A Case of Bad Timing

Here, more https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/ethics/lfp-48m-the-legitimate-authority-of-knowable-moral-truth-in-service-to-justice-thriving-and-prudence/ kairosfocus

Sev, and thereby hangs the fatal error of relativising and undermining knowable, warranted, objective moral truth reducing it to clash of opinions backed by power. Justice evaporates. KF kairosfocus

Barry Arrington/45

overwhelming majority regard dumping newborns in dumpsters as being evil

Suppose the overwhelming majority regarded dumping newborns in dumpsters as good. Would it then be good?

I'm sorry, I must have skimmed over this. Presumably, it would be good in the minds of the majority who approved of it. It would not be a good thing from my perspective. Seversky

Well actually ChuckyD, contrary to your usual denial of evidence that is sitting right in front of you, (i.e. willful blindness), altruistic behavior has been recognized as being a severe problem for Darwin's "ANTI-moral" theory for a very long time. Darwin himself admitted as much.

Cell death - (Cornelius Hunter; PhD - Biophysics) Excerpt: According to evolutionary theory, biological variation that supports or enhances reproduction will increase in future generations—a process known as natural selection. The corollary to this is that biological variation that degrades reproduction will not be selected for. Clearly, natural selection could not result in destructive behavior. Here are two representative statements from Origins: "we may feel sure that any [biological] variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. (Darwin, 63)" "Natural selection will never produce in a being any structure more injurious than beneficial to that being, for natural selection acts solely by and for the good of each. (Darwin, 162-3)" But are not examples of such “injurious” behavior obvious? When the rattlesnake rattles its tail, is this not injurious to its hunt for food, and ultimately to its reproductive chances? Darwin argued that this and other such examples are signals to frighten away enemies, not warn the intended prey. But today we have many examples of injurious behavior that falsify Darwin’s prediction that natural selection “will never produce in a being any structure more injurious than beneficial to that being.” In bacteria, for example, phenomenally complicated mechanisms carefully and precisely destroy the individual. Clearly, this suicide mechanism is more injurious than beneficial to the bacteria’s future prospects.,, https://sites.google.com/site/darwinspredictions/cell-death Altruism - (Cornelius Hunter; PhD - Biophysics) Conclusions Darwin’s theory of evolution led him to several expectations and predictions, regarding behavior in general, and altruism in particular. We now know those predictions to be false. Furthermore, in order to explain (away) many of the behaviors we find in biology, evolutionists have had to add substantial serendipity to their theory. The list of events that must have occurred to explain how evolution produced what we observe is incredible and the theory has become absurdly complex. https://sites.google.com/site/darwinspredictions/altruism

bornagain77

BA77 @ 53

In short, multicellular life would not even exist in the first place if life was not, in fact, based upon the highest, altruistic, moral principles found within Christian Theism of self sacrifice.

Anthropomorphism on steroids. You've really jumped the shark on this one... chuckdarwin

Moreover, to go even further in falsifying the claim from Darwinists that life is the result of 'ANTI-moral' "Death as the Creator" forces, I will point out that for multicellular life to even exist in the first place, then multicellular life itself MUST be based on altruistic, self-sacrificial, morality. Specifically, multicellular life would not exist if ‘apoptosis’ did not exist,,,, ‘apoptosis’ means programmed cell death, and is a necessary and essential part of embryological development for all multicellular organisms.

Apoptosis in Embryonic Development Excerpt: As cells rapidly proliferate during development, some of them undergo apoptosis, which is necessary for many stages in development, including neural development, reduction in egg cells (oocytes) at birth, as well as the shaping of fingers and,, organs in humans and other animals. Sydney Brenner, H. Robert Horvitz, and John E. Sulston received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2002 for their work on the genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/apoptosis-embryonic-development

In short, multicellular life would not even exist in the first place if life was not, in fact, based upon the highest, altruistic, moral principles found within Christian Theism of self sacrifice.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Thus in conclusion, Darwinists may falsely imagine that any conception of objective morality that we may have for life is merely a subjective, man-made, illusion, but the reality of the situation is that if (altruistic) morality did not first exist in some objectively real and meaningful sense in the first place then multicellular life itself would not even be possible. Given all these lines of empirical evidence falsifying the 'red in tooth and claw' presupposition of Darwinists, the real mystery is "why in blue blazes are Darwinists so dogmatically, even insanely, committed to falsely believing that we live in a "Death as the Creator" universe?" In my honest opinion, the profound mysteries of quantum mechanics pale in comparison to that "Death as the Creator" preference that Darwinists have.

Proverbs 8:36 But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: All they that hate me love death.

bornagain77

Darwinists hold that any conception of objective morality that we may have for life is merely a subjective, man-made, illusion. The reality of the situation, they tell us repeatedly, is that life is the result of blind physical forces which are pitilessly indifferent to morality.

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

In fact, as pointed out previously in this thread, Darwinists hold that not only is life the result of forces which are not only pitilessly indifferent to morality, but they, in reality, hold that life is the result of "red in tooth and claw", 'Death as the Creator", forces which are diametrically opposed to morality, i.e. forces that are "ANTI-moral".

"I think “nature red in tooth and claw” sums up our modern understanding of natural selection admirably." - Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene (1976) How Has Darwinism Negatively Impacted Society? John G. West – January 11, 2022 Excerpt: Death as the Creator A third big idea fueled by Darwin’s theory is that the engine of progress in the history of life is mass death. Instead of believing that the remarkable features of humans and other living things reflect the intelligent design of a master artist, Darwin portrayed death and destruction as our ultimate creator. As he wrote at the end of his most famous work: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.” https://evolutionnews.org/2022/01/how-has-darwinism-negatively-impacted-society/ “One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species – 1861, page 266

The trouble for Darwinists holding and/or imagining that life is the solely the result of merciless "ANTI-moral", i.e. "Death as the Creator", forces is that life is not overtly ‘red in tooth and claw’ in its overall character. Which is to say that the reality of life does not match Darwinian expectations for life. For instance, Darwin himself held that “every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;”

“every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;” – Charles Darwin – Origin of Species – pg. 66 The Logic of Natural Selection – graph http://recticulatedgiraffe.weebly.com/uploads/4/0/6/2/40627097/1189735.jpg?308

Yet, directly contrary to Darwin's 'logic' of natural selection, "Both plants and animals have built-in programs for avoiding overexploitation of their resources,,"

Red in tooth and claw Excerpt: The phrase ‘red in tooth and claw’ was coined in 1849 by Lord Tennyson, but quickly taken up to support the idea that evolution occurred by ‘natural selection’ in a very violent world.,,, (Yet) In a restricted area such as an island, wolves limit their population size when the deer population goes down.,,, Plants also do not proliferate in a field to the point where they become overcrowded. They do not engage in a “struggle for existence” for natural selection to preserve those that pass the survival test and destroy those that don’t. Plants tend to control their populations by sensing the density of the planting. When the growth is dense, plants produce less seeds; when growth is thin, they produce more seeds. Both plants and animals have built-in programs for avoiding overexploitation of their resources –,,, So ‘nature’ may seem to be violent at times – ‘red in tooth and claw’ – but not to the level required required by the theory of evolution. Population sizes of both animals and plants appear to be self-regulating, matching available resources. Evidence, surely, of intelligent design?,,, https://the1way.net/reasonstobelieve/red-in-tooth-and-claw/

Moreover, instead of bacteria eating us, as would be expected under the 'red in tooth and claw' assumption of Darwinists,

Richard Dawkins interview with a ‘Darwinian’ physician goes off track – video Excerpt: “I am amazed, Richard, that what we call metazoans, multi-celled organisms, have actually been able to evolve, and the reason [for amazement] is that bacteria and viruses replicate so quickly — a few hours sometimes, they can reproduce themselves — that they can evolve very, very quickly. And we’re stuck with twenty years at least between generations. How is it that we resist infection when they can evolve so quickly to find ways around our defenses?” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/video_to_dawkin062031.html

,,, instead of bacteria eating us, as would be expected under the 'red in tooth and claw' assumption of Darwinists, we instead find micro-organisms helping each other, and us, in ways that have nothing to with their own ‘survival of the fittest’’ concerns. For instance, the following researchers said that they were ‘banging our heads against the wall’ by the mutual cooperation that they had found amongst bacteria. They even went so far as to state, ,,, “Maybe Darwin’s presumption that the world may be dominated by competition is wrong.”

