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TalkReason Seidel, Paul Feb 26, 2005

Hi: I read your messages and enjoy them very much. I am on the side of science, logic, common sense and sound reasoning. I read your articles and cannot comprehend so called intelligent individuals thinking in such backward terms; plus their teaching of this hogwash to young people thus brainwashing them into believing it is the truth! That is until we attempt to rationalize why this happens!
Science and reasoning is harming mythical teachings of religions worldwide and these people are trying to rationalize what is tearing their religions apart by inventing scenarios that could bring religion into line with science. It is a case of do or die! They have the captive audiences in religious universities and colleges where the students have no other choice as to what is taught; this same thing is what religious zealots want taught in public schools.
You must remember we have a very large percentage of two billion Christians who believe creation, the flood. Job, exodus and dozens of other fairytales found in the bible. If these people were told in the bible "the cow jumped over the moon" they would believe it!

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Heroes Gaudia, Gil Feb 19, 2005

I wondered (while reading your interesting section "Science and Religion")why those two most popular icons of science, Stephen W. Hawking and Stephen Jay Gould have managed to escape criticism for their notorious linkage of science and religion. Hawking for his admitted grovelling before the Pope as described in his best-seller "A Brief History of Time" and Gould for his absurd concept of Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA). These two scientists, when speaking about cosmology and evolution, have never said or written unequivocally, “I don’t believe in God”, because, in my opinion, it is so threatening to admit in public that one rejects the supernatural theistic line, that they either avoided the subject or they played word games which leaves open the possibility that they are believers. Biologist Stephan Jay Gould’s game (when he was alive)was NOMA, (non-overlapping magesteria), by which he avoided and blurred the entire issue, claiming there were two separate domains, the domain of science and the domain of religion, and neither had the right to enter the other. Gould's ridiculous metaphor was, " . . . we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven."
World-reknownwed cosmologist Stephen Hawking, to my knowledge, has never made an open statement of disbelief. In his best-selling book “A Brief History of Time” he makes numerous references to God, and in one ridiculous sentence he says if we could unravel the mystery of the Big Bang, “then we would know the mind of God.” In that same work he describes a meeting of scientists, including himself, at the Vatican, in which the Pope told them that it was all right for astronomers to study the origins of the universe back as far as the Big Bang, but not to attempt to understand what went on at that moment, or before it, because that was the domain of religion and not science. Instead of criticising the Pope’s admonition,(perhaps not to his face)Hawking jokingly demurs something about not wanting the Pope to get God mad at him. When I asked him via e-mail why he makes constant references to God, his graduate assistant responded (after repeated proddings by me for over a month), “When Professor Hawking uses the word ‘God’ he refers to the natural laws of the universe.” Why not call a natural law a natural law?
Have any of your readers any comments--even corrections--to this criticism of mine?

Gil Gaudia, Ph.D.

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Believing depends on how much you think on existence Arslan , Mehmet Tayyip Jan 31, 2005

Dear Franchois,
I read your article about 23th Flash on Naturalism. I appreciate your reasoning, though I have also some objections to your ideas.
First of all, as you stated that if we consider 4 alternative explanations for the xistence of creatures, when we prove that the first three ways are errorneous, the last one becomes obviously true. We call this "super natural cause" as the God, Allah. This God is same for all believing people, though they are called Muslim, Cristian or Jew. Because, if you believe that God is the Creator, then what ever you call it, it does'nt matter.
Secondly, we also believe that causes are needed for creation of an animal or creature. You have stated that : "causes are not like jars. Jars are fixed entities which cannot effect change, but causes, such as natural selection, effect other entities." Here, the main idea is that elements necessary for creation of an organism are used in specific amounts and these causes don't have mind themselves to create anything or organise anything to have an outcome. So, according to us, an Organisator is required to use elements in specific amounts for a specific outcome This obviously needs reasoning. Referring a reasoning to inanimate objects is not logcal as you appreciate.
within a living body?
Besides as the conflicting causes are needed in the creation, they are also required for the maintainance of that organism. For example, if you take an erythrocyte, acidosis enhances release of oxygen to tissues. Do you know where is acidotic in the body? The answer is venous sites. That is the more acidotic a part of the body is, the more oxygen is needed andthere. Vice versa, erythrocyte acquires oxygen at lungs where CO2, the source of acid wtihin body is exhaled. Acidosis and alkalosis are two conflicting causes residing in our bodies. These systems helps us in maintaining our lives. So who is thinking this and organising it in this way? Is it just a chance? Look there are enourmous numbers of such examples. You can yourselfsay that they are all resulting from chance and natural selection resulted in survival of creature having this chance.
In my opinion, these sentences result from two considerations: Either you have not understood the core idea or you just don't want to believe in God. The main point here is that we both see the same things. But the difference is that we both attribute the existence to different causes. We say that yes, there is DNA, different glucose, fructose, fatty acid and protein metabolisms in our body. However, these exact mechanisms indicate a reason behind them. Because the molecules consisting DNA, and the DNA it self has no mind and reasoning, and since everything follow the most optimal route, we think and believe that these are created by a Creator, Allah. You can believe also that these are all result of chance.However you are blaming everybody believing in God to be ignorant. Such a blaming is not and should not be that easy.

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The Risale-i Nur on Naturalism

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Origin of the Human Species by Dennis Bonnette Bonnette, Dr. Dennis Jan 17, 2005

I might as well give you the name of my book, "Origin of the Human Species," so that you can post a review tearing it apart!
Published by Sapientia Press in 2003, the second edition is available on Amazon. If you wish to see a bit more about it, you may check out my book's web site at www.origin.youshoppe.com There you will see several published reviews. OHS is primarily a philosophical work, and does not, for the most part, take definitive positions regarding scientific claims. Nonetheless, it does claim that sound science does not conflict with a legitimate reading of Genesis and that the historicity of Adam and Eve remains credible. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Dennis Bonnette, Ph.D.

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u r also fed with stuff which u don't understand by another human bieng..wake up rilwan, Jan 17, 2005

Hi wise guy,
what you are really trying to do is defend your religon..u r not godless, u have ur god and just like any muslim and any christian or any buddist u r trying to defend your god, ur faith and ur religon plus ur prophets..don't ask me who ur god is or who ur prophet is ....just look for the answer in ur self...i feel pity for u, u must b one sad being..

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Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum

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