RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (Full Version)

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DanJames -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 3:10:56 PM)

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ORIGINAL: gluadys

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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Actually, I think it is the next verse that is most pertinent.
v 22: "Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom," - I did not know Kierkegaard was of Greek ethnicity. Do you have any observational data to support this theory or just asserting it by faith like you assert evolutionary nonsense?



Kierkegaard was Danish. My point was that Paul was speaking of both the Jews and the Greeks looking for an objective ground for believing: the Jews in a sign, the Greeks in wisdom. But as Christians we proclaim our faith in Christ crucified. Kierkegaard wrote primarily in opposition to Hegel and others who tried to systematize faith on an objectively rational basis. He insisted on the primacy of a personal experience of the divine and of faith.

Interestingly, that was also a key point in the evangelical teaching I was exposed to in my youth. So I am often startled when, in forums like these, I see evangelicals straying away from that basis. To me, that is a departure from the most attractive feature and greatest strength of the evangelical movement.


We bow the knee to things that God has said even when they don't make sense. I have faith that Christ's death was sufficient to pay for my sins because God says that it is. This gives me hope for the future. However, it would be difficult for me to have faith at all if it could be systematically proven that such faith is unwarrented. But because God has demonstrated the fact that what He says is true or will become true simply because he said it, we can have faith that what he says is true, even though we can't see it or understand it. Christianity is, therefore, perfectly rational because it is the method that God has said works.



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 3:40:44 PM)

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Interestingly, that was also a key point in the evangelical teaching I was exposed to in my youth. So I am often startled when, in forums like these, I see evangelicals straying away from that basis. To me, that is a departure from the most attractive feature and greatest strength of the evangelical movement.


Ironically, what startles me is the seeming atttempt by Christians in these forums to deny that Christianity has any rational basis at all.



It is not that Christianity has no rational basis. But it has long been a staple of Christian theology that we cannot attain to God by reason alone, unaided by faith and the grace of God. That is basic to Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin and many others.

Given this tradition, I am equally mystified by Christians who think their faith needs to rest on some sort of irrefutable evidence.



Jhud -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 4:19:39 PM)

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It is not that Christianity has no rational basis. But it has long been a staple of Christian theology that we cannot attain to God by reason alone, unaided by faith and the grace of God. That is basic to Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin and many others.

Given this tradition, I am equally mystified by Christians who think their faith needs to rest on some sort of irrefutable evidence.


I have yet to see a single Christian argue here that faith in Christ can be attained by reason alone; and I have been around here a few years and have seen just about every claim one could imagine.



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 4:48:22 PM)

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

I have yet to see a single Christian argue here that faith in Christ can be attained by reason alone;and I have been around here a few years and have seen just about every claim one could imagine.


Then we can avoid knee-jerk reactions that overstate what the other person is saying.



Jhud -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 4:53:00 PM)

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Then we can avoid knee-jerk reactions that overstate what the other person is saying


Like claiming that Christians who are arguing for evidence of the operation of intelligence in the development of life are trying to, "attain to God by reason alone"?



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 4:53:23 PM)

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

We bow the knee to things that God has said even when they don't make sense. I have faith that Christ's death was sufficient to pay for my sins because God says that it is. This gives me hope for the future. However, it would be difficult for me to have faith at all if it could be systematically proven that such faith is unwarrented. But because God has demonstrated the fact that what He says is true or will become true simply because he said it, we can have faith that what he says is true, even though we can't see it or understand it. Christianity is, therefore, perfectly rational because it is the method that God has said works.


RE, the bolded phrase.

Yes, I think one needs to distinguish between faith that transcends reason and faith that is irrational or anti-rational. Faith is not the denial of what we know by reason. But it takes us beyond what can be known by reason alone.



Jhud -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 4:55:21 PM)

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Yes, I think one needs to distinguish between faith that transcends reason and faith that is irrational or anti-rational. Faith is not the denial of what we know by reason. But it takes us beyond what can be known by reason alone.


