Re: Atheists support evolution because evolution supports their worldview


"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Suzanne wrote:
"Rupert Morrish" <rupert@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Suzanne wrote:
"Mark VandeWettering" <wettering@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On 2008-08-27, Suzanne <shiloh7@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Mark VandeWettering" <wettering@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On 2008-08-26, Suzanne <shiloh7@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Rupert Morrish" <rupert@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Suzanne wrote:
[snip]
Though backwards to what Ray had said, my thesis
was not exactly that Darwin caused the spread of
atheism, it was that if someone went back and took
away Darwin's influence (meaning from his ideas on
evolution being given to people), wouldn't we still
have had atheism? I was actually saying that maybe
a person can't blame Darwin for it. However, I also
was saying that there is no way to measure what
would have happened because it's in the past and
can't be undone and tried another way.
Do you suppose that if Darwin had decided not to publish Origin of
Species, and instead we had first learned the idea of natural
selection
from Wallace, that we would all be Spiritualists?

No, I don't think it would change a thing. But I think that he
saw something remarkable that he wanted to hone in on and bring
to the attention of science. He saw what he believed were species
evolving. In my opinion, he was gazing into what God had made. I
don't see how anyone can look at a taxonomy line-up and not see the
progressive way that each of the organisms are similar as though
they
are at different stages of their particular shapes. But when I look
at
it, I see that, but in their own categories. I firmly believe that
Darwin was just saying, "notice this, people...something is going
on here...let's try to understand what we are seeing." That much is
good. One thing that I don't see is the Christian community asking
for prayer for our scientists and for the work that they do. They
should. I wonder how many people that opposed Darwin, ever prayed
for
that man? I know a handful that have. There should be more.
It's hard to imagine how anyone who has read "Origin of Species"
would
summarize it thusly. From the final chapter:

On the view that species are only strongly marked and
permanent
varieties, and that each species first existed as a variety,
we can see why it is that no line of demarcation can be drawn
between species, commonly supposed to have been produced by
special acts of creation, and varieties which are
acknowledged
to have been produced by secondary laws. On this same view we
can understand how it is that in each region where many
species
of a genus have been produced, and where they now flourish,
these same species should present many varieties; for where
the manufactory of species has been active, we might expect,
as a general rule, to find it still in action; and this is
the case if varieties be incipient species. Moreover, the
species of the large genera, which afford the greater number
of varieties or incipient species, retain to a certain degree
the character of varieties; for they differ from each other
by a less amount of difference than do the species of smaller
genera. The closely allied species also of the larger genera
apparently have restricted ranges, and they are clustered in
little groups round other species -- in which respects they
resemble varieties. These are strange relations on the view
of each species having been independently created, but are
intelligible if all species first existed as varieties.

Mark

If it's hard to imagine then maybe that's why you didn't
see it. If it's possible, listen on a different level.
Here's an idea. Why not try to understand words on the level
that they were written? Why, instead of using your own personal
meaning for words, concepts, history and science, actually try to
understand what things actually mean?
I know a lot of people skim through something and they
pick out what they want to, and then they may not pay
attention to the rest. On this occasion, I carefully sat
down to contemplate fully what he was saying in the
excerpt. I noticed seriously the last sentence. If someone
did not notice it, then I thought it was important that I
speak to that, in order to be fair to Darwin's own words.
But to answer your question, I believe that the level to
which I was "listening" to what he wrote was to be very
fair and thorough, so maybe I was listening on a different
level than you were. Maybe not. I don't think you should
criticize someone for their being thorough and paying
attention to all that he said. It was important to him. As far
as my choice of words, I don't think that I said anything
that is hard to understand concerning what I felt that he
was trying to tell people about his ideas about evolution.

"Origin of Species" doesn't mean what you said it meant. Darwin was
arguing that special creation didn't make sense. He argued that the
descent with modification model of evolution makes much more sense.
It explains more about what we see in the world.
Mark is presenting the basic over all thing that he sees
in what Darwin is saying. I think he has missed some
of what he was saying.

Do you have any rational reasons for this belief? If so, you might try
expressing them.

I did express rational reasons, but they have been erased.
I asked a set of questions about the excerpt from Darwin's
writing.


It explains what you see and what he sees, but not what
others see that see things differently, Mark. Things can
be like those pictures with hidden pictures in them, and
that is why it is helpful to talk with others, and bounce
your ideas off of them, and vice-versa. No man is an
island unto himself. It's helpful to hear how others view
something.
And that's why Darwin spent 20 years writing to nearly every naturalist
in
the world, many of them clergymen, to find out what they were seeing. If
you read OoS you will find frequent acknowledgements to those who were
able to fill gaps in Darwin's knowledge.


