Quotes of the day
posted at 10:35 pm on February 12, 2009 by Allahpundit
“Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine and author of The Mind of the Market, rightly tells free-market conservatives that they should appreciate how understanding evolution boosts their case for liberty: Darwin is truly a liberator! And Shermer tells those on the political left who usually embrace discoveries of science such as evolution that they need to appreciate the implications of evolution for their own pet theories about government-run economies…
A fear, of course, can’t negate facts. But in any case, the fear is unfounded. Just as an explanation of our biological origins does not need to rely on myths and alleged divine revelations, neither does morality. Indeed, the origins of morality are found in our nature as rational creatures with free choice who must understand the world around us and within us and develop principles to guide our conduct—morality—in order to survive and flourish.
Darwin was one of the most revolutionary and right thinkers in human history, up there with Newton and Einstein in terms of the implications of his discoveries. When we compare him to Lincoln by saying that he has liberated us from the slavery of ignorance and freed us to see the truth, we speak by analogy but no less truthfully. So let us celebrate the birth two hundred years ago of these two liberators who did so much for humanity.”
*
Via LGF.
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As a Big-Bang Christian Buddist Catholic Zoroasteran I get no respect.
Limerick on February 13, 2009 at 12:25 AM
As a casual Christian who is just smart enough to realize that there is no way to possibly prove either theory, I get no respect either.
You could provide an unimpeachable line of evidence from modern man all the way back to Terra’s first bacterial life and I would still point to the vastness of the universe and ask, “Where the hell did all of that come from?”
Bishop on February 13, 2009 at 12:32 AM
justfinethanks on February 13, 2009 at 12:26 AM
Like I said earlier, if I evolved from some primordial pool of ooze, so be it, I am still a child of God as part of His creation.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 12:34 AM
goat on February 13, 2009 at 12:28 AM
Just giving you some good-natured grief. I don’t have a cause for or against either side, but I do enjoy skewering both from time to time when someone gets nasty about it.
Bishop on February 13, 2009 at 12:35 AM
Mentos and Pepsi.
Limerick on February 13, 2009 at 12:35 AM
Mentos and Pepsi is as good an answer as any, though if you had claimed Dr. Pepper I would have denounced you as a liar and braggart.
Bishop on February 13, 2009 at 12:41 AM
Bishop,
No problem, I’ve been here long enough to know that. You do seem to agree with me though.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 12:41 AM
Is that the same God that created infinity?
Does time exist as a provable fourth dimension, or is it really just your own personal concept?
You click, therefore, you are a clock.
Or maybe that’s the God that created vanity, fear or hate?
The fickle God who sends people to eternal torment because they don’t believe in superstition or in blindly following what other people say they should.
Or maybe your talking about the God that knows and cares about everything from string theory (per Dinesh’s microscopic God) to multiple universes and knows you had naughty thoughts about somebody you shouldn’t have?
Or is it the God that flicked an unimaginably dense speck of dust and hasn’t paid any attention since?
Perhaps you should read and consider more carefully, simple statements.
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 12:43 AM
Of course they don’t, they can’t, there is no other mechanism to employ. But natural selection can only “select” from the available information. It cannot create any of the new information required to make a major change into an entirly new kind of animal.
Mutations are the ONLY source of new information, but the new information is always corrupt information. I showed you the fruit flies last night, you saw the “new information” and it destroyed the ability of the flies to survive.
A random process does not create order.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 12:44 AM
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 12:43 AM
The way I understand it is the He is omnipotent, omniscient and created everything good and evil and that would include Satan.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 12:47 AM
PS to my last comment:
You insufferable Darwinian Git !!
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 12:48 AM
There is a reasom I am not welcome in Bible study classes, I actually use logic to base my arguments. You cannot on one hand claim He created everything and then on the other hand limit Him to what you think He created.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 12:51 AM
Hot Air has ruined me. The only faith I have left is the faith that Allah will not go to a Yankee’s game.
Limerick on February 13, 2009 at 12:54 AM
I can and have taken theological scholars to the wall with my questions and I am a fully believing Christian.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 12:54 AM
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 1:01 AM
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 1:01 AM
What? Please explain your thesis.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 1:06 AM
Pope John Paul II believed in evolution, at least to a fair point, so I don’t see why anyone should think it is a necessary contradiction with belief in God. He didn’t.
