of science itself. And, since it is a theological add-on, it shouldn’t, of course, be taught in public schools.”



http://newsinfo.nd.edu/content.cfm?topicid=12242



Evolution and Christianity

By: Dennis Brown

Date: July 18, 2005



Evolution and Belief in God (or in a God who is active in the creation of species) are incompatible:)

Only a tad more than one in four teachers really believes in evolution as scientists conceive of it: a naturalistic process undirected by divine beings.  Nearly one in two teachers thinks that humans evolved but that God guided the process.

Can we count those 48% of “guided-by-Godders” 0n our side?  I agree with P. Z.: the answer is NO.  Yes, they do accept that our species changed genetically over time, but they see God as having pulled the strings.  That’s not the way evolution works.   The graph labels these 48% as believers in intelligent design, and that’s exactly what they are, for they see God as nudging human evolution toward some preconceived goal.  We’re designed.  These people are creationists: selectivecreationists.

To count them as allies means we make company with those who accept evolution in a superficial sense but reject it in the deepest sense.  After all, the big revolution in thought wrought by Darwin was the recognition that the appearance of design—thought for centuries to be proof of God—could stem from purely natural processes.   When we cede human evolution to God, then, we abandon that revolution.  That’s why I see selective creationists like Kenneth Miller, Karl Giberson and Francis Collins as parting company with modern biological thought. 

          Jerry Coyne  http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/

From Baptist press   http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=21375

Mohler, a young-Earth creationist, says the Bible is clear about the way in which God created the earth in six days. He argues that Christianity and evolution offer opposing views of human origins.

“Given the human tendency toward inconsistency, there are people who will say they hold both positions,” Mohler writes. “But you cannot coherently affirm the Christian-truth claim and the dominant (me) model of evolutionary theory at the same time.

“... I believe the Bible is adequately clear about how God created the world, and that its most natural reading points to a six-day creation that included not just the animal and plant species but the earth itself.

“But there have always been Evangelicals who asserted that it might have taken longer. What they should not be asserting is the idea of God's having set the rules for evolution and then stepped back. And even less so, the model held by much of the scientific academy: of evolution as the result of a random process of mutation and selection."

What is Micro Evolution, or What is Macro Evolution

B: Special Evolution v General Evolution. (or Micro Evolution v Macro Evolution.


Q: What is Special Evolution, What is general Evolution, how do they differ?



"Special evolution" and "general evolution" are opposite processes. Specialization corresponds to configuring a computer program - turning off undesired features or loading optional modules. Generalization corresponds to writing code to implement new features.



*This may sound wacky, but it almost seems that the term Special evolution (a term used by Darwin) has fallen out of favor by use among evolutionists. I could find little on it on the web. It appears that the very distinction between special and general evolution add undesirable clarity to the debate, and is hence avoided.



Gould: (After talking about what he sees as incontrovertible arguments for observable evolution): “Creationists have tightened their act. They now argue that God only created “basic kinds,” and allowed for limited evolutionary meandering within them. Thus toy poodles and great Danes come from the dog kind and moths can change color, but nature cannot convert a dot to a cat or a monkey to a man.”

Gould is right: everyone agrees that micro evolution occurs, including creationist. Even creation-scientists concur, not because they “have tightened” their act,” but because their doctrine has always been that God created basic kinds, or types which subsequently diversified. The most famous example of creationist’s microevolution involves the descendants of Adam and Eve, who have diversified from a common ancestral pair to create all the diverse races of the human species. The point in dispute in not whether microevolution happens, but whether it tells us anything important about the processes responsible for creating birds, insects, and trees in the first place. (DoT Philip E. Johnson, p 68)



Note: While “everyone” including all the young earth creationists (that I have read) embrace the reality of Micro-evolution, not all are willing to use the term.

Scientists who embrace the account of biblical creation have no problem with speciation, natural selection and change within a created kind, all observed (like the example above) to take place over time in nature. Yet, the sort of change which is observed in all examples to date of such ‘speciation’ entails a mere sorting or loss of genetic information, and is thus very different from the sort of change which is needed for molecules-to-man upwards evolution which implies an enormous gain of genetic information.

