As I noted, the rock formations of a river canyon are also “encoded memory”: they show how the river has behaved in the past and control how it will behave in the future. The only difference with evolution is that biology is a lot more complex.
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T_aquaticus: Evolution is no different than explaining the natural processes that cause weather.
appsandorgs: I am not aware of any atmospheric phenomena that are enabled and controlled by encoded memory.
T_aquaticus: I don’t see how defining words in such a way changes the facts.
It doesn’t change any facts, and there was no attempt to do so.
We really needn’t quibble over this particular exchange, we both know that there are no atmospheric phenomena that are controlled by a sequence of physical objects (i.e bases) whose expression is mediated by a coordinated set of physical constraints (aaRS, and their genes). You may wish to argue that the expression of those bases can be explained by natural law, but that is a fact that has never even been in question (see my previous comment). However, if you want to argue that the simultaneous coordination (fundamentally required by the system) can be explained by recourse to natural law, then I’d suggest you are drunk on your assumptions, and you’ll need to pack a lunch.
Side Note: If you truly object when someone refers to a concrete physical record (a sequential arrangement of objects that specifies a prior historical state to an extant biological system) as “memory”, then I don’t know what to tell you. When institutions (like the NIH) coin various terms like “megabase” as a measure of genetic memory storage, it should not bother you at all (IMO). Feel free to call the genome “BBQ sauce” and the ribosome a “Car Wash” if you like, it is not going to change the physical relationships of these things one iota.
appsandorgs: You must know that when someone puts a battery in a wristwatch, it is natural law itself that is keeping the time.
T_aquaticus: Would you use that same argument for intelligently designed weather?
I have no reason to think that the weather is a product of anything other than rate-dependent natural law. I was merely pointing out the obvious — appeals to natural law are not an unimpeachable argument for the correctness of a proposition … particularly in the face of demonstrable evidence to the contrary.
appsandorgs: Acknowledging the overwhelming commonality of all living things on Earth, have you ever asked what is fundamentally required for Darwinian evolution to even exist?
T_aquaticus: For Darwinian evolution to exist you need imperfect replicators competing for limited resources.
Surely that is not the full extent of your analysis. You could write a computer simulation to accomplish those criteria. Forgive me, but it is almost as if you are suggesting that autonomous open-ended self-replication in the physical world (a system equally capable of specifying itself or any variation of itself) has no discernible organizational requirements. Do you believe that?
T_aquaticus: The problem is that you are focused on semantics and rhetoric. Scientists are focused on data.
You seem to have a rather tangible protective discomfort in having a conversation that includes words and concepts that you don’t use, but other scientists use in their work. You typed out those two sentences, then quickly typed 600 more characters extolling the glory of evolutionary biology, like a bumper sticker. I almost heard French horns in the background. Next you’ll be telling me that “RNA can carry genetic information like DNA and be a catalyst at the same time!!!”
In any case, for whatever it is worth, the value of methodological naturalism is not in question with me.
And … as long as you feel comfortable telling me what my “problems” are, allow me the same leeway.
Just to be sure:
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No amount of insults and French horns are going to change the scientific record. The names, dates, papers, and findings are there for anyone to see.
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You have no way to get from dynamics to descriptions (without entirely submerging yourself in your assumptions). Given the subject matter, this should already be evident to a well-rounded scientist.
I did not read through the exchanges really. But I presume what they mean is that the same scientific methodology used to determine weather is the same science backed process they use to develop any scientific theory.
The experts in the field go out and test what’s being observed. They look at the evidence. They don’t let personal beliefs interpret the data and they repeat it several times. In the process other scientists try to disprove it and look at the data. They gather some seemingly true facts. Over time, someone explores another aspect of it. Same process keeps happening.
So while meteorology and evolutionary biology are very different types of science and they require very different sources of data, they both use the same scientific method to explore it. It’s self correcting because as time goes, more and more data is brought in.
What goes wrong is when non experts run with something.
