Quote of the Day

_{Barry Arrington

August 21, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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When we are dealing with concepts like freedom and equality, it is essential to use words accurately and in good faith. So the eighth commandment is: beware of those who seek to win an argument at the expense of the language. For the fact that they do is proof positive that their argument is false, and proof presumptive that they know it is. A man who deliberately inflicts violence on the language will almost certainly inflict violence on human beings if he acquires the power. Those who treasure the meaning of words will treasure truth, and those who bend words to their purposes are very likely in pursuit of anti-social ones. The correct and honourable use of words is the first and natural credential of civilized status.

Paul Johnson
“A NEW DEUTERONOMY”
Ten Pillars of our Civilization

HT: EDTA

Comments

Silver Asiatic @19: "Ray – I think you’d need a very good definition of species to declare immutability." A person cannot define oneself correct; and since science considered "each species" immutable, created independently before 1860, immutability was a scientific fact and based on the utter falsity of evolution, remains a scientific fact. S.A.---"Let’s put it this way, the modern concept of ‘species’ itself is what you might consider pro-Atheist, materialism." Not at all. A species refers to sexually reproducing animals or what is known as the Biological Species Concept. It is this concept that is immutable or non-evolvable. Atheists, of course, disagree. S.A.---"This is not something I’ve found in my reading of the Bible, but I certainly could have missed it." Yes, you've missed it. Noah, for example, was told to take two of every species, male and female.Ray Martinez_{August 24, 2015
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Ray - I think you'd need a very good definition of species to declare immutability. As it stands, I haven't seen that anyone has one. Let's put it this way, the modern concept of 'species' itself is what you might consider pro-Atheist, materialism. Although I'm interested to know how you define species and where you have them numbered and identified. This is not something I've found in my reading of the Bible, but I certainly could have missed it.Silver Asiatic_{August 24, 2015
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bornagain77 @17: "I told you the other day I don’t accept common descent. Whatever, everybody needs to crusade against something I guess. Go for it. Myself, I’m out of the discussion." Since no one mentioned common descent in this thread, and since you've bailed, it's most obvious as to why you have left and deliberately misrepresented. You're guilty of an egregious and inexcusable contradiction: condemning Naturalism/Materialism while accepting these pro-Atheism interpretive philosophies main cause-and-effect scientific claim existing in nature: natural selection, species mutability. Barry Arrington is guilty and so is William Dembski and very many other so called "IDists" who frequent this community. Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)Ray Martinez_{August 24, 2015
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I told you the other day I don't accept common descent. Whatever, everybody needs to crusade against something I guess. Go for it. Myself, I'm out of the discussion.bornagain77_{August 23, 2015
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Of course William Dembski has rightfully vilified Naturalism, but he too accepts its main cause-and-effect claim existing in nature: natural selection, species mutability. The contradiction seen here is inexcusable. Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)Ray Martinez_{August 23, 2015
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bornagain77 (msg # 13): “Darwinian evolution a religious movement?”
Quote mine. Here is what I said: "Darwinian evolution a religious movement? Since all Atheists accept evolution as the main concept explaining biodiversity, you mean anti-religious movement?" (msg #11).Ray Martinez_{August 23, 2015
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bornagain77: I've never denied that Darwinism is secular religion, which is known more commonly as scientism. I just don't see how you and many others around here can vilify Darwin, evolution, and Naturalism as you do yet accept the main cause-and-effect claim of Naturalism: natural selection causing the effect of species mutability. Pure delusional hypocrisy. Ray (fixist)Ray Martinez_{August 23, 2015
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"Darwinian evolution a religious movement?"
"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint, and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it, the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today." Ruse, M., How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? Darwinians wrongly mix science with morality, politics, National Post, pp. B1, B3, B7 (May 13, 2000) Charles Darwin, Theologian: Major New Article on Darwin's Use of Theology in the Origin of Species - May 2011 Excerpt: The Origin supplies abundant evidence of theology in action; as Dilley observes: I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation): 1. Human beings are not justified in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind. 2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern. 3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the 'simplest mode' to accomplish the functions of these structures. 4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part's function. 5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms. 6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter. 7. God directly created the first 'primordial' life. 8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life. 9. A 'distant' God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering. 