The World Humanist Congress is meeting in Oxford from 8-10th August 2014.
The Congress meets every three years, bringing together activists from over forty countries under the auspices of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Being ‘ethical’ is important to humanists, because they have constantly to repel charges that without God, they only have their own prejudices to base their ‘ethics’ upon.
This year, the British Humanist Association (‘BHA’) is hosting the World Humanist Congress. They are bringing together no fewer than seventy-seven speakers, from as far afield as Switzerland, America, Australia, India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Uganda and Greece. The speakers are headed by humanist philosopher A C Grayling, writer Taslima Nasrin, Philip Pullman, Author of ‘His Dark Materials’, and Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka.
Other speakers include Jim Al-Khalili OBE, President of the BHA, Labour Party Peer Joan Bakewell DBE, Richard Dawkins, who is Vice-President of BHA, PZ Myers, Associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris, who describes himself as ‘A godless liberal biologist’, Peter Tatchell, and Prof Peter Atkins, Roy Brown of the pro-abortion International Foundation for Population and Development.
Also speaking are Professor Ted Cantle, London Assembly member Tom Copley AM, Andrew Copson, who is Chief Executive of BHA, former RC chaplain Catherine Dunphy, Liz Lutgendorff, Chair of the Conway Hall Ethical Society, author Zoe Margolis, Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol East, Maryam Namazie, Maajid Nawaz, the highly-paid co-Founder of Quilliam, in receipt of government grants to counter Islamic extremism, Prof Richard Norman, founder-member of the Humanist Philosophers Group and Vice-President of the British Humanist Association, journalist and broadcaster Nick Ross, and Guardian columnist Zoe Williams.
A number of speakers also have links to the National Secular Society, which is slightly more extreme even than BHA. Philip Pullman is a ‘honorary associate’ of NSS as is Professor Cantle, Richard Dawkins, Nick Cohen, Maryam Namazie and Maajid Nawaz.
According to the WHC website, P Z Myers ‘is an outspoken critic of creationism and intelligent design (for which he has “nothing but contempt”, saying that it is “fundamentally dishonest”)’. Prof Myers was featured in Ray Comfort’s video ‘Evolution vs God‘, trying in vain to think of evidence for evolution and claiming that human beings are fish.
See: Teach Children Creation, says report.
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” Prof Myers was featured in Ray Comfort’s video ‘Evolution vs God‘, trying in vain to think of evidence for evolution and claiming that human beings are fish.”
THAT is fundamentally dishonest reporting. Except of course that Ray Comfort’s squirming was remarkably fishlike……….
Great advertisement for a very important event though – thank you!
We seem to have ruffled a few feathers.
Clearly you have not watched the same video as me. I suggest everyone watches it to see whether or not Myers does in fact say human beings are fish. And Ray Comfort just asked questions off camera, so how you could see his body posture is beyond me.
The event is actually sold out, so no advertising will do it any good.
Apart from that, thanks for such a clever comment … !
I’ve just watched the first 10 minutes or so of the film. It was appalling. The interviewer was clearly trying to catch people out. The concept of ‘kinds’ was made up by intelligent design theorists and has nothing to do with science. The questions he was asking were nonsensical so of course the interviewees were flummoxed. What a terrible waste of time…
And why shouldn’t a man who was confused by a ridiculous question be associated with the BHA? He did say humans are fish but from where I was sitting he had a wry smile on his face and was doing it to annoy the interviewer. It made me chuckle during an otherwise all out assault on people logical ability using made up ammunition. I thought him to be quite switched on about the whole setup.
And yes the squirming was indeed fish like I could hear him from here.
I just don’t see why you humanists need to pretend that Ray Comfort was ill at ease with the replies he was getting.
All he was doing was asking for some evidence for evolution. In the past, I have asked for an example of an observed beneficial mutation leading to a new species, for a logical explanation of how non-life became life, for an account of how the first swallow built its nest, for a plausible narrative for the ‘evolution’ of bats, supported by evidence. People have given me irrelevant web-links, referred me to papers replete with circular reasoning, but no-one has ever answered any of the questions.
