Ravi Zacharias responds to a student’s question about atheism, feminism, and the Bible at Penn State University. Ravi asks, “When someone denies the existence of God, what are they affirming in its place?” Watch as Ravi exposes how some atheists borrow from a Judeo-Christian worldview to debunk it.
How can you listen to this stuff without bleeding from the ears?
1) When I refute the assertion that carrots are the source of all human knowledge because there is no evidence to back it up, what am I inserting in its place? NOTHING! I don’t have to replace the assertion with anything. If I refute the assertion that god created everything because there is no evidence to back it up, what am I inserting in its place? NOTHING. I don’t have replace that assertion with anything.
2) When I refute the assertion that carrots are the source of all human morality, how can one possibly justify that that makes me immoral? Only if I first assume that morality DOES come carrots can I arm myself with the circular argument that therefore nonbelief in carrots causing morality means I must be immoral. This is called an a priori argument, which is a flaw in logical reasoning. The sidestep into materialism is even more absurd. Are we not commanded by god not to covet? What is it we are coveting? According to this guy, god has made a mistake warning us against coveting because materials as materials are valueless without moral judgment. Again, he jumps to the conclusion that moral judgment comes only from believing that morality comes only from carrots, or in his case, god. He relates a materialistic universe without god to an immoral one, or a materialistic universe to an immoral one without belief in carrots as the source for morality. So if one wishes to make a moral judgment about refuting carrots as the source of morality, then according to our friend here we are invoking belief in the m oral giving properties of carrots to refute carrots as the great moral source. Surely you can see a problem in his thinking here.
3) Oppression. He assigns it to culture. How convenient. This is an interpretation. It is just as valid to interpret the punishment assigned by god to Eve but not to Adam as a legitimate theocratic source for the oppression of women.
“There is no other world view that gives the respect of womanhood that Jesus does.”
Really? Isn’t such a statement entirely dependent on how one defines what ‘respect of womanhood’ looks like in action? And isn’t that action dependent on how one interprets the gospels’ various narratives about Jesus? And isn’t Paul’s interpretation somewhat revealing? And the list goes on and on.
Are women accorded equal human rights and dignity within Christian religious organizations? If not, then there is the potential for a MUCH better world view. Here in the West, we call this different world view the enlightened secular liberal democracy. I am surprised Mr. Zacharias has never heard of it.
[“How can you listen to this stuff without bleeding from the ears?”]
You survived didn’t you?
[“1) When I refute the assertion that carrots are the source of all human knowledge because there is no evidence to back it up, what am I inserting in its place? NOTHING! I don’t have to replace the assertion with anything. If I refute the assertion that god created everything because there is no evidence to back it up, what am I inserting in its place? NOTHING. I don’t have replace that assertion with anything.”]
Let me start that your assertion is wrong based on the fact that you compare carrots to God. These are not related and this is one of the biggest problems philosophically speaking that atheists have.
They start from the premise that God does not exist, they can’t prove this but when you say does that not involve faith on their part they say no this is reason. I would argue that even philosophically speaking we know that first causal action is required for anything that exists today. With First law of Thermodynamics dictating that you have to put energy in before you can get something out, I know that you will say we have enough of that staff from the Big Bang. Bat that is my point what powered Big Bang?
The only solution we have is to invoke greater power and the only big enough power that fits these shoes is God or that is what we choose to call him. The only way we could know him Christians would argue is if he revealed himself to us. And that is what Bible is telling us. So if we are to use reason and logic these can not be dismissed by saying things like if it is not observed then it is not real (Form of what David Hume said and what most atheist use for their arguments).
[“2) When I refute the assertion that carrots are the source of all human morality, how can one possibly justify that that makes me immoral? Only if I first assume that morality DOES come carrots can I arm myself with the circular argument that therefore nonbelief in carrots causing morality means I must be immoral. This is called an a priori argument, which is a flaw in logical reasoning. The sidestep into materialism is even more absurd. Are we not commanded by god not to covet? What is it we are coveting? According to this guy, god has made a mistake warning us against coveting because materials as materials are valueless without moral judgment. Again, he jumps to the conclusion that moral judgment comes only from believing that morality comes only from carrots, or in his case, god. He relates a materialistic universe without god to an immoral one, or a materialistic universe to an immoral one without belief in carrots as the source for morality. So if one wishes to make a moral judgment about refuting carrots as the source of morality, then according to our friend here we are invoking belief in the moral giving properties of carrots to refute carrots as the great moral source. Surely you can see a problem in his thinking here.”]
There are several points here that you need to consider;
1. Where we get our morality, atheists who push evolution would say that we have evolved these values, but that would mean that they are changeable therefore not static. So what was right yesterday may change tomorrow. Someone killing and sexually abusing child today may be condemned today but tolerated tomorrow, unless you are saying that these standards should say permanent then I have to ask you on what bases did you come to that conclusion?
2. If static morality comes from the Bible and our western laws here in UK and in USA are taken from the Bible. Like it or not our original laws come form Biblical principles. Then we have to accept that this morality has its origins with the Biblical texts. Therefore you will always be as a westerner borrowing from the Christian tradition like it or not. So can we say then that you are borrowing from the Bible in order to disprove the Bible and God?
3. He is not saying that atheists can not be moral, only that these morals come from Christianity. This is the biggest misunderstanding many atheist make, they get too defensive unnecessarily, your tradition is not to your embarrassment you can not help that. You can be atheist and be morally sound person, but as I said that in the point two where did you get this from. There is no right and wrong as Dr Dawkins will tell you, there are only actions that are used for mutual benefit in the civilised society. But what happens when I think I can oppress you and I don’t care about anything you can do for me? Why do people go out of their way to help others, even when this can mean problems for them?
[“3) Oppression. He assigns it to culture. How convenient. This is an interpretation. It is just as valid to interpret the punishment assigned by god to Eve but not to Adam as a legitimate theocratic source for the oppression of women.”]
You need to check that text again, as man was cursed to work hard and woman to have pain in labour. Yes you could say that some texts could have been misinterpreted and I would agree. But you don’t need to talk to me about these issues as I am not Catholic who does not allow women ministers, I go to Baptist church.
And if you believe in evolution should you not be tolerant of the progression that is made in the church rather than condemn it? I’m sure there were problems along the entire history and this is not only Christian issue, as you would find from other cultural issues. Note that in India many parents will kill their baby girls as boys are more desirable, this was true in China too.
“There is no other world view that gives the respect of womanhood that Jesus does.”
[“Really? Isn’t such a statement entirely dependent on how one defines what ‘respect of womanhood’ looks like in action? And isn’t that action dependent on how one interprets the gospels’ various narratives about Jesus? And isn’t Paul’s interpretation somewhat revealing? And the list goes on and on.”]
Here are few things you should know; On the way through Samaria Jesus talks to woman, which was big no, no. He has women followers, Paul calls other women apostils and leaders. Women see Jesus resurrected first, Jesus himself that in the Kingdom of God this is today, there is no man nor woman there is only one in the Body of Christ. Even at the beginning it says that two will become one, this oneness is inseparable this was entirely new concept to many cultures that did not have access to the Bible and that “Bible” includes Old Testament and New Testament.
[“Are women accorded equal human rights and dignity within Christian religious organizations? If not, then there is the potential for a MUCH better world view. Here in the West, we call this different world view the enlightened secular liberal democracy. I am surprised Mr. Zacharias has never heard of it.”]
Naturally The Bible is in agreement with equality of the value, only difference is in the role, in the Old Testament man was to be prepared to go and give even his life for his wife and family. So Man was to go to war and protect his country and his family, and according to New Testament Man is to love his wife as Jesus loved his church and that again means to be prepared to die for his beloved wife.
There are many such texts designed to protect women and I don’t think you should listen to those who distort the Bible. Disputed texts can easily be explained as in where Paul is telling women to be quite in the church he is saying that like in any other place when you go for lectures or are in the cinema, you do not want people to talk behind you and stop you from concentrating. So I would argue that Dr Zacharias was spot on, the Bible is progressive and encourages respect and love and not oppression as some will like us believe.
You write Let me start that your assertion is wrong based on the fact that you compare carrots to God. These are not related and this is one of the biggest problems philosophically speaking that atheists have.
1) I am not comparing carrots to god. I am comparing belief that either of these items could be equally designated as the source for human knowledge and morality. Such a designation alone does not make either of them probably true. You need evidence to show why one source is a more informed assertion. This Zacharias and you have failed to do.
2) The biggest problem atheists have, philosophically speaking, is that religious belief of others affects them when it shouldn’t. Religious belief should strictly be a private matter. Another fairly large problem is a wider recognition and respect from the religious community as a whole that nonbelief is the more informed starting point for honest inquiry than is an assumption of theistic truth described by all the various religions.
Let me start from a simple observation; you have either been influenced by the spaghetti monster comments of Dr Dawkins or are making another unrelated error in judgement. That being that inanimate objects do not have capacity to give revelation which God being originator of these laws is capable of doing. In fact many Christians would argue that we could not possibly know God without him giving us his revelation to the humanity.
If you believe that God give his laws and therefore introduces us to his morality you can grant us that this is where this could come from. Your motion that we could have evolved this just does not compute from our observation of social sciences, you have to train and cultivate civility and harmony in human cultures. Otherwise you just have tribal wars where one tribe kills the other because they did not have enough females for their boys to marry. These are actual anthropological examples that can be verified. I am talking from memory here (It was History Channel for your information; if you are from the UK) but I’m sure I can dig out relevant reference for you if you insist. So the answer is this Christians believe that God revealed himself to us, and has made his laws known to us.
