The writings and life work of Ed Thorp, professor at MIT, influenced many of my notions of ID (though Thorp and Shannon are not ID proponents). I happened upon a forgotten mathematical paper by Ed Thorp in 1961 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that launched his stellar career into Wall Street. If the TSZ regulars are tired of talking and arguing ID, then I offer a link to Thorp’s landmark paper. That 1961 PNAS article consists of a mere three pages. It is terse, and almost shocking in its economy of words and straightforward English. The paper can be downloaded from:
A Favorable Strategy for Twenty One, Proceedings National Academy of Sciences.
Thorp was a colleague of Claude Shannon (founder of information theory, and inventor of the notion of “bit”) at MIT. Thorp managed to publish his theory about blackjack through the sponsorship of Shannon. He was able to scientifically prove his theories in the casinos and Wall Street and went on to make hundreds of millions of dollars through his scientific approach to estimating and profiting from expected value. Thorp was the central figure in the real life stories featured in the book
Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System that Beat the Casino’s and Wall Street by William Poundstone.
Poundstone’s book doesn’t actually go into detail what formulas actually work in today’s markets because once something works well, it stops working once everyone else figures it out. Thorp’s only published work on how to make money on Wall Street became obsolete and he had to find new avenues of success with secrets he will take with him to the grave….But for those interested, here is Thorp’s only published book on how to make money on Wall Street. As I said it is now obsolete, but it showcases Thorp’s genius and insight. It used to retail for $300 used on Amazon, but then Thorp offered a PDF copy for free:
BEAT THE MARKET
A Scientific Stock Market System.
So if you want a change of pace from the usual arguments over ID, I offer Thorp’s work and you can skip the rest of what is written below since it is my version of ID inspired by Thorp and Pascal.
Though I had followed Thorp’s work on and off for 10 years, I only recently discovered Thorp’s 1961 article while preparing my own draft of a paper that encapsulates my version of Intelligent Design presented at the Blyth Institute’s “Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism Conference” (AM-NAT 2016). I present to the TSZ readers a draft of a paper that I’m submitting as part of the AM-NAT 2016 conference proceedings. AM-NAT 2016 was a conference organized and mentioned by JohnnyB at TSZ and UD. So if you want to argue ID instead of discuss Thorp’s work, that’s ok too.
I got fascinated by the body of math surrounding expected values partly as a result of Thorp’s work. Because of this body of math, I concluded ID theory has been focused too much on information theory and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and I’ve argued this is a misguided approach. A more clear cut way to frame the probability arguments is to leverage expected values and the law of large numbers and apply similar mathematical approaches, not the approach laid out by Dembski and his almost intractable conception of specification and CSI.
My approach to the question of ID at the personal and practical level has been more along the lines of Pascal’s wagering ideas than trying to make absolutist assertions about reality. Pascal’s wagering ideas were not limited to the theological questions of heaven and hell, but were originally developed to answer theoretical questions about fair values of wagers in gambling games. His solutions using his notion of “expected value” became foundational in probability and statistics, and the notion of expected (or expectation) values has found its way into the realms of physics, chemistry and finance, etc. I’ve framed ID vs. Naturism debate at a personal and practical level more in terms of what is to be gained if ID is right and what might be lost if ID is wrong and how to move forward in science without formal resolution the question of ID.
In my paper, I focused on a practical (not theological) dimension regarding the NIH’s half-billion dollar research investment into the ENCODE and RoadmapEpigenomics projects. Evolutionary biologist Dan Graur has labeled the ENCODE project leaders “crooks” and “ignormuses” and likened the chief architect of ENCODE, Ewan Birney, to Saddam Hussein. Even money aside, there is an issue of bragging rights as to which group of scientists (ENCODE vs. Gruar) should be praised and which group will have egg on their faces after all the dust settles.
