Dear Reader,

The following is another long email exchange between one of my fundamentalist interlocutors and myself. This time, I’ve clearly marked his remarks as “DO” and mine as “Geo” so that the Blog formatting incapabilities aren’t bothersome. Much is probably repetition, but that’s the nature of our debates. In an earlier email I had tried to see what basic facts we could agree on, but he would not reply to my list. I never did pin him down as to what he considered facts and science and what he didn’t. Because of this, we could never close our debate.

The immediate cause of this email was an email by me in which I enclosed a list of pretty basic scientific facts which Dave ignonred in his answer to me and, then, I broke his reply into bits and replied bit by bit, as you can see....

From: "D.O." Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:32:17 -0700
To: "George Thomas"
Subject: In reply to Geo’s “How much science does a fundamentalist accept?”

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THE DEBATE
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DO: “george; in your fixated...

Geo: Cuts both ways!

DO: “...manner, you believe you're winning some sort of debate when all you're doing is proving that you have a better science background than i do.”

Geo: Dave, I have a rudimentary scientific knowledge which I got from one chemistry course in high school, a physics course in college, an inquiring and skeptical mind, reading a lot of science books written for laymen, and a healthy distrust of fortune telling (i.e. prophecy) and superstition which a mere glance into history ought to give anyone. All of what I’ve worked hard to become is available to anyone willing to spend a lifetime trying to educate and broaden his or her views of the world. And that is exactly what I’ve done with my life, and I’m not the least ashamed of spending my life in this way. It did cost me something in the way of material comfort, but that’s the trade off I saw that I’d have to make to become really educated, not only in books but in living a variety of life and work experiences. I’m not going to hide my light under a bushel because Bible stories tell me that knowledge is ignorance. When I was a kid, people believed in educating themselves. These days, illiteracy seems to be what people admire. To be educated, I think, is to be considered an elitist by the Bushmen.

DO: “however, you're continuing to insist that faith priniciples of the atheist/evolutionist...

Geo: Many evolutionists believe in god.

DO: “...are fact, based on observable data.”

Geo: Several times, in several emails, I listed items of easily verifiable, common sense scientific data (not faith items) which you seem to be ignoring. Why? Why didn’t you just respond to each of my items in the last email so that I’d see where our minds might meet in common agreement, a place to start.

DO: “rather than grab a rudimentary creationist book off the shelf to challenge you tit for tat...

Geo: Creationism? What does that mean? Early humanoid’s egocentric view of humankind gets in their way here. Having only the example of people before their eyes as their example, who do create things, early people imagined gods and processes much like themselves in order to explain to themselves the mystery of their birth, death and life circumstances. This very human and limited view of a mythological universe made their gods nothing but glorified sculptors (i.e. puppet makers) or painters (the starry heavens). do you see how I might come to that conclusion? You don’t have to agree with me to at least see the rationale of my explanation just as I try to understand your rationales.

“Creationist” books are not scientific books because they presuppose without proof or debate a “creator” for which there is no evidence. Since their beginning premise is unproved what follows can only be hypothetical. And these creationist hypotheses have all been and continue to be disproved by scientific evidence. They are exercises in sophistry. None of those books are scientific because science doesn’t depend only on attacking others’ evidence. Good science comes up with verifiable evidence to prove its hypotheses. I’ve said this several times and you always ignore it. Show me the data that shows how something spiritual creates something material. Until you can do that with science, why challenge science’s theories about the observable universe which at least have some evidence to support them?

For one example of easily verifiable data, observable with telescopes and other measuring devices, is that the universe is moving outward at a measurable rate from an identifiable historical event in the past. You continually ignore and don’t reply to all the evidence for a universe which is expanding as from a central event which science calls, for simplicity’s sake, the big bang. Why can we observe this movement with telescopes and radio telescopes if not true? What’s your explanation for this phenomena?

In this reply, just as several times before when I confront you with facts or analogies, you just fire back these blasts of religious cant at me. Why can’t we stick to a discussion of the facts like good newspapermen?

DO: “-- i assume that you and your fellow unbelievers have conjured an answer to bede's ‘black box’...

Geo: Bede’s “black box” is sophistry, word games and philosophy, not scientific data. This is why I went to specific scientific principles in my last email so that I could see if we were on the same page scientifically.

DO: “...and other tomes -- and waste my time, i'll go back to the four of five principles of your atheistic faith and again stress that you have greater faith in your unbelief than i do in my belief. to be an atheist, you have to believe that everything came from nothing or that matter is eternal...