This faith is not leap into dark, on the contrary with many archeologically studies we can verify that many narratives in the Bible are placed in real environment rather than imaginary one. Kings and cultures are real as are the customs of the people which we know from our anthropological studies.
How can non-belief be more informed, is this not illogical in your view? I thought this should be dependent on the personal preferences of the seeker. If you believe in something even when that belief is in non existence of God what you say is I will take my position on this based on the limited amount of information that is currently available to me.
I find that comment to be judgemental, I however understand it, and this is probably based on the past personal experience of either you or someone else. There are plenty of examples for this kind of ignorance wherever you look. But this is not restrictive to religious people.
Just look at many claims made by many ill equipped atheists that even you would be ashamed to be associated with. However one thing that you point to that is very important I could not agree more with you here is the need to have open mind to enquire, however note that faith has been challenged at every corner in our western societies today. And for the Western Europe where I live this is especially true. And interestingly enough you will find that the faith in God has been defended with reason rather than blind faith that many atheists would like to associate religion with.
So I would argue that multitudes of apologetic material that you will find out there points out to informed search and conclusions drawn from detailed research and not blind faith.
You write That being that inanimate objects do not have capacity to give revelation which God being originator of these laws is capable of doing.
But that begs the question. And that is a logical fallacy. Begging the question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. You are assuming that god IS capable, therefore this assumption proves that god is a legitimate source more so than carrots. You also suggest that an inanimate object is obviously incapable of imparting law, so therefore a supernatural entity is obviously more likely! Really? On what basis, other than your belief that this is the more likely explanation?
Then you write If you believe that God give his laws and therefore introduces us to his morality you can grant us that this is where this could come from. Do you see the circular pattern of this belief?
There is excellent evidence that people develop their sense of morality in combination with their environment. This is a natural explanation. It has evidence. Each of us can test this ourselves and come up with personal evidence just as explanatory as any other and far and away more than the assertion that our morality comes (poof!) from a supernatural origin. Once you start wending your way through holy texts to back up whatever moral claim you care to make, then its opposite can also be found from the same text. With all considerations mostly equal, the best explanation is usually the simplest (this is known as Occam’s Razor), namely, that we develop our morality. Unless and until you can provide at least as much evidence that without belief in god a person has NO moral sense, then your argument is doomed. And many atheists have very well developed and practiced senses of morality at least as good as anything provided by a religious figure.
If I am an atheist without any access to god’s law, then I should be immoral. If I’m not, then how can this be? At the very least, those people who call themselves atheists should have a much higher rate of behaviours considered immoral. Evidence suggest the opposite. Countries with much higher rates of religiosity should have populations much better behaved according to this understanding of what morality looks like in action than countries where religiosity is much lower. The opposite is true. This information flies directly against your assertion that moral law comes from the bible and can only be known through belief in god. But, unfortunately for you and your comfort with your beliefs, that’s simply not true. Something is amiss, and I humbly suggest it is your understanding of what morality is and how it is obtained that is insufficient to explain the evidence.
The thing is, if without the Bible, where does morality come from? Stone age people just decided to be nice to each other? I don’t think so! God made us in His image, and He handed us a moral code to live by. It’s because it came from God that people obey it and act moral in life. If religion wasnt so deeply important to almost everybody in the world, it would be nothing but murder and rape and stealing and robbery and it would be the stone ages. But everybody tries to do there best and fight temptation from the devil for sin, and do there best to live right and do unto others as they want to be done unto them.
[The thing is, if without the Bible, where does morality come from?]
An excellent question. It’s still a good question if I insert my carrot into it: “Without carrots, where does morality come from? I hope you can see the ‘carrot’ part has nothing to do with the question, any more than the bible part does.
Morality does come from somewhere. It is exhibited by certain kinds of behaviour we call ‘moral’ behaviour but from what source is the main concern here. Children as young as 6 months of age exhibit moral behaviour. If morality’s source is indeed the bible, then how can these children exhibit what they do, having never read the books themselves nor have had the books read to them. Language itself is still in development for these kids. I should mention that we don’t know if they received their morality from having been in the proximity of carrots but even that ridiculous assumption seems more likely than a biblical explanation.
If you honestly wish to know where morality comes from, then you have to study it. You have to develop a knowledge base. This knowledge is available and widely distributed. It is called development psychology. It is a subject full of fascinating stuff and well worth the effort in that its knowledge can help inform your opinion about where morality come from.
[Stone age people just decided to be nice to each other? I don’t think so!]
If that suggestion is so ridiculous, then why is the intervention of a supernatural beieng less ridiculous?
[God made us in His image, and He handed us a moral code to live by.]
No, your parents shuffled genes made us in their image with a few mutations thrown in for good measure. Your parents and mine were made from their parent’s shuffled genes, and so on. I know! How absurd! You couldn’t possibly have come from your parents. The very notion is beyond comprehension. What’s that? It’s not? You actually do think you came from your parents? Okay, then so did your grandparents, and your great grandparents. Still with me? Keep following the logic, the logic you have already accepted, that children come from their parents. Follow that trail back, back, back through time. Exactly where in this lineage FOR YOU should we suddenly come to screeching halt and declare divine intervention based on what evidence? There is no evidence such a halt every occurred – the story of Adam and Eve notwithstanding.
If you are referring to the bible as a source for accepting a moral code, then you are on very shaky ground. Unless you find it acceptable to own slaves, kill children for being disobedient, put to death that man who trims the corner of his beard, stone adulterers, sit someplace where a woman who may have been ‘unclean’ sat, and follow every single literal commandment found within the pages of the bible and the gnostic texts, then at best this idea of finding a moral code in this text is cherry picking. And if you disregard the slightest of commandments – do you really offer burnt sacrifices? – then you are cherry picking. If you cherry pick – and I hope that you do – then upon what basis can you disregard certain commandments while accepting another? If the code must originate from the bible, then your ability to cherry pick your morals must come from a different source.
[If religion wasnt (sic) so deeply important to almost everybody in the world, it would be nothing but murder and rape and stealing and robbery and it would be the stone ages.]
So if there is a population without religion, then you are suggesting that they would have to be immoral and act accordingly, namely, to murder, rape, steal, and rob. How do you explain atheists who don’t murder, rape, steal, or rob? How is this possible?
[But everybody tries to do there (sic) best and fight temptation from the devil for sin, and do there best to live right and do unto others as they want to be done unto them.]
No, not everybody. And the sentiment known as the Golden Rule long predates the writing of the books of the bible. Almost every culture throughout the world has more ancient sources with the identical sentiment.
I write and you respond:
[“3) Oppression. He assigns it to culture. How convenient. This is an interpretation. It is just as valid to interpret the punishment assigned by god to Eve but not to Adam as a legitimate theocratic source for the oppression of women.”]
You need to check that text again, as man was cursed to work hard and woman to have pain in labour. Yes you could say that some texts could have been misinterpreted and I would agree. But you don’t need to talk to me about these issues as I am not Catholic who does not allow women ministers, I go to Baptist church.
The point I make is that the Bible is used as a source of authority for men to rank higher than women. This is not equality, regardless of what denomination you may be. So I checked the text again: 1 Timothy 2:12, 2:15, 1 Peter 3:1, 1 Corinthians 11:9, Colossians 3:18, Ephesians 5:24, and decided that was enough reference material to show a clear link between belief in women’s proper place and the Eve story from Genesis. There’s absolutely no doubt that woman rank lower than men, that the Bible is a rich source FOR inequality between men and women, for a lack of dignity of personhood for women autonomous from men, for a subservient role within marriage. This textual doctrine provides evidence that Zacharias’ point is an interpretation flavoured by him to present Christianity as somehow dignifying women. Remember, the question to which he is responding is from a woman who reports that her female friend says that she cannot respect a theodicy that does not respect her. For Jesus to allow himself to be touched by a woman (gasp!) is not a fine example of what respecting a woman as much as a man means as far as world views go and definitely nowhere near as much as secular liberal democracies do.
Zacharias is deliberately misleading the questioner because the honest answer is that perhaps Christianity shows less gender discrimination than other faiths with these biblical stories about Jesus but that in no way DIGNIFIES as much respect for women as for men. The fact of the matter is that Christianity does NOT offer as much respect for women as for men, but a subservient role.
This raises an interesting question: why can’t people like Zacharias and other Christians who promote their faith publicly be honest? Why must they juggle and interpret the bible in a very narrow way pretending it means something it doesn’t rather than admit that as a source reference it is highly conflicted?
[“The point I make is that the Bible is used as a source of authority for men to rank higher than women. This is not equality, regardless of what denomination you may be. So I checked the text again: 1 Timothy 2:12, 2:15, 1 Peter 3:1, 1 Corinthians 11:9, Colossians 3:18, Ephesians 5:24, and decided that was enough reference material to show a clear link between belief in women’s proper place and the Eve story from Genesis. There’s absolutely no doubt that woman rank lower than men, that the Bible is a rich source FOR inequality between men and women, for a lack of dignity of personhood for women autonomous from men, for a subservient role within marriage. This textual doctrine provides evidence that Zacharias’ point is an interpretation flavoured by him to present Christianity as somehow dignifying women. Remember, the question to which he is responding is from a woman who reports that her female friend says that she cannot respect a theodicy that does not respect her. For Jesus to allow himself to be touched by a woman (gasp!) is not a fine example of what respecting a woman as much as a man means as far as world views go and definitely nowhere near as much as secular liberal democracies do.”]
1Ti 2:12-14 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
First let me start by saying that this texts tells us part of the Biblical narrative and his inference to Paul’s teaching. In other words even when two are not related they can still be used to drive the point home. So what Paul is saying is as in the example of creation story so in this principle of teaching when you have discourse due to influences of local pagan priestesses in your local community remind them that they should learn before they can teach.
