I'll do the affirmative on the more basic resolution - the title of this thread, or the more detailed one as hammered out on the atheism / evolution thread below. It reads;

Resloved: From the 1859 publication of Origin of Species by Darwin to present day evolutionary thought and application, evolution is based upon and dependent upon atheistic principles.

"Evolution is atheistic" appears in talkorigins "index to creationist claims" (#CA 602) Their brief, shallow "rebuttal" of it starts off with the following statement;

This is my second try to find someone to debate it. If it's so "obviously false", why am I having such a hard time finding an opponent?

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Why is it that our children can't read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?

Perhaps because -- as shown by this thread, your definitions (like wascallywabbit's) have nothing to do with reality?

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

Is it the position of the affirmative to defend the following:

Resloved: From the 1859 publication of Origin of Species by Darwin to present day evolutionary thought and application, evolution is based upon and dependent upon atheistic principles.

By Arguing the negative then, one would posit that evolutionary thought/application is not mutually exclusive of some form of deity?

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Mutz (E)

Your Life Is Not My Fault

Did you read the thread I linked above? It clearly reveals that marc considers damn near anything other than his particular beliefs "atheism." That is, belief in "some form of deity" in a manner not identical to marc's is "atheism." To marc, deism is atheism, Catholicism is atheism, and polytheism is atheism.

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

Electrolyte,

I appreciate the warning. I just wanted to determine how much rope he was going to use to hang himself.

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Mutz (E)

Your Life Is Not My Fault

marc is apparently now keeping a list of people who won't accept his challenge as is.

marc, I'm assuming that I'm on your list. If so, there'd better be a big Frickesque asterisk explaining that I refuse to play by your asinine rules. Once more, if you were even the slightest bit interested in a meaningful debate, you'd come up with guidelines that both made sense and were acceptable to all parties involved. In the last challenge thread, I made proposals that you shot down without reason.

Nevertheless, I'll try again:
marc, if you can agree to the following definitions, I'll debate you on the resolution "Evolution is based upon and dependent upon atheistic principles."
evolution: change in genetic makeup of populations of organisms over generation(s)
atheistic principles: those principles necessarily requiring the nonexistence of any and all sorts of supernatural deity

If you don't like the definition of "evolution," then change the resolution. You might want to use "evolutionary theory" instead of "evolution."
If you don't like the definition of "atheistic principles," tough beans. That's what atheism means, contrary to your ludicrously unfettered labeling of damn near anything as "atheism." As soon as you start calling Catholics "atheists" again, the debate will stop in its tracks.

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

You're number 2, yes.

I do not make rules. Moderators and judges do that. I make a resolution, and that resolution is debated, exactly like every other past formal debate on these forums. In the negotiation process by possible opponents, I agreed to drastic word changes, I agreed to "definitions" ,and discovered that it wasn't a negotiation process by possible opponents at all, it was BLUFF.


Reference what I "shot down" with a post number. I agreed to all your "proposals". I did ignore your request to make the debate about "biology" because I didn't use the word "biology" in the resolution. Evolution and biology are two different subjects, if I wanted to debate biology, I would have used the term biology.

Would you not be able to call it to the judge's attention if I called Catholics atheists? I think you're bluffing again - if you don't want to do the debate like every other past debate has been done on these forums, tough beans for you. I don't feel like putting a judge and moderator through all the additional complications that "definitions" will cause, especially since I now believe that after going to all the trouble to do that, you'd just run away or move the goalposts yet again. I put dictionary.com's list of definitions for evolution up in this thread, post #51, and you and yours ran, remember? Do you remember number 4 from that list?

Why couldn't you display your case for definitions in the debate? Answer that question please. Why do you insist on stacking the deck - handcuffing the judge, with definitions? "Evolution" is a broad term and you know it.

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Why is it that our children can't read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?

You mean 2*.

Oh really? You should try reading for comprehension, because you must have missed that my last post included a conditional acceptance of you challenge. It is now you being pissy and ignoring reasonable objections.

Only someone as dishonest and evasive as you would take what I said and pretend I was talking about the whole of biology. I suggested a type of compromise that was by no means, implicit or otherwise, set in stone. I also provided reasons for the specific wording I chose. You certainly didn't agree, and rather than give any sort of explanation or attempt any sort of amendment, you ignored the entire post completely.

Damn right I would. But you only do it implicitly. The point is that I shouldn't have to, because the assertion is beyond ridiculous and has no place in formal debate.

What are you talking about? At this point I'm essentially copying things from the last thread because you have such trouble with short-term memory and reading comprehension that you have no idea what I told you mere weeks ago. I was hoping to make you pony up and play by some semblance of civil rules, but you're making it quite clear that you refuse to let that happen.

Get the car key out or your ear. Setting definitions beforehand prevents moving the goalposts. (I once again direct you to my earlier zipnats post.) For example, anybody with a rational understanding of atheism (and an unfamiliarity of your hijinks) would take your challenge in a heartbeat because you're so obviously wrong. Instead, you'll be arguing that theistic evolutionists, Deists, and most Christians are atheists. If that's the case, why bother? If you don't mean atheism, find an appropriate word or phrase. I suspect you mean "contradictory to marc's particular brand of fundamentalism." If you mean neither evolution in the biological sense nor "evolutionary theory" as it applies to life on Earth, then find an appropriate word or phrase. I suspect you mean "the idea that God didn't do anything at all," which is neither evolution nor evolutionary theory.

