[__ Science __ ] Study: Only 37% of American Pastors Have a Biblical Worldview

[Paul E. Michael]

Evolution is a fact, because it is directly observed.

As you see, your slogan, "Evolution is a fact," is not a fact, but is, rather, a falsehood.

No, that's wrong.

No, it's right.

Since it is directly observed, it's a fact.

No, that's wrong, since it's not a fact.

Hard to explain dictionaries, then. I think we're getting close to identifying your difficulties.

The fact that words don't mean things, and that only persons mean things by means of words makes it hard for you to explain dictionaries? Why are you projecting your difficulties onto me?

Can you please explain how the fact that words don't mean things, and that only persons mean things by words makes it hard for you to explain dictionaries? Or is that, also, hard for you to explain?

For example, "20 mm socket" is a specific thing.

Yeah. "20 mm socket" is a phrase. Every phrase is a thing; or, to be redundant, every phrase is a specific thing. The phrase, "20 mm socket," is a specific thing.

"Tool" is a non-specific thing.

"Tool" is a word. Every word is a thing; or, to be redundant, every word is a specific thing. The word, "tool," is a specific thing. The word, "tool," is what you specified by putting quotes around "tool," when you wrote "'Tool' is a non-specific thing."

As you might be now thinking, "specific" is a relative term.

What do you mean by that? "Specific" is an adjective. Since you say that the adjective, "specific," "is a relative term," what are you saying that adjective is relative to?

Hence "can you be more specific?"

"Can you be more specific?" = "Can you give additional specification?" No?

 

[Paul E. Michael]

They are the foundation for the entire theory of evolution! Of course they are meaningful.

What is your "foundation" for your claim that they are meaningful?

 

[T. E. Smith]

What is your "foundation" for your claim that they are meaningful?

Very simple.

1) Darwin made them foundational.
2) Without them, the entire theory of evolution falls apart.
3) Every professor of evolution will affirm that they are the foundation of evolution.

 

[Barbarian]

As you see, your slogan, "Evolution is a fact," is not a fact, but is, rather, a falsehood.

Sorry, we see that constantly. Remember that evolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population. There's really no point in denying the fact.

(assertion that words don't mean things)

Hard to explain dictionaries, then. I think we're getting close to identifying your difficulties.

The fact that words don't mean things, and that only persons mean things by means of words makes it hard for you to explain dictionaries?

See above. Your failure to understand what "evolution" means in biology just tripped you up, again.

(regarding specificity) For example, "20 mm socket" is a specific thing. "Tool" is a nonspecific thing. These describe real stuff in the world, and one is more specific than the other. You're having difficulty connecting the real with the words people use to describe the real. This, I think, is a large part of why understanding evolution and how it works is so difficult for you.

"Specific" is a relative term.

What do you mean by that?

Some things are more specific than others.

I notice you again forgot to tell us which of Darwin's four points are not confirmed by evidence. Do you think you'll be able to do that, soon? I'm guessing that you've now realized that all of his points have been repeatedly confirmed by evidence.

1. More organisms are always born than can survive long enough to reproduce. This is obviously true; if you doubt it, I'm sure anyone here can show you.

2. Every organism differs slightly from it's parents. Genetics quickly established this fact in a precise way. Even identical twins are slightly different genetically, due to mutations in utero.

3. Some of these mutations affect the likelihood of an organism living long enough to reproduce. And yes, it depends on environment, as to how useful or harmful a mutation will be. This is easily shown.

4. Useful ones tend to increase in the population and harmful ones tend to be lost; this process leads to speciation.

Even most creationist organizations now admit the fact of speciation. They just don't want to call it "evolution"; the scientific definition of evolution is something they avoid religiously.

Since you've been unable to show that even one of Darwin's points is not supported by evidence, we'll move on to the actual evidence for evolution. Next post.

 

[T. E. Smith]

Since you've been unable to show that even one of Darwin's points is not supported by evidence, we'll move on to the actual evidence for evolution.

He is just playing word games to avoid the real issue.

 

[miamited]

Hi all,

This discussion sounds fairly contentious. Personally, I would think that a biblical worldview would understand and accept the full power and majesty, and most importantly as regards this thread, ability of the God revealed within the pages of Scripture.

Yes, science is a reasonable practice, but it has its limitations. One of the misunderstandings that I believe many have of science is the difference between its ability to 'prove' something, and what it means and can accomplish through a theoretical perspective. Most claims of science as regards issues of the long past are always going to be theoretical because we can't actually prove the things that are claimed to be theoretically devised.

