Showing posts with label darwinism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label darwinism. Show all posts

Evolution of Animals - Species which share traits in common with two species

October 10, 2005 at 22:19:00

Name: levi

Email: levi

Most Interest: Creation vs Evolution

Found edwardtbabinski.us via: Other Search Engine

How found edwardtbabinski: dogpile

Religious Belief: Christian,

If Preterist: pre-millennialist

If Creationist: Other

I believe: Other

comments: Please enter your comments here.

I enjoy you thoughts althought I do disagree on some major points. I was raised a theistic evolutionist who grew up in the episcopol church. I am now a creationist who has done some study and an 18 page report on the creation side. I don't know if you have time to read it. I am not an expert but no one seem to write back to me after I present the evidences I have found. Let me know if you would like it. I like your thoughts on power options and lots of other areas too. God bless p.s. if we can get a mule out of a donkey and a horse... do you think we could get a human from an ape and a pig? :)


Dear Levi,

Hi, Ed here.

You mentioned that you had become a creationist. Did you become a young-earth creationist?

You asked me whether I believed human beings were a cross between pigs and apes. I don't think so, just a cousin of the apes. So why did you mentioned "pigs?" I do know that pig heart valves have been used to replace human heart valves, but aside from the usefullness of the shape of the pig's heart valves, there is nothing particularly human about pigs. We'd probably be using chimp heart valves if there were more chimps and if there wasn't as great a protest over it. Did you know that Christian Barnhart, the famed surgeon, said he wouldn't operate on such feeling intelligent creatures as chimps in order to use them merely for spare parts?

As for "inbetween" species, the fossil record contains amphibian-like fishes, mammal-like reptiles, bird-like reptiles, and of course many species of extinct ape with shorter arms and longer legs than modern day apes (in terms of arm-to-leg ratios). So the many species of extinct primitive apes were more "human-like" in that respect than modern day apes are. And there's the dog-bears of the Miocene that preceded the later arrivals of both dogs and bears in the fossil record. There's also small four footed mammals that preceded the arrival of larger tapir, elephant and horse species in the fossil record. Tapirs, elephants and horses apparently shared a common ancestor. In fact, elephants and sea-going dugongs also shared a common ancestor as seen in the dugong's snout and the elephant nails on its front fins. And if you've seen my website, there's plenty about cetacean evolution, land-living ancestors of modern day whale species.


"levi" October 11, 2005 PM: I mentioned pigs because my biology teacher (an evolutionist) said we were closer related to pigs than apes.

ED: Hi Levi, Perhaps you could email your professor to ask him what he meant when he said that humans were more closely related to pigs than to apes? The human genome is nearer to the chimpanzee genome than to the genome of any other living species. (See below where I discuss the way even the chromosomes match up between chimp and human, and evidence that the human line underwent a fusion of two ancestral ape chromosomes as still seen inside human chromosome #2.)


LEVI: On the age of the earth I am uncertain just like the age of the universe. Scientist believe some are really old galaxies but when the Hubble telescope did some pictures and measurements and it was way different than what they had thought before and the 2 ideas just did not fit, with one the big bang was possible and with the Hubble there was no way (I will try and send you the report from my other computer sometime). When certain measurements of time are used they always seem to find problems with them and then other measurements contradict many others. There seems to be no real good way to measure time looking back for most things from what I have seen.

ED: There are parameters of uncertainty, but the antiquity of the cosmos is not something that cosmologists are very uncertain about, while a cosmos only thousands of years old is something it would take far more blind faith than scientific evidence to believe in. Also, there are plenty of old-earth creationist Christians who have Ph.D.s in astronomy who continue to point out the ludicrousness of young-cosmos arguments. Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, as well as Dr. Robert C. Newman of the Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute are two such astronomers who have replied to young-cosmos arguments. For links to their websites and to old-earth creationist replies to young-earth arguments.

Also see these admissions made by YOUNG-cosmos astronomers.

Also if you are not averse to reading non-Christian articles, please see Dave Matson's well organized research paper on the age of the earth and cosmos (Dave is not a Christian, and can be intimidating in his speech, however he has done a fine job of collecting replies by scientists to a host of young-earth arguments with bibliographic notes).

Also visit this fully indexed list of creationist arguments and replies, argument by argument.

The abandonment of young-earth geology (or "flood geology") was something that Christian men of science did before Darwin's Origin was published. By the 1850s, leading Christian scholars heading the geology departments at Cambridge and Oxford, agreed the earth was extremely old and that flood geology did not explain the evidence. See, "Reasons Why 'Flood Geology' Was Abandoned in the Mid-1800s by Christian Men of Science".

For the history of modern day "flood geology" and the ridiculous disproven arguments that young-earth creationists began to present in the 1960s as "facts".


LEVI: Also with the speed of light being slowed to the point of 35mph in super cold; if there was a big bang in super heat, could it have been much much faster than we are aware of?

ED: Could the universe have expanded faster than the speed of light during the inflationary period of the Big Bang? Here's one astronomer's inconclusive reply.

Neither does the question concerning the speed of the inflationary period of the Big Bang make the cosmos only a few thousand years old. You should visit some of the old-earth websites that I mentioned above, send them some questions if you think otherwise. Read about the multitudinous evidence for an old-earth and an old cosmos, and read about the way young-earth creationist arguments continue to dry up in respect to the age of the cosmos and the earth, and how the young-earthers are resorting more and more on ad hoc belief to try and reconcile their extremely young-earth and extremely young cosmos beliefs with the evidence that modern astronomers and geologists continue piling high.

One added note. I read about the experiment in which "light" was "stopped" or "paused" by a particular bunch of atoms that the light was made to pass through and that absorbed the light after which an identical bit of "light" or an indentical "photon" came out the other end. The "coldness" had little to do with the pausing of light, since atoms of another element that was not cold, but instead was heated, also paused the photons. Here's the article I googled.

Not just photons (photons travel at the speed of light), but also neutrons (a heavier particle found in the nucleus of every atom) have been slowed down. In the case of neutrons to 15 miles per hour.


LEVI: I know if evolution is real that it is not keeping up with animals that are becoming extinct so the earth as a whole is in big trouble. I don’t believe that we can get life from none life that was also taught by my biology teacher in high school. All I see is more and more animals becoming extinct since the beginning of creation.

