Diogenes Dog The popular divide of theism (God as being) and not-theism (God as beingness) is not well understood by either side of the argument.  Theist must  have a being, even in the face of the contradictions and limitations of such a concept.  Theist tend to the extreme of literalism and absolutist notions of a dominionist being that demands "worship".  The opposite of that is that there is a quality or spirit, if you will, of something that is all good in all parts of the infinite cosmos that is intelligent, intentional, and tends to expressions of material abundance for expressions, like human, to exist and to likewise express intelligence and intention.   Our America is a land locked national expression that saw it greatest triumphs in it early years of freedom from the tyranny of a dominionist and royalist expression of the European experience.  In an isolated (the greater part) society such as ours, some really peculiar ideation is able to take root and become a national delusion.  The resurgence of the Old Testament chosen people motif with a glittery mythology of a Roman overlay has now organized its followers in a great delusional expression of desperation that dominates the popular media because it sells.  America has come to organize brilliant profit centers around illness, social dysfunction and institutional piety.  At one time we were world feeders, freedom defenders, brilliant craftsmen and mechanics, entrepreneurs and industrialist.  We have been lead into empire and militarism in the name of theism's vengeful God.  If our isolation could be broken by opportunities of wide spread travel opportunities by those who find comfort in isolation and ignorance, then something might just evolve for the better.   Historically that has come as the result of war.  History repeats itself. 

Claudia Though of course it's the faithful themselves who usually interpret their own text, I personally find the whole explanation that six days are a "metaphor" or that they aren't six DAY days, but some sort of "God days" that last a lot longer, to be a total cop-out. What's to stop me from saying that the three days Jesus was dead aren't actually thirty, but God measures them differently? No, it seems clear to me that the story is about 6 days, 6 real days, with a real Adam, a real Eve, a real snake and a real creation of all living things all at once, no evolution anywhere to be found. Of course you can believe in a god or gods and believe in evolution, many many people already do. What does strike me as more difficult is subscribing to a religion with a creation story (and almost all have one) that flatly contradicts the facts of evolution and still accepting it. But humans are remarkable creatures, and very good at compartmentalizing. I'm guessing that more sophisticated Christians simply decide that the creation story, together with Noah's Ark and the parting of the Red Sea, are fables with, let's say, godly intentions.

Nihat The problem is not just with the theory of evolution. There is a real chance that everything started, well, by chance, not by a deity's putting things in motion.

C Stanley Claudia, I'd suggest you read the Creation section of this to better understand how many Christians view the story: The most salient part is here, after explaining that the OT is written in the Hebrew literary tradition making ample use of symbolism (particularly numerical symbolism) rather than as a strict chronological history text author Scott Hahn goes on to explain: In other words, we have to approach Genesis as an ancient Hebrew narrative that is telling history that's religious, not secular, that is family history, not political-military history like we like to tell; and it's telling this religious family history using many figures and symbols. For instance, why does God create in six days and rest on the seventh? Because he couldn't get the whole thing done in one? I mean if he's God, he could you know just go "presto" and the whole cosmos comes into being. I mean if he meets the job description, God could do that, right? So why did he do in six days and rest the seventh? There are various interpretations and explanations given. The one that impresses me the most is built upon the recognition that the Hebrew word, the verb "to swear a covenant" is literally built upon the Hebrew term "to seven oneself." I remember back in Hebrew class in seminary, the Hebrew professor giving out a vocabulary list and I saw the word, "to swear a covenant" and then there was a comma or "to seven oneself." I raised my hand and said, "Professor Huggenberger, which is it? Is it to swear a covenant or is it to seven oneself?" And he said, "Well look, the verb to swear a covenant is built upon the number seven." The thought occurred to me and I have since found it in many reputable scholars. Then, of course, that explains why God's creation is depicted in seven days, because what is God doing in the act of creating the cosmos? He's swearing a covenant to his world. He's not just master. We're not just slaves. He's not just creator and we're creatures. That's true, but it doesn't go far enough. If he had stopped on the sixth day, we would be creatures, slaves and private property of God. But he went on and blessed the seventh day and took a rest and invited us into that rest because that represents the covenant relationship that he establishes with his creation. Hahn also explains this isn't the only possible interpretation, and that as Catholics we're not required to believe in this interpretation (he expounds on one other one) but I agree with Hahn that this is the most profound because it opens the story of God's covenant with man. It's beautiful and inspiring symbolism, as in the best of literary tradition where the plot is just a way to express a theme which is the greater truth.