To my surprise, the fight over ENCODE spilled over into a fight over what I thought was a rather innocuous article in the New Yorker that promoted the chromatin-centric viewpoint of the epigenome. I did not realize there was a camp (for lack of a better name, I’ll call them the dinosaurs or the transcription-factor proponents or gene-centrists) that was furious at the chromatin-centrists. ENCODE is not only labeled as promoting an “evolution-free gospel” (verbatim words used by rival scientists in a peer-reviewed publication), but they are also not exactly liked by the gene-centrists for their chromatin-centric viewpoint of the epigenome. Creationists and IDists are more sympathetic to the chromatin-centrists, with the qualification that creationists and IDists in general are more favorable to all forms of non-DNA somatic and transgenerational inheritance mechanisms that may reside outside DNA be it organelle, structural, glycomic or whatever “-omic” inheritance devices that may be out there, not just chromatin based mechanisms.
I’ve qualitatively argued the favorable wager in practical terms is on ENCODE, not on evolutionary theory. Most of the paper is rehash of debates I’ve had here at TSZ, so the material is nothing new. It can be said, my paper is really a product of the debates I’ve had at TSZ. The interactions here have helped provide editorial and technical improvements. The paper is still a draft, the figures and formatting will be cleaned up by the myself, reviewers, and the Blyth Institute before it is published in the AM-NAT 2016 conference proceedings. This draft still has a lot of cleanup needed, so I’m posting it to invite improvements. Some of the material might later be reworked as reading material for the high school home school and/or creationist biology students in college. I don’t consider the paper a professional offering, but a way to codify some of my ideas for later reference.
For those tired of reading and arguing what I’ve posted before and have no inclination to read my paper, I provided a link to Thorp’s paper in the chance it may be of passing interest and a change of pace to some readers in this blog.
But for those interested in my paper, here it is:
Gambler’s Epistemology vs. Insistence on Impractical Naturalism: The Unwitting Half-Billion Dollar Wager by the NIH Against Evolutionary Theory.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to all at TSZ who have contributed to the refinement of the ideas in my paper. Thanks to the admins and mods of the skepticalzone hosting my postings. TSZ has been a place where I’ve had the chance to receive critical and editorial feedback on materials I’m publishing in various venues.
PS
I had the opportunity to put in practice some of Thorp’s theory in the casino and so did a group of Christians. Their story is documented in the DvD Holy Rollers. I’m listed in the credits of the Holy Rollers documentary.
Here is the trailer. Featured in the trailer is Pastor Mike and other pastors who were part of the Holy Rollers:
stcordova,
Because there is a blurred distinction between ‘somatic’ and ‘transgenerational’ in such systems anyway. Plants don’t have a soma in the sense that we do. There’s a mitotic cell line which may or may not remain in the same cell collection.
It’s the distinction between passage across serial mitotic cell generations and passage through a round of meiosis. Considered carefully, the latter has very little chance (I’d say zero) of multi-generational inheritance of epigenetic states beyond a couple or three.
One could compare with aphids. The parthenogenetic ‘generations’ are not really generations. A generation, in an aphid, happens once a year.
stcordova,
That is, as I have noted before, a silly way to define inheritance. What is inherited is the DNA sequence of the enzyme that causes the DNA mark (conditional, in the case of the X, on being in an organism with 2 Xs). Touting this as an example of non-DNA inheritance is … ridiculous.
stcordova,
Of course, because the mark isn’t inherited. There are two different potential mechanisms, a DNA-route and a non-DNA route. Only one of them actually happens. You are trying to argue that DNA isn’t central on the evolutionary stage, you need to find something better than that. Because DNA is the vehicle for transmission of the ‘mark’.
stcordova,
You’d need to be very careful here. If grandma is pregnant with a female foetus, some of her grandchild’s gametes exist inside her, exposed directly to her environment.
stcordova,
Why? What happens if this data is not forthcoming on that particular transition?
stcordova,
Many, perhaps most, of these enzymes have prokaryotic homologues. It’s not the detailed step-by-step transition sought by your typical Creationist (you, in this instance), but it is an interesting fact to be taken on board by someone insisting that elements of the transition could not have happened in a serial manner from prokaryotic ancestors.
Sal apparently believes in separate creation of “kinds” at a very low level. While I don’t know if he’s actually specified that level, at times it appears to dip as low as “species”, and certainly no higher than “family”. But when challenged on this, he immediately retreats to the very highest levels, eukaryotes vs. prokaryotes for example. Yet this particular introduction of phylogenetics into the discussion was his, when he declared that all phylogenetic research at any level was useless and that there is no such thing as phylogeny. Discuss.