If he had talked to people that had a special
way of putting things, he might've seen what they see
in addition to what he thought he was seeing. The way
he saw things, if he said the creation didn't make sense,
No, he simply said what he thought the evidence showed had happened.
That
some interpret the creation myth in the bible to contradict the evidence
is not his problem.

He did tell what he believed about what evidence he had,
that is true. But he clearly allowed a provision for things
being "intelligible" if all of the species existed in the
beginning as varieties. He did not close off that possibility
at all.

Yes he did. You do not appear to have read the book. Darwin said that new
species start as varieties, and that new varieties are arising all the
time within species. What he most emphatically did not say was that there
are thousands or millions of separate "kinds". Though in the Origin he
stopped short of universal common descent, he wasn't very far from it. He
talked of life originally starting "in a few forms, or in one".

Since part of the post that I wrote is missing, it
might appear that way to you. I was specifically
speaking of the excerpt which had been quoted
from Darwin by Mark.

Darwin kept an open mind, I believe, and he was
showing that he did. John Wilkins and some of the others
in this newsgroup felt that I had not been true to what
Darwin had actually said that was not hearsay, and so I
am being very careful out of respect for what they have
said, to be true to what Darwin said, and not say anything
about what someone alledgedly says that he says. I think
that since he is the one that wrote the work, his last
sentence in the excerpt that was provided was totally
ignored. It is from that portion that I got some of the
opinion that I had previously addressed.

You completely misunderstand what Darwin meant in that sentence. We can
tell what he meant based on the rest of the book. "There is grandeur in
this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally
breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has
gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a
beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and
are being, evolved."

He was expressing what he believed to be right. In this
part, but the wording of the sentence I'm talking about
was in an "if" clause. I would like to hear a paraphrase
of that sentence the way that you think it reads, rather
than showing me what he says in the rest of the work.
I know what he said elsewhere, in other words. That's
quite clear.

he probably didn't understand the creation account.
He probably understood it better than you. He had, after all, considered
an ecclesiastical career.

No, I'm not saying he didn't understand religious matters,
I am saying that there was something in the creation account
that he could not explain, by what evidence is available to
him. His ideas are based solely on evidence he was able to
determine. But in the creation account if you will, the
meaning of "kinds" might've bugged him, as to what exactly
it means (as it does a lot of folks). I believe that he was
allowing for the possibility of something he didn't know
how to explain which is that of things being created suddenly
by great varieties, rather than forming singly as species are
supposed to form in evolution.

No. He clearly thought no such thing, and anyone who has read the Origin
should be able to tell this.

You don't understand. I have no trouble understanding what
he believes is true. I feel that the sentence I singled out is
what he holds in reserve "if" what he thinks is true fails in
any way. I believe he is at least acknowledging that there is
another viewpoint. He expresses his opinion clearly, as I've
said.

He said, (Darwin said...)...
"These are strange relations on the view of each species
having been independently created, but are intelligible if all
species first existed as varieties. In the creation account God
spoke and whole varieties of life filled the seas. He spoke and
the land was suddenly filled with varieties of life. He spoke
and the air was filled with varieties of life. He spoke and the
creeping things came into being in varieties of life.

Presumably the quote from Darwin was only the first sentence. You don't
understand what Darwin meant by "varieties". You are trying to turn them
into "kinds", and that's just not possible. Kinds are separately created.
Varieties emerge by variation (we would now call that mutation) within a
species. Varieties are not created, and Darwin certainly didn't think they
were.

I, personally, do not think that kinds and species are eqivalent,
since that is what you are wondering. I believe that "kinds"
is a greater category than species because I believe that kinds
can produce multiple species, possibly because of a certain
tree in the Bible. Also, in the creation account, in the beginning
God created varieties all at once. I am thinking, because of
some of the verses about kinds, that kinds is a thing that can
produce many species, as perhaps Felines, which produces
many varieties, or species: tigers, lions, sabre-tooth tigers,
domestic cats, panthers, cougars, jaguars, etc. Or such as
Canines: wolves, dogs, coyotes, foxes, etc. One thing that
I am getting this idea from is the description of the
Tree of Life. It produces 12 types of fruit, one in each of
the months in the year. The Tree of Life is the only tree that
is mentioned that is like the original creation. Yes, I know
that some people insist that it is metaphorical. I believe it is
presented in the Bible as being an actual tree, because if it
was only meant metaphorical, you would not need an angel
to guard it. In the description of heaven, there are multiple
Trees of Life because it grows on both sides of the river.

