[LehmanB]

It's the opposite actually, because only man can be stupid, so stupidity is a special gift from God to man. Meanwhile, God doesn't care about the fish and it's absolutely not okay to be fish.

It is okay to be a reptile though!

[Hindsite]

And the overwhelming majority of Christians reject this.
And the vast majority of Christians reject this as nonsense. The smart ones see it as a limit to God's infinite power and a challenge to the very nature of the faith Jesus called us to have.

Well, it is written in the Holy Bible as historical facts, and Jesus referred back to it without mentioning any doubt.

And the vast majority of smart Christians see this as the allegorical story that it is.

Allegory Definition:

An allegory is a story with two levels of meaning. First, there's the surface of the story. You know, the characters and plot and all that obvious stuff. Then there's the symbolic level, or the deeper meaning that all the jazz on the surface represents.

The symbolic meaning of an allegory can be political or religious, historical or philosophical. Allegories are kind of like massive metaphors, but they usually come in narrative form—that is, they're told through stories.

https://www.shmoop.com/literature-gloss ... egory.html

So even if this part of the historical story is written as an allegory or metaphor, it does not mean it is not historically and spiritually true.

And the vast majority of Christians reject this as preposterous. Why? Because much of this can be categorically disproved.

I have yet to see any of it disproved.

Pseudo scientific clap trap.

The theory of evolution is the pseudo scientific clap trap. Creation by intelligent design is being proven more likely by the real scientific method and the theory of evolution is falling apart by the exposing of the lies perpetuated on the innocent public that believe the evolutionists were doing real science, instead of pseudo science like a magician. Don't be fooled by the evolutionists slight of hand and misdirection tricks.

Well yes. The vast majority of Christians and all of the reasonably smart ones see it as monumentally stupid.

But the more intelligent ones, like me, see the theory of evolution as a fraud.

Someone has to speak for the majority of religious people. The especially devout ones realize that we are not called to 'prove for God'. In fact the attempt to do it is sacrilegious. We are called to have faith in the God who made us and to trust him with out lives and our souls. We are called upon FIRST to love him and to care for our fellow man. That is what religion is about.

I did not say that Christians are called to prove God. We are called to believe God and what His holy prophets write about history and spiritual matters. We do not have to follow the laws of Moses, for they were written for a different time because of the "hardness of their hearts" as Jesus said.

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
(Matthew 19:8 NIV)

[Hindsite]

Actually, I total agree with this. The problem is that neither side will accept the other because Darwin was an atheist. We all know what causes evolution - mutations in genes. But what we cannot say for certain is what actually causes germline mutations - only what they are and what they do. For living organisms that can mend, adapt and be perfect in many ways, perhaps it isn't unreasonable to expect complete perfection in replication - or at least in the view of a creationist. But we don't. And even more debatable is to expect any mutation to be beneficial, at least to the extent in diversity we are on the planet. Perhaps creationists could even suggest that mutations are devine intervention. If that was the case both ideas could exist with only the conclusions being different. Creationists could say god caused evolution and evolutionist could say that natural selection caused evolution. Problem solved.

I don't believe Darwin had completely abandoned his religious education to become an atheist, he was just more interested in nature. His idea seems to be that God used an evolution process to make all the variations of plants and creatures from the original ancestors. His speculation was taken too far by him and others that were truly atheists.

Mutations are alterations in DNA sequences that result in changes in the structure of a gene. Mutations are caused by copying errors during DNA replication. Natural exposure of an organism to certain environmental factors, such as ultraviolet light and chemical carcinogens can cause mutations.

Without selection mutation wouldn't be a factor either. Mutation doesn't cause evolution any more than any of the other forces do and to call it the most important is arbitrary and risks hiding the actually important non random processes behind a random one.

Evolution requires a net increase in the quantity and quality of genetic information. For an organism to evolve to another organism new genetic information must be added. That is, the reason man is different than an eggplant is because man has genetic coding for things an eggplant doesn’t have. Therefore, evolution relies on mutations causing an increase in genetic data. In order for a mutation to play a role in evolution a great many of them would need to occur. The problem is that mutations ordinarily cause a loss of information, sometimes a transfer of information, but never an increase of information. Thus, mutations go the wrong way, because evolution requires limitless genetic expansion. Instead of an explanation for origin of life, mutations are actually an explanation of the origin of death and disease.