Just another thing to heap onto the pile of facts that is “creationist biology.” Fortunately, it has a ready explanation, in that “God designed it that way.”
Just think unsystematically. Then everything has to be a miracle, or at least due to some kind of “cause” unrelated (other than conceptually) to the rest of biology.
Glen Davidson
Yes I am trying to argue that as well, but that isn’t the real point I have been trying to make at TSZ and in my paper.
The point of the paper, and which this discussion has helped clarify is complexity of the chromatin information processing system.
You’re insinuation is that since “DNA makes chromatin, and since functional DNA is only 82.5 megabytes of information, then chromatin information processing isn’t a big deal”. That’s what this discussion is really about. As I pointed out in my paper, advocates of naturalism prefer to view the world through the lens of simplistic repeatable ordinary mechanisms even when it distorts the true un-natural complexity of biological structures and the highly non-ordinary event required to make them originate. Haeckel is a prime example, and Graur is following in Haeckel’s footsteps.
You and John Harshman followed that line of thinking. The way I perceive your line of reasoning is “the 82.5 megabytes or whatever little amounts of non-junk DNA makes chromatin and chromatin modifications and everything in the cell and humans, therefore none of this is as complex as creationists want to make it out.” And the way I perceive John Harshman’s line of argumentation, “epigenetic changes are minor features that appear from generation to generation and they usually disappear, epigenetics is virtually a non-issue”. And DNA_jock’s line of argument I perceive as “chromatin is a fuzzy concept and I know what I’m talking about since I have an autographed champagne bottle from 1982 to prove I know what I’m talking about even though I can’t parse simple English phrases and need Venn diagrams like those used to teach 2nd graders to understand that Sal actually did make distinction between transgenerational and somatic epigenetic inheritance contrary to my false claims about what he said”.
But you see, I took a different angle, I focused on showing the complexity of the chromatin information processing system, and complexity suggests a non-ordinary set of events brought that complexity about. That’s the real point.
in addition to reading and copying relatively static ACGT-base pairs there is the additional information processing associated with reading, writing and erasing histone modifications, reading writing and erasing of DNA-methylation marks. This is the additional layer of information processing that was part of ENCODE and definitely the daughter project RoadmapEpigenomics.
John Harshman was rather fixated on the traits affected by the epigenome, when the real initial impetus for studying the epigenome is not trangenerational epigenetic inheritance but rather organismal developmental. One way to denigrate the field of epigenetics is to conflate it with lamarkianism, point out how small the actual number of cases of documented trangenerationally inherited traits in mammals there are, and he could give the impression epigenetics is a passing fad like lamarkianism was. And indeed John has done well in almost getting me to go down that path. But I attacked it from angles he wasn’t anticipating. Some time ago, when I first told him of the reading, writing and erasing of the epigenome he was incredulous and it took a while before the complexity of chromatin modifications sunk in.
John’s approach might have worked with some over yonder IDists at UD, but I realized what I was really getting at was the chromatin information processing system. In the future, I will have to keep that in mind.
There is and will continue to be hair splitting over the word “epigenetic”. Histone modifications are so associated with the epigenome that the term epigenetic is now used (to the consternation of Gary Felsenfeld) to refer to non-DNA chromatin changes (like histone modifications) in the cell interphase and practically all phases of the cell so that the term epigenetic has lost its original meaning.
The discussion in the New Yorker got into what is and is not the epigenome and what is ultimately causal in development. But that is side issue to the main point, and now I can at least identify the derailments and red-herrings.
The real point for me is highlighting the complexity of the non-ACGT information processing systems that are collectively called chromatin modifications.
Arguments of what constitutes the epigenome are secondary, chromatin information processing is a far larger topic in molecular biology than the picture painted that “transgenerational epigenetic changes are of little consequence and therefore epigenetics is just a passing inconsequential fad.:
But as I pointed out, epigenetics is more than transgenerational inheritance it is also somatic, and if one is willing to allow epigenetic to include cell interphase activity and all phases of the cell, then one sees it is a massive additional information processing system that may actually dwarf the information capacity of the human genome. The human genome is 825 megabytes, the collective information processing capacity of the 100 trilliion epigenomes in the human is on the order of sextillion bytes.
