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Jeffrey Taylor Sympathetically Reviews Jerry Coyne’s Book Against Religion

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Jerry Coyne, having supplied the world with yet another tome proving that evolution is true—and by true Coyne and the evolutionists mean as true as the existence of gravity or the computer screen sitting in front of you, in other words there is not much nuance there—has now moved on to the next target: religion. In his new book Faith Versus Fact, Coyne rides the mythical Warfare Thesis (which holds that religion, except for in its anti realism form where it merely is the keeper of some vague set of values we might want to think about, opposes science and the two are incompatible) to take the battle to the believers. You can read a polite review in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Taylor. Taylor’s review is polite because, like Coyne, he also is an evolutionist and atheist. Unfortunately, that means that Taylor misses the key point that readers must understand if they are to make sense of Coyne’s new book, and evolutionary thought in general.  Read more

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OT: Extra DNA acts as a 'spare tire' for our genomes - July 6, 2015 Excerpt: Carrying around a spare tire is a good thing -- you never know when you'll get a flat. Turns out we're all carrying around "spare tires" in our genomes, too. Today, in ACS Central Science, researchers report that an extra set of guanines (or "G"s) in our DNA may function just like a "spare" to help prevent many cancers from developing.,,, When they exposed these quadruplex-forming sequences to oxidative stress in vitro, a series of different tests indicated that the extra Gs allowed the damages to fold out from the quadruplex structure, and become accessible to the repair enzymes. They further point out that G-quadruplexes are highly conserved in many genomes, indicating that this could be a factory-installed safety feature across many forms of life http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150706114123.htmbornagain77
July 6, 2015
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And if there is ever a "scientific" cure for leprousy that too will be a miracle.Mung
July 6, 2015
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Eh? Mocking of turning water into wine and healing people because science has come so far? You could easily rephrase that to: "Materialistic science requires us to accept and believe in this day and age that out there exists a universe where water spontaneously turns into wine, humans randomly are cured of illness and spontaneous life appears from death. It requires that we believe self as an illusion and that truth is not real as it has no selective advantage therefore paradoxically, everything I say is a lie."Dr JDD
July 6, 2015
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OT: What happens when liberal atheists run things? They censor all those they disagree with. For example, in a just released movie dealing honestly with the homosexuality topic from the Christian perspective, YouTube just removed the “Audacity” trailer, saying, “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's policy against spam, scams, and commercially deceptive content.” You can see the trailer here to see if it’s spam, a scam or has commercially deceptive content: www.AudacityMovie.combornagain77
July 6, 2015
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As to:
"Christianity requires that we, in the twenty-first century, after having mapped the human genome, sent probes to Mars, and discovered the Higgs Boson, believe in human parthenogenesis and tales of a man turning water into wine, calming raging seas, curing lepers, and raising the dead. It requires that we believe that God chose to redeem humankind by means of a human sacrifice."
Hmmm, so God does not exist because we mapped 3+billion letters in the genome which are fantastically complex in their integrated complexity? Actually, the fact that life is found to be 'information theoretic' in its foundational basis is a stunning confirmation that Christianity is true!
John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
As to humans sending a probe to Mars, well Wernher von Braun, whom was the main reason America landed a man on the moon first, certainly would take exception to the notion that space flight took away from belief in God:
Wernher von Braun Excerpt: A week later, when the astronauts were safely back on Earth, a reporter wanted to know: "Dr. von Braun, what did you think after you had given your final 'yes' a week ago?"--"I quietly said the Lord's prayer," was his answer. http://www.adherents.com/people/pv/Wernher_von_Braun.html "One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all." Wernher von Braun "My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?" Wernher von Braun - From a letter to the California State board of Education (14 September 1972)
As to the discovery of the Higgs Boson, well Dr. Craig used the example of Peter Higg’s mathematical prediction of the Higg’s boson itself, which Peter Higg’s had made decades before it was discovered by the LHC, as a philosophical proof for Theism:
Mathematics and Physics – A Happy Coincidence? – Dr. Craig – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF25AA4dgGg 1. If God did not exist the applicability of mathematics would be a happy coincidence. 2. The applicability of mathematics is not a happy coincidence. 3. Therefore, God exists.
Moreover, besides science not taking away from belief in Christianity, modern science was, in fact, born out of Judeo-Christian presuppositions and modern science, in regards to ever finding a coherent 'theory of everything', finds its highest fulfillment in Christianity:
The Origin of Science Excerpt: Modern science is not only compatible with Christianity, it in fact finds its origins in Christianity. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/a/science_origin.html General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and The Shroud Of Turin - Video http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=9FCEMJNU
supplemental note: The most profound confusion in modern physics today is the belief that the blind causality of atheists is superior to the agent causality of theists in terms of explanatory power:
A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. The other hole in my reasoning was cruder. If my imprisonment in a blind causality made my reasoning so unreliable that I couldn't trust my beliefs, then by the same token I shouldn't have trusted my beliefs about imprisonment in a blind causality. But in that case I had no business denying free will in the first place." http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf
Verse and Music:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Amazing Grace - Condoleezza Rice & Jenny Oaks Baker - music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hFO6EcC0ls
bornagain77
July 5, 2015
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It suggests these evolutionists are motivated by disbelief and possib;t this is why they cling so much to wrong ideas when they should be the most aware they are wrong since they study it more. In short blinded by secte desire. Not dumber but truly blinded. AS all of us are in something or another.Robert Byers
July 5, 2015
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