Are these ridiculous questions? Just like Ray Comfort’s demand for just one piece of evidence for evolution, they seem perfectly reasonable to me. It is quite funny that atheists have built their beliefs around something so flimsy.
Typical of evolutionists’ ‘Just-So’ stories is Dr Alice Roberts’ preposterous assertion, supported by no evidence whatsoever, that our ancestors tools shaped their hands, rather than the other way around. You can see the various threads here: https://www.christianvoice.org.uk/index.php/bbc-will-need-a-miracle-to-change/
Or here: ‘Bacteria cannot have evolved‘
With what we now know about DNA, bioenergetics, Information Theory, species limitation, symbiosis and animals which defy evolution such as the Bombadier Beetle and the Giraffe, evolution is looking less plausible daily. But, as Lewontin said, letting go of evolution is hard to do, because the alternative is too scary: ‘Materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door’.
Prophets of doom and fools. “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity; There is none who does good.” Psalm 53:1
Suppose we should really feel sorry for them as they lead people away from God.
Mathew 18:6 “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
“Wise men” remember this: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Hebrews 10:31
This quote is the biggest load of nonsense I have seen all year.
Being ‘ethical’ is important to humanists, because they have constantly to repel charges that without God, they only have their own prejudices to base their ‘ethics’ upon.
Unlike crazy fundamentalist christians we dont need a book written 2000 years ago by iron age men who had little understanding of the world around them and the people in it, to tell us how to behave in a way which is beneficial to our society and the people in it. Christian Voice is a thoroughly repulsive organisation, so glad the co-op bank closed your accounts a few years back.
You’ve led a sheltered life, Louise.
Isn’t it funny how atheists always think they or this generation are simply the cleverest people who have ever lived. Some call it ‘historical snobbery’.
As for the Co-op Bank! Just look where it is today. So ‘ethical’ it can’t even balance the books.
I’m an agnostic, and I believe the question of the origin or source of our morality is a mystery we will never solve.
Secularists are guilty of circular reasoning in these discussions but then so are professing Christians. The truth of the Bible cannot be proven in the usual way, and the Bible isn’t interested in proof anyway. It claims to be the word of God, and belief in this is a supernatural process (not of him who willeth nor of him who runneth but of God, etc) dependent on the predestination of God. That is, God gives faith to some people so that they believe; he does not give faith to others so that they don’t believe.
My point really is that when atheists and believers ask each other to explain why they believe what they believe, neither group can give an answer that makes sense to the other.
I hope this rant makes some kind of sense!
It makes sense, but of course the Bible is interested in proof. That is why it contains so much evidence for the resurrection of Christ. Christians are not guilty of circular reasoning at all. We have a starting point, that God is and the Bible is his word, but we don’t go round in a circle to prove those things.
Evolutionists do it, though. They assume, for example, that the horse evolved, then they link together a load of disconnected fossils, some with toes, some with hooves, some huge, some tiny, and then say, ‘See, the horse evolved!’
Atheists not only make no sense, they are unable to see sense.
The book says It is the word of God, you believe it, the book becomes the word if God(for you). Circular reasoning? I’m guessing as you were too cowardly to post my other responses, this one probably won’t be posted either. I know you insist on having the last word.
No, the Bible remains the word of God whether you like it, accept it, believe it or not.
Dear David,
There is no god or gods. The only foolish people in existence are those who submit themselves, often unquestionably, to a belief full of contradiction and hatred.
You can keep your bigoted, racist and misogynistic belief system, but do not cast doubt over the secular inroads we have made into your and other foolish belief systems; for we are the only ones with evidence.
‘belief full of contradiction and hatred’ – that’ll be evolution, right?
‘we are the only ones with evidence’ – the arrogance or the hubris, which is the funnier?
