Ligon Duncan on the Non-Negotiables of the Gospel

Christian Skepticism endorses:

monergism.com

This site contains some of the most valuable God-centered resources a Christian Skeptic could ever want. Whether you peruse the copious free items or purchase something from their excellent online store, your worldview will never be the same!

Start Here to become a Christian Skeptic

We wanted to highlight this compilation by Paul Manata - The Philosophy of the
Christian Religion
- an excellent online resource for the development of the
well-considered Christian worldview.

Skeptical Insights

Good Blogroll (from Pyromaniacs)

  • Colin Adams
  • Charlie Albright
  • Aletheuo
  • Scott Aniol
  • Tom Ascol
  • Derek Ashton (TheoParadox)
  • Zachary Bartels
  • Tim and David Bayly
  • Rick Beckman
  • Tyler Bennicke
  • Bible Geek
  • Big Orange Truck
  • Andy Bird
  • John Bird
  • Bob Bixby
  • Timmy Brister
  • Fred Butler
  • Calvin and Calvinism (Classic and moderate Calvinism)
  • Cal.vini.st
  • Bret Capranica
  • Nathan Casebolt
  • Lane Chaplin
  • Tim ("The World's Most Famous Christian Blogger"®) Challies
  • The Conservative Intelligencer
  • The Contemporary Calvinist
  • The Conventicle
  • Craig's Blog
  • Deliver Detroit
  • Daniel (Doulogos)
  • William Dicks
  • The Doulos' Den
  • Martin Downes
  • Connie Dugas
  • Doug Eaton
  • Nicholas Edinger
  • Brother Eugene
  • Eusebeia
  • Stefan Ewing
  • Eddie Exposito
  • Expository Thoughts
  • Faces Like Flint
  • Reid Ferguson
  • Peter Farrell
  • Bill Fickett
  • Fide-o
  • Foolish Things
  • Chris Freeland
  • Travis Gilbert
  • Ron Gleason
  • Go Share Your Faith!
  • God is My Constant
  • Phil Gons
  • Joel Griffith (Solameanie)
  • Matt Gumm
  • Gregg Hanke
  • Jacob Hantla
  • Chris Harwood
  • J. D. Hatfield
  • Michael Haykin
  • Tony Hayling (Agonizomai)
  • Steve Hays and the amazing "Triablogue" team
  • Scott Head
  • Patrick Heaviside (Paths of Old)
  • Marc Heinrich's Purgatorio
  • Sean Higgins
  • Illumination (Rich Barcellos and Sam Waldron)
  • Inverted Planet
  • Tim Jack
  • Jackhammer
  • Craig Johnson
  • Alex Jordan
  • The Journeymen
  • Justified
  • Lane Keister (Green Baggins)
  • John Killian
  • David Kjos
  • Ted Kluck
  • Patrick Lacson
  • A Little Leaven (Museum of Idolatry)
  • Janet Lee
  • Let My Lifesong Sing
  • Libbie, the English Muffin
  • Light and Heat
  • Greg Linscott
  • Bryan Maes
  • Brian McDaris
  • Doug McMasters
  • Allen Mickle
  • The incomparable Al Mohler
  • Jonathan Moorhead
  • Ryan Moran
  • Stephen Newell
  • Dean Olive
  • Dan Paden
  • Paleoevangelical
  • A Peculiar Pilgrim
  • Jim Pemberton
  • The Persecution Times
  • Bill Pershing
  • Kevin Pierpont
  • Matt Plett
  • Wes Porter
  • Postmortemism
  • The Red and Black Redneck
  • Reformata
  • Reformation 21
  • Reformation Theology (sponsored by Monergism.Com)
  • Reformed Evangelist
  • Remonstrans
  • Carla Rolfe
  • Tony Rose
  • Andrew Roycroft
  • Eric Rung
  • Said at Southern Seminary
  • Seeing Clearly
  • Sharper Iron
  • Kim Shay
  • Neil Shay
  • Brian Shealy
  • Ken Silva
  • Tom Slawson's "Tom in the Box"
  • Tom Slawson's other blog
  • Doug Smith
  • Richard Snoddy
  • Social Hazard
  • SolaFire
  • Rebecca Stark
  • Kevin Stilley
  • Cindy Swanson
  • Talking Out Of Turn
  • Justin Taylor's "Between Two Worlds"
  • Robert Tewart (StreetFishing)
  • TheoJunkie's Thoughts on Theology
  • Theology Bites
  • Through the Veil
  • Three Times a Mom
  • Voice of the Shepherd
  • Jared Wall
  • Adrian Warnock
  • David Wayne
  • Jeremy Weaver
  • Steve Weaver
  • Über-apologist James White's legendary "Pros Apologian" blog
  • Brad Williams
  • Doug Wilson
  • Writing and Living
  • Ryan Wood
  • Todd Young
  • Friday, April 18, 2008

    Richard Dawkins: ID Proponent???

    In the evolutionary worldview, two theories of the origin of life have been presented as possibilities. The first is the Primordial Soup Theory, the idea that a bunch of chemicals accidentally ran together with just the right combination, and formed the first ever living cells. This theory, however, has run into dead ends for the following reasons:


    ......