This issue of conflating chromatin modifications solely with lamarkian inheritance and trying to de-emphasize the molecular details of chromatin information processing might be worth clarifying in my paper. The way epigenetics was treated at UD didn’t help because it focused on the few cases of transgenerational acquired epigenetic traits discovered, and there aren’t many cases of those. It gave the misleading impression there isn’t much worth in studying the epigenome. Going into arguments over how to define the epigenome (like the New Yorker scuffle) didn’t help either.
The important thing I wanted to convey are the machines involved in chromatin information processing — whatever we call it, the epigenome, epigenetic ram, chromatin modifications — a rose is a rose by any other name and at the end of the day the complexity is still there.
One reason I like the word “epigenome” is that it is easier to use than saying “collection of reversible histone modification and DNA methylation makrings and other chromatin and nc RNA changes”.
In a human there is one genome, but there are almost as many epigenomes as there are cells in the body. This is borne out by the diagram being used by the NIH RoadmapEpenomics project as they highlight the mere 111 epigenomes they are studying out of the 100 trillion epigenomes that make a human.
Note the title: “Integrative analysis of 111 Reference Human Epigenomes”. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the 100 trillion epigenomes that are actually in the human in various cell phases. RoadmapEpigenomics is only sampling a small fraction of the epigenomic complexity.
John Harshman and unfortunately lots of IDists seem to define epigenetics in their mind by the few cases of lamarkian type transgeneration epigenetic traits in mammals. This quasi-definition or mental picture of epigenetics totally understates the staggering complexity of the non-ACTG chromatin information processing system that sometimes goes by the label “epigenome”. What ever it’s called is not important, it’s the staggering complexity that it represents that is important.
stcordova,
Sal, you mischaracterize everything I have said, but at least you seem to have settled on a story. For now. So all you’re really trying to say is that development is really, really complicated, and that things that are really, really complicated could not have evolved and must have been created directly by Jesus. That isn’t much of an argument.
Also, your characterization of nucleosomes as RAM is apparently based on a superficial visual resemblance to magnetic core memory. The rest is speculation that goes way beyond any actual evidence. But never mind.
Well of course epigenetics is mainly important in development. That’s what the term originally referred to, and the whole idea of transgenerational inheritance should be peripheral. Still, what I’m interested in is evolution, and transgenerational inheritance is the only way that epigenetics could influence evolution, most notably the differences between species. Which it apparently does not.
But that’s not really my main preoccupation here. My main interest is your notion that phylogenetics is a waste of money and achieves no useful result — in fact, no result at all. This is perhaps your most nonsensical claim and the one most directly related to my professional specialty. I would like to discuss it with you.
Why? Does that complexity imply something special to you?
Probably not, unless you intend to, you know, publish it somewhere relevant after review?
Amen brother amen. That’s my goal, but whether you think that goal is noble or not, the fact remains the chromatin system shows a lot of ingenuity in the Rube Goldberg construction to make something function that is so close to edge of functional disaster.
People walk on tight ropes, not because it is a better way of doing business than walking on the ground but to show off one’s skill to carefully balance something on the edge of disaster and add some drama in the mix to boot.
Prior to Darwin, the intricacy of biology was viewed as the Designer showing off his skills in being able to balance things on the edge of life and death. That one tidbit from PBS documentary made it worth my while to watch.
Nothing anything you’ve said, nothing of attempts at trying to de-emphasize the significance of the chromatin architecture (or to even argue its a fuzzy concept) diminishes the amount of ingenuity that is required to balance something as complex as the 100 trillion epigenomes in the human on the edge of life and death.
I sincerely appreciate the conversation. These discussion help increase the virulence of creationist memes since I can test out the arguments on behalf of people who really do count. My voice is of no consequence, but I can alert those who are of consequence what sort of stuff is going on at the NIH and the biotech capital of the world near Bethesda Maryland and Washington DC.
I said I wish you luck. I’m not trying to insult your efforts, if you were more committed to framing homology in terms of Owen’s conception rather than Darwin (or whomever we should credit for framing homology away from Owen’s original view), we’d be on the same page.
So on to your question, how would you like to discuss the one paragraph point in my entire paper you are so hung up on. Do you want to do it here or in another post?
