Stephen Meyer Events, Visits to Churches

Frost, I think you're mistaken when you blame our education system, or even the government, for religion's problems. If anything has discredited the belief in universal god-given rules, it was the 19 devout believers who hijacked four airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. If that wasn't enough to make a lot of people think twice about religion and morals, having a hyper religious, god-fearing president who was put into office largely by conservative Christians tell us that he had prayed long and hard and that God told him to go ahead with his disasterous war on Iraq certainly gave a lot more people reason to reconsider their beliefs. The fact that he borrowed five trillion dollars from Red China to fight it didn't exactly help. I guess the moral here is that if you manage to get a president elected, be prepared to take some serious lumps if he screws up royally. Oh, and those Iraqis who were using their belief in the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus to justify their drilling holes in other Iraqis with power drills didn't help your cause either. Or the Ayatollah Khoumani or Jerry Fallwell hawking "The Clinton Chronicals" or Jerry and Pat Robertson saying that abortion and tolerance of homosexuals caused 9/11 or ... well, I think everybody gets the idea. It turns out to be fairly easy to show that all of those actions are wrong using secular principles such as the Golden Rule, but people who think their morals come directly from God don't have much truck with secular morality. Your comments on taking God out of the schools are interesting to me because I live in Wisconsin. We took government led prayer out of our schools in 1895. Yes, that's EIGHTEEN ninety five, as in the late 19th century. And we took it out because a group of Catholic parents sued the state to have government led prayer removed from our schools. And they sued because they didn't like having their children beaten up on the way home from school every night. It seems that the minority Catholics didn't like the prayers the majority Protestants tried to force them to say and refused to say them - and then paid the price on the way home. It's been over a hundred years since we took prayer out of the schools and looking back, it was clearly a Good Thing. I have to say here that religion doesn't exactly get a boost when religious people try to claim that Obama has never been "... proven to be a citizen." The man did post his birth certificate on his web site, after all, and hearing conservative Christians say that's not enough does not increase the public's confidence in Christianity.djmullen

June 3, 2009

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I would like to point out in regards to the discussion above about Godel, math and faith that mathematics is a synthetic form of reasoning and judgment. It is not about any "thing" in particular but about the relationships between things and yes the axioms originate and come apriori from unprovable sources outside of the mathematical system. Truth is infinitely greater than probability- as numbers like pi hint.Frost122585

June 3, 2009

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Sal, "I’ve tried to tell my creationist colleagues to stop trying to argue against Darwinism by arguing theology. It doesn’t change people’s minds, it only puts distaste in people’s mouths." This is true depending on the circumstances of the discussion. I firmly believe that there are theological arguments for ID. I think ID is theologically very pure. I think in the case of public education public science that you need to stay scientific. This does not mean one needs to forget their theology. The churches are a friend of ID and I do think that you want to alienate the possibility of headway ion that area just out of the fear that you might offend those who hate ID for anti religious reasons to begin with. I got into this debate recently with someone who was vehemently opposed to ID. And after dispelling all of her supposed silver bullet criticisms of the theory on purely scientific and secular grounds she asked me "aren't you a little fearful though of things like the wedge document? and the fact that the vast majority of ID support comes from fundamentalists? I flat out told her no. I don't care what motivates someone to do good science- I only care if it is good science- but when you are ruling out a religious belief and theories which are merely supportive of it simply for political sociological reasons then the process of science is compromised. I see public education- especially the colleges and such - as being anti-theistic - and I see a liberal theological climate as not caring about it's own survival. It is no secret that ID is a close friend of theism and that theism is a close friend of ID. Lets call a spade a spade.Frost122585

June 3, 2009

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Furthermore, I’m not sure it’s fair to characterize a mathematician’s acceptance of a particular set of axioms as a matter of faith either. For example, working under ZFC has proven to be very fruitful—it requires no faith to accept such an axiom system on purely pragmatic grounds.

That is not what I was taught and further, the point of the book, Godel Escher Bach by Hofstadter had this to say:

Truth is greater than provability

And John Barrow

If a `religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Godel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.