MB4 on February 13, 2009 at 1:08 AM
Why should I take a quote from a writer of horror novels seriously? Is he an expert at something? I’ll take Tolkien or Lewis if novelists are to define logic and humanity.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 1:10 AM
Calvin’s Mom comes home and asks him what he did that day.
Calvin says, I sold my soul to the Devil.
His Mom: Oh, that recently?
Calvin’s teacher yells, wake up! What state do you live in?
Calvin: denial.
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 1:11 AM
MB4 on February 13, 2009 at 1:08 AM
Exactly, John Paul chose not to limit the Lord to what our worldly limitations would dictate.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 1:13 AM
The Flagellum motor
Take away one part and it doesn’t work. Ergo, evolution cannot explain what this motor evolved from. It was design as it is.
csdeven on February 13, 2009 at 1:16 AM
Because its absolutely no less logical than anything you’ll ever read any place else and a great deal more logical than anything a clergyman has ever told you and because if you can follow your own rule there’s no reason to extend credit for any theorem, theology or opinion you promote.
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 1:17 AM
There, if Voltaire isn’t credible enough, you need much more than anyone here has the ability to give you.
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 1:21 AM
Except you can make the flagellum less complex. In fact, you can take away forty parts and it still functions as a type III secretory system. Ergo, it is REDUCIBLY COMPLEX. Right now, people at the Discovery Institute are furiously trying to find data that indicates that the type III secretory system came from the bacterial flagellum, rather than the other way around. Best of luck to them.
justfinethanks on February 13, 2009 at 1:21 AM
So…you’ve never read the foundational scientific work for the theory you are kinda supporting.
I’m suddenly very skeptical about the caliber of the “theological scholars” you have bested.
That said, as a university-trained “theological scholar”, I’d be interested to see if you can pin me to the discussional wall. If you’re game, feel free to shoot me an email at: (thelesserking*at*gmail.com)
Harpazo on February 13, 2009 at 1:23 AM
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 1:17 AM
I don’t promote any theorem, theology or opinion. I really don’t care if Darwinist theory or Creationist belief is true, I am still a child of God and the miracle of life. Now if you choose to follow what a novelist says that is your choice, not mine.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 1:25 AM
Ya know, I have no clue what made us and the world. I have my beliefs and those are probably conveniently close to the hopes that comfort me…but I know one thing for sure:
Atheists are people who fear the existence of a God. The existence of a God would likely mean the existence of Right and Wrong. The existence of Right and Wrong implies the need to make a decision, to make a stand, to hold a belief and to act on it. Those actions would have consequences.
Show me an atheist and I will show you someone who sits on a split rail fence all throughout their life…chastising and sneering while never committing or taking definitive action. An atheist fears consequences.
Montana on February 13, 2009 at 1:30 AM
Harpazo on February 13, 2009 at 1:23 AM
I don’t have to read Darwin to understand the essence of his work it has been drilled into me in school and was the basis for my earlier atheism. His theory is actually quite simple when you look at God’s grand design as a whole and don’t try to limit it to what you might think it is.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 1:32 AM
That said Harpazo I would be interested in having an extended conversation.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 1:33 AM
Oh, and the problem with Evolution is the lack of evidence. And no–don’t get into the “But we have no evidence of the Ark, etc.
Don’t fall into logical fallacies…the issue with Evolution today is that it is taught as scientific fact by secular societies. Evolution is used to remove even the mention of God from the classroom.
I would never say that the lack of evidence for Evolution is proof of God, but Evolutionary proponents commonly say the opposite to me.
Montana on February 13, 2009 at 1:34 AM
I really don’t understand why people think that Origin of the Species is some sort of great way to understand evolution. I think you can understand physics without reading Newton’s Principa Mathmatica. Evolution was in its infancy in the time. For example, Darwin postulated that whales evolved from bears, when we now know they evolved from ungulates. It’s a great read, and an interesting piece of science history, but it isn’t necessary to understand evolution.
justfinethanks on February 13, 2009 at 1:34 AM
No, it proves your more willing to follow blindly an even less credible personal ideologies and with a closed mind, which makes what you believe or want others to believe, worthless, and foolish.
Blind faith, un-arguable.
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 1:35 AM
If you want to make an Atheist’s head explode, provide them with the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. It cleverly states that if evolution is true, naturalism (i.e. the belief that nature is all there is) can’t be ture.
justfinethanks on February 13, 2009 at 1:38 AM
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 1:35 AM
What? You make less sense with each comment. The fact that I don’t care where science says I came from but belief that my life is still a gift from God bothers you is astounding.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 1:44 AM
Hogwash. The Type III system is the mechanism by which the flagellum is constructed. That’s like going to a construction site and claiming that the crane is an earlier form of the skyscraper it’s building.