I’ll defer to the venue of your choice, but you have to recognize I’m fighting off 10 of you guys in this discussion, and there is only one me, and I have an agenda that is not the same as yours.
My agenda is to highlight the complexity of the chromatin information processing system, that the real epigenome is far more staggeringly complex than the few larmarkist cases of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance that float around.
Since you’ve taken the time to read and respond to what I’ve said, I will try to respond to you with one the qualification: your issue is low on my list of priorities even though it is high on yours. I will try to meet you half way since I see the topic is important to you.
Thanks for your participation and comments and especially thank for taking time to read and review my paper. I will add your name in the Acknowledgement section with the qualifier you disagreed sharply with my thesis, but nevertheless gave me a fair hearing and gave critical comments that improved the paper.
Since you’ve taken the time to read what I wrote, I will try to spend some time discussing your concerns. That seems a decent thing to do.
Interesting how Sal sees things ain’t it…
Ever considered doing some actual science in support of your already decided conclusion? Instead of creating memes and trying to find arguments that seem to work on the surface?
Except your page is a creationist page and nothing evolved and the cosmos is young.
And you are not trying to insult someone else’s efforts? Your efforts were discredited in the 1800’s but somehow you failed to notice. You are simply wrong that if ‘chromatin architecture’ is ‘complex’ therefore somehow creationism.
Sal,
I would have to say that your claim that what I and other evolutionary biologists do is useless and pointless is unavoidably insulting, however phrased, and if you didn’t intend it to be so you are remarkably unperceptive regarding the implications of what you say.
I am not empowered to start threads, but if someone would, that would be nice.
I have no interest in improving your paper, which I consider to be hopeless, and would not like to be credited with doing so, since I think any such claim would be untrue. All that has actually happened is that you have improved your self-satisfaction by rationalization, which is not really improvement.
The issue isn’t whether the goal is noble; it’s whether the argument makes sense. It does not. The whole “Rube Goldberg” argument is nonsensical; it also violates the standard ID rule that nothing can or should be assumed or learned about the characteristics of the Designer.
You are now able to start threads.
Says a pot in a herd of pots talking to a lonely brave little kettle
😉
peace
The intent was to express an opinion regarding investment of money and resources, not to insult. I knew it would offend, but that was not purpose. The subject of the paper is about utility of ideas in the face of uncertainties, so the point is almost unavoidable given Gruar pitted investment in ENCODE vs. evolutionary theory.
Joe Felsenstein’s a swell guy and I regret I have to be opposing the thesis of his major life work. His work on population genetics outside of Universal Common Ancestry is highly valuable to YECs.
Ok, so on to the question of the utility of evolutionary theory. Let us assume for the sake of argument universal common ancestry is true. There are various schools of thought, the Hennigans, and the Transformed Cladists. If I had to pick sides I’d go with the Transformed cladists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformed_cladistics
A diagram that best represents the issue at the molecular level is one like this that groups together similarity of the same protein in various species.
One can see the ray-finned fishes Actinopterygii and how all the ray-finned fishes group together.
One can see the birds form a group (aves).
Just looking at the diagram it looks reasonable to say the halibut descended from a ray-finned fish. It looks reasonable to say a chicken descend from some bird ancestor.
But it looks totally absurd to me from that diagram to say birds came from a fish!. At best there was some common vertebrate ancestor that was ancestor to birds and fish, but birds are not descended from fish, nor fish from birds.
But if one asserts birds descended from a fish from that diagram, what’s stopping anyone from saying fish descended from birds using the same diagram.
Ok, let’s assume birds descended from fish is the right phylogeny and fish descending from birds is the wrong phylogeny. Does it matter to medical research which phylogenetic claim is assumed? Medical researchers care about what’s more similar to something else, and so they really like using mice for research. What descended from what is of no consequence, the similarity is what is of consequence.
Worse is that there is not way to experimentally confirm the hypothesis that birds descended from fish.
Tthe story goes bacteria evolved into fish and fish evolved into an amphibian like creature that became a mouse like creature or whatever mammal like creature that became a cow like creature that became a whale. So an aquatic creature can come from a land creature. What contribution to practical application in engineering, medical science, chemistry, physics do such stories provide? It provides some entertainment, and getting the right phylogeny is no better than using the wrong one from a utility stand point.