Certainly math is a reasonable belief system, but it's underlying axioms can only be accepted through reasonable faith. Regarding physics, Wheeler said the laws are not "from everlasting to everlasting", thus the laws are not eternal nor immutable. We only accept by faith they are proximally applicable. In the deep past, the "constants" we have today may not be what they are now, nor the laws themselves. The extrapolations are only justified by experience and faith, it is possible counter examples exist which we have never observed. And in fact, we infer that counter examples have existed in the past. We can only presume that we will not encouter them in the future. It is reasonable presumption, but formally speaking it is not provable, only falsifiable. Recall Popper.scordova

June 3, 2009

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Dj, I'm sorry but you are just wrong. The Chirches have not only been empting in the last decade but the poltical war against thing like ID and moral ethics that pertain to unverisal God given rules has been destroyed. Public shcools teach things like premarital sex is not wrong, that drug use in moderation is not demonstadted to be that harmful, that personal responsiblity is not as important or real as thigs like enviornment and disalbities. The public culture has very much become a materialistic Darwinian culture. This is not to say that there are segments of people who still believe in universal theistic laws but in the old days these things could be discussed and now they are being completely edited out and even outlawed in public education. The situation has gotten worse not better. It would be one thing if the school were truly non biased when it came ot issues concering relgion but the schools do teach a relgious docrines of so called secular science. It should be very alarming that the public schools are professing ethics but have claim to have no diety to where those ethics arise. The tolerance of homosexulaity, the agenda and need of more government, the tenent of "freedom from religion", and ofcourse all the green earth dogma. None of this necessary as far as ethics go and as i pointed out they cannot even appeal to any source that maes these ethics right. My point can be vividly summarized like this... to take God out of the classroom you have not created a climate where people can freely discuss things without personal belief corrupting the process- but what you actually have is a situation where schools have made a statement that education is better without God. That things like origins and ethics, and interpretive history, sex education and so on, can be correctly taught about without a theistic backdrop. Look where it has taken us. We have a president that was never even proven to be a US citizen, and one who has taken over the economic system with the help of others putting it on a radical new course that history has proven as disastrous. He has spent more money than any one can even speculate how he will pay back. And yet his poll numbers are good. You have one of the most important Catholic colleges in the world giving the president an degree for nothing - when the president's beliefs are the antithesis of churches doctrines- and the Christian doctrine as a whole. The theological climate of the US is in horrible shape. The pubic schools has done a very poor job teaching about "The the theory Evolution." You still have absolutely brilliant people like Stephen Meyer who question universal common ancestry and yet school demand student take this as fact. It saddens me that you would vehemently oppose the general thesis of perspective. The theology is too liberal and secular public schools are facilitating a a great deception is regards to science. That deception is that secular science is better than science based in a theistic framework. Now allow me to point out the logical distinction that i think you fail to grasp. I do not want public schools to teach from a religious point of view. I would prefer more vouches for people wanting a religious based education for their kids and think this would go a long way for the country. i am sick of the government having a monopoly over education. I do however realize that that undermines ID politically because the forces that support secular science are usually anti-theistic. This is truth that few grasp. The synthetic establishment of a secular public education system is actually one that is anti-theism because it presupposes that you can truthfully accurately teach about things without giving a theistic perspective but in cases of ethics and politics and origins - and lifestyle, the secular school makes up its own religion which to me amounts to a pagan like doctrine of belief in the earth and humanity (i.e. humanism, earth worship) or something like that. ID cant be grasped in public schools because it is immediately associated with theism and therefor is labeled as against the rules. Once again this is anti-theism.Frost122585

June 3, 2009

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Tribune wrote: What caused me to start doubting it was not theology but the new ability to step outside the stream of social pressure to evaluate things in a more rigorous fashion.

Exactly! I was TE. I've yet to meet a TE that changed his mind on purely theological grounds! Darwinism cannot be successfully challenged in the churches by arguing theology. I've tried to tell my creationist colleagues to stop trying to argue against Darwinism by arguing theology. It doesn't change people's minds, it only puts distaste in people's mouths.scordova