Geo: To be a fundamentalist, one has to believe that some spiritual puppet master called Yahweh existed before matter. Why does it make any less sense to think that matter is eternal than to posit some spiritual entity as eternal? Both are equally valid. Note: I don’t say true; I say valid. do you at least agree to that? I’ve offered you that option over and over in our debates, but I feel that you must have it all your way or none.

DO: “...and had some sort of system for creating an organized universe...

Geo: Natural selection is the process by which the current state of affairs in flux has come to exist. It’s not finished or organized and never will be but continues its daily rounds of change by infinite steps.

DO: “...that stays in place...

Geo: Nothing in the universe stays in place. The universe is in a constant state of change. do you deny that observable fact?

DO: “...governed by laws that scientists are slowly unraveling. i, of course, see intelligent design...

Geo: I’ve already answered that one. What design do you speak of? Is this design still changing? Is it finished? How can you see a design in an unfinished process? I’ve challenged you on this several times and you keep ignoring the challenge. What design are you speaking of in the middle of all this change?

DO: “...and an eternal God beyond the beginning...

Geo: Prove it, please, just a little scientific evidence will do. I’ll listen respectfully to the scientific evidence of this being. Otherwise it’s just an unproven hypothesis.

DO: “...an evolutionary atheist has to believe -- without justification other than a bias toward reading too much into your scientific tea leaves...

Geo: More insults.

DO: “...-- that matter exploded into the organized universe...

Geo: What organized, completed universe do you speak of?

DO: “...we see around us and our verdant world, in particular, which accidentally had all the ingredients to sustain life.”

Geo: Can this be proven scientifically or is this an hypothesis?

DO: “rather than being a ‘fact’ as you ascertain, your belief in the "big bang" is nothing more than an educated guess...

Geo: You keep ignoring and don’t reply to all the evidence for a universe which is expanding as from a central event that science calls, for simplicity’s sake, the big bang. Why can we observe this phenomena with telescopes and radio waves and you ignore this evidence we can see with our own eyes?

DO: “...by men of your kind who deny God.”

Geo: No, I don’t deny god. I await some scientific evidence, and I’ll believe with the best of them. Until then, I believe only as much as what evidence shows me. I’m very open minded.

DO: “you -- and they -- have to embrace your silly theory...

Geo: More name calling, eh?

DO: “...of everything coming from nothing and then organizing itself because the only other legitimate theory...

Geo: Hypothesis.

DO: “...is that God...

Geo: There’s that unproved spiritual superbeing again.

DO: “...said: let there be. and it was.”

Geo: Did you hear this utterance? Who heard this utterance? Are you taking the word of someone else about this? Then it’s second hand knowledge as Thomas Paine said. On the other hand, we, right in the here and now, can hear the sound of the big bang still echoing in the universe. This is common knowledge but you ignore it. Again, I have tried to find out just what you will or will not accept as evidence.

DO: “your so-called fact can't be considered anything more than a theory...

Geo: No, big bang is a fact way beyond even theory. But, remember how strong a theory is as compared to the god hypothesis. This has occurred several times between us. do you accept the definitions of hypothesis, theory and fact as outlined in scientific literature?

DO: “...because, according to your rules, the so-called big bang can't be reproduced or observed in a lab.”

Geo: The Big Bang can be observed in real time in the material universe. Why would we need to reproduce it in a lab? We’ve got the real bang still going on before our eyes. I’ve said that two or three times too, and you keep ignoring that fact. do you accept that the universe is the experiment we’re observing as it happens? What we don’t have evidence of is this spiritual moment when something unseen, immaterial, and without form created matter. So I don’t care about it. It’s of no importance. All I want to know about is how the material world works. For the fourth time, I say that I won’t argue with you if you want to premise some spiritual superbeing who set the whole shebang in motion.

DO: “then, among your silliest contentions...

Geo: More insults.

DO: “...is the notion that inorganic material produced life -- another unscientific guess because it can't be observed or reproduced -- that single-celled organisms gave rise to multi-celled ones, that invertebrates gave rise to vertebrates, that ape-like creatures gave rise to man, that non-intelligent amoral matter gave rise to intelligence and morality.”

Geo: Whoa, Dave, stop. Every time a conception happens, we see a two cells become four cells and four become eight, on and on. We see purely cellular existence grow vertebra, ligaments and bones and eyes, legs and arms, etcetera. What is happening there?

Dave, there’s a lot to debate on these matters and I can’t even begin to argue them (there’s just too much data to go over and I’m not sure I’m qualified to eke out the details), but, I’ve read the Bible and I challenge you to read the science about all these matters. Except for the idea of how inorganic matter gave birth to organic matter, I believe most of it is pretty well documented. I seriously don’t think you’ve kept up on scientific matters except to read those who oppose science. But the only way to understand and make your own decision is to honestly delve into the sciences with an open mind and find out for yourself. I’ve looked into religion enough to have had a born again experience to have believed in the story of Jesus, to have believed that a miracle was being performed on me to restore me to sobriety, and I did this in my middle ages, but they didn’t hold me. So I’ve been open minded down the way of the Bible story. Have you been as open minded about science? Have you studied science with an eye to believing before you condemn?

