Re: West Virginia creationism

Vincent Maycock wrote:

On Sun, 12 May 2024 01:59:31 -0400, Ron Dean
<rondean-noreply@gmail.com> wrote:
 

Vincent Maycock wrote:

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

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

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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.

 Those "flaws" are pseudoscience.

 >
Again I'm not surprised: how could you or anyone know, when one refuses to question or examine anything of a contrary nature. Under such circumstances one would certainly think such flaws are pseudoscience.

 

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/

 No, the hierarchy was caused by evolution (as we might expect), and
Linnaeus adapted his beliefs to that phenomenon.  And the hierarchy
isn't harmonic or orderly -- its branches have different lengths,
depending on when, exactly, different groups evolved.

 >
The fact is Linnaeus lived and died before Darwin was born, so Linnaeus observed and described what he saw as evidence which he attributed to his God.

 

A common designer I think is an even better explanation to the
observation of commonality and relationship than descent from a common
ancestor.

 Classic creationist boilerplate.  Recall that we're dealing with more
than one common ancestor.

 >
No, we are not according to evolution. Evolution turns to a common ancestor to explain a number of "coincidences" such as the fact that all living organisms have the same genetic code. This, rather than a common designer. From an engineer's prospective, if a wheel serves the need why invent a replacement?

 

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.

 Look for "stem" groups in a nested hierarchy, and those are what you
would consider to be "links."

 >
These stem groups are not connected to later species through in any series of  actual intermediates in the fossil record.
But they are determined to be stem or ancestral because of similarities which is then offered as evidence for evolution.

 

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.

 In pre-cladistic days, you would  look for "primitive" and "advanced"
groups, and those would have been your intermediate links.  Nowadays,
these terms aren't that common.  Instead, look for "basal" or "stem"
groups for those links.

 >
That's just an escape.

 

  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?

 You tell me.  Does the god you believe in have Christian values?

 >
I have come a long way from where I started a few decades ago. As a young man with a wife and children, I didn't give much thought to religion, God or Church.  I didn't consider myself an atheist even though I had no religious interest or thoughts. I just did not think of myself in this respect,  as being an atheist, agnostic or believer. I did not place any identity on myself in this regards.
As to my God, It's not my place to judge. Nor do I place an identity on God except an unknown God. After the death of his child and after reading William Paley, I think Darwin set out to disenfranchise God who he blamed for her death. I believe this was his objective. As I pointed out before, evolution is another  explanation for what we observe and discover, but it's an alternative explanation.

 

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.
>

I cannot read and respond to everything addressed to me because of my job, family and limited free time. So, if anyone has addressed this I haven't seen it. I think everyone on TO is an evolutionist with me as one of the very few exceptions.

>

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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