    • The first life was far to complex to have simply put itself together.

    • Life came into existence very quickly, after liquid water was formed.

    • There is no evidence of a primordial soup, as all carbonaceous materials in the earth’s crust are postbiotic.

    The second theory that we are presented with is panspermia, the idea that life originated on another planet, and then was transferred to earth via meteorite. Again, this is a dead end because…

    • No living organism could survive such a trip.

    • No sugars can be found on meteorites, which are a basic necessity for life.

    • Even in the unlikely scenario that this could take place, the origin of life on that planet needs to be explained.

    These are a few of the dead ends that naturalistic origin-of-life theories run into.

    Now having watched Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, I have been introduced to two new theories.

    1.) Life’s basic building blocks formed on “crystals” and remained until there were enough to produce a cell. (Will some atheist please explain this in further detail?)

    2.) A modification of panspermia, suggesting that highly evolved being from another planet seeded earth with early life.

    The second theory was presented by none other than Richard Dawkins. Who would have thought that Dawkins was a proponent of intelligent design after all?

    ......

    5 comments:

    jazzycat said...

    I also saw the movie yesterday. It seems that Darwinism is really a faith-based religion. It starts with the premise of their religion, which is no intelligent being or designer is behind the universe. This is premise is based on their faith alone as they cannot account for the origin of the universe, or the origin of life. They categorically deny a supreme being as even being a possibility because it would destroy their religious belief. I think this movie has done a good job of exposing this fact. As you say even Dawkins admitted that he has no clue on how life began and yet would accept aliens seeding life on earth as a possibility, as long as they themselves were a product of evolution. This of course only transfers the problem of life coming from non-life from earth to another planet somewhere. I was stunned that this man, who has duped so many, would make such a statement.

    Just as Christians celebrate Easter and Christmas, atheists celebrate Darwin Day. However, Darwin’s bones are lying in grave!

    Unknown said...

    I'm just going to skim over the part where everything that you had to say about various theories pertaining to abiogenesis is wrong... and that the so-called Dawkins' endorsement of ID is essentially the video-version of a 'quote-mine'... dishonest editing to make it APPEAR that Dawkins was endorsing a position that he does NOT endorse. No... we'll just move right past that, and move on to 'Expelled' and the so-called 'Theory' of 'Intelligent Design.

    Overlooking and ignoring all of Expelled's misrepresentations, pseudo-science, distortions, deceptions, sophistry and outright lies, they still must be able to explain how they reconcile the following...

    In order to qualify as valid and ‘scientific’, a theory MUST...

    ... have explanatory power

    ... have predictive power

    ... be falsifiable

    The 'Theory of Evolution' satisfies ALL THREE of those criteria. Also, it has been in use for around 150 years, and it has NOT been falsified... not once... not ever... EVEN THOUGH it could EASILY be falsified... IF it was false. That makes it… uhhh… guess what? How about the MOST successful scientific theory… ever.

    ‘Creation science’ / creationism / ‘intelligent design’... possesses only ONE of those THREE mandatory properties. It has tremendous explanatory power. Tremendous because it not only purports to explain what the Theory of Evolution explains... it also purports to explain what physics explains... what cosmology explains... what chemistry explains... what biology explains... what quantum theory explains... what genetics explains... what animal husbandry explains... (etc... etc... until you can't think of anything else)...

    Essentially, it purports to explain EVERYTHING...

    ... and that explanation IS... for all intents and purposes... MAGIC.

    Magic... that’s the GOOD news. On the bad news side of this equation, you have this...

    ... it has absolutely NO predictive power. Who knows the mind of god (should he actually exist)? Christian delusionists keep telling us that NOBODY can know the mind of god... so how can they reconcile their ‘theory’ with what they purport to be an holy, divine, cosmic, inviolable, god-given ‘truth’? Does this presage the necessity for all schools to inaugurate a new faculty position?... Prophet?

    ... it is NOT falsifiable... and the only (alleged) ‘evidence’ in support of this ‘theory’ is comprised of the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions that arose from the sun-baked and besotted brains of an ignorant gaggle of Bronze Age fishermen and peripatetic, militant, marauding, genocidal goat herders.

    "If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative to evolution, then we must also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction." ~ Judith Hayes, In God We Trust: But Which One?

    But there's ANOTHER problem… APART from the fact that ‘creation science’ / creationism / ‘intelligent design’ DOES NOT QUALIFY as a scientific theory, or even as a legitimate hypothesis. That is... everything that has been revealed to us by science over the past 400 years or so tells us that it is WRONG.

    So… you believe that a cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh (in the form of a cracker) and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was tricked by a malevolent entity (disguised a talking snake... with legs) into eating a piece of fruit from a magical tree... (etc.)... and that there is something horribly wrong with people who ARE NOT so gullible and droolingly stupid as to believe such outrageously ridiculous codswallop.

    What's up with that?

    [Creation Science / Intelligent Design] "… is an attempt to give credibility to Hebrew mythology by making people believe that the world's foremost biologists, paleontologists, and geologists are a bunch of incompetent nincompoops." ~ Ron Peterson

    jazzycat said...