‘secular inroads we have made into your and other foolish belief systems’ – yes, Islam, Hinduism and Neo-Paganism are really on the run, aren’t they?
(Actually, he is right that in the 19th century Christianity did retreat into a personal and pietistic shell in the face of intellectualism and Darwinism. But there is a time for everything, and today the boot is on the other foot, with the flaws in evolutionism and secularist legalism now visible and undeniable. Christians need to realise they have the intellectual high ground and take courage for the battle.)
Oh I am having a good laugh at this little nugget
‘belief full of contradiction and hatred’ – that’ll be evolution, right?
So would this be the same theory of evolution in which in 2011 alone, over 68,000 independently peer reviewed science articles were published in reputable science journals, all of which supported evolution.
There has never ever been even a little post it note published which disproves evolution.
Should those shysters Ken Ham and Ray Comfort wish to fund a scientist to put forward their version of events, they could. However they wont, because then they know it would put an end to their gravy train of fooling their followers as they know their ideas dont stand up to rigorous scrutiny and requirements of evidence.
Please tell me all about the flaws and contradictions in evolution =)
Of course you won’t get an anti-evolution article published in a science journal. It would be career suicide for all involved. The current biology and anthropology gravy trail depends on evolution being true. No dissenting voice is tolerated. Look at the venom being poured out on this page at the mere suggestion of design.
Flaws and contradictions in evolution? Just start with your belief that humans descended from bacteria and put that with the impossibility of bacteria summoning up the energy to evolve into anything else.
Any scientist can get a peer reviewed article published in reputable science journals. Ask yourself again why Ken Ham and Ray Comfort havent even attempted to have their idiotic creationist theory published…. If you think it is anything other than that it would not stand up to scientific scrutiny, then I feel very sad for you, that your cognitive dissonance is allowing you to believe in magic over provable science theory.
Some reading for you
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01
Please tell me you are having a laugh, Louise, or I’ll think you are someone who takes themselves just a bit too seriously.
Dear readers, when Louise says ‘would not stand up to scientific scrutiny’ that is code for: ‘will not get past the time-servers on the pro-evolution gravy-train.’
Some reading for you: Genesis 1&2.
This thread, as with many on this site, is full of hysterical straw man arguments.
Stephen: If you actually had a strong case against evolution then you wouldn’t have to create straw man arguments. You could argue against the current scientific theory of evolution, and provide solid objective evidence for your own beliefs.
There is plenty of evidence of beneficial mutations. E.g. the multiple independent mutations in humans that allow some humans to digest milk into adulthood. http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471
There is plenty of evidence of new species. E.g. the adaptive radiation of cichlid fish in Lake Victoria is a well known and studied example http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/273/1597/1987.short
This well referenced (the weight comes from the references, not the web page) article summarises the molecular evidence for macroevolution http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html.
Can you actually construct a solid argument against current evolutionary theory and the evidence for it. Or are you just going to keep on creating straw man arguments? This is a rhetorical question – I believe 100% that you will not be able to properly address this post and will continue constructing ridiculous straw man arguments simply because you are utterly unable to address the real science of evolution.
And, where is your evidence FOR your theory that life on earth was created by your Christian God in the way described in the Bible?
Your links, or at least the two that worked, are full of circular reasoning. Evolution is assumed and then the assumption is used to ‘prove’ it.
The evidence for creation lies in irreducible complexity, in symbiosis, in animals like the giraffe which defy evolution, in the mathematical impossiblity of trillions of ‘adaptations’ arising by chance, in the lack of evidence for any beneficial mutation leading to a new kind of animal, in the lack of an explanation for how non-life became life, in the fact that information – such as in DNA – cannot arise by chance, in the impossiility of bacteria evolving into eukaryotes, for starters.
Evolution has yet to make its case.
First: Thank you for approving my post.