You make some logical errors here let me state them in bullet points of you.
• “Role” and “value” are two different things. I work in a very big company; I think you would consider it silly for me to demand to be CEO of the company and not an analyst, based on the fact that both I and my CEO are humans. We are both equally human but we don’t hold the same office. So there is no issue of discrimination here only on different gifts that we both have.
• Your sense of Right and Wrong is taken from the Bible; otherwise if we are evolving then why should not the strong oppress the weak. After all this is what evolution teaches? Also if the Bible is listing female leaders perhaps your interpretation needs some revision. I would suggest that we need to look at the religious and historical background in order to understand this. First all the pagan priestesses were involved in sacred prostitution and this is in direct opposition to the Biblical teaching. This also leads to exploitation and serves to gratify man neglecting the needs of the woman. So if you have former priestesses trying to teach strange non biblical doctrine then instructing them to keep quite is not bad idea.
• Fact is that many Churches have today and in the past been lead by the ladies, this is not new peace of information but readily available to anyone who is interested in digging deeper into this subject.
• You use text out of context, Bible also shows us that there are apostles, Prophets and leaders who were women and Paul gives their names in some of his epistles. I have taken some quick examples from one web page here: http://www.churchofgoddfw.com/monthly/did_what.html
• Apostles: There were other apostles beyond the twelve. Paul greets Junia, a Roman woman converted before Paul, praising her as “outstanding among the apostles,” Romans 16:7. “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” (NIV translation)
• Prophets: An evangelist named Philip had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses. Acts 21:8,9. Also see Acts 2:18, “…both men and women…shall prophesy,” referring to the messages given in different languages to both men and women on the day of Pentecost. Anna was also a prophetess, Luke 2:36.
• Evangelists: Both Euodia and Syntyche evangelized publicly with Paul; they “contended at my side in the cause of the gospel”. Both women zealously “contended”, and the Greek word that Paul used conjures up verbal team wrestling! The word means “to wrestle in company with”. They publicly wrestled with words right beside Paul as they all three publicly defended the faith! Their names are “in the book of life” together with a male co-worker named Clement, Phil 4:2-3 NIV
[“Zacharias is deliberately misleading the questioner because the honest answer is that perhaps Christianity shows less gender discrimination than other faiths with these biblical stories about Jesus but that in no way DIGNIFIES as much respect for women as for men. The fact of the matter is that Christianity does NOT offer as much respect for women as for men, but a subservient role.”]
I don’t think this to be the case, as I give you my answer before, you should note that majority of churches in UK consist of women, why do you think this is if there is such inequality? Note that Dr Zacharias spends good deal of his time here in UK. Old Testament clearly states and New Testament indorses it Man will leave his family to join his wife. You could not get stronger endorsements for the opposite sex. I.e. nothing in this world is as important as much as his own wife. There is no conflict only unity and man has to be prepared to die for his wife in the same way that Jesus died for his church. Do I need to go any further with this?
[“This raises an interesting question: why can’t people like Zacharias and other Christians who promote their faith publicly be honest? Why must they juggle and interpret the bible in a very narrow way pretending it means something it doesn’t rather than admit that as a source reference it is highly conflicted?”]
First may I challenge you that maybe it is your narrow interpretation that is faulty here. You come out without the relevant historical understanding and take things out of context and then demand that entire Christianity must submit to your judgement. This is not what I call reasonable demand.
Lets look at the examples you give.
1Ti 2:15 But women 2 will be saved 3 through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love v and holiness with propriety.
My personal challenge: Those who believe in evolution should be reminded that the survival of the species depend of having offspring so no need to challenge this. Everyone’s survival depends on this.
Commentary on the verse: 2:15 Three possible meanings of this verse are: (1) It speaks of the godly woman finding fulfillment in her role as wife and mother in the home; (2) it refers to women being saved spiritually through the most significant birth of all, the incarnation of Christ; or (3) it refers to women being kept physically safe in childbirth
1 Peter 3:1 In the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Then, even if some are disobedient to the word, they will be won over without a word by the way you live,
Here is the commentary from John McArthur for you so you don’t think I’m making these things up as I go. This text refers to the witness to the others; where cultural demands were that women would submit to their husbands. Regardless of your religious views same rule applied, there was an order in the society and any discourse in the household would have been seen as very bad witness to the onlookers.
3:1 In the same way. In chap. 2, Peter taught that living successfully as a Christian in a hostile world would require relating properly in two places: the civil society (2:13–17), and the work-place (2:18–25). At the start of this chapter, he added two more places: the family (vv. 1–7) and the local church (vv. 8, 9). be submissive. Peter insisted that if Christians are to be a witness for their Lord, they must submit not only to the civil, but also to the social order which God has designed. own husbands. Women are not inferior to men in any way, any more than submissive Christians are inferior to pagan rulers or non-Christian bosses (cf. Gal 3:28). But wives have been given a role which puts them in submission to the headship which resides in their own husbands (see notes on 1Co 11:1–9; Eph 5:22; Col 3:18; Tit 2:4, 5). any … disobedient to the word. Since obedience has been used in this letter to refer to believers and disobedience to non-believers (see notes on 1:2; 2:8), this is a non-Christian husband. In a culture in which women were viewed as lower than men, the potential for conflict and embarrassment in the marriage of a believer and unbeliever was significant, even as it is in contemporary society. Peter did not urge the Christian wife to leave her husband (cf. 1Co 7:13–16), to preach to her husband (“without a word”), or to demand her rights (“be submissive”). won … by the behavior of their wives. The loving, gracious submission of a Christian woman to her unsaved husband is the strongest evangelistic tool she has. Added to submission is modesty, meekness, and respect for the husband (vv. 2–6).
1 Corinthians 11:9 Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for man. 11:10 For this reason a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11:11 In any case, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 11:12 For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman. But all things come from God.
You have only picked one verse but to prove that you are taking things out of context I have included following 3 verses. First it explains why things should be done by using Old Testament Narrative as explained earlier. Secondly it shows co-dependency on both sexes. Verse 12 clarifies it both parties are equally needed, final authority is God who created both.
Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 3:19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.
Again you only quote verse 18 and completely ignore verse 19. If husband loves his wife he only wants what is best for his wife and that means not oppressing, restricting or making them bitter against their husbands.
Ephesians 5:24 But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.
Again this is given out of context, but note that second verse following from the verse you give verse 25 magnifies what I said that Husband should be prepared to lay down his life for the love of his life. Just like Jesus did for his church.
Let me list some things from Old Testament so you don’t think there is disparity between the two.
Proverbs 31; I will paraphrase this for you so you can see the points of the text
Pr 31:10 Good woman is worth much treasure.
Pr 31:11 Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
Pr 31:12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
Pr 31:13 She is a hard working personality
Pr 31:14 – 15 She is provider. And distributes some of her wealth to her servant girls.
Pr 31:16 She is a business woman.
Pr 31:17 She does not give up when the work is hard.
Pr 31:18 She plans (Project planning) and is not wasteful, she understands the needs.
Pr 31:19 She uses her gifts to help the household.
Pr 31:20 She looks out for the poor and the needy.
Pr 31:21 -22 She provides for the specific needs (Clothing in this case).
Pr 31:23 Because of her greatness even her husband is respected at the city gate,
among the elders of the land.
Pr 31:24 She is a business woman.
Pr 31:25 She is strong and dignified not afraid of the future.
Pr 31:26 She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
Pr 31:27 She watches over the affairs of her household and is not idle.
Pr 31:28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:
You write:
So I would argue that Dr Zacharias was spot on, the Bible is progressive and encourages respect and love and not oppression as some will like us believe.
So I would argue that Dr Zacharias is not spot on, the Bible is repressive and encourages disrespect and discrimination based on gender and quite oppressive as some would have us not believe.
Stating an opinion doesn’t justify it. Evidence does. I have shown a mere scattering from various biblical texts that promote oppression of women based solely on gender. I have shown that the argument Zacharias offers of ‘less repression than ALL other world views” is simply wrong, flat out wrong. The kind of respect Zacharias means is ‘less oppression’. That’s not respect; it’s an excuse based on biblical authority, which was exactly my original criticism.
As per my previous reply you must not take text out of context. With the explanations I give in the above reply I hope you can see that literalistic explanation that does not reflect on historical and cultural influences plus context can and has indeed lead many to the wrong conclusions. It is your bad experience and possibly influence of other atheists that is leading you to the conclusion you have reached. I bet that millions of women that attend church today would disagree with you and I would bet my wife would agree with me completely. I have little girl age 8 no father would like his child disrespected and neither does our Heavenly father approve of any disrespect and oppression. So yes there are churches that need correcting but this does not mean we should blame God or the Bible for that anomaly as I said look what is happening in our churches today and you will come to different conclusion.
That’s quite a response and very much what I suspected. The context is important as is the correct interpretation, I fully agree. By making the insertions you do in regards to such sensible precautions, you can paint a picture of what you want the text to mean. I equally suspect that this method rarely if ever disagrees with your morality. That should ring a warning bell to you.
If the text is really an avenue for god’s word, one might be tempted to suggest that one must be very careful which text is more authentic than another. One must be conversant with the various problems of translations, by whom, over what time period, and of course up to speed on the subtle differences from the latin and greek. Then, to complicate matters more, we have to compare and contrast various commandments with the latter narratives to find the gist of the shaded meaning, because no one ever thinks the bible means what it says, but says what the reader means.
