Re: West Virginia creationism

Vincent Maycock wrote:

On Fri, 10 May 2024 14:43:42 -0400, Ron Dean
<rondean-noreply@gmail.com> wrote:
 

Vincent Maycock wrote:

On Thu, 9 May 2024 18:51:52 -0400, Ron Dean
<rondean-noreply@gmail.com> wrote:
>

Vincent Haycock wrote:

<snip>

I was a young-earth creationist, so my reading of geology and
paleontology led me to the conclusion that flood geology is a cartoon
version of science with nothing to support it.

Around the same time,

I became an atheist since Christianity didn't seem to make any sense.>

>

So, you turned to atheism and evolution, not because you first found
positive evidence for evolution and atheism, but rather because of
negative mind-set concerning the flood and Christianity.

>
No, that's backward.
>

That's the way you put it. Your first mind-set, as you stated it. You
became disillusioned with the flood and Christianity.

 I said "because of my reading of geology and paleontology."

 >
Ok, thanks for clearing that up.

 

  I developed a negative mind-set concerning the

Flood and Christianity because of positive evidence for evolution and
non-Christianity (which, in the United States is a huge first stepping
stone to atheism per se).  And of course, as I said, I found negative
evidence against the Flood to be voluminous, which is why I said it
was cartoon-like.
>

The fact of the matter is, intelligent design says nothing about

either the flood story nor Christianity or any religion or God for that
matter.

>
Yes, like I said I was a YEC, but the way you phrased it allowed for
me to focus on that and not old-earth-creationism or Intelligent
Design or any of those other "compromise" viewpoints that I never
subscribed to.
>

ID stands on it's own, it's not a compromise between anything.

 Right, but that's how we were taught when I was growing up.  My
comment was supposed to be historical, not normative.

 >
There is a difference between Creationism and intelligent design, in that ID does not subscribe to the Genesis narrative, Both YEC  Old Earth creationism does. However, both creationism and ID both point to the same apparent flaws in Evolution and observe the same empirical evidence.

 

ID observe essentially the same empirical evidence as
evolutionist do, but they attribute what they see to intelligent design
rather than to evolution. Both the evolutionist and the ID est
interprets the same evidence to _fit_ into his own paradigm.

>
How does your paradigm explain the nested hierarchies that turn up in
phylogenetic studies of living things?
>

This is an example of interpretation to fit into a paradigm.

 So fit it in to your paradigm, then.  Why would the Designer create
such an over-arching and ubiquitous phenomenon that is precisely what
we would expect from evolution?

 >
This is a excellent example of the point I've been making nested hierarchies have been mutually seen as  strong empirical evidence for either Evolution or ID. The concept was was first conceived by a Christian who thought that an intelligent God would arrange animals and plants etc in an orderly   harmonic, systematic, logical and rational manor: and this he set out to find. This man was a Swedish scientist, Carolus Linnaeus. He organized organisms into groups which was known at the time and he characterized organisms into boxes within boxes within boxes IE groups. His nested hierarchies are incomplete by today standard, But the concept was his,  which he saw as evidence of  his God.
So, it appears the concept was appropriated by evolutionist from a creation concept.
 >
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/the-history-of-evolutionary-thought/pre-1800/nested-hierarchies-the-order-of-nature-carolus-linnaeus/
 >
A common designer I think is an even better explanation to the observation of commonality and relationship than descent from a common ancestor. This is exactly what one would expect from an engineer. It takes trust and faith to accept common ancestor, and descent. If you look at the drawings you generally see big cats in the same family or sub family. You see these Lions, tigers, Jaguars leopards, but each specie observed is at the node or end of missing connecting link in the living or fossil record. And this is the case of almost everything we observe from the fossil record
for most animal species, according to the Late Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge. So, looking at a nested hierarchies what you see is isolated species, but very few links. And the few links that are pointed to in the fossil record are, in reality based on evolutionary theory. I'm sure you are aware of
what Darwin said about the scarcity of intermediate links. How much better off are we today with the many new species at the end of their nodes that Darwin knew nothing about.
  You as an atheist would naturally turn to evolution, since God in your mind does not exist. Atheism like theism is a personal belief. But to no small degree each of us establishes our paradigm, and we defend it as best we can. I respect your views and I certainly have no desire to push my view on you.
 >

IOW the
paradigm rules. Now to clear up another situation. While IDest see
evidence which supports design, there is no known evidence which points
to the identity of the designer.

>
Do you think you might be able to identify him/her/it if you tried
harder, scientifically?
>

One may believe based upon faith the
the designer is Jehovah, Allah or Buddha  or some other Deity but this
is belief

>

At one time I was also an evolutionist. In addition to a book I was
challenged to read, and to some extinct, what I discussed above I also
thought that after reading Paley, Darwin dedicated his effort to
discounting or disproving Paley's God. This seemed to be more than a
coincidence.

>
How do you square that with the enormous amount of research he did
into the subject?  If he was just "mad at God" you would think he
would have published immediately with only a scant amount of
supporting evidence to support his ideas.
>

There is something, rarely mentioned in the literature.  Darwin was a
Christian until a great tragedy befell him and his family. That's the
death of his daughter, Annie in 1851 at the age of 10.  This naturally
caused great pain to Darwin and this terrible tragedy turned him against
religion and God whom he blamed. One could certainly sympathize with him
on the loss of his daughter.

>
What's your explanation for why Annie had to die?  Is it better than
my explanation? (which is that there is no reason she died -- nothing
in the universe is out there to care whether she lived, suffered, or
died)
>

Everyone dies, including you and me. Some much older and others  much
younger. Annie didn't have to die, but she was exposed the the weather
or a disease which caused her death.

>
But why would God allow that?  I consider this to be positive evidence
in favor of atheism.
>

And so did Darwin. Why would you think that the designer should be an on
scene manager constantly controlling everything minute by minute. The
fact is, it did not, instead it chose to permit reproduction by
organisms themselves rather than create each species individualy. It
designed the genetic code and the information needed, as well a multiple
edit and repair machines to correct copy errors and mutations in the
DNA. It infused almost all of the first complex modern complex animal
phyla during the Cambrian. It created a universe beginning with then big
bang, a universe of natural order, patterns and logic, evidenced by the
fact that mathematics is able to describe this universe it's physical
laws, constants many of the actions we observe Indeed Math cam explain
what is observed. This is not a condition of blind, aimless mindless
random activities.

 None of that is an explanation for why God would allow Annie to die.
Or are you even a Christian to begin with?  Perhaps I should've
started with that.

 >
I think I have Christian values, but I don't attend religion services. And I don't pray. So, where does that leave me?

 

I personally think there is something terribly wrong with the
devaluation of human life caused by accepting evolution. We descended
from common ancestors along with chimps, gorillas, monkeys horses, swine and dogs. Consequently, we are just animals same as other animals. So,
as animals in every respect we are of no more worth or value than any
other animal. So, we kill and eat other animals so, from a moral
standpoint, why is this more acceptable? The question was asked in a
YouTube site of young college people, "If you saw a man and your dog,
that you loved, drowning you could only save one which would you save"?
As I recall the everyone except a professor said they would save their
dog. This means they would let the man die, his life is of no more value
than a dog's life. This I'm afraid is where evolution is leading the
human race.

<
No comment! I'm not surprised.

 I didn't reply to this because I thought some of the other posters had
addressed it by the time of my post.
 

>

>

True, but science advances, not by going along following the same path
ways that have been explored. But by taking new pathways.

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