Can you please demonstrate how there is circular reasoning in the links I gave? There is an absolutely enormous amount of evidence for evolution. For example a few of these are the genetic similarities and differences between organisms, morphological differences between organisms, how distribution of organisms (e.g. marsupials) follows geological transformations of the world, evidence from developmental biology, etc. None of these requires a presupposition of evolution for the evidence to be observed, the evidence is there. Each of these scientific fields was an opportunity for evolution to be falsified, but all of them are consistent with the fact of evolution. Hence I can’t see how you classify these arguments as ‘circular’, and ask if you can explain your claim in more detail.
The link to the information on cichlid fish in Lake Victoria doesn’t work now. I don’t know why as I checked all links when I first posted. Here’s a replacement link: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100707/full/466174a.html That’s a news article but please note that there are references to more academic sources at the bottom.
There are claims for irreducible complexity, but these are typically arguments from ignorance or incredulity. To paraphrase ‘I don’t know how this could have evolved, and therefore it couldn’t’. E.g. a classic case claimed by creationists is the flagella of bacterium. In systems such as these removal of one part results in a completely non-functional structure. However, all this proves is that the system cannot have evolved by adding complete components of the flagella. And even that assumes that there aren’t mechanisms of evolution outside current theory of how structures can evolve. Alternative explanations are that the parts of this system evolved simultaneously. The example you gave of something that couldn’t have evolved is a giraffe, so I’ll address this later.
You claim that it is impossible that eucaryotes could have evolved. One current theory as to how eucaryotes could have evolved is that the semi-independent organelles of eukaryotic cells living within a larger cell originated through symbolic relationships between independent organisms. In the similar way that some lichens existing nowdays are a fungus and a cyanobacteria living in symbiosis. Some people say that it may originally have been the case that the independent organisms that would eventually become the organelles were consumed by other cells, but then continued to live in symbiosis. An example of this in the modern world is the Eucaryote Paramecium bursaria which doesn’t have its own photosynthetic ability, but obtains this by consuming green algae that continues to live (and photosynthesise) inside the P. bursaria cell. We don’t know for sure how eukaryotes evolved from simpler cels, but this is a plausible explanation. Modern day evidence such as P bursaria is compatible with such a theory of the origin of eukaryotes. If you don’t believe that it’s a plausible explanation, could you please explain why you believe so? This should be a much easier task for you than showing that eukaryotes couldn’t have evolved, as I’m asking you to show how you can rule out only ONE possible theory of the evolution of eukaryotes, not all of them.
How does a giraffe defy evolution? You don’t say, and therefore I can only guess that your argument is similar to arguments such as those here: http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n1653.cfm In that link, the complexity of the giraffe’s systems for managing the flows of blood is discussed. That page then says “Three very complicated, but cooperating capabilities had to come together at once in the giraffe.” Well, yes, they would have to develop together, along with the increasing length of the giraffe’s neck. However, this is no problem for evolution at all. All that is required is that these structures evolved simultaneously as the length of the neck of the animals along the evolutionary pathway towards the giraffe became longer. This is just the irreducible complexity argument again, and the answer is that these morphological traits (blood management and neck length) had to evolve together. If your argument for why the giraffe could not have evolved is different from this, could you please explain it.
There are beneficial mutations. E.g. a small population of people from Italy have a beneficial mutation in a protein that helps clear cholesterol from cell walls (I think you’ll easily see the advantage of that given modern western diets) Apolipoprotein AI-Milano is the name of the (beneficial) variant.
There are theories of how non-life became life. This is the field of abiogenesis, which is a separate field from evolution. Our understanding of abiogenesis is at a much more primitive stage than our understanding of evolution because while there is a humongous amount of evidence of how evolution progressed, the further back you get the less evidence remains. And for how life started, there’s almost nothing. However, with the advent of very powerful computers that can simulate what might happen in non-living chemical ‘soups’, progress is being made in developing plausible explanations of how abiogenesis could have happened. That we cannot explain something yet does not mean that it didn’t happen. Go back a few hundred years and see how primitive science was then and how little of our world could be explained. The science of abiogenesis is only getting going about now.