But in spite of these difficulties, you have managed to interpret the texts not only better than I, but correctly so that it agrees with your starting position. I mean, the bible cannot possibly oppress women. For the text to suggest such a thing would be against what you know in your heart to be just, and the source must be made to agree no matter how serpentine the path of interpretation must be to make it so. It is for that reason that so many different faiths use the same source to justify quite different religions with quite different truth claims. I am glad for you that you have managed to find the one true path in spite of these formidable difficulties.
Now we arrive at the Big Problem: if god truly was a christian god and wanted to offer us a sure-fire way to understand his wishes for us, then creating such a text so reliant by your admission on first understanding the historical and cultural influences of the mediums who were divinely inspired to write what they wrote, then I think we can agree that the job was hardly done well. The discrepancies we see today are an inevitable result of the original prevarications and obfuscations of correct meaning. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure if we should be so trusting of the Council of Nicene (sp?) that decided which books to include and which scrolls to omit from this compilation we call the bible. All it would take for god to be clear about the respect of personhood that I happen to think we should hold for all people is to say as much, rather than spend so much ink on how to treat our slaves and what responsibilities women should have in the home and under what hierarchy of authority. That would remove the need for so much contextual interpretations, don’t you think? And if I can improve on the delivery system (the bible) with such a simple and straightforward suggestion, then surely an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient being could have done at least as much.
Let me just point out why I believe what I do and why so many atheist would like more rigid explanation.
1. God had to communicate with people and unfortunately there was no time travel invented then so he had to deal with us the way we were.
2. Cultural references does not mean we should ignore their implications for today. Unity, love, sacrifice etc.
3. God had to use humans, so in order to convey his message he made it relevant to his/her understanding methodology.
4. Gods love for humanity is never questioned and all the tenets of Christian faith stay unchanged from beginning to this day. As demonstrated that we had women leaders in the first church.
Ignoring all this makes Christianty much easier to disprove, and this is not how logic works.
Logic does not prove any negative. There is no such beastie. It falls on those who wish to prove something to do so. Want to prove god? Do so.
Why are you making such paltry excuses for god with your four points? Does god really need such excuses? If so, then what a tiny god. He couldn’t find a better way? He couldn’t sear a mountain range into the formation of his commandments? He could raise every third person from the dead with a message coded into their DNA? I mean, come on! There are so many possibilities of communicating clearly and unequivocally in physical ways. How about whispering into a disciple’s ear some answer to a sophisticated math conjecture? The possibilities are endless. And do we really need a god to tell us that love is something we should seek and find?
This list, short as it is, merely points out that better more effective measures could have been taken to ensure the communication of clear and concise understandings like respecting human dignity of personhood without reference to gender whatsoever.
Reply by DEFEND THE WORD
[“Logic does not prove any negative. There is no such beastie. It falls on those who wish to prove something to do so. Want to prove god? Do so.”]
Again you have to be careful not to generalise, using experiments you will logically conclude that certain suppositions that are incorrect on your part are to be amended. This is how science works. It is only when you move from testable evidence that are hard to understand or limited knowledge and understanding of the processes are accepted that we have to accept that we just can’t say with any certainty what the result may be.
[“Why are you making such paltry excuses for god with your four points? Does god really need such excuses? If so, then what a tiny god. He couldn’t find a better way? He couldn’t sear a mountain range into the formation of his commandments? He could raise every third person from the dead with a message coded into their DNA? I mean, come on! There are so many possibilities of communicating clearly and unequivocally in physical ways. How about whispering into a disciple’s ear some answer to a sophisticated math conjecture? The possibilities are endless. And do we really need a god to tell us that love is something we should seek and find?”]
I don’t think people receiving the information from God would consider your argument valid. They needed to understand what God had to say to them and I reiterate these messages when people deal with sin and looking at God showing us his way through his word are not to be changed. In other words God’s word is true today as it was 2,000 years ago. As for the DNA it is just such complexity that has persuaded many that there must be a designer who has included coding necessary to deal with the environment and development of the organisms that carry this coded message.
[“This list, short as it is, merely points out that better more effective measures could have been taken to ensure the communication of clear and concise understandings like respecting human dignity of personhood without reference to gender whatsoever.”]
You yet again invoke human dignity, which is impossible to conclude if you base your morality on the Dog eat Dog philosophy of Evolution. After all this is why we had so many problems with fluidity with “Cultural relativism” that kind of flexibility is so heavily used by atheists. How do you know that Muslim women in Saudi Arabia are unhappy, or majority of them could be, if this is the case how do you explain your desire to change this doctrine. Note that I’m not saying that we should treat people differently that is how you see things but as I pointed to you previously that is incorrect assumption as there are evidence to the contrary. Christian ethics are very clear not hidden and they point out to unity, progressive cohesion not division and by the way wherever you look you will find issues. Top CEO are mostly man, look wherever you like in our western society and you will see that there are issues with gender discriminations. This is true of races and religion as much as intellectual discrimination against less capable. After all that is how we segregate our society today, and this is precisely what Bible talks against. And the Bible actually argues for unity, for non discrimination and love and support by treating everyone exactly the same.
Defend the word
[“You write That being that inanimate objects do not have capacity to give revelation which God being originator of these laws is capable of doing. But that begs the question. And that is a logical fallacy. Begging the question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. You are assuming that god IS capable, therefore this assumption proves that god is a legitimate source more so than carrots. You also suggest that an inanimate object is obviously incapable of imparting law, so therefore a supernatural entity is obviously more likely! Really? On what basis, other than your belief that this is the more likely explanation?”]
I base this world view on the wealth of information in the existent life forms all I need to do is look at the DNA and RNA and I’m very impressed and cosmological evidence, where we find we could not survive unless we have magnetic fields to protect us from harmful radiation, existence of supper planets that act like hovers to suck up all harmful asteroids without which life could not even start on earth.
[“Then you write If you believe that God give his laws and therefore introduces us to his morality you can grant us that this is where this could come from. Do you see the circular pattern of this belief?”]
There is not circular pattern here. I start with “IF” and that is as good as any place to start unless you are building your arguments from the scratch. This is based on supposition that God exists and the he revealed himself to us.
[“There is excellent evidence that people develop their sense of morality in combination with their environment. This is a natural explanation. It has evidence. Each of us can test this ourselves and come up with personal evidence just as explanatory as any other and far and away more than the assertion that our morality comes (poof!) from a supernatural origin.”]
This is very funny for me to hear you say this, first you want to argue that west did not get its values from the Bible, then when I point out to you that this is exactly what many historians believe you ignore this. If my first statement is correct then your follow up comments is proving my assertion that we get our moral in the west from the Bible. There is no magic in this as you would like us to believe, in the same way we know what is right and wrong instinctively and if you study anthropology you will find that even the tribes in the forests of Brazil know that you don’t kill, still rob others etc. I have mentioned to you already how Jesus put this by saying “Treat others the way you would like others to treat you”.
[“Once you start wending your way through holy texts to back up whatever moral claim you care to make, then its opposite can also be found from the same text. With all considerations mostly equal, the best explanation is usually the simplest (this is known as Occam’s Razor), namely, that we develop our morality. Unless and until you can provide at least as much evidence that without belief in god a person has NO moral sense, then your argument is doomed.”]
Not true, today you in USA maintain your morality simply because you either believe in God as final judge of your character or you fear the law which will be after you if you transgress against it. You do not have to be scientist to work that one out. And if you grow up influenced by others who are religious then you have no legs to stand on with your arguemnt.
[“And many atheists have very well developed and practiced senses of morality at least as good as anything provided by a religious figure.”]
You doge the question here, I’m not saying that you are immoral I’m questioning its source and that is a big difference.
[“If I am an atheist without any access to god’s law, then I should be immoral. If I’m not, then how can this be? At the very least, those people who call themselves atheists should have a much higher rate of behaviours considered immoral. Evidence suggest the opposite. Countries with much higher rates of religiosity should have populations much better behaved according to this understanding of what morality looks like in action than countries where religiosity is much lower. The opposite is true. This information flies directly against your assertion that moral law comes from the bible and can only be known through belief in god. But, unfortunately for you and your comfort with your beliefs, that’s simply not true. Something is amiss, and I humbly suggest it is your understanding of what morality is and how it is obtained that is insufficient to explain the evidence.”]
Thanks for your suggestions but can I just as humbly point out on few reasons why things are the way you suggest they are.
1. Law will cause you to behave in civilised way otherwise you get punished. So you could be immoral on the inside but still behave on the outside.
2. Where there is presence of religion there is also great rebellion against it, we don’t have Christians being pimps, dealing in drugs, being mass murderers etc, etc. So the negative reaction to the religious law can easily explain your proposition that negative behaviour is present in religious society. However go to Muslim country and the opposite is true.
3. It would be far easier for me to neglect my moral beliefs to lie etc in order to progress further with my work, or get other advantages, this can not be explained by the process of evolution which you so readily avoid and the fact that you grew up in the country that is saturated with Biblical influence is also not in favour of your argument. Enough said.
You have repeatedly made references about evolution that show a marked lack of understanding what it is. I have mostly ignored them up until now (save for my math example in another post), but because you assume that evolution somehow means something it does not (the assertions that without biblical morality and law – whatever that may be interpreted by you to mean – (dog eat dog lack of compassion kind of comments), I feel compelled to try to crack open that door of inquiry for you.
Ever watched a flock of starlings swoop and swirl as if it were one thing rather than a thousand or so individual birds? It’s quite beautiful (I think) and quite revealing. The borders of the flock are well defined and flocks can even pass through each other and each remains a cohesive whole. One might be tempted to call the flock one designed thing because it looks like a whole thing. It acts like a whole thing. We even have a word to describe this entirety, namely, a flock. But is it really designed?