Another problem is mathematical; mutations are very rare. They occur only once in every ten million replications. The chance of two related mutations occurring is one in 100 trillion; given the abundance of genes in living organisms, however, mutations can and do occur. Even so, most mutations are harmful, leading to death of the organism before birth or a loss of a specific function. Only one in 1000 are not harmful and most of those are neutral, having no effect on the organism. Certainly this is why mutations are to be avoided. Mutagenic radiation and chemicals are avoided, not embraced.

Yet, another problem for mutations is that much of what is called mutation is actually genetic variance. It was once believed that flies resistant to DDT were mutants. Considering the impossibility of mutations mathematically, they looked for another explanation. It was found that a certain population had the genetic material to make them resistant to DDT all along.

This great variety in kind is exactly what we would expect from the creation model. The phrase, “after his (or their) kind”, is repeated ten times in Genesis, chapter one. Plants and animals were set up by God to only reproduce within their species. The mutations that we see are what we would expect from the corruption caused by the sin of man.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
(Romans 8:19-22).

[Ganeshas Rat]

I don't believe Darwin had completely abandoned his religious education to become an atheist, he was just more interested in nature. His idea seems to be that God used an evolution process to make all the variations of plants and creatures from the original ancestors. His speculation was taken too far by him and others that were truly atheists.

He clearly said that he is an agnostic, because he can't really believe in the god that doomed his father to eternal suffering for atheism.

[Godstud]

Darwin was a Christian, originally, but smart people don't generally stay religious once they start to question things(which intelligent people do).

[Drlee]

Darwin was a Christian, originally, but smart people don't generally stay religious once they start to question things(which intelligent people do).

Bullshit. Want to compare IQ and education level Skippy?

[RhetoricThug]

Doctrine of Conductivity & Vestigial Vessels

The whole idea that you're an isolated ego in a meat-suit living in a mechanistic material world is not scientific. Your body is a bridge for sensation, your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, touch the external world and structure your internal world. You're the external world (as within, so without). The internal-external myth is an intellectual illusion, thinking and being cannot be separated. Man abstracted nature from the total field of existence so he could organize 'things' inside the space-time continuum. Objects or things create their own space and time, likewise your perception of reality bends around being present. Being present creates an information bias. We're nodes in an evolutionary scheme of 'things,' helping a primordial consciousness divide and express itself. This thread (like all forum threads and communication in general), as microcosm of the whole thing-in-itself, illustrates how we live for each other, and how our thoughts behave accordingly.

"Way out in space, and way out in time. Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. Depends how you define yourself. You are actually--if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning-- you're not something that's a result of the big bang. You're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are." -Alan Watts

“If you want to stay in for the long haul, and lead a life that is free from illusions either propagated by you or embraced by you, then I suggest you learn to recognize and avoid the symptoms of the zealot and the person who knows he is right. For the dissenter, the skeptical mentality is at least as important as any armor of principle.” -Christopher Hitchens

You talk about people that you don't know,
You talk about people wherever you go.
You just talk, talk too much.
You talk about people that you've never seen,
You talk about people, you can make me scream.
You just talk, you talk too much.

The epistemological value of any dialectic or cognitive pattern/program must be defined through a spectrum of perception/reality. Any self-perceived individual node plugged into reality must compare and contrast ideas which occur inside the total field of awareness. As a node, we proceed to abstract a relative perspective on life. As a system of thought, atheism is the other end of theism, and likewise the political left is the other end of the political right. Your perspective is a relative interpretation of the perceived happening you're experiencing. Take away theism, you eliminate atheism; take away the political right, you eliminate the political left. Fragmentary or compartmentalized reason is fallacious, because all pieces constitute a whole. Self-aware individuals abstract their identity, and what they think they know, from an all at once happening. Who, what, where, when, why, how- become scientific approximations through a series of serious analysis, yet all quantities and qualities must be compressed expressions of the eternal present filtered for a system of human communication. The eternal present itself is beyond comprehension and compression, because its qualities and quantities are invisible to the involved observer engaged with the living interval of existential experience. Science will never understand or explain the undivided whole of a simultaneous 'happening,' because science itself is enfolded in the investigation of the interplay between 'things' inside the 'happening' as it unfolds, therefore it will never be able to 'see' the 'happening' for what it is or from any perspective other than a living perspective.

[Atlantis]

It depends on how you define stupidity. Ignorance as defined in "De la Docte ignorantia" promulgated by Nicolas de Cusa is the highest learning. It transcends the limitations of rational thinking to reconnect with divine intuition, without which there is nothing. Scientific thinking in quantum physics leads us back to this divine intuition by transcending both matter and mind. The ultimate reality in physics like in religion can only be intuited by transcending rationality, ie. the learned ignorance.