June 3, 2009

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Frost122585 @ 33: I have to strongly disagree when you say things like, "The reality is that it is the schools of America and the world which are doing the greatest amount of facilitation converting people away from the churches and the faith. When you have to write on test that all species share a common ancestor and that natural selection is what brings about life’s diversity you are altering the intellect or mind of the student to where an ID or creationist view really no longer makes any sense." and "Those are the two primary and fundamental forces giving power to things like Darwinism. A loose and liberal theology and a massive government run secular public education system." I don't think schools have much at all to do with "converting people away from the churches and the faith". If a student has to "write on test that all species share a common ancestor", he's well within the bounds of ID, as defined by William Dembski, who has said much the same thing on this very blog: "I have consistently argued that intelligent design neither rules out the common descent of life on Earth (Darwin’s single Tree of Life) nor restricts the implementation of design to common descent, as if that were the only possible geometry for the large-scale relationships of organisms. Thus, with regard to this forum, the truth or falsity of common descent is an open question worthy of informed discussion." "Common Descent at Uncommon Descent" And if a student has to write "that natural selection is what brings about life’s diversity" then they're not even being taught evolutionary theory, since mutation and gene re-arrangement during sex are the sources of diversity and natural selection just gets rid of the new genetic combinations that don't work. That "loose and liberal" theology hardly exists in the United States. The denominations that embrace it are the ones that are disappearing while conservative "back to the Bible" churches are the ones dominating the airwaves, electing the politicians (and school boards) and building 5000 member mega-churches. I even question your whole idea that people are being converted away from their churches, at least in this country. Scordova tells us once or twice a month that most Americans reject evolution. If I remember right, the numbers are somewhere around 80% against it. In my opinion, conservative Christianity's problems are mainly that the evidence has turned out to squarely falsify some of their fundamental beliefs (i.e. that the Earth is 6000 years old) and no amoount of rhetorical twisting and turning has been able to change that. Governments and schools have nothing to do with these very real problems.djmullen

June 3, 2009

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scordova and others, I don't see why you object so strongly to Theistic Evolution. It seems to be perfectly compatible with ID, geology and Christianity although it does conflict with a literal reading of the Bible. If I may play "God's advocate" for a while, imagine God wanting to make a cake. The Theistic Evolution method of Godly cake-making would have God put eggs, flour, sugar and whatever else in a bowl, mix it thoroughly and put it in a hot oven long enough for ordinary physics and chemistry to turn the ingredients into a cake. The "anti-TE" method of Godly cake-making would force God to personally place every one of the gazillions of atoms in a cake in the exact places required to form a cake. (And maybe poor God would have to make the atoms out of sub-atomic particles first.) To an omniscient, omnipotent Being, evolution is like mixing the ingredients and putting them in a hot oven. It's letting physics and chemistry do the tedious work while God merely zaps an occasional DNA base-pair to "fine tune" the process to get exactly the kind of organism He wanted in the first place. This is 100 percent compatible with (non-creationist) religion. God still creates man, although he lets chemistry and physics do the drudge work. It's also compatible with what science reveals as the history of life on earth - the various species DID develop gradually over a long period of time and there's no evidence that says that God couldn't have intervened from time to time with an occasional DNA zap.djmullen

June 2, 2009

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Socrdova allow me to share some of my observations and thoughts on all of this. I think the church is the most powerful force for ID. I think events like these with Meyer are excellent but I do not think that the Church is the place where people are going to talk about ID day in and day out. Therefore I don't think that the power and acceptance of Darwinism is being facilitated from inside the churches. Most churches teach explicitly about a would which God designed and created. The reality is that it is the schools of America and the world which are doing the greatest amount of facilitation converting people away from the churches and the faith. When you have to write on test that all species share a common ancestor and that natural selection is what brings about life's diversity you are altering the intellect or mind of the student to where an ID or creationist view really no longer makes any sense. Ever since the early 1900's public school has become sort of the parent of the children of the US- and of course it is easiest to shape the minds of youths. When i learned about Darwin's theory in 9th grade biology class I was a bit disgusted by it but the teacher believed in it wholeheartedly. I was one of the lucky one's who looked at it with kind of an unimpressed eye as I realized there was nothing in the theory of natural selection that created diversity. Also the peppered moth example which was used as supposedly a prime example didn't seem to mean anything in regards to evolution that i could see. So I always since a lack of explanation and a sense of suspicion that the evidence being used really was not very convincing. But I think a was unique among a lot of kids because I was always one who would reject and question what i did not like. Most kids bought into the full Darwinian view because they thought it was true sceince- afterall it was taught to them by a science teacher. There is a theological component though that plays into all of this. Today there is a very liberal religious and theological climate. A lot of Christians today feel that to get into heaven all one has to do is believe in Jesus Christ. With out higher religious standards one's moral and rational perspective on the world falls apart. People begin to think it really doesn't matter if they accept Darwinism or not because after all they are going to heaven anyways. Those are the two primary and fundamental forces giving power to things like Darwinism. A loose and liberal theology and a massive government run secular public education system. Alter either one of those components towards a greater and stricter faithfulness and an increased interest and acceptance of ID will fallow. This is not to say that schools have to be religious but they need to practice intellectual tolerance and religious tolerance to a certain degree. ID is a scientific theory capable of standing on it's own two feet- it only needs free and responsible minds to hear it out.Frost122585

