Please present a compelling explanation why naturalism is true

[jireh]

Originally Posted by Logic please

So, easy question for you then, jireh - explain in your own words, since you claim there's so much pre-existing credible "valid evidence" supporting irreducible complexity....


...why did its proponents lose the Kitzmiller case so comprehensively???

Off you go, then.

because the issue was political.

why other cases were won ?

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12...duc054531.html

In 2006, South Carolina adopted a standard requiring students to "Summarize ways that scientists use data from a variety of sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory."

In 2006, Mississippi passed a law holding that "No local school board, school superintendent or school principal shall prohibit a public school classroom teacher from discussing and answering questions from individual students on the origin of life."

In 2008, Louisiana required passed a policy requiring that Louisiana schools shall "create and foster an environment...that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

In 2009, Texas adopted science standards that require students to "analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations ... including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking," and also "analyze and evaluate" core evolutionary claims, such as "common ancestry," "natural selection," and "mutation."

[jireh]

Originally Posted by Crocodile

jireh do you understand anything that you copied? He said read it, not just copy slabs of it and paste it and act as if you have read it.

yeah, sure

[Sir Patrick Crocodile]

Originally Posted by jireh

yeah, sure

So can you explain it then in your own words?

[jireh]

Originally Posted by davo

It was Christendom that started te slave trades,

please present the evidence this is true.

[jireh]

Originally Posted by Crocodile

So can you explain it then in your own words?

yes, sure

[Sir Patrick Crocodile]

Originally Posted by jireh

yes, sure

Well what are you waiting for then? Get on with it!

[jireh]

Originally Posted by Darwinsbulldog

@ Jirah:

Normal people feel pain, and [unless they are a psychopath or something], can empathise with pain in others. The feeling of pain is a normal physical reaction, and our social empathy for others is likewise based on our evolution as social animals. There is no need to invoke a god for these things, and many religious people who are scientifically literate accept this as fact.

therefore all doctors that inflinge pain to the pacient , are morally bad people ? Therefore , all animals, that kill other animals for food, are bad, because the inflict pain to them, when they kill them ?

As noone is all knowing, we cannot absolutely rule out a role for god in this, if he exists. Your denial of these natural processes is indeed tiresome. If your cause is, indeed the protion and advocacy of your god, you are just putting yourself and this posited god in the most ridiculous position possible.

you have still not been able to present a base for your morals..... why is yours above the one of people, that have the oposit view of what is moral, what is not ?

I think that anyone who is totally immune from evidence and reason, and totally driven by blind faith to be a potential danger to themseleves and to others. .

i don't understand your argument. please elucidate it further.

[Sir Patrick Crocodile]

Originally Posted by The Irreverent Mr Black

Because Jireh doesn't click links.

yes, sure.

[Loki]

Originally Posted by jireh

you dare me ? how nice. the fossil record is probably the worst foundation for macro evolution ....

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils."

(Gould, Stephen Jay [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University, USA], "Evolution's erratic pace," Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 5, pp.12-16, May 1977, p. 14)

Gould, S. J. 1977. "Evolution's Erratic Pace" in Natural History 86(5):12-16.

or

Gould, S. J. 1980. "The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change" in The Panda's Thumb, pp. 179-185. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

*Same article published twice with minor differences.

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record:

The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.

Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution [directly]. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I only wish to point out that it is never "seen" in the rocks.
Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.
For several years, Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History and I have been advocating a resolution to this uncomfortable paradox. We believe that Huxley was right in his warning [1]. The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record. [It is gradualism we should reject, not Darwinism.]
[1] Referring to Huxley's warning to Darwin, literally on the eve of the publication of Origin of Species, that "[y]ou have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum [nature does not make leaps] so unreservedly." - Ed.

So as it turns out Gould wasn't declaring the failure of the fossil record to support evolution, he was arguing that it didn't support gradualism. Why didn't you point that out jireh? The document is quite clear, either you haven't read it and simply C&P'd a previous quote-mine, or you deliberately det out to misrepresent Gould's words. Which is it?

"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of `seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of `gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them."

(Kitts, David B. [Professor of Geology, University of Oklahoma], "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, Vol. 28, September 1974, p.467).

Funny how on page 468 of the same volume Kitts writes;

The claim has been repeatedly made that the fossil record provides a basis for the falsification of synthetic theory [Neo-Darwinism] and Simpson has demonstrated that this is not the case.

Funny how an introduction to an explanation of why gaps in the fossil record can in no way be seen to falsify said record (because every fossil found introduces two new gaps) finds it's way into apologetics.

Enough with the quote mining already hey jireh? It's a really bad look.

[jireh]

Originally Posted by The Irreverent Mr Black

lastly:

http://www.equip.org/bible_answers/d...omote-slavery-

A myth propped up by secular skeptics is that Scripture sanctions slavery.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.
First, it should be noted that far from extolling the virtues of slavery, the Bible denounces slavery as sin. The New Testament goes so far as to put slave traders in the same category as murderers, adulterers, perverts, and liars (1 Timothy 1:10 ).

Furthermore, slavery within the Old Testament context was sanctioned due to economic realities rather than racial or sexual prejudices. Because bankruptcy laws did not exist, people would voluntarily sell themselves into slavery. A craftsman could thus use his skills in servitude to discharge a debt. Even a convicted thief could make restitution by serving as a slave (Exodus 22:3 ).

Finally, while the Bible as a whole recognizes the reality of slavery, it never promotes the practice of slavery. In fact, it was the application of biblical principles that ultimately led to the overthrow of slavery, both in ancient Israel and in the United States of America. Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt became the model for the liberation of slaves in general. In America, many are beginning to wake up to the liberating biblical truth that all people are created by God with innate equality (Genesis 1:27 ; Acts 17:26–28 ; Galatians 3:28 ).