Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 12:43:51 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net> Cc: tlambert2@mindspring.com, <dave@jetcafe.org>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020906122159.B94577-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <20020905200849.7af95707.yid@softhome.net>
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On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Joshua Lee wrote: > > > Tellihard De Chardin seems to do a good job at being a theist of > > > your stripe and accepting the theory of evolution at the same time; > > > somewhat earlier, Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook seemed to > > > > Why is this relevant? Whether or not such and such evolutionist > > identifies himself as a Christian, Jew, or anything else has little > > to do with whether or not evolution is true, or philosophically > > defensible. Moreover, I do not consider Teilhard De Chardin to be > > a Christian. > > The Pope did. And your point is....? > > > You have to hold to a certain number of essential > > beliefs before you have the right to call yourself a Christian. > > So much for your brand of supernaturalism being the only acceptable one > because "it allows for intellectual disagreement". Please, if you are going to attempt to use my own quotes against me, at least quote them accurately. I said that Christianity is the only religion which can *account* for *why* there are intellectual disagreements. I never said it endorsed anything like intellectual relativism. By your logic anybody could be a Christian. Or anybody could claim to be an Orthodox Jew, no matter how unorthodox his views just by claiming it. I'm just trying to maintain the proper distinctions between "Christian", "Muslim", "Jew", "Atheist", etc. > > > Moreover, a theory evolution may be, but it certainly is not a > > "scientific" theory. It is a way of looking at things. It could > > It is a way of *explaining* things. As such, it's a scientific theory; Ways of explaining things without reference to empirical verification is the realm of philosophy and religion, not science. > whether you or I like it or not. Personally I think that Behe has done > some things to blow it out of the water, but I'm not going to distribute > copies of the book of genesis in children's biology classes until there > is a better *scientific* theory available. And you suppose that I want to do that? Have you ever heard of the ID movement? Are any of them advocating passing out copies of the book of genesis? All I want is a level playing field. > > promote it as "unscientific". It has all the earmarks and > > dogmatism of a religion, so why not call a spade a spade? > > Lots of decent biology is done with it, some of which might be even used > to lengthen your ingrate life. ;-) Please name one thing that the theory of evolution has contributed to the prolonging of human life. > Believe it or not not everything that > disagrees with a religion is a religion. You are really naive. *Every* worldview has religious connotations. The theory of evolution represents one such worldview. Why do you think people cling to it so tenaciously, even though it has been, as you yourself say, by Behe and others, "blown out of the water"? What was the predominant theory before evolution? I'll give you a hint, it too had very significant religious connotations. Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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