ED: What I see is that the earth now contains human beings, apes, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, non-vertebrates, all the way down to single-celled species. (Today's modern world also contains the two largest plant and animal species of all time, the redwood/sequoia, and the blue whale, neither of which are found in the older fossil record.) So diversity and evolution has increased over time. Various branches of the animal and plant kingsoms have each experienced peak periods of diversity, and also experienced eight major trimmings or major extinction periods and many minor extinctions as well. But evolutionary diversity overall has increased as species moved from single cells to multi-cellular species, and from fish to amphibian-like fish, to amphibians, to reptile-like amphibians, to reptiles, and then the reptiles branched off into mammal-like reptiles and bird-like reptiles, and then mammals and birds arose, and then from one branch of the mammals came lemurs, monkeys, then primitive apes, and then modern apes and man both arose from the primitive apes. So greater diversity over geological time has occured.

Glenn Morton's excellent article, Living Fossils? There are None.

Neither is the evidence for such a progressive diversification of species over geological time an illusion created by flood geology depositing layers in such a deceptively pro-evolutionary order. See the website I mentioned above that mentions plain and obvious reasons why flood geology was rejected by the Christian geologists who studied the geologic record before Darwn's Origin was even published. And read the rebuttals by modern day Christians who are geologists. There is an entire society of old-earth Christian geologists you can find linked to this Christian website:

American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)--Investigating issues relating Christian faith and science. Includes on-line back issues of the journal, and news about the organization.
Henry Morris used to be a member of the ASA, above, in the 1950s, until he started reading the works of a 7th Day Adventist janitor, named George MacCready Price [for a full history of creationism see the work by Ronald Numbers, The Creationists], who believed that the entire geologic record was topsy turvy, including the Lewis Mountain Overthrust, that he presumed was not really an overthrust, but topsy turvy strata. Morris used Price's arguments in The Genesis Flood without giving him credit. Morris also tried to interest fellow Christian members of the ASA in Price's "Flood geology" arguments, and got the wind kicked out of him by replies from his fellow Christians and so Morris left the ASA to found his own splinter group, the Institute for Creation Research. A lot of people joined Morris's ICR based on his book, The Genesis Flood, which offered up "Paluxy man prints" and "The Lewis Mountain Overthrust" as "disproofs" of modern geology. Later, even ICR abandoned both the "man print" evidence as questionable, and ceased trying to use the Lewis Mountian Overthrust as evidence against modern geology (Austin and Wise of ICR have both agreed that the evidence is conclusive that the Lewis Moutain Overthrust is indeed the result of an overthrust fault of immense dimensions.)

Also read this admission by a young-earth creationist:
"When I visited the Institute for Creation Research towards the end of 1978... The associate director is Duane T. Gish... When I asked him what were the biggest difficulties for creationist science the points in a debate which he felt least comfortable in answering - he answered after a moment's thought that it was the apparently great age of Earth as shown by the fairly recent advances in radiometric dating; and that the fossil record could be interpreted as showing ecologically complete ages - the age of invertebrates, the age of fishes, the age of reptiles, and so on up to the present. "
Hitching F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Or Where Darwin Went Wrong," Pan: London, 1982, pp.115-121)


LEVI: If the selacampise (sp) fish caught of Madagascar has not changed in “16 million years” I don’t think anything really does change that much; only slight adaptations and those that don’t just die out. DNA and other such deep designs of life are so complex I just don’t see it coming about by chance.

ED: Concerning the claim that "species have not changed," please see Extinction


LEVI: I think I was brain washed to an extent with evolution being presented as a fact in the schools, TV, and museums etc.

ED: Let me know what kind of new questions your brain asks after studying the above evidence, research articles, and after you have communicated with some old-earth creationist, and/or old-earth evolutionist Christians on the internet.


LEVI: I never even heard that there was a scientific creation side to it until I was 19 and for the most part all it does is point out the problems with the hypothetical reaseach program of evolution. Have you ever read the book “Evolution a theory in Crisis” by an evolutionist? Sorry I can’t think of the authors name.

ED: Michael Denton. I read that work. Denton was highly praised in the creationist press, especially in Origins Research in the 1980s (a newsletter that eventually evolved into the magazine, Origins and Design, and the Access Research Network). Denton and his book has even been considered a grandfather or forerunner of the I.D. movement. But his arguments were flawed, as pointed out in many reviews by scientists (see for instance the reviews at the National Center for Science Education website: http://www.ncseweb.org/ --and also those at the "Was Darwin Wrong?" website: http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/). Today Denton is an email friend of mine, and about a year or so ago he asked the Discovery Institute to cease listing him as a fellow of that institute. He is an evolutionist, though he was a creationist in his youth. He believes in a supernatural beginning to the cosmos, but that it evolved afterwards, just as stars form naturally (and we still view them forming, the evidence for which continues to pile up in astronomical journals), and just like the whole table of the elements forms inside stars out of simple the simplest of all the elements, hydrogen, and so on, right down to planets forming, and then molecules forming on their surface, and he also is convinced by the smallness of the genetic distances between species that their evolution in the sense of common descent--is a fact. I've exchanged emails with him recently in which he's affirmed his pro-evolution views. As for mutations, they continue to happen, naturally, as we have learned just by comparing the genomes of human beings, which contain individual genomic differences, and regional genomic differences, right on up to whole genome duplication as seen in two species of zebra fish, one of which has nearly twice the genomic material as the other species. Does it need that much extra genomic material? No it doesn't, as the existence of the other zebra fish species demonstrates. But a total genomic duplication has occured, called a whole genome duplication, or WGD, and many of those genes have been analyzed and seen to be duplicates, many of them non-functioning as well, with no on-off codons near them. In fact, geneticists have so far analyzed practically the whole genomes of humans, chimps, mice (or is it rats?) and a few other mammals and reptiles and fish, and they have been able to determine by comparing the whole genomes of species from fish to human that two whole genome duplications took place in the line leading from sea to land vertebrates. That's mutation for you, from the genomic differences that exist between human beings individually and regionally, as I mentioned, right on up to whole genome duplication, which leaves behind lots of duplicated genes (for evolution to further mutate).

