This postulate flies in the face of 150 years of …

Comment on Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith by Sean Pitman.

This postulate flies in the face of 150 years of study of biology and Seans admission and oft repeated mantra that natural selection can effect purposeful appearing change albeit at very very very low levels of complexity.

Since when is a mutation between 3-letter words “purposeful appearing change”? It’s no such thing.

You argue that because AstroTurf and granite cubes are not self-replicating that this is why they are “blindingly obvious artefacts of intelligent design”? Is self-replication the key factor here? – that no self-replicating phenomenon could be reasonably identified as a true artefact?

If this is true, why then do you continually avoid responding to my illustration of a hypothetical situation in which you discovered a DNA sequence within a bacterial or viral genome with a Morse Code pattern that spelled out, “Hello Dr. Cameron. Just seeing if you’re paying attention. – God.”

Such a sequence is “self-replicating”, yet it would still be recognized as a “blindingly obvious artefact” of intelligent design – even by a 10 year old. Sure, one could reasonably argue that God was probably not the most likely culprit. However, one could not reasonably argue that some as yet undiscovered mindless natural mechanism did the job.

The same could be said for robots (or computer code), programmed by humans, to self-replicate. Would a self-replicating robot, built of metal, plastic, silicone, etc., somehow be unrecognizable as a true artefact of intelligent design? – simply because the robot is capable of self-replication? Really? What is so magical about self-replication that it removes all self-replicating systems from being detectable as true artefacts of “creative intelligence”?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
What is interesting is that the older the creation/Flood stories (which are practically universal in cultures around the world), the closer they match the Biblical account. In other worlds, the evidence at hand strongly favors that the Biblical account in the original account from which all other accounts are derived. Also, the details of the Biblical account described in Genesis are supported by archaeological evidence that confirms various details long believed to be in question or even mythical – such as the existence of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities that were catastrophically destroyed (mentioned in the same order in the Ebla Tablets).

In any case, you’re not mentioning anything new here. These attempts to challenge Biblical credibility have been around for a long time. However, the Bible keeps trumping all efforts to undermine its credibility. It has shown itself to be the most reliable historical text that we have. No other historical text or resource comes remotely close.

For a further discussion along these lines, to include a discussion of the origin of the 7-day weekly cycle in history, see: http://ssnet.org/blog/origin-of-sabbath-7-day-week/


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
Thank you for your clarification Bob. I certainly agree.


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith

Thanks Bob for your candour in recoznizing the likelihood of redaction in the Bible. What got left out, amended, embellished?

As already noted, the names of places were likely updated over time, but not the historical narrative – information which was lost outside of the Scriptural accounts. In fact, this is one of the best evidences that the authors cited by Scripture really did write these accounts in their own day.


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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!


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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…


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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.