Darwin & 'the record of the rocks'

[austintorn@aol.com]

MASTODONS AND EXTINCTIONS

In the late 1700’s, Cuvier could take heaps of bones
And whip them into shapely forms not in the stones.
After describing and naming the fossil elephant the mastodon,
He put forward for the first time a theory on extinction.

He said that from time to time there were global catastrophes
In which some groups of creatures “became history”.
This raised uncomfortable implications at the time,
For why would God create and destroy
Without reason or rhyme?

This suggested an unaccountable casualness by someone unseeing
And greatly troubled the belief in the Great Chain of Being,
Which held that the world was carefully ordered for us—
And that every living thing thus had a place and purpose.

Meanwhile, William Smith noted a correlation in fossils
In rocks to find the relative rock ages that were possible.
At every change in rock strata, certain fossils vanished,
While in others they carried on into subsequent levels.

Now it was seen that God had wiped out creatures extinct
Not only occasionally but repeatedly—
Which made us think him not only careless
But having an outright hostile distinction.
There had been more than
The Biblical Noachian deluge extinction.


DEATH IS A WAY OF LIFE

Of all extinctions, the Permian was the largest.
245 million years ago, for 95% of animals perished,
Suddenly disappearing from the fossil recording.
Life had almost come to a total obliterationing.

[Profpat]

I also accept PARTS of the Gita, the Tao, the I Ching, the Upanishads, the Dramha, the Vegas, etc.
This is also true with how I accept parts of Einstein, Hawkings, Newton, Marx. etc.
Do I have to accept it ALL Austin? I think not.

[Bogie]

[QUOTE=Profpat;115847]

There is a quick tendency to agree and a more delayed question. How can a society be perfectly open, truthful, and legal?It can't. Is that not too idealistic?Yes And if you take the following literally, "So soon as a government departs from that standard, it ceases to be anything more than the gang in possession, and its days are numbered", doesn't that leave no gray area? Can a government go from right to wrong Left so quickly?Yes And can't the descent of a government into instances of "gang in possession" be reversed in the next election?Yes but it will be another gang in possession[/QUOTE]

Hi bogie,

To me the government that governs the least governs the best, and so now we have a new 2,000 pages of law dealing with our personal health care. Unfortunately politicians are paid to make laws and I'm not talking about their paychecks that we the people pay them. Chump change.

Best,

Pat

You are right (and so am I) about it not being easy to throw them out of office because the next group is just as bad. We are into whiplash politics where one party has to screw up so badly that the American people just want change.

If we all were paying attention it wouldn't be that way. But then if we were paying attention we wouldn't have lost control of our schools, our children, our families, our love of freedom or our faith in our forefathers, would we have?

[Profpat]

How else would we get our oil if it wasn't for the dinosaur extinction. A time for everything Austin.

[austintorn@aol.com]

We posted at about the same time, Prof.

There is little, if anything, left in the Bible to go by, since, if large parts can't be trusted, then what would that say about the rest.

The Bible, and those other books, are but made-up from human imagination.

God even resembles the strict father parent-child relationship image of the human families of those days.

Always take the known ahead of wishes.

Lloyd says "Prove it or lose it."

[Profpat]

[QUOTE=Bogie;115855]

You are right (and so am I) about it not being easy to throw them out of office because the next group is just as bad. We are into whiplash politics where one party has to screw up so badly that the American people just want change.

If we all were paying attention it wouldn't be that way. But then if we were paying attention we wouldn't have lost control of our schools, our children, our families, our love of freedom or our faith in our forefathers, would we have?

I'm not sure if I ever had any CONTROL of my children or family bogie, at best guidance. Personally I never lost my love for freedom or faith. As far as the schools, I think homeschooling is the best at this time. IMO

[austintorn@aol.com]

THE CREATION MUSEUM

The new Creation Museum in Kentucky
Features dinosaurs in their Ark,
Deemed small at the time (4000 years ago),
So that they would fit in the boat.

None were mentioned in the man-inspired Bible
Since their fossils were unknown at the time.
The oversight has now been corrected.

[Profpat]

We posted at about the same time, Prof.

There is little, if anything, left in the Bible to go by, since, if large parts can't be trusted, then what would that say about the rest.

The Bible, and those other books, are but made-up from human imagination.

God even resembles the strict father parent-child relationship image of the human families of those days.

Always take the known ahead of wishes.

Lloyd says "Prove it or lose it."

I could really give a good shit as to what Lloyd says. He is your god not mine.

I'm not about to discard Jesus's commandment to love God and others. Yes I pick and choose what is correct and not correct.
You may do as you please Austin.

[Profpat]

So Austin do you believe evolution is a design or not?

[RascalPuff]

Of course it's been observed and said many times before, and I advocate the theme - it is no less miraculous that life evolved in approximate accordance with Darwinian theory (which is really proven in the first six weeks of the gestation of any mammal, gill slits and all...). than that some anthropormorphically conjured deity 'made man in his own image': inside of a period of six days, give or take a coupla thousand years... You know, the fundamental theist creationism. 'We have to have something greater than ourselves', and, indeed, we certainly do, and it is intelligence far beyond our present ability to even begin to fathom. Anyway that's IMHO.