I am saying mutations happen all the time, from point mutations to whole genomes being duplicated, and leaving behind plenty of duplicated genes after that process.

Also, take a close look at human chromosome #2. Do some web searches. All of the human chromoseomes and their length and their banding patterns match those of chimp chromosomes, except for human chromosome #2. But that single long human chromosome matches the length and banding patterns of TWO of the chimp chromosomes, thus all the human and chimp chromosomes and banding patterns DO match up. Moreover, inside human chromosome #2 are the remnants of a second centromere, and teleomeric regions where they should not be (they should be at the ends of the chromosome, not inside it, and not in reverse order!), all of which points to clear evidence of a sloppy fusion of two chromosomes that occurred in the ancestor shared by both humans and chimpanzees.


LEVI: There are other things too that has me believe that there is a God

ED: I never said there wasn't a Higher Power. I have even put together a list of Christians who are professors of science and defenders of evolution, including many defenders of Darwin as well.


LEVI: and one is a friend of mine who is not a Christian and leans more toward being a Buddhist (I think) who was first an Atheist. What change him? He saw a buddy of his possessed with at least 3 demons that spoke through him in languages he could not understand and one was a ladys voice all at the same time. I know its wild but this guy has no reason to lie about it.

ED: Did you see the new National Geographic series, "Is it Real?" They did a show recently on exorcisms. It was worth catching. Also I can send you some quotations from other books I've read about the subject, especially quotations from a journalist who toured the U.S. and Canada and was present at hundreds of exorcisms, seeking to learn all he could about the matter.


LEVI: Well that’s all for now. Thanks for writing.

ED: I can't answer all my emails, but the ones written in a friendly manner catch my eye, such as yours. Thanks.


LEVI: W.W.J.D. Two natures in me, One I love, one I hate, the one I feed will dominate.

ED: Hmmm, sure there's only two? The philosopher Mary Midgely wrote in Beast and Man (if I paraphrase her correctly) that human beings are riven by far more than just two natures or two desires. And often it's difficult for us to choose between two or more things we simultaneously desire. It's even difficult to choose how to react to two or more things we are repelled by. To take one example, if you're in the company of some people you like and others you might not admire or get along with very well. Do you stay to be with the ones you like, or leave because of the people in the group you dislike? Or maybe the group as a whole is attending a place whose food you dislike. Such a thing as the menu in that case might tip the balance not to go. There's always choices, always many decisions we each have to make about a wide variety of things from choosing lifelong careers to puruse to choosing which toothpaste to use, and so our basic needs, desires and interests all vie for attention.

Perhaps that's how general rules of ethics came into fashion as well, to try and simplify such decisions, at least in the ethical realm. We also have brains capable of envisioning future consequences of each of our decisions based our accumulated lifetime of knowledge about how different people and different events affect one another.

QUOTATIONS REGARDING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AND ETHICS

In 1997 Henry Jordan, a “born again” Christian on the State Board of Education in South Carolina, tried to get a copy of the Ten Commandments hung in every classroom in the state. When it was pointed out to him that members of other religions might not appreciate having only the Judeo-Christian teachings on display, he replied, “Screw the Buddhists and Kill the Muslims.”

Screw and Kill? Lot of good knowing the commandments did for him.

E.T.B.


In the same year and the same state as the above incident the Charleston County Council of South Carolina unanimously passed a motion to post the Ten Commandments on a plaque outside the council chambers. Oddly enough, when a local reporter for the Post and Courier asked the nine council members to name the Ten Commandments, none could recall all ten. Two members refused to even try. Snapped Councilman Barrett Lawrimore, “I don’t have time for this pop quiz.”

Church and State


LET'S COMPARE THE U.S. CONGRESS WITH THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Beginning with “Do not bear false witness,” don’t all Congresspeople “stretch the truth,” depending on which group of constituents or special interests or foreign dignitaries they are trying to woo or impress?

I also suspect there’s some “Sabbath-breakers” and “adulterers” in Congress.

Does Congress agree with the command, “Do not kill?”

How many Congresspeople have “used the Lord’s name in vain” after discovering that their prize bill (say a bill to display the Ten Commandments) did not receive enough votes to become a law?

I don’t suppose Congress will vote to display the “penalties” that go along with the Ten Commandments, since “death” is mentioned so often, even for “Sabbath-breakers.”

Lastly, I wonder how Congress will address the difference between the ancient Hebrew’s “First Commandment” and our First Amendment? According to the “First Commandment” in the Bible “ye shall have no other gods before me” under penalty of death. While our First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion.

E.T.B.


Preacher Pete: Without the Ten Commandments to lead them, people will wind up doing whatever they like.

Secular Sally: Most of us already do, but we like being liked, and hate being hated. In other words, most of us would sooner make friends than fill our freezers with heads, which, coincidentally, is a way to make enemies.

E.T.B.


“Thou shalt not kill” is as old as life itself. And for this reason a large majority of people in all countries have objected to being murdered.

Robert Ingersoll


How many people have to flip through the Bible, going, “Jeez, I want to screw my neighbor’s wife--don’t know if I should?”

Rick Reynolds, Only the Truth is Funny


I do not believe that ethics “without the Bible” are “completely relative.” People with no Bible to guide them still feel similar pains when stolen from, slapped, or called a stinging name. People with no Bible to guide them also feel similar pleasures when hugged, given a gift, or verbally petted. In other words, “ethical authority” resides in our bodies and brains, and in the multitude of lessons learned during lives of interaction with our fellow human beings. Neither is it easy for a person to turn to anti-social behavior if they have been taught from childhood to view other people’s feelings and needs through the inner lens of their own. People also recognize (regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof) that “joys shared are doubled, while sorrows shared are halved.” Such recognitions even form the basis for wanting to “double” society’s joys, and “halve” society’s sorrows.