C Stanley Oops, here's the link to the whole thing: http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m2/slvhst1.html

PatHMV The problem, Michael, is that there are a great many SCIENTISTS who claim, today, that a belief in evolution and a belief in God are incompatible. As I have suggested to you before, that is responsible, in part, for the backlash by fundamentalists. I have no idea how the number of "fundamentalist" atheistic scientists who maintain that evolution and faith are incompatible compares to the number of "fundamentalist" Christians who  maintain the same thing, but I can assure you that both sides exist, and both are equally  worthy of criticism.

Claudia Ahhh, I knew I shouldn't make that sort of statement when I'm running low on time. My point C. Stanley is that there seems to be an awful lot of picking and choosing as to what constitutes a symbol and what is a literal real story. And from my admittedly cynical standpoint, it seems that stories that, for thousands of years, have been taught as both literally true and with symbolic depth, suddenly become entirely symbolic, or metaphors or allegories, when the weight of historic or scientific evidence becomes to heavy to ignore. Quite frankly I can't believe it's coincidence that taking the more purely symbolic interpretation of the Christian creation myth was an enlightenment that has happened at the same time as education about evolution has become widespread. Again, I do believe that it's perfectly possible to be religious and believe in Evolution (it's the same as being Christian and not believing the earth to be six thousand years old), the proof is in the millions who do (though the proportion is radically lower in actual biologists), but I do see where there could be a difficulty. Suddenly deciding that one of the most important stories in the Bible  isn't actually true, as such, but an allegory, or a beautiful symbolic story, can be a hard thing for many people to swallow, which is why, given the emotional necessity of religion for many people, when they think they have to choose, they reject science. Pat we've had this debate before, but I'll simply mention it again. Though I know that there are scientists out there who give the impression that you have to choose one or the other (actually there are only two that I know of, Hitchens and Dawkins, and Dawkins when pressed will admit that a choice isn't actually necessary) I'm firmly convinced that they are VASTLY outnumbered by fundamentalist Christians (in the US) who give their faithful that choice. heh, Captcha: "brilliant sciences" I'm off for a drink!

C Stanley Claudia, first, even if the Church were rethinking her interpretation, how is that different than science itself forming new theories as evidence disproves the old ones? And even more to the point, you presume that the Catholic theologians once thought of the creation story as a literal history and then had to backtrack when the science began to contradict it. That's simply not the case, though  St. Augustine long ago predicted the conflicts: "Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances,... and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture.We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, lest the unbeliever see only ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn."

PatHMV The basic Catholic doctrine (and I won't be nearly as eloquent here as the Pope and his folks are) is that the Bible was given to us to teach us about spiritual issues, not physical phenomenon. Its purpose is to guide our spiritual life, not explain the workings of the physical world. Thus, if science determines something to be a fact (such as the earth revolving around the sun rather than vice versa), then it is incumbent upon us to take that opportunity to reexamine our understanding of the Bible. The Bible is inerrant, but our understanding of it is not. Where reality (i.e., science) comes into conflict with the text of the Bible, we must reexamine our previous understanding of the Bible to understand what we got wrong; it must be reinterpreted in light of the new facts. This is why the Church, particularly Pope Benedict, emphasizes the importance to use reason in conjunction with our faith.

C Stanley Well said, Pat (what it lacks in eloquence it makes up for in clarity.) :-)

marc Evolution is logical, observable, essentially undeniable.  Fine.  But it's creation that matters, not genetic drift. For many years I was convinced that Nihat's statement about life starting by chance was correct, that even the most minor change in the primordial ooze could have denied life the chance to grow here or have caused Claudia to have three heads and tentacles or me be a liberal, for Pete's sake. All of science rests on observation of what exists in order to describe that existence and its origin.  It does not deal with creation, cannot see past the singularity of the Big Bang, another tenuous if logical theory, to where all of this came from. With respect to Claudia, the question of whether the biblical day was 24 hours or 24 millenia is a legalistic red herring.  Irrelevant, just as the mechanics of evolution are irrelevant. Where did the universe come from?  That's the question.  When truly I started to think about the answer, my atheism began to die...

JudasPriest Good explanation Pat, even I'd have fallen for it. Unfortunately, a lot of our understanding about the physical world has been blinded by Biblical interpretations in history. You may be attributing a very advanced kind of mutual understanding that has not yet taken place in the vast majority of  church-goers, mosque worshippers, synagog attenders. Open minded atheists are ready to respect the honesty of your explanation, however, I am yet to see a convincing number of open-minded believers towards calibration of their understanding of biblical teachings as science modifies our understanding of physical world realities.