[snip]

But the point is that you haven't actually seen anything. You haven't
gone
out and looked at thousands of beetles and measured them and categorized
and quantified the ways they are different and the ways in which they
are
the same. You haven't worked your way up hundreds of limestone cliffs
and
realized that rocks with *this* kind of fossilized shell are always
below
rocks with *that* kind of fossilized shell, and that the same is true
for
thousands of kinds of fossils all over the world. You haven't sequenced
the DNA of tens of thousands of individuals of dozens of species and
realized that no matter what part of the genome you look at, the
magnitude
and the nature of the differences between two species always form the
same
nested hierarchy, exactly as if they were related by common descent.

You haven't seen any of this, but you expect to lecture those who have
done it because of what you've read in a book.

You have no clue as to what things I have done in my
lifetime.

I believe he does. You give out lots of little clues when you write. We
can tell that you are pretty much ignorant of science, so it's unlikely
that you have done any of the things he mentions.

I've seen several things in here from people that act
like I know nothing about science that shows they
have their flaws about what they know. I can't believe
that some don't have a clue as to what radio waves are,
or what the EMR Spectrum of Light is. All they need to
do to get it straight is look up Maxwell and especially
Hertz. Radio Waves are a form of light energy. EMR
waves are divided into visible light and invisible light.
All of the things listed in the EMR Spectrum are waves
that have the speed of light. Only their frequencies are
different speeds. The latter is a measurement of their
vibration speeds, not the forward directional speed of
a wave. It's like those hurricanes that are menacing the
USA currently. They have a forward speed, but they
also have a circular speed.

As for sequencing the DNA of tens of thousands
of nidividuals of dozens of species, I doubt if many have
done that.

It does seem like a lot for any one person to do. Hundreds, more likely.
There are species for which we have genetic data for tens of thousands of
individuals, but not all collected by a single person.

It's a ridiculous lot for any one person to do. He is saying,
more or less, that someone has to have all those things he
lists, or they have no right speak on those subjects at all.

I'm very familiar, first hand with all the things
you mention except I've never sequenced the DNA. We've
done a lot of things not on your list, too. What did you
think? That we sat on boulders all day for entertainment,
or perhaps that we listened to grass grow as a hobby? : )

You've quantified the characters of thousands of beetles? You've done
biostratigraphy? Permit me to doubt.

For beetles, yes, but not at all by the thousands.
The beetles part was not on a grand scale, but was in
school growing up. The beetles were brought to the
school and we studied them. We measured them, drew
them, identified them, had notebooks that we made with
illustrations, etc. But looking for sedimentary rock in
order to find fossils I've done since I was a very small
girl, with my family. On my own, just as a hobby, I've
poured over many books looking at how to tell the age
of rocks, and also have looked at levels that were handy
with the many places that I have lived. At one time we
lived in Kanab,Utah, and we could see the meadows
that are the beginning of the land that goes upwards
--
to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. These are a
rockhound's dream surroundings. I was always
interested in any rocks anywhere. We also spent a lot
of time in Zion National Park, which has this
unearthly kind of landscape. You feel like you
are on another planet. I've read all about how those
were formed and have also studied the rocks in the
Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, but those you
can't take home of course. On the other hand near
Hoover Dam, there were rocks you could collect.
--
As per the limestone cliffs someone is supposed to
have scaled, I didn't have to climb to get to limestone.
I was born in Florida and it is on a whole gigantic
shelf of limestone. There, you dive to see it, which is
what I've done countless times in the Florida aquifer
system, when going to the cold water spring locations
with snorkel and fins. You can see fossils in this area
in places, and the water is so clear that you can see
things 35 feet down and that in front of a white
limestone bottom. Carlesbad Caverns in the West also
gives a good glimpse of limestone layers at their best.
One upright lump of limestone was translucent when the
guide shined his flashlight through it, and instead of
being whitish, that one had a rosy tone. Because of that,
they called it the Blushing Bride. With this kind of trip,
there are many things along the way that tell you the
geological information if one is interested. I was
interested and read it all. After a trip like that, I will also
look it up to find out more, usually. Besides this, people
don't stop learning after they get out of school. At many
don't. Besides that, biology, geology, chemistry, physics,
etc. were classes in my schools. I can't see how anyone
might not have learned these subjects.
--
Now, wait a minute. Let's talk about literalism for a minute.
I do not strain at a gnat and swallow a camel to be literal.
But if the Bible says that a man built an ark, and then
it actually gives a description and measurements, and then
tells in detail many things about that event, why in the world
would someone not take it literally, it is written literally. The
flood story, for example is written so very literally that if
someone ignores that, they do it a disservice.
There wasn't a worldwide flood. Floods happen all the time, and
geologists
know what sort of evidence they leave behind. That evidence isn't
everywhere at any time - the world was never all flooded at the same
time.