Of course not everyone learns morality in the manner described above. Some are raised to “fear hell” and memorize lists of “holy commandments.” Such people are liable to “fear what they (and others) might become” once such “external” holy threats and commands are called into question. Ironically, in nearly all cases, such a “hell” does not exist to promote universal ethical behavior, but to promote belief in the truth of that person’s particular theology/denomination as opposed to rival theologies/denominations. So if you do not share their particular theology nor belong to their particular denomination, then they are convinced you are going to hell regardless of whatever kindnesses you share with them or society at large. Naturally such people understand the idea of a "moral" nation as one that consists solely of “fellow believers.” Of course any morality that tries to base itself upon purely “external” religious threats and commands will break down once the religion supporting it is called into question.

To avoid such “breakdowns” it makes more sense for a nation, culture, or family to emphasize “internal” rather than “external” morality/ethics, just as it makes more sense to raise children to think and act in terms of how “they would feel if what they did was done back to them,” rather than depending on rote memorization of lists to promote ethical understanding in all circumstances and among all people. All the world’s religions enshrine the principle, “Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself,” and, “Do to others what you would want done to yourself,” which assume in both cases that “you” already possess an “internal” recognition of what you should and shouldn’t do. So, there need not be any overt conflict between “internal” and “external” morality and ethics. However, stressing the “internal” variety seems to have a far greater chance of drawing society together, rather than tearing it apart.

“Internal” ethical recognitions preceded the composition of humanity’s earliest law codes such as those of King Hammurabi, or the moral injunctions found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or the later but more famous, “Ten Commandments.” Such “internal” recognitions inspired the creation of laws, and still do, and remind us that laws are but dust when people neglect to seek out what is best within themselves and each other.

E.T.B.


A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Albert Einstein


Forgiveness is not, as some people seem to believe, a mysterious and sublime idea that we owe to a few millennia of Judeo-Christianity. It did not originate in the minds of people and cannot therefore be appropriated by an ideology or a religion.~The fact that monkeys, apes, and humans all engage in reconciliation behavior (stretching out a hand, smiling, kissing, embracing, and so on) means that it is probably over thirty million years old, preceding the evolutionary divergence of these primates...Reconciliation behavior [is] a shared heritage of the primate order…

When social animals are involved...antagonists do more than estimate their chances of winning before they engage in a fight; they also take into account how much they need their opponent. The contested resource often is simply not worth putting a valuable relationship at risk. And if aggression does occur, both parties may hurry to repair the damage. Victory is rarely absolute among interdependent competitors, whether animal or human.

Frans De Waal, Peacemaking Among Primates


Darwin proposed that creatures like us who, by their nature, are riven by strong emotional conflicts, and who have also the intelligence to be aware of those conflicts, absolutely need to develop a morality because they need a priority system by which to resolve them. The need for morality is a corollary of conflicts plus intellect:

“Man, from the activity of his mental faculties, cannot avoid reflection… Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well-developed, or anything like as well-developed as in man.”(Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man)

That, Darwin said, is why we have within us the rudiments of such a priority system and why we have also an intense need to develop those rudiments. We try to shape our moralities in accordance with our deepest wishes so that we can in some degree harmonize our muddled and conflict-ridden emotional constitution, thus finding ourselves a way of life that suits it so far as is possible.

These systems are, therefore, something far deeper than mere social contracts made for convenience. They are not optional. They are a profound attempt--though of course usually an unsuccessful one--to shape our conflict-ridden life in a way that gives priority to the things that we care about most.

If this is right, then we are creatures whose evolved nature absolutely requires that we develop a morality. We need it in order to find our way in the world. The idea that we could live without any distinction between right and wrong is as strange as the idea that we--being creatures subject to gravitation--could live without any idea of up and down. That at least is Darwin’s idea and it seems to me to be one that deserves attention.

Mary Midgley, “Wickedness: An Open Debate,” The Philosopher’s Magazine, No. 14, Spring 2001


It is forbidden to decry other [religious] sects; the true believer gives honor to whatever in them is worthy of honor.

Decree of Asoka, famed Buddhist king of India

Return love for hatred. Otherwise, when a great hatred is reconciled, some of it will surely remain. How can this end in goodness? Therefore the sage holds to the left hand of an agreement but does not expect what the other holder ought to do. Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss. Whoever is self-centered cannot have the love of others.

Taoist wisdom (written centuries before Jesus was born)


That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.

Islamic holy teaching (Sukhanan-i-Muhammad, 63)


People were Christian before Christ ever existed. People were humanistic before humanism was ever organized. People were loving before LSD was ever discovered.

Timothy Leary, as quoted by Paul Krassner, “The Cynic Route from Crazy SANE to Loving Haight,” The Realist, 1967

BORN BELIEVERS?

Thank God He made it easy to find the “one true faith.” So easy that your parents can pick it out for you before you are even born, and, in most places on earth, they do.

It’s even easier to find a “true” Christian as opposed to a false one, or a “true” Moslem as opposed to a false one. The “true” believer who understands what his holy book “really” says, always happens to be the one addressing you.

E.T.B.


They told him a God of Near Eastern origin, the God of Abraham (who evidently had a stupendous bosom) and Isaac and Jacob, had made the whole universe, stars and atoms, from start to finish in six days and made it wonderfully and perfect, and had set it all going and, after some necessary setbacks called the Fall and the Flood, had developed arrangements that were to culminate in the earthly happiness and security and eternal bliss of our little Mr. Davis, which had seemed to him a very agreeable state of affairs. And further they had shown him the most convincing pictures of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel and had given him a Noah’s Ark toy to play with [in times past the only acceptable toy to play with on Sundays was Noah’s ark] and told him simple Bible stories about the patriarchs and the infant Samuel and Solomon and David and their remarkable lessons for us, the promise of salvation spreading out from the Near East until it covered the world, and he had taken it all in without flinching because at the time he had no standards of comparison. Anything might be as true as anything else. Except for difference in color they put him into a world of Green Pastures and there they trained him to be a simply believing little Anglican.

H. G. Wells, “The Mind of Mr. Joseph Davis”


Scientific education and religious education are incompatible. The clergy have ceased to interfere with education at the advanced stage, but they still control that of children. This means that children have to learn about Adam and Noah instead of evolution; about David killing Goliath instead of Koch killing cholera; about Christ’s ascent into heaven instead of Montgolfier’s or Wright’s. [SEE NOTE] Worse than that they are taught that it is a virtue to accept a statement without adequate evidence, which leaves them prey to quacks of every kind and makes it difficult for them to accept the methods of thought that are successful in science.