PatHMV Judas, you may have noticed that I spoke specifically of the Catholic Church, not any other denomination.

JudasPriest Pat,  Are you saying that the majority members to Catholic Church are ready with re-interpretations of Bible in the light of new scientific facts? 

PatHMV I'm just describing fundamental Catholic doctrine, Judas. I have no idea what a "majority" of members of the Catholic Church are or not ready to do, but I feel very safe that they will all defer to the Pope on official doctrine, even if they don't always practice that official doctrine.  It's late, but I'll try to give you some links tomorrow. The fundamentals of the doctrine are long established, dating back to the years when the latest scientific controversy was whether the earth revolves around the sun or the other way around. As with all things, the Church reacts to new scientific discoveries that have Biblical implications with steady deliberation. It may require a decade or three to be certain that the science is correct and that the Church has reached a better, clearer interpretation of Scripture in the wake of the scientific discoveries. The Church does nothing quickly.

redfish Pat, This isn't just about scientists arguing atheism , which they are doing, but they're also asserting metaphysical doctrine when they argue evolutionary theory, because it supports certain ideological goals. I made a post about this on stubbornfacts. Gould was adamant for instance that there could be no interpretation of evolution in which there was a judgment of a less complex or more complex species, and adamant there could be no interpretation of evolution in which it was not random. This is meant to assert a materialistic interpretation of the world, where humanity's existence is happenstance, and its what some of the reaction from religious people is about. Some people who defend some of the arguments of ID also do it honestly from an intellectual perspective, and don't have ulterior religious agendas. As someone who believes in evolutionary theory, I also believe the doctrine of irreducible complexity is meaningful as an explanation of why we haven't been able to recreate life in a laboratory; because evolution was a holistic, interconnected process that can't be reproduced artificially. I give a lot of value to Teilhard de Chardin's interpretation of evolution as being ordered, rather than random. However, scientists have not been very tolerant of views like that either. Because he was a threat to their beliefs, Gould and others tried to connect Chardin with racism. Part of the reason people like Gould felt it was so important to say that there was no progress or order in evolution is because it lined up with their view that the belief that man was special or privileged led to tragedies like the Holocaust. Despite people being so shocked and outraged that Ben Stein linked the Holocaust to Charles Darwin, its important noting that academics and scientists have for decades linked the Holocaust to traditional Western beliefs about universal truth and morality and rationality, have seen Christianity as a culprit in this, have tried to implicate the Pope as someone who abetted Nazis, and have tried to use evolutionary theory to undermine Christian ideas of morality. If you go to Art departments in universities they still teach representational art is always connected to fascism. Fascism is continued to be seen as an outgrowth of traditional Western thought, thus conservative, instead of a modern movement, thus liberal. Even though people are right to criticize Ben Stein's film, his reviewers almost prove his point. One reviewer on MSNBC equated his film to a "form of Holocaust denial". Another called it "propaganda disguised as a genuine argument", not even considering whether Ben Stein really believes what he says, and why he believes it. People are more interested in moralizing about this, because equal to the paranoia of some religious people about gays, is the paranoia that that ID proponents are going to turn schools into theological seminaries and establish a theocracy. A lot of people in the US believe God and evolution are compatible also. But however widespread this belief in Europe is, I can't say that they really find it meaningful, since modern Europe is pretty atheistic and areligious.

redfish PatHMV  Its worth noting that Galileo did not get in trouble for his scientific views, but for theological statements he made and wouldn't recant. The Pope asked Galileo to concede that even if the Earth did revolve around the sun physically, in some theological sense, Earth could still be considered the center of the universe. Galileo refused, and then continued to mock the Church's position in publications, and thats when he was brought up on trial.

redfish Claudia, The view that the Bible is allegory was more commonly held by Christian theologans than most people expect. An important difference to theologans though, was  that an allegory isn't the same thing as a metaphor.  A metaphor is purely a literary interpretation, while in art, the representation in an allegory intrinsically is able to convey the truth of the subject, because it has a direct relation to truth. Its why Christians don't believe God has a gender but still think there's truth in referring to him as a 'father'. God as a 'father' is more than simply a metaphor, its a truth, yet its not strictly literal. Christians understand any representations of God as a person with willful actions are also anthropomorphisms, but they also represent truth.

Claudia

Where did the universe come from? 