If you were a flock designer, how might you go about establishing it? There are sort of two models: the first is to design one bird and clone it repeatedly. This is like a top down approach, but this is not what we find with starlings: each bird is slightly different in degree and behaviour to another. Why should this be? Surely it would be easier and far more efficient to design the flock on a single model. Why the individual differences? And what does this evidence do to the top down model? How is information transferred between generations… by designer re-creation?
The other way to design the flock is from the bottom up, incorporating generalized local rules for each bird. To do this, you also need some mechanism that will allow a transfer of this local flocking knowledge from one generation of each and every starling to its offspring. Now come up with a model of design that successfully predicts and explains flock behaviour. Test this model against other kinds of flocks, let’s say schools of fish, swarms of insects. Test your theory. See if it possesses the power of predictability and explanation. If so, welcome to the world of science.
There is, in fact, just such a theory of bottom up individual design. It’s called genetics and it really does work marvelously well. I won’t bore you with the details. The pursuit is too much pleasure to avoid.
So let’s say you spend years and years of effort and study and come up with identifying the variables and incorporating all this knowledge of starlings and flocking behaviour into a model that you see works well for any kind of flocking behaviour. Along comes a person who tells you that a) god made it so, b) your theory is ‘just’ another belief, and c) that human morality must come from god.
I will be very sympathetic to your plight. You just want people to apply your theory that so brilliantly explains and successfully predicts flocking behaviors. But local schools want to teach godmadeitso along side your theory of flocking behaviour in ornithology class and call it teaching the controversy. No doubt Stork Theory for explaining human reproduction is not far behind. You scratch your head in perplexity because one of these things just doesn’t belong here, and it’s not you and your knowledge about flocks and starlings for which you have reams of pertinent information. What offers zero explanatory power if the godmadeitso theory. Nothing informs it. There is no data. There is no falsifiability. There is just the assertion that godmadeitso.
You do not understand evolutionary theory. You are willing to condemn it without understanding it. That is not a position of strength nor one that is founded on intellectual integrity. This position casts a pall of doubt over anything you may substitute in its place because if you cannot take the time and spend the effort to understand a basic fact of biology before condemning it or grossly misapplying it, why should anyone believe you’ve done anything more for notions of your beliefs? And the truth of the matter is that, in spite of everything you may believe to the contrary, evolution is a fact. It is model that is testable and repeatable, predictable and falsifiable. Its conclusions form the basis of many technologies and medicines. It provides a framework of explanation that works in every discipline that requires such a framework and each one verifies by overlap the accuracy and explanatory power of the theory. Unless you can provide evidence to the contrary, let’s say a fossil of a rabbit in the pre-cambrian, then you need to do your homework first and understand what evolution theory is.
I could tell you, but what would be the thrill of discovery in that? And just as a teaser, let me assure you that both morality and secular law of any kind can be explained in evolutionary terms without any need for the godmadeitso insertions. People will want to insert it, but you don’t it because it adds nothing to knowledge.
And you may drop the notion that the Golden Rule comes from the bible. There are many texts much older that have the same idea clearly expressed. If you want I can find you the list but I’m sure a semi-decent internet search will provide the same material sources. Unless you currently feel that you can murder your daughter if she fails to show you the respect you think you deserve, then you are applying not biblical but your own morality. It comes from you and is quite trustworthy. You can over-ride it, too, and do things you know are immoral. Blame the devil if you want but you know perfectly well that you choose your behaviours on a variety of considerations. That’s why you are an independent individual… as well as a member of the human flock.
It is very unfortunate that I used the term ‘individual design.’ Although our DNA are the building blocks, the design part inaccurately suggest some kind of architectural oversight. And this is not the case. Once the genes begin the process of building, there is no end point architecture. When a baby is conceived, there is no final adult result known or even knowable. We cannot deconstruct a human back to its constituent DNA because development contains a random factor. That is why no two humans are exactly alike, although identical twins with exactly the same DNA come close. There are still differences on a genetic level.
So the word ‘designer’ refers to if you were attempting to design a flock of starlings. It doesn’t work very well as a descriptive term of accuracy. The ‘designer’ in this case is each and every starling that makes up that flock. But even then the word ‘designer’ turns out to be… wait for it…. pretty random! From the random shuffling of genes to the random cellular constructions comes behaviours that look and act like a design. But something that looks designed doesn’t mean it was in the sense of a single designer. You are made up of some 50 trillion cells, each one a remarkable entity in and of itself acting in various ways to give us the illusion of a single individual that has been designed. Did you design your circulatory system? No. Did god? No evidence of divine tampering. Did your body do it all by itself by cellular processes while you developed and continue to develop throughout your life? Yes, becau7se there is ongoing evidence for exactly that. Your designer is your self, based on your body’s biological processes from the genes you express from those you received from your parents and their parents and their parents all the way back into antiquity through your historical ancestry. We can call you designed, like we can call the flock ‘designed’ but the term I think causes more confusion than it eliminates.
Hang on this random was used previously by yourself and then you said this does not mean chance mutation but that it has logical steps. This is what you used against my argument that nothing could not beget something. But when it is in your interest then you can use your mutation to mean random rather than designed mutation? You assertion that we come out of ourselves is just not believable and this is why to this day evolutionist do not give explanation to how it all began. You are right that Design is the preferential view and that we have to go in a counterintuitive way to explain it away. Yet elsewhere you say that we should go with the simplest explanation, if Design is simples but you advocate complicated Evolution process that has gone through many revisions I have to say that there just isn’t any consistency in that kind of argument.
You write You assertion that we come out of ourselves is just not believable and this is why to this day evolutionist do not give explanation to how it all began.
Two points here: have you told your wife that your daughter couldn’t possibly have come out of herself? Good luck with that. Hope the couch is comfy.
Evolutionary theory does not attempt to describe the origin of life. Nor do I because I don’t know.
We’re talking about design on the one hand and designer on the other. My central point is that just because something looks designs and may be designed by it progenitor genes, that does not provide any evidence for a supernatural designer. That’s why I mentioned flocks. For the intention of my analogy, you are a flock of cells. You appear to be designed, but you are a compilation of many trillions of cells like a flock is a compilation of many hundreds of birds. The appearance of design for the whole is actually something that emerges from the individual actions of its local constituent parts.
And you missed my point about Occam’s Razor. You think I meant always go with the simplest explanation. I didn’t mean that. There’s a very important part of that you have forgotten: when all other considerations are equal, the simplest explanation is preferred. Between Intelligent Design and evolution, not all considerations are equal, so let’s go with the one that does not necessitate the complexity of including a supernatural intervention.
You are also under some strange perception that consistency is a meaningful tool for inquiry. Just because I refuse to allow new evidence to affect a cherished belief does not add anything to the truth value of my belief. If new evidence casts doubt on evolutionary theory as it now stands, of course the theory will have to be held to account and, if necessary, altered or even abandoned. That’s what science is all about. That’s why evolutionary theory is such a gem in our knowledge of the world: for 150 years nothing has shown it to be lacking as a framework for understanding how life develops from what preceded it. As a matter of fact, overlapping avenues of research have bolstered the theory in ways that Darwin could not of even imagined. That’s why his theory is beautiful, simple, and very elegant and has withstood the test of time. More importantly, it seems to be true… so far. That should count for more than the consistency of an inadequate and unjustified belief.
[“You have repeatedly made references about evolution that show a marked lack of understanding what it is. I have mostly ignored them up until now (save for my math example in another post), but because you assume that evolution somehow means something it does not (the assertions that without biblical morality and law – whatever that may be interpreted by you to mean – (dog eat dog lack of compassion kind of comments), I feel compelled to try to crack open that door of inquiry for you.”]
Well on the lack of understanding we will just have to wait and see. I promise you I have read plenty of books and scientific material and do have reasonable understanding even though I would agree it is not perfect. What does survival of the fittest mean to you?
[“Ever watched a flock of starlings swoop and swirl as if it were one thing rather than a thousand or so individual birds? It’s quite beautiful (I think) and quite revealing. The borders of the flock are well defined and flocks can even pass through each other and each remains a cohesive whole. One might be tempted to call the flock one designed thing because it looks like a whole thing. It acts like a whole thing. We even have a word to describe this entirety, namely, a flock. But is it really designed? If you were a flock designer, how might you go about establishing it? There are sort of two models: the first is to design one bird and clone it repeatedly. This is like a top down approach, but this is not what we find with starlings: each bird is slightly different in degree and behaviour to another. Why should this be? Surely it would be easier and far more efficient to design the flock on a single model. Why the individual differences? And what does this evidence do to the top down model? How is information transferred between generations… by designer re-creation?”]
I don’t follow your example, this neither proves or disproves design?
[“The other way to design the flock is from the bottom up, incorporating generalized local rules for each bird. To do this, you also need some mechanism that will allow a transfer of this local flocking knowledge from one generation of each and every starling to its offspring. Now come up with a model of design that successfully predicts and explains flock behaviour. Test this model against other kinds of flocks, let’s say schools of fish, swarms of insects. Test your theory. See if it possesses the power of predictability and explanation. If so, welcome to the world of science.”]
Lets look at the facts you sugest;
1. They have same features Beaks, wings, legs etc but when in group they create flock and they are different on a lower level. Some are stronger, taller fatter etc. How does this low level variation change anything?
2. They co-operate to survive their predators this entails intelligence, does this not suggest designed mechanism that will help protect the spices from extinction?
