From: lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God and Drew...
Date: 25 Aug 92 15:17:54 GMT
Reply-To: lawson@aldia.UUCP (Drew Lawson)
Organization: ACUSON, Mountain View, CA

In article <1992Aug24.175718.12093@hemlock.cray.com> robd@cherry09 (Robert Derrick) writes:
>Drew Lawson, an new face, with new and interesting ideas, and valid
>and intriguing arguments?
>
>I don't think so.  The sameness is depressingly familiar.
>
>Drew Lawson (lawson@acuson.com) wrote:
>: 
>: This is not a subject which I often aproach in an anonymous and hostile
>: environment such as Usenet.  But I think that it is needed in this
>: discussion.  My assurance of truth (which I hold primarily to have
>: personal application) comes from study of the scriptures accompanied by
>: pondering and prayer.  This brings the guidance of the Holy Spirit to
>: help me to understand and choose what is right.  I also ponder and pray
>: about other (non-scriptural) issues to understand how this all applies
>: to the rest of my life.
>: 
>: I fully understand that someone out there is likely to ridicule me for
>: the above paragraph, which is why I normally don't express it openly.
>: Hopefully, it will offer some insight to one person out there.
>
>I would not ridicule you for this.  In fact, I would have to say that
>this is the most,..., no, this is the only, thing that you have said
>that is direct and honest and has integrity.  There is not a single
>thing here that I could find fault with.

I suppose I should thank you for starting with an air of civility.

>But, I knew I could count
>on you to step off the sturdy rock of honest faith and out onto the
>thin ice of wild assertion.  Your religious faith based on love, and
>brotherhood, and non-judgementalism and all those wonderful ideas
>of Jesus, disappears as you start to pontificate on a subject you
>know nothing about.  Or rather, a subject of which your sum total
>knowledge is dried up pathetic political agenda stripped of its
>former Christian tolerence and baring the carrion stained teeth
>of vilification and hatred.


Your compassion and manners are noted.  I don't recall pontificating in
the post.  I did not even state that evolution can be shown to be
wrong.  I was only noting the problem with the form of an argument
which is repeatedly used.


>To whit:
>: What I was trying to point out here is a logic trap.  The "evolution"
>: side of this debate takes the approach of:
>:     - We will start with the assumption that there is no God, or that
>:       God is not relevant to the topic at hand.
>
>We, on the "evolution" side of this debate, wish someone would design
>a gun that could shoot a thought through the armored skulls of the
>Soldiers of Creation Christianity, so that an idea would finally stick.


I did use a clear form so that you (or whoever) could pick the specific
part which was disagreeable.  I am surprised that you picked this,
though.


>You may skip the next paragraph, Mr. L, because you will fail to
>see it, hear it, or understand it, and scant moments after passing
>it, all knowledge of it will have left your prodigious memory.
>
>It is only Theistic Anti-Evolutionists who claim that a belief in
>Evolution is Atheistic.  It is a lie, a damned lie, that is as
>vile and putrid a lie as Lionel Tun's racist diatribe, for which,
>after a barrage of negating posts, he has still failed to offer
>support, denial, or apology.  Since you are now espousing lies,
>will you also remain silent while you go tilt at another windmill.
>I wouldn't if I were you.  No one will on any account mistake you
>for a romantic hero, if they are in possession of a tenth of
>their mental faculties.

If the doctrine of evolution is not atheistic (in the strict sense --
existing without God, not denying God's existence), how does God fit
in?  I may have seen only poor presentations of the material, but the
impression I have received is "God is not relevant to the topic at
hand." (as quoted from my post)


>:     - We will not allow religious doctrines to guide our thoughts or
>:       provide possible interpretations.
>
>There is nothing wrong with allowing your religious doctrines to
>guide your thoughts, as long as your doctrine doesn't pre-ordain
>your thoughts.  Mendel was a mildly religious man, and managed
>just fine.
>
>: After this, they reach a conclusion which they find logicly consistant
>: and branch out from that to the conclusion that their first point (no
>: God) is proven.  That is not logicly sound.
>
>You are so right.  Your statement is not logically sound, for the simple
>reason that it describes a 'logical conclusion' that takes place only
>in minds such as yours that try to explicate the minds of those whom
>you would gladly destroy, and of whom you are utterly ignorant, and
>of whom you are irrationally afraid.


I'm afraid that that conclusion is presented opten by the anti-creation
faction in these discussions.  "We have evidence.  Who needs your God."


>: The same trap is often encountered on the other side, as you point
>: out.


This was (in case the intent was unclear) an admission that the same
logic, with the initial assumption that God exists, also proves
nothing.  IMO, the existence, or lack thereof, of God cannot be proven
using logic.  It is the wrong domain.


>Your trap, sir, is that the figure that you call an "evolutionist", is
>more abstract that any data structure you have ever seen, more a
>fabric of chattering gossip, and more a dream of a fevered mind
>than Poe's Telltale heart.  Your "evolutionist" doesn't exist, and
>until you are able to understand that simple statement, you are
>doomed to be the object of disdain.  At the very least.


I don't recall refering to an "evolutionist" individual.  I refered to
the "evolution" side of the debate.  Are you trying to say that there
is not a group stating that life (and specific forms thereof)
originated by evolution rather than special creation?


Your opening was nice, and your volume was impressive.  I do wish it
had been more thought out.

-- 
Drew Lawson                      If you're not part of the solution,
lawson@acuson.com                you're part of the precipitate