10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo046391.html Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species - STEPHEN DILLEY Abstract This essay examines Darwin's positiva (or positive) use of theology in the first edition of the Origin of Species in three steps. First, the essay analyses the Origin's theological language about God's accessibility, honesty, methods of creating, relationship to natural laws and lack of responsibility for natural suffering; the essay contends that Darwin utilized positiva theology in order to help justify (and inform) descent with modification and to attack special creation. Second, the essay offers critical analysis of this theology, drawing in part on Darwin's mature ruminations to suggest that, from an epistemic point of view, the Origin's positiva theology manifests several internal tensions. Finally, the essay reflects on the relative epistemic importance of positiva theology in the Origin's overall case for evolution. The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=376799F09F9D3CC8C2E7500BACBFC75F.journals?aid=8499239&fileId=S000708741100032X The Descent of Darwin (The Theodicy of Darwinism) - Pastor Joe Boot - video - 16:30 minute mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKzUSWU7c2s&feature=player_detailpage#t=996 “Religious views were mixed, with the Church of England scientific establishment reacting against the book, while liberal Anglicans strongly supported Darwin’s natural selection as an instrument of God’s design.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_On_the_Origin_of_Species Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.html Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of theology? - Dilley S. - 2013 Abstract This essay analyzes Theodosius Dobzhansky's famous article, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," in which he presents some of his best arguments for evolution. I contend that all of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon sectarian claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. Moreover, Dobzhansky's theology manifests several tensions, both in the epistemic justification of his theological claims and in their collective coherence. I note that other prominent biologists--such as Mayr, Dawkins, Eldredge, Ayala, de Beer, Futuyma, and Gould--also use theology-laden arguments. I recommend increased analysis of the justification, complexity, and coherence of this theology. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23890740
bornagain77_{August 23, 2015
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Seversky (msg# 9): Or Cornelius Hunter’s transparent propaganda campaign to cast the theory as a religious movement?
You're absolutely right. Hunter is engaged in propagating "transparent propaganda." I've pointed out some errors in his claims here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/biologos-fundamentalists-were-wrong-about-galileo-so-theyre-also-wrong-about-darwin/#comment-576857 But his main claim that evolution was a concept that Darwin inherited from Christian thought is ludicrous, falsified by the fact that species, prior to 1859, were held to be immutable by science, and the fact that those who did advocate transmutation prior to the Origin were Deists or anti-Christianity. Hunter could not be anymore wrong.Ray Martinez_{August 23, 2015
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Barry Arrington (msg #10): Cornelius Hunter’s transparent propaganda campaign to cast the theory as a religious movement? Of course it is a religious movement. Darwin himself made numerous religious arguments in Origin. And if everyone stopped believing in metaphysical naturalism today, Darwinism would collapse under the weight of its contradictions tomorrow.
. Darwinian evolution a religious movement? Since all Atheists accept evolution as the main concept explaining biodiversity, you mean anti-religious movement? When Darwin published "On The Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection" in 1859 species, by science, were considered immutable, created independently (1859:6; London: John Murray). Atheists accepted Darwin's explanation immediately. Marx wrote to Engels stating his approval (references available upon request). Every book Richard Dawkins has written on evolution, without exception, begins by acknowledging that it was Darwin who "made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." The real issue is how you could accept existence of Darwin's main cause-and-effect claim (natural selection-species mutability) while perceived as a genuine Christian and anti-evolutionist? Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)Ray Martinez_{August 23, 2015
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Sev. Cornelius Hunter’s transparent propaganda campaign to cast the theory as a religious movement? Of course it is a religious movement. Darwin himself made numerous religious arguments in Origin. And if everyone stopped believing in metaphysical naturalism today, Darwinism would collapse under the weight of its contradictions tomorrow. The only thing propping it up right now are the religious commitments of people like you Sev.Barry Arrington_{August 22, 2015
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bornagain77 @ 4
“When people like Johnson talk about the “doing violence” to language or the “correct” use, he is trying to assert an unwarranted claim that his preferred usages have an authority over all others.” HMMM no he is not. He is saying that those who purposely use words in a misleading way, (such as say the way evolutionists mislead with the word ‘evolution’ itself), do not treasure truth.
If words can be used in misleading ways then they can also be used to correct false impressions. Again, the “correct” usage of a word is what people in general take it to mean, not what Paul Johnson or any other self-appointed authority decide it should mean. And if you want to look at misleading, how about the continual use here of the pejorative epithet “Darwinism” to refer to the theory of evolution in biology, implying it is ideology rather than science? Or Cornelius Hunter’s transparent propaganda campaign to cast the theory as a religious movement? You may criticize the theory for being inadequate, you may dislike it for what you think it implies about the nature of humanity and the world, you may reject it in its entirety, but to claim it is nothing more than a religious or political movement is misleading and does violence to the language by Johnson’s standard.Seversky_{August 22, 2015
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"In short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down." H.D. Thoreau, Life Without Principle We hope that one day truth comes as a strongest hurricane.Eugen_{August 22, 2015
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Seversky
Words can mean whatever we want them to mean . . .
said every totalitarian monster who ever lived. Barry Arrington_{August 22, 2015
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StemExpress CEO jokes about shipping whole heads of aborted babies to research labs - August 21, 2015 http://liveactionnews.org/stemexpress-ceo-jokes-shipping-whole-heads-aborted-babies-research-labs/bornagain77_{August 22, 2015
