In his book The God Delusion, prominent atheist Richard Dawkins wrote, "As J. B. S. Haldane said when asked what evidence might contradict evolution, 'Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.'" But how does Haldane's rather sarcastic and flippant remark translate into English? Well, consider that the Precambrian describes the geologic period of time between the origin of life and the Cambrian explosion. According to our experts in paleontology, this particular period of time during the Earth's development was dominated by single-celled organisms that descended via asexual reproduction from LUCA, an acronym referring to our Last Universal Common Ancestor, formed by a secular miracle of chemical reaction. So a fossil showing the presence of a more complex and modern product of sexual reproduction, such as a rabbit or a human, shouldn't be found in rocks formed long before that particular creature could have come into existence, according to these "rules" of evolution. When Darwin famously suggested that "monkeys make men", he could have claimed that protozoa make men, but his idea presented in The Origin of Species would have been harder to defend using comparative anatomy as the only weapon in Darwin's arsenal of evidence to argue in favor of common descent rather than common design. The idea that every living organism is related through common descent is the very heart and soul of Darwin's theory -- the belief that simple organisms can gradually evolve to become more complex, given the vagaries of time, through variety created by descent with modification via … [Read more...]
Face Palm Sunday
Yesterday was Palm Sunday. The face palm moment came early. Before church, I visited a place on Facebook called The Battlefield. The group consists of theists and atheists who are interested in (more or less) cordial debate. I felt compelled to respond after one of my atheist friends asserted if Sir Isaac Newton were alive today, he would reject Young Earth Creationism and more than likely be an atheist, according to these statistics. Several replies came to mind. Naturally, I responded with all of them. First of all, such speculation is both silly and irrelevant. Newton has been dead almost 300 years. It's impossible to say what he would be like today. And it seems rather foolish to assume modern science would be anywhere close to where it is today if Newton hadn't lived and accomplished what he did, when he did. The issue of Young Earth Creationism is semantic, and especially for this argument. It can help divide Christians from each other, but does not separate theists from atheists, the more important point of contention in that forum. Secondly, historically speaking, the polar opposite has been true in regard to the relationship between super-intellect and spiritual beliefs. Polymaths like Newton, da Vinci, and Emmanuel Swedenborg were if anything uber-religious people, and most certainly not atheists. Modern polymath Michael Guillen has three PhDs, and he's a Christian. The appeal to modern authority falls flat because Newton was the authority of his time. If he were alive today, it would be reasonable to assume that Newton would still be an authority … [Read more...]
The creationism versus evolution debate
[Hat tip to my good friend Hiro for sending me the link to the Beliefnet article that inspired me to write this post.] Dr. Steve McSwain looks like a nice guy with a friendly smile, if the picture I procured from his website serves as any indication. Professor of communications at the University of Kentucky, Dr. McSwain is promoted as a former Baptist preacher, a spiritual teacher and motivational speaker with "respect [for] all spiritual traditions" at his website. That courtesy has apparently not been extended to certain members of his own religion, in particular Ken Hamm and those Christians who advocate Young Earth Creationism, often referred to as YEC. To be fair, I'm not particularly keen on Mr. Hamm's apparent position that YEC beliefs are mandatory to be considered a "true" Christian. But Dr. McSwain doesn't even pretend to hide his scorn and disdain for these creationists. He writes of "religious quackery" taught in Sunday School by "misinformed Christian zealots" blithering about like "a bunch of intellectually-bankrupt nitwits." Dr. McSwain is so embarrassed by the very idea of creationism that he wrote, That there are still Christians promoting Creationism is actually more unbelievable than the illogical nonsense in Creationism they wish everyone would just believe. I am reminded of the famous plea from Rodney King who asked, "Why can't we all just get along?" In the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention before going any further that I believe a form of supernatural intelligence called God is directly responsible for my … [Read more...]