[Godstud]

Bullshit. Want to compare IQ and education level Skippy?

I'm generalizing. Don't get your panties in a bunch.

You do note that it's not atheists who are dismissing science, right?

[Potemkin]

It depends on how you define stupidity. Ignorance as defined in "De la Docte ignorantia" promulgated by Nicolas de Cusa is the highest learning. It transcends the limitations of rational thinking to reconnect with divine intuition, without which there is nothing. Scientific thinking in quantum physics leads us back to this divine intuition by transcending both matter and mind. The ultimate reality in physics like in religion can only be intuited by transcending rationality, ie. the learned ignorance.

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 7.

Or in other words: "Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know." - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching.

[Godstud]

If we went like that, no one on Pofo would ever post anything, and this board wouldn't exist, because we'd never discuss or debate. It's a pretty dumb saying, to be perfectly honest...

[Atlantis]

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 7.

Or in other words: "Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know." - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching.

Exactly Pot. The absolute truth can only be intuited in this instant. It is just being, non-reflected being, or non-being, which is the same. Any attempt of reflecting on this intuition or of communicating it invariably has to depart from the original intuition, which alone is divine. But it's not gone. It's always present, covered by layers and layers of conceptualization or rationalization.

That's the dilemma of political programs. They'll always deviate from their original intention. And the dogmatists who carve the truth into stone and who insist on a literal interpretation of the scriptures are the living proof that they have lost the original intuition.

[Potemkin]

Exactly Pot. The absolute truth can only be intuited in this instant. It is just being, non-reflected being, or non-being, which is the same. Any attempt of reflecting on this intuition or of communicating it invariably has to depart from the original intuition, which alone is divine. But it's not gone. It's always present, covered by layers and layers of conceptualization or rationalization.

Indeed. But such intuitions must always be consistent with rational thought, even though they cannot be reached by rational thought. After all, Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem may have demonstrated that any sufficiently complex system of propositions can (and in fact must) contain propositions which cannot be derived from its axioms, but those unreachable propositions are always consistent with propositions which can be derived from the axioms; in other words, they are still part of the axiomatic system. Intuition can, after all, lead us astray, and rationality and logic can act as a check on our wilder flights of fancy.

That's the dilemma of political programs. They'll always deviate from their original intention. And the dogmatists who carve the truth into stone and who insist on a literal interpretation of the scriptures are the living proof that they have lost the original intuition.

In other words, ideologies, rather like religions, can degenerate into empty formalisms. "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," as a wise man once said.

[Hindsite]

You do note that it's not atheists who are dismissing science, right?

No. They are called evolutionists.

"Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know." - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching.

Now that is what is stupid.

[Godstud]

Evolution is science. You can't accept it because it doesn't mesh with your infantile literal views on a book written by ancient guys who knew what people were "thinking", over 2000 years ago.

Atheists have no religious dogma to fuck them up in the head.

[Hindsite]

Evolution is science. You can't accept it because it doesn't mesh with your infantile literal views on a book written by ancient guys who knew what people were "thinking", over 2000 years ago.

Atheists have no religious dogma to fuck them up in the head.

They are already fucked up in the head. But they do like the dogma of of the evolution hoax.

[Godstud]

Science doesn't use dogma. Scientific method and theory is against dogma by it's very definition. You have no argument.

[Potemkin]

Now that is what is stupid.

How so? First you call Darwin stupid, and now you're calling Lao Tzu stupid. And I presume you think Ludwig Wittgenstein was stupid too? Tell me, who isn't 'stupid' in your eyes, Hindsite? Jerry Falwell?

[Hindsite]

Science doesn't use dogma. Scientific method and theory is against dogma by it's very definition. You have no argument.

Atheist have adopted the theory of evolution as a dogma. The theory of evolution is a belief because it can't be proven. Surely, you can't be that ignorant to not know that.

How so? First you call Darwin stupid, and now you're calling Lao Tzu stupid. And I presume you think Ludwig Wittgenstein was stupid too? Tell me, who isn't 'stupid' in your eyes, Hindsite? Jerry Falwell?

I did not say any of them are stupid. I was referring to the saying. I'm not stupid. Praise the Lord.

[Godstud]

Science doesn't use dogma.

Scientific theory is built on the premise that it can't be made into dogma. Do you fail to understand this, or are you just trolling?

Evolution Theory has changed, as new science and things are discovered. It's not the same as it was 80 years ago, because we have DNA and other new science.

Dogma doesn't allow for change. Science does.

YOU. ARE. WRONG.