You claim that information cannot arise by chance. However, the field of evolutionary computation shows that complicated information can emerge from random variation with some form of selection pressure. Quite often these systems will only use Darwin style probabilistic survival of the fittest and a very simple method of mating and creation of variant offspring. E.g. evolving computer programs that can play the game of checkers, without putting human expertise into the program. Chellapilla, Kumar and David Fogel. “Evolving an expert checkers playing program without using human expertise.” IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, vol.5, no.4, p.422-428 (August 2001). There are lots of examples where information can arise from random variation which has some guiding influence. And that guiding influence doesn’t have to be intelligent, it can be a very simple feedback. E.g. if you’re evolving bus crew schedules for a bus company, you might say that schedules that require fewer drivers to be hired are cheaper, and therefore better. With just that influence guiding the evolution of bus crew schedules, bus crew schedules that look very much intelligently designed can emerge. Hence, information can arise by a combination of repeated chance and environmental influence (e.g. survival of the fittest as one example) as a guide.
1 They assume evolution then ‘prove’ it. Genetic and anatomical similarities work better as evidence for design. For example, both birds and mammals have heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and so on. As we would expect if they were all designed by one designer. Or Designer.
2 A line from your article: ‘cichlids are thought to have diversified from a handful of species in as few as 15,000 years.’ It’s just supposition.
3 Evolution always opposes the use of logic. But it is quite in order to use reason to demonstrate that evolution is impossible. For example, birds had to have their nest-building skills from the first pair. It is no use waiting milions of years for your nest-building to evolve if you are a swallow. In the absence of any remotely plausible alternative explanation, I have to assume the first swallows were created with the ability and impetus to stick mud on walls in the exact shape necessary to hold their eggs.
4 It wasn’t me who said bacteria did not have the energy to evolve, it was two evolutionary biologists working in the new field of bio-energetics.
5 But you have no evidence whatsoever that the structures in the giraffe evolved simultaneously. You just assume they must have done because the alternative offends you.
6 The Italians remain people.
7 Abiogenesis. You can’t duck and dive with the ‘nothing to do with evolution, mate’ argument. Abiogenesis is just the first hurdle! With all the brain-power of human beings, you would think someone would have got life from non-life in a lab somewhere, if, that is, it were possible to do in the first place. But application of the hated logic and reason shows it is not possible.
8 A computer does not even know what ‘checkers’ is unless an intelligent human tells it. The bus timetables do not ‘evolve’, they arise from the input of information and intellect from outside themselves! They need an intelligent designer!
Just a note of encouragement to keep going, Stephen, which you may or may not need, after all, you’ve been doing it for quite a while now. The key is not to take it personally, I’ve found, keep a clear head, don’t get riled, I would even say be led by the Holy Spirit.
I would say the the evolutionists tactics can be summarised as, “if you can’t blind them with science, baffle them will bullsh*t”. (Apologies for inferred, though not overtly expressed, bad language).
1. You claim that ‘Genetic and anatomical similarities work better as evidence for design.’ That there are similarities could argue either way between evolution and design/creation. However, the important evidence that we see is that the patterns of similarities are consistent with evolution, but not design. You mention organs such as heart, lungs, liver, kidneys etc. If we look into things further, we see that mammals have a four chambered heart, reptiles and amphibians have a three chambered heart, and fish have a two chambered heart. The reptilian and fish hearts are less efficient. If they were designed, they would be a much poorer design. If there was an intelligent design, why wouldn’t that designer use the best heart design for all of these major groups? However, this evidence is consistent with evolutionary theory as throughout the more complex chain of evolution that led to mammals compared to fish there has been more opportunity for refinement of the heart. There are many such examples. If we look at convergent evolution, we find that the freshwater fish the pike looks similar to the saltwater fish the barracuda. But from a genetic and molecular point of view, if the basic shape and behaviour was going to be reused, then why not reuse the genetics. Consider the ‘marsupial wolf’ and other examples of convergent evolution. Why make a wolf as a placental mammal in one part of the world, but a marsupial anywhere else? There are many such patterns of evidence that make complete sense through evolution, but no sense by design. To conclude that evolution is the process by which living things appeared (and continue to change) is not circular logic. The evidence is there, and clear, whether or not there is a presupposition of evolution. Remember that Darwin himself was a religious man who believed in God and creation. But even though he was predisposed to believe in creation, and that he could only see a tiny fraction of the evidence we can see nowdays with advanced science, the evidence of evolution was undeniable. Evolution has gone through several waves of new evidence and technology since then, but the evidence is still consistent with evolution, and not consistent with design. No circularity anywhere.