J. B. Haldane

[NOTE] Montgolfier ascended into the heavens via a balloon filled with hot air, and the Wright brothers designed and piloted the first successful heavier-than-air flying machine.


CHILDREN’S LETTERS TO GOD

“Dear God, Why is Sunday School on Sunday? I thought it was supposed to be our day of rest.”
- Tom L.

“Dear God, What does it mean you are a jealous God. I thought you had everything.”
- Jane

“Dear God, How come you did all those miracles in the old days and don’t do any now?”
- Seymour

Children’s Letters to God: The New Collection, compiled by Stuart Hample and Eric Marshall

Gnostic Christian Testimony

From: "Christine S."
Hello Mr. Babinski:
From your website, I understand that you were a Fundamentalist Christian, went to university and took Science/Biology, and became disillusioned with religion and God. That is what I see in a nutshell, please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe you were disillusioned before you went to university? Either way, I see you're either an agnostic or athiest.

ED: You can read my full testimony online, plug it into a search box by title: "If it wasn't for agnosticism, I wouldn't know what to believe." I explain that I remained a young-earth creationist during my entire four years in college. I think I explained that as well in my other online testimony concerning my loss of faith in young-earth creationism. I evangelized teachers and fellow students the entire time. It was years after college and after reading criticisms of young-earth arguments that I grew disillusioned about creationism. And it was years after that before I became disillusioned about Christianity in general.

I am a university graduate too, used to be an agnostic, too. Have you ever heard from a Roman Catholic turned agnostic, turned
kinda-Christian, turned Gnostic Christian?

ED: Cool. New Agey sort of Christian?

Truth be told, like you, I've always loved science. I was baptised into Roman Catholicism as a baby. From the age of 6 or 7, the most exciting thing for me was to bring home books from the library on cosmology, astronomy, geology, gemology, paleontology, archeology, paleoanthropology (nothing enthralled me more than paleoanthropology and astronomy however). So as you can see, I was a big lover of the natural sciences from very young, and I've read everything I could ever get my hands on about it my entire life. My specialist knowledge, such as required for a Bachelor of Biology, is just not there, however, I do have a great general knowledge of many types of physical and natural science just borne of reading of a natural curiousity.

Having been born a Roman Catholic, I know they have the spiritual truth. The Roman Catholic Church has accepted science and evolution, which was a boon to me at my age that I didn't come from a denomination that insisted solely on literal interpretation of the Bible. I could never accept an entirely literal interpretation as all I saw were contradictions as well. Even with the blessing of science by my church however, for the longest time, I still saw contradictions, much like you. I couldn't appreciate the Bible nor its spiritual teaching as the Roman Catholic Church says it is the sole disseminator of truth and there is no personal interpretation. Well, in sanctifying that I could think for myself in science but not in spiritual matters, those tenets basically killed my spirituality and I became agnostic in high school through my 20s. In my 20s, I prayed to God sometimes, and He always took care of me, but I was just that, a kinda-Christian.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago when I had a spiritual incident that set me wondering, but not searching. Then another nudge later last year to start searching, and my searching finally led me to the place I should have started, the Bible, more importantly, the New Testament. As a Roman Catholic they never tell you to read the Bible on your own, which I finally did for the first time in my late 20s, innocent as a child and with spiritual eyes as directed by Jesus Christ. As I read and came to the end of the New Testament, I could not stop the shaking in my hands and heart as I finally realized that there are NO contradictions between God and Science.

ED: I'm glad it was easy for you. It was however, a bit more difficult for Christian civilization and Christian theologians and scholars as a whole to come to terms with such advances in knowledge as heliocentricity, the age of the earth, and evolution.

I found the spiritual truth of the Bible and Jesus Christ for myself. I now see that God created the Earth and Universe, and all the natural laws and mathematical principles that rule over it all. Science and mathematics are so perfect that only the perfect God could have created them. You can't have such perfect order and logic and beauty in the Universe without there being a God! Impossible.

ED: I agree there's beauty and life in this deadly cosmos, but I also see that everything dies, life is fleeting, and everything is not beautiful. Have you read my online piece, "Why We Believe in a Designer" Also, some kinds of life simply go extinct. Nobody really realized the fact of extinction until after the 1700s. Even in Thomas Jefferson's day, when faced with some of the early discoveries of large boned mammals in the earth, like mammoth bones in North America, Jefferson and other deists simply assumed that such creatures still roamed the earth some where because the Creator had an "equal" eye on everything, and created it for various purposes. Jefferson is quoted as saying, "Oh yes, I heard from an Indian in the north that they still see such creatures roaming about (mammoths)." But he was wrong. And in fact, most species go extinct never to be seen again. We know of 16 species of ancient elephantine species that did so, even before human beings began forming civilizations. The question of the purpose of such massive extinctions, as well as the problem of the deaths of a very high percentage of all of the young produced in each generation by any and all species, remains a question for deists, gnostics, etc.

He also created a world that wonderously enough, provided the clues that would present themselves millions and billions of years later, when a species arose (out of that miraculous process that God created, called evolution) that was capable of receiving the Spirit and Intelligence of God, which is Humankind, who are His children, created in His image and likeness. Humankind, in God's image, is Spiritual and Intelligent enough, having been gifted from God Himself, that we can ponder who we are, where we come from, where we are going, what we can create, what we can achieve. We are the only ones who can dicipher the message that God so wonderously ensured through evolution, fossilization, mathematics, astronomy, etc. that would be waiting for us to discover and tell the story of the Earth, Universe, and how we came to be physically, and spiritually.

That is the truth of God, and that's how I know God exists. Once I realized the above, 18 hours later, as a thief in the night as said by Jesus Christ, I was baptised of the Holy Spirit, in God's presence where time and space did not exist (God is eternal and unchanging, the One True God of All in All that always was and will always be, communing with Him, I have never known such Love, Compassion, Eternity, I still cannot fully comprehend it in my normal consciousness) and renewed in Life, Light, Spirit, Wisdom and Love of God, and the Kingdom of God that came to be within me, again as said by Jesus Christ. I now know I was given this gift precisely because I understood the spiritual truth of the Bible and God for myself. I know myself, and I know everyone has a spark of the divine within them, they just have to realize that, and trust me, war would end immediately. Now I know that Science and God do not contradict each other, and that there are NO contradictions in the Bible once you can see the spiritual truth, that we are God's children, on the Way described and personified by Jesus Christ, back the Light, back to God our Father, whence we came. Every scientific discovery is in fact, an ultimate glory of God and His creation, and the immensely amazing, completely incomprehensible wonder of the order and beauty of it all.