June 2, 2009

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Hi RDK, I pretty much agree with you but my main point was simply that the acceptance or rejection of a physical "law" should not be a matter of faith but of evidence. If a proposition is regarded as a law of physics (whatever is meant by that), it should be testable at some point.herb

June 2, 2009

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----serendipity: I pointed to a a decaying atomic nucleus as an example of an event whose occurrence at one particular time vs. another cannot be explained causally." Serendipidy has already had it explained to him that to be unpredictable and spontaneous is not synonymous with causesless. But I thank him for confessing that he believes that physical events can occur without causes.StephenB

June 2, 2009

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If the laws of physics are laws at all, they should be testable, and their acceptance should not be a matter of faith. Furthermore, I’m not sure it’s fair to characterize a mathematician’s acceptance of a particular set of axioms as a matter of faith either. For example, working under ZFC has proven to be very fruitful—it requires no faith to accept such an axiom system on purely pragmatic grounds.

Don't get caught up in the naming of things in science. There are lots of terms people use for ideas. You'll hear things called theories, hypotheses, laws, maxims, propositions, corollaries, etc. Obviously they have different meanings based upon the different fields, but ultimately, these are used quite interchangeably (for the most part). In mathematics, there is a difference between a hypothesis and a law, because in math, you can actually prove things. But in science you can't; at least not 100%. Every scientist knows the tentative nature of science--that's why we have scientific laws; they outline what should happen, or what is purported to happen most of the time. So a "law" in science is fairly meaningless (unless you accept the axioms of scientific investigation!). But we use the term anyway. Like the "Law of Averages", or "The Second Law of Thermodynamics". They get "broken" all the time, but still we persist...RDK

June 2, 2009

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StephenB writes:

For the record, serendipidy has already condemned himself by insisting that a thing can both be true and false, that something can come from nothing, and that physical events can occur without causes.

More evidence of Stephen's overactive imagination. Of those three, the only one that even comes close to anything I've claimed is the last. I pointed to a a decaying atomic nucleus as an example of an event whose occurrence at one particular time vs. another cannot be explained causally. The other two are figments of Stephen's imagination. He must be confusing me with some other godless Darwinist. I think we all look alike to him. Stephen, if you insist on continuing this discussion, let's move it back to the "self-correcting" thread where it belongs.serendipity

June 2, 2009

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" that he or she is “rejecting reason itself.” Besides that was not the totality of RDK's complaint against StephenB. He was also taking StephenB to task for the claim that atheists on this blog claim that something can come from nothing or that physical events can occur without a cause. RDK "Would you like to back up your assertions with actual examples," Yes RDK you have Serendibity as example #1. Vividvividbleau

June 2, 2009

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Nakashima writes:

You should also reference the “Disappointed With Shermer” thread, where the same issues were discussed at great length.

Thank you, Nakashima. Here it is.serendipity

June 2, 2009

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Sal, Pardon me for jumping in here. I would have to take issue with these two statements:

There are manythings we must accept only by faith (including the axioms of math and the laws of physics)

If the laws of physics are laws at all, they should be testable, and their acceptance should not be a matter of faith. Furthermore, I'm not sure it's fair to characterize a mathematician's acceptance of a particular set of axioms as a matter of faith either. For example, working under ZFC has proven to be very fruitful---it requires no faith to accept such an axiom system on purely pragmatic grounds.herb

June 2, 2009

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RDK, StephenB and vividbleau have overactive imaginations. When they see someone explaining limited acausality in quantum mechanics, they assume, as StephenB puts it, that he or she is “rejecting reason itself.” Their error has been explained to them multiple times, to no avail. If you’re interested, the thread is here.

Thanks for making it clear. The hilarious part is that, for some reason, the concept of an Intelligent Designer (I.E., god) doesn't fit into the category of "nonscientific magic", or things "poof[ing]" into existence "from nothing".

serendipidy is in no position to correct anyone’s error do the the fact that he/she does not understand the metaphysical foundations for science. I have expained to him that “time flow” has nothing to do with self evident truths nor has it ever been listed among thoe concepts understood as such. It is a scientific concept that is falsifiable. I asked him to name a real self evident truth, and he simply repeats the same error and reverts back to his “time flow” mantra. I have explained this to serendipidy, yet he is obviously impervious to reason presumably as a result of having rejected reason.

