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If you actually understood Darwin, you would never have asked that question.
There it is, that inferiority complex.
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There are always other possible ideas or theories. But there is often only one best theory.
Unless you allow that other ideas and theories may have possibilities how can you expand your mind? How will the world move on with better understandings, ideas, theories?
Even if there were only one fossil that supported the theory of evolution rather than the millions of them, that would be more concrete evidence than you've offered to support the existence of a creator. The argument that a creator MUST exist is not an argument. It's an assertion. A creator MUST exist because something had to create the universe? What you are saying is that "A" must exist because "B" exists. But that's not true. "B" can exist whether "A" exists or not. And if you introduce causality into the relationship between "A" and "B", then you cannot dismiss the question of causality between a "pre-A" and "A". If "A" can exist without causality, then "B" can exist without causality, unless you can proffer some hard evidence that "B" cannot exist without causality. You can cite the laws of thermodynamics ad nauseum, and yet they don't support your argument because they don't put forth any hard evidence that "B" cannot exist without causality. The laws of science describe the world around us as it is today. And science has gaps. Our understanding of our world, or our universe, is incomplete. As humans, we endeavor to fill in those gaps, to make our understanding of the universe more complete. For many people, part of that understanding involves a god. Each of us see the world around us in a subjective way, and the belief in a god is subjective. Science strives to be objective. Yes, it fails. Science is a methodology practice by humans, by subjective humans who cannot escape their own personal perspectives, but the methodology itself is not subjective. (Except a lot of scientists are somewhat elitists, and look down on certain disciplines. Humans, huh? Always trying to best one another.)
Exactly, the assertion of what the cause is without supporting evidence or logic is the issue not the claim that a cause is present. That coupled with a selective bias regarding how to apply that use of causality creates both an Assertive Fallacy (in the claim that God is the only logical cause) and a Straw Man Fallacy (the focusing of causality regarding B to the exclusion of it being applied to A) trending into False Cause (B follows A thus A must have caused B) resulting in a highly circular and biased argument that fails to actually prove its premise.
I don't have an issue with Calvinist's faith. None of us know for certain whether God exists or whether God does not exist, and none of us are so perfect or so intelligent that we can always defend our beliefs with perfect logic. I find Calvinist's logic at fault in this discussion, but that does not mean that I do not respect Calvinist's beliefs. We, all of us, have a need for comfort, and find ways to meet that need in a very personal, very subjective way. There are far worse ways to meet that need than to turn to religion, to any religion, or to spirituality, or to the beat of an inner drummer.
As a matter of integrity I feel that I have to challenge people when I find their arguments faulty. But it is also a matter of integrity to respect the people I meet along my way, and to try to understand the world from different perspective than my own.
I just wanted to say that, because I think some posters try to belittle the people they disagree with, and I do that too, I need to do better, I know. But I think just the fact that people care enough to argue and debate and even to share deeply personal beliefs is a good thing.
I don't have an issue with Calvinist's faith. None of us know for certain whether God exists or whether God does not exist, and none of us are so perfect or so intelligent that we can always defend our beliefs with perfect logic. I find Calvinist's logic at fault in this discussion, but that does not mean that I do not respect Calvinist's beliefs. We, all of us, have a need for comfort, and find ways to meet that need in a very personal, very subjective way. There are far worse ways to meet that need than to turn to religion, to any religion, or to spirituality, or to the beat of an inner drummer.
As a matter of integrity I feel that I have to challenge people when I find their arguments faulty. But it is also a matter of integrity to respect the people I meet along my way, and to try to understand the world from different perspective than my own.
I just wanted to say that, because I think some posters try to belittle the people they disagree with, and I do that too, I need to do better, I know. But I think just the fact that people care enough to argue and debate and even to share deeply personal beliefs is a good thing.
You are projecting. It requires no inferiority complex to realize that your rhetorical opponent has no idea what they are talking about.
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Originally Posted by TRUEGRITT
Unless you allow that other ideas and theories may have possibilities how can you expand your mind?
Where have I disallowed the possible? I have only rejected the known false.
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Originally Posted by TRUEGRITT
How will the world move on with better understandings, ideas, theories?
By refining the best theories and in that way incrementally approaching objective truth. Willfully embracing known falsehood neither expands the mind nor engenders progress.
I do not think anyone here has issue with the faith of belief of others, at least I would hope they do not.
However when one presents their faith, belief, or ideology as an argument or implies it is somehow more valid or factual than that of someone else that can trend to hostility which is what I think some are resorting to (which is where I feel insults aimed at both those who are pro or anti creationism come from)
The issue is not the idea, not the faith... the issue is the argument.
There is no logic for teaching Ideology as science in a school curriculum because it lacks the supporting evidence needed to teach via the progression and illustration of standard scientific process. I doubt anyone thinks there was no cause for the universe or life, but for it to be included in a science class we have to be able to show, illustrate, quantify, and prove it via scientific method... and we can not test belief or faith.
In short... Creationism is not science and thus trying to teach it as part of science reveals several issues with how to present it according to how we teach science (by the scientific method and citation of evidence). Evolution is the other side of the coin, we do have evidence supporting adaptation and we can even look at local variants of a given species to see its adaptations to its environment.
There is no need to belittle either side, but there is a need for clear and logical arguments for either sides claims or proposals.... and that is what I am addressing personally. I see a flawed or fallacious argument I am prone to pointing out the flaw and explaining why it does not prove a point. Nothing more, nothing less.
You are projecting. It requires no inferiority complex to realize that your rhetorical opponent has no idea what they are talking about.
I understand, you just can't help yourself.
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Where have I disallowed the possible?
(God)
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I have only rejected the known false.
Who's known false, yours or theirs?
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By refining the best theories and in that way incrementally approaching objective truth. Willfully embracing known falsehood neither expands the mind nor engenders progress.
I know that there have been many theories that were thought to be false or even outright crazy early on but are accepted today.
Science is all about disproving its own theories. If it can be done, then scientific consensus shifts. It's not like they're sitting around, content with their pronouncements like religious people.
Precisely.
Creationists seem to forget that Creationism is not some new theory attempting to storm some bastion of entrenched scientific orthodoxy. For thousands of years it was the reigning paradigm for explaining the origin and diversity of life on earth. Until Darwin, all the great naturalists, biologists and geologists were creationists. The geologic column itself was assembled by brilliant creationists like Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick. But because they were also great scientists, they were not held back from establishing the basis for our understanding of deep time, an understanding that ultimately set the stage for the collapse of creationism as a scientific explanation for our universe and the things that live within it.
Creationism was eventually abandoned because it there was a better theory to replace it. One that explained more facts, that explained them more simply and elegantly, and that actually proved to fruitfully generate new areas of study... something creationism had not managed in multiple centuries.
In short, creationism is not rejected out of hand, it simply and comprehensively lost the intellectual debate a hundred and fifty years ago. And so it was deposited in the ash can of discredited scientific ideas along with orgone energy, phlogiston and the luminiferous aether.
Last edited by HistorianDude; 06-21-2011 at 04:37 PM..
Jefferson also impregnated a slave, does that mean everything Jefferson says or does is right?
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