Furthermore, taking away those forty parts and leaving a functioning Type III system is fine if you need a Type III secretory system. But a Type III system is lousy means of propulsion. Lots of things in an organism need a secretory system; trying to make a connection between secretion and locomotion is a solution in search of a problem — or a scientist desperately in search of a reasonable explanation.
Also, Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity doesn’t say that the individual components can’t also be found in other, different uses (i.e., the spring of his metaphorical mousetrap), just that particular molecular systems, like the flagellum, have an essential minimum threshold of complexity below which the system fails in its evolutionarily-beneficial function entirely. The question is not whether the same parts are used elsewhere; the question is whether there are intermediate steps from nothing to flagellum that provably enhance the organism’s fitness.
Lastly: ONLY forty parts separate the Type III system and the flagellar out-board motor. Only FORTY? Anyone calculated the probability of those forty, additional, molecular components having been manufactured, transported, assembled into cooperative work-units, and activated as a functional propeller by random mutation and Brownian motion? I thought not.
Harpazo on February 13, 2009 at 1:49 AM
The comments are evolving.
Or maybe not.
Mr. Joe on February 13, 2009 at 1:52 AM
What exactly does a type III secretory system do anyway? If it doesn’t give the bacterium a means to move about it doesn’t matter, the creature dies.
It doesn’t matter that you can dissemble the parts and perhaps make something else of them. If you take away any part, the flagellum doesn’t work and there is nothing else to perform that function…. dead bug…. no evolution.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 1:53 AM
holy crap, much bigger news going on right now, guys… Plane crash in Buffalo… all 48 on board dead… I had no idea until I saw it on Yahoo! (my home page) and just flipped Fox News back one
RightWinged on February 13, 2009 at 1:54 AM
Lack of evidence? Give me a break. Here’s some evidence for you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/science/06fossil.html
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/02/09/Study_Early_whales_gave_birth_on_land/UPI-51131234212151/
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090211_africanus.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/photogalleries/darwin-birthday-evolution/index.html
SoulGlo on February 13, 2009 at 1:55 AM
Great. How about if we give Allahpundit this year’s Darwin Award and Charles as runner-up?
Ok. Who is the designer that wrote up the software version in a DNA?
Besides, Darwin’s dead.
Oh, calm down AP!
Kokonut on February 13, 2009 at 2:00 AM
Flailing in the fog. Oh well.
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 2:05 AM
The flight was coming from Newark to Buffalo Niagara Intl, but went down on Long St. in Clarence, NY… according to my measurement on Google Earth, that is about 7 miles away, as the crow flies. So this isn’t some sort of overshot of the runway or anything like that… perhaps something went wrong as the plan began to prepare for landing, which was obviously only minutes away. I suspect they’d have been descending at that point.
RightWinged on February 13, 2009 at 2:06 AM
By your logic may I assume that it’s not necessary to read/study the writings of the American Founders (the Federalist Papers, etc.) to understand the American system of constitutional government?
No doubt. It simply saps some of the legitimacy of your earlier assertions about Darwinian evolution.
I find Darwin’s theory more simplistic than simple, but I’m willing to give him a pass for not knowing molecular biology, modern genetics, and microbiology (that said, he’s without excuse for not taking Mendel’s work more into account). Even so, it should have been scrapped and replaced long ago by the advances in science, rather than re-branding each new evolutionary theorum in the ‘Darwin’ catagory, like some sort of franchise.
I look forward to it. :-)
Harpazo on February 13, 2009 at 2:07 AM
The FAA says it looks like sleet and rain. You can hear the final communications of the plane with the tower here. The plane (3407) is the one with the female voice.
amerpundit on February 13, 2009 at 2:09 AM
Given the weather change we just had here, I’m suspecting that could be a contributing factor. We FINALLY broke freezing for a couple of days, actually got in to the 40s and rained (though we’re headed back for teens and 20s for the foreseeable future). At any rate, it went from nasty rain earlier today, to whipping, bitter cold winds and snow. I’m in northern VT, and weather from the Niagara/Buffalo region does tend to hit here hours after it hits there.
RightWinged on February 13, 2009 at 2:11 AM
I saw that too. Tragic.
Harpazo on February 13, 2009 at 2:13 AM
Hmm… she didn’t say much, huh? No indication of problems, at that point.
