Just listen to Grady pontificate to a caller who wanted tips on how to debate the sensible people in his life who can comprehend the science of evolution...
Boomp3.com
The last question I asked myself before I actually became a Creationist was, "could the Law of Gravity ever evolve?" ... Could that law, which is a law of science, and therefore immutable -- gravity exists everywhere in the Universe, it acts the same way everywhere -- could it have evolved from something less to be what it is? And the answer is no, it had to come into existence whole and complete. If it came into existence whole and complete it had to be created. The same thing is true -- the Laws of Thermodynamics, the laws of genetics, the laws of motion -- all scientific laws had to come into existence whole and complete and could not have evolved from anything less. Therefore, they all had to be created.The stupid is extraordinary! Grady is actually trying to analogize various laws of nature to the biological evolution of the various species on Earth. This makes absolutely no sense. Biological evolution refers to "the cumulative changes that occur in a population over time. These changes are produced at the genetic level as organisms' genes mutate and/or recombine in different ways during reproduction and are passed on to future generations."
Read this very carefully and very slowly: Evolution has NOTHING to do with the origin of the universe or how scientific laws came into existence. The scientific Theory of Evolution is not even SLIGHTLY interested in these concerns. Evolution is all about BIOLOGY and how the various species came to be via the process of NATURAL SELECTION.
To put it simply, Grady wants you to think that human beings were created "whole and complete" by God. But the fact of the matter is that human beings are not natural laws and therefore his analogy is completely nonsensical.
9 comments:
Okay so I have now stopped laughing ( and now started crying since there are people out there who will buy into this crap).
I love the part of the quote where Grady says"...which is a law of science,AND THEREFORE IMMUTABLE..". Wasn't the idea that the universe was geocentric once a " law of science" ? If it was a law of science which is immutable then the sun does really orbit the earth. In light of what McMurtry babbles, I like to quote from the book, " The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science" by Natalie Angier. In the chapter titled " Thinking Scientifically ' Ms Angier writes: "Science is not a collection of rigid dogmas,and what we call scientific truth is constantly being revised,challenged and refined said Michael Duff a theoretical physicist at the University of Michigan. " It's irritating to hear people who hold fundamentalist views accuse scientists of being the inflexible,rigid ones when usually it's the other way around. As a scientist you know that any new discovery you're lucky enough to uncover will raise more questions than you started with and that you must always question what you thought was correct and remind yourself how little you know. Science is a very humble and humbling activity"".
Humble is not one of Bob's attributes. And as for McMurtry today's "immutable law" may become tomorrow's bone head idea. And finally Bob likes to use the idea that no one was present at the origin of the universe so how do cosmologists know that the Big Bang happened? Well it seems that McMurtry can be skewered with this cliche as well: McMurty wasn't present at the origin either so how does he know that the LAWS OF SCIENCE were the same. Oh right,the Bible tells him so. My bad.
Your calling the straw man natural selection when in fact it's nothing more than adaptatations taking place at the cellular level. Call it microevolution, call it microadaptation, but don't say that this is how human beings evolved! Where is the evidence of this? Please show me a single shred of evidence to back this up! Your epistemologic persuasions violate the laws of logic (which by the way, atheism can NOT answer where logic comes from)
PS, I'm not a biological expert by any means. I'll leave that to Jeff and Irl, which are more versed in the subject.
My problem was when you said this:
Your epistemologic persuasions violate the laws of logic (which by the way, atheism can NOT answer where logic comes from)
Who are you to assume what one's religion is? There's many people who post on this blog that are Christians (myself included) that A) Think Bob Dutko is a lying manipulative sack of crap, and B) Believe that God used evolution. There's many scientists that are Christians and believe in the theory of evolution at the same time. To say that you can dictate someone's religious beliefs based on their scientific beliefs is to say that you know the minds of all people, and you and I both know that's false.
Hey Jeff,
Perhaps McMurtry was suggesting that one reason he "became a Creationist" was because of the widespread knowledge of laws of science. The very fact that our universe is governed by order and not just random, I believe as McMurtry perhaps believes also, implies that that there must be an "order maker" or some way for this order to come into being. This does not cover all Creationist beliefs as we know them, but it could be a reason to believe that the universe was created by God.
And djtyg,
I have made zounds of mistakes in this area and I don't mean to be hypocritical, but for the sake of pursuing what Christians should do; since when should a Christian call someone, "a lying manipulative sack of crap"?
Ilive...,
If order requires an "order maker" (God), isn't it logical to assume that an "order maker maker" is also necessary?
Who is this "order maker maker"?
Jeff,
I am delighted you brought this up. Does the "order maker" need someone to make Him? I believe that the obviously orderly "laws" of physics and the order of matter itself needed to be created from/by something/someone who could create order and even matter and existence in the first place. But the word "make"/"create", by stipulation, means that something quite simply, came into being. These "somethings" have dimensions, mass, and exist in a state of time. But as a Christian, I believe that "the order maker" is God. He made all matter, space and time. So no, God is supernatural, He does not need to occupy a certain amount of space, or have a certain mass, or be confined by time, or have a beginning. He made these things! So to say, "Where did God come from?" is a trick question. Because God did not 'come' into being as if He where made by something/someone else. He tells us "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End" (Revelation 22:13, NIV). There was no "order maker maker", there was no one before Him. God is "the First" so to think that God "was" created does not make sense. Because the word "was" is past, and there cannot be past before "the Beginning" and before there was time. I hope that I'm not being boringly repetitive, but all you need to do to answer your question is to define "create"/"make"/"come into being" and realize that God is beyond these principles that everything else in nature, such as the laws of physics and you and I, must abide by. Quite simply it comes down to that qoute from Revelation 22:13, and that God is unfathomably above us.
ilive...,
FYI, explanations of the Universe that involve Bible quotes do very little for me. It's clear that the writers of the Bible knew almost nothing of the nature of the Universe.
But if God doesn't need a maker, then why does the Universe need a maker?
Jeff,
You're right in that my comment was answering the “order maker maker” question from a Christian perspective. And may I note that your statement, "It's clear that the writers of the Bible knew almost nothing of the nature of the Universe", if you are implying that the Bible is not true, is from a non-Christian perspective. Christians believe that, as the Bible is the word of God, everything in the Bible is true. Jesus said in Mathew 5:17-19, “ 17‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.’” (New International Version).
But in reply to your question, "But if God doesn't need a maker, then why does the Universe need a maker"? It is impossible to answer from a perspective that does not acknowledge God in the first place. Because if you cannot know who God is in the first place, how can you logically determine anything about Him? You can't. If your understanding of God is that He is just another thing in the universe like everything else, than you can't argue that His origin is different than anything else. And if your understanding of God is that He does not even exist, well then you cannot rationalize anything about His beginning.
I guess the point is that you can indeed answer the question, "Why doesn't God need a 'maker'?" from a Christian perspective. But I do not know of any sound rationale from the perspective of someone who doesn't believe in God to answer the question "Why doesn't the universe need a 'maker'?"
-P.S. Jeff, thanks for listening to my comments.
Hey Gordon,
Honestly I don't really know much about Grady; it is my belief that God made the universe. Should Grady's "background and academic qualifications" cause me to believe otherwise?
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