1

By "proof" they mean that the “explanations must be direct, observable, physical, natural, repeatable, unambiguous and comprehensive.

It's not clear what most of these mean. "Direct and observable" seems to imply that they think "scientific proof" means personal observation by an eyewitness (along the lines of creationists who claim that "we can't know that dinosaurs evolved because no one was there to see it"). As for the rest, collectively they offer enough wiggle room that, under the terms of this test, nothing would qualify as "proof" of anything - which is obviously the point to this exercise. More than anything, this betrays a thoroughgoing naivete about science and believable knowledge.

Their demonstration - that science never gives "proof" - is both correct and deeply stupid. As scientists would tell you - and as scientists have been patiently explaining to het-up religious conservatives for a long time - science does not claim to give unassailable proof of anything; it simply produces explanations for phenomena that are rationally compatible with observations, and proposes the most likely of these as the most likely to be true. All such explanations are subject to revision; none is ever a closed question.

So it's true that there is no "scientific proof" of anything - if you define "proof" as "unassailable claims that are not subject to revision". But it is idiotic to hold that up as a weakness of science, more so to claim on that basis - which I assume is the aim of the "Catholic Apologists" - that non-rational explanations of phenomena that do not comport with observations are equally reasonable beliefs.

The world is bigger than we can know, and explanations for what goes on in it must therefore be tentative. But science was producing those explanations for hundreds of years while the Catholic church was still withholding its apology to Galileo and dunking witches in ponds. They have nothing to teach us.

2

According to wikipedia, the original application of "survival of the fittest" was in economics, and I think you are correct that it is rarely if ever used seriously by zoologists. It seems to function as a layman's catchphrase that is popular, becuase it seems both trivially easy to understand and easy to dismiss.

If we must use it, perhaps it would be best to consider it as a very basic definition of fitness, and any definition can be trivially turned into a tautology by reversing the terms.

Consider:
Jim Hendrix's favorite instrument was the guitar.
What is a guitar?
Jimi Hendrix's favorite instrument.

3

I'm inclined to believe that apologetics site is a parody. Their defense of geocentrism and the paluxy footprints reach levels of lunacy that even the most nutty of YECs rarely achieve.

4

"Even if you've never visited RLP's site you know the type: a hipster pastor who has the tongue of Tourette's sufferer and the epistemology of a French Deconstructionist; the type that think that cussing and fideism are signs that they are "authentic" when they are merely immature. If RLP was filling mega-church stadiums in Houston rather than a Baptist church in San Antonio, his sugar-coated heretical views would be blasted from every corner of the blogosphere. Instead, he has his blog posts published in book form by (what was once) a repected Reformed publishing house."

--Joe, that may be the best paragraph you've ever written.

5

As far as what revolves around what, how hard do you want to make the math? You can set up geocentrism, but then you end up with some of Ptolemy's "circles on circles" as I understand it. Accepting heliocentrism as the model for the solar system is just as possible, but the math and the models are much, much simpler. Just as you can imagine that when you're driving, you're sitting still and pushing the earth along with your car, you can force geocentrism to work, but it won't necessarily be pretty.

6

Considering that we have sent space probes to orbit the sun can you force geocentrism to account for the fact that they successfully got to where we wanted them to go & the observations they sent back? Also can you reconcile comets to a geocentric model?

It seems like it would be an interest exercise to see if one could come up with a sensible geocentric model...no matter how complicated...that could work with these observations.

7

Regarding RLP, I encountered a book entitled "the Problem of Wineskins" written by Howard Snyder that changed my perspective on "church" while still in college. It delineates the differences between what is cultural and what is biblical. For instance, we understand giving is biblical. However, passing a plate or a basket during a gathering is cultural. Gathering together for encouragement and prayer is biblical, doing so on a Sunday morning or Wednesday evening only is cultural.

It was and is a challenge to me to always evaluate what we do and why we do it. If a cultural event is ineffectual then it needs to be revamped or eliminated. But we have too many sacred cows, even in America.

8

RE: Wizbang Blog Awards

I don't think you have much to worry about from me. You're kicking my butt. ;)

9

Boonton, all you have to remember is that it goes around the earth once a day.

And the reason that things can seemingly exceed the speed of light at a distance of about 935 billion miles is because the universe is speeding right along with it, according to the purveyors of geocentrism.

10

Funny you should bring up Real Live Preacher, Joe, because as it happens he's a friend of mine.

He and I got to know each other during the early days of the Salon-hosted weblog project. I had a bit of a head start on him, but when he came on the scene, he used to give my weblog a pretty good run for the money in daily page-views. That's saying something, since the competition there was incredibly fierce and demanded top-notch output, and the writers and readers were entirely secular in outlook.

So here comes this guy calling himself a "preacher," posting these lil' homilies and quasi-sermons, and he starts attracting a crowd. He doesn't do it by calling other people "heretics," or "sinners," and he doesn't lay guilt trips on people. Instead, he simply talks about what the ideas of Jesus are doing in his life, the problems he has with religion, and sometimes he doesn't talk about God at all.