[“There is, in fact, just such a theory of bottom up individual design. It’s called genetics and it really does work marvelously well. I won’t bore you with the details. The pursuit is too much pleasure to avoid. So let’s say you spend years and years of effort and study and come up with identifying the variables and incorporating all this knowledge of starlings and flocking behaviour into a model that you see works well for any kind of flocking behaviour. Along comes a person who tells you that a) god made it so, b) your theory is ‘just’ another belief, and c) that human morality must come from god. I will be very sympathetic to your plight. You just want people to apply your theory that so brilliantly explains and successfully predicts flocking behaviors. But local schools want to teach godmadeitso along side your theory of flocking behaviour in ornithology class and call it teaching the controversy. No doubt Stork Theory for explaining human reproduction is not far behind.”]
No need to stoop to that level to prove your point this is like me saying you are using evolution to prove that we should be racists. It just is not true.
[“You scratch your head in perplexity because one of these things just doesn’t belong here, and it’s not you and your knowledge about flocks and starlings for which you have reams of pertinent information. What offers zero explanatory power if the godmadeitso theory. Nothing informs it. There is no data. There is no falsifiability. There is just the assertion that godmadeitso.”]
Nobody is saying that we should accept things just because God made me this way. That is just incorrect conclusion. And if you find anyone saying that then you have my agreement that this is incorrect. I don’t say that we have not evolved, what I say is that our genetic defects due to fall of humanity leads to errors in programming that will often result in negative mutations that bring about information loss or corruption.
[“You do not understand evolutionary theory. You are willing to condemn it without understanding it. That is not a position of strength nor one that is founded on intellectual integrity. This position casts a pall of doubt over anything you may substitute in its place because if you cannot take the time and spend the effort to understand a basic fact of biology before condemning it or grossly misapplying it, why should anyone believe you’ve done anything more for notions of your beliefs?”]
Let me start that I believe that my understanding of evolution is often criticised simply because I happen to have reservations about the process. This is actually fallacies argument, as you base this opinion on the fact that you and I disagree. You have yet to show me where my assessment of the theory is wrong.
[“And the truth of the matter is that, in spite of everything you may believe to the contrary, evolution is a fact.”]
Bold words but can you prove it?
[“It is model that is testable and repeatable, predictable and falsifiable. Its conclusions form the basis of many technologies and medicines. It provides a framework of explanation that works in every discipline that requires such a framework and each one verifies by overlap the accuracy and explanatory power of the theory. Unless you can provide evidence to the contrary, let’s say a fossil of a rabbit in the pre-cambrian, then you need to do your homework first and understand what evolution theory is.”]
Not sure if you are “too kind” or just don’t get the point that your model is a model and not scientifically proven fact. Otherwise you would not have movement in the theory that is constantly evolving and would most certainly this would convince many academics that still hold out until real evidence is provided. I understand why this desire to adore evolution is Atheists favourite subject and this is why I will continue to challenge such blind faith.
[“I could tell you, but what would be the thrill of discovery in that? And just as a teaser, let me assure you that both morality and secular law of any kind can be explained in evolutionary terms without any need for the godmadeitso insertions. People will want to insert it, but you don’t it because it adds nothing to knowledge.”]
It may surprise you but I do know plenty of information about The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the seemingly rapid appearance of most major groups of complex animals around 530 million years ago, as evidenced by the fossil record. Before about 580 million years ago, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 or 80 million years the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude (as defined in terms of the extinction and origination rate of species. Could you explain to me why such long time for evolution to be kick started and then sudden acceleration? Why do we have 3 billions of years of simple life? Can I suggest that these beliefs are added, the meaning is inserted by the evolutionary biologists and not shown from the “evidence” I find your trap rather silly and not at all persuasive. You should not confuse meekness with weakness. And don’t confuse my polite respect to be lack of knowledge, in fact maybe you should carefully read what I say and then evaluate based on that information if you are talking to ignoramus or someone who has reasonable understanding but decidedly is keen to keep it simple otherwise our readers would switch of very quickly.
[“And you may drop the notion that the Golden Rule comes from the bible. There are many texts much older that have the same idea clearly expressed. If you want I can find you the list but I’m sure a semi-decent internet search will provide the same material sources. Unless you currently feel that you can murder your daughter if she fails to show you the respect you think you deserve, then you are applying not biblical but your own morality. It comes from you and is quite trustworthy. You can over-ride it, too, and do things you know are immoral. Blame the devil if you want but you know perfectly well that you choose your behaviours on a variety of considerations. That’s why you are an independent individual… as well as a member of the human flock.”]
Oh I don’t know where we diverged so far from each other? I think we have both expressed our views on our morality and we strongly disagree on their origins. I don’t think either of us needs to continue with this as no new information is brought to the table. But your oversimplification is very worrying to me, one you do not understand what the Bible is teaching two you then make claims that are ill informed, in fact Bible gives promise to children that if the listen to their parents they will live long and proper. Unless you advocate that Children should not listen to their parents in which case you are not in support of evolution as this would have detrimental affect on the survival of our species. They would eat what they want, drink what they want and do what they wanted, have sex too early when not ready to take responsibility for the actions. So you would have collapse in our society. Fact is that respect is designed to prop up society and resolve any issues and as such is not in disagreement with your beloved theory.
Do you parse my posts before reading them in their entirety? If so, don’t. My points are built by paragraphs that lead to a conclusion, meaning that when you go back for a second reading, keep in mind that the point directly refers to the conclusion. For your critique, please refer to why the point does NOT properly address the conclusion.
Morality, for example, comes from us. I have shown you a few self-evident examples – children’s behaviour, your own biblical cherry picking, your actual behaviour – that reveals some other source for your sense of morality and the behaviours you choose to exercise. You have not shown why these examples also must originate from the bible, but rather excused the differences as fear of legal punishment. You have then twisted what I have written as if I have suggested that we not parent children or set boundaries. This is a tactic that avoids confronting the point I have repeatedly tried to make: where does this morality come from when it clearly has either no origin from biblical sources or has been interpreted in such a way so as to select this rule but not that, this law in this case but not the same law in that. How can this be possible if the source is as you suggest only possible from understanding the bible correctly? That’s a conundrum because according to you one must read and understand the bible first to gain any sense of morality before you can then interpret the bible correctly, but you can’t interpret the bible correctly if you have to read it first without any sense of prior morality. The argument is just nonsensical. Of course we interpret the bible because we START with a sense of morality that allows us interpret it in a way that makes sense to us.
Now carry the thought further: how have millions of people prior to the writing of the various books of the bible been able to exercise morality of any kind? And there are many such examples upon which to draw, notwithstanding your favorite notion high morality like the Golden Rule. If your assertions were correct, then there is no possibility of this moral rule being established long before the writing of the bible. Yet there the rule is, what we call the ethic of reciprosity.
These are serious critical questions about your assertion that the bible is the source of morality that deserves serious answers not in length but in depth because they directly challenge your assertion that the bible not only the source for morality, but the ONLY source.
You write: Well on the lack of understanding we will just have to wait and see. I promise you I have read plenty of books and scientific material and do have reasonable understanding even though I would agree it is not perfect. What does survival of the fittest mean to you?
See what I mean? Survival of the fittest is not Darwin’s theory of evolution. Do the words Natural Selection mean anything to you? Can you explain what this means?
You have “reservations” about the process? Really. I don’t believe you do. I believe that you may have pre-digested quibbles offered by others at best and nothing meaningful. If your reservations had scientific merit, they would have been currently all the rage in biology. None have surfaced that have not been overcome so I can still claim that evolution is a fact.
You write Bold words but can you prove it? With help, yes I can. And so can you. Look at your daughter: there’s evolution in action. You and your spouse made her. No supernatural intervention necessary.
You write Could you explain to me why such long time for evolution to be kick started and then sudden acceleration? Sure. It took a long time for the conditions to be favourable for vertebrates, but when they were, many kinds came forth. That’s why there is a rich fossil record. But note that the order of fossils remains true. All it would take is for a latter critter to appear in earlier rock, hence my reference to a rabbit in the pre-cambrian. All creationists need to do is find a single such fossil to toss evolutionary theory on its head. No such fossil has been found. You need to get to work. And let’s face it: neither you nor I really can grasp just how long 20 or 30 or 40 million years is. In geological time, it is short. But when bacteria can be shown to evolve in a mere 2000 generations – a few months, then millions of years is hardly short for an expansion of many kinds of vertebrates. When we have altered dogs to such an extent in a mere few centuries, then millions of years seems a reasonable amount of time to have life of vertebrates evolve.
You write, What? Are you serious? In fact can I just ask you this question, we need sex to reproduce but what made this internal desire to be ignited? That in itself is strong suggestion that we have been designed to continue our survival.
Simple: your body.
Let’s look at this so-called designer: why loop the vas deferens all the way up and over the tube that connects your kidney to your bladder? This is too stupid a design to be called intelligent. Why design the human eye backwards with a huge blind spot? Why design one of the two laryngeal nerves to loop all the way down through the chaest cavity? This is too stupid for even a first year engineering student to get away with. And the list goes on. This is not intelligent design; this is just too stupid. But it makes perfect sense in evolutionary terms in that we can trace the development of these body bits into what we have today. It’s like evolving from a propeller engine to a jet engine, by tinkering each step of the way. What we end up with contain evidence of the former, whereas a design will be two completely different engines maximized for efficiency.
If you bothered to actually understand evolution, this evidence would be perfectly plausible within the framework of the theory. You would expect to find this evidence in overlapping areas of inquiry and this is exactly what we find. There is no evidence whatsoever of design as a starting point, merely what looks like evidence of design. But it ain’t design, intelligent or otherwise. Don’t be fooled by appearances. The look of design emerges from the biology and not the other way around. And this is verified again and again and again not only through the study of biology of all critters but by the building blocks of DNA and genes. And this is exactly what works with vaccines, fooling the body into building antigens for live pathogens it has never actually encountered. Only dead. Our immune system builds on its history, not the other way around.