RightWinged on February 13, 2009 at 2:18 AM
Harpazo on February 13, 2009 at 2:07 AM
Does the fact I will not limit the Lord to worldly constraints bother you for some reason? Anyway I sent you an email and look forward to the conversation. Darwin’s theory was born 150 years ago and much has changed since then even in the theological realm. I am not a scientist nor a theologist but just an average person that credits my existance and the glory of all creation to Him however it came about.
goat on February 13, 2009 at 2:29 AM
Does the fact I will not limit the Lord to worldly constraints bother you for some reason?
goat on February 13, 2009 at 2:29 AM
I never said it did. ;-)
Got your email; sent a reply.
Harpazo on February 13, 2009 at 2:32 AM
OT
Dude
gmoonster on February 13, 2009 at 2:34 AM
I suppose you have just highlighted the difference between science and history. Many respteced physicists go their enitre career without cracking open Newton’s Principia Mathmatica, because it’s really not necessary to understand modern physics.
How precisely was he supposed to take Gregor Mendel’s work into account when he was working so quietly in Genetics? His work was not really resdicovered and applied to evolutionary theory until the 1890′s by Hugo de Vries, after Darwin was dead. Do you have any evidence that Darwin even heard of Mendel?
Well, I suppose that’s why have the term “Neo Darwinism.” Besides, Gouldism doesn’t really roll of the tounge quite as well.
justfinethanks on February 13, 2009 at 2:58 AM
Evolutionary Theory, like all scientific theories, is a work in progress. Our understanding of how evolution actually works will continue to change as science continues to question and investigate its assumptions. If you choose to pretend that observable facts do not exist and that a world view that was relevant to nomadic tribesmen is superior to the hard nosed investigations of thousands of researchers worldwide, confirmed and reconfirmed, then you are in for a very big disappointment. Even the high priests at the discovery institute are beginning to pull back on their silly claims. This may come as a shock to you, but many practicing scientist, including biologists practice their faith, some are even fundamentalists who manage to juggle both belief in evolution and belief in a more or less literal translation of the bible. 17 centuries ago that radical atheist and evolutionary scientist, St. Augustine, had the audacity to state that the denial of observable realities in favor of a doctrinaire interpretation of scripture was an act of foolishness which made Christianity seem silly to the outsider and insulted God by belittling the great intellectual capacities he had bestowed upon us. Good Luck, you’ll need it.
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 3:09 AM
As long as those of you who are fundamentalist insist on a teleological explanation for our existence, meaning ultimately a physical explanation, you will be disappointed. The idea of non-overlapping majesteria in describing the separate philosophical rolls science and religion play in understanding how we live and why we live has largely been accepted by most religions. Fundamentalists of any stripe are the ones who have a problem with this. Over the course of the past 5 centuries, as science has given us a better and more detailed understanding of the physical universe and our place in it, religious explanations for the physical world have had to retreat. Now you await what? A primordial enzyme or a yet unknown deep-force? Science is a work in progress examined by its practitioners who question its assumptions ( as has already been mentioned by me and others in this post). The next scientific discovery will shed light on yet some other natural aspect of the universe. Your long awaited physical proof of God will be again pushed back and postponed yet again. This will continue to repeat itself again and again until the stars burnout and the universe dies a heat death. If science were, through observation and experimentation, to prove that God or the hand of God actually existed, for all related phenomena, it means it is the best working explanation we have for the know data and facts. If religion is held to the same standard it can’t survive. If you introduce doubt as a working approach to religious faith and the way to overcome that doubt is through the physical investigation of the universe scientist would be the first of embrace this physical explanation. Science advances by trying to falsify what we think we understand. Theory in science doesn’t mean an absolute and complete explanation you won’t get far. This is why non-overlapping majesteria works. Science deals with the physical and religion with the spiritual; both necessary for a full and meaningful life.
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 3:12 AM
FUN FACT: I got banned from LGF for criticizing Charles for describing Bobby Jindal as “pro-exorcism.”
He actually deleted all of my comments from that specific thread. I didn’t realize until a few weeks after, when I went and tried to log in, and couldn’t. I searched, found the thread, yet all of the sensible comments I made about smearing a man based on one paper were missing.
On that regard, I thank Allahpundit for allowing spirited debate around here. And we’re allowed to be critical of our hosts, without fear of retribution.
jimmy the notable on February 13, 2009 at 4:11 AM
How people can believe there is morality without God amazes me. If you rely on society to determine morality you get neat results like Nazism, communism, socialism, abortion, etc.