We can see that with a recent and very popular concept. “World wide wood”. I was even pulled into it because so many books ( and books by scientists is absolutely not the same as peer reviewed scientific papers ) mentioned it. Botanist and people like foresters dropped tons of books focused on this really cool, and partially true concept of how mycorrhizal networks went from tree to tree, and those trees were connected to other fungi and roots and so on.
This talks a bit about it.
But the scientists who originally coined the phrase has expressed regret. Findings don’t completely support it. Findings support a less connected world. Not this beautiful story of harmony but a story of natural selection. Some trees “trick” the fungi and some fungi trick the trees. Some kill each other. Some sometimes work together. Obviously I’m being loose with my words but it’s faster to the point. We also have this article that discusses aspects of it .
But again, we see science self correcting despite the fact sensationalism drove funding for this concept to be studied.
But it’s the same scientific method that begin to correct this misunderstanding.
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In my experience anti science is a big deal. I assume it’s almost identical to many others, especially if they talk to random people about God or Jesus. Part of my faith is reaching out to random people when it arises, and often it’s others even within a few moments that bring it up in one way or another. When I’m hiking and I’m showing someone something I think is cool, or I’m just on my knees in mud looking underneath leaves and someone walks by and asks what are you looking at, I often describe what I’m doing in a few sentences that uses words like evolution, coevolution, evolutionary ecology along with creation, stewardship and so on. It’s bait words when used together. People will often hear them, recognize this contention between them and end up confused on do I believe in God or do I believe in science. That’s the way it’s often phrased. If they decide to ask, I know they are a bit open to discussion and I’m able to in under a few minute explain why I accept science and why it does not undermine my faith and how they actually both help me feel closer to God or this more spiritual feeling. Then typically remain around these outer edges. But sometimes, it goes deeper. Like if they are Wiccan, or Buddhist and it happens. I meet legitimate Buddhists from China who believe in things like hungry ghosts or Buddhists who believe Buddha had passed on beyond the wheel versus those who believe he’s standing there waiting until we all pass and is acting almost
Godlike. There are several major denominations of Buddhism that are also as different as Christianity and Islam. Or I meet those who are spiritual but not into organized religion and so on. So sometimes the conversation steps into Omnism or syncretism and so on. Or even right to the fact that I choose to have faith just because it’s always been there despite we having no actual reason to have it. Historically I am not convinced of anything claimed in the Bible as supernatural based off of evidence but I often choose to accept it by faith. I’m equally comfortable with Jesus being the incarnation of God as I am that he is the byproduct of Mary being sexually abused and he was someone that simply was guided by the Holy Spirit. I’m equally comfortable with Paul being a sex phobic dude who got some things wrong as I am with Paul being a great apostle. Demons can be supernatural beings or metaphors for evil within ourself and in the world. It’s all equally the same for me. The gospels can be very literal and true, they can be heavily mythicized. Does not matter to me. I don’t think God is actually so petty to be angered eternally over any of it. I think if God exists what he cares about the most is us loving our neighbors and that includes animals and people for me.
Which is the second reason and they don’t like to dive into it here. But I’ve noticed those who reject science routinely also often land on specific political matters.
So I see stuff like the rejection of what science tells us about gender going hand in hand with people who push for certain political limitations on the way others express themselves. Those two things combined turn into an ugly stupid echo chamber that drives people away from God especially when the cherry on top is that by simply claiming to exist they will die and be tortured forever and ever.
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I just finished listening to the recently released “Drew’s News” Skyepod episode (associated with the Holy Post). Among all the fascinating commentary (the whole thing is a great listen!) were a few observations about the facile assumption that “science is a major reason for church decline.” And among other stuff that came up … Did you know that Dawkins (yes … Richard Dawkins) now considers himself a ‘cultural Christian’?!!! Not sure if this link to the podcast will work for you since I think it’s behind a Holy Post subscriber wall (Have I tipped you over yet, @jpm ?) - but I’ll try the link here for you anyway:
In Europe, there seems to be many(?) atheists who have recently changed their attitude towards Christianity. Yesterday I watched an interview of one nationally well-known atheist who now believes in God and said he is now a believing member of the Lutheran church. He said that changing the opinion was a long process that took more than ten years. My impression was that his process is still ongoing, hopefully towards better knowledge of Jesus and the will of God.