Certainly.



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 5:04:49 PM)

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Then we can avoid knee-jerk reactions that overstate what the other person is saying


Like claiming that Christians who are arguing for evidence of the operation of intelligence in the development of life are trying to, "attain to God by reason alone"?



It is one thing to argue about the meaning of evidence. What ID seems to do is argue about the existence of evidence. Maybe it needs to find more evidence, or maybe it needs to clarify the parameters of what evidence is.

Perhaps you can clarify something for me. ID comes across to me as needing to find things in nature which appear to be more designed than other things. IOW one needs a contrast between what is designed and what is not. How can this be if all of nature is the work of a designer?

Basically, I don't understand why ID is opposed to evolution. And I mean here, the actual biological science, not philosophical musings on ontological randomness and atheism.



drmark -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 5:25:13 PM)

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How can this be if all of nature is the work of a designer?
Is this some weird form of pantheism, gluadys? Has not God set certain "laws of nature" in place that function consistently under His Sovereign supervision? Right outside my window, I see flowering perennials making their regular appearance. Does God "redesign" all of nature every spring?

BTW and just to be pro-active, neo-Darwinian evolution is NOT a law of nature!

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Basically, I don't understand why ID is opposed to evolution.
Basically, I don't understand your definition of evolution. Or do you evolve it to meet whatever need you have at the time?



Jhud -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 5:27:33 PM)

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It is one thing to argue about the meaning of evidence. What ID seems to do is argue about the existence of evidence. Maybe it needs to find more evidence, or maybe it needs to clarify the parameters of what evidence is.

Perhaps you can clarify something for me. ID comes across to me as needing to find things in nature which appear to be more designed than other things. IOW one needs a contrast between what is designed and what is not. How can this be if all of nature is the work of a designer?


I think firstly, ID simply tries to distinguish between that for which there are definitive indicators of intelligent causation, and those which don't indicate such causation.

For example, imagine a rock in the middle of a path. It could have gotten there because someone intentionally put it there; it might have gotten there as the result of water in a rain storm, or perhaps a nearby mound eroded and it tumbled there. Even if an intelligence did place it there, within the framework in which we observe it, there is no way to know for sure, because the ability to explain it by chance or natural activity is just as likely as the it's placement being the result of an intelligence putting it there.

Now imagine on that same path we come across a group of rocks which are lined up in this pattern:

I WAS HERE

Within the framework where we are making the observation, intelligence is much more probable when considering the possible causes. So both could be equally ‘designed’, that is both could be the product of the intent of an intelligence, but only one bears the detectable earmarks of design.

ID, like all sciences, considers known causes within the framework of the universe; considering causes outside of this framework is limited by our ability to observe, and the possibility that forces outside the universe work differently than they might inside it.

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Basically, I don't understand why ID is opposed to evolution. And I mean here, the actual biological science, not philosophical musings on ontological randomness and atheism.


Actually, what ID disputes is the mechanism of evolution that depends on chance and natural laws alone; it finds them insufficient to explain the systems and structures found in life.



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 6:11:47 PM)

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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How can this be if all of nature is the work of a designer?
Is this some weird form of pantheism, gluadys?
[sm=sadquestion.gif] How did you come up with that?

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Has not God set certain "laws of nature" in place that function consistently under His Sovereign supervision?


I would add, and with his constant sustaining power. I don't see God as an armchair executive. That is too Deistic for me.

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Right outside my window, I see flowering perennials making their regular appearance. Does God "redesign" all of nature every spring?


Well, that is a possibility. After all, this year's perennials are just as much God's creation as last year's, right? In fact, I once saw a little meditation (hardly an authoritative source, I know) that depicted God's constant delight in creation as a constant reiteration to the daisies to "do it again!". Do we know that any daisy blooms without God willing it?

Now, I wouldn't take this too far, myself. It may be a nice conceit to think of God personally willing the blooming of each individual daisy. But logically, that would also lead to God personally willing each individual cancer, and then we have a real problem with theodicy.