I recommend this read: http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/ISD/allan.asp
“The theory relating to the evolution of humans from their assumed ancestor in common with the chimpanzee requires millions of years of mutation, genetic drift and natural selection prior to the appearance of “modern man.” However, when I consider mutation rates, the “cost” of the substitution of each new mutant gene in a population in terms of the number of “genetic deaths,” the assumed number of mutant gene differences between evolutionary stages, and the population size necessary to accommodate such a large number of successive mutations, I find that there is a remarkable lack of evidence for the “evolution of man.” My reasons are as follows.
Haldane3 considered this kind of information and came to the conclusion that the number of genetic deaths needed to secure the substitution of one gene for another by natural selection is in the region of 30 times the number of individuals in a generation.4 Using this figure, the cost of substituting 5,000 successive, independent mutant genes in a population of constant size can be calculated. On the basis of an average mutation rate of 10–6, the size of the population must be at least in the order of one million. This implies some 150,000,000,000 forerunners of “modern man,” forerunners who are often represented as belonging to small groups of cave-dwelling hunters called australopithecines who roamed the African savannah. Why is there such a shortage of evidence in the form of fossils, tools, or whatever, for the existence of such vast numbers of australopithecine-like prehumans?
According to the 23rd General Population Conference in Beijing in 1997, the total human population of the earth in that year was assessed to be in the region of 6,000 million, showing that there has been a remarkable increase over the past 200 years. Estimates of the population numbers back to the year 1500 and a prediction for the year 2080 are given in the following table.
Year 1500 1650 1800 1900 1950 1997 2080
No. (millions) 300 550 1,000 1,700 2,500 6,000 10,000
Extrapolation further into the past gives the following approximate numbers:
Year –2000 –1000 0 1000
No. (millions) 1 50 100 250
I find these figures to be in close agreement with what one would expect from the biblical specification after the Flood in 2344 B.C. The assumed existence of thousands of millions of “prehumans” is both physically and scriptural unrealistic.”
Evolutionists, please keep trying to explain where the information in DNA comes from, you amuse me with your ignorant psychobabble based on man made superstitions written by a sad man who took a boat ride.
Centurion68 on February 13, 2009 at 5:21 AM
more logical than anything a clergyman has ever told you…
Speakup on February 13
Ironic that you have ascribed to yourself a god-like ability to know the value of what was told to someone else by someone you’ve never met or heard speak.
Amazing!
SKYFOX on February 13, 2009 at 5:36 AM
See: Chaos theory, “Spontaneous Order”
Oldvannes–great post!
q2600 on February 13, 2009 at 5:38 AM
Psychobabble? Really? You’re going to talk about psychobabble after you just put out numbers written by a guy who bended his scientific studies so that they would accurately match the teachings of the Bible? He says that there were 1 million people in 2,000 BC, yet he also claims there was a biblical flood in 2344 BC that, presumably, wiped out everyone except for two people. Are we to believe that Noah and his wife created 1 million people within the span of 344 years?
Sorry, but getting scientic advice from a website called Answering Genesis is not a very good idea.
jimmy the notable on February 13, 2009 at 6:00 AM
And let’s go with his 150,000,000,000 forerunners thing for a second. Assuming that there were, say 1,000,000 prehumans existing at any given time across the globe, and that number was constant for, say 2,500,000 years. That is the age of the Homo genus which contains humans and our ancestors. Both numbers are relatively tiny compared to the age of the earth. With an average lifespan of 30 years (very generous), that means that every 30 years, there was a new, unique 1,000,000 people living on the planet. Extrapolate that out over 2,500,000 years and you get 83,000,000,000. That’s 83 billion. Just half of what this scientist said. In scientific terms, that ain’t bad.
jimmy the notable on February 13, 2009 at 6:13 AM
Atheism is AP’s faith. I can respect doubt but when cosmologists are theorizing up to 11 dimensions of space & time it is illogical to insist “There is no God”. Any debate with an atheist makes clear they simply posit a negative like the Monty Python Argument Sketch. It’s pointless.
The article quoted here is particularly ridiculous. Comparing Darwin to Newton and Einstein is bad enough (see Killing Darwin for clarification) but the idea that Darwinism in any way emancipates mankind requires ignoring the world right in front of us. It was the rise of the Christian West, the Gospel of Jesus fused with Classical philosophy, that led to the prosperity and freedoms we enjoy today. The rise of secularism and atheism picked up a head of steam by usurping Darwin’s theory and using it to further their Godless philosophy. As these malcontents have gained influence what benefits of this emancipation have been reflected in our “Modern World”?