Are you purporting that "time flow" is an invalid concept? I sure hope not! Time is a very real thing; it can be ripped and even bent. And as for events without any seeming physical causation, well, once again, your ignorance of quantum mechanics displays itself. On the subatomic level, nothing is something. Particles literally do pop out of nowhere. It's bizarre, it completely bypasses the law of conservation of mass, but it happens all the time. But perhaps this is getting off-topic. Would anyone like me to post my rough criteria for Intelligent Design being considered a valid theory? I posted it before, but one of the moderators deleted it.RDK

June 2, 2009

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"StephenB and vividbleau have overactive imaginations. When they see someone explaining limited acausality in quantum mechanics, they assume, as StephenB puts it, that he or she is “rejecting reason itself.” I can think of nothing more unreasonable than to claim that something can come from nothing, that something can exist before it exists or that a physical event can just poof into existence without a cause. Now because I reject the above I am rejecting reason and because Serendipity affirm the above he is not rejecting reason. This is not surprising.After all once one rejects rationality and escapes from reason one should expect absurdity from that person. Furthermore one would expect that those who reject reason would think that their absurdity is completely rational.vividbleau

June 2, 2009

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Mr Serendipity, You should also reference the "Disappointed With Shermer" thread, where the same issues were discussed at great length.Nakashima

June 2, 2009

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----serendipidy: "StephenB and vividbleau have overactive imaginations. When they see someone explaining limited acausality in quantum mechanics, they assume, as StephenB puts it, that he or she is “rejecting reason itself.” For the record, serendipidy has already condemned himself by insisting that a thing can both be true and false, that something can come from nothing, and that physical events can occur without causes. ----"Their error has been explained to them multiple times, to no avail." serendipidy is in no position to correct anyone's error do the the fact that he/she does not understand the metaphysical foundations for science. I have expained to him that "time flow" has nothing to do with self evident truths nor has it ever been listed among thoe concepts understood as such. It is a scientific concept that is falsifiable. I asked him to name a real self evident truth, and he simply repeats the same error and reverts back to his "time flow" mantra. I have explained this to serendipidy, yet he is obviously impervious to reason presumably as a result of having rejected reason.StephenB

June 2, 2009

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Why is ID so hard for Polkinhorne? Probably because he thinks it's something that it isn't. Maybe he thinks it's an attempt to prove God (which it isn't)tribune7

June 2, 2009

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Sal, maybe I used TE improperly --although the ones I've seen express the concern were TEs. Perhaps, I should have used the phrase Christian ID-skeptics. Don’t facts count for something, even in matters of theology and religious belief? Sure, and I have no objection to Meyer speaking in churches about ID. What must be kept in mind is that ID -- the narrowly defined non-negating aspect of it -- can be shown to be wrong, and that it doesn't prove the existence of God anyway. If you put your faith in ID you have a good chance of losing your faith. If you come to know God personally -- regardless of what the fashion is in philosophy and science -- you have a much less chance of losing your faith. When I accepted Christ I had a general acceptance of evolution. What caused me to start doubting it was not theology but the new ability to step outside the stream of social pressure to evaluate things in a more rigorous fashion. I'm a big admirer of Dembski and I think ID is great but the more established it becomes the more it will be attacked. There will be false reports that it is disproved, and it may even eventually be disproved since it is a scientific theory. It is important that people understand the true source of their faith.tribune7

June 2, 2009

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StephenB writes:

Notice too that most Darwinists who come here reject reason itself, which rules out the possibility of a reasoned dialogue even before the discussion begins.

vividbleau adds:

...an open thread of over 450 comments where Darwinists have indeed claimed that something can from from nothing and that physical events can occur without causes.

RDK, StephenB and vividbleau have overactive imaginations. When they see someone explaining limited acausality in quantum mechanics, they assume, as StephenB puts it, that he or she is "rejecting reason itself." Their error has been explained to them multiple times, to no avail. If you're interested, the thread is here.serendipity

June 2, 2009

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Sal, the thing that must be kept in mind — and this is where I sympathize with some TE people — is that ID can be falsified.

Thank you for your thoughts, but it may come as no surprise, that I somewhat regard the atheistic position to be more honest than TE. What is the point of believing something merely just because we want to believe it. Don't facts count for something, even in matters of theology and religious belief? I sympathize with the atheists who demand physical evidence for certain beliefs. There are manythings we must accept only by faith (including the axioms of math and the laws of physics), but isn't the Bible more believable if it agrees with observable facts?