That’s the question.  When truly I started to think about the answer, my atheism began to die…

Though I suppose this is unnecesary in the rather more educated company we keep here, but I feel the need to remind folks that evolution deals only with the development of life from simpler forms of previous life. It has absolutely zero to say about the origin of the Universe, and doesn't even deal with the origin of life itself (abiogenesis). Evolution, by definition, requires life to exist before the mechanism starts working. The origin of life is a much murkier field in science than the evolution of life, and the best we've got are some interesting hypothesis.

As for atheism dying in the face of science being unable to answer (for the moment) the origin of the Universe, to each their own, I suppose. It's true, science doesn't have that answer yet, and I don't know if we ever will. The difference we have I think Marc, is that I'm comfortable with "we just don't know". I don't feel the need to fill a scientific void with a supernatural being. 300 years ago, you could as easily justify not being an atheist because science was utterly unable to explain the diversity of life on the planet, or 500 years ago because science had no answer to the question of how a rock the size of the MOON could float (!!). Science does not have all the answers, I suspect it never will. The very nature of science is to keep searching, keep looking, keep correcting assumptions and coming up with a clear picture. I understand why it's lack of a clear shape, it's way of forever changing what "reality" means can make people uncomfortable. Personally I love it, but I would. redfish, the thing I have about allegorical, or symbolic Bible stories is the separation between Bible scholars and regular people. It seems to me that when you sit down with a sophisticated theist, and much more so a scholar, they will say that of course the Genesis story is not meant to be taken literally, and protest that it's unfair to judge Christianity based on such a silly assumption. However I see quite a disconnect with the common religious folk. It seems that the religious scholars stand up to the more unforgiving scrutiny of the religion, but quietly teach regular folks the stories without mentioning that they aren't actually real. 50% believe in the creation myth. To me that says that religious leaders are NOT teaching their faithful to take those stories in the appropriate fashion.

 

redfish Claudia, Honestly, one of the points of allegory is moral instruction, so I'm sure many Christian pastors would have believed that when a young child learns the Bible its fine for them to understand it as literal, as they have plenty of room for spiritual development. I'm sure many have also believed the same about common religious folk, who didn't 'need' to be more sophisticated. But I think if you look at it historically, Christians today are more invested in a literalist view than they ever have been that I know of. I think this is because there has been a void by an intellectual climate that has rejected Christianity. Artists, poets, and philosophers, used to argue for and defend Christianity, and when these people abandoned it, all that you have left is people who defend it in less sophisticated ways. I think its also sort of the same situation with priest sex abuse scandals. When Western culture aligned with Christianity, I don't think you would have found the Church as a refuge for pedophiles, I think it happens today because our culture is so forceful in pushing sex that someone who chooses to be in the Church probably is really conflicted. I disagree with interpretations that celibacy causes people to psychologically implode and molest boys. To many people, the point of God, is to represent the infinite and unknowable, and is an affirmation that somehow there is an order behind the world that we can't perceive because of our limitations. That no matter what science discovers, that truth about the world remains. The criticism of science by some religious people happens because they think science is sometimes arrogant in its view of the world. For example, when someone warns that scientists shouldn't "play God", its a warning about man's limitations. I'm not a religious person, but modern science has been so hung up on empiricism that scientists have sought to attack the idea that truth can be understood in any a priori way, so not only has religion been made an enemy of science, but so has philosophy.  I think scientists in different fields have come to a lot of logically inconsistent interpretations of evidence to push different agendas. I also think critiques by ID are also good for science, because they'll help us understand what we're talking about more. If I were a religious person, I would also not believe the existence of God has no relation to how life came about on Earth. Because then you're saying God created the world, but the way life appeared was completely incidental to that. There is a point in arguing, even not as a religious person, that life isn't some incidental feature of the world that may as well not have happened.

Claudia

I’m not a religious person, but modern science has been so hung up on empiricism that scientists have sought to attack the idea that truth can be understood in any a priori way, so not only has religion been made an enemy of science, but so has philosophy.

Certainly I think it's important to note that sciences cannot give us meaning or comfort. I personally find offensive the accusation (not by you of course, but quite present in society, especially American) that scientists generally lack a sense of wonder, of anything greater than themselves, that they don't want to hear about meaning or purpose. This stems, IMO, from a generalized belief that all those feelings stem from god and if you don't believe in god you can't really feel them. Since science does not fit god into it's equations (how could it?) and scientists are the most atheistic professionals, then they are portrayed as being cold, hostile to poetic beauty, to meaning, to wonder and fantasy. This is pure bigotry and totally divorced from the reality that a majority of scientists are so precisely out of wonder for the world around us and in many cases out of a wish to make the world better for us all.

