Originally posted by Maj
So water suddenly materialized, flooded the Earth (or part of it) for a while, then dematerialized?
Well, that would certainly be a miraculous event, wouldn't it? Mind you, I haven't memorized chapter and verse, but IIRC, the Bible does mention that there was a canopy of water overhead, and that the Flood waters drained into the seas. So perhaps the water was there the whole time, but suspended in a mist. If it were, the whole earth would have had a very mild climate, and UV exposure, one of the primary causes of aging, would have been at a bare minimum. That would not only explain the Flood's source waters, but also the longevity ascribed to antediluvian humans.
Originally posted by Maj
The Theory of Evolution is not rock solid, nor will it ever be. Just because it contains questionable ideas does not falsify it in its entirety. Even if ToE were bogus, its being so would not automatically verify Creationism.
Certainly not. But it would force people to accept that evolution, or the natural events currently described as such, have some other cause. People could start looking for that, and quit wasting time on dead-end research with no applicable value.
Originally posted by Maj
I just cannot see how someone can, with this "faith" in hand, be more compelled to believe in an ancient book, than the recent and current think tanks who have produced many of the marvels of science and technology surrounding us today.
I'm on record as saying that NASA should receive every penny of funding currently squandered to no avail on the ToE. Not once have I even suggested that Billy Graham or any of his ilk receive one penny.
Originally posted by Maj
And how do you interpret this book? With all the translations and trickeries of any language, who is to say the exact meaning of each paragraph?
The Bill Clinton Defense. Nice. I notice that the ToE already uses it, that's probably where ole Bill got it from. Have you done that web search on Biological Species Concept yet? Great reading.
Originally posted by Maj
From my perspective, this whole debate fringes mostly on the personal beliefs of the individual participants; beliefs so crucial to the architecture of their entire outlook on life that to shift them would send the whole structure tumbling down.
I was going to make a snide reply to this snide remark disguised as commentary, but why bother?
Originally posted by Maj
FL2, if you truly believe ToE to be bogus, you would do your cause a great service by thoroughly investigating both sides of the argument and presenting your ideas to their respective figureheads. This nitpicking has produced little but intellectual dead-ends and anger-driven spats.
As a moderate in the debate (I despise Young-Earth Creationsts/Biblical Literalists even more strongly than ToE-ers), I will never be listened to by either side..
Originally posted by Maj
I've read the arguments from both sides. Neither has pushed me any closer or further from where I stood before. I would be interested in hearing how others have been influenced by all this.
I gave up a long time ago on trying to gain converts. This is all about blowing the whistle on the fraudulent practices on both sides, but mainly on the ToE-ers, as they hide behind the credibility of legitimate sciences like physics and chemistry. No one takes the Bib-Lits seriously now anyway.
Originally posted by Maj
To myself, I will continue to place my faith in the rigour and method of science.
Then why not hold ToE-ers to the same standards of scientific rigour that physicists and chemists must be held to? A physicists who wants to declare the existence of a new particle has to prove it by detecting the appropriate decay elemental impacts on the scanners of a cyclotron before anyone will believe a word he says. A chemist has to be able to synthesise the new molecule they claim to have discovered, and be able to demonstrate its properties at length to witnesses. How does writing a paper based on other researcher's papers and a few bone fragments that may or may not be from the same dig site, let alone the same animal, even remotely approach this level of exactitude? Why are ToEers not required to be able to reproduce their results? To have results to reproduce in the first place? Your faith is well placed, but there are charlatans in the temple of science, and you would do well to open your eyes.
Originally posted by Maj
To others, I'll be buying into the social manipulation of the Intelligenstia. I almost wish there really was one...to know humans could form such coherent, secretive and succesful organizations would greatly boost my faith in human rationale.
Secretive?
Have you ever set foot upon a university campus? Congratulations, you've entered the lion's den. Campus thinking is so far removed from the paradigm of rational thought and the world we call reality as to qualify as a parallel dimension with differing laws of physics.
The press loves anything that will sell papers. Long-haired professors with crazy theories that are guaranteed to make someone, or better yet a whole group of someones, mad, will sell a LOT of papers. That's how this whole idiotic mess got started in the first place. Darwin got press, instead of being brushed off as a harmless loonie, and all of a sudden, 'evolution' was the buzz-word of the day. The new hot topic, and best of all, the common man hated it, because in Western societies where it was primarily published, Christianity was dominant, and at the outset, it looked like some upstart long-haired mad scientist was trying to kill God.
Now tell me, if you were an elitist rich snob, convinced that your money made you better than the common man, would you not simply eat the ToE with a knife and fork? What better way to rub your snobbish superiority in the Great Unwashed's collective face, than by tearing down their God, and replacing him with an ape?
Hell, I couldn't resist a temptation like that.