    DuckPhup,
    Wow! Somehow in your mocking and making fun of Christians, you failed to acknowledge that many intelligent people including many scientists believe the Christian message that a creator was behind the creation of life from non-life. You did not even offer an answer to that ultimate question. Also, it seems you must believe that something came from nothing without a cause, whereas Christians believe that a supreme being (an uncaused cause) was the reason matter came into being.

    Apparently you believe in a different kind of magic. Your magic is nonsense.

    Puritan Lad said...

    Not to mention thatnNaturalism has no explanatory of predictive power, as David Hume pointed out long ago. Science cannot even explain itself without God.

    See Can Naturalism justify the preconditions of science?

    BTW Duckphup, Stein makes no "pseudo scientific" arguments in the movie. It was not intended to be a scientific movie. Instead, he focused on the philosophical bias that exists on the North American Scientific establishment, one that even evolutionists should be disturbed over.

    August said...

    Well, duckphup, that is quite the rant. You clearly did not see the movie, but still feel qualified to comment. Quite ironic, given that that is close to what the movie is about...the a-priori rejection of something that doesn't sit well with your assumptions about life and the universe.

    Let's leave that there for the moment, and explore some of your misinformed comments:

    "In order to qualify as valid and ‘scientific’, a theory MUST..."

    Whose definition is that? What qualifies that source to decide what is 'scientific' and what isn't?

    "... have explanatory power

    ... have predictive power

    ... be falsifiable"

    Is that statement 'scientific'? If so, how is it 'scientific' without being circular?

    "The 'Theory of Evolution' satisfies ALL THREE of those criteria. Also, it has been in use for around 150 years, and it has NOT been falsified... not once... not ever... EVEN THOUGH it could EASILY be falsified... IF it was false. That makes it… uhhh… guess what? How about the MOST successful scientific theory… ever."

    What? You are kidding right? The 150 year-old version of evolution is nothing close to what the original theory was. Have you even heard of the "modern synthesis" or the "Evolutionary Synthesis"? That was the theory that replaced Darwinistic evolution. And even that has changed significantly. Go read Douglas Futuyma, he explains it in his textbook.

    On what basis do you claim it as the "most succesful theory ever"? It has gone through significant changes, so much so that Darwin would not recognize it today. But I suppose that it is too hard for you to research yourself, it is much easier to make assertions.

    "‘Creation science’ / creationism / ‘intelligent design’... possesses only ONE of those THREE mandatory properties. It has tremendous explanatory power. Tremendous because it not only purports to explain what the Theory of Evolution explains... it also purports to explain what physics explains... what cosmology explains... what chemistry explains... what biology explains... what quantum theory explains... what genetics explains... what animal husbandry explains... (etc... etc... until you can't think of anything else)...

    Essentially, it purports to explain EVERYTHING...

    ... and that explanation IS... for all intents and purposes... MAGIC."

    Uh, no, wrong again. It does not purport to explain anything by magic.

    But while we are on the topic...‘Evolution science’ / evolutionism / ‘random mutation/natural selection’... possesses only ONE of those THREE mandatory properties. It has tremendous explanatory power. Tremendous because it not only purports to explain what the Theory of Intelligent Design explains... it also purports to explain what physics explains... what cosmology explains... what chemistry explains... what biology explains... what quantum theory explains... what genetics explains... what animal husbandry explains... (etc... etc... until you can't think of anything else)...

    Essentially, it purports to explain EVERYTHING...

    ... and that explanation IS... for all intents and purposes... CHANCE.

    Hmm. Chance. Maybe you'd like to give us an explanation of the ontology of chance. And also how you arrive at the conclusion that ID has anything to do with magic. Where did you read that? Can you give a resource from an ID researcher or scientist that says that?

    Continuing...

    "... it has absolutely NO predictive power."

    Well, I guess this is another thing that Expelled proves...let's just assume that ID is wrong without bothering to find out what it really says.

    ID does make predictions: "Intelligent design theory predicts: 1) that we will find specified complexity in biology. One special easily detectable form of specified complexity is irreducible complexity. We can test design by trying to reverse engineer biological structures to determine if there is an "irreducible core." Intelligent design also makes other predictions, such as 2) rapid appearance of complexity in the fossil record, 3) re-usage of similar parts in different organisms, and 4) function for biological structures."

    See, that wasn't so hard. You are free to disagree with the predictions themselves, but to say that ID makes no predictions is patently false.

    I will ignore your silly little rants in between and move on to

    "... it is NOT falsifiable..."

    Following on from the predictions, it can clearly be falsified, by predicting and showing the biochemical pathways by which to arrive at specified irreducible complexity via naturalistic evolutionary mechanisms. Should that be conclusively shown, then ID would be falsified.

    Reading through the rest of your post, which is basically an elementary school level rant about something you clearly know as much about as the theories you are trying to attack or defend, you have no arguments, just infantile assertion and accusations.

    While it makes for entertaining reading and comic relief, it does nothing but expose the exact bigotry that Expelled so aptly demonstrates. Well done.

    But next time try to at least get some of your facts straight before launching into a foaming-at-the-mouth tirade, it will at least give you a little credibility.