Doubting Darwin: Algae Findings Surprise Scientists – April 28, 2014 Excerpt: One of Charles Darwin’s hypotheses posits that closely related species will compete for food and other resources more strongly with one another than with distant relatives, because they occupy similar ecological niches. Most biologists long have accepted this to be true. Thus, three researchers were more than a little shaken to find that their experiments on fresh water green algae failed to support Darwin’s theory — at least in one case. “It was completely unexpected,” says Bradley Cardinale, associate professor in the University of Michigan’s school of natural resources & environment. “When we saw the results, we said ‘this can’t be.”‘ We sat there banging our heads against the wall. Darwin’s hypothesis has been with us for so long, how can it not be right?” The researchers ,,,— were so uncomfortable with their results that they spent the next several months trying to disprove their own work. But the research held up.,,, The scientists did not set out to disprove Darwin, but, in fact, to learn more about the genetic and ecological uniqueness of fresh water green algae so they could provide conservationists with useful data for decision-making. “We went into it assuming Darwin to be right, and expecting to come up with some real numbers for conservationists,” Cardinale says. “When we started coming up with numbers that showed he wasn’t right, we were completely baffled.”,,, Darwin “was obsessed with competition,” Cardinale says. “He assumed the whole world was composed of species competing with each other, but we found that one-third of the species of algae we studied actually like each other. They don’t grow as well unless you put them with another species. It may be that nature has a heck of a lot more mutualisms than we ever expected. “,,, Maybe Darwin’s presumption that the world may be dominated by competition is wrong.” http://www.livescience.com/45205-data-dont-back-up-darwin-in-algae-study-nsf-bts.html

And as the following study found, “‘survival of the friendliest’ outweighs ‘survival of the fittest’ for groups of bacteria. Bacteria make space for one another and sacrifice properties if it benefits the bacterial community as a whole.”

Friendly bacteria collaborate to survive – 10 October 2019 Excerpt: New microbial research at the University of Copenhagen suggests that ‘survival of the friendliest’ outweighs ‘survival of the fittest’ for groups of bacteria. Bacteria make space for one another and sacrifice properties if it benefits the bacterial community as a whole. The discovery is a major step towards understanding complex bacteria interactions and the development of new treatment models for a wide range of human diseases and new green technologies. https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2019/10/friendly-bacteria-collaborate-to-survive/

Again, this ‘survival of the friendliest’ is, morally and scientifically speaking, directly contrary to Charles Darwin’s primary ‘one general law’ of his theory which holds “let the strongest live and the weakest die.”

“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species - ibid

If Darwin's theory were a real, testable, science, instead of being, basically, a blind faith religion for atheists, this should count as yet another direct falsification of a core presupposition of Darwin's theory. Also of note:

"Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides. " - Paul G. Falkowski - Professor Geological Sciences - Rutgers NIH Human Microbiome Project defines normal bacterial makeup of the body – June 13, 2012 Excerpt: Microbes inhabit just about every part of the human body, living on the skin, in the gut, and up the nose. Sometimes they cause sickness, but most of the time, microorganisms live in harmony with their human hosts, providing vital functions essential for human survival,, http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jun2012/nhgri-13.htm

Moreover, to dive a little bit deeper into the molecular level of life, the ‘scientific/empirical’ falsification of the Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ "ANTI-morality" occurs at the molecular level of life to. Richard Dawkins’s ‘selfish gene’ concept is more of less directly based on Darwin’s own ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking about competition. Yet genes are now found to be anything but ‘selfish’ as Dawkins himself had imagined. Instead of being ‘selfish’, genes are now found to be exist in an extensive holistic web of mutual interdependence and cooperation (which is the very antithesis of Richard Dawkins’s entire ‘selfish gene’ concept).

What If (Almost) Every Gene Affects (Almost) Everything? – JUN 16, 2017 Excerpt: If you told a modern geneticist that a complex trait—whether a physical characteristic like height or weight, or the risk of a disease like cancer or schizophrenia—was the work of just 15 genes, they’d probably laugh. It’s now thought that such traits are the work of thousands of genetic variants, working in concert. The vast majority of them have only tiny effects, but together, they can dramatically shape our bodies and our health. They’re weak individually, but powerful en masse. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/its-like-all-connected-man/530532/ Theory Suggests That All Genes Affect Every Complex Trait – June 20, 2018 Excerpt: Mutations of a single gene are behind sickle cell anemia, for instance, and mutations in another are behind cystic fibrosis. But unfortunately for those who like things simple, these conditions are the exceptions. The roots of many traits, from how tall you are to your susceptibility to schizophrenia, are far more tangled. In fact, they may be so complex that almost the entire genome may be involved in some way,,, One very early genetic mapping study in 1999 suggested that “a large number of loci (perhaps > than 15)” might contribute to autism risk, recalled Jonathan Pritchard, now a geneticist at Stanford University. “That’s a lot!” he remembered thinking when the paper came out. Over the years, however, what scientists might consider “a lot” in this context has quietly inflated. Last June, Pritchard and his Stanford colleagues Evan Boyle and Yang Li (now at the University of Chicago) published a paper about this in Cell that immediately sparked controversy, although it also had many people nodding in cautious agreement. The authors described what they called the “omnigenic” model of complex traits. Drawing on GWAS analyses of three diseases, they concluded that in the cell types that are relevant to a disease, it appears that not 15, not 100, but essentially all genes contribute to the condition. The authors suggested that for some traits, “multiple” loci could mean more than 100,000. - per quanta magazine

Such extensive, even astonishing, ‘holistic cooperation’ between genes is, needless to say, the exact polar opposite of being ‘selfish’ as Richard Dawkins had erroneously envisioned genes to be. And again, should count as yet another powerful falsification of a core Darwinian presupposition. bornagain77

LCD http://www.columbia.edu/~ey2172/orwell.html 1984's Winston Smith speaks . . . kairosfocus

Over in L&FP 48a, regarding a new OP 48i: Today’s addition L&FP, 48i: Dallas Willard on the legitimate authority of knowledge (vs the radical narrative of oppression) https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/education/lfp-48i-dallas-willard-on-the-legitimate-authority-of-knowledge-vs-the-radical-narrative-of-oppression/ kairosfocus

Barry Arrington

Sev overwhelming majority regard dumping newborns in dumpsters as being evil

Suppose the overwhelming majority regarded dumping newborns in dumpsters as good. Would it then be good?

Orwell: To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, Seversky: I'm busy will talk about later... :))) Lieutenant Commander Data

PPS: Sev, I note discomfort on how this exchange developed:

[KF:] PS, do you have rights that demand justice, starting with life? [Sev:] I believe I should and, fortunately, most Western states largely agree, at least in principle.

