Hi Father Forkhorn!
Nothing I love more for a good conversation than talking to one of the leaders of a religious faith. It's not often I encounter someone of such position who is willing to argue their side. Thank you for the opportunity. I just hope I don't get my non-believer butt kicked!!
Originally Posted by
Father Forkhorn
Murby, if you break down that process of evolution down, you quickly see what it takes to get a life form--scads of improbable events over literally billions of years.
The flaw in this statement is the word "improbable". The news media sneaks in words like that when they are reporting stories designed and slanted to elicit strong responses with the viewers. Rather than report the facts, they sneak in words designed to strengthen their version of the story, as opposed to sticking to the facts as much as they can. My personal favorite is how every gun used in a crime is a "High power firearm".. Sticking the word improbable in there is much the same.
If you simply left it at
"if you break down that process of evolution down, you quickly see what it takes to get a life form" then you quickly see that the meaning changes.
Could it be entirely random chance, the product of a universe that simply had enough time for all of the astoundingly improbable occurences that result in a fly to occurr? Possibly.
Again with the sneaky set-up words. Try saying that sentence out loud without the words "astoundingly improbable" and you see it quickly changes its meaning to a more factual argument.
Then again, it raises the kind of question that comes up if we were playing poker and I got dealt a royal flush four hands in a row. That's mathematically possible and happens to be far simpler than what it takes to get even a simple life form. I'm still guessing that you'd accuse me of stacking the deck.
This is a misleading argument because it would depend completely on the conditions available for the life form to be created.
If you throw liquid water and the right organics into a melting pot, and then dose them with U.V light, life is going to be created in short order. However, remove the liquid water and now those four royal flushes look easy.
In this instance, I would not accuse you of stacking the deck.. More like comparing a known value (52 cards creating a specific pattern) to an unknown variable.
Even if we accept what you say about believers being uneducated, it still leaves you with plenty of people who are highly educated who do believe.
Yup.. I completely agree. But it is nearly impossible to filter out which ones pretend to gain acceptance and which truly believe.
I am a monk and priest. I have three fellow monks who are PHDS in microbiology, one a PHD in nuclear physics, a couple dozen who hold various degrees in philosphy, and a number on theology. I'm working on my own PHD in history and have three masters degrees, and the equivalent of a philosphy degree.
Wow!! And I'm just a lowly engineer who's major hobby is reading about scientific advances. I feel out classed here.. I do not have a degree in philosphy but I do enjoy discussions based on
philosophy.
We're catholics, and the intellectual tradition of the church extends 2,000 years.
Oh my.. I am flabbergasted that someone who claims to have so much education would even utter those words. "Intellectual tradition and church" should never be used in the same sentence together.
The real tradition of the church has been to burn people alive for being intellectuals under heresy laws. There's a rather large pile of intellectual human ashes out there.. Nice tradition..
And this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.. To someone who is uneducated, that statement is designed to resonate in their mind to hold the church up high.. when in fact it is the polar opposite that is actually true.
If it wasn't for modern day laws, the church would still be burning people alive.
The fact that you say you are working towards a PhD in history and then go and make that statement is a bit peculiar to me.
It means the idea of believers being uneducated comes crashing down.
I believe the reverse is true and that you just made my point above.
The Big Bang theory comes from a Catholic priest in the Vatican observatory, who decided Einsten had gotten something wrong. Pasteur was a Catholic, as was Gregor Mendel.
Are you sure you don't mean Lemaitre??? What' interesting is that most think its Hubble. But I'm not a history buff..
Any Catholic university contains literally dozens of brilliantly educated, beliving Christians. There's a risk here of making yourself look foolish by typifying religious people as uneducated.
As any prison contains dozens of highly educated people convicted of murder, but most would agree the vast majority of convicted murderers are uneducated.
The higher educated are the tiny minority and do not represent the overwhelmingly vast majority.
Your argument here is just strengthening what I said earlier.. The vast majority are uneducated.. those who are educated were mostly indoctrinated at an early age.. Their physical brain patters are hardwired for believing because it was intensively instilled at an early age while their brain was still developing. You call it catechism. Indoctrination is a tough cookie to crack.. This is why pedophiles prefer to "groom" their victims from an early age. Where do we see a lot of pedophiles?
You know what I would like to do? I'd like to walk into an inner-city church filled with the local population of African-American's who are doing their prayer thing and stand at the podium like a pasture and start discussing Leviticus 25:44-46.
Ya! Lets have a discussion on how the bible condones slavery as a divine institution. I wonder how that would go over!
Now, I'd be interested in hearing about your last hunt....
Shot an 8 or 10 pointer but the arrow didn't penetrate far enough (3 to 4 inches).
Never thought in a million years that I would go on a manly forum and publicly announce that I am having penetration problems.
But there it is!
I want to thank you again for your willingness to debate. I find that those who's faith and understanding is weak tend to run away quickly or become combative, while those with strong convictions come up with some pretty interesting answers.