An interesting point in his story was that he ended up believing through logical reasoning.
The first step was a comparison of different cultures and countries. He noted that cultures and societies in countries that have been built on Christian teaching were ‘better’ than those in other countries. That indicates that there must be something special and positive in Christianity. I guess Richard Dawkins is currently going through the same step, confessing that the culture in ‘Christian’ countries is ‘better’ compared to other type of societies. As far as I know, Dawkins is still some sort of atheist but supports ‘Christian’ culture.
The note that there is something special in Christianity lead to further logical thinking. Step by step, the interviewed ex-atheist ended up analysing mercy and forgiveness through logical thinking. This thinking lead to the point where he started to believe in God.
I hope that this kind of weak signals tell about a general turn in the mental atmosphere. I hope that God is preparing something that happens in the near future, a revival or something else.
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yes, I did, To be told to be pregnant before your wedding was a death sentence at the time - mainly because they did not believe in supernatural babies at the time. you may be aware of the code of practice how they dealt with women who weren’t virgins at the time of their wedding. To believe that they all would happily buy the story of a magic pregnancy because they were primitive goat herders is worthy of a Hitch award.
that’s why it was a common excuse of young women to excuse their pregnancy by “supernatural” intervention - or they were so advanced that they already knew about in vitro fertilisation. 
why would it be a “lucky coincidence or an accident”? Would you think God would not know what was going to happen? What would have normally happened to this young woman condemned to being “touched”, let alone having a baby out of wedlock? Have you read the article I linked?
Correct, but one can consent to raising that child that did have a biological origin, but not a “father”
it my interpretation of the story we have, and it puts the story of Jesus birth in the context of reality in a logically coherent way.
what [quote=“marta, post:114, topic:53006”]
God wanted to achieve simply happened as a coincidence that neither God nor Holy Spirit had anything to do with. How about we ask around if anybody thinks that is reasonable?
[/quote]
they had everything to do with it, as encouraging Mary to live the word of God, e.g. to love this neighbour like thyself, e.g. your own child changed the course of reality. This is not by accident, but highly deliberate.
Imagine you are going to see a victim of rape that is pregnant as a consequence of it and help her to accept that child instead of killing herself / or the child. Would it not justify her to talk about you as having been seen by an angel, a messenger of God?
the language of the bible is “poetic language” as it intends to convey a story to the literate as the illiterate alike. It is meant to draw pictures in your imagination that help you to build a theological worldview that allows you achieve a meaningful interaction with reality. It should be guided by correspondence with observed reality and logic coherence, not wishful thinking.
False – only some of it is poetic language. Now you’re redefining what the scriptures are in order to impose your own ideas.
No, it isn’t – you have to seriously butcher what the scriptures say about their own purpose as well as what they indicate about what God is up to in order to get this idea.
Redefining the scriptures this way is really not Christianity, it’s Gnosticism.
Since one of the major points of scripture is to tell us about reality because what we observe is incomplete, this is silly. We are to assess observed reality in accord with the scriptures, unless you’re talking about solid findings of science.
Logical coherence begins with grasping the basic proposals of the system you’re engaging, not denying them as you do. Your approach is neither logical nor coherence – it is in fact wishful thinking because it waters down the intended message!
If the people writing down the scripture would have been elitist they would have ignored that their text were to be understood mainly by people who were illiterate and uneducated. That’s why they are not written as a scientific textbook. Do you think they really proposed that a donkeys or snakes can talk, preferentially English?
to read the prophecy that “a virgin will become pregnant as” as by an act of magic is wishful thinking. Even if you consider Parthenogenesis - Wikipedia it would not make sense, but the prophecy does not stipulate perpetual virginity. The “wishful thinking” part is, that God would do something outside the laws of nature he laid down himself to show his power over nature. It stems from the sinful thinking that nature is not good enough as he made it.