The issue of rights is not an issue of a cluster of blind men unable to find objective, comprehensive truth so that project towards a body of knowledge must be abandoned with serious indictments as oppressive, arrogant etc. The matter pivots on the civil peace of justice, due balance of rights, freedoms, duties. Where, as a rights claim carries a binding expectation of correlative freedoms on one's part and equally correlative duties on the part of others, this is a profound issue on right conduct and how such delimits freedoms. For instance, no one may justly claim or imply or impose that the other sully and taint conscience by passive or active enabling in evils and wrongs. Something as seemingly simple as imposing lying through doublethink tactics counts. I note here, Orwell:

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word—doublethink—involved the use of doublethink.

kairosfocus

EDTA, recall, the significance of a ruthless totalitarian state, including the fate of the White Rose martyrs as a capital example of the spiral of silencing. KF kairosfocus

Sev, in a race that is error prone and quarrelsome, diversity of views or alleged consensus is not a good sign that there is not objective knowable warranted truth regarding duty to right conduct, virtue etc. Besides, truth does not reside in imperatives but in related propositions that may -- or may fail to -- accurately describe states of affairs, which are abstract. Truth is declarative. For example, see 35 above on the relativist thesis; which inter alia clarifies what a moral proposition is, what makes it a moral proposition and what it would require to be generally knowable and warranted, which implies credible truth on a responsible reliable basis . . . and yes that brings up branch on which we sit and the need for definitions of knowledge to include the weak (defeasible but on grounds evidently reliable) sense common in science, history, practical affairs etc. Likewise, note too at 40 for Dallas Willard on the nature of knowledge and the authority/responsibility it confers. (I intend to speak to that a bit further.) KF PS, on theology and related study of the idea of God in phil, I suggest restraint on characterisations; formulations, to be sound, require a careful deeply informed exactitude that is balanced and nuanced, Even where phrasing may look simple, this must embrace how easily a seemingly small error or imprecision can lead to a massive divergence much as a watershed line acts in geography. Compare definition of continuum in Mathematics. For example, the issue of a root of reality that is inherently good, utterly wise, creator, necessary being and maximally great is a summary of huge concepts with extreme significance. The Old Covenant, for example, was not viewed as erroneous to be corrected but prophetic-developmental and as stages towards further fulfillment of a programme of redemptive transformation itself still in progress towards culmination. kairosfocus

Sev

overwhelming majority regard dumping newborns in dumpsters as being evil

Suppose the overwhelming majority regarded dumping newborns in dumpsters as good. Would it then be good? Barry Arrington

Sev,

Once the Nazis had seized control of the German state, Hitler was the tyrant. The majority were neither consulted nor polled to discover whether they approved or disapproved of The Final Solution.

I thought that also, but I'm currently reading "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust", by Danial Jonah Goldhaven, which is making the case that pretty much everyone in Germany knew that genocide was going on. Clearly no large segment of the population fought it; most Germans were stridently anti-Semitic before Hitler came along. He documents things pretty well, and it may cause me to rethink my position on this question. EDTA

Barry Arrington/24

You ask that question as if the answer would make a difference. Are we supposed to say, “Oh, she had a traumatic experience, so let’s give her a pass for putting a baby in a garbage bag and throwing him in a dumpster”?

No, certainly not, on its face this was a shocking act but due diligence requires that we try to ascertain all the facts of this case before reaching a judgement, in case there are any extenuating circumstances we should take into consideration.

BTW Sev. Chuck dodged this question so I will ask you. Is it objectively evil to put a baby in a garbage bag and throw him in a dumpster or is it just your subjective preference not to do so? And if it is the latter, why should we care what your subjective preference is?

I don't believe in objective evil. When an individual calls certain behaviors "evil" they're giving their subjective opinion of those acts. If it was just me that thought dumping a newborn in a dumpster was evil then it would count for very little as I'm just one amongst millions. However if, as I think most of us believe to be the case, the overwhelming majority regard dumping newborns in dumpsters as being evil, does it really matter whether the evil is objective or a matter of intersubjective agreement? Seversky

Kairosfocus/12

Seversky, precisely, the inference that moral values are in effect accidents of conditioning and that there are no objective moral truths is driven by a priori evolutionary materialism and/or accommodation to it, not by the rhetorical distractor of diversity of views among an error prone race.

Yes, we are an error-prone species. As long as we can accept that, learn from our mistakes and try to do better subsequently, isn't that the best we can do? I have given my reasons for holding that moral prescriptions can be neither true nor false. How does positing an objective morality get around that? How do we know an objective morality does not itself embody errors? How do we know its source? If you are proposing the Christian God as the author, need I remind you that, according to the Bible, it was He who felt it necessary to provide a New Covenant, thereby conceding that the original was in error, something of which the greatest of all beings should not be capable?

So, if a certain community in Germany c 1933 on decides Poles, Jews, Russians, Gypsies etc are inferior life unworthy of life it is merely a matter of who wins the war not right to life. There was no higher built in law for the Nuremberg Courts to appeal to, it was all a matter of who wins subjects who loses to show trials then executes them as they please never mind all that stuff about evidence and justice.

The risk of "the tyranny of the majority" has long been recognized as a flaw in the concept of a democracy. An obvious solution is the enactment of an agreed set of fundamental individual rights that are ring-fenced against the eddies and currents of transient political opinion such that they cannot easily be abridged or struck down by a simple majority. The Founding fathers recognized this when they embodied the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. The Holocaust in Nazi Germany, I would argue, is not an example of the tyranny of the majority. Once the Nazis had seized control of the German state, Hitler was the tyrant. The majority were neither consulted nor polled to discover whether they approved or disapproved of The Final Solution.

PS, do you have rights that demand justice, starting with life?

I believe I should and, fortunately, most Western states largely agree, at least in principle. Seversky

F/N: Collins Dictionary: ontology (?n?t?l?d??) n 1. (Philosophy) philosophy the branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being epistemology (??p?st??m?l?d??) n (Philosophy) the theory of knowledge, esp the critical study of its validity, methods, and scope [C19: from Greek epist?m? knowledge] KF kairosfocus

PPS: On significance of moral truth and its knowability, I note Dallas Willard:

What is the disappearance of moral knowledge? It is the social reality that the knowledge institutions (primarily the universities, but also the “churches”) of our society do not presume to offer knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice to the public. It is not a part of “testable” cognitive content of any recognized area of scholarship or practice . . . . What is knowledge and what does it do? Knowledge is the capacity to represent something as it is, on an appropriate basis of thought and experience. It and it alone confers the right and perhaps the responsibility to act, direct action, formulate policy and supervise its implementation, and teach. This helps us see what disappears along with “moral knowledge.” [–> sounds familiar?]

[Kindly cf here] kairosfocus

JVL, what we can for good reason claim to know on a warrant and how that comes to be are materially different. I can know for good reason there is a red ball on a table without knowing how such balls come to be or to be on the table. As for finding logic compelling, but of course; people are trying to view logic through rhetorical spectacles. Fail. (See here on the disappearance of logic.) KF PS, it is you who were raising the ontology. And, the roots of conscience and of morally governed creatures with such a seemingly strange characteristic are a supremely important consideration as to the nature of reality. Materialisms [and other monisms], of course, are non-viable starting out the gate. kairosfocus

Kairosfocus: However, the epistemology of warrant (especially involving branch on which we sit pervasive first principles and reductios on attempted denials etc) is not the ontology of sourcing, the wellsprings of the good, the true, the beautiful etc. Perhaps . . . if I understand you, which is under contention. But, as usual, I think you miss that many, many people on this planet do not consider your 'logic' binding and compulsive. Many of us think it's quite possible and plausible that there is not creator god. We may be wrong BUT, have you considered, that you might be wrong? In the end, we all do agree on 'the golden rule', so why are we arguing about where it came from? I'm happy to set that issue aside and move on, operating under that basic and agreed upon principle. What say you? JVL

JVL no belief in God is necessary.