ED: I was baptized in the holy spirit as well, if you want to call it that. The precise description of what I experienced is found in my testimony, "If it wasn't for agnosticism, I wouldn't know what to believe." But being "baptized in the holy spirit" doesn't mean my questions have been answered as you seem to imply they have been for you.

That is why God and Science can, and in fact do, live together in harmony, and complement each other. It's not Evolution vs. Creation, but Evolution AND Creation, that's how it always was, and that's how it always will be. The sad thing that people don't realize, is that Science is a proof that God exists, and God is a proof of the validity of Science. This is the truth, from a fellow science-nut, and also now, a God-nut, since truly, in spiritual truth, there are no contradictions when you understand the Bible and the use of allegory in uncovering that truth. Literal intrepretation doesn't give the whole story, literal and figurative interpretation in spiritual truth, as promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, and Gnostic Christianity, do.
Sincerely,
Christine S.

ED: We are both sincere. And I don't think it matters too much whether we are right or wrong on such metaphysical matters. I doubt either of us can see as clearly behind the metaphysical curtain as we'd both like to be able to do. And I doubt that any infinite intelligent being is going to condemn people to eternities of hell for not agreeing on what lies behind that curtain.

Society, Science and Evolution

LAURIE APPLETON QUESTIONS ED BABINSKI'S ARTICLE:

"Do You Fear What Might Happen If The World Believed In Evolution?"

QUESTION #1

LAURIE: Ed, you began your article by stating:

"Some conservative religious believers fear that teaching evolution breeds immorality and also invites 'God's judgment' to fall upon society as a whole. But what were the morals of society like in the 'good old days' before Darwin? And did the Creator refrain from smiting believers in creationism with horrific diseases? The answer in both cases is, 'No.'"

But isn't it a matter of the relative LEVEL of immorality? After all, Cain murdered his brother Abel, didn't he, and with a small population at that time.

ED: I am happy to discuss different levels of immorality in different cultures and different nations over time. But before we go there, let's point out a few similarities between us that neither of us should take for granted in any discusssion of "immorality." Neither you, nor I, is a barbarian. We each have a philosophy and/or theology, prize reason, and support the benefits that civilization holds over barbarism. Most of the folks who go to church or who belong to freethought organizations are highly interested in ethics and education on a worldwide scale, and do not join such groups in order to become criminals. (In fact self-declared "atheists" apparently comprise a smaller proportion of the American prison populations than they do in society at large.) Our common interests being pointed out, here are a few things worth pondering...

Compared with the rest of the world, America has a very high percentage of regular churchgoers, Protestant, Catholic and Pentecostal evangelists, Christian cable shows, Christians in government, etc. Yet America also continues to suffer relatively higher crime rates and higher numbers of people in prisons, per capita, than any other nation on earth. We also have the highest rate of obesity, and relatively higher rates of teenage pregnancy, and relatively lower average test scores, compared with several other industrialized nations. So what has Christiantiy truly done for America? Maybe we are spending too much time and money on building more churches when we ought to be spending it on children's health (vitamins, minerals, protein), and children's education, during the crucial early years, or on other social programs, such as those other nations do?

Even some heathen nations like Japan (50% of whose populace doesn't even believe in a higher spirit, and the remainder are mostly gentlemanly Buddhists and Shintoists) have lower rates of crime and obesity than the U.S.

And Check out the Czechs:

Atheism in the Czech Republic May 03, 2004 as reported at about.com The Czech Republic appears to be one of the most disbelieving nations in Europe. According to one poll, only 33.6% of Czechs belong to a religion and only 11.7% attend services once a month or more. That's the lowest rate for any country in Europe aside from Estonia. So how does the Czech Republic compare in terms of things like crime to other, more religious nations? Someone at alt.atheism was kind enough to collect some data using NationMaster, posting comparisons between the Czech Republic, Poland (95% Catholic) and America:

Crime: Murder

Czech Republic 0.01 per 1000 people

Poland 0.05 per 1000 people

United States 0.04 per 1000 people

Crime: Rape

Czech Republic 0.04 per 1000 people

Poland 0.06 per 1000 people

United States 0.30 per 1000 people

Crime: Robbery

Czech Republic 0.39 per 1000 people

Poland 1.38 per 1000 people

United States 1.41 per 1000 people

Health: HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rate

Czech Republic less than 0.1% (2001 est.)

United States 0.6% (2001 est.)

Poland 0.1% - note: no country specific models provided (2001 est.)

Health: Infant mortality rate

Czech Republic 5.46

Poland 9.17

United States 6.69

Education: Scientific literacy

Czech Republic 511

United States 499

Poland 483

You can visit NationMaster to create your own graphs to compare a variety of things.

And what about Christianity in America? It's just as secular and kitschy as American society in general, with Christian t-shirts, books, records, stadium-filled rallies, Christian theme parks, and apologetics cruises, not to mention bestselling books about promises of growing rich (Prayer of Jabez), as well as Christians voting to divert increasing funds to the military industrial establishment, while Jesus warned that "All who take up the sword shall die by the sword."

Jim Wallis, the Christian editor of Sojourner's magazine and author of God's Politics, asks, "How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-American and pro-war?"