Does it matter really that eukaryotes descended from prokaryotes? Some have theorized prokaryotes descended from eukaryotes. Business goes on as usual, whatever the answer, and it doesn’t change how the rest of science moves on.
Does it matter which line of dinosaurs the birds supposedly came from? What practical application depends on resolving the question?
It doesn’t matter that phylogenies remain unresolved. Nothing of practical value depends on the resolution. Now one will complain, “we need the phylogenies to see the similarities.” No you don’t, you need the similarities to have a guess at the phylogenies, not the other way around.
When I do a blast search on a gene, it computationally does the similarity comparisons with other species. The creationist Owen who coined the word “homology” would have loved it and so would the creationist Linnaeus. Why do we need phylogenetics except to write narratives that can’t be experimentally confirmed anyway.
I’m for archaeology and history and paleontology, but phylogeny is not verifiable, it depends on story telling and circular reasoning and no practical questions depend on which phylogenetic story is true any way. Inferences that matter are like those being derived from ENCODE experiments, not phylogenetic trees.
And finally, this will sound harsh, but it’s from Jerry Coyne. “In science’s pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to [the pseudo science of] phrenology than to physics.”
Let’s compare the utility of Electromagnetic theory to any phylogenetic claim. There is no contest. Despite this, the name Darwin is recognized far more than Maxwell or Faraday (the pioneers of electromagnetic theory). Which scientists has had a more profound effect on the quality of daily life in the modern world, Darwin or Maxwell? Maxwell’s name is hardly known in popular culture.
Given the impact of electromagnetic theory vs. evolutionary thoery, I have no expectation more phylogenetic stories will change the quality of life in terms of technology and business even if we hypothetically deduce the right phylogeny.
Sal:
Sal,
This may be an alien concept to you, but most scientists are actually curious about the world. They are interested in truth for its own sake, even when it has no apparent practical applications.
You, on the other hand, seem frightened by it — when it threatens your religious dogma, that is.
What are the practical applications of determining how many objects there are in the Kuiper Belt, or of figuring out whether black holes can evaporate? Why aren’t you complaining about research into those questions?
It’s obvious. Those truths don’t threaten your faith, but the truth about common descent does.
You value dogma over truth, and it shows.
stcordova,
How the hell do you get that from what I’ve said? You are a mischaracteriser par excellence. It’s like saying I don’t think biochemistry important because … y’know … DNA.
As a result of this major communicative rift, I see no reason to expend further effort on your own lengthy post(s). My garden needs sorting.
It may be some comfort to know it won’t matter a lick. Until you actually publish a peer reviewed paper in a relevant journal it’s like scribbles on the bathroom wall.
Yes, after all the story that an intelligent designer did something, somehow, somewhere is far more persuasive.
Electricity were running through wires, lighting and heating homes, before Maxwell gave it a theoretical basis in a fundamental force.
Is solving crimes a “utility” of phylogenetics?
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2013/07/23/csi-virology/
Perhaps a more relevant question to Sal given his openly stated agenda of advancing creationism is if he’s compared the utility of Creationism vs ‘Darwinism’?
If Sal is only interested in things that show some utility then he can no doubt demonstrate the advances due to Creationism. Or he can explain why it’s not the double standard it appears to be.
I’m not a YEC but on this weekend one advance do to creationism springs very quickly to mind
quote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
end quote:
peace
It’s just a shame the Christians who enslaved the Africans had to be told that rather then working it out from your ‘holy bible’.
Oh, but wait, the bible is what they used to justify slavery in the first place.
Perhaps if your idiot god had not mentioned slavery was OK in the first place Jefferson would not have had to spell it out?
So, to be clear, your god caused untold misery for uncounted people but then made it all ok many years later by causing Jefferson to write that?
What a load of cucking ollocks.
Commandment 11: Slavery is not ok mmm’kay?
Easy enough, and would have been a boon to the world. But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
why do you always have to bring up the bible it’s like you are obsessed or something.
You asked for an advance from creationism I provided an obvious one that has shown lots of utility. Why not leave it at that? It came from a deist no less.