2. There are different levels of believe: guess, supposition, conjecture, theory, accepted fact. You’ve tried to just brush away the evidence of cichlid fish in the great African lakes, but remember that nowdays we have all sorts of biochemical and genetic methods of measuring the relatedness of organisms. And because the cichlid (fish) flocks of these lakes are of intense scientific interest, they are researched heavily by groups the world over. If you want to discount their evidence as ‘just supposition’, then you need to build a stronger case than just dismissing it out of hand.
3. You claim that ‘evolution opposes the use of logic.’ But I think that your example of the swallows and their nest building does not demonstrate logic. Nobody is suggesting that swallows would have to wait around for millions of years for their nest building skills to develop. Evolution describes how new species emerge (often radiate out) from ancestor species. And characteristics are inherited from ancestor species, with some modification. So swallows will inherit nest building skills, and other characteristics such as feathers and the ability to fly, from their ancestor species. For you to mis-charaterise evolution as if modern species would have to ‘wait around’ for capabilities such as nest-building to evolve is what, in the logic of argumentation, is called a ‘straw man argument’. I challenge you to find any reputable scientist describing evolution in a way that would be compatible with modern species ‘waiting around’ for capabilities to evolve. BTW: There’s research on the evolution of passerine nest building here: https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/condor/v099n02/p0253-p0270.pdf
4. Do you have a reference to these ‘two evolutionary biologists’? I can only guess that you mean Nick Lane and William Martin. But they never said that bacteria don’t have the energy to evolve. Could you please be more specific.
5. Your point that I was responding to was your claim (I appear to have guessed what you meant correctly) that the giraffe disproved evolution because it couldn’t have evolved. In order to counter this argument, all I need to do is show that it there is a plausible pathway by which the giraffe could have evolved. Which in this case is the long neck and the blood system that supports it evolving simultaneously. That doesn’t prove that the giraffe evolved in that fashion (though I can’t think of any other plausible theories), but is entirely sufficient to counter your claim that the giraffe disproves evolution. If it’s possible that the giraffe’s neck and blood system evolved, then it can’t be used as an example to disprove evolution.
6. The Italian with the beneficial mutation do remain people. But your claim was that there are no beneficial mutations. I gave you an example of a beneficial mutation. I never claimed that this makes this group of Italians not people any more, and the context of the discussion does not require this.
7. Abiogenesis isn’t evolution. Evolution is change in the inheritable characteristics of a population. Abiogenesis is the emergence of life from non-life. I’m not saying that they have nothing to do with each other. The output of abiogenesis (the first living things) is the input to evolution (which needs existing living things before the process can start). So, they are related in that way. How is this straightforward description of the relationship between these two, and my straightforward and I believe correct characterisation of the current level of advancement of research into abiogenesis ‘ducking and diving’?
