Darwinism

[_Themis]

Ceeboo you are a nice guy, but very predictable. I suspected you would avoid my first post which asked you a substantive question and respond to my second which did not discuss anything scientific. Funny that it shows my description of you in my second post as accurate, and all you could do is cut and paste a plug for a book about a subject you don't even understand.

[_Lemmie]

Of course others would hold that I've been overtaken by Satan and now do all I can to drag as many as possible down to hell.

We must be related.
I suspect the second cousins have been chatting again.

[_Ceeboo]

Ceeboo,

I read the full article. It's all about ID. It's all about the Discovery Institutes agenda.

Please, let's come back to my question to you upthread:

Given these groups:

Skeptics
Answers in Genesis (Ken Ham)
Discovery Institute (underground)
Creation Science Evangelism and Creation Today (Kent and Eric Hovind)

What is the motivation behind all of the time, money, effort each puts into their positions?

Skeptics? I don't know

Answers in Genesis (Ham)? My guess - Ham is a devout believer and, equally, a devout young earth creationist

Hovind boys? Hard to figure them out from my perspective - I would like to think they sincerely believe their positions but of all the ones you listed above, I am a little skeptical of their "efforts"

Discovery Institute? I think that their motivation is clear - They are (for the most part) believers who are intentionally trying place the idea of "intelligent design" all over the enormous complexity of living organisms - Furthermore, I think they (much more than the others you listed above) extend great time, efforts and resources to do just that.

Why is Ceeboo here posting this information? My answer is because he considers himself a brother to all of us. He cares, he wants to share something with us that would be for our benefit, he is highly moral and trying to do good.

I do indeed consider myself a brother to all of you.
I do indeed care about all of you.

I do not consider myself "highly moral" - In my worldview, I consider myself a sinner in God's sight and I am able to be reconciled to God (or be at peace with God) by, and only by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. To be clear, I did nothing to deserve and/or earn this reconciliation - It was made possible for all by The Only One who could have made such possible. All any of us need to do is to believe, repent (turn from sin and toward God) and enjoy the ride that God takes us on in this miraculous transformation - that some folks call being born again. This supernatural thing not only changes the human heart, it changes the human mind. In other words - the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.

Why is Rockslider responding to Ceeboo? It is likely thought by some that it is for the same reasons that Ceeboo made the post. Of course others would hold that I've been overtaken by Satan and now do all I can to drag as many as possible down to hell.

I never - not once in all my years here - believed that anyone who disagreed with me had been overtaken by Satan. I believe you are sharing your thoughts/worldview/perspectives with me.

Heck a Pope of the Catholic Church declared evolution to be true.

The Pope of the Catholic church has been declaring a lot of things - So what.

Humanism - the desire to promote a moral society

I'm curious, what if humans don't agree with one another about what promoting a "moral society" would be/is? Doesn't universal/objective morality need to come from somewhere as a starting point? If so, where would you propose this objective morality comes from?

It's clear to me that the Hovinds and Ken Ham are in it for the money.

I don't know

Then there is the Discovery Institute. Notice that I described them as 'underground'. What is their purpose Ceeboo? Why am I suggesting they are deceptive, hiding something, underground? I hope you would like to converse on this more.

Please review this wiki page on ID. It has a very long history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy

Awaiting your answer on what you think the Discovery Institute is all about.

I think I answered the ID question above, no?

Thanks for engaging.

[_Lemmie]

....Then there is the Discovery Institute. Notice that I described them as 'underground'....

I didn't really get the underground part at first as I'm not too familiar with the Discovery Institute, but following your Watchmaker link, I ended up reading about the Discovery Institute ID Campaigns. Wow.