What does this have to do with the excerpt of Darwin's
writing that we were discussing?

Hey, you're the one that brought up the flood story. If the flood story is
intended to be read literally, the bible is wrong.

Yes, but putting down someone paying attention
to the details is strange. He was talking about me
seeing a story literally in the Bible. It is written
literally, why not see it literally! If it was meant to
be metaphorical it would not go on and on and on
about the details. And your notion "if the flood story
is intended to be read literally, the bible is wrong,"
does not make sense. It makes no sense to read it at all,
if you don't consider it literally.

There wasn't a flood and there wasn't an ark. Genetic bottlenecks happen
frequently - for example when a small population becomes isolated or a
few
individuals reach an island. The founder effect leaves distinct evidence
in the DNA of the descendants of those small populations. The evidence
that is there indicates there was a genetic bottleneck in humans, but it
was a few thousand individuals 75,000 years ago, not 5 individuals 5,000
years ago. Unless you are prepared to claim that an average
post-diluvian
generation was 2 years, and that the ark was a thousand times bigger
than
its already impossible size?

Do you know anything about mitochonrial DNA? How much
of the things you mention above have you actually compiled?

He doesn't have to compile it. He can read the scientific literature,
which is indeed meant to be taken literally.

I asked a legitimate question. I wondered how much he
knew about the subject. Mitochonrial DNA is believed to
be from a separate evolution, and that, from a bacteria.
Because of this, this gets into a study of how it may have
been inherited. This can get invovled.

The ark: 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high.
The QE2 is 1132 feet long, 236.2 feet high from keel to
funnel, etc. Also, there is a structure upon Mt. Ararat that
has these dimensions, and astronauts saw it from space.
It's commonly called "The Anomaly." It's rectangular like
a shoe box.

Are you actually claiming this as evidence for a worldwide flood?

I was not talking about that, I do believe that happened,
though. I was responding to his statement that the
dimensions of the ark were "impossble." I just wanted
him to know that there certainly are ships bigger than
the ark that are in use today. That's why I brought up the
QE2. I thought maybe he didn't realize that.

The literal
story says that Noah let out two birds, one a raven and the
other a dove. Then today we find out that the Aztec Indians
have a flood story clear over here in the Americas that says
there was a man named Nu who saved animals from a
world-wide flood and to test to see if the waters had drained
off enough, he sent out two birds. Just exactly like what the
Bible says.
There's no surviving account of this myth from *before* the arrival of
christian missionaries. I wonder why that is?

How can you verify that the Aztecs had Christian
missionaries centuries ago? I don't think that you
can.

What? Of course he can. Coronado took missionaries with him, and they were
an important part of Spanish rule over all of what became Latin America.

Also, the Bible has surived. That is an account.

The point is that the Aztec story isn't independent of the bible.

He said that people in the Americas did not have
a flood story before the missionaries came over.
I knew that the Toltecs did have a flood story, and
I think it was before missionaries. We do know
already that the people of Mesopotamia had flood
stories, and whoever the N.A. Indians are, they had
to have come from some place. It's entirely possible
that they brought the memory of a ww flood with
them from afar.

Are you familiar with the Greek Septuagint? It is
the translation of the Old Testament that was made
by the Jews, themselves, for the Jews that lived
abroad who no longer spoke the Hebrew language.
This was translated by their scholars which may
have been the Sanhedrin. It was translated into
Greek from the Hebrew about 300 years before
the birth of Christ. It contains the same story of
the flood of Noah that we have in our Bibles.
Also, it is not the only account. No one has found
the original scrolls of the Torah (first five books)
and the other books of the Old Testament, but we
know they existed because of the translations, in
other languages. The others have the story of Noah
in them.

You entirely missed the point. You were using the Aztec story as
independent verification of Noah. He's saying it's not independent,
because the Aztec story could easily have been taken from Genesis.

Not exactly. I was wanting to show that the
Aztecs and also others in North America knew
about a world wide deluge before missionaries
came. I can't deny that missionaries came, but
the flood stories they have are not connected
with Christ. A Christian missionary would also
have mentioned Christ to them with the flood
story. If Jews had missionaries, that's possible,
--
but the North American Indians may have
originally been one or two groups that split
up. The Toltecs had a knowledge of a world wide
deluge which they said ended the first world. Many
groups of people in the world seemed to have a
world wide flood story and there are many that are
similar to the flood of Noah. We do know that the
Mesopotamians had the flood legend and where
ever the Indians came from originally in the
Americas, they probably brought the knowledge of
the flood with them from it having been passed
down to their ancestors. We can safely say that
since the Mesopotamians knew of a world flood,
their knowledge of it predated the birth of Christ.

Suzanne

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