If you ask why people haven’t created life from non-life in a lab somewhere? Well, we’re getting there. E.g. see the work of Vitor Pinheiro of the U.K.’s Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology. They created ‘XNA’ a synthetic alternative to DNA in the lab. And it can reproduce and evolve. This is at the level of the simplest viruses, and it’s a valid argument what we should call ‘live’ and what we shouldn’t Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute has created a cell that has entirely synthetic DNA, but still behaves exactly like the natural original. It’s only 45 years or so since we even learned to sequence DNA. It’s no surprise that we can’t do all that much in creating life in a lab ourselves, but clearly very quick progress is being made towards this aim. Barring accidents etc. both of us should live to see more advanced life created from scratch in a laboratory.
8. The bus crew schedules definitely do evolve. The ‘genetic material’ information in the population changes over time, and slowly evolves towards some sort of maximum fitness. (not necessarily a global maximum). This is evolution, and the population of schedules is evolving. They aren’t told how to do it by information or intellect from outside. The person who writes the program does not need to know how to do bus crew scheduling themselves, just how to give some simple environmental feedback. Knowing that employers prefer to pay fewer drives and hence schedules with fewer drivers are better is a tiny piece of information, and not even a tiny fraction of the knowledge, strategies, techniques that a human bus crew scheduler needs to create an efficient schedule. Genetic computing can produce these efficient schedules by evolving them. Information is being created from random variation guided by simple and crude environmental feedback. There are many examples in genetic computing where information has been created by evolution where the programmer themselves did not have the ability to create that information directly. Where is this information coming from? Evolution.
1. Nonsense. Plainly mammals need a more efficient heart than reptiles.
2 Really?
3 There is no precursor for the family of birds that use mud to build nests. The link you give does not begin to explain how they might do it, it just assumes evolution to prove itself.
4 https://www.christianvoice.org.uk/index.php/2014jan21life/
5 What you contend is not even plausible.
6 Beneficial mutation leading to something new? Nil.
7 Well, if evolution is merely ‘change in the inheritable characteristics of a population’ then no species ever ‘evolved’ from another. Cool.
8 Don’t be stupid.
As I have often said: what when I die the aethists were right and I was wrong about my Christian beliefs. I still will have led a fulfilled life and was a fool to have believed in a “bigoted, racist and misogynistic belief system” before I enter oblivion.
Hovever if I am right and Christianity is in fact true, where will the atheists be? Everyone must die then what? I suppose for the atheist it is merely a swithing off / a ceasing to be. But if Christianity is the truth and there is a God what then?
Richard Dawkins endorses intel ligent design search http://www.c4id.org.uk. In his Channel 4 series a few years back he said he could not prove evolution. Last year in radio interview he said he could not rule out life on earth being designed by higher intelligence somewhere else in the Universe .But said he did rule out design by God..
Returning briefly to the World Humanist Congress in Oxford, it is quite an impressive line-up. These people can’t all be ignorant and malicious, can they ?
Or can they?
No, not unless you redefine malice and ignorance, which of course Stephen will probably try and do. That’s the way his mind works. (I’ll wait and see if he posts this, he loves censorship also)
See comment to Rox below.
Well, if you read Zoe Williams regularly in the Guardian, she doesn’t seem to be ignorant or malicious. Nor does Philip Pullman, and the Whitbread Book of the Year committee didn’t see him that way either. Moreover a film company was prepared to put its money into making a family film out of one of Pullman’s related books. In fact, Pullman seems to have a very good knowledge of Paradise Lost, which he imparts to a much wider audience than those few who have actually read it. He also wrote The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which promoted discussion and was praised by the then Archbishop of Canterbury.
They do all they can to subvert the Christian faith, upon which this nation with our custom and laws is founded for a start.
I think the difference is this. A Christian may be found who would concede that some of what some of them have done has been good, and has been done for the right reasons. I challenge you to find any similar approving statement about a Christian or the Christian faith from any of these humanists, or from any secularist contributor to these columns.
I don’t know if Jesus Christ himself counts as a Christian, but his teachings and actions probably count as Christianity.