So changes observed here are really just variations (i.e. different species/breeds) within a kind, where new species/breeds can form fairly rapidly from other species/breeds (only within the limits of the information already in the gene pool of those kinds), but not a transition between kinds. Definitely not the sort of change required to, step by step, turn microbes into microbiologists. It is therefore quite misleading in this particular context to speak of “evolutionary” changes, as Van den Heever did.    

http://creation.com/church-leader-against-evolution

Q:  Why do some creationists avoid the term “Micro Evolution?”

a) because the believe that mere diversification (caused by genetic recombination and loss of information – and not by a gain in information, does not quality as evolution.

b) they do not want to validate the larger concept by using a word of ambiguous connotation.

Stats

Acceptance of evolutionary model by Christians with higher-ed (and who weresponded to a poll by the American Scientific Association) , is not significantly different from others with similar education, though engineers tend embrace total evolution at lower rates than do biologists.  For more stats:

http://www.asa3online.org/Voices/2010/07/10/asa-origins-survey/

Evo: Theory, Fact, or working model

Evolutionary biology isn't a theory -- it's a pile of promissory notes for future theories, none of which has been redeemed since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species almost 150 years ago.   (William Dembski) http://www.designinference.com/documents/2002.08.Erik_Response.htm

Evolution (Critique) What's in a word

Evo: Critique: Science or Metaphysics?

Dallas Willard on the "limits" Evolution

"Evolution, whether cosmic or biological, cannot — logically cannot! — be a theory of ultimate origins of existence or order, precisely because its operations always presuppose the prior existence of certain entities with specific potential behaviors, as well as of an environment of some specific kind that operates upon those entities in some specifically ordered (law-governed) fashion, to determine which ones are allowed to survive and reproduce. Let us quite generally state: any sort of evolution of order of any kind will always presuppose pre-existing order and pre-existing entities governed by it. It follows as a simple matter of logic that not all order evolved. Given the physical world — and however much of evolution it may or may not contain — there is or was some order in it which did not evolve. However it may have originated (if it originated), that order did not evolve, for it was the condition of any evolution at all occurring. We come here upon a logically insurpassable limit to what evolution, however it may be understood, can accomplish."

In what sense is evolution based on observation, in what sense is evolution anchored in metaphysics, or even religion?

Evo: Challenges (The problem of Gradualism)

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modification, my theory would absolutely break down. Charles Darwin.

What is Historical Science?

http://www.conservapedia.com/Intelligent_design

Arguments for Christian Theism (Intro)

http://www.theapologiaproject.org/two-dozen.htm

What is the Kalam Cosmological Argument?

What is the Kalam cosmological argument: (or who is William Lane Craig?)

The Kalām cosmological argument is a variation of the cosmological argument that argues for the existence of a Sufficient Reason or First Cause for the universe. Its origins can be traced to both medieval Christian and Muslim thinkers, but most significantly to Islamic theologians of the Kalām tradition.[1] It has been revived in recent years most predominantly in the works of Christian philosopher William Lane Craig.



William Lane Craig has formulated the argument as follows:[2]

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument >

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.


2. The universe began to exist.


3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

(Note this is actually the simplest form of the argument, Craig has formulated a larger 9 point argument, in which he reasons against the possibility of the space/time consisting of an eternal series of causal events.

The first question that most people ask when presented with this argument is “then what about God.” - but the statement is not, “Whatever exists must have a cause, but rather “Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.” As God is eternal (and not characterized by an infinite series of finite elements” – The argument does not apply.


Criticism of the Argument:


By Austin Cline, About.com Guide to Atheism
http://atheism.about.com/b/2004/06/21/unsupported-premise-in-the-kalam-cosmological-argument.htm

Unsupported Premise in the Kalam Cosmological Argument


Dr. William Lane Craig‘s “Kalam Cosmological Argument” is one of the more sophisticated and (in some circles) popular arguments for the existence of God. Unfortunately, like so many other theistic arguments, it suffers from a fatal flaw that the author prefers to gloss over instead of address directly.