The Discovery Institute has conducted a series of related public relations campaigns which seek to promote intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms "Darwinism."[1] The Discovery Institute promotes the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement and is represented by Creative Response Concepts, a public relations firm.[2]

Prominent Institute campaigns have been to 'Teach the Controversy' and to allow 'Critical Analysis of Evolution'. Other campaigns have claimed that intelligent design advocates (most notably Richard Sternberg) have been discriminated against, and thus that Academic Freedom bills are needed to protect academics' and teachers' ability to criticise evolution, and that the development of evolutionary theory was historically linked to ideologies such as Nazism and eugenics,[3][4][5] claims based on misrepresentation which have been ridiculed by topic experts.[6][7] These three claims are all publicised in the pro-ID movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the Anti-Defamation League said the film's attempt to blame science for the Nazi Holocaust was outrageous.[8] Other campaigns have included petitions, most notably A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism.[9]

The theory of evolution is accepted by overwhelming scientific consensus.[10][11] Intelligent design has been rejected, both by the vast majority of scientists and by court findings, such as Kitzmiller v. Dover, as being a religious view and not science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery ... _campaigns

[_huckelberry]

Ceebo, do you have a problem with the idea that God created a universe of ongoing events in time interconnect by processes we observe as natural law? Evolution is an example of such change in time in the universe God created.

I sympathize with your suspicion that evolution to be as effective as it has been a bit of divine intervention in the process would help. I think so but I also think such would be difficult to impossible to observe and impossible to demonstrate. I realize that it is possible that God set it in motion with sufficient planning to not require intervention. There is no knowing one way or the other.

[_Ceeboo]

Hi huckleberry

Ceebo, do you have a problem with the idea that God created a universe of ongoing events in time interconnect by processes we observe as natural law? Evolution is an example of such change in time in the universe God created.

I sympathize with your suspicion that evolution to be as effective as it has been a bit of divine intervention in the process would help. I think so but I also think such would be difficult to impossible to observe and impossible to demonstrate. I realize that it is possible that God set it in motion with sufficient planning to not require intervention. There is no knowing one way or the other.

While I know and love many theistic evolutionists (Christians who believe in neo-Darwinian evolution) I personally don't share this view. But so what - What I personally believe about evolution is rather unimportant. Please understand though that like many other things within the body of Christ (differing views on the method of baptism, pre-trib/post-trib/mid-trib rapture, prophecy, Gifts of the Sprit, etc) I strongly believe that these things (including evolution) are not among the things we ought to divide over. in my opinion, the majors (Jesus died, Jesus was raised from the dead and Jesus is Divine) are what the body needs to collectively affirm.

In my mind, to NOT be at least a little skeptical of Darwinian evolution (or at least something short of a stance cemented in certainty) is suspicious in itself.

Anyway - Thanks for your thoughts.

[_Maksutov]

Creationists quoting each other is like the FARMS dorks high fiving each other over their Book of Mormon "proofs". They also have their own fake little industry of fake academics writing fake papers for fake publications that real scholars and scientists laugh at.

[Guest]

The Bible is just the Star Wars of the middle ages. It's what was popular. People took it way too seriously, blurring the lines between fact and fiction, as though the crap really happened, and it became a cultural religion (spawning several sub-cults).

Now it been so long, people think it's real.

Exactly. The Bible is a compilation of writings of many ancient authors, and contains both history and mythology, both truth and fiction, both wisdom and nonsense. It is at least as foolish and mistaken to claim it is the inerrant word of God, as it is deny that it contains anything at all of value to us. I strongly suspect that no one would be more dismayed and/or amused by today's religious fundamentalists' insistence on taking every word in the Bible as absolutely and literally true than some of its original authors!

[_Gunnar]

An affront to BOTH science and religion!!! How hard do you have to work to manage that?!

Yes! This can't be over emphasized. The modern "scientific" creationism and ID movements, just like the modern flat earther nonsense, do a great disservice to both science and religion.

[_Gunnar]

At least a couple of decades ago I was reluctantly dragged by the sheer weight of scientific evidence to the conclusion that the compilation of ancient writings we now know as The Bible is no more likely to be the infallible, revealed word of God than anything else that has ever been written.

Your problem then us you didn't do as you were supposed to and not even look at that evidence. Maybe consider doing as Ceeboo does and never learn about biology and evolution and ignore all attempts by others to get you to learn some science.

Riiiigt! I guess I should have heeded the words of the great Martin Luther:

“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

My signature line below says it all!