So, in steering between the absentee deity of Deism and the total immanency of Pantheism, I don't know that we can say much more than that God is constantly with creation, imparting being and life to all that is and lives. IOW the presence of nature is not the absence of God.


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Basically, I don't understand your definition of evolution.


Evolution is the change in the proportional distribution of alleles in a population over generations.

That's a pretty standard text-book definition of evolution. What about it needs to be explained?



drmark -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 6:22:23 PM)

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Evolution is the change in the proportional distribution of alleles in a population over generations.

That's a pretty standard text-book definition of evolution. What about it needs to be explained?
This certainly will NOT explain common descent of present-day life from the LUCA! And it is NOT a "standard textbook definition" in most high school and lower level college biology texts which I've reviewed. If this is your limited, restricted, and generally meaningless definition of "evolution", then Jack and I have no quarrel with its usage vis-a-vis Intelligent Design theory.



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 6:32:00 PM)

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
I think firstly, ID simply tries to distinguish between that for which there are definitive indicators of intelligent causation, and those which don't indicate such causation.

For example, imagine a rock in the middle of a path. It could have gotten there because someone intentionally put it there; it might have gotten there as the result of water in a rain storm, or perhaps a nearby mound eroded and it tumbled there. Even if an intelligence did place it there, within the framework in which we observe it, there is no way to know for sure, because the ability to explain it by chance or natural activity is just as likely as the it's placement being the result of an intelligence putting it there.

Now imagine on that same path we come across a group of rocks which are lined up in this pattern:

I WAS HERE


The difficulty is that everytime I see this explained, it is always explained in terms of something designed by human intelligence. You note that the rock could have been intentionally placed in the path (as when a person picks it up and puts it there). Then you say it could have been washed there by a storm. But that doesn't leave out intelligence either, if the storm was God's choice of means to move the rock there. So even with the rain storm, or the erosion of a mound, there is no means of ruling that intelligent purpose is absent.

IOW explaining something by chance or natural activity does not exclude a purposeful use of chance or natural activity.

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Actually, what ID disputes is the mechanism of evolution that depends on chance and natural laws alone; it finds them insufficient to explain the systems and structures found in life.


First, I don't think anyone is claiming that we fully understand the mechanisms of evolution. If we find that we need more than mutation and selection to explain evolution, so be it.

But even if we have to revise our understanding of how evolution works, why this insistence that it not fall within the natural realm? That doesn't make sense to me theologically.



drmark -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 7:08:59 PM)

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First, I don't think anyone is claiming that we fully understand the mechanisms of evolution. If we find that we need more than mutation and selection to explain evolution, so be it.
Are you paying any attention to what you're posting, gluadys? In #61 above, you define evolution as "the change in the proportional distribution of alleles in a population over generations." In sexually reproducing organisms, what further explanation is required to fully understand the mechanisms of change. Scientists have known about codons since 1961, double-helix since 1953, chromosomes since 1924, and basic genetic principles since 1860. What more would you like to know about the change in the proportional distribution of alleles in a population over generations? I'm more than confident most any home-schooled Christian teenager could enlighten you!

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But even if we have to revise our understanding of how evolution works, why this insistence that it not fall within the natural realm? That doesn't make sense to me theologically.
This from the very same person (are you schizophrenic?) who also posted in #61 that "I don't know that we can say much more than that God is constantly with creation, imparting being and life to all that is and lives." Does this sound schizophrenic to anyone else besides me?



ManimalX -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 8:19:46 PM)

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and with his constant sustaining power.


Amen to that. It is written that in Him all things hold together, and that is an important point. God didn't wind up the watch and leave it alone. Rather, there is no thing or process of creation that happens outside of His sustaining power.

That being said, can you imagine the foul taste in God's mouth every day that He has to suffer the taint of sin that pervades everything in creation? It amazes me each day that passes without final judgment.



