From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Sep 10 9:43: 9 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 611CA37B400 for ; Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:43:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from directvinternet.com (dsl-65-185-140-165.telocity.com [65.185.140.165]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7076C43E6E for ; Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:43:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nwestfal@directvinternet.com) Received: from Tolstoy.home.lan (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by directvinternet.com (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id g8AGh4Gd063054; Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:43:04 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nwestfal@directvinternet.com) Received: from localhost (nwestfal@localhost) by Tolstoy.home.lan (8.12.5/8.12.5/Submit) with ESMTP id g8AGh4uX063051; Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:43:04 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: Tolstoy.home.lan: nwestfal owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:43:04 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" X-X-Sender: nwestfal@Tolstoy.home.lan To: Joshua Lee Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? In-Reply-To: <20020909213532.3a804946.yid@softhome.net> Message-ID: <20020910092057.G62741-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Joshua Lee wrote: > Evolution doesn't have anything to do with "worldly or temporal > concerns" and their source. Telihard De Chardin and, to a lesser extent, > Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook managed to be both evolutionists and > "Judeo-christian" theists without much of a contradiction. Of course, > Neal Westfall claims that De Chardin, Catholic Church approvals of his > writings to the contrary, is "not a xtian" because he doesn't match Mr. > Westfall's version of orthodoxy. Since you like Teilhard De Chardin so much, do you agree with the statement of his that defenders of evolution "must never let themselves be deflected into secondary discussions of the scientific 'hows' and the metaphysical 'whys.'" Sounds like dogmatism to me. > Neal Westfall claims of course that evolution is a religion. The above quote would seem to confirm that claim. I have others. W.T. Jones, who is certainly no Christian, noticed that scientists had "elevated Darwinism to the level of a religious dogma." (from his "A History of Western Philosophy") Theodosius Dobzhansky claims to be able to explain evolution "if the assumption is made that life arose from matter only once." ("Species after Darwin," A Century of Darwin (London: 1958), p. 22.) W.R. Thompson says in his Introduction to a current edition of Origin of Species "Personal convictions... are presented as if they were proofs." Paul Westmeyer declares: "Evolution is useful but it is a myth." ("Twentieth Century Mythology," Chemistry, January, 1965, p. 17) Need I say more? > Then he goes and claims that without xtianity one cannot properly > reason. ;-) Uh, no. Never said non-christians cannot reason. I said that if they were consistent with their professed beliefs, they would not *in principle* be able to reason at all. The fact that they *do* reason is what makes them accountable to God. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message