During some of our early exchanges, he brought up this idea of a decontextualized church, from the viewpoint that not every Christian is in need of an edifice and a hierarchy. He seemed to yearn for a return to the roots of the faith, a realignment back to what Christianity must have been like before people started appropriating the message for their own personal gain. Although I'm not religious, if I were I'd probably be more interested in what he's describing than I'd be inclined to walk into some bureaucratic maze of ministers and deacons and what have you.

Here's what he says he'd like to see:

*We would meet once or twice a week to worship together. This meeting would be a very high priority in our lives.

* We would make these friendships intentional ones and make it a point to spend time together.

* We would agree to pray and study the scriptures together and on our own.

* We would nurture each other and care for one another, especially if one of us was hurting or in need.

* We would simplify our lives to the point where we could give 10% of our income to the community. Some who have been on the journey longer might give more.

* Each of us would find a personal and fulfilling way to serve God by serving the world. Finding your joyful place of service would be a central part of being in this community, for we would agree that Christianity is a way of living more than a set of doctrines.

And you call this heresy?

11

Raven,

Yet you've completely missed the sections that RLP excludes as unessential and unbiblical. This is the major one:

I don’t think we would concern ourselves very much with what individuals in the community say about Jesus or even believe about Jesus. It’s not that what we say about Jesus doesn’t matter, but this community would begin with real living. There will be time enough for pretty Jesus words later on.

It is a good thing RLP does not refer to this as a church. It isn't one nor is it a new age, revolutionary replacement for one.

The church is God centered. It is supposed to be the projection of Christ into this fallen world. His "community" is not God centered. It is people centered. It is self-centered. Everything in his bullet points are about "we" not about He. Tell me, what is "real living" apart from God? Apart from Christ? A quick read of Romans will show you that real living apart from God is worthless.

It isn't that his bullet points are wrong. They aren't. They are generally what a church should be doing. It is that his bullet points are like an arch without a capstone. They lack the key piece which holds everything else together. And RLP doesn't seem to see anything wrong with that.

Any replacement for the church must be God-centered. It must be start with Jesus and then spread to the world, not the other way around. Now some of his emphasis on doing instead of talking is just fine. I think the modern church talks too much and does too little. But his belief that talking just amounts to is "pretty Jesus words" is completely off base. Some of that talking is establishing a firm spiritual foundation upon which to build. You must build upon the Rock.

If you want to go about being a pre-church christian you do not start with a "community" and move towards God and Jesus. The early church was a household of people serving the same master. Before there was a church, there were just disciples, Followers of the Way. They were fellow travelers walking the same path towards God. They started with God and built their community around Him. That is not what RLP is describing.

12

Right on, Jeff. We don't get the option to pick and choose which of Christ's commandments are cool enough to obey.

13

Joe:

Michael Spencer of Boar's Head Tavern wrote:

"Open mic fellowships are nothing more than an invitation for certain personality types to take over, and unless RLP's church is pretty uniformly NPR, it's going to get weird."

Is he referring to National Public Radio? Is so, what the heck is the talking about?

14

The Evolutionary Tautology -- The Reform Club is defending an attempted refutation of Karl Popper's argument that the notion of survival of the fittest is a tautology. I’m not sure how important the concept of SotF is to modern evolutionary theory but I would be very surprised if it were treated seriously. As Popper noted, any situation where species exist is compatible with Darwinian explanation, because if those species were not adapted, they would not exist. His critics say that he is wrong on this point yet I’ve never seen them offer a counterexample of a species whose existence is incompatible with Darwinism and yet still somehow managed to survive.

1. 'Survival of the fittest' is a tautology in a narrow sense. In a more realistic sense it is just a phrase...similar to 'may the best player win'. Well by definition the winner is the one who plays the best!

2. You could replace 'survival of the fittest' with just survival and do no damage to evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory presumes that some individuals have traits that give them an advantage in survival. The theory tracks the effects of this fact on the nature of species over time.

3. A counter example to evolution would be a hypothetical species who derived its traits through some other means than natual selection. A germ designed in a bioweapons lab, for example. Of course a counter example would be hypothetical. An example of matter that did not obey Newton's laws would be a ball that did not fall to the ground when released but stays hovering in the air. If you could really show a real life species that is a counter-example to evolutionary theory then you would get a Nobel Prize.

15

Thank you for the link to Reynolds. I find his thesis fascinating:
"Philosophically, I think blogging is about to bring balance in the long running tension between live and preserved performance."

16

Calling the people at Generous Orthodoxy Think Tank "squishy emergent types" isn't really an accurate description at all. It would probably be helpful if you browsed through the archives a bit, check out the "About this blog" description, and take a look at some of the works published by the authors.

Emergent? Some are sympathetic, some are highly critical.

Evangelical? Down to our bones.

Generous? Yes.

Orthodox? Yes.

Squishy? Not even close!