You declare that certain beliefs are not necessary but your declaration is in itself a belief. Your belief that "no belief in God is necessary" affirm and accept that unnecessary beliefs do exist(and belief in God is one of them). Now after you told us that unnecessary beliefs exist please make the case of your belief(=no belief in God is necessary) proving that is necessary and don't belong in the same set of unnecessary beliefs (as belief in God). PS: Funny how atheists think their beliefs are not beliefs but "scientific facts" :))) Lieutenant Commander Data

Thanks KF at 34. Excellent reply to JVL. Better than I could have said it myself. But to add just a bit more in refutation of JVL. It is not just that JVL's Darwinian worldview is completely amoral, (shoot Adam Sedgewick scolded Charles Darwin himself about that in 1859, "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly.")

From Adam Sedgwick - 24 November 1859 Cambridge My dear Darwin, Excerpt: "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. Tis the crown & glory of organic science that it does thro’ final cause , link material to moral; & yet does not allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, & our classification of such laws whether we consider one side of nature or the other— You have ignored this link; &, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which thank God it is not) to break it, humanity in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it—& sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history.,,," https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2548.xml

No, it is not just that JVL's Darwinian worldview is completely amoral, (blind, pitiless, indifference), it is that JVL's Darwinian worldview is ANTI-moral. Moreover, this ANTI-morality is built into the very foundation of Darwin's theory as 'one general law'. Darwin himself put the one defining ‘general law’ of his theory like this, “let the strongest live and the weakest die.”

“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species - 1861, page 266

And here is Charles Darwin working the 'one general law' of his theory out in a little more detail,

At some future period … the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous [Having or suggesting human form and appearance] apes … will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope … the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla” Charles Darwin,The Descent of Man pg. 201, published in 1871:

As should be obvious to everyone who is not a complete psychopath, not only are “let the strongest live and the weakest die”, and "almost certainly exterminate", amoral statements, (i.e. pitilessly indifferent), but those statements are, in fact, completely ANTI-moral statements. Adolf Hitler himself, (whom I think even atheists will agree was a psychopath of the first order), directly echoed Charles Darwin’s words when he stated, “Nature,,, wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the strong.”

“A stronger race will oust that which has grown weak; for the vital urge, in its ultimate form, will burst asunder all the absurd chains of this so-called humane consideration for the individual and will replace it with the humanity of Nature, which wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the strong.” – Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf – pg 248

As should be needless to say, wiping out the weak to give place to the strong is directly opposed to the primary Christian ethic of the strong looking after the weak.

Matthew 25:34-40 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

As Sir Arthur Keith noted shortly after WWII, “the (moral) law of Christ is incompatible with the (moral) law of evolution as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.”

“for, as we have just seen, the ways of national evolution, both in the past and in the present, are cruel, brutal, ruthless, and without mercy.,,, Meantime let me say that the conclusion I have come to is this: the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.” – Sir Arthur Keith, (1866 — 1955) Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons – Evolution and Ethics (1947) p.15

Hitler was hardly the only genocidal maniac who based his 'ANTI-morality' on Darwinian evolution. In fact all the leading Atheistic Tyrants of the communist regimes of the 20th century, (who murdered tens of millions of their own people),,, all those tyrants based their murderous political ideologies on Darwin’s theory and the ‘ANTI-morality’ inherent therein.

Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao – quotes – Foundational Darwinian influence in their Atheistic ideology – July 2020 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/michael-egnor-on-the-relationship-between-darwinism-and-totalitarianism/#comment-707831

Thus although JVL may whistle in the dark and try to pretend as if it is no big deal that he cannot ground objective morality within his Darwinian worldview, the fact of the matter is that 'ANTI-morality' is built into the very foundation of his theory as 'one general law', and that "ANTI-morality' that is built into the very foundation of his Darwinian theory as 'one general law' has had unimaginably horrid consequences for man. I hardly consider it hyperbolic to state that the blood of over 200 million victims cry out to God for justice against Darwin's murderous ideology.

Chairman MAO: Genocide Master (Black Book of Communism) “…Many scholars and commentators have referenced my total of 174,000,000 for the democide (genocide and mass murder) of the last century. I’m now trying to get word out that I’ve had to make a major revision in my total due to two books. I’m now convinced that Stalin exceeded Hitler in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin….” - ibid from post 18 How Has Darwinism Negatively Impacted Society? John G. West – January 11, 2022 Excerpt: Death as the Creator A third big idea fueled by Darwin’s theory is that the engine of progress in the history of life is mass death. Instead of believing that the remarkable features of humans and other living things reflect the intelligent design of a master artist, Darwin portrayed death and destruction as our ultimate creator. As he wrote at the end of his most famous work: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.” https://evolutionnews.org/2022/01/how-has-darwinism-negatively-impacted-society/

Supplemental note:

Moreover, not only is Darwinian morality at ‘war’ with Christian morality, but it also turns out that Darwinian morality is at ‘war’ with the science itself. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/is-there-such-a-thing-as-morality-or-ethics/#comment-738586

bornagain77

PS: On objective moral truth:

Let a proposition be represented by x M = x is a proposition asserting that some state of affairs regarding right conduct, duty/ought, virtue/honour, good/evil etc (i.e. the subject is morality) is the case O = x is objective and generally knowable, being adequately warranted as credibly true [--> notice, generally knowable per adequate warrant, as opposed to widely acknowledged] It is claimed, cultural relativism thesis: S= ~[O*M] = 1

[ NB: Plato, The Laws, Bk X, c 360 BC, in the voice of Athenian Stranger: "[Thus, the Sophists and other opinion leaders etc -- c 430 BC on, hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made." This IMPLIES the CR Thesis, by highlighting disputes (among an error-prone and quarrelsome race!), changing/varied opinions, suggesting that dominance of a view in a place/time is a matter of balance of factions/rulings, and denying that there is an intelligible, warranted natural law. He continues, "These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might . . . "]

However, the subject of S is M, it therefore claims to be objectively true, O, and is about M where it forbids O-status to any claim of type-M so, ~[O*M] cannot be true per self referential incoherence [--> reductio ad absurdum] ++++++++++ ~[O*M] = 0 [as self referential and incoherent cf above] ~[~[O*M]] = 1 [the negation is therefore true] __________ O*M = 1 [condensing not of not] where, M [moral truth claim] So too, O [if an AND is true, each sub proposition is separately true] That is, there UNDENIABLY are objective moral truths; and a first, self-evident one is that ~[O*M] is false. The set is non empty, it is not vacuous and we cannot play empty set square of opposition games with it. That’s important.

kairosfocus

JVL, It would be amusing if it weren't sad. Okay, let's pick up a few points of note: >>you missed or intentionally skipped over part of the reference I provided, i.e. no belief in God is necessary. Something can be objective but not Bible based.>> - at least you concede the possibility of objective, knowable moral truth. - However, the epistemology of warrant (especially involving branch on which we sit pervasive first principles and reductios on attempted denials etc) is not the ontology of sourcing, the wellsprings of the good, the true, the beautiful etc. - BA77 commented "I am also aware that your atheistic Darwinian worldview provides no basis whatsoever for any sort of objective morality" and he provided a clip from Dawkins that is originally River out of Eden [as he cited, IIRC, p. 8], though there are many other sources on the point from major spokesmen for evolutionary materialistic scientism:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

- in short, a materialistic, evolutionary ontology has always been amoral and an opening for nihilism. That was noted 2360 years ago by Plato in The Laws, Bk X, a text that was recently ill advisedly dismissed as irrelevant by one of our objectors. - Further to which, BA77 had just noted:

I am aware that other religions recognize the golden rule. (it is implicit in our God given moral intuition [--> aka conscience], so I expect it to be recognized by other religions, and I even expect it to be recognized by atheists such as yourself)

- this of course is a reference to branch on which we sit, pervasive first duties that we can reasonably expect many people in various times and places to recognise as built in moral government expressed in intelligible principles. Based on the Roman Stoic and statesman Cicero, I have repeatedly highlighted seven first duties of reason:

1st - to truth, 2nd - to right reason, 3rd - to prudence [including warrant], 4th - to sound conscience, 5th - to neighbour; so also, 6th - to fairness and 7th - to justice [ . . .] xth - etc.

