Why Evolution Should Be Taught

by hamilcarr 360 Replies latest jw friends

  • snowbird
    snowbird

    What it does say is that "no grass or shrub"' had sprouted before man was created. When I read "no grass or shrub" (very carefully ) I understand "no grass or shrub" - nothing was growing.

    ... and "sprouted" suggests what?

    Sylvia

  • sir82
    sir82
    and "sprouted" suggests what?

    ???

    "sprouted" suggests "sprouted".

    I'm not interested in suggestions....what does the text say?

  • hamilcarr
    hamilcarr

    The reason why we are here may be evolving itself.

  • inrainbows
    inrainbows

    burn

    mockingly calling their acceptance of evolution as a theory coupled with their belief in God as inconsistent.

    Well, it is. The CATHOLIC (emphasising not shouting) belief of God is not consistent with Modern Synthesis. And with Pope Benidict at the helm they are actually backpeddling on previous partial acceptances of evolution. Pointing out facts is not mocking unless the people the facts that are being pointed out are the ones making fools of themselves.

    Dawkins is more than proving evolution, he is about destroying faith.

    He is showing that certain totalitarian fact-denying faith is wrong.

    That is the FAITH'S problem. Don't blame Dawkins for a faith's inconsistancy of dogma vs facts.

    You can still have faith without denying facts. Please concede this; it is true.

    And if 'all' you are saying is that the existence of a fact-based paradigm that removes a requirement for paranormal hypotheses to explain biological diversity means that people will be less inclined to believe dogma that is not based upon facts, yeah. And? Is that meant to be a bad thing?

    But that doesn't mean evolution makes people atheists. The lack of a decent theory of god makes people atheists.

    We're here for a reason.

    I disagree. And I think you are incapable of proving your assertion to a level that would be considered evidential in a court of law. And I count myself as being a theist for a given value of theos. But the fact I disagree does not mean that I count my life as meaningless.

    Giving meaning to one's life, aye, there's the adventure, there's the thrill.

    And PLEASE, people, let's stop trying to turn sow's ears (Holy book creation myths) into silk purses (credible accounts of why we are the way we are). If god was inspring the goatherds he could have inspired them with something that made far better sense from modern science's perspective;

    And god stood alone, in nothing. Out of nothing god made a seed and from the speed sprang fire that filled the void. And god sang, and god's song shaped the fire into the stars above us and the planets that swing round the stars. And god looked down upon our world, and continued singing, and the molten face of our world cooled, and seas formed, and from the sea came the first life. And as god contiuned to sing all that we see around us in our came about, the simple becoming complex, life expanding and spreading in infinate variety to fill the whole earth. And god looked upon the apes in the land of Sheba, a million generations before our time, and sang to them. And they stood upon their hind limbs and became thinking and marvelled at all that was around them.

    Thus came to be the sons and daughters of god on this Earth.

    If god inspired the Bible the creation myth could be 100% consistant with modern science. It isn't, so the Bible is ot inspired, QED.

    Oh, and please don't say that the creation myth had to be given in terms that were understandable to those it was given to. Large portions of most holy books are gibberish (locusts wearing sulphur coloured breastplates, beasts with sven heads, chariots with eagle-faced creatures and wheels within wheels); if the creation myth was gibberish until the 20th Century and then was shown to fit the theories of cosmolgy and biology to a T, wouldn't THAT be one in the eye for atheists? LOL.

  • hamilcarr
    hamilcarr

    Pennock systematically reveals the philosophical problems inherent in intelligent-design creationism. He shows in several ways that science is not inherently antireligious. Intelligent-design creationists confuse materialist philosophy and the methodological materialism of science, which says that science cannot use supernatural cause to explain the natural world. To explain by natural cause does not make a field antireligious; as Pennock wryly notes, science is no more atheistic than plumbing. Intelligent design creationism also errs in assuming that if a natural phenomenon can be explained without reference to God, therefore God had nothing to do with it. This brings us to the "design" in intelligent design creationism.

    http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/8269_creationism_evolves_review_of_3_16_2001.asp

  • snowbird
    snowbird

    ???

    "sprouted" suggests "sprouted".

    I'm not interested in suggestions....what does the text say?

    Ok, I'll answer for you. If something sprouts, there has to be a seed.

    Whence the seed?

    Sylvia

  • BurnTheShips
    BurnTheShips
    Well, it is. The CATHOLIC (emphasising not shouting) belief of God is not consistent with Modern Synthesis.

    Really? What does the Catholic belief in God have to do with the Modern Synthesis at all?

    And with Pope Benidict at the helm they are actually backpeddling on previous partial acceptances of evolution.

    Ratzinger's own words:

    63. According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the “Big Bang” and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5-4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.