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 9:14:52 PM)

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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First, I don't think anyone is claiming that we fully understand the mechanisms of evolution. If we find that we need more than mutation and selection to explain evolution, so be it.
Are you paying any attention to what you're posting, gluadys? In #61 above, you define evolution as "the change in the proportional distribution of alleles in a population over generations." In sexually reproducing organisms, what further explanation is required to fully understand the mechanisms of change.



Actually that definition would apply to asexually reproducing organisms as well. The possible problem is the definition of allele. An allele is one of two or more polymorphic genes. Since we are now discovering that much variation is not due to variations in coding genes, but in the DNA sequences which regulate the expression of these genes, that definition may need to be somewhat revised to include regulatory mechanisms as well as alleles.



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What more would you like to know about the change in the proportional distribution of alleles in a population over generations?


That is the question I was posing to you since you said you did not understand my definition of evolution. Are you saying you do understand this?

If so, I assume your problem is not with the process of evolution but with the alleged history of evolution i.e. with the phylogeny of common descent. Is that what you would prefer to discuss?

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But even if we have to revise our understanding of how evolution works, why this insistence that it not fall within the natural realm? That doesn't make sense to me theologically.
This from the very same person (are you schizophrenic?) who also posted in #61 that "I don't know that we can say much more than that God is constantly with creation, imparting being and life to all that is and lives." Does this sound schizophrenic to anyone else besides me?


Apparently not.



drmark -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 9:31:14 PM)

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That is the question I was posing to you since you said you did not understand my definition of evolution. Are you saying you do understand this?

If so, I assume your problem is not with the process of evolution but with the alleged history of evolution i.e. with the phylogeny of common descent. Is that what you would prefer to discuss?
I'm sorry, gluadys, see if you can find someone else with whom to play your mindless word games.



drj11 -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 11:25:28 PM)

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ORIGINAL: drmark

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First, I don't think anyone is claiming that we fully understand the mechanisms of evolution. If we find that we need more than mutation and selection to explain evolution, so be it.
Are you paying any attention to what you're posting, gluadys? In #61 above, you define evolution as "the change in the proportional distribution of alleles in a population over generations." In sexually reproducing organisms, what further explanation is required to fully understand the mechanisms of change. Scientists have known about codons since 1961, double-helix since 1953, chromosomes since 1924, and basic genetic principles since 1860. What more would you like to know about the change in the proportional distribution of alleles in a population over generations? I'm more than confident most any home-schooled Christian teenager could enlighten you!

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But even if we have to revise our understanding of how evolution works, why this insistence that it not fall within the natural realm? That doesn't make sense to me theologically.


This from the very same person (are you schizophrenic?) who also posted in #61 that "I don't know that we can say much more than that God is constantly with creation, imparting being and life to all that is and lives." Does this sound schizophrenic to anyone else besides me?


Your literalist viewpoint once again misleads you drmark. For once, entertain the idea that the creation story isn't literal... have enough humility to entertain the idea you might just be wrong.



Jhud -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/9/2008 11:55:43 PM)

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The difficulty is that everytime I see this explained, it is always explained in terms of something designed by human intelligence. You note that the rock could have been intentionally placed in the path (as when a person picks it up and puts it there). Then you say it could have been washed there by a storm. But that doesn't leave out intelligence either, if the storm was God's choice of means to move the rock there. So even with the rain storm, or the erosion of a mound, there is no means of ruling that intelligent purpose is absent.

IOW explaining something by chance or natural activity does not exclude a purposeful use of chance or natural activity.


It’s not meant to rule out intelligent activity, only detect it when certain indicators are present. Intelligence can emulate nature, but nature cannot emulate intelligence.

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First, I don't think anyone is claiming that we fully understand the mechanisms of evolution. If we find that we need more than mutation and selection to explain evolution, so be it.

But even if we have to revise our understanding of how evolution works, why this insistence that it not fall within the natural realm? That doesn't make sense to me theologically.