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Folks, This from Wiki several years back struck me to the core -- of course, it has long since been swept away there under whatever excuse:
To lie is to state something with disregard to the truth with the intention that people will accept the statement as truth . . . . even a true statement can be used to deceive. In this situation, it is the intent of being overall untruthful rather than the truthfulness of any individual statement that is considered the lie . . . . One can state part of the truth out of context, knowing that without complete information, it gives a false impression. Likewise, one can actually state accurate facts, yet deceive with them . . . . One lies by omission when omitting an important fact, deliberately leaving another person with a misconception. Lying by omission includes failures to correct pre-existing misconceptions. Also known as a continuing misrepresentation . . . . A misleading statement is one where there is no outright lie, but still retains the purpose of getting someone to believe in an untruth . . .
That is the heart of the issue, and the reason why pols are opening investigations on those exposing the atrocities of our day rather than on -- I here claim the right of fair comment on awful evidence -- those who have perpetrated them supported by $ 1/2 billion in taxpayers' money per year, just in the USA. We -- yes, we -- are the new barbarians, the new nazis. We who dunit, we who enabled it, we who funded it, we who voted for it (and those who did not bother to vote or speak), we who did not stand up against it, we who tolerated it, we who looked the other way, we who allowed other interests to crowd out the critical issue of integrity in leadership, we who went along with a civilisation setting out on a bloody march of folly. We who occasionally said something but allowed this to drift off the agenda of issues . . . this is the new slave trade, no it is worse, it is direct mass killing of the helpless, in numbers that dwarf the slave trade. From now on, I will entertain no one who tries to play the slavery-racism card who does not instantly pass the abortion holocaust test. Every last one of us, me too, is guilty. God, forgive us. How can we ever find forgiveness for the bloodguilt that stains not only our hands but our hearts, minds and souls? We are as the White Rose martyrs indicted Germany: guilty, guilty, guilty. We should be deeply ashamed at high tech cannibalism in our midst. Of, the new Dr Mengeles and their blood-guilt tainted research. How can we hope to profit from the slaughter of the innocents? This is worse than how can we sweeten our tea with the blood, sweat, toil and tears of the enslaved. It is our want of shame that is the most deeply telling point of all. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Let us seek the grace of penitence and forgiveness in the face of the ghosts of the dead from the global abortion holocaust, easily the worst holocaust of all time. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Let us turn back before it is forever too late. Thank God, someone has forced us to face what we are doing, and where it is heading. Let us turn back before it is too late. KFkairosfocus_{August 22, 2015
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Seversky as to: "When people like Johnson talk about the “doing violence” to language or the “correct” use, he is trying to assert an unwarranted claim that his preferred usages have an authority over all others." HMMM no he is not. He is saying that those who purposely use words in a misleading way, (such as say the way evolutionists mislead with the word 'evolution' itself), do not treasure truth. Now if you do not treasure truth then perhaps you could argue that he is insisting that his 'preferred usages (of words) have an authority over all others'. But then again, you 'not preferring truth' would establish exactly his point would it not?
However, many evolutionary propagandists are guilty of the deceitful practice of equivocation, that is, switching the meaning of a single word (evolution) part-way through an argument. A common tactic is simply to produce examples of change over time, call this ‘evolution’, then imply that the GTE (General Theory of Evolution) is thereby proven or even essential, http://creation.com/Whos-really-pushing-bad-science-rebuttal-to-Lawrence-S-Lerner
bornagain77_{August 22, 2015
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Words can mean whatever we want them to mean or, if we want them to be an effective medium for communication, whatever we agree they should mean. One word can have different meanings in different contexts and the meaning can change over time. Dictionaries are compilations of the observed usages of words. They don't prescribe how they should be used or what they should mean. When people like Johnson talk about the "doing violence" to language or the "correct" use, he is trying to assert an unwarranted claim that his preferred usages have an authority over all others.Seversky_{August 22, 2015
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I don't agree with Paul Johnson for the books he writes. Yet I agree with his quote here except so quick accusing someone of violence because of violence of language misuse. Otherwise everyone I know would be a violent person. Roe vs Wade was a unintelligent and grasp for power by those Judges in the majority. It really was. However the opposition has never done a great job of discrediting the decision. Accusing judges motives won't work for the common people. Why was the decision wrong?? SIMPLE. It was not finding a right to abortion by way of privacy by way of freedom. It was wrong because it said the constitution said the fetus could NOT be said to be a human being by the legislature/people. It was not even the court finding the fetus to not be a human being!! It was as I said. That is what the aim should be at. Abortion is all about what is being aborted. Roe was not neutral on the creature bur SAID the people could not say it was a human. Otherwise saying its a human and so having a right to life , would trump any freedom claim to kill. Takes a Canadian eh. its worse here. our court is literally a dictaorship. It doesn't have the history of the American court and the Americans keeping an eye on the court.Robert Byers_{August 21, 2015
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In 1973 the Supreme Court ripped apart the words of the Constitution. Forty-two years later butchers at Planned Parenthood are ripping apart little babies. The two events are connected.Barry Arrington_{August 21, 2015
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