Our freedoms were won by generations before us. They are maintained by the bravery and faithfulness of people who, for the most part, live by the traditional values the article’s author wishes to liberate us from. The fruits of Darwinism truly unique to the last century of Western culture are authoritarian mass murder, waste, excess, perversion and moral confusion unparalleled in Western history.
Emancipation my ass. Does anyone on this list think we’re heading into a time of increasing freedom? Atheism is a delusional reverie of the ego not a philosophy.
rcl on February 13, 2009 at 6:31 AM
Don’t know. But at least we can rule him out winning the Presidency.
JiangxiDad on February 13, 2009 at 7:20 AM
I don’t understand the scale of the whole thing. To say that the environment was harsh back at the beginning is pretty much an understatement. The odds of survivability of any organism are pretty small so it seems evolution would have to have happen on a massive scale or a highly accelerated rate. I would think it would have also have to have happen over and over again which makes life the normal state of the universe rather then an aberration. The problem I have with that is that we have found no evidence of life other then Earth. Even Mars which really is not all that different has no evidence of complex life. Neither do we find evidence of any type of advanced race via artificial signals and the galaxy is very old. We also have not been able to create life in a manner we claim it was created but I would think that it would be a simple process considering it must have happen time and again in Earth’s past.
jmarcure on February 13, 2009 at 7:22 AM
1) We haven’t been searching for life in space for long at all.
2) Scientists don’t claim to know how life came about. Its still something of a mystery.
jimmy the notable on February 13, 2009 at 7:27 AM
Darwin’s work does not prove there is not a god (or gods) but for me it goes a long way to prove that the biblical version of creationism is pure sh1t.
TheSitRep on February 13, 2009 at 7:45 AM
1) Well that is kind of my point about the scale and life being the norm. We have been to Mars many times and have mapped it pretty well but we still have no evidence of complex life on a planet that is not all that different from Earth.
2) I’m 54 and I remember seeing a film in 8th grade science class about trying to create life in the lab. I remember it was pretty cool because they had lighting chambers. So I find it hard to accept that today’s scientist will fall back on a “we just don’t know how but it did happen” statement to support their inability to create life from nothing. I guess they must have grown a lot less arrogant with age.
jmarcure on February 13, 2009 at 7:48 AM
Vis-a-vis right and wrong, why don’t you take care of the decisions – on your own?
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 7:53 AM
Not surprising. I really liked that site, but it looks like Charles has gone crazy. I won’t visit there at all anymore.
I suspect a “creationist” killed his dog or something.
That, or he’s getting funding from some pro-evolution organizations. I can’t think of an explanation for someone going off the deep end and becoming so obsessed. He should have started a new blog dedicated to evolution and then all the amateur theologians and amateur scientists can argue in circles all day long.
reaganaut on February 13, 2009 at 8:06 AM
You are correct, Sir, Noah is a myth.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 8:07 AM
A problem I have with evolution, and as said by C.S. Lewis, is that if you believe we evolved by “chance”, then doesn’t that also involve our brain, and therefore our faculty of reason itself? So the faculty by which we believe in evolution evolved by chance? Can you trust your “reason” if you believe it evolved by chance?
birdman on February 13, 2009 at 8:13 AM
I don’t know, can you trust the things you see with your eyes, or the things that you hear, or that each step you take, your brain won’t suddenly decide to pull one foot out from under you to make you fall? I don’t question how the brain works, because it works.
jimmy the notable on February 13, 2009 at 8:20 AM
Lol! Right.
Because so many of Evolutions biggest fans are such champions of conservatism.
*NOT BORN YESTERDAY
thareb on February 13, 2009 at 8:20 AM
Didn’t they find something in Turkey, or some where near there? I seem to remember that they believed they had found something, but never heard how it ended.
On topic, why do the 2 theories have to be mutually exclusive? I don’t understand how someone can say “there is no God”, when there are so many things we admittedly don’t know. OK, so biblical creation is bunk, but no one has been able to actually create life in lab. and they can’t even get in the neighborhood.
Is it possible that life was given by God, and evolution was the course chosen to get where we are tody?
todler on February 13, 2009 at 8:32 AM
I thought his antics were an experiment/lesson in the evils of cult/leader worship and totalitarianism. At least that’s what his behavior taught me.