- these, as BA77 noted, are generic, and it is almost amusing to see your retort: >>Your religion is not even the only one that has proposed moral standards you ascribe to. Some of them long before Christ was born. Maybe you should really try to understand other peoples’ point of view.>> - But, he did, at the outset of his remarks. - As to just what the Christian Faith, in foundational theological writings, says on the subject, we note:

Rom 2:14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law [of Moses] requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them . . . . 13: 8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. [ESV]

- Here, we see that conscience is a common gift and where sound testifies to built in moral government, which the Christian faith EXPECTS to find as a common property of the diverse people groups of our world, across space and time. - So, it is not a point against that faith when what it expects is commonplace. - There is, however, a second expectation, moral struggle and intellectual conflict within the person and among people. So we can see that with an error-prone and sometimes quarrelsome race, there will be diverse opinions and struggles, errors and entrenched evils. - But in the midst of contentions, the first principles will stand out due to their self-evident, pervasive nature. >>You think you’ve won the moral argument because you think yours is the only possible solution.>> - The solution is that a core of moral government is self-evident, intelligible, warranted, objective, true, and that it will be subjected to contentions notwithstanding. - Further to which, such moral government is rooted in our creation, is partly constitutive of our nature as conscience attests. Where, at our best we struggle to consistently acknowledge and live up to that core -- which does not excuse abandoning the effort. - This now points to the ontological issue. - For, what sort of root of reality can account for creatures like that? Surely, post Hume and post Euthyphro we know that the IS-OUGHT GAP can only be bridged in the root of reality. - Anywhere after that and ought becomes groundless, so, we have a bill of requisites that the root of reality must meet: adequate cause of a fine tuned cosmos with life forms exhibiting abundant further signs of design AND able to be the ground of moral government. - That means:

1: Finitely remote, necessary [so, beginningless] being with capability to design, effect and sustain a vast cosmos 2: Inherent goodness so there is no gap between the is and the ought 3: Utterly wise, so goodness is thoroughly informed by sound understanding.

- The candidate to beat is a familiar figure, the creator-God of ethical theism. - All of this is utterly generic. - What is peculiar to the Christian faith, then, is not ethical theism, it is redemption on a history involving fulfillment of prophecy of messiah, tied to the growing impact of the gospel which answers to our core moral struggle, the issue of radical sin. - And, redemption on that sure word of fulfilled prophecy is unique and powerful; as millions of the redeemed and transformed -- never mind dismissive cynicism and abundant bitter rhetoric -- attest.. KF kairosfocus

JVL @ 26: "I have apologised." JVL @ "I don’t think making an honest mistake is something you need to apologise for." I understand JVL. Being a materialist means never having to say you are sorry. It also means affirming something and simultaneously denying it is A-OK. Move along. Barry Arrington

Run Chuck Run Barry Arrington

Barry Arrington @ 22 Mr. Arrington--how about this, you answer my question (because I asked first) then I will address your question about throwing babies into dumpsters? Somehow, though, my cognitively dissonant brain tells me that that is not your real agenda. What you really want to do is pick a fight about abortion, which I don't do because (a) it really doesn't interest me that much and (b) I come to this blog to debate evolution and ID, not intractable political and moral issues. chuckdarwin

Bornagain77: I am also aware that your atheistic Darwinian worldview provides no basis whatsoever for any sort of objective morality. Then you missed or intentionally skipped over part of the reference I provided, i.e. no belief in God is necessary. Something can be objective but not Bible based. You do understand that simple point do you not? I understand that it's vital for you to push that point all the time. i.e. In order for you to ‘moralize’ to Barry, you, as an atheist, are forced to ‘steal’ from some other religion, be it Christianity or whatever, since you cannot ‘moralize’ from your own atheistic Darwinian religion. Only if you think that morals can only come from some undefined and undetected moral source. If you don't think that way then there are other alternatives. What if everyone, even those with religious leanings, respect and understand the basic 'do under others . . . ' rule? What if it's just true? You think you've won the moral argument because you think yours is the only possible solution. But it isn't. Your religion is not even the only one that has proposed moral standards you ascribe to. Some of them long before Christ was born. Maybe you should really try to understand other peoples' point of view. JVL

Barry Arrington: Please point out where you did that. I must have missed it. I admitted I was incorrect and you were correct. Because I made the mistake without malice or in some attempt to cast aspersions on you I didn't feel the need to grovel or beg forgiveness. I don't think making an honest mistake is something you need to apologise for. I didn't do it intentionally. The fact that it was counter to what you said was not me trying to take you down a peg. I assumed that you too had made an error. But it was me that made the error and I have acknowledged that. JVL

JVL, I am aware that other religions recognize the golden rule. (it is implicit in our God given moral intuition, so I expect it to be recognized by other religions, and I even expect it to be recognized by atheists such as yourself). I am also aware that your atheistic Darwinian worldview provides no basis whatsoever for any sort of objective morality. You do understand that simple point do you not? (I mean really, you are constantly harping on how much smarter you are than we ID advocates) i.e. In order for you to 'moralize' to Barry, you, as an atheist, are forced to 'steal' from some other religion, be it Christianity or whatever, since you cannot 'moralize' from within your own atheistic worldview of Darwinian evolution.

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” – Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life THE REVENGE OF CONSCIENCE by J. Budziszewski - June 1998 Excerpt: The pattern is repeated in the house of death. First we were to approve of killing unborn babies, then babies in process of birth; next came newborns with physical defects, now newborns in perfect health. Nobel-prize laureate James Watson proposes that parents of newborns be granted a grace period during which they may have their babies killed, and in 1994 a committee of the American Medical Association proposed harvesting organs from some sick babies even before they die. First we were to approve of suicide, then to approve of assisting it. Now we are to approve of a requirement to assist it, for, as Ernest van den Haag has argued, it is “unwarranted” for doctors not to kill patients who seek death. First we were to approve of killing the sick and unconscious, then of killing the conscious and consenting. Now we are to approve of killing the conscious and protesting, for in the United States, doctors starved and dehydrated stroke patient Marjorie Nighbert to death despite her pleading “I’m hungry,” “I’m thirsty,” “Please feed me,” and “I want food.” Such cases are only to be expected when food and water are now often classified as optional treatments rather than humane care; we have not long to go before joining the Netherlands, where involuntary euthanasia is common. https://www.firstthings.com/article/1998/06/the-revenge-of-conscience

bornagain77

JVL

I have apologised.