According to Rowan Williams when Archbishop of Canterbury, Philip Pullman has the greatest respect for Jesus as “a voice of genuine spiritual authority. Because that is what Pullman’s Jesus undoubtedly is. Time and again, when Pullman offers his version of a familiar biblical saying or narrative, he achieves a pitch-perfect rendering in modern idiom, carrying something of the shock and compelling attraction of the original gospel text. Just one example. When he relates the story of Jesus healing a demon-possessed man in the synagogue, his Jesus responds to the shouts of the disturbed man with, “You can be quiet now. He’s gone away” – subtly paraphrasing the “Be silent and come out of him” in the gospel. This eloquently suggests the sort of sense a modern reader might make of the story, without reducing the manifest authority of the words of Jesus. More radically, he manages to retell the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in a way that turns the biblical text completely upside down, yet creates an echo of other gospel parables in its fundamental vision – reversing moral expectations in the context of the Kingdom of God.”
Also, Pullman clearly approves of John Milton very much.
Considering how many Christians there have been in the past, there would be no difficulty whatsoever in finding humanists who routinely praise some of them, for example William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King, Archbishop Tutu, possibly Henry VIII, Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Jonathan Swift, honestly, the list is endless. However, I am not in a position to specify that Professor Ted Cantle has ever made an approving statement about Martin Luther King, Gerry Adams or Ian Paisley, for example.
But how about this one ?
“ Broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell has said her former opponent Mary Whitehouse was right to fear the sexual liberation of the 1960s.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10202116
Mary Whitehouse was an evangelical Christian much reviled by liberal freethinkers. That example will do very nicely.
There is no need to retell the words of Jesus. As for adding to them, Scripture casts that as sin.
I have debated with Pullman, and he is a really quite unpleasant man, devoid of empathy for those with whom he disagrees.
Did Joan Bakewell say that at the time? No, she did not. She has since been ‘mugged by reality.’ And Mary Whitehouse died almost 13 years ago.
You did say “who would concede that some of what some of them have done has been good”, and that is exactly what Joan Bakewell did. “Concede” means “Finally admit that something is true” (Concise Oxford Dictionary). You did not say that the challenge was to find a humanist enthusing immediately and unreservedly about the actions of a living Christian, but no doubt this could be done. Today Tutu has called on world leaders not to forget the suffering in South Sudan while trying to relieve the suffering caused by other religious conflicts elsewhere in the world. I don’t doubt that many of those at the Congress would praise him for that, do you ?
http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/67b1330044f070c5b0f0b1a5ad025b24/Tutu-calls-for-an-end-to-South-Sudan-crisis
I am sorry to hear that in debate Philip Pullman is a really quite unpleasant man, devoid of empathy for those with whom he disagrees. Even so, that doesn’t mean he can’t count as a living humanist who makes approving statements about living Christians, about Rowan Williams perhaps, if not about yourself. You are moving the goalposts a little.
Countless Sunday School teachers, as well as archbishops and other clergy, would disagree with you that the retelling of the words of Jesus is not necessary !
Just to emphasise the point, Rowan Williams and Desmond Tutu are both prominent but retired Anglican archbishops (and Christians) who are still alive at the time of writing.
Pullman writes that, although he does not believe in God, the Anglican tradition has shaped his view of the world. Some of his formative experiences came from reading the King James Bible and being taught the evening prayer by his grandfather:
“He was a clergyman and it’s his voice I hear when I remember the beautiful prayers from matins or evensong or the Communion service. We can’t abandon these early memories, by which I mean both that it’s impossible and that it would be wrong.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/cultural-capital/2011/06/church-experiences
Does it make any great difference if his grandfather happens to be alive or dead ?
The ‘arguments’ presented for molecules to man evolution above are a tragedy. One example- variation in gene for cholesterol management system. Can you not see how trivial this regulator switch flick is compared to producing the entire system from scratch by mutations? The occasional and rare functional improvement in a gene-massively outnumbered by harmful mutations-does not explain how the gene and its specifically complex support systems arrived.
http://www.questiondarwin.com