Francois Tremblay addresses the problems at Talk Reason, in particular the faulty premise of "Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence":

What evidence does he have to prove that whatever begins to exist must have a cause? In his opening case, he states: “I really don't think that it's necessary because the premise that whatever begins to exist must have a cause of its existence I think is so intuitively obvious that scarcely anybody could sincerely deny that it is false.“ He does support it elsewhere by using two arguments: our observation of the caused entities around us, and causality as a principle of human thought. Dr. Craig is no doubt aware, however, that to infer a necessary causality on a whole -- the universe -- on the basis of observation of such attribute in the parts -- the existents around us - is a fallacy of composition. The attribute being transposed here, being caused, is relational and therefore cannot be transposed. Thus he cannot generalize from caused entities around us to the universe in this matter. ... // 

For the rest of Austin's comments
For Francois Tremblay's extended foundational critigue: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Craig.cfm )


The extended Kalam/Craig Cosmological Argument
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/craig-smith1.html
 

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.




2.The universe began to exist.


     2.1 Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite:

     2.11 An actual infinite cannot exist.

     2.12 An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.

     2.13 Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

     2.2 Argument based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition:

    2.21 A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.

    2.22 The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.

    2.23 Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.

    2.3 Confirmation based on the expansion of the universe.

    2.4 Confirmation based on the thermodynamic properties of the universe.



3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.



4. If the universe has a cause of its existence, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans creation is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful and intelligent.

4.1 Argument that the cause of the universe is a

personal Creator:

4.11 The universe was brought into being either by a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions or by a personal, free agent.

4.12 The universe could not have been brought into being by a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

4.13 Therefore, the universe was brought into being by a personal, free agent.

4.2 Argument that the Creator sans creation is uncaused, beginningless, changeless, immaterial,
timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful and intelligent:

4.21 The Creator is uncaused.

4.211 An infinite temporal regress of causes cannot exist. (2.13, 2.23)

4.22 The Creator is beginningless.

4.221 Whatever is uncaused does not begin to exist. (1)

4.23 The Creator is changeless.

4.231 An infinite temporal regress of changes cannot exist. (2.13, 2.23)

4.24 The Creator is immaterial.

4.241 Whatever is material involves change on the atomic and molecular levels, but the Creator
is changeless. (4.23)

4.25 The Creator is timeless.

4.251 In the complete absence of change, time does not exist, and the Creator is changeless.

4.26 The Creator is spaceless.

4.261 Whatever is immaterial and timeless cannot be spatial, and the Creator is immaterial and timeless (4.24, 4.25)

4.27 The Creator is enormously powerful.

4.271 He brought the universe into being out of nothing. (3)

4.28 The Creator is enormously intelligent.

4.281 The initial conditions of the universe involve incomprehensible fine-tuning that points
to intelligent design.


5. Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans creation is "beginningless," changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful and intelligent.

Resources (all over the map)

A review of Paul Davies
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j10_2/j10_2_188-193.pdf


Dawkins on those who reject evolution:   (ignorant, wicked, duped, etc.)
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_21_3.html

Pro A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqJpZOljjG8&p=8DF8CC5D7E2A5011&playnext=2

Commentos

This is not a post, but rather just a place for you to drop a note or leave any kind of comment not connected to a specific post.   All fond "hello's" welcome.

Climate Change

Ok, so you have the most important mission ever... TO SAVE HUMANKIND... You precipitate to Earth... (well, after waiting couple thousand of years)... and spend 30 years doing nothing waiting for your testicles to drop and for a beard to grow...


What the hell was the point of Jebus being born as a sh***ing pi**ing baby, then grown into a acne ridden teen... then working as an average carpenter (presumably he was nothing special at making furniture as nobody raved about it.) then spend a 10th of the life-time actually doing any work?

Would it not be more logical to be born a 20 year old and "hit the ground running?" All those years he could have been preaching a message of love... he did NOTHING.

P.S. Anybody care to estimate the value of a bench made by Jesus at an auction?

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=291928

Where the arguments take us. (Video Roulette)

Satire:  Brilliant when it reiforces what we believe,  dishonest, manipulating, and stupid when it challenges what we believe.

Satire is strange, in that it must as a form, take what is weak in an argument, and make it weaker (or bolder) through exaggeration.   So satire is, in one sense, inherently dishonest.  It thrives in the market of distortion.  On the other hand, it has the unique ability to lshow us the weakness of a certain claim.

Science is Delusional  (strong satire,  wrong end)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89drdl0Ck7U&feature=fvw