JiangxiDad on February 13, 2009 at 8:34 AM
This is a fundamental misrepresentation of facts! Whatever one thinks of its theories, Intelligent Design is not synonymous with “Creationism” and its “young earth” theories.
This is not an arcane information, therefore the author of this piece is guilty of perpetuating mythology himself. Indeed, one can only conclude that this myth-making is an intentional distortion of I.D., and yet another attempt to portray its advocates as ignorant yahoos who hate science.
Buy Danish on February 13, 2009 at 8:36 AM
That’s pretty good.
I think I have misjudged allahpundit. The fellow has depth.
jeff_from_mpls on February 13, 2009 at 8:41 AM
Danish, I’m afraid that you are the ignorant one…ignorant of the many intelligent, scholarly advocates of creation science.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
jgapinoy on February 13, 2009 at 8:49 AM
Evolution is false because that’s way too complicated for some Nascar watching, Bible-thumper like God to have figured out. He made us over a weekend using Play-Doh.
frankj on February 13, 2009 at 8:54 AM
IIRC, the “discovery was supposed to have been made in Turkish Armenia, in the Thirties, I think. A Nazi expedition was rumoured to have found it, but kept it secret. And, If I have it right, their expedition was prompted by a photo of the Ark, which was supposedly taken by a British flyer during WWI.
As for saying that there is no God, I have long held the view that, although no-one has all of the answers yet, and may never do so, I must accept certain findings by science. The most fundamental, to me, is the non-destructibility of energy. If that is so, then it cannot not be, and, therefore never came into being, but always was. One cannot have a unidirectional force, therefore, there can not be a beginning if there is no end.
However, if the law of the conservation of energy should be proven wrong, a rethink will be required.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 8:55 AM
Darwin inspired Marx, Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot. (Marx told Darwin he was going to dedicate Das Capital to him, but Darwin had the public relations sense to decline the honor.) So, who’s going to be the next atheist hero?
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 9:00 AM
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 3:12 AM
Outstanding! Darwin’s Theory is just that. In simple language, all the dots haven’t been connected. We’ve been looking for over 150 years and no luck, yet. People of faith tend not to believe Darwin. OK. It’s a matter of faith. They are not scientific cretens as too many people in this country try to paint them.
Which brings us to Atheists. We have a friend that is now a loudly proclaimed atheist. He is becoming more boorish by the day. Also a government retiree. He has a PhD in chemistry, but is not a leaned or wise man. He thinks that the population that believes in God is just plain stupid. In fact the whole population that are not atheists are also stupid. He also believes the New Deal worked and that global warming is a real threat. Those that believe in nothing will believe anything.
BetseyRoss on February 13, 2009 at 9:01 AM
There are Christians I can respect, and then there was the last Pope and the current openly anti-Semitic one.
thuja on February 13, 2009 at 9:05 AM
Check out the Spanish Conquistadors.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 9:06 AM
O, wow Darwin came up with a UNPROVABLE theory.
Comparing these two men show much ignorance.
LOL @ those who think the wickedness of man will go unpunished.
JihadKiller1s1k on February 13, 2009 at 9:11 AM
Yeah, those bastards led a rebellion of slave states against Montezuma so he’d stop sacrificing them by the thosands per month. What monsters. They shoulda just let it go on.
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 9:12 AM
This is the same cultist crap the Obama worshippers take part in. I’ve got a note for anyone in this video- this isn’t clever, it’s downright creepy.
TheBlueSite on February 13, 2009 at 9:25 AM
You’re right, it was none of their damn business, and it also wasn’t the reason they did it. They wanted mastery, and the gold that went with it. That’s why they went there.
The mastery angle also applied to Henry the eighth, Cromwell, Philip II, Napoleon, and others – Christians all. Evil people are evil because they are evil, not because of religion or lack thereof.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 9:27 AM
Evil people cannot, by definition, be Christians. Christians are followers of Jesus Christ. He himself said that his followers would be recognizable by their good deeds.
Of course, some evil people call themselves Christians.
jgapinoy on February 13, 2009 at 9:37 AM
Nothing about Christianity suggests that these people do what they did, least of all requires it. But the rogue’s gallery of atheist heros I mentioned were acting in direct consequence of embracing Darwin’s theory.
There was a missionary captured by the atheists in S. Vietnam when it fell, and the first thing he was taught in the atheist re-education camp was the filmstrip we all saw in 4th grade in 1965, the sequential ape-to-man drawings that “proved” evolution.