You lie. There is no other way to say this. You are simply lying. I do remember. In fact, I remember that I didn't run. I remember that I posted a response, and you had nothing to say about it at all. You can't even pretend that I'm not right, because you've repeatedly referenced Darwin and Origin of Species and said nothing about society, economy, or institutions.

Because they're separate issues. See zipnats.

Definitions don't handcuff the judge any more than a resolution handcuffs a judge. Definitions prevent asinine claims like "Catholics are atheists" from being significant. I speak English, not marckian. See zipnats.

Wait for it... wait for it.... All the more reason to restrict the term to a narrow definition!
Suddenly, I think you'd really like the zipnats debate. Want to have a one round debate on that instead?

If you want to debate the meaning of atheism, propose a separate debate. If you want to use some concept besides what rational English-speakers consider "atheism," then put that concept into words and use those instead. The same goes for "evolution" and "evolutionary theory."

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

From the moderator, in post #11 of the thread being referrenced here;

I'll stop feeding the electrolyte troll, with his various references to kidde cartoons, "zipnats" and four letter words.

What often happens (mainly in the creation/evolution forum), is that if anyone questioning Darwinian evolution makes any reference to the way evolution is used as a tool by militant atheists, posts like this suddenly appear;

A recent poster made this statement three times in one post;

What this does is change the course of a discussion. It often completely sidetracks the original discussion, and puts a non-evolutionist on the defensive as he must then ward off countless shallow, insulting comparisons of evolution to other sciences or subjects that have little, or nothing to do with the projections and assumptions of Darwinian evolution, often by multiple opponents. It's an effective bullying tactic, it's shallow, and it deserves a thorough, yet measured discussion that a one on one, 5/4 post structured debate would give it. It doesn't need to be done any differently than any of the past, 5/4 post structured debates at these forums.

It could be a good discussion with an honest evolutionist - I'll keep waiting.

Now we'll see if electrolyte quickly trolls this one - he doesn't want my name to appear as the last one, so that it doesn't show up on the main page. He really is afraid that this debate might happen.

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Why is it that our children can't read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?

If you'd like to invite JP and/or billsco to take a peek, you go right ahead. You are the one desperately squirming to avoid a debate that you allegedly want and boldly lying about what has been said in other threads. You accuse me of being a troll, yet you provide no substantive responses to any points I present in favor of hollow posturing and accusing me of avoiding you. Pretty funny for someone you claim seeks you out to keep your name hidden.

Said "kiddie cartoon" not only exists for a reason but was posted for an awfully good reason.
"Zipnats" remains such a good illustration of just how ludicrous your position is that you haven't discussed the concept a single time and instead are trying to blow it off as trolling. No one buys it.

Sorry, buddy, you don't get to accuse people of changing the course of a discussion when you've explicitly said that evolution is atheistic, challenged people to a debate, insisted that the topic is debate-worthy, and then squirmed like mad to avoid debating someone who has a history of roasting you to a crisp.

Are you really so self-absorbed that you think I go out of my way to knock your name off of the main page? I rebut your tripe without qualm. For all I care, start a new thread with your name in the title, and we'll keep it going; that way, your screenname will more visible.

You think so? Then accept my terms. Go ahead. See if you're right.

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

Except the evolution you are interested in is not.

I know exactly what you will do. You will pretend that evolution is a broad term, change its definition every post you go, refuse to accept a definition of atheism (which by the way you have called everyone from Catholics to Buddhists atheists, which by definition makes you a atheist as well, you remember that incident don't you little child eh?) and then refuse to actually discuss the real meaning of which.

Your handcuffing the judges is merely your view of why you hate honest discussion.

No one here even thinks you remotely understand what honest means.

None of the above matters at all. Evolution is part of a scientific enterprise. The only stance that science CAN take on the usual formulation of GOD is that science does not know whether or not such beings exist. Given that the only stance science takes is AGNOSTIC not ATHEISTIC. One can neither prove nor disprove that GOD exists and the AGNOSTIC position is the only way to respect that limitation with accuracy.

interesting topic. declaring that evolution is atheistic is a tough position. its more accurate to state that evolution is anti-biblical. you have to remember that theism isnt dependant on whether the bible (or any other work of mythology/religion) is true

if you want to insist that evolution is atheistic, i could take up the debate challenge

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when man tried to understand nature, theism was born
when man tried to understand God, atheism was born

my take on agnostism is its a state of belief limbo. eventually you'll seek information to anwser the question of god's existence. my state of agnostism lasted a few months, i simply couldnt settle for having the question unanswered (off topic, btw)

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when man tried to understand nature, theism was born
when man tried to understand God, atheism was born

so what if it is? Automobile mechanics and cookery are both atheistic, in that they don't require a god to work, does that mean we should not attempt to fix our cars or eat? What is the result of a positive result to this debate?

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There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier.