A friend pointed out to me that "theistic evolution" is, in essence, no different than Intelligent Design. Both postulate a Creator that is behind creation. Both use the words "creation" and "creator." Both claim supra-rational knowledge that a Creator is behind the "created." Both are EQUALLY faith-claims.
THIS will be the final tactic of the ID people! "Of course we accept evolution as a fact! Both microevolution and macroevolution! We have no differences with science. We recognize evolution as the method the creator used to create the universe and all life in it."
This is how they'll sneak a creator into science claasrooms...or attempt to.
I'm a theistsic evolutionst, but I sure as HELL don't want it taught in a science classsroom! WHOSE "creator" are we going to proclaim? There's nothing the least bit scientific about my belief in "theistic" evolution! God is outisde the realm and methodology of science! (Something fundies are unable to either grasp or see the significance of).
Creationism hiding in plain sight
by FireNBandits 41 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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FireNBandits
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greendawn
Religion goes beyond perceiving the world in a strictly rational, logical way. Science is too cerebral to be well balanced on its own.
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FireNBandits
It has nothing to do with "balance" and everything to do with methodology. Science is empirical. God is a matter of faith. God cannot be chemically analysed, placed under a microscope, seen in a telescope, placed in a spectrometer, or addressed and tested in any way that science uses to know and understand. Even if there really is a God, God is outside the realm of science. God is not knowable via the scientific method, ergo God does not belong in a science classroom.
What's so freaking hard to understand about this? I'm a theistic evolutionist and it's as plain as the noonday sun to me that God is a matter of faith, not of science. When God can be placed under a microscope or seen in a telescope, etc, then let's teach God in a science classroom. Until then, God belongs in religion classes.
This issue continues to astound me as believers prove unable to grasp even the basics of epistemology. -
greendawn
Basically that's what I was trying to tell you, science can't perceive god because it is too rationalistic even in its methodologies.
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kid-A
Basically that's what I was trying to tell you, science can't perceive god because it is too rationalistic even in its methodologies. Are you a scientist, greendawn? Have you ever run a laboratory? Have you ever published a scientific article? Have you ever trained a graduate student? Have you ever applied for a research grant? If not, you have not the slightest clue what you are talking about. My advice, since you have so many problems with the "scientific method", perhaps you should throw away all your electrical appliances, stop using the internet, stop driving a car, stop taking flights, stop taking medicine or consulting doctors when you are ill. Since ALL of these methodologies and technologies are the direct RESULT of the scientific method, and NONE of these phenomena were developed by consulting the bible or praying to some sky-daddy for advice, they are obviously not up to your "holy" standards. Indeed, perhaps you should change into a toga, grab your bible and move into a cave where the evil technologies developed by the evil atheist scientists wont disturb your communal with your sky-buddy.
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Warlock
kid-A,
Do you fill Hot-Air Balloons on your part time job?
You need anger management classes.
Warlock
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gaiagirl
Actually, kid-A makes some very good points. Every single thing which human culture has produced which make our life better than that of the beasts of the field, everything from the clothing we wear to the manner in which we control our local climate so that we don't have to shiver in the cold or sweat in the heat of summer, or worry about where our next meal comes from, came to us because WE figured it out, and NOT because some invisible spirit gave it to us or showed us how to do it.
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FireNBandits
AMEN Gaiagirl! Jesus never went to work for me when I was sick and brought me home a paycheck. People talk about "Jesus gave me a new car" or "Jesus got me a new job!" but when you ask them about it, it turns out that "Jesus" was simply another human being that helped them. "Oh but JESUS was working THRU them!" they'd say. What pap. People do the work but Jesus gets the credit. God makes the disease pathogens but gets credit for a "miracle" when humans finally find a cure. These nincompoops are clueless by choice.
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moshe
Intelligent design advocates need to consider all the extinction events that took place before present life arrived. Was it an accident? If so, then God had nothing to do with the new forms of life that replaced those made extinct. If God was behind the extiction event, then one needs to ask why it happened in the first place. Couldn't modern man just be another intermediate form of life to be replaced by a new and better version of us? T-rex got too big for his britches and maybe the same fate awaits mankind.
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FireNBandits
Greendawn...I just get so tired out inside reading this stuff. I know you mean well so I'm not going to snap at you. Science is empirical. Do you know what that means? I'm not trying to be insulting. There are thousands of words I don't know the meaning of and that's why I try to learn at least one new word a day. They don't always stick in my mind, but I try. To be empirical means to deal with things that can be seen, felt, smelled, touched, tasted, measured, submitted to various tests. That's how humans discovered that diseases are caused by pathogens, not evil spirits. That's what science is and it's why science works. Now, what happens when we mix a Being that can't be empirically tested into science? We lose science by turning it into something else. Science then becomes open to the existence of evil spirits, a god that perhaps made the whole universe just five minutes ago with all of our false memories intact, a universe where dead people jump up and do the Conga. See, Greendawn, no one ever saw a god or a demon, and no one ever saw a stiff get up and dance. You have decided to BELIEVE dead people get up and dance, but you can't bring a stiff to me and raise it up and make it dance. If you could, then we could study it. Then it would become scientific. Instead, all you have is your belief in an old book written by barely literate pre-scientific credulous folks.
This is important because people such as yourself, people who really and truly are unable to see what science is and is not, who cannot see that science "lacks" nothing anymore than a bee "lacks" anything, are going to be the ruin of this country. We're alreadyt near the bottom of the heap academically in science and math (among developed nations) thanks to fundy influence. I don't mind if you privately believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster took a dump and out popped the Invisible Pink Unicorn, who then kicked a divot out of the Heavenly Pasture and it became the universe. That's BELIEF Greendawn, not science. The same with stiffs getting up and flying away into the sky forty days later without an airplane or balloon.
Greendawn, if you were to read about Gotama Buddha flying up into the sky on a giant lotus blossom, would your adult criticial thinking skills allow you to believe such nonsense? I sure hope not. Well, the same principle holds true for all such unverifiable claims of the miraculous. They all happened "long long ago and far far away" or they happened to the brother of a friends cousins sisters nieces best friend who knew some guy who rose from the dead. Do you see? Jeez I wish you people would snap out of it. Yes, life is tough and you need something to hold onto to give you hope. So do I. I believe in God. It's just that I know what science is and if you mix God into it it isn't science anymore. It's superstition and mumbo jumbo.
Back to the bee...the bee fits its ecological niche perfectly. It lacks nothing. Science fits its purpose perfectly. It lacks nothing. It has to exclude invisible and/or unverifiable claims or it's just hokum, the same as Buddha levitating on a giant lotus blossom or Jesus flying off into the sky without an airplane. It's not REPEATABLE and VERIFIABLE via experiemtn or observation. I have creationists ask me how the eye evolved, and how could such a complex organ evolve..blah blah. Well, we can observe the process in reverse. We can OBSERVE the de-evolution of the eye in fish, amphibians, and insects that live deep in caves amid total darkness. The eye devolves thru various stages until all thats left is a light-sensitive patch of skin. There are answers Greendawn, just look. Exercise you mind..and that goes for any believer here.
Anyway, I know I failed, but I tried. Take care Greendawn. Martin out.