Science has been proven to be wrong about a lot of such claims. From time to time we will read of scientific studies that once 'proved' a certain operation to bring about a result, refuted by newer study, and 'now' we find that there is some other operation that brought about the result. It happens quite a lot in scientific studies and understandings of these things that we can't really prove, but must accept based on the preponderance of known information.

For the record, and it's not my intention to get into endless debate and argument over the issue, I'm a YEC. I fully believe and am confidently convinced that we live in a realm created by a Creator for His good purposes. That somewhere approximately 6,000 years ago, as man tells time, this Creator spoke into existence a heavenly body that He called the earth. That in the moment that the earth came to exist, standing solitary in the vast expanse of the black, inky area of what we call the universe, it was immediately spinning on its axis pretty much as it still does to this day. That the spinning of the earth on its axis is what marks the passing of days, just as it still does to this day.

Over the next 4 days (rotations of the earth), this Creator worked with and built a realm of His perfect and wise design, that was going to sustain the life of a new creature that was always His intention to create from the moment He stepped into the black, inky vastness of the universe and declared, "Let there be light!" Once this created realm of life, and keep in mind that this Creator claims to have done the same thing with the angelic realm, He made man. He fashioned him, just as He did with the animals, out of the dust (dirt) of the ground. He then fashioned the woman also out of the dust of the ground. He then prepared for them a special spot upon the face of the earth which He called Eden, and set loose a realm of life that has continued just as the Scriptures tell us, to this day in which we live.

Now, I fully understand that there are those who disagree with this assessment of 'how' you and I got to be here in the month of June, on the ninth day, of the accounted year of 2022. But just to confirm to all and any who may be interested, I fully believe and affirm that if a man had been standing wherever they are today 7,000 years in the past, they would have been standing in a totally black darkness of nothingness. There would not have been any stars, planets, asteroids or comets over their head. There would not have been anything solid for them to set their feet upon. They would have been just hanging amid a great and unsearchable space of nothingness. Then, if they were able to continue dangling in that space, one day, there would suddenly be the planet earth just pop up out of nothing and over the next 150 hours or so, they would have watched all of the objects that this great and powerful and majestic Creator set in place as He built a realm of existence for his Magnum Opus...mankind.

Finally, I also believe that in time, when we are all at the point where God is ready to sweep those who love Him into the eternal existence, we will see, with our own eyes, this great and awesome and powerful Creator do it all again. For God's testimony declares:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

He's going to do it again and we will all stand in awe as He merely creates another realm of existence for those who love Him, in a matter of mere moments.

God bless,
Ted

 

[T. E. Smith]

Science has been proven to be wrong about a lot of such claims. From time to time we will read of scientific studies that once 'proved' a certain operation to bring about a result, refuted by newer study, and 'now' we find that there is some other operation that brought about the result. It happens quite a lot in scientific studies and understandings of these things that we can't really prove, but must accept based on the preponderance of known information.

Science evolves. That is what it is designed to do, as our knowledge of the universe improves. On the other hand, faith remains inert and cannot adapt to new information.

 

[miamited]

Science evolves. That is what it is designed to do, as our knowledge of the universe improves. On the other hand, faith remains inert and cannot adapt to new information.

Hi T. E. Smith

I rather agree with what you've written. It is this 'evolving' of science, that for a time proves and confirms one thing and then later proves and confirms another, that makes it untrustworthy to me, in such matters of the past and 'how' we got to be where we are.

God bless,
Ted

 

[T. E. Smith]

Hi T. E. Smith

I rather agree with what you've written. It is this 'evolving' of science, that for a time proves and confirms one thing and then later proves and confirms another, that makes it untrustworthy to me, in such matters of the past and 'how' we got to be where we are.

God bless,
Ted

Our ignorance of the world is great, and science, imperfect as it is, is all we have.

 

[Barbarian]

For the record, and it's not my intention to get into endless debate and argument over the issue, I'm a YEC.

Fortunately, our salvation doesn't depend on which side of that, we are on, unless we make an idol of our own understanding and demand that other Christians must believe it our way.

YE creationists are no less Christian than the rest of us.

I rather agree with what you've written. It is this 'evolving' of science, that for a time proves and confirms one thing and then later proves and confirms another, that makes it untrustworthy to me, in such matters of the past and 'how' we got to be where we are.

Seems to me that people's idea Christianity has evolved more than science. YE, for example, is a major revision to Christian believe, no older than the last century. On the other hand, the concept of biological evolution is well over 2000 years old.

 

[T. E. Smith]

On the other hand, the concept of biological evolution is well over 2000 years old.

Are you referring to what animal breeders and herdsman have known for a very long time?