Please point out where you did that. I must have missed it. Barry Arrington

Barry Arrington: You implicitly accused me of lying in the OP and when you are called on it, you retreat to “I couldn’t be bothered to do 30 seconds of research.” Not at all. It wasn't clear from what you published (video aside) if the pregnancy was full term so I checked out a couple of news stories which seemed to imply it was. Then I made the mistake, for which I have owned up to, of assuming that no state in the US sanctioned full-term abortions. I have acknowledged my mistake. I still find it amazing that New Mexico does sanction such abortions. I would have a hard time endorsing such a policy. You are morally culpable, and I pointed it out. It matters little that you are morally culpable in one way instead of another. Instead of apologizing, you attack the messenger and call him “hateful,” “vicious,” and “nasty.” Because of the style you choose to use and the terms you choose to use. JVL, getting called on morally abhorrent behavior is painful, and you seem to be smarting. Nope, I'm good. I made a mistake and I admitted it as soon as it was pointed out to me. Nevertheless, the correct response is not to stamp your feet like a petulant child and attack the person who called you out. The correct response is to apologize and pledge to do better. I'm not the one who used the phrase "you feel compelled to spew lies in order to prop up your wretched belief that it should be lawful to kill babies in their mother’s womb." which is disrespectful and uses quite divisive language. I have apologised. I will try hard not to make assumptions in the future but as I am a fallible human being I invite you to point out my mistakes in the future. JVL

Bornagain77: You just got to love it when Darwinists, who have no moral basis whatsoever, shamelessly steal from Christian ethics . . . From Wikipedia (as Barry says, it took me seconds to find this):

The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one wants to be treated. It is a maxim that is found in most religions and cultures.[1] It can be considered an ethic of reciprocity in some religions, although different religions treat it differently. . . . . The idea dates at least to the early Confucian times (551–479 BCE), according to Rushworth Kidder, who identifies the concept appearing prominently in Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and "the rest of the world's major religions". 143 leaders of the world's major faiths endorsed the Golden Rule as part of the 1993 "Declaration Toward a Global Ethic". According to Greg M. Epstein, it is "a concept that essentially no religion misses entirely", but belief in God is not necessary to endorse it. Simon Blackburn also states that the Golden Rule can be "found in some form in almost every ethical tradition".

JVL

Seversky

Do we know why the mother was so panicked by the birth that she felt compelled to dispose of the child in the dumpster?

You ask that question as if the answer would make a difference. Are we supposed to say, "Oh, she had a traumatic experience, so let's give her a pass for putting a baby in a garbage bag and throwing him in a dumpster"? BTW Sev. Chuck dodged this question so I will ask you. Is it objectively evil to put a baby in a garbage bag and throw him in a dumpster or is it just your subjective preference not to do so? And if it is the latter, why should we care what your subjective preference is? Barry Arrington

JVL at 15. It took me literally 30 seconds to find those two sources of information. You implicitly accused me of lying in the OP and when you are called on it, you retreat to "I couldn't be bothered to do 30 seconds of research." You are morally culpable, and I pointed it out. It matters little that you are morally culpable in one way instead of another. Instead of apologizing, you attack the messenger and call him "hateful," "vicious," and "nasty." JVL, getting called on morally abhorrent behavior is painful, and you seem to be smarting. Nevertheless, the correct response is not to stamp your feet like a petulant child and attack the person who called you out. The correct response is to apologize and pledge to do better. Barry Arrington

Chuck:

My cognitively dissonant brain is still waiting for an explanation as to how the OP is relevant to intelligent design.

This was explained. Chuck continues to harp on it. Ironically, in the very comment in which Chuck mocks my comment about cognitive dissonance, he manifests that very thing by steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the issues on the table. It would be amusing if it were not so tragic. Barry Arrington

My cognitively dissonant brain is still waiting for an explanation as to how the OP is relevant to intelligent design

P - world was designed Q - abortion is against objective of designer We have four possibilities 1) Believe in p, then highly likely believe in q 2) Believe in p, then highly unlikely believe in not q 3) Believe in p, then not sure about q - estimate a small percentage. 4) Believe in not p, then cannot believe in q If one is in fourth situation then abortion is meaningless except for local social pressure or individual feelings on life. Not a logical conclusion but an emotional one. So belief in ID and abortion is morally wrong are highly correlated logically. This is a tentative framework that helps explain relevance. Now to get to P which leads to accepting Q requires emphasis on demonstrating P. ID does a great job of that. So why the objection to the implications of ID or in other words the implications of P. I personally believe that what this does is give reasons for some to say what precedes belief in ID is belief in religion and then say religion is what’s behind ID. This is the monotonous mantra of ChuckDarwin. As opposed to the demonstration of ID first is what leads to religion. It’s a near absolute then that belief in ID is highly associated with religion. It has zero to say what specific religion. Will this stop ChuckDarwin’s phony complaints? I doubt it since he seem impervious to logic as is nearly every anti-ID person. Which is the most ironic finding of the so called believers in evidence and logic. They must abandon logic and evidence to get to their beliefs. jerry

^^^^ "There are none so blind as those who will not see"

"There are none so blind as those who will not see" has been traced back to John Heywood in 1546. It resembles the Biblical verse of Jeremiah 5:21 which is as follows, ‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not’. https://quizzclub.com/trivia/who-wrote-the-proverb-there-are-none-so-blind-as-those-who-will-not-see/answer/439985/

bornagain77

Barry Arrington @9 My cognitively dissonant brain is still waiting for an explanation as to how the OP is relevant to intelligent design... chuckdarwin

JVL states to Mr. Arrington, "You seem to harbour a lot of hate towards some of your fellow human beings; the same kind of hate you ascribe to me,,, May I suggest you start by being less vicious and nasty in your style of communicating." Are you really appealing to the golden rule JVL?

Matthew 7:12 “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

You just got to love it when Darwinists, who have no moral basis whatsoever, shamelessly steal from Christian ethics in order to try to lecture Christians on how we ought to behave towards Darwinists and their murderous 'death as creator' ideology. (which has inflicted unimaginable horror on humanity)

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life How Has Darwinism Negatively Impacted Society? John G. West - January 11, 2022 Excerpt: Death as the Creator A third big idea fueled by Darwin’s theory is that the engine of progress in the history of life is mass death. Instead of believing that the remarkable features of humans and other living things reflect the intelligent design of a master artist, Darwin portrayed death and destruction as our ultimate creator. As he wrote at the end of his most famous work: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.” https://evolutionnews.org/2022/01/how-has-darwinism-negatively-impacted-society/

Again, Darwin stated, "“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.” And in unison Hitler, Mao, and Stalin all said amen.

Chairman MAO: Genocide Master (Black Book of Communism) “…Many scholars and commentators have referenced my total of 174,000,000 for the democide (genocide and mass murder) of the last century. I’m now trying to get word out that I’ve had to make a major revision in my total due to two books. I’m now convinced that Stalin exceeded Hitler in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin….” http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/chairman-mao-genocide-master/ Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao – quotes - Foundational Darwinian influence in their political ideologies = July 2020 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/michael-egnor-on-the-relationship-between-darwinism-and-totalitarianism/#comment-707831

Verse:

John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

bornagain77

Seversky claims, "Atheistic materialists recognize that the baby has inestimable value",,, How so exactly? Under Atheistic materialism the ’resale’ value of all the material constituents of your body is about one dollar?

How much is my body worth? Excerpt: The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils invested many a hard-earned tax dollar in calculating the chemical and mineral composition of the human body,,,, Together, all of the above (chemicals and minerals) amounts to less than one dollar! http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-01/979621502.Bc.r.html

Materially speaking, there simply is nothing within your material body that should inherently give it "inestimable value". In fact, Jesus said that that the inherent thing that gives a human person "inestimable value" is their eternal, immaterial, soul which was created by God, (and which gives their material body life, and which is capable living beyond the death of his material body.)

