the power, O God, with which you took our part;

For your temple in Jerusalem

let the kings bring you gifts.

<Alleluia.>

You kingdoms of the earth, sing to God,

chant praise to the Lord

who rides on the heights of the ancient heavens.

Behold, his voice resounds, the voice of power:

“Confess the power of God!”

<Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.

Alleluia.>

Over Israel is his majesty;

his power is in the skies.

Awesome in his sanctuary is God, the God of Israel;

he gives power and strength to his people.

<Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.

<We don't agree.>

You don't agree.

<For starters, I take seriously that passage, and many others from the Bible and realize I need to live up to that which I affirm.>

And we can all slip up from time to time. Then we seek forgiveness.

<Secondly, I will apologize if I ever think I've gone too far.>

But what if someone else thinks you've gone too far? Having your posts peer reviewed doesn't necessarily make them right. I can understand asking someone else's opinion as I have atavistic tendencies of my own, but that doesn't lift the burden of responsibility for what you say from your shoulders.

<Thirdly, I have deleted many more posts than I've left up. I edit them, sometimes let them sit an hour before posting, etc etc etc.>

An excellent practice. I wish more people did that more often.

<Fourthly, I take far more than I dish out. It's not even close.>

Disagree.

<If I will have them do that to me, what is the problem with me doing it to them?>

See my last disagree.

<Fifthly, I have a reviewer who reads everything I post on this board and I have implored them to let me know if I ever go too far and act out of line with the Scriptural injunctions. That person doesn't have the propensity for sarcasm I do and they have cleared everything I've posted.>

Doesn't make you or the reviewer right.

<Sixthly, and this is as blunt as I can be, I think the entire Darwinism viewpoint is worthy of sarcasm and I have no qualms addressing it as such. I think it is so irrational that it should be ridiculed.>

This is bordering on outright hubris - and the same goes for whoever reviewed your post...I assume they share your views. Darwin's theorists may be wrong but they're not irrational, any more than the rest of science is irrational. Any such assertion is simply nonsense as the scientific method ensures its rationality.

Calling science irrational is like labelling the Bible a work of agnosticism. It's whole existence is founded on rationality, for better or worse.

The problem is that you're not using valid reasoning, and this has been pointed out to you any number of times. Hearsay, and selective interpretation of hearsay (the Bible), is not enough to conduct a debate such as you've invited here in your forum.

The best you can hope to achieve in this situation is to agree to disagree, reaffirm your commitment to the Bible, especially your interpretation of it that purportedly refers to the origin of life, the universe and evolution and ...let it go at that.

You complain about science being atheist. Well it has to be, but as you well know, even if most scientists are atheists maybe 10% are not. That makes for <thousands> of scientists who are religious, and believers in God, maybe even the Bible. Why don't you find one and ask him/her how they maintain commitment to both their faith and their profession.

You want to argue against a scientific theory? Then use proper evidence and reasoned, and yes...<rational> argument.

<I can show sarcasm used by those who proclaimed the gospel and consider it a legitimate argumentation tactic.>

Well it ain't. It's an attack on the person, not their argument. Anyway, you've just undermined your whole stance that you're only responding to like attacks. You clearly think it's justified to use it because people who proclaim the gospel do.

<I think I have let any number of posts pass by without comment that I think a reasonable person might find offensive.>

I haven't seen any.

<If I had not pointed that one out, it might as well not have existed.>

Don't understand.

<I feel no need to pat myself on the back for not responding to a sort of slight.>

What slight?

<I did feel the need to address what I find to be an inconsistent charge against me.>

Yes. I dislike bad argument style. If you are going out of your way to provoke an argument, then you should abide by the rules of valid arguments. If you're not willing to do this, then don't start the argument in the first place at it only annoys people. Personally I think some of the responses, far from being OTT, are measured in their annoyance and trying to tell you to fight fair and stop wasting time, energy and good will.

I've known <whatthefat> for about the same length of time I've know you, and it seems to me that what he's been expressing is not sarcasm but annoyance.

<And would it be outlandish for me to think every time someone finds themselves without an answer, they change subjects and address the sarcasm that apparently only comes from my side?>

Yes it is outlandish. As far as I know, I'm the only one that has addressed your sarcasm, and I've addressed all your arguments head on, evading nothing. Look back on our posts and you'll see that any evasions in respect of the substantive matters under discussion have been yours.

<My most charitable understanding would be you feel some old GMAN kinship with me and simply want to correct what you think of as some poor debate sportsmanship.>

Partly true, and I'm beginning to feel more than a little sad that you feel the need to exercise your charitable understanding toward me. I've always been upfront and tried to be "what you see is what you get". We established a good relationship during that exhilarating and taxing GMAN exercise, as you know from the Tribute to you and Dom in particular that's linked in my bio. I know your capacity for good will, cooperation, and hard work, and how you applied your God-given intelligence to assist. We worked side by side in those trenches and pulled off something amazing and good. Of course I've felt well disposed to you, and would have even if we'd lost the game.

If we hadn't struck up a friendship in those days, I wouldn't have gotten to know you and probably wouldn't have even bothered with this sort of discussion. I have no problems with people believing in creationism per se, but it's based totally on faith not on evidence, not even slightly. That's the main difference between your version of creationism and science's version, the Big Bang Theory. They have lots of evidence to point at that is direct and not hearsay, and moreover one the Church is happy with.

