What's Best Reconciliation of Gen 1 and 2 You've Heard?

Hey, for once I am in agreement with you nwr. I don't understand that either. Facts should match meaning or someithng is amiss in the worldview. Heart and mind should also match. Coherence is essential to any system. At the risk of getting off topic, thats the whole point of Ireducible Complexity.Back on topic, if evolution is true, the Bible is false! I tried to get around it for a long time by personally viewing Genesis as more symbolism and metaphor than fact. But I was against the wall, and was totally unprepaired for the philosophical clarity of the intelligent design arguments.Obviously I was 'pleasantly suprised', after-all, I hold my intellectual faculties in higher regard than I should have at one time. As it turns out (a former evolutionist here) I didn't know jack!Rob

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Any biters in the stream?

Only if you adhere to a strict literal reading of the bible.

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Just a monkey in a long line of kings.
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

But if you read the Bible literally then the Bible is false too.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

false dichtomy, here. "literal" and "factual" are not the same thing. the stories (plural) might not be factual, but they need not be symbolism/metaphor. they are written with symbolic meaning, but that it is on top of the literal meaning of the text.the bible does not have to be factually correct in genesis for it to be significant religiously. i wouldn't call blatant logical fallacies "philosophical clarity."

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yes, and then there is that.

I wouldn't either. I'd call it "philosophically simple" and that has definite appeal. Unfortunately biology is a lot more complex than the ID arguments and so those arguments can be very appealing.lfen

the thing is that the bible is a library of religious texts written three thousand years ago of course its not going to be correct anymore it was written by a group of people with limited understanding of the world - it can be take as fact by them but to take it as fact now is insane
what arguments? ID is snake-oil nonsense, it doesn't even answer anything. it sounds more like you just wanted a religious viewpoint that you felt confortable about in this day and age, since the bible doesn't agree with the world anymore

''i wouldn't call blatant logical fallacies "philosophical clarity."''Logical fallacies? That's rather 'either/or' of you...And to another, You are half right. Biology is more complicated indeed. However, it is the increased complexity that is a problem for evolution, not the I.D. argument.The simpler the root components of a system, the easier it can be explained by chance and necessity. The more complex and interdependant the system, the more logically necessary becomes the need to invoke intelligence.For example, Darwin never proposed that a human being formed from chemicals out of the primordial oceans, because it is a logical absurdity. Instead, he imagined a simple one-celled organism emerging and then evolving.As it turns out, those one-celled organisms are complex enough that we still don't understand all there is to learn about them. The plot is thickening not thinning...Most envision DNA emrging in some simple form (some like Francis Crick think it came in missile from from elsewhere in the Cosmos) and then evolving into more and more complex arrangements. The problem is that DNA is not alive. It is a component of a system that needs almost all of the other thousands of components in place for the whole organism to be alive (i.e. an arm is not alive, without the rest of the body). And each component is a precise piece of a puzzle that is not within our capacity technologically to appriciate. In biology, we have technology at a level that a man cannot say is within his reach to grasp.Obviously, healing does take place, so you and I do not die if we lose a finger, but as a rule, biology is a fragile system and in an cosmological environment that is hostile to life, not conducive to it.Nature does it's best to kill, I have to invoke supernature to be intellectually satisfied, speaking for myself. You're all free to believe what you want, I just think you have more faith than I.As for the Bible, the only reason I didn't understand it for so long was because I didn't want it to be true...Rob

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Any biters in the stream?

since the quote was mine, i'll answer.it's not a false dichotomy. id is nothing but one logical fallacy after another (including, btw, false dichotomies). any apparent clarity has nothing to do with it being logically sound -- or even factually correct. it's not even a good argument, for those who are paying attention to what's really being said.it just SOUNDS nice. actually, when computer systems are programmed with evolutionary algorithms to generate structures, they routinely come up with systems that behe would call irreducibly complex. i find the exact opposite to be true in my debates here. the people who want it to be true the most often understand it the least. they are usually unwilling to accept that the bible could be wrong about something, and are then forced to change what the bible says or means in order to make it factually correct. they are not so much interested in understand the bible, but in proving the bible to be true.often, they severly limit themselves in other manners. how can we begin to talk about the cultural context, how the text was read, written, and compiled, and the structure of the various collections within if people just want to run it through the blender and come out with "word of god" paste? they are so interested in making it consistent, that they rob all flavor from the text, all differences, and all the various voices and opinions presented therein.

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Actually, when computer systems are programmed with evolutionary algorithms to generate structures, they routinely come up with systems that behe would call irreducibly complex.That is an old and utterly absurd argument that a friend of mine gave me years ago.It is true that this experiment yeilded that result, but the result did not take place by itself... It took an intelligent agent to build the computer and design the software.Now, if it was proveable that we evolved... then you might have something there, but you cannot travel that path now, without using circular reasoning and I see your much brighter than that.If I may digress (though you will probably dismiss it automatically) chaos cannot produce order and order cannot produce chaos. Jesus explained this with clarity.Matthew 7:15-20
15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.That was one His warnings to 'us'...Rob

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Any biters in the stream?

well, yes, it did. that is the nature of creating a model. someone has to make it, and using some tool. the "design" of it is meant to replicate natural occurances: variation in reproduction, and selection based on success at some factor.the point is that these two process alone -- evolution as darwin proposed it -- are more than capable of producing things that id'ers would easily call "ic," and so irreducibly compliexity is not an argument for design. and yet, we are all bad trees, saved by grace, endevouring to yeild good fruit in spite of ourselves.jesus is not talking about order and chaos, but false prophets.Edited by arachnophilia, : typo

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'''well, yes, it did. that is the nature of creating a model. someone has to make it, and using some tool. the "design" of it is meant to replicate natural occurances'''We're in agreement then. you just proved that a creation needs a creator. It's not complicated...

no, i just proved that something designed by humans was designed.we know scientifically that human beings exist as part of the natural world and subject to its laws. we know that they create things like computers and software.if we want to demonstrate something happening in the natural world, YES, we need to design the experiment. and we designed this particular experiment to replicate things that happen without any intelligent intervention -- random variation, and selection based on degree of success.saying that "creation needs a creator" in this case is about like requiring belief in god to study mathematics -- because someone had to set those rules, too.

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Facts have no meaning. We give meaning to facts. Meaning is completely depending upon the individual viewing the fact or set of factual circumstances. To ceaselessly banter about the trivial details and ignore the meaning of basic life lessons that most religious texts share is a useless venture. I believe how an individual interprets what they read in those texts is more of a reflection of that persons character.
Whether or not we as people agree on the historical facts of religious texts is imaterial. It is whether or not we agree on the meaning of lessons meant to be learned and the implications and complications of our differences of opinion concerning our interpretations that shape all that we do that truly matters to us. Our roots grow deep in that which means the most to us. In the end, after all the crapola, it is all that matters. Can anyone here tell me what meaningful point one can sink thier roots into will ever be reached with this approach to any religious text?
Nrw commented that my earlier statement "facts have no meaning" was absurd. I would say that in light of the general weight of meaning that any religious text was meant to convey, thus far this topic has been devoid of anything meaningful and to me quite pointless and absurd.

'''saying that "creation needs a creator" in this case is about like requiring belief in god to study mathematics -- because someone had to set those rules, too.'''That is correct if we want to believe they reflect reality. Most of us do, we just take it for granted and don't think about the implications. We do the same with morality (we take it for granted)as you have seen by now in the other post.Your going to 'get it' after all.Got to go to work bro...

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Any biters in the stream?