Creation and Evolution

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Chance is unneccessary. God could simply use evolution as a tool towards some hidden end.

Hmm, I'm keeping up with this thread fine, despite my day job of helping epileptic people (so the holier-than-thou argument falls a bit flat). It's chuckleworthy how your charitable works only became so pressing when people started to call you on your arguments.

Anyway, the significant thing about your reply is that you refused to produce any evidence for your conspiracy theory when asked. So therefore I conclude that the whole thing is a product of your imagination and paranoia.

Occam was Agnostic

That's more to do with the skimpiness of the fossil record. Scarcely any animals die in the right circumstances to fossilise, and scarcely any of those have made it to the present day intact in a position where humans can find them (rather than, say, at the bottom of a modern sea). Hundreds of thousands of years may be represented by less than ten fossils, all from a small geographical region. And because large creatures are more likely to fossil, the record is biased towards big creatures.

However, there are already several examples of "halfway" species in the fossil record (for example, the transitions from reptiles to mammals, theropods to birds or apelike creatures to humans), so I'm not sure where these maverick geologists are coming from. Or why they're speaking on an archaeological matter when geology is the study of rocks instead of fossils.

It's important to seperate evolution and Darwin's theory of natural selection.

The former is a proven fact. Traits are passed on to the next generation and a trait which is favoured enough by circumstances will become widespread. This has been exploited to breed animals and crops by humans. The question is how this occurs, and natural selection is a theory to try and explain this. So far it's been successful, but it could potentially be disproved in the future (as could any scientific law) if something better came along. It seems the process of debate is often taken for weakness in the theory, and uncertainty over details is taken as grounds to discard the whole theory.

Your language here is quite telling. First up, you slant the discussion by saying those who subscribe to evolutionary theory are gullible. Then you say it is based on faith (so by implication, creationism is equally valid). "Faith" is ideally foreign to the scientific process, which deals only in hypotheses based on avaliable information, makes the bare minimum of assumptions to cover gaps in the information, and constantly tests existing theories as new information is discovered. There are people with an egotistical investment in certain theories being true, but that is different from religious faith in something that cannot be proved or disproved.

Excuse me. I become defensive when people assign attributes to me that I don't have and continuously speak on the assumption that they exist. It causes me violent emotion. If you'd like to have an objective discussion about your views on what constitutes a "faith," I'd be more than happy to do so, but don't make a personal trespass.

Yes, you have. Stating anything about my values and beliefs that I have not stated or knowingly implied is making an assumption.

When we're discussing the empirical sciences, it is categorically necessary.

The system that the empirical sciences are based upon isn't designed for knowing things with certitude. It's designed for eliminating error, using more sophisticated and strictly methodical manifestations of the methods of reasoning that one can observe in the antics of a marmoset. Any scientific theory is simply an attempt to design a viable construct of the truth using feedback between empirical data and various methods of reasoning. When you say "I think that this theory is sound," you're saying that "as far as I can tell, this theory is consistent with the data and has few, if any, flaws in the reasoning behind its construction." I could make a completely bogus theory based upon completely fictional data, and I could tell you with a straight face that it's a perfectly sound theory if we were agree to go by this fictional data.

No. You see, the real problem is that you don't even seem to care about the possibility that my basic approach to this subject is radically different from your own. I tend to work from a model that I have developed using my very own, handy, dandy synapses. I go on the assumption that my entire perception of reality is just an attempt to draw a portrait (map, mock-up, construct. approximation) of the world around me using acknowledgedly imperfect sensory input and tools that are prone to their own ideosyncrasies. I do the same thing with the sciences, only it's a different model in spite of having a relationship with the model that I have developed from direct sensory input. The only thing that I have any actual faith in is that I, as a human being, am limited in my capability of making judgements and observations and should be careful not to confuse the painting of truth with the actual truth (which, to put it in Christian terms, "only God can know"). Now, if you still don't understand how I approach this subject, I am completely and utterly defeated.

Calandale, I am saying what I am saying. I have stated it as clearly as I can.

When we're discussing the empirical sciences, it is categorically necessary.
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Argeeing with the author here.

I gave evidence Apr 16, 8:23 P.M. but you were so caught up in ad hominem attack mode that you refused to answer it.

As for Fascism and Communism being basically the same thing, take a look at Jerry Pournelle's Political Axes" at: http://www.baen.com/chapters/axes.htm He makes a good point. The Libertarian party made up a quiz based upon this idea: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

Take a look at "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William Shirer to see how cozy Hitler and Stalin were. Hitler taught Stalin concentration camp technology among other things. Stalin was caught totally by surprise by Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union even though he was warned by the west (p.724). He thought they were friends. He had forgotten to ask a very important question, "Do you consider Slavs to be an inferior race?"

As for media control, the Humanists learned well from Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister for the Third Reich. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Lie The latest example of it is "Global Warming." Unfortunately, we see George Bush caught up in using these same tactics for propping up the economy. Another reason I believe he is merely pro-Christian for political support.

This line is enough. It is more or less all that I was trying to say. To me, that is faith. The word may have a different meaning to you.

First, the fossil record is NOT skimpy; the geological and therefore the archeological time line has been mostly pieced together. See the following websites for evidence sufficient for the reasonable man: First web page : Second Web Page : Third Web Page
There is almost nothing in the vast abundance of fossils that show intermediate stages BETWEEN species. There are a couple of ambiguous fossils that possibly might, but they are the tiny exception in the evidence.

Evolution 1 and 2 are proven facts because they are based upon experimental science. Intraspecies evolution is part of that. I shouldn't have talked about evolution 3 which is too controversial to bother with here. Evolution 4 that is based upon empirical science which by definition cannot be proven. What does Natural Selection have to do with the debate on evolution?

Wrong. As I said before, there are two types of "science", "experimental" which can be proven and "empirical" which can't. "Empirical science" is done by collecting as much in the way of evidence (such as the almost complete geological record) and derive a theory that you believe beyond a reasonable doubt covers the evidence. There is peer review to see that others will believe the same theory, but that's not proof.

Unfortunately, the assumptions of prior faiths can add a bias to what we see. There can be wish fulfillment involved in this scientific process, especially if the people are vested in the outcome of the decision. And atheists are definitely vested, since their faith hangs on evolution 4 being true.

Anthropology and SETI prove this, that there are patterns and arrangements of matter that can only be accounted by for conscious entities.

its built into the naturalist metaphysic, which itself is not falsifiable.

Its like trying to say cause and effect is falsifiable. By definition if there are causeless entities that opens up the possibility of supernatural (not in the religiou sense) or rather "Trans natural" entities, possibly living things that simply just "exist".

In boolean logic you can only be in one of two states: Existing or not existing. So if we exist, then technically we existed from the beginning of the universe or else we would not have existed. Using boolean logic we can prove that *we have always existed* or else we would never have had an existence. Whether we are conscious of our existence or not is quite simply *irrelevant* because in boolean logic you either 1) Do exist or 2) Do not exist in some state or form, regardless if you are conscious of it or not.