    70. With respect to the immediate creation of the human soul, Catholic theology affirms that particular actions of God bring about effects that transcend the capacity of created causes acting according to their natures. The appeal to divine causality to account for genuinely causal as distinct from merely explanatory gaps does not insert divine agency to fill in the “gaps” in human scientific understanding (thus giving rise to the so-called "God of the gaps”). The structures of the world can be seen as open to non-disruptive divine action in directly causing events in the world.

    And PLEASE, people , let's stop trying to turn sow's ears (Holy book creation myths) into silk purses (credible accounts of why we are the way we are). If god was inspring the goatherds he could have inspired them with something that made far better sense from modern science's perspective;

    And god stood alone, in nothing. Out of nothing god made a seed and from the speed sprang fire that filled the void. And god sang, and god's song shaped the fire into the stars above us and the planets that swing round the stars. And god looked down upon our world, and continued singing, and the molten face of our world cooled, and seas formed, and from the sea came the first life. And as god contiuned to sing all that we see around us in our came about, the simple becoming complex, life expanding and spreading in infinate variety to fill the whole earth. And god looked upon the apes in the land of Sheba, a million generations before our time, and sang to them. And they stood upon their hind limbs and became thinking and marvelled at all that was around them.

    Thus came to be the sons and daughters of god on this Earth.

    If god inspired the Bible the creation myth could be 100% consistant with modern science. It isn't, so the Bible is ot inspired, QED.

    Quod erat demonstrandum for an informed dweller of the early 21st century. This account would speak to his/her understanding of cosmology, a cosmology that has an inherent finality implied in your "updated" creation story. This "finality" does not exist. You want Scripture to be 100% consistent with modern science when modern science is not 100% consistent with TRUTH. Human, scientific understanding is progressive. If God did this in the manner you describe our descendants a millenium hence would be complaining about how THAT account was inconsistent with THEIR understanding.

    The account of creation in Genesis was described according to the reality of the people of that time and place, if God were to inspire such a thing today I am sure it would be in today's language and cosmology. And if it were in today's terms, how do you think it would look to our descendants 1000 years hence at the current rate of progress? Pretty anachronistic! That is not to say it was a metaphor, it describes real events that really happened, but described in a manner that the people of that time would grasp. It is the same when we explain something to a small child today. We use forms they can understand while conveying the essence of what we are communicating to them. We are growing up in the Universe. We are children still.

    Science sheds light on the natural world. We need light. But let us not confuse light with warmth. We are basking in the light of science but some of us are shivering in the cold.

    Man dies of cold, not of darkness. (Miguel de Unamuno)

    We're here for a reason, and that is my personal faith, your demand for "evidence" notwithstanding.

    BTS

  • sir82
    sir82

    Ah, OK, I think I see what you are trying to read into the text.

    I think you are trying to say that there were plants existing, but none of them, not a single one of them, had produced a seed yet. Right?

    The problem is, as I've noted at least a bazillion times, the text doesn't say that. You can speculate all you want regarding what the author really meant to say, but as I've noted 2 bazillion times, it's just speculation.

    Repetition for emphasis: The text does not say "God created vegetation which didn't produce seeds, then produced man".

    From another angle:

    Suppose someone from Mars picked up Genesis chapter 2 and read it. He has no familiarity with anything related to earthly literature, nor earthly creation stories. What, in Genesis chapter 2, ignoring chapter 1, would make him think God created plants before Adam?

  • snowbird
    snowbird

    I think you are trying to say that there were plants existing, but none of them, not a single one of them, had produced a seed yet. Right?

    I'm saying that plants existed before Man; otherwise, why state that there was no one to cultivate the ground?

    Suppose someone from Mars picked up Genesis chapter 2 and read it. He has no familiarity with anything related to earthly literature, nor earthly creation stories. What, in Genesis chapter 2, ignoring chapter 1, would make him think God created plants before Adam?

    Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven. 2:5 And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth: and there was not a man to till the ground; 2:6 but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground

    If our Martian visitor read the above, she would come to the conclusion that "no plant nor herb of the field" was referring to cultivation, not the order of creation. Only in that context can the statement "there was not a man to till the ground" make sense.

    The sole purpose of man's being is caretaker of the Earth. Simple, isn't it?

    Sylvia

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    "The sole purpose of man's being is caretaker of the Earth. Simple, isn't it?"

    If that's the whole truth, why have people needed to learn how to take care of the earth all on their own. A good portion of the bible should set out the basic rules for taking care of the soil, rivers, plants, animals, air, etc, etc. Instead, the bible gives instructions on killing domestic animals and burning them for biblegod. You need to do better than that.

    S

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