Mark 8:36-37 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

And again in the Old Testament we find that "the redemption of his soul is priceless"

Psalm 49:7-9 No one can by any means redeem another Or give God a ransom for him— For the redemption of his soul is priceless, And he should cease imagining forever— That he might live on eternally, That he might not undergo decay.

Yet atheistic materialists resolutely deny the existence of the eternal, immaterial, soul which was created by God and which gives the material body life, and which is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. Which is to say that atheistic materialists hold that we are purely physical/material beings and that we die when our material body die, and that there is no transcendent and/or immaterial component to our being that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. The late William Provine made this resolute denial of the eternal soul by atheistic materialists explicitly clear,

"When you die, you’re not going to be surprised, because you’re going to be completely dead. Now if I find myself aware after I’m dead, I’m going to be really surprised! But at least I’m going to go to hell, where I won’t have all of those grinning preachers from Sunday morning listening. Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either. What an unintelligible idea." - William Provine - the (late) Charles A. Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences at Cornell University https://evolutionnews.org/2015/09/william_provine/

Thank God atheistic materialists are now shown, by advances in empirical science no less, to be completely and utterly wrong in their materialistic beliefs. Specifically, advances in quantum biology have now proven that we have a 'eternal, immaterial,' component to our being that is not reducible to materialistic explanations, and which is 'potentially' capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. Even more specifically, quantum information is now found to be ubiquitous within living organisms. As the following paper explains, “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are (quantum) critical conductors,” and adds, “the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,

Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552

Darwinists simply have no earthly clue why quantum information should be found to be ubiquitous within life. As the following follow up article stated, “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”

Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018 Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,, Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,, WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/quantum-critical-proteins Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015);

Even DNA is now shown to be, basically, quantum information with classical information embedded within it. As Dr Rieper notes at 24:00 minute mark of the following video, practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it.

“What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information or the electron clouds and the protons. So mathematically you can describe that as a quantum/classical state.” Elisabeth Rieper – Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information resides along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176

The interesting thing about finding quantum information to be ubiquitous within living organisms is that quantum information, like quantum entanglement itself, requires a ‘non-local’, i.e. beyond space and time, cause in order to explain it. As the following article noted, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, and especially with the falsification of ‘hidden variables’, simply have no beyond space and time cause that they can appeal so as to be able to explain the non-local quantum coherence and/or entanglement that is now found to be ubiquitous within biology.

“hidden variables don’t exist. If you have proved them come back with PROOF and a Nobel Prize. John Bell theorized that maybe the particles can signal faster than the speed of light. This is what he advocated in his interview in “The Ghost in the Atom.” But the violation of Leggett’s inequality in 2007 takes away that possibility and rules out all non-local hidden variables. Observation instantly defines what properties a particle has and if you assume they had properties before we measured them, then you need evidence, because right now there is none which is why realism is dead, and materialism dies with it. How does the particle know what we are going to pick so it can conform to that?” per Jimfit https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/philosophy/quantum-physicist-david-bohm-on-why-there-cannot-be-a-theory-of-everything/#comment-662358

Christians, on the other hand, readily do have a beyond space and time cause that they can appeal to so as to explain ‘non-local’ quantum entanglement in life (and elsewhere). (And have been postulating just such a 'non-local' cause for thousands of years.)

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Psalms 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Moreover, it is also important to realize that quantum information is conserved. As the following article states, “In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed.”

Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time – 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html

The implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have very strong empirical evidence suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal, immaterial, soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, “the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”

Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe – Oct. 19, 2017 – Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” – Stuart Hameroff – Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – video (5:00 minute mark) per radaronline

Personally, I consider these recent findings from quantum biology to rival all other scientific discoveries over the past century. Surpassing even the discovery of a beginning of the universe, via Big Bang cosmology, in terms of scientific, theological, and even personal, significance. To repeat what I stated at the beginning of this post, as Jesus once asked his disciples along with a crowd of followers, “Is anything worth more than your soul?”

Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

bornagain77

JVL You seem to harbour a lot of hate towards some of your fellow human beings

To hate is one thing but to kill innocent vulnerable defenseless babies is another thing. People who are already born are in favor of killing those who have not yet been born and after that THEY are upset for the sane people reaction? Insanity alert. Lieutenant Commander Data

Barry Arrington: You are a liar. It was an error on my part; I do not live in the US (anymore) and hadn't realised that any state allowed abortions up to full term. I stand corrected. It is sad that you feel compelled to spew lies in order to prop up your wretched belief that it should be lawful to kill babies in their mother’s womb. You seem to harbour a lot of hate towards some of your fellow human beings; the same kind of hate you ascribe to me, someone who has no say about the laws in New Mexico or the US. You, on the other hand, have a lot of 'skin in the game' and I encourage you to use the existing laws and conventions to influence your fellow citizens to change that which you find deplorable. May I suggest you start by being less vicious and nasty in your style of communicating. I rather doubt that kind of approach works well in a court of law. JVL

Eugene To keep it simple: humans are as disposable as animals. Both have been made using the same 3D self-replicating “technology”. Both are orders of magnitude dumber than the Creator who made them.

True. Humans clearly observe that there is a range of increasing intelligence from inferior animals to humans but somehow they think this range of intelligence finish with them and they are the peak of intelligence. Why some people believe something like that ?

Guess what, God made it so that those other humans have less empathy (or for the 4% of humans they have no empathy at all!).

Wrong. It's about free choice and knowingly broking moral law(called sin). When somebody broke moral law his conscience acuity do not remain in the same ( initial )state/position . Your choices to do /not to do a moral act change your moral acuity. Lieutenant Commander Data

To keep it simple: humans are as disposable as animals. Both have been made using the same 3D self-replicating “technology”. Both are orders of magnitude dumber than the Creator who made them. Still, the Creator made humans smarter than animals, the Creator also gave most (but not all!) humans a deep sense of empathy. Here we have humans who have a lot of built in empathy complaining that all those other humans are somehow less human or they don’t follow God. Guess what, God made it so that those other humans have less empathy (or for the 4% of humans they have no empathy at all!). Killing babies (or other humans in general) is morally wrong only for those humans who have a lot of built in empathy. This does not apply to 100% of humanity. Such is God’s plan for our world. Eugene

Seversky, precisely, the inference that moral values are in effect accidents of conditioning and that there are no objective moral truths is driven by a priori evolutionary materialism and/or accommodation to it, not by the rhetorical distractor of diversity of views among an error prone race. So, if a certain community in Germany c 1933 on decides Poles, Jews, Russians, Gypsies etc are inferior life unworthy of life it is merely a matter of who wins the war not right to life. There was no higher built in law for the Nuremberg Courts to appeal to, it was all a matter of who wins subjects who loses to show trials then executes them as they please never mind all that stuff about evidence and justice. Thanks for letting us know and thanks for letting us know the internet atheist anti Bible and anti God talk points are little more than emotional manipulation. KF PS, do you have rights that demand justice, starting with life? kairosfocus

Barry Arrington/9

Wrong. The atheistic materialism that lies at the foundation of Darwinian evolution entails that the baby is just a tiny hairless ape with no more inherent value than a rock. We all know that is objectively false.

