MEETING DAVE MATTHEWS

[dmfollower]

Oh yeah and to ANYONE refrencing Darwin and Evolution together: FACT: DARWIN WITHDREW ALL THE THINGS HE SAID ON HIS DEATH BED![/quote]


actually, darwin went on to become a pastor as well. kind of screws up the whole idea of evolution being a true fact.

[gravedigger]

actually, darwin went on to become a pastor as well. kind of screws up the whole idea of evolution being a true fact.

How so?

[ticohans]

this is more for skizzalot than anyone else really.

skiz, I am a diehard christian, and have been so since birth. I have a real, alive, and vibrant relationship with Jesus.

Now that being said, I want to say something about the Bible, I believe that it is 100% inspired by God. However, to say it is infallible in the sense in which you use the term is a little difficult. There have been many additions and subtractions from the original text. We have ancient manuscripts with different words in different places. Punctuation and the like have been completely changed: in the original scrolls, the pentateuch is written without punctuation at all. All verse and chapter headings and stuff have been added. And this is all the innocuous stuff. There are several other things in Bible that have backgrounds that are potentially much darker. In various places in Paul's epistles, there are verses and sections where it seems that things have been ADDED, as the certain portions do not fit the context in which they are found, and the original greek used is very different to Paul's. I believe that in it's original form, the document was pure, but I also believe that the texts that make up the Bible have been in the dirty hands of man for millenia, and that we can tarnish things. And so so so much is lost in translation. That does not mean that the Bible is irrelevant or somehow less powerful or meaningful; the Bible is the most historically accurate document that has ever been found.

About evolution, I don't really believe one way or another. I don't think God's creative power is denied in evolution, as the evolutionary process requires just as much direction as the traditional spoken word creation. I also think that to read all of Genesis as literal is silly. Read the first two chapters of Genesis. There are two completely different and TOTALLY contradictory creation stories. I have never heard a coherent argument as to how one can read at least the beginning of Genesis literally in light of such blatant contradiction. Now, this does NOT make the Bible untrue, or false. The narrative creation stories at least are almost definitely metaphorical, as is evidenced by the contradiction, among MANY other things. But there are different kinds of truth. Truth can be expressed in poetry just as well as in an encyclopedia.

And now I have to run off to class, or else I would have posted more, but I guess I'll start with this.

[gravedigger]

Very interesting points. I know pretty much nothing about the Bible, although I'm technically a Christian. I know much more about science, so my arguments are going to defend the evolutionary theory. No one really knows or will ever really know. I can just don't like when people try to disprove scientific fact by some ridiculously radical idea.

peace,
Ken

[MattyTrane]

i go to catholic school and they basically tell us that the church is cool with evolutions theory, as long as you give God props for it.

[gravedigger]

right. nothing more really has to be said, imo.

[ticohans]

about evolution, that it occurs on some level is a fact. there is evidence for it left and right, and i'm not talking about fossils, i'm talking about species of moths in england whose color changed during the industrial revolution so as to better match their surroundings. that's just one example off the top of my head. interspecies evolution is MUCH more complex and sticky, although biologically it's a decently sound theory. but by no means is it irrefutable. now, if you get into bio-chemical evolution, things get VERY sticky for traditional science. there are several gaps that look unbridgeable, at least for now. Public US high school really teaches evolution wrong, at least most of them. Either they bash it and try to make creationism a science, like in the south (which is absolutely REDICULOUS!!!) or they pretend that it's irrefutable. I don't see why people try to say that religion and science are irreconciliable. For me, they make beautiful partners.

And about Biblical interpretation stuff, if you look at church history, it is only in the last 150 years or so that the literal reading of Genesis stuff has become popular. Before then it was almost universally read as metaphor. How this detracts from God I fail to see.

[ticohans]

and about the Darwin stuff, he did actually deny it on his bed, but that does nothing to diminish it in my mind. How do we know that denial wasn't made in some dying swoon, when his reasoning was suspended. And even if he did mean it, Darwin made some solid contributions to biology. As others have posted, evolution is in no way exclusive of God.

[gravedigger]

and about the Darwin stuff, he did actually deny it on his bed, but that does nothing to diminish it in my mind. How do we know that denial wasn't made in some dying swoon, when his reasoning was suspended. And even if he did mean it, Darwin made some solid contributions to biology. As others have posted, evolution is in no way exclusive of God.

what did Darwin say on his death bed, something like this:

"everything that I have shown, all the data I have collected and everything I accomplished, doesn't actually exist.......*croak*"

come on now. Creationism is an insult to science and should be ended.