Oh I know.
It was never about creationism
This is really all about bashing your straw-man conception of Christianity. Always has been always will be.
peace
Prediction:
I will now be castigated for being rude and arrogant for derailing the conversation by bringing God into it.
When all I did was provide a nonsectarian patriotic quote on the eve of the anniversary of the day it was ratified :
By the way I did this in response to a direct request
peace
Heh, noted you don’t address the point I made.
I’m pointing out that your example is incorrect. It simply corrects a much greater wrong. Don’t you know that two wrongs don’t make a right?
Please go ahead and embarrass yourself by attempting to defend the biblical version of slavery. Please attempt to make the case that no true Christian could support slavery.
No, it’s because you refuse to address the point that your god could have avoided all the misery of slavery by adding a simple extra commandment.
It’s amazing how you claim everything on the basis of nothing. Jefferson rejected the doctrine that Jesus was the promised Messiah and the incarnate Son of God and yet somehow equal rights for all is a product of creationism?
I don’t recognize the belief system you are attacking. It’s a straw-man that exists in your own imagination. So I have no idea what point you are making.
It’s seems to be something like “The boogie man that lives in the well is mean” Or “The Illuminati is controlling the world through fluoridation”
I’ll leave you to figure out how to address it. I just don’t waste a lot of time on goofy things like that.
peace
Do you think that creationism entails that “Jesus was the promised Messiah and the incarnate Son of God”?
That is some strawman you’ve got yourself there.
peace
Actually derailing has nothing to do with it.
newton,
Newton, Have I told you how much I really do like you. I enjoy your comments and your attitude. I wish you would take a more active role here.
peace
The ID rule is nothing can or should be assumed or learned about the designer unless it supports ID somehow.
That’s how I remember it from the super secret initiation ceremony. It came right after the sacrifice of the chicken and before the reciting of the sacred wedge oath. 😉
peace
That is what she said
I intend to sacrifice some chickens myself . In the beginning there was a grill and the Lord said it was good.
amen brother.
quote:
He shall tear it open by its wings, but shall not sever it completely. And the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
(Lev 1:17)
end quote:
😉
peace
Not always no, but usually almost always in these discussions.
If your excuse for not engaging is that it’s not your particular brand of religion then that’s fine. Pathetic, but fine. Yes, there are no doubt muslim creationists and jewish creationists but so what?
Tell you what FMM, why don’t you explain to me exactly what ‘creationism’ means to you?
Earlier I asked for one example of something useful that creationism has brought forth. You seemed to know what I meant then without asking for clarification? But now, oh no, it’s me that’s ignorant because I’ve got what creationism entails incorrect?
So, go on, you tell me what true creationism is.
Does the bible condone slavery or does it not?
Do people use the bible as justification for slavery or do they not?
It’s not about your belief system. It’s about undisputable facts.
I stipulated at the beginning that I’m not a YEC. I am a creationist in that I believe in a Creator. I believe in many creators. I’m attempting to Create a website right now.
I’d say at a minimum it holds to a creation and by implication a creator that is about all that is necessary AFAIK.
In these discussions it’s usually employed as a sort of a derogatory code word that means something like ignorant antiscience reactionary.
nope
Yep. I’ve also seen people use the bible as a justification for communism, Luddite-ism, black nationalism and all sorts of nonsense.
That sort of thing says a lot more about the power of human imagination and the drive to justify our selves than it does about the Bible.
peace
Does it? The bible seems to clearly condone slavery. Why is that apparently clear reading incorrect?
Given the bible does not condemn the practice of slavery and considering that it actually gives instructions on how slaves should be treated, is it not you who is using that power of imagination to say it’s not saying what it clearly is saying?
I’m using the words written to take a position. The position given by those words. You are using the words written to take an opposite position to that the words have written and are saying I’m the one that is incorrect.
Justify a claim like that!
Does the bible mention any of those things by name in the same way in mentions slavery? If not, this brush off is entirely inappropriate.
FMM,
People use the bible to condone slavery because the bible condones slavery. I’m not sure what subtle point I’m missing here that no doubt 20 years of sunday school would reveal but….
The bible does not mention chattel slavery as it was practiced in America.
peace
What sort of slavery did the bible condone then?