Atheistic materialists recognize that the baby has inestimable value to its kin and to most of the rest of the community of hairless apes. It also recognizes that this is a subjective evaluation arrived at by each individual hairless ape and that even a large number of similar judgements are still each subjective. Does this mean that such judgements are somehow meaningless or worthless? Seversky

I agree that the individual's right to life should extend to conception or, more practically, that whatever stage of the individual's development can be detected - whether zygote, blastula or fetus - should be protected by a presumptive right to life. That said, how many unborn children died in the razing of Sodom and Gomorrah or the Great Flood? How many continue to be lost in miscarriages or through prenatal illnesses? Texas law SB 8 allows no exceptions in the cases of rape or incest. The law effectively compounds the trauma experienced by the victims of such offenses by compelling them to carry the unborn child to term. Would you not agree that, if the state has a duty to protect the life of the unborn, then it should recognize that there are two individuals involved, both of whom have rights which the state is duty-bound to uphold. Does the state have a moral right to inflict further suffering on an already traumatized victim? Do we know why the mother was so panicked by the birth that she felt compelled to dispose of the child in the dumpster? There is a report of a 911 call to police some months before in which she complained of a violent assault by her boyfriend of the time. For a girl to do what she did suggests either some sort of psychological disorder or extreme fear of consequences, real or imagined. Seversky

Chuck Darwin writers that this story "has nothing to do with the intelligent design debate." Wrong. The atheistic materialism that lies at the foundation of Darwinian evolution entails that the baby is just a tiny hairless ape with no more inherent value than a rock. We all know that is objectively false. (It is objectively false isn't it Chuck?) That is why the story is so horrifying. Good try at distraction though. I know your cognitive dissonance must be a heavy lift. Barry Arrington

JVL writes:

From what I can discern Miss Avila’s baby was full-term and so she would NOT have been granted an abortion.

You are a liar. Here is the first line of the Wiki entry on abortion in NM: "Abortion in New Mexico is legal at all stages of pregnancy." The Guttmacher Institute agrees: New Mexico does not have any of the major types of abortion restrictions. What I said is true. There are no limits on obtaining an abortion in New Mexico up until the time of birth. It is sad that you feel compelled to spew lies in order to prop up your wretched belief that it should be lawful to kill babies in their mother's womb. Barry Arrington

Join Mark Walker as he interviews Abby Johnson and two other former Planned Parenthood employees as they share their stories of redemption and restoration.

Pro Life Forum with Mark Walker and Abby Johnson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li5jrqIpyXQ

bornagain77

ChuckyD claims that abortion has nothing to do with the intelligent design vs. Darwinism debate? Really???

How Darwin's Theory Changed the World Rejection of Judeo-Christian values Excerpt: Weikart explains how accepting Darwinist dogma shifted society’s thinking on human life: “Before Darwinism burst onto the scene in the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of the sanctity of human life was dominant in European thought and law (though, as with all ethical principles, not always followed in practice). Judeo-Christian ethics proscribed the killing of innocent human life, and the Christian churches explicitly forbade murder, infanticide, abortion, and even suicide. “The sanctity of human life became enshrined in classical liberal human rights ideology as ‘the right to life,’ which according to John Locke and the United States Declaration of Independence, was one of the supreme rights of every individual” (p. 75). Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life, especially infanticide, euthanasia, abortion, and suicide. It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining in influence. Darwinism played an important role in this debate, for it altered many people’s conceptions of the importance and value of human life, as well as the significance of death” (ibid.). http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn85/darwin-theory-changed-world.htm How Darwinism Contributed to Modern Views on Abortion, Infanticide, and Euthanasia Excerpt: Not only did Haeckel justify infanticide, abortion, and assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia, but he also supported the involuntary killing of the mentally ill. https://creationbc.org/index.php/darwinism-contributed-modern-views-abortion-infanticide-euthanasia/ The Historic Connection Between Eugenics and Abortion JUSTIN TAYLOR | JANUARY 27, 2017 Excerpt: many (Darwinists) believed that eugenics required the restriction of births by inferior people.,,, Sanger noted elsewhere, “Those least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly. The most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the overfertility of the mentally and physically defective.” Sanger went on to found the American Birth Control League (1921), which became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1946. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/the-historic-connection-between-eugenics-and-abortion/ The Cultural Impact of Darwinian Evolution - John West, PhD - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFh4whzh_NU

bornagain77

Now I'm blocked from: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/at-bigthink-an-author-tries-to-decide-between-science-and-pseudoscience/ You can't make this up. So, my choice seems to be: continue to thread jump in an honest attempt to reply to people OR give up because someone either can't configure their WordPress plugins or because someone doesn't want me commenting. It's one or the other. JVL

Tragic as this story is, it has nothing to do with the intelligent design debate. I'm sure there are more than a few alternative venues in which to air one's abortion opinions. chuckdarwin

THIRD TRIMESTER PROCEDURE Albuquerque, New Mexico,,, 24 weeks LMP (5.87 cm BPD) and Above,,, Abortion past 32 weeks (7.97 BPD): For women over the 32nd menstrual week, BPD 7.97 and greater, we provide services on a case-by-case basis. https://southwesternwomens.com/third-trimester/

And again, since JVL is morally upset that his voice is not being heard on kf's thread, where is JVL's moral outrage at these millions upon millions of 'silent screams' going unheard?

POLITICAL WEBSITE’S CHRISTMAS GIFT TO READERS: PROMOTING ABORTION FiveThirtyEight asked readers to share their abortion stories and got something it hadn’t bargained on: Many were glad it didn’t happen MICHAEL EGNOR - Dec. 28, 2021 Excerpt: If you want to understand the mindset of the abortion lobby, note that this plea for accounts of killing of children in the womb appeared on Twitter on Christmas Day. I filled out the form, explaining how I work very hard to protect children in the womb and to oppose abortion. To judge from a collection of responses profiled two days later by Brett T. at Twitchy, it seems that many people on Twitter feel the same way I do:,,, https://mindmatters.ai/2021/12/political-websites-christmas-gift-to-readers-promoting-abortion/

bornagain77

From what I can discern Miss Avila's baby was full-term and so she would NOT have been granted an abortion. She is rightly being prosecuted for attempted murder and could spend a significant amount of time in prison. I assume that everyone agrees with that possibility? FROM THE EDITORS: You are a liar. Here is the first line of the Wiki entry on abortion in NM: “Abortion in New Mexico is legal at all stages of pregnancy.” The Guttmacher Institute agrees: New Mexico does not have any of the major types of abortion restrictions. What I said is true. There are no limits on obtaining an abortion in New Mexico up until the time of birth. It is sad that you feel compelled to spew lies in order to prop up your wretched belief that it should be lawful to kill babies in their mother’s womb. JVL

JVL repeatedly posted that it was/is morally unfair that he was, (supposedly), being blocked from commenting on kf's thread, and that his voice was not being heard on kf's thread.

"Well, no surprise that no one cares at all that I have been blocked from commenting on a thread for no discernible reason." - JVL https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/at-bigthink-an-author-tries-to-decide-between-science-and-pseudoscience/#comment-744851

Yet, I wonder if JVL also finds it morally unfair that millions upon millions of 'silent screams' have also gone unheard?

THE SILENT SCREAM – ABORTION Dr. Bernard Nathanson's classic video that shocked the world. He explains the procedure of a suction abortion, https://vimeo.com/513568448 Abortion Has Killed 1-2 Billion Worldwide in 50 Years - April 21, 2013 http://www.lifenews.com/2011/04/21/earth-day-abortion-has-killed-1-2-billion-worldwide-in-50-years/ The Leading Cause of preventable Death in the United States (is abortion) http://infographicaday.com/infographic-the-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-united-states/ Abby Johnson: Un-spinning the Web of Planned Parenthood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Dcw2tJczI (Abby Johnson; former planned parenthood executive until she witnessed firsthand, via ultrasound, an abortion. She quit her job within a week. Now she is a staunch pro-life advocate)

Verse:

Psalm 139:13-16 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

bornagain77