The Prejudice of Naturalistic Materialism

"Rather, those who embrace the religion of naturalistic materialism have successfully done what many thought impossible: they have installed their own religion as the official religion of the United States government, banishing any and all competing world-views."

Again, this post makes the same mistake that I have pointed out on various occassions. Naturalistic materialism is NOT a religion. Neither is science or evolution. These are all tenants of the scientific process, which can only deal in natural, material forces. It cannot deal with the supernatural or else it isn't science.

True religion as described in this article needs a supernatural force. There is nothing supernatural in science or naturalisitc materialism. They are just a basis for how science and observation is conducted. Evolution fits into this and has followed these scientific tenatns over the years, which has helped it become such a robust and well-supported theory. It has evidence that cross confirms across various fields outside of biology, which is why so few people question it.

The post was also innacurate to define evolution as survival of the fittest. It is more accurately defined as the change in allelic frequency over time. This has been confirmed many times over and is practically beyond dispute because there's just too much evidence supporting it. Also, mutation doesn't drive evolution like Darwin thought. It's much more complex than that, but creaionists don't understand this because they don't understand evolution to begin with.

"We see from this brief examination of the scientific evidence that it can successfully be fit into the creationist model. In fact, it fits with better consistency and accuracy than in the evolutionary model."

Wrong again. The creationist model has been disproved in every way over the years. In fact, with each new discovery it becomes further disproved and evolution proves to be far more robust. There is no positive evidence to indicate that everything was magically puffed into being by a supernatural god. There's no positive evidence that there was a global flood and that all of the human race emerged from 8 human beings.

It is not scientists that are telling kids not to think or question. It is religion that is doing this. Religion by it's own design teaches people to believe in things without evidence and not question it on the treat of eternal damnation. Science is an ongoing process that is always being questioned and challenged. Parts of Newton's theories have been disproved and supplemented by Einstein just as parts of Darwin's theories have been disproved by discoveries in genetics. But they were both right in their overall perspective. It was just the mechanisms they got wrong. To teach kids to assume something on faith like a supernatural agent is to hinder them from questioning or thinking about an issue. Science by it's own design cannot be orthadox or ridged. It has to be objective or it isn't science. Those that try are weeded out through peer review and new discoveries. As such the creation model is left behind and can now only be assumed on faith, something that doesn't stack up to the support evolution has and never will.

Why will you not address the point of the article? Limited adaptation is a conservative principle that has nothing to do with micro-evolution. The function of the DNA/RNA system is to preserve the species. If not there would be no living things, because they would all be extinct!

I'm not sure what specific article you were hoping for me to address, but I've pointed out many times before that evolution has been proven on a broad scale and every creationist claim thus far has not stood up to academic scrutiny. Now I didn't study biology exclusively when I was in college, but I did take a fair share of high level courses and the mechanisms involved in evolution involve more than just mutation as Darwin once thought. A lot of it has to do with the clunky nature of DNA and RNA duplication. When you break it down to the molecular level, it is a very flawed system that is very prone to errors. In fact it has been estimated that there are over fifty mutations per human zygote, but most don't cause any noticeable changes so they aren't easily tracked. What tends to drive evolution even more is the clunky nature of exchanging genes in reproduction. This is what creates the variation that natural selection acts upon. It's been documented many times.

Now you say it's possible for species to adapt in a limited manner. You call it microevolution. But microevolution IS evolution. If it's possible to walk 20 feet it's possible to walk 20 miles. Larger time scales are needed to document greater changes and not every species evolves at the same rate. Some species don't feel the pressures to evolve. That's why certain animals like sharks, crocodiles, and sea turtles look fairly similar to their fossil ancestors. They just haven't had a need to evolve.

Now if there was another point you wanted me to address, feel free to point it out. But we've had this discussion before. Please go back and look at some of the points I've made before you start asking me to restate myself. It would save us both some time.

Jack, you are getting as bad as c5. If you insist on playing the role of WWM, then at least read the article before commenting. If you have nothing new to add, then please refrain. We have heard it all before and reject your world view as irrational nonsense void of a metaphysical base. You have no explanation for how we exist much less why. Why do you insist on building on a foundation of sand?

This site is for those who believe the words of Christ at the end of Luke 6 about building on a firm foundation; that is, hearing and doing the words of Christ. As Chiefest has well said more light comes while obeying the light we have as from faith to faith we see more clearly.

Valiant, I did read the article. I even quoted certain sections. And I offered them my counterpoint. You're just choosing to ignore it and brush it off because it doesn't fall in line with your views. I reject those claims you make and those of this article because there are major fallacies and outright falsehoods in this article. That's all there is to it.

And I have given you a basis for how we came into being. I've talked about evolution, the big bang, the multiverse theory, and general systems theory. All provide well-supported explanations of how we came into being and none of them need to evoke the supernatual. They have evidence while this article poses blind faith. The only other claim it has to offer is that everything was poofed into being by magic from an undetectable god. That's a great story, but it isn't a valid scientific claim.

You can believe whatever you want. But nobody knows what will happen after we die. Nobody can know. You can have faith that something will happen, but it won't change the end result. Nobody knows and I'm humble enough to admit that. I don't know all the answers, but I don't revert to supernatural explanations to explain it away.

"You're just choosing to ignore it and brush it off because it doesn't fall in line with your views."-jack

Speaking for myself, jack, you are finally 100% correct!