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 9:42 AM
Some believe in the resurrection yet cause harm to others. If you are defining Christ’s teaching as non-evil and therefore those who follow it as also non-evil that is true, but also requires a subjective definition of how to implement Christ’s teaching. Many assert an interpretation and not all of those assertions are identical.
dedalus on February 13, 2009 at 9:53 AM
jgapinoy, Danish is right, but he’s talking about something that is a little different from your discussion here. Intelligent Design is a theory that tries to embrace the idea that there must have been a designer, but removes religion so that they can avoid religious discussions by approaching it logically.
i.e. they don’t want to get into if it was Allah, or the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, or directed panspermia. It really doesn’t matter what you believe the designer was, you can do the research without hashing that out.
In reality, I think many ID people, me included, are Christians, but that is a different discussion from ID.
Marine_Bio on February 13, 2009 at 9:58 AM
Not all atheists agree either. Some are communists, some libertarians, and some are in between.
Christianity defines willfully harming others as sin. It also provides the remedy for sin and its consequences, the death and resurrection of Christ.
Communism has killed, as a necessary consequence of its main tenets, 100+ million people. On the basis of Marxism/Darwinism, there is no need to repent or apologize for this, nor any remedy for the troubled consciences it may have produced. In fact, a conscience troubled by mass murder and theft in the name of Marx is a detriment to the advance of Communism.
Pol Pot and his cronies studied in Paris under J.P. Sartre and became committed atheists. Then these same guys went back to Cambodia and killed 2+ million people as a direct consequence of their newfound faith.
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 10:03 AM
The problem with that stance is: if it turns out that Darwin was essentially correct, then we can no longer call these people evil. They were just following the natural process. I don’t buy that. They behaved in an evil manner, regardless of Darwin, and, I suspect that their indoctrination methods had more to do with the denial of religion, rather than a scientific interest.
Marxists, and their variants, cannot stand the thought that they are not supreme in the universe, hence they attack whatever may stand in their way. This is not restricted to religion, either. Their stance against capitalism is fueled by the same arrogance.
I guess my point is that people will use whatever means they have to achieve their aims, be it religion, nationalism, hatred, whatever. Marx was full of hatred for the status quo, including religion, because he thought that religion kept the masses in a state of slavery. He was, simply, way above himself in thinking that he was the equal of those who ran the ship of state, or supplied jobs etc. To fight against those, he had to attack the things that they held dear, including religion. If he was truly a self-responsible atheist, he would have minded his own business, and looked after his own welfare as best he could.
Hitler was a very complex creature, way beyond my ability to diagnose, but I suspect that Pol Pot was just a savage.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 10:03 AM
I think you missed the point.
There lies the difference in interpretations.
You’re not talking about minor interpretation differences, like many southern baptists believing you shouldn’t drink alcoholic beverages. Is this really what Jesus was saying? I don’t think so, but is it really going to matter when they meet him? NO.
You’re talking about interpretations that are not what Christ taught, and are therefore by definition, not Christian.
Marine_Bio on February 13, 2009 at 10:06 AM
But there is no atheist principle that requires this posture.
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 10:09 AM
Isn’t it though?
Speakup on February 13, 2009 at 10:12 AM
Zebras didn’t evolve into elephants, though evolution would say they share a common ancestor.
dedalus on February 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM
See, that’s where we find ourselves going round in circles. You speak of historical facts, and then apply your belief system to it. In this temporal world there is only punishment as a means of dissuading similar action in future. What you believe will happen after death has no bearing on human events in life – other than frightening some into staying on the straight and narrow. But the big players are never put off by such fears – only retribution in this life is likely to have any effect.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM
Atheism, itself, has no principles – it is not a religion.
An atheist, if honest, should be self-aware to the point of being able to discern right and wrong, and live accordingly. For example, I don’t want someone to steal my car, and I suspect that others don’t want me to steal theirs, so I don’t, because I know it is the wrong thing to do to me, therefore it is the wrong thing to do to them. How do think humans really developed morality, long before the advent of a certain book?
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Genocidal conquest was prevalent long before Sartre. Numbers killed get bigger with technological advancements though the Chinese achieved slaughter on a large-scale hundreds of years ago.
For someone believing in Christian teaching killing has been rationalized where the opponent is thought to be evil or savage.
dedalus on February 13, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Only two pages? Somebody musta forgot their torches and pitchforks.
LimeyGeek on February 13, 2009 at 10:28 AM
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