The battle of evolution vs creationism

[johnhanks]

Everybody is afraid to challenge evolution, they are terrified because they know what will happen to their careers.

On the contrary, any ambitious young biologist who published a successful refutation of evolution would be on the gravy train for life.

But you are asking me how a tree differs from a web.

No, we are asking you to outline to us your understanding of this "web concept", and explain how it completely replaces the concept of a phylogenetic tree.

Basically the way that I understand it is, based on the scientific data, the tree model can no longer be defended.

But you still will not explain the way you understand it. What "scientific data", exactly, have felled the tree?

 

[outhouse]

, from the Hebrew language studies it is shown to be written as an historic narrative.

Nonsense.

Supply sources when you make unsubstantiated statements with no credibility.


And dont bring in some christian apologetic source either that has no validity.

 

[outhouse]

Everybody is afraid to challenge evolution, .

Nonsense.

There is nothing that can replace the abserved facts and explain are origins with any credibility that is why.



Why is it only religious people have a real issue with it?

Why dont credible biologist have a issue with it?


Because it is now deemed fact thats why. get real.

 

[johnhanks]

However we can say that the kind if very similar to the family biological classifications.

Family Ichneumonidae: 60 000 species. Family Staphylinidae: 58 000 species and counting. Did god create one "kind" in each case?

 

[Man of Faith]

Nonsense.

There is nothing that can replace the abserved facts and explain are origins with any credibility that is why.



Why is it only religious people have a real issue with it?

Why dont credible biologist have a issue with it?


Because it is now deemed fact thats why. get real.

That's the key word, credible. Because as soon as they have an issue with it, they are no longer deemed credible. Better to keep their head down and do their work, go home and have dinner, watch a movie.

 

[Ouroboros]

Philo from Alexandria thought Genesis was an allegory already in the first century. Philo was a a contemporary to Jesus and the first Christians, and his writings were preserved by the first Christians, so it must have meant something to them.

 

[Man of Faith]

Family Ichneumonidae: 60 000 species. Family Staphylinidae: 58 000 species and counting. Did god create one "kind" in each case?

I'm no scientist but there are non-credible scientists that are working on it. It's the study of baraminology. Of course we know that change happens, so why couldn’t an intelligent being create a kind of creature with the genes in it already to change and adapt to its surroundings? Credible scientist agree that there were probably one or two original humans and look at the differences we have with them now. Look at the different dogs, credible scientists agree that they probably came from the wolf or a wolf like creature. The creation orchard model best fits the credible scientist’s data.

 

[Windwalker]

Philo from Alexandria thought Genesis was an allegory already in the first century. Philo was a a contemporary to Jesus and the first Christians, and his writings were preserved by the first Christians, so it must have meant something to them.

I believe Origen did as well, and he was one of the early Church fathers. Literalism is a modern invention. (CORRECTION: I conflated this with Biblical innerancy. I realize literalism is a stage of consciousness development).

BTW, since the Bible never declares itself as a book of science, then aren't these Christians adding to the Bible something that it doesn't claim for itself, thus putting themselves at risk of receiving all the plagues listed in the Book of Revelation?

 

[outhouse]

That's the key word, credible. Because as soon as they have an issue with it, they are no longer deemed credible. Better to keep their head down and do their work, go home and have dinner, watch a movie.

Nonsesne is the key word.

YOu ignore ANY replacement hypothesis, because nothing works outside mythology magic and imagination and faith.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I believe Origen did as well, and he was one of the early Church fathers.

I don't know about Origen, but Augustine blasted literalist interpretations as naive and silly, and said they undermine the credibility of the faith.

Literalism is a modern invention.

I doubt that's entirely accurate; for instance, the rabbinic tradition has LONG acknowledged varying levels of interpretation, including a literal one, and it's doubtful that early Christians somehow forgot this. I'd imagine that especially among the untutored, literalism has always existed. But the prevalence of contemporary scriptural inerrancy is certainly striking, which is a good point.

 

[outhouse]

Credible scientist agree that there were probably one or two original humans and look at the differences we have with them now. .

This looks like outright DISHONESTY

Supply sources for these so called credible scientist :slap:

 

[Ouroboros]

I believe Origen did as well, and he was one of the early Church fathers. Literalism is a modern invention.

Yes. I think literalism might be a counter-reaction to science. Since the Enlightenment, religious people have been threatened and the only way to defend their faith is to make it "objectively" true as well. Which I know you agree with me is completely wrong. The truth isn't it the words, but in the content.

BTW, since the Bible never declares itself as a book of science, then aren't these Christians adding to the Bible something that it doesn't claim for itself, thus putting themselves at risk of receiving all the plagues listed in the Book of Revelation?

You're right. They do.

One thing that was part of my deconversion was when I realized that a part of a verse was to be interpreted literally in the Bible, but then the second half was figurative. Trying to remember which verse, but it didn't make me concerned. I saw that it was very subjective approach to reading it.

 

[Windwalker]

I doubt that's entirely accurate; for instance, the rabbinic tradition has LONG acknowledged varying levels of interpretation, including a literal one, and it's doubtful that early Christians somehow forgot this. I'd imagine that especially among the untutored, literalism has always existed. But the prevalence of contemporary scriptural inerrancy is certainly striking, which is a good point.

This is true what you're saying, and I do know this. In my haste I was conflating this with Biblical Innerancy, which I believe I'm correct saying is a modern invention to counter modernity.

 

[Ouroboros]

I doubt that's entirely accurate; for instance, the rabbinic tradition has LONG acknowledged varying levels of interpretation, including a literal one, and it's doubtful that early Christians somehow forgot this. I'd imagine that especially among the untutored, literalism has always existed. But the prevalence of contemporary scriptural inerrancy is certainly striking, which is a good point.