I don’t think there is any problem with considering it ‘within the natural realm’, provided one acknowledges intelligence as acting within nature.



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/10/2008 12:35:29 AM)

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
It’s not meant to rule out intelligent activity, only detect it when certain indicators are present. Intelligence can emulate nature, but nature cannot emulate intelligence.

I don’t think there is any problem with considering it ‘within the natural realm’, provided one acknowledges intelligence as acting within nature.


I think this is the first time I have seen a supporter of ID take this position. I have no problem acknowledging that intelligence acts within nature. It is the notion that it can only be seen outside the framework of nature that has always bothered me.

But that brings me back again to the question of why attack evolution? Assuming that evolution is an example of intelligence acting in nature, what is the problem?



Jhud -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/10/2008 12:40:08 AM)

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I think this is the first time I have seen a supporter of ID take this position. I have no problem acknowledging that intelligence acts within nature. It is the notion that it can only be seen outside the framework of nature that has always bothered me.

But that brings me back again to the question of why attack evolution? Assuming that evolution is an example of intelligence acting in nature, what is the problem?


Well, as I have said, it is the mechanisms of evolution that IDists find insufficient.



gluadys -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/10/2008 7:45:59 AM)

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I think this is the first time I have seen a supporter of ID take this position. I have no problem acknowledging that intelligence acts within nature. It is the notion that it can only be seen outside the framework of nature that has always bothered me.

But that brings me back again to the question of why attack evolution? Assuming that evolution is an example of intelligence acting in nature, what is the problem?


Well, as I have said, it is the mechanisms of evolution that IDists find insufficient.


Earlier, however, you qualified that as mechanisms working by chance and natural laws alone. If there is no such thing as chance and natural law working alone, but rather intelligence working in and through them, what makes the mechanisms insufficient? How do we know they are insufficient and not just insufficiently understood?



drmark -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/10/2008 2:06:34 PM)

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For once, entertain the idea that the creation story isn't literal... have enough humility to entertain the idea you might just be wrong.
For the last time, drj, the "creation story" is the historical, narrative account of the origins of the universe by the only Eyewitness to the event. This fact is clear from the original language, context, and purpose of the document. It is supported by 3000 years of tradition. It makes sense because never once has any scientific fact been found to contradict the Genesis account. And finally, I personally believe its authority, inerrancy, and literalness because I believe in an authoritative, inerrant, and literal Triune God! Do you have enough "humility" to admit that?



DanJames -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/10/2008 3:48:31 PM)

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ORIGINAL: gluadys

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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I think this is the first time I have seen a supporter of ID take this position. I have no problem acknowledging that intelligence acts within nature. It is the notion that it can only be seen outside the framework of nature that has always bothered me.

But that brings me back again to the question of why attack evolution? Assuming that evolution is an example of intelligence acting in nature, what is the problem?


Well, as I have said, it is the mechanisms of evolution that IDists find insufficient.


Earlier, however, you qualified that as mechanisms working by chance and natural laws alone. If there is no such thing as chance and natural law working alone, but rather intelligence working in and through them, what makes the mechanisms insufficient? How do we know they are insufficient and not just insufficiently understood?


I think a huge point was missed in that we aren't talking about things that look like they came into existence through natural laws alone. Jhud had mentioned the rocks that spelled out, "I WAS HERE". Those rocks could have been place there through a supreme intelligence making use of "natural" causes like a whirlwind during a thunderstorm or a person placing them there by hand. Yet no fool would say that they were placed there through chance and nature alone no matter how long you gave them to arrange themselves. So the point is that, while a designer could have used nature, nature could not have done it alone.



Veritas -> RE: Mass Extinction and the nature of God. (5/10/2008 5:41:49 PM)

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

Well, as I have said, it is the mechanisms of evolution that IDists find insufficient.

Since ID has no mechanisms to replace the mechanisms that the prroponents consider insufficient, ID is merely God-of-the-gaps repackaged.



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