DO: “again, i'll say your blind faith in the bias of science's deductions is enormous. yet, you embrace your bias as fact and totally dismiss the other real possibility of how it all began.”

Geo: Tell me, Dave. Why, in all the possibilities in the universe, should you come up with an idea that some invisible being at the beginning of time started all this unless you were taught it at a very impressionable age? Why would you invent this idea? What bias in your thinking would make you invent that idea or would make early peoples invent a god that worked the way they claimed he did? I only say this to show that your claim is as unfounded as you say science’s claims are. I’m not claiming anything but an equality in the validity of the claims as to what preceded matter. I’m granting you an equality of hypothesis as to what happened before time, if there was a “before” time.

DO: “as i've said before, the preaching of the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing.”

Geo: I’m not “perishing” Dave. Speak only for yourself. I don’t think you’re perishing just because we disagree with one another. That would be un-American and undemocratic. don’t forget. My religion is democracy and my Bible is the Constitution and human freedom from all kings and gods is my spiritual compass. To you, I grant the same freedoms.

DO: “you say you once walked in my shoes and have all kinds of notions about what prompted me to believe and why i hold onto my belief.”

Geo: I really can’t say that. It’s just my opinion which we all have.

DO: “i've also walked in your shoes...

Geo: I don’t know if you have.

DO: “...and i wouldn't trade places for the world. watching you agonize about christians taking over the u.s. and forming a theocratic government...

Geo: That “religions” by true believers of all sorts have taken over countries is a historical reality. Even in the Bible such things are recorded and the results are never good, so to be concerned is not out of the realm of reality. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Who said that?

DO: “...(when we met) revealed to me how much fear you have in your life. (i still fight the effects of fear...

Geo: All humans have fear. It’s part of our evolved mechanism, just like all animals, for self preservation and self defense.

DO: “...caused by manmade religion in my formative years, but i'm getting over it.) mankind is not a random accident. he is the pinnacle of God's creation.”

Geo: What about womankind? And the pinnacle stuff is pure hypothesis, but you’re welcome to it, if it comforts you as much as science comforts me.

DO: “if you want to believe you're a monkey's uncle ... without a fossil record (but a fairly good faux theory of why it doesn't exist), go ahead. i'll continue to believe mankind is created in the image of God. at our age, we will both know soon enough who's right. or we'll both cease to exist and others after us will take up the question.”

Geo: Fair enough.

DO: “we've reached an impasse, however. i browsed through a book that challenges the speculation on evolution that you embrace as fact, with the purpose of compiling a list, like the one you have listed below. i realized, however, that this would continue an endless discussion, with you refusing to concede a point. you'll conjure up some more so-called facts...

Geo: This charge is strange to me because I don’t know what facts are to you so-called and what facts we both might accept as true. This is something I’ve been trying to establish for some time now. I really don’t know what you object to except the things which neither side has any evidence for. You keep telling me that the big bang is not factual, and almost all astronomers will accept that this beginning event is a real occurrence, though they may still be believers in god.

DO: “...and i'll have to waste time finding material to knock them down. frankly, as i've pointed out above, you believe a lot of hockum...

Geo: Another insult. Sorry that you didn’t compile your list. I’d like to see it.

DO: “...already that doesn't pass scientific muster...

Geo: In some of my beliefs I admit that I go with the Nobel Prize winning scientists because some things I can’t clearly state. If my ideas don’t pass muster, then neither do the beliefs of all the heavy thinkers and researchers in the sciences.

DO: “...and are too willing to buy any theory that combats anything creationistic, whether it's proveable or not (eternal matter, big bang, etc.)”

Geo: I claimed only that eternal matter is as plausible as some eternal immateriality called spirit. They’re equally plausible. Big bang is another matter.

DO: “this side of God's intervention in your life, you'll never find the truth.”

Geo: Another insult and quite an arrogant statement.

DO: “i don't have time to continue feeding your obsessive nature.”

Geo: Another insult and quite psychological for a spiritual being who, I’d imagine, doesn’t believe much in Freud either.

DO: “i've said that before. at this point, i'll continue to pray for you...

Geo: Another insult.

DO: “...with the hope that God will intervene in your life as He has in mine. but i'm not interested in continuing to debate with your for the sake of debate — dfo”

Geo: Fair enough.