I also think critiques by ID are also good for science, because they’ll help us understand what we’re talking about more.

Sorry but NO. ID is a fraud, and a harmful one at that. I agree that those of us in science MUST do more to communicate with non-scientists and to encourage scientific literacy, and part of the reason the snake-oil known as ID has taken such fertile root is because we have failed to teach people how to differentiate between science and scams. ID pretends to use the tools of science, but even the most cursory review of their "scientific" arguments is enough to make your eyes bleed. The fact that so many people distrust science as a whole because these people teach them that we scientists are conspiring to kill their god, and that furthermore science "proves" the creation story to be true is a disgrace, a crime committed on the minds of children. The only good thing ID has done is wake us up to just how vulnerable people are to being duped by stupid ideas. We foolishly thought that the laughable idiocy of ID claims would make it fall on it's own face, and we were wrong.

C Stanley Claudia, I don't think that redfish meant that ID should be taken seriously as a scientific theory, but rather as you've pointed out, the rebuttal to it can help scientists educate people about what is required to meet the threshhold of the scientific method. Use it as a teachable moment, in essence, instead of calling people idiots or scam artists.   I personally find offensive the accusation (not by you of course, but quite present in society, especially American) that scientists generally lack a sense of wonder, of anything greater than themselves, that they don’t want to hear about meaning or purpose. This stems, IMO, from a generalized belief that all those feelings stem from god and if you don’t believe in god you can’t really feel them. I think you infer this too much; I've rarely known anyone to express that opinion about atheists. Instead, I think what you pick up on is simply that from our perspective, it's hard to imagine how one could view the wonder of the universe and the awe that it inspires in us, without attribituting those things to a Creator. For us, there's an automatic sense that none of this could have been accidental or random or spontaneous- it couldn't have come from nothingness. And like the thought experiment of 1,000,000 monkeys in a room full of typewriters and never producing the works of Shakespeare, it's impossible for us to believe that the combination of events which led to the present state came about without a designer. Similarly, I suppose when you think about our beliefs you likely find it hard to imagine why we automatically make the connection between the feeling of awe and the existence of a Being who created the things that move us. This is nothing to be offended at, it's only our natural inability to see things from the same perspective. Obviously you think we draw the wrong conclusion, and we think that you do- if that weren't the case, then we wouldn't hold disparate views to begin with. I understand why some atheist/scientists get annoyed when Christians assume that all atheist/scientists have disdain for the religious viewpoint, but there are prominent authors like Dawkins who push that viewpoint so I think it's rather understandable that Christians feel defensive. Are there similar writings by Christians that make you feel as you do? If it's only because of the fact that the majority of Americans don't accept atheism (based on, for example, the polling data that they wouldn't vote for an atheist for president) then to some extent I feel you are reading too much into that. Voting for president often involves choosing someone who sees the world in a similar way to the way you see it; it's not bigotry necessarily that would prevent voting for an atheist, it's just an expression of the majority viewpoint. You've mentioned, for example, that most scientists are atheists. Do you think it likely that an organization of scientists would vote as it's leader a person who is outspokenly Christian? And if not, does this mean that they are bigoted against Christians or just that they wouldn't consider someone like that to be representative of the group?

C Stanley Pat,  Are you saying that the majority members to Catholic Church are ready with re-interpretations of Bible in the light of new scientific facts?  I know this was asked of and answered by Pat, but I just wanted to weigh in. Like Pat, I can't speak with any scientific accuracy on what all Catholics believe, but I can say that as a lifelong Catholic who has associated with many, many other Catholics from different regions of the country, I have never encountered anyone who would seem to have a problem with that. Most Catholics readily accept that evolution and our understanding of the Genesis creation story are completely compatible, and I've never heard any concern whatsoever expressed about the general concept of reconsidering our understanding of Scripture in light of new scientific discovery. If you have a different impression, I think it's quite likely that you are conflating the views of fundamentalists with Catholics, and on this we tend to be quite different.

Jay_C I agree with Pat and the Pope on this one Judas.  I don't know about the majority members to Catholic Church, but I for one I am Catholic, and  agree.  Add another "tick" in the "I'm catholic and am open to re-interpretations of Bible in the light of new scientific facts" column..

