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religion and science
A little problem with original sin
Tue, 02/02/2010 - 10:50 — Drew TatuskoCalvin called the tendency to sin part of a person's "hereditary nature." John Wesley called it "the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered." Luther considered all humans "conceived and born in sin." Without any real understanding of how genetics and how traits pass from one generation of the next, Augustine straight through medieval Catholicism to the Reformers held the view that sin entered into our evolution because Adam chose to eat the apple Eve gave to him.
Any student of evolution and genetics surely know that an entire gene pool isn't changed in it's very DNA structure through the choice of one of its members. That does not happen in nature. That would be like saying if one child has autism not only the next but all subsequent generations will have autism. Moreover, that first autistic child would have to have chosen to be autistic through some act of agency to make it possible. Got it? I don't either.... READ MORE.
ID & ego
Thu, 07/23/2009 - 10:56 — James McGrathIt has been far too long since I've posted on the subject of intelligent design, but I was inspired by Eric Reitan's recent post to comment on the arena into which ID seems to be turning its attention, namely the soul and mind-body dualism.
The whole method of intelligent design seems to be reducible to a simple two-step procedure:
1) Find something science allegedly cannot explain in principle;
2) Appeal to 'intelligent design' as the one size fits all 'explanation' for the phenomenon in step 1.
When it comes to consciousness, cdesign proponentsists might seem to be on safer terrain than the bacterial flagellum or the immune system, since consciousness represents the 'hard problem' and it is likely to remain a mystery for many years to come.
But in actual fact, intelligent design's approach to this subject rests on a category mistake..... READ MORE.
The angel with the flaming sword
Sun, 11/30/2008 - 07:20 — Gordon AtkinsonHuman beings have always gazed with wonder at the world around us. Whatever people in the past saw was their reality. What we see now is ours.
The best instrument ancient humans had was their eyes. They lived in a flat world, a world probably no larger than a hundred miles in any direction. Most would never travel to those borders, and anything beyond that was in the realm of the unknown and unknowable.
Above them were lights. A large light by day and thousands of smaller ones by night. They watched these lights carefully. They were obviously embedded in some sort of dome that covered the earth. The patterns of movement they saw... READ MORE.