If anyone waters down the intended message of the bible it is those who see Gods power in his ability to ignore his own rules. And they water down the achievement of Mary and Joseph to love a child they both did not want but loved by living the word of God, a miracle open to all of us whenever we do it. It stems from our internal rejection of loving life that does not come about by our wishful thinking, in our society even using it as an excuse to have it destroyed before birth.
To read it as not being a miracle is to deny half of the main themes in the Old Testament and to declare that God is a total screw-up because He can’t even manage to operate according to His own standards.
It has nothing to do with thinking anything at all about nature other than that it is under God’s control, and that just as He could command into existence something that did not exist, so He can also speak or otherwise command into existence that which He says He did.
Your approach can be used to make the scriptures mean anything you want. It’s the foundation of every heresy and false teaching: forcing the scripture to teach what you want it to, not what it actually says.
You prate about what God can do while proclaiming as your constant subtext that He is so powerless He can’t even get things right in His authorized communications. That is not the God of the scriptures.
Enough.
I really object to this kind of thinking. It rides roughshod over Scripture and all the interactions between God and both Mary and Joseph, let alone the claim that Jesus is the “Son of God”.
There are three basics to the Gospel that (to my mind) are not negotiable.
- The virgin Birth
- The death of Christ
- The resurrection of Christ
Most of the rest is subject to personal understanding and belief.
Richard
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Soooooo … anyway.
The topic of this thread is “nones” citing science to reject the possibility of a spiritual reality.
If outfits like Biologos are concerned with such things, perhaps they should stop walking in lock step with the intellectual failures of those who want those spiritual ideas to be mocked, castigated, and die off as quickly as possible. Perhaps Biologos should stand up for the history of science and discovery, and stop dismissing those who do.
No one is holding their breath.
this is a rather unusual statement…since when is it a scriptural only understanding in my using a proven method to cross reference given academics have used that process widely for years? Do you not agree that the reason why we should cross reference is to ensure that our comprehension of the common reading of language is not misguided by individuals who have bad intent?
I notice that on forums like this one, individuals appear to earbash those who do extensively cross reference scripture because it very obviously highlights deep flaws in the claims being made. To me thats a very “North Korean” propaganda approach.
If you mean today’s atheists, the ones in lockstep with them are the YEC folks since they both address the scriptures from the perspective of scientific materialism.
It already does.
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Except nothing of the sort is the case – you keep making this claim but have yet to show any logic behind it.
And most of the “earbash[ing]” is because cross-referencing scripture is not theology, especially when it is being done within the confines of a modern enlightenment-type worldview.
I was listening to John Walton speak on how to read scripture, and came to the same realization. You can piece together verses from different voices written over thousands of years to mean pretty much whatever you want, much like the video clips on late night TV are pieced together to make politicians say outrageous things. We have to be careful to let scripture speak for itself within the context that it is written. There is still a greater story to the Bible as a whole that it is part of, but we should not Frankenstein our theology.
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I think the trend goes in the opposite direction, at least for some “nones”. They are told that you can’t accept certain scientific conclusions if you are going to be a Christian. The Bible is pitted against science. From the article in the opening post:
Perhaps some of the “nones” would not have left the church if they were shown a way where they could accept science and the Bible.
If Richard Dawkins comes out on the side of Heliocentrism, do you think BioLogos should adopt Geocentrism?
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What if we split the difference?
If you were to measure the recession speed and distance of every galaxy in the Universe, you could trace everything back to a single point, and find, perhaps surprisingly, that point isn’t centered on us.
But the more sober truth is not that we’re near the center, but that any observer in any galaxy would conclude that they were at (or very near) the center as well.
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Pointing out that the Earth and Sun move about a shared barycenter would be splitting the difference. What you described is completely unrelated and irrelevant.
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