See also the book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience by Ron Sider who details further evidence of Christian worldliness. Sider admits, "Poll after poll by Gallup and Barna show that evangelicals live just like the world... Evangelical Christians and born-again Christians get divorced just as often, if not a little more, than the general population. And Barna has discovered that 90 percent of the born-again Christians who are divorced got divorced after they accepted Christ [The Barna Group, The Barna Update, 'Born Again Adults Less Likely to Co-Habit, Just As Likely to Divorce,' August 6, 2001, http://www.barna.org]... Or take the issue of racism. A Gallup study discovered that when they asked the question. 'Do you object if a black neighbor moves in next door?' the least prejudiced were Catholics and non-evangelicals. The next group, in terms of prejudice, was mainline Protestants. Evangelicals and Southern Baptists were the worst." [Ron Sider speaking in Christianity Today, April, 2005, Vol. 49 Issue 4, "The Evangelical Scandal"]

And what about the BIG picture of "moral and immoral" human behavior over the eons? One scholar has tried to measure that picture after studying archeologist sites from all over the world. See Lawrence H. Keeley's, War Before Civilization (Oxford University Press; 1996), in which Keeley cites archeological evidence to argue that human beings used to kill each other more often in the past than today, percentage-wise.

Keeley's charts of relative mobilization rates and casualty rates among tribes and modern nations are fascinating. He suggests that the terrible Twentieth Century wars would have had a death-rate twenty times higher "if the world's population were still organized into bands, tribes, and chiefdoms": the typical tribal combat casualty rate of .5 percent per year, during the course of the century would translate to "more than 2 billion war deaths."

www.troynovant.com

Keeley also pointed out that a higher percentage of the populace of Europe was killed in the 17th century (during religious-related warfare, when everybody was a creationist and believer in the Apostle's Creed) than during World War 2.

I also read elsewhere that evidence of cannibalism in the human past continues to surface in ancient archeological digs and even has been discovered inside human genes.

So if you take the long view, and agree with Keeley (though I have read some scholars uncertainties concerning Keeley's conclusions), deaths due to intertribal warfare and murder were more prominent in the past than in the present, i.e., percentage-wise per total population. So if "Adam fell," and Keeley's hypothesis is correct, that "fall" may have been "upward" over time, not downward.

QUESTION #2

LAURIE: Ed, You stated in your article:

"Simply rent the DVD, The Gangs of New York, or read the books, Moll Flanders, Tom Jones, Les Miserables, Candide, or just about anything by Charles Dickens to get a taste of the immorality and diseases that ran amuck in the 'good old days.'"

Are you really trying to say that believing in evolutionism might bring about some sort of improvement or are you saying that it will not make ANY change one way or the other?

ED: I am certainly not saying that believing in evolution is as detrimental to society as some young-earth creationists claim it is, laying the blame for nearly every harmful "--ism" they can name, on "evolution." And I also point out that immense wars erupted in Europe in the 17th century, long before Darwin, when everyone was a Bible believing Protestant or Catholic creationist. The problem appears to be humanity's temptation toward getting caught up following alpha male leaders with narrow aggressive ideologies. See my article, "Religion is Not the Problem"

QUESTION #3

LA: Can I ask if you are aware that it was the BELIEF in a Creator that was the underpinning of the "Golden Era of Science?"

An evolutionist of all people has pointed this out. i.e.: "Although we may recognize the frailties of Christian dogma and deplore the unconscionable persecution of thought which is one of the less appetizing aspects of medieval history, we must also observe that in one of those strange permutations of which history yields occasional rare examples, it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself. Many things undoubtedly went into the amalgam: Greek logic and philosophy, the experimental methods of craftsmen in the arts as opposed to the aristocratic thinker - all these things have been debated. But perhaps the most curious element of them all is the factor dwelt upon by Whitehead - THE SHEER ACT OF FAITH THAT THE UNIVERSE POSSESSED ORDER AND COULD BE INTERPRETED BY RATIONAL MINDS. For Whitehead rightly observes, the philosophy of experimental science was not impressive. It began its discoveries and made use of its method in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a Creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He has set in operation. The experimental method succeeded beyond men's wildest dreams but the faith that brought it into being owes something to the Christian concept of the nature of God. It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origin to an act of faith that the Universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption."

(Darwin's Century, Dr. Loren Eiseley, 1959, p.62) (A.N. Whitehead, "Science and the Modern World, Mentor Book., 1948, pp 4-17)

ED: The question of "the origin of science" was not what my original paper was focused upon. The question was whether the teaching of evolution necessarily must make mankind more criminal, murderous and war-like. There are even Christian evolutionists whom I cited at the end of my article who answered "no" to that question.

Also, science poses its own peculiar dangers to humanity and the planet, and if in the end we die of too many dangerous and/or polluting inventions that owe their creation to scientific knowledge, what will people say of the invention of science then? It appears to be a double-edged sword. (Not that either of us would relinquish the incredibly interesting knowledge of the cosmos that science has provided, nor relinquish its beneficial aspects in agriculture and medicine, not to mention plumbing and sewer systems. Speaking of plumbing, most agree it was more important than medical science in eliminating huge outbreaks of disease since with plumbing you need not live near a body of water where disease and mosquitoes may breed, nor do you have to go down to that body of water to fill your jug each day, but can receive clean water from the tap.)

But to directly answer your question, above, there are authorities in history other than Loren Eiseley and Whitehead. And such authorities do not agree that science owes its rebirth in the Western world primarily to theism.

One recent book, Aristotle's Children, argues that only after Western man gave up on Platonism and it's "ideal world" concepts, and re-discovered the works of Aristotle's more practical and earthy philosophy, was scientific investigation reborn in Europe. Another new book tells the tale of how the heretical Nestorian church had preserved writings of ancient Hellenic alchemy that were revived and became popular at the time when science was reborn in the West. Newton wrote thousands of pages on alchemy, and many scientists were fascinated by it, since it involved certain formulas, and an emphasis on different types of matter. And so modern day chemistry apparently owes a lot to alchemical ideas that stretch back to Hellenistic days. Other historians have pointed out that farming practices had improved in Europe, and outbreaks of plague were diminishing, and the population of Europe was increasing along with the rise of a prosperous Middle Class, and printing had also been invented. Men were joining and forming societies and had lesiure time and wealth to pursue scientific interests, and publicize such knowledge in mass produced literature.

Moreover, Christianity alone did not create science. Scientific ideas and investigations preceded Christianity and Judaism, and began in ancient Babylonia, Egypt and Greece, and also taught in academies of the Hellenistic world. However, after Christian Roman Emperors ruled Rome, and began battling paganism, Christians closed such academies.