 

[Paul E. Michael]

Very simple.

1) Darwin made them foundational.
2) Without them, the entire theory of evolution falls apart.
3) Every professor of evolution will affirm that they are the foundation of evolution.

IOW, you have no foundation for your claim that they are meaningful. Instead, you're merely foundationlessly claiming, in concert with Darwin, Barbarian, and all your revered "professors of evolution," and all Darwinism hucksters everywhere, that they are meaningful. Sorry, but the fact that, as you just pointed out, you all chant that claim in unison, provides you with no foundation for that claim.

 

[T. E. Smith]

IOW, you have no foundation for your claim that they are meaningful. Instead, you're merely foundationlessly claiming, in concert with Darwin, Barbarian, and all your revered "professors of evolution," and all Darwinism hucksters everywhere, that they are meaningful. Sorry, but the fact that, as you just pointed out, you all chant that claim in unison, provides you with no foundation for that claim.

How can evolution possibly function without them?

 

[Barbarian]

Are you referring to what animal breeders and herdsman have known for a very long time?

That, and the conclusions of people like Anaximander, Thales, Lucretius, Empodicles, St. Augustine, etc. that some form of evolution must have occurred.

Darwin did not discover evolution, which had been realized for a long time. He explained why it happens as it does.

 

[Paul E. Michael]

How can evolution possibly function without them?

Oh, yeah...I see your point. Indeed, how could even one, or more, of the slithy toves possibly gyre and/or gimbel in the wabe without the borograks being all, or at least almost all, mimzy?

See, it's all your (Darwinists') problem that you can't get your gobbledygook, your Darwinismspeak (what you are referring to by your word, "evolution"), to function.

How can scrimoitulation function without Quenton's six points of scrimoitulationary theory?

 

[T. E. Smith]

Lucretius

Loved his book. Brilliant philosopher.

Oh, yeah...I see your point. Indeed, how could even one, or more, of the slithy toves possibly gyre and/or gimbel in the wabe without the borograks being all, or at least almost all, mimzy?

See, it's all your (Darwinists') problem that you can't get your gobbledygook, your Darwinismspeak (what you are referring to by your word, "evolution"), to function.

How can scrimoitulation function without Quenton's six points of scrimoitulationary theory?

This is not worthy of even a second look, let alone a reply.

 

[Barbarian]

So I guess Paul's not going to tell us which of Darwin's points-
1. More organisms are always born than can survive long enough to reproduce.

2. Every organism differs slightly from it's parents.

3. Some of these mutations affect the likelihood of an organism living long enough to reproduce.

4. Useful ones tend to increase in the population and harmful ones tend to be lost; this process leads to speciation.

-are not supported by evidence. I suspect that he doesn't know. (Spoiler alert: all of them are supported by evidence)

 

[Paul E. Michael]

This is not worthy of even a second look, let alone a reply.

Then why'd you reply?

Why do you not also contemptuously call your obvious nonsense, all your mindless Darwinistspeak that you and Barbarian have been trying to hand me, "not worthy of even a second look, let alone a reply"? Instead, because of your hypocrisy, you expect your cherished nonsense to be taken seriously.

 

[Barbarian]

Why do you not also contemptuously call your obvious nonsense, all your mindless Darwinistspeak that you and Barbarian have been trying to hand me, "not worthy of even a second look, let alone a reply"?

As everyone can see, Darwin's four points are rather plainly and clearly set out. And yet, for whatever reason, you're unable to show that even one of them is not well-supported by evidence. Do you think no one has noticed?

 

[Paul E. Michael]

(Spoiler alert: all of them are supported by evidence)

What benefit do you imagine you get out of telling people that things you say "are supported by evidence," seeing as you like to call both falsehood and nonsense, "evidence"? You've already demonstrated that you cannot, or will not, use the word, "evidence," in a rational way, so why would any rationally-thinking person ever take you seriously when you call your Darwinistspeak, "evidence," and when you say that your Darwinistspeak is "supported by evidence"?

All you're accomplishing is that you are telling me that some nonsense and falsehood you like to chant is "supported by" some falsehood and nonsense you like to chant.

As everyone can see, Darwin's four points are rather plainly and clearly set out. And yet, for whatever reason, you're unable to show that even one of them is not well-supported by evidence. Do you think no one has noticed?

As everyone can see, you've rather plainly and clearly been requested to show that the nonsense you have been calling "Darwin's four points" is actually four points, rather than just four, numbered strings of Darwinistspeak nonsense verbiage. And yet, for whatever reason, you're unable to show that even one of them is meaningful, and thus, a point. Do you think no one has noticed?