<Fair enough, but maybe in that case cut me some slack in pretty measured responses to some pretty provoking charges against me?>

I don't understand it. Here's a syllogism I think accurately represents the various viewpoints here:

A. Any specific theory of how life developed from non-life is observable, testable, and repeatable.

B. We have no observations of life coming from nonlife.

Here's how I see the conclusions:

C. Therefore, any theory based upon life coming from nonlife is not a scientific theory. (OCF)

C. Therefore, give us more time to discover observations of the already affirmed theory. (YouRang)

Even if you exclude criticism of Darwinism by Christians, there has always been plenty (!) of it from mathematicians, physicists, botanists, and other scientists. It is insufficient to answer these critics with "You are ignorant and you don't understand Science."

Your charge that any theory of life coming from non-life is unscientific because it has yet to be observed experimentally is identical to you:

(a) Claiming in 1640 that the theory that the Earth orbits the Sun is unscientific.

(b) Claiming in 1890 that the theory that matter is composed of atoms is unscientific.

Yes, so if it is like past history, it's already eliminated. I knew that, of course. I am understanding you to say if it's future history (not the best choice of words, but I guess it'll do), it's all square. ie, it's never happened before, we've never seen it before, we are trying to create an environment that exists only in the unknowable annals of past history, but close enough for science work (if it wasn't, we'd have to disqualify it since it is, after all, past history and those conditions really can't even be known to observe or test and then we'd have to return all our grant money) And we are trying to prove something happened by random chance by an organized process of manipulation and testing in a sterile environment, but such details aren't important. On the other hand, perhaps I don't understand the scientific method.

I was thinking. We haven't yet observed lead turned into gold, but it really *could* happen, couldn't it? I mean, we do have some experiments that have failed, but maybe that's only because scientists haven't yet found the right experiments to conduct. Perhaps there's some switch to be flipped at the atomic level and we just can't see it. And we *might* find a Fountain of Youth somewhere, though we have no current observations of such. Maybe we'll find it on Mars? It'd make sense, since many scientists do think life came from Mars, or at least was on Mars. I am not meaning to suggest alchemy carries the same scientific weight as the theory life comes from nonlife based on Proposition A, but I'm having a little trouble with it.

Actually this is not my position regarding the issue of life from nonlife.

At this point, I don't believe there is any 'affirmed theory' about life from nonlife. That life came from nonlife through some natural process is an *assumption*.

And this assumption is not some crazy idea that applies specially to this issue. The assumption of natural explanations is the foundation of all scientific work, and all great discoveries have started there.

Before science can have a theory, they must first have testable hypotheses. Before that, research.

IMO, the life from nonlife issue is still in the research phase.

~~~~

BTW, I've made this same point many times. Here is one from May 4:

<To my knowledge, there isn't yet a theory yet that deals with life coming forth from nonlife.

At this point, the existence of a natural explanation for how life came from nonlife is just an *assumption* -- not a theory.>

Here is one from May 2:

<I agree with you that the idea of life from nonlife is not a scientific hypothesis either, and scientists don't claim it as such. To be a hypothesis, it has to be an attempt to explain something in a testable way, and it does not. It is *only* an assumption -- but it's at least an acceptable one within natural science because it doesn't assume anything supernatural.>

Really -- how could you miss this? And it's not the first time either. That you misrepresent my position so often is one of the reasons I say that you refuse to process.

My feeling is that you are comfortable within the realm of your canned arguments developed by apologeticspress staff and elsewhere, but you don't think outside that box.

I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.”

O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,

you it is who hold fast my lot.

I bless the LORD who <counsels> me;

even in the night my heart exhorts me.

I set the LORD ever before me;

with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.

Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,

my body, too, abides in confidence;

Because you will not abandon my soul to the nether world,

nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.

You will show me the path to life,

fullness of joys in your presence,

the delights at your right hand forever.

<Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.

Alchemy: If we had some amount of gold lying about that we knew was once lead, then yes, the assumption that it *could* happen would make sense.

Abiogenesis: We do happen to have quite a bit of life lying about on a planet that we know was once dead. Thus the assumption that life *could* come from nonlife does make sense.

And we *might* find a Fountain of Youth somewhere, though we have no current observations of such. >

Of course, one can never rule out such things. That's the nature of science, nothing is ever proven. But we're not going in blind there - we do have significant reasons to doubt both of those hypotheses.

In the first case, we have a highly sophisticated understanding of how atoms and molecules form, and the fundamental interactions that hold them together. This understanding has been developed over centuries of experiment, and theory holds up every time. Now it's possible that there's some interaction that readily allows a spontaneous transition from lead to gold that has been overlooked, but it has become increasingly unlikely.

I stand corrected and am sorry to have misrepresented your position. I haven't kept a scorecard but will try to keep your position straight. I will tread lightly here and say I have no memory of you affirming <whatthefat> is wrong to call that a theory. Perhaps I don't remember it. We agree it is an assumption and not a theory.

< All you do is try to steer the game back into your opening repertoire. Either that, or repeatedly assert that your opponent's position is hopeless, and suggest that he resign!>

Yes, and in fact, the work upon those hypotheses were about as conclusive as we can hope for. Unless there's some undiscoverable secret of the atom involved.