This is probably true. Different level of literalism, but I suspect that it's gone worse in the modern time.

 

[idav]

The creation orchard model best fits the credible scientist’s data.

Even with the diversity in species we only need one template not a whole orchard. Orchard model does not fit the history of the species on this planet. The evidence points to all life having common ancestry when you go back far enough. If there were many templates then life would be far more diverse than it is now. We share far too much with other forms of life even a banana so I find it hard to see the diversity required for an orchard model.

 

[outhouse]

Literalism is a modern invention.

Not really.

The main difference is the complete different context in how they viewed the writings compared to how we do.

While some aspects of literalism are new, certain things we take for granted were read literally back then.


To give you some idea of context, these people all believed you literally had little people inside your body running around. They lived mythology.

At the same time just like today, you had different people with different views

 

[Enai de a lukal]

This is probably true. Different level of literalism, but I suspect that it's gone worse in the modern time.

Its hard to gauge the level, but one thing that is striking about it is that intuitively, one would expect such a naive and simplistic view to die out over time, rather than persist or even grow. Literalism/inerrancy is, in part, likely a self-defense mechanism, a response to the intellectual/critical climate since the Enlightenment- as people have become more skeptical about religious truth-claims, Christianity has sort of split into two different ways to deal with this; the liberal Protestants and so on who concede that Christianity must be viewed and conducted more rationally, and the more fundamentalist variety that has gone the other direction, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, and oftentimes outright fideism, and Biblical inerrancy.

 

[Windwalker]

Not really.


The main difference is the complete different context in how they viewed the writings compared to how we do.

Yes, I know. I realized I misspoke and corrected myself in a subsequent post. I'm going to go back and correct this.

While some aspects of literalism are new, certain things we take for granted were read literally back then.


To give you some idea of context, these people all believed you literally had little people inside your body running around. They lived mythology.

At the same time just like today, you had different people with different views

All this I agree with and state myself in speaking of stages of development. Mythic-literalism is a perceptual stage of consciousness. I follow Gebser in this:

The Mythical structure of consciousness

With the advent of the Cro-Magnons, man became a tool-making individual, also one who formed into larger social structures. As Feuerstein points out, it is clear from the archaeological finds that the Cro-Magnons had evolved a symbolic universe that was religious and shamanistic. Part of this appears to have been a keen interest in calendric reckoning, and with it we may presume the existence of a fairly complex mythology.[11] This structure can be considered two-dimensional since it is characterized by fundamental polarities. Word was the reflector of inner silence; myth was the reflector of the soul.[12] Religion appears as the interaction between memory and feeling.[13] Man is beginning to recognize himself as opposed to others. The next 30,000 odd years or so spent developing these various mythologies. Language is becoming ever more important, it will be noted, and not only receptive, but active, language at that. Not the ear, but the mouth is important in making transparent what is involved in being and life. The mouth now becomes the spiritual organ. We witness, as well, the initial concretization of the "I" of man.

Many myths deal explicitly with man's (unperspectival) separation from nature. Witness the story of the Fall in Genesis (and its admonition to go forth and dominate nature); and the myth of Prometheus and the giving of fire to man. These both indicate a strong awareness of man's differentness from nature. Man is coming into his own, although he is anything but independent of it. One could characterize this as a two-dimensional understanding of the world. Within the circle of believers is where the important acts of life take place. The mere forces of nature have a beingness, often anthropomorphized, but a beingness nevertheless. Myth, then, or the mythologeme is the primary form of expression of this period. Subsets of this basic form would be the gods, symbols and mysteries. These figures provide the emerging consciousness with imaginative images around which to center man's knowledge and understanding of the world. If the Magic structure of consciousness is the emotional aspect, then the Mythical structure is the imaginative one. It is this fact that makes mythology so difficult for us as moderns to deal with. The plethora of images (gods) and the seeming inconsistent pantheons of deities brings the rational mind quickly to confusion. Who can keep track of all these figures, their meanings, their correspondences and their associations. This is the time of the dream.

Up until this time, that is in the magical structure of consciousness, souls and afterlives were not of great importance (at least we do not find a lot of evidence thereof). Yet in the fully developed mythical consciousness, this is important. The entire civilization of Egypt, as we know it, revolved around this very issue. When we are told, then, in certain rosicrucian documents that we must descend into Egypt, we are being told that we must regain, not revert to, our mythical heritage.

Mouths begin to play a more important role. Not only is the shaman and wise person of the tribe a repository of wisdom, others, the poets, such as Homer, begin to play a more important role in the culture. This does not really begin to happen until the mythical structure of consciousness, however. The "I" of man is not yet fully developed, to be sure, but it has developed to that point that it recognizes and demands a separation from nature, from its environment. We can take this as evidence of an increasing crystallization of the ego. We are on the way to selfhood.

Of course, mythology is very much alive today. This explains the popularity of Joseph Campbell and his work on myth. It explains the appeal that Robert Bly and his "Gathering of Men" workshops have. What both Campbell and Bly do is tell stories: imaginative, intuitively understood stories that reveal to us things that our current rational mode of thinking prohibits us from knowing. We have much to learn from myth, however, and should be ever aware of its influences.​

From here: AN OVERVIEW OF THE WORK OF JEAN GEBSER

 

[Windwalker]

Actually, I'm doing it again! I'm conflating stuff all over in my mind today. I think I'm too distracted right now to post with lucidity. Literalism is simply just the inability to think abstractly, conflating symbols with signs. That can happen at any of Gebser's stages. It's more comparable to concrete operational versus formal operational stages. I'll think I'll stop here while I'm still somewhat ahead.

Hey, I'll let this make up for me here. http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1332

 

[outhouse]

What is even harder is understanding the cultural anthropology, so you can understand just when they ancient men were actually being literal, and when they were not.