[skiizalot]

Very interesting points. I know pretty much nothing about the Bible, although I'm technically a Christian. I know much more about science, so my arguments are going to defend the evolutionary theory. No one really knows or will ever really know. I can just don't like when people try to disprove scientific fact by some ridiculously radical idea.

peace,
Ken

Ken, are you suggesting that I have tried to disprove scientific fact with ridiculously radical ideas? I think that I have proved exactly what I set out to do. Evolution takes as much faith as Christianity. The very nature of a Theory makes it void of Scientific fact. The scientific facts you say so support Evolution are arguable scientificly and that sort of puts them into the realm of opinion. For instance, it is your opinion that life is billions of years old based on the scientific fact that the world is 4.85 billion years old as supported by Potassium Argon dating. The reason that it is not a fact that life is that old is that you can't use Potassium Argon dating on fossils and only on rock. Perhaps we should turn this discussion into a debate and require that all posts have references.

[skiizalot]

about evolution, that it occurs on some level is a fact. there is evidence for it left and right, and i'm not talking about fossils, i'm talking about species of moths in england whose color changed during the industrial revolution so as to better match their surroundings. that's just one example off the top of my head. interspecies evolution is MUCH more complex and sticky, although biologically it's a decently sound theory. but by no means is it irrefutable. now, if you get into bio-chemical evolution, things get VERY sticky for traditional science. there are several gaps that look unbridgeable, at least for now. Public US high school really teaches evolution wrong, at least most of them. Either they bash it and try to make creationism a science, like in the south (which is absolutely REDICULOUS!!!) or they pretend that it's irrefutable. I don't see why people try to say that religion and science are irreconciliable. For me, they make beautiful partners.

And about Biblical interpretation stuff, if you look at church history, it is only in the last 150 years or so that the literal reading of Genesis stuff has become popular. Before then it was almost universally read as metaphor. How this detracts from God I fail to see.

Evolution in a nut shell is: Big Bang = Billions of years of random particle collision = abiogenisis = 3 more billion years = plants animals go from simple single cell organisms to multiple complex species. Survival of the fittest and adaptation of the species is an obvious, observable fact in nature. But, it is not part of the theory of evolution, or at least it is not the part that I have a problem with. My problem with Evolution is the Fact that the Second law of thermodynamics says Evolution can’t happen because the quality of energy and matter in the universe is degrading irreversibly. This second law can be proven scientifically while Evolution can’t or it would cease being a theory and become a Law of Science and not just a Theory.

I am not trying to make Creationism a science. The very nature of science prevents that. I feel that, since it is a question of faith, my faith is best used when placed upon the idea of a Creator and not on random chance. I think that integration of science and Christianity is very important. Christians go to doctors after all. They use holistic and modern pharmaceutical medicine. They even rely on dating provided by carbon 14 to determine the age of many of their holy manuscripts. They make beautiful partners in my mind.

[ticohans]

skiz, evolutionary theory makes no claims about the origins of the universe, nor does it go anywhere beyond our planet. evolutionary theory is only concerned with life on earth.

and you can't say that because the second law of thermodynamics exists, that evolution is neccessarily false. the second law of thermodynamics deal with energy, not with biological systems. I'll go into this more when I have time. Paper writing is no fun.

[ticohans]

and what do you have to say about the mulitple creation stories and the issue of a literal reading of genesis??

[crimsonPhantom]

hey...hum its about God being perfect and all......i dont believe that....to me it seems humans as given this status to god...

Emptiness here, Emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before our eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with Being and non-Being. Don't waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this. One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

thats taoism guys.....and thats where my faith is...

and heres a little story that tells how much religion has been distorted:

Imagine that we are sitting here talking of religions and that the maid Masha hears our conversation. She, of course, understands it in her own way and she repeats what she has understood to the porter Ivan. The porter Ivan again understands it in his own way and he repeats what he has understood to the coachman Peter next door. The coachman Peter goes to the country and recounts in the village what the gentry talk about in town. Do you think that what he recounts will at all resemble what we said? This is precisely the relation between existing religions and that which was their basis. You get teachings, traditions, prayers, rites, not at fifth but at twenty-fifth hand, and, of course, almost everything has been distorted beyond recognition and everything essential forgotten long ago.

[gravedigger]

My problem with Evolution is the Fact that the Second law of thermodynamics says Evolution can’t happen because the quality of energy and matter in the universe is degrading irreversibly

Where did you find that definition for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - that the quality (:?) of energy and matter is degrading irreversibly. The law simply says that the disorder of the Universe is always increasing. This defends evolution, if anything. The more complex the world is getting all the time. It's easy to categorize things and create the illusion of order, but really it's getting more disorderly. how many species of animals existed a billion years ago, for example, compared to now??