”Note that I don’t believe this in fact even in the animal world we see that weaker are protected by the pack. I am fascinated by this idea as its clear that today in our media we try and push this idea trough by suggesting that if you have big expensive car you can provide for your family and this is why females will choose wealthy man. This is just too stupid and anyone with any understanding of how we interact with each other can tell you that things are not like that. In fact we have very strong derogatory terms we use for people that only pay attention to such narrow argument. ”
IT is because you have only been looking at said media you see the argument as so narrow. Evolutionary psychology is so deep and hard to understand it would take years of study to be able to apply it properly. Psychological studies almost always fit in with the evolutionary model.
‘if you have big expensive car you can provide for your family and this is why females will choose wealthy man.’
Taking this as an example I can provide a simple explanation. Wealthy men are a factor in a womans account for breeding. Life, is one huge gamble. Some ridiculously high % of wild animals don’t make it to adult hood. Because life is brutal, it is one huge gamble. Every animal is weighing up the pros and cons of every action by instinct.
Ofcourse women dont always pick wealthier men…but is that because they tend to be more promiscious? Her mating strategy might be higher security in a relationship….but what if she can maintain that relationship and still get better genes elsewhere? What if she has a lower social stature herself?
The way the studies are portrayed in the media are very over simplistic. But in criticising the media, you have actually fallen for them. Journalists don’t write scientific papers. Infact, every proffessional states that the media writes rubbish about their personal proffesion, which means they are writing rubbish about everything. Don’t think evolution is as simple as the Sun represents it to be
Harry I’m just going to say it is your perception and lack of willingness that stops you from spotting the obvious. You are making excuses where none should be found I like your enthusiasm but your observation may or may not be true. As it happens I have never read and do not to read Sun, however I do enjoy watching good documentary even when I may disagree with their conclusions.
I come to your blog to challenge you to think. It’s a very difficult task.
I hold to an evidence-based method of inquiry because it works. It reveals what is probably true, probably correct, probably accurate. Revelation is for the superstitious.
You toss around the notion that your worldview has as much merit as any other. It doesn’t. You flip a coin when we disagree and assume that because there is disagreement, there is merit in both. You say you are human, I say you are a squid. Both positions do not have merit. One is right, one is wrong. There is no middle ground. Evolution is either right or wrong. There is no middle ground. It is right. Design by a supernatural critter is wrong. Why? Because there is nothing but evidence for the former and no evidence for the latter.
I try repeatedly to engage your curiosity to explain in naturalistic terms why things are the way they are and attempt to show you how evolutionary theory does exactly that. I challenge the message of the various videos you pose to show you why they are lacking in critical thinking, that their message is badly skewed, that the thinking behind it is broken. I challenge the message that religion is any way of knowing anything about anything.
Your beliefs and the religious beliefs of other like-minded people are an impediment to critical inquiry in general, an impediment to rationally engaging in bettering the human condition, an impediment to attaining knowledge, an impediment to solving some of the most pressing issues of our times. The active discourse attempting to discredit evolution is a single example of how the religious mindset is opposed to actually learning and substitutes nothing of value in its place except willful ignorance. This is a travesty.
Your lines of reasoning are not substantiated by what’s probably true, correct, or accurate. That’s not just a matter of opinion or a subtle disagreement on a worldview; the evidence is here in our discussions. You have revealed the thinking that informs your beliefs and they are lacking. You are promoting ignorance. You need to be challenged. The fact that your counter-arguments are so poorly informed reveals to other readers why your position is so inherently weak. Religious belief like yours is no basis on which to come to know anything; it is a way to avoid coming to understand what is, a means to avoid having to justify cherry-picked data that lends even the resemblance of support, and is in fact an impediment to honest inquiry.
The proof is in the pudding. You may think your responses have refuted my challenges adequately but they have not. They instead reveal how religious belief pollutes the intellectual merit of holding justified beliefs.
[“I come to your blog to challenge you to think. It’s a very difficult task. I hold to an evidence-based method of inquiry because it works. It reveals what is probably true, probably correct, probably accurate. Revelation is for the superstitious.”]
O man your thinking is so not scientific, just think about it, you don’t know but you make your judgement to be contrary to what others are saying because you think it may be according to your thinking.
[“You toss around the notion that your worldview has as much merit as any other. It doesn’t. You flip a coin when we disagree and assume that because there is disagreement, there is merit in both. You say you are human, I say you are a squid. Both positions do not have merit. One is right, one is wrong. There is no middle ground. Evolution is either right or wrong. There is no middle ground. It is right. Design by a supernatural critter is wrong. Why? Because there is nothing but evidence for the former and no evidence for the latter.”]
First let me tell you there is no tossing, if you read this blog closely you will find much information that can prove useful to you. Your refusal to accept that there could be a middle ground is also not scientific but I guess you should know that.
[“I try repeatedly to engage your curiosity to explain in naturalistic terms why things are the way they are and attempt to show you how evolutionary theory does exactly that. I challenge the message of the various videos you pose to show you why they are lacking in critical thinking, that their message is badly skewed, that the thinking behind it is broken. I challenge the message that religion is any way of knowing anything about anything.”]
What I was getting at is, if you believe in the world view you claim you stand for why bother? This just does not make any logical or philosophical sense. And on the contrary when comparing what I stand for there is plenty of reason for me to go on. Do you think I will simply go away because you bring well known argument which have been worn out long time ago?
[“Your beliefs and the religious beliefs of other like-minded people are an impediment to critical inquiry in general, an impediment to rationally engaging in bettering the human condition, an impediment to attaining knowledge, an impediment to solving some of the most pressing issues of our times. The active discourse attempting to discredit evolution is a single example of how the religious mindset is opposed to actually learning and substitutes nothing of value in its place except willful ignorance. This is a travesty.”]
You make me smile, you are not telling me much a bout anything but you do show loads about your personality, I wish that you are as honest as you claim to be, note that I have kept this debate going, why do you think that is?
[“Your lines of reasoning are not substantiated by what’s probably true, correct, or accurate. That’s not just a matter of opinion or a subtle disagreement on a worldview; the evidence is here in our discussions. You have revealed the thinking that informs your beliefs and they are lacking. You are promoting ignorance. You need to be challenged. The fact that your counter-arguments are so poorly informed reveals to other readers why your position is so inherently weak. Religious belief like yours is no basis on which to come to know anything; it is a way to avoid coming to understand what is, a means to avoid having to justify cherry-picked data that lends even the resemblance of support, and is in fact an impediment to honest inquiry.”]
If any of what you say is true would I be allowing this kind of response on your behalf?
[“The proof is in the pudding. You may think your responses have refuted my challenges adequately but they have not. They instead reveal how religious belief pollutes the intellectual merit of holding justified beliefs.”]
Thank, now you are using my argument but that is not too bad, at least I know you are listening even if it is just partially.
Defend. The prospect of bacteria evolving into multi-cellular organisms is an very difficult concept. And actually one we do know very little about.
However, for you to state we have never seen it happen is not pointing out a fallacy of evolution. We have seen plenty of evolution in action, but the odds of us seeing this particular aspect of it is infenticamely small.
Consider how long the earth only had single celled organisms, it was literally billions of years. Multi-celled organisms have been around for a fraction of that time. We would have to be incredibly lucky to see it happen.
However we do have a very good model for how we think it could have happened, and we do have a chain of fossils that fit the hypothesis.
There are some aspects of evolution, that are hypothesis, we are not sure how it happened. The are other aspects of it that are practically un-debatable.
I would agree with you that, from this point of view (as much as i know about it anyway) attacking evolution from a single celled, to multi celled standpoint maybe a valid line of attack. However, i doubt much research has been done on it for you to be able to assert a valid hypothesis for this transistion, due to the near total lack of information we have on how it might happen.
We can view evolution now, and extrapolate into deep time, (i am not just talking about extrapolating micro into macro, but also the mechanisms of mutation etc). We can link this extrapolation with fossil evidence and genetic trees so that we have a good picture. We have very little to base single to multi celled organisms on to found a theory, either pro or anti evolution.
”You make my point here very well, Evolution is destructive not helpful to life on earth. I guess you would suggest that weak will die out but strong will go on to bring humanity to the next stage of evolution. Again it is all in the mind of the observer, evidence presented is used according to the world view held by the observer.”
Even if evolution was destructive, it would have no bearing on if was true.
Adn what if your ‘observer’ is that virus, then its a very positive thing
Let me just say as someone who had to deal with number of projects, you could not make one step forward and then go three steps backwards that would simply lead to complete disarray of the process of evolution. You need this to be more than 50% positive in order to work and even then this needs to be significantly better than simply 51% as even with plenty of time with changing environmental conditions you would need perfect timing. That leads me on to conclude that for Evolution to work it would have to be guided precisely by the designer of life. Creating environment that is acceptable to life and providing all the substance that can be successfully mixed and so on. In which case you still have evolution and ID but this time they would have to be working together rather than competing against each other.
[“You write: Well on the lack of understanding we will just have to wait and see. I promise you I have read plenty of books and scientific material and do have reasonable understanding even though I would agree it is not perfect. What does survival of the fittest mean to you? See what I mean? Survival of the fittest is not Darwin’s theory of evolution. Do the words Natural Selection mean anything to you? Can you explain what this means?”]
