From: me22over7@gmail.com   
      
   On 4/09/2025 12:20 am, RonO wrote:   
   > On 9/3/2025 7:36 AM, MarkE wrote:   
   >> In the dying embers of TO, a moment to acknowledge an extensive and   
   >> informative reply which draws on career experience. Appreciated.   
   >>   
   >> Re: Student of Stanley Miller comments on OoL   
   >> RonO    
   >> Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2025 09:35:42 -0500   
   >> Message ID: <1094b01$3tkab$1@dont-email.me>   
   >>   
   >> If nothing else, a welcome diversion from Ron's regular menu, e.g.:   
   >>   
   >> "MarkE has always appeared to be sane enough to understand that he is   
   >> just lying to himself about his approach to gap denial."   
   >>   
   >> "MarkE is using the gap denial to support his religious beliefs, so he   
   >> has to lie about his theological beliefs not being relevant, when they   
   >> are the reason why he needs to wallow in the denial.  If the gaps did   
   >> not challenge is theology he would not have to claim that the gaps are   
   >> never going to be filled."   
   >>   
   >   
   > The truth seems to sting a bit.  Instead of crying about reality, what   
   > you should do is admit that you are into the gap denial in order to   
   > support your religious beliefs.  It is obvious that the only reason why   
   > you want to fill the origin of life gap with some god is due to your   
   > Biblical beliefs.  What you need to do is face reality like the other   
   > IDiots.  When they realized that the ID perp's god-of-the-gaps denial   
   > stupidity (that the ID perps got from the scientific creationists that   
   > came before them) did not support their Biblical beliefs they quit   
   > supporting the ID scam.  You just started to take the gaps independently   
   > so that you could lie to yourself about them without dealing with how   
   > they affect your religious beliefs.  You admit to this by your refusal   
   > to state in a simple and straight forward manner how you deal with the   
   > fact that the origin of life gap is not Bibilical, and that if the gap   
   > is filled it would not be filled by your Biblical god.  You lie to   
   > yourself about this being about the limits of science, but it is only   
   > your way to keep denying reality in order to maintain your religious   
   > beliefs.   
   >   
   > What creationist like you need to do is to face the fact that the Bible   
   > is wrong about a lot of things that we have been able to figure out   
   > about nature, and sort that out for yourself.  Wallowing in denial is   
   > never going to change reality.   
   >   
   > Saint Augustine was already admonishing Christians in the early church   
   > that they could not use the Bible to deny what we could figure out about   
   > nature for ourselves.  He was having issues with Biblical literalists   
   > that were making stupid claims about nature (likely flat earthers, but   
   > he doesn't specifically state the issue).  The Greeks had estimated the   
   > circumference of the earth by physical measurements a couple of   
   > centuries before Christ was born.  Even after the failure of geocentrism   
   > there was a resurgence of flat earth creationism after Darwin publish   
   > the Origin of Species.  Even the young earth creationists were whipping   
   > a dead horse at that time.  Kelvin's counters to the geological   
   > estimates had an earth of around 300 million years old, and Darwin could   
   > only claim that if 300 million years was all life had, that is all life   
   > had to evolve into what we have today.  Kelvin lived long enough to   
   > learn why his estimates were wrong, and we now understand that the earth   
   > is around 4.5 billion years old and that life has likely existed on this   
   > planet for over 3 billion years.   
   >   
   > For Christianity nature has never supported the literal Biblical   
   > creation (the earth was known not to be flat before Christ was born).   
   > Science is just the study of nature, and nature just is not Biblical.   
   > Descriptions of the creation were understood to be metaphorical in the   
   > early church, but Biblical literalists have fought against this reality   
   > to this day.  You need to stop fighting reality and deal with it in some   
   > sane manner.  You don't want to end up like Bill and start claiming that   
   > reality doesn't exist.  What would that mean to your religious beliefs?   
   >   
   > Ron Okimoto   
   >   
      
   As I've said before, I know and respect a number of evangelical   
   Christians who represent a spectrum of positions: Theistic Evolution   
   (e.g. Biologos), Progressive Creation (e.g. Reasons to Believe), OEC   
   (e.g. some ID), YEC (e.g. other ID, AIG, etc). OEC/ID is where I   
   tentatively sit (with previously disclosed reservations with some   
   aspects of the ID camp).   
      
   As I've also said before, while my faith is not dependent on "gaps" in   
   science, I enjoy and value science and believe it to be a companion of   
   faith, not an opponent. Not sure why you are so unabatedly vociferous   
   about this?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)