Jay_C I just realized / I have to chuckle.."Pat and the Pope" sounds like an SNL skit.. :)

JudasPriest Jay_C, Pat, C Stanley, good to read what you believe but certainly it needs some convincing as it is hard to believe what many others that belong to your denomination, i.e., Catholic Cristians would agree with you (I apologize if I depicted anyone wrongly in this category) Why it is hard to believe that, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Victims_of_the_Inquisition Ok. You could say it was in the past and Catholic belief is evolving with time. No objection. One final note is that "Evolution" is a fact and anyone denying that regardless of his/her faith, is not-smart to politely put.

PatHMV Judas, if you want to engage in serious debate, you might want to pick something more recent than the Spanish Inquisition. I've tried to politely explain to you what Catholic doctrine is. I'm not inclined to bother with further discussion if all you are interested in is attack, rather than to actually learn something.

redfish C Stanley, Claudia, No I think there is meaning to ID's critique to evolution. I don't think people realize that all ID says in its purest form is that evolution happen by  a purely random process, a view scientists try to assert but have no basis to. ID is perfectly compatible with evolution, and it doesn't even specify God. I think most people who propose ID are thinking about God, and do I think the whole bit of 'intelligent designer' is overreaching as its taking a leap. But people rarely even consider the argument of ID or irreducable complexity and an intellectual level, and just assume instead of proponents being earnest about the arguments, its just a covert scheme. So they try to attack it like its a scheme instead of looking to see if people have a point. I do think it has consequences on how we should think of evolutionary theory. I'm going to mention again the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest and paleontologist who believed evolution was compatible with religion. He argued that evolution was an ordered process of building complexity largely directed by the demands of consciousness. By consciousness he meant anything between the phenotype, the individual psyche, a social culture, and a Gaia-like interconnection of ecosystems, and synchronicities involved in co-evolution. That is, the emergent properties of life, and this naturally drives life to form more complex and more stable systems. If evolution is directed by emergent properties and a global consciousness, doesn't that fit the bill for what ID theorists are looking for in 'intelligent design'? Chardin was attacked by scientists like Gould who even tried to implicate him in a hoax and connect him with racists. Gould insisted talking about evolution as ordered, or judging complexity of systems was nonsense and unscientific. However, a lot of what he talked about has proven to have merit, scientists are finding more and more that symbiosis has played a heavy role in evolution, and the psychology of social groups has also had a heavy impact, as sexual selection is more important than natural selection. My point is that discussions of evolution on philosophical and logical grounds have merit for the science. In fact, scientists when they say that evolution is random and there is no progress, they're asserting metaphysical statements, not scientific statements. But because these form a lot of the basis for assumptions for the science, critiquing the metaphysical statements can lead to new approaches in science. Claudia, its also not about poetry or meaning. Its about saying you can make more or less accurate statements about the world based on theory instead of an empirical process, by creating more or less logically consistent models and explanations. I already explained how I think 'irreducable complexity' has meaning for evolutionary theory. Its an explanation why we can't recreate life in a lab, because the processes of evolution, which are irreducable, can't be replicated on a smaller scale than they actually happened. Thats perfectly compatible with evolution, the way I put it, but its also a way of understanding evolution in a new and better way, imo.

redfish second sentence, 'evolution couldn't have happened' I meant

JudasPriest Pat, You can explain the doctrine per your interpretation or by some of the highly regarded religious figures, all I am after is to correctly identify what is the general approach of the majority of believers (say in your case Catholics) towards making adjustments to their faith today. After all, you can not show a case in history or today that an atheist jailing or torturing a believer that says the evolution is nonsense, or we are created from Adam and Eve or Jesus is the son of God. And I think it is pretty presumptive to pretend to say someone to learn from him/her in a debate; I could say the same for you but I'd never say it because my saying it does not prove anything other than being pointless and meaningless but full of total hypocrisy. Straight to the point; I dont like you painting a pinky picture of the realities that has happened exactly the other way around, resulting in jailing, torturing, denigrating disbelievers all along, and still is in effect in the eyes of many of your constituents. Now thats a fact. If I could enlarge the believers outside of Catholics then it probably only gets uglier and I also see you buying my argument for other faiths outside of Catholics. Let me put it this; not an attack at all; I'd be very happy to realize many of the believers, (ok lets limit it to Catholics since you dont want to talk about others much), that agree with your assesment of Catholic doctrine related to evolution and creationism. But I am having hard time buying that argument today.

PatHMV Well, thank you for revealing your true colors. I will henceforth avoid paying any attention to you, as you are clearly convinced you know and understand all and are not actually interested in gathering any better understanding of anybody else.

Claudia redfish, I have answered in the form of a post (lead post) on the subject of ID, as my response comment was becoming ridiculously long.