First I am aware of the differences and that whilst originally it was suggested that survival of the fittest was the reason for the progression of the organisms, this was later refined by Darwin to say Natural selection, but this favoured speciation as his subtitle suggests is a giveaway that this is just slight modification and you do not have to be PhD Qualified to understand this. Cretan criteria are favoured by nature and therefore others will die out, shorter weaker specimens. And according to National Geographic’s females will prefer strong and bright mails in order to give greater chance to their offspring. How is that different to saying that weaker gets destroyed and stronger prospers. Note that I don’t believe this in fact even in the animal world we see that weaker are protected by the pack. I am fascinated by this idea as its clear that today in our media we try and push this idea trough by suggesting that if you have big expensive car you can provide for your family and this is why females will choose wealthy man. This is just too stupid and anyone with any understanding of how we interact with each other can tell you that things are not like that. In fact we have very strong derogatory terms we use for people that only pay attention to such narrow argument.
[“You have “reservations” about the process? Really. I don’t believe you do. I believe that you may have pre-digested quibbles offered by others at best and nothing meaningful. If your reservations had scientific merit, they would have been currently all the rage in biology. None have surfaced that have not been overcome so I can still claim that evolution is a fact.”]
Are we using same definition of the word reservation here? Or did I miss something here? I take it to be meaning having doubts, uncertain of the information provided etc. So unless you have new linguistic definition I would suggest your challenge is misplaced. Your judgemental attitude is no different to my judgemental statement made elsewhere. They are both based on our experiences and should be evaluated on the basses of our subsequent comments or some other information that may be incorporated into the argument.
[“You write Bold words but can you prove it? With help, yes I can. And so can you. Look at your daughter: there’s evolution in action. You and your spouse made her. No supernatural intervention necessary.”]
What? Are you serious? In fact can I just ask you this question, we need sex to reproduce but what made this internal desire to be ignited? That in itself is strong suggestion that we have been designed to continue our survival.
[“You write Could you explain to me why such long time for evolution to be kick started and then sudden acceleration? Sure. It took a long time for the conditions to be favourable for vertebrates, but when they were, many kinds came forth. That’s why there is a rich fossil record. But note that the order of fossils remains true. All it would take is for a latter critter to appear in earlier rock, hence my reference to a rabbit in the pre-cambrian. All creationists need to do is find a single such fossil to toss evolutionary theory on its head. No such fossil has been found. You need to get to work. And let’s face it: neither you nor I really can grasp just how long 20 or 30 or 40 million years is. In geological time, it is short. But when bacteria can be shown to evolve in a mere 2000 generations – a few months, then millions of years is hardly short for an expansion of many kinds of vertebrates. When we have altered dogs to such an extent in a mere few centuries, then millions of years seems a reasonable amount of time to have life of vertebrates evolve.”]
Actually what you are doing is just avoiding the question, we have sudden explosion of new speciation and there is no other way to put this but the need to introduce new terminology and new explanation in order to justify this stubborn belief in something that may only exist in the minds of man kind. Note that neither you nor I have such luxury to sit with our measuring tools and time any of the changes long term, only changes we can observe is micro organisms and often we don’t understand fully what external influences would be needed for this to progress upwards to new speciation. In fact whilst we see mutation we are yet to observe bacteria changing into different kind of animal. (They still stubbornly tend to stay bacteria) And on the contrary rather than showing progression all I hear today is that we can’t see this as the conditions are not favourable and that even Human evolution is not going to be observed in the future as we have reached the zenith of our evolution. All I see is loads of hot air and very little substance to go on. Your statements about dog’s evolution is precisely what drove Darwin to come up with his theory, he was very much under the influence of the breeders in his time and he assumed that controlled environment controlled by humans is to be assumed that same changes would happen even when not controlled when looking at the evolution of the natural selection process. What you will find however is that we have many defects in specialist breeds and that is not good on the contrary tends to be very painful for the animals. And that is not science that is simply jumping from one observation and making conclusion that may not necessarily be correct. So excuse me if I have reservation about such claims, I am simply put it; not convinced. This does not mean I think the idea is stupid, on the contrary it has become very complex in the last 50 years and it needs to be in order to survive. So the theory of Evolution has evolved but has it become monstrosity or does it show the beauty of natural selection that it purports to do? Or does the design option becomes more viable option based on many issues we have come across and with no plausible explanation to many anomalies we find in the theory? I would suggest that this depends on who you are talking to and what mentality is driving the enquiry but then again maybe I am wrong, but before I can honestly admit my mistake I will require proof that will shed any doubts that I still have today.
You write In fact whilst we see mutation we are yet to observe bacteria changing into different kind of animal. (They still stubbornly tend to stay bacteria) And on the contrary rather than showing progression all I hear today is that we can’t see this as the conditions are not favourable and that even Human evolution is not going to be observed in the future as we have reached the zenith of our evolution. All I see is loads of hot air and very little substance to go on.
This shows such a gross misunderstanding of evolution that it defies a simple answer.
Where did you get the absurd notion that bacteria evolve into some other species and that we’re supposed to see it happen? For an answer to this absurd proposition that we’re suppose to see it happen, you say that the ‘only’ answer from others is that conditions are not favourable. That’s just bunk unless you’re talking to whack jobs whose ignorance is as deep as geologic time. No wonder why you see only hot air and little substance: your understanding of evolution has very little substance if any and the hot air is your own!
Evolution is seen all around us. Take the H1N1 virus: it has EVOLVED!!!! That’s why it’s suddenly here. It wasn’t around a decade ago. It wasn’t around 5 years ago. It EMERGED this year! Or do you honestly think that 1) god decided to create it for some perverse amusement, or 2) mankind ‘built’ it? If not one of these two possibilities, then the only other explanation is that it EVOLVED.
Why does your body possess genetic sequences that are inactive in you but active in chimps? Why does an in utero baby grow hair at 6 months and shed it by 8? Why does an embryo develop gills? I mean the questions that pile up have no answer from Genesis, no reasonable explanation. How can you possibly dismiss all these facts that raise so many interesting questions without wanting to find a theoretical framework that explains it? And when a framework is found, tested, and predicts so successfully in every area of inquiry, why do you want to dismiss it with so much apparent and willful ignorance? To get a job at the Discovery Institute?
You write In fact whilst we see mutation we are yet to observe bacteria changing into different kind of animal. (They still stubbornly tend to stay bacteria) And on the contrary rather than showing progression all I hear today is that we can’t see this as the conditions are not favourable and that even Human evolution is not going to be observed in the future as we have reached the zenith of our evolution. All I see is loads of hot air and very little substance to go on.
[“This shows such a gross misunderstanding of evolution that it defies a simple answer.”]
I would beg to differ on this one, I would say that it is my reasonably good understanding of the processes that have persuaded me of the absurdity of the proposition that things just evolved on their own without any guidance.
[“Where did you get the absurd notion that bacteria evolve into some other species and that we’re supposed to see it happen? For an answer to this absurd proposition that we’re suppose to see it happen, you say that the ‘only’ answer from others is that conditions are not favourable. That’s just bunk unless you’re talking to whack jobs whose ignorance is as deep as geologic time. No wonder why you see only hot air and little substance: your understanding of evolution has very little substance if any and the hot air is your own!”]
I was making simple point which you obviously did not understand, I agree that there is process of evolution that we can observe but this is very negative process and very rarely benefits us. Example used by evolutionists is often bacterial mutation note however that this is not helpful to the life on this planate on the contrary. Unless you are talking about “good bacteria in your gut etc.”
[“Evolution is seen all around us. Take the H1N1 virus: it has EVOLVED!!!! That’s why it’s suddenly here. It wasn’t around a decade ago. It wasn’t around 5 years ago. It EMERGED this year! Or do you honestly think that 1) god decided to create it for some perverse amusement, or 2) mankind ‘built’ it? If not one of these two possibilities, then the only other explanation is that it EVOLVED.”]
You make my point here very well, Evolution is destructive not helpful to life on earth. I guess you would suggest that weak will die out but strong will go on to bring humanity to the next stage of evolution. Again it is all in the mind of the observer, evidence presented is used according to the world view held by the observer.
[“Why does your body possess genetic sequences that are inactive in you but active in chimps? Why does an in utero baby grow hair at 6 months and shed it by 8? Why does an embryo develop gills? I mean the questions that pile up have no answer from Genesis, no reasonable explanation. How can you possibly dismiss all these facts that raise so many interesting questions without wanting to find a theoretical framework that explains it? And when a framework is found, tested, and predicts so successfully in every area of inquiry, why do you want to dismiss it with so much apparent and willful ignorance? To get a job at the Discovery Institute?”]
First let me give you some advice check what you say and claims you make before you go on with some absurd conclusions. Here are my questions to you, if hair was so useful why did the baby louse it? Does this prove or disprove evolution no of course not but I’m guessing you are so accustomed to thinking in such way that you miss the obvious. On the issue of gills, where does the baby live for the first 9 months of its life? Does this not explain design rather than evolution in other words if it has things that help it in the environment it resides then should this not be clue to the designer? Secondly many so called vestigial organs have been proven to have perfectly useful function does removing any notion of organs that have lost function due to evolution. I am not after a job on the contrary my objective is to share freely any information which can question multiple claims that are clearly either misinformation or deliberate indoctrination of the so called scientist who have pride of intellect that prevents them from considering that which stares them in the face. I find it very ignorant of people and deliberately dishonest when they refuse to consider wealth of information that is there but are simply too proud and fearful for the obvious reasons that they may be ridiculed simply because they dare to contradict established dogma of natural science we call that view scientism. Claim that science has all the answers yet when truly examined you will find mass of ignorance amongst those who claim that they will lead the way. I would encourage you to examine just two things and be honest to yourself. 1. Why do you come to my blog? Is it driven by your intellectual pride? And why do you persist holding to your world view despite of much evidence how can you choose to ignore that and make constant leaps of faith without realisation that you are doing it.