From: "Stephen E. Jones" <sejones@iinet.net.au>
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and
faith
And I must say that I disagree with 4. above it as it stands. It seems to me
that a Christian could have a belief in the "cause, principle, or system of
beliefs" about democracy (for example), "with ardor and faith" without it
being necessarily his/her "religion".
It seems to me that the essential criteria for a belief being a "religion" (or
*effectively* a "religion"), is the extent to which it is about *ultimate*
reality.
I see religion as an umbrella word to cover all forms of religion. Some are not as significant as others, but still religions.
AR>None of these have be proved. And since they are assumptions it would be a
>logical fallacy to attempt to prove them within any paradigm that assumes
>them true.
Agree about "1. Naturalism/Materialism" and its corollary "2. Actualism".
But disagree about "3. Abiogenesis" and "4. Darwinism". These latter can
be (and have been) tested and have been found wanting. But they survive
because of the prior `religious' faith commitment of evolutionists to
materialism/naturalism.
If the claim is that "Abiogenesis and Darwinism" cannot be tested and
found false, I disagree. They can be, and have been, tested and found to be
seriously wanting, if not false.
I was meaning to say it is impossible to prove them true, while they might be proven false.
But the fact is that YECs (including Gish) *do* try to test and falsify
evolution claims, and evolutionists *do* try to test and falsify creation
claims. To claim that an opponent's position itself is unfalsifiable and then
to proceed to try to falsify it, is simply incoherent. In fact to claim that
one's own position is unfalsifiable, and then try to defend it, is equally
incoherent. I remember seeing somewhere that other YECs (e.g. Kurt
Wise), did not agree with Gish on this, because it would remove YEC from
being, even in principle, scientific.
I agree. I think YEC should stick to making a model and leave evolutionism alone.
Personally I regard "Creationary Catastrophism" (which I take to be a
species of YEC/Flood Geology), is a sub-model within the larger Judeo-
Christian creationist paradigm. It has a right to make its claims within that
paradigm (or outside it for that matter), but it should not make out that it is
*the* creationist paradigm.
I use Creationary Catastropism to distinguish this theory from the Neo-Catastrophism of Derek Ager.
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