Our concern is with the search for truth. A religious belief can do all sorts of things for us. It can sustain us in life and in the approach of death, it can add meaning when there is none to be found, but it cannot do these things with integrity unless it is founded on the truth..... Believing in something without caring if it's really true is the ultimate atheism, it worships human wishes rather than ultimate reality.... God is known because he has chosen to make himself known, through gracious disclosure. John Polkinhorne

Polkinhorne echoes my sympathies about religion and facts. PS The irony is that the physicist Polkinghorne is a Theistic evolutionist who believes in the resurrection of the dead and the resurreciton of Christ. Why is ID so hard for Polkinhorne?scordova

June 2, 2009

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RDK "Would you like to back up your assertions with actual examples, or would you like to make baseless stereotypical claims about all atheists everywhere? Oh wait. Silly me, thinking that you actually want to put substance to your arguments" Wow talk about tossing StephenB a softball!!! Over the last several weeks there have been two threads...one over 600 comments long subsequently closed... an open thread of over 450 comments where Darwinists have indeed claimed that something can from from nothing and that physical events can occur without causes. I would also say that StephenB restricted his description of Darwinists and Atheists to those who visit this site not to all atheists. I certainly hope that the vast majority of atheists are not like the ones here that for all practical purposes invoke magic as an explanation for the existence of our univerese, that things are poofed into existence out of nothing and something can exist before it exists. Vivid Vividvividbleau

June 2, 2009

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If churchgoers believe ID might be true, all the more reason to teach them and reassure them of the facts. Sal, the thing that must be kept in mind -- and this is where I sympathize with some TE people -- is that ID can be falsified. I guess my point is that ID is good science and raises good points and makes good observations but it is not something in which to put your faith.tribune7

June 2, 2009

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I recently found a friend and her husband who were interested but when you have to get into some of the details they got lost. Jerry, I don't see how sticking to the science would help get the point across to them.tribune7

June 2, 2009

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Would you like to back up your assertions with actual examples, or would you like to make baseless stereotypical claims about all atheists everywhere?

I find atheistic Darwinism more logically consistent than Theistic Evolution. The majority (or at least a very very good percentatge) of Darwinists are TE's, not atheists. I probably like atheists writings by Bradley Monton than the misrepresentations of a TE like Ken Miller.scordova

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07:51 PM

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Most people don’t want to spend more than 10 minutes on it before it goes onto the next topic going around the room. I have never been in a conversation where someone else brought it up.

Thank you for your reply. But on what grounds do you think removing religion will foster any more interest? What will ID do for them? Why will their lives be better for investing a hour of their life watching an Illustra media video? From my experience, people searching for God will have a vested interest in watching an Illustra media video like Case for a Creator. I can't imagine why someone with little interest in God will ever want to be interested in ID. Fred Hoyle (who used the word "Intelligent Design") was one of the few that come to mind. Michael Denton, David Berlinski were interested critics of Darwinian evolution. Michael Denton grew to have a distaste for creationism (he was an old-Earth creationist growing up), but it did not stop him from engaging the facts. Science is supposed to be dispassionate, but Michael Polanyi pointed out that the history of science is filled of stories of individuals on a passionate (not dispassionate) quest. I just don't see much point in going out of our way to appease the ambivalent (who might not even care after all of our concessions), versus going after people who might have a vested interest in learning ID. Even if someone is pursuaded that ID is true, it does not mean that their education stops. In fact, it was because I felt ID had a chance of being true that I've invested in a stack of literature that can go from the floor to the ceiling. If churchgoers believe ID might be true, all the more reason to teach them and reassure them of the facts. I believe much of physics as we understand it is largley true (with some exceptions). If I did not have that faith, I would not have bothered to study it. Same is true of ID. It will be studied most effectively by those who believe it is true. In contrast, it has been painful to study Darwinism because the more I study it the more I'm convinced it is a waste of time and a failed theory. I study it only because it helps me understand ID better.scordova

June 2, 2009

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07:11 PM

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Yes, I have noticed that. Notice too that most Darwinists who come here reject reason itself, which rules out the possibility of a reasoned dialogue even before the discussion begins. If you are lucky enought to get one to even enter into a scientific discussion, you will find, if you examine their objections and assertions carefully, that they base their arguments on the assumption that something can come from nothing or that physical events can occur without causes.

Would you like to back up your assertions with actual examples, or would you like to make baseless stereotypical claims about all atheists everywhere? Oh wait. Silly me, thinking that you actually want to put substance to your arguments.RDK

June 2, 2009

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07:01 PM

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