See the works of one of the premier historians of the later half of the Roman Empire, Ramsay MacMullen, Dunham Professor Emeritus of History and Classics at Yale University. He is the author of Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100-400, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries Corruption and the Decline of Rome (Christianizing Rome didn't keep the corruption out--E.T.B.), all published by Yale University Press.

"MacMullen discusses the shifiting attitude from the rational world view of Pliny, Seneca and Plotinus and the increase in credulity throughout the third and fourth centuries. MacMullen argues that this was a result of changes in the elite as more vulgar and less literate people increased their predominance (and Christianity spread). Whatever the merits of this thesis, MacMullen points out the contempt prominent Christians such as Tertullian, Augustine, Lactantius, Ambrose and John Chrysostom had for ancient philosophy. They denounced Plato and Aristotle by name, and mocked the idea of skeptical study and the scientific attitude. Nor did they stop there. They told stories about appartitions over the battlefield, miraculous cures, the everpresent existence of demons, people raised to life by Christians, and dragons turned to dust by the sign of the cross." pnotley@hotmail.com Amazon.com reviewer

QUOTATIONS FROM

Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries

In the century opened by the Peace of the Church, more Christians died for their faith at the hands of fellow Christians than had died before in all the persecutions.

Institutions of higher learning had been largely destroyed. The [Christian] emperors' attacks had centered on the chief of them, Athens and Alexandria, in the late fourth century and were turned against them again toward the end of the fifth and in 529. ["529 A.D." was the year that the School of Athens was closed by the decree of the Christian Roman Emperor Justinian, the same Justinian who also outlawed sodomy, because, "It is well known that buggery is a principal cause of earthquakes, and so must be prohibited."--E.T.B.]. As to the initiators of the persecution, the [Christian] emperors themselves, a steady decline in their level of cultivation has been noticed. Thus books and philosophy were bound to fade from sight.

After Constantine there existed an empire-wide instrument of education: the church. What bishops, even emperors, made plain, and what could be heard in broader terms from every pulpit, was an agreed upon teaching. Every witness, every listener should know the great danger to his soul in Plato's books, in Aristotle's, in any of the philosophical corpus handed down from the past. The same danger threatened anyone using his mind according to their manner, with analytical intent, ranging widely for the materials of understanding, and independent of divine imparted teachings.

Another factor that arose specifically out of the ongoing conversion of the empire was the doctrine of demonic causation. The belief in the operation of maleficent forces on a large scale had to await Christianity; and it was of course Christianity that was to form the medieval and Byzantine world. Satanic agents were to be seen as the cause not only of wars and rebellions, persecution and heresy, storms at sea and earthquakes on land, but of a host of minor or major personal afflictions. So, in consequence, Christians were forever crossing themselves, whatever new action they set about, and painted crosses on their foreheads too, responding to their leaders' urging them to do so. It would protect them against all evil.

Lastly, No matter what the religious views were of the culture in which scientific investigation first blossomed most heavily, today the pursuit of scientific research is not limited by one's religious beliefs or lack thereof. Scientific research is now a truly universal pursuit, one of the few such universal pursuits in the realm of knowledge that mankind has ever developed.

Ed

Perfect World

I once wrote a short story about someone who made a wish that magically came true. He wanted all the physical dangers and death in the cosmos to vanish. Presto! It did. The earth was henceforth eternal and immortal and ecologically perfect, and everyone could have as many children as they wanted because the planet expanded magnanimously at will to accommodate them. When you gazed up into the sky you didn't see stars, you saw beyond the clouds a reflection of the same earth you were on, because the whole universe curved back in on itself, and when you pointed a telescope overheard and looked up you could even see yourself looking down at yourself through a telescope, because that's how tightly curved the space of the entire cosmos now was. No danger of asteroids or outer space rubble slamming into the planet and destroying life. And you could eat all you wanted and your body would take whatever you ate and produce tiny white pellets that smelled like flowers and came out your anus. When the pellets dropped on soil they fertilized it, but when they were eaten by any species, it ensured that organism's perfect health. So nothing at all could possibly go wrong. Death wasn't an option because someone was always there to feed you a little white pill whenever you broke an arm or got burned. And nobody ever wanted to die, they were all so happy, so nobody tried to destroy themselves irreparably and everyone took care in their mellow environment, which lacked harsh winds and temperatures such that planes never failed in their duty to stay on course and never fell out of the sky.

Then one day the person whose wish had created this world made another wish, he wanted to avoid even verbal arguments and wished everyone believed as he did, and presto! Everyone did. They believed as he did about EVERYTHING--from philosophy and theology, right down to which fashions were the most stylish. In fact, as the days passed he noticed everyone in this perfect cosmos was growing to look more like him. His world truly was perfect, it was HIS world through and through.

But that's when he grew to loathe absolute safety, absolute agreement, absolute perfection, seeing his own reflection in the faces of billions peering at him from the sky above as he peered up at them from his telescope below, hearing his own thoughts constantly echoed back at him, on all sides, forever. Now that he was right, finally, utterly correct, there was no point in discussing new topics with anyone, since everyone lived similar lives, heard the same news, and thought what he thought about every matter. Nor did he encounter in the world of philosophy, art, fashion or song, anything of which he didn't already approve, so, there were no differences, discords, diversity or dangers in the cosmos, nor any surprises. All wishes for health, happiness and eternal life had been fulfilled. Yet he never felt deader inside, and never wanted to live less than at that moment. And naturally everyone else on the planet felt exactly the same way.

He tried wishing away his first and second wishes: 1) to abolish all death and dangers, and 2) to make everyone agree. But nothing changed. Apparently he had only been granted two magical wishes, not three. Soon afterwards, the human beings in that perfect little cosmos all decided to do away with themselves at approximately the same time and by the same suicidal means, leaving no one behind to feed them the little white pills that could have revived them.

E.T.B.

____________________________

Perhaps God or the gods got omni-bored with their omniscience, omnipotence, eternal perfection and power, and decided to take a rest from eternal boredom, and we are the result? We are the part of God that is currently "on vacation," or, "gods on vacation." We are risking, discovering, being SURPRISED, as well as suffering pains and challenges, which is exactly what an omni-bored God or gods would want to experience when they're on vacation.

—Lance E. Lawyer