Or, “God did it in a way completely indistinguishable from it happening through purely natural processes.” It’s a step down, in terms of basic honesty, from a God-of-the-Gaps argument.
Can you explain what those are, for a [del]godless heretic[/del] curious nonbeliever?
I don’t think this is necessarily the case. If the universe is deterministic, then we could imagine it akin to a gigantic and incredibly complex, but ultimately computable simulation. Thus, essentially the different between a theist and an atheist is that a theist would believe that the initial conditions were determined by the creator, and an atheist would believe the initial conditions are either random or have some other determining factor such as a previous universe, cosmic evolution, multi-verse, etc. That is, it’s not that God necessarily has to do it in a way that’s indistinguishable, it’s that, with that assumption, he can actually do it using exactly that process.
Now, whether this is what Pat Robertson believes or not, I’m not sure. I do think it’s interesting that he believes this though, since I’d assumed, obviously incorrectly, that he was a YEC.
There were human shaped beings around before Adam and Eve, they just weren’t true humans. God invented those.
The unspoken assumption is these sub humans were Black and God had the good sense to invent White Folk. And none of your back talk claiming Jesus was Jewish or other nonsense!
It’s broad enough to define a range of beliefs, but de facto it usually seems to either avoid the issue of design, or outright deny that God is currently tinkering, rather than sowing seeds and letting whatever pops up to grow. In other words, indistinguishable from Darwinian beliefs which have unnecessarily, IMHO, been equated with atheism. And non-creationist criticism is usually of the philosophy, and not the mechanisms behind it. Some Jesuit science class is going to teach science, not religion unless it is presented as germane to a section on the “debate.”
Theistic evolution is the idea that life evolved exactly in the way that science describes, but that it was designed to do so by God.
Pre-Adamic Humanity is, presumably, the idea that there were humans before Adam.
Quantum physics very likely falsifies this, BTW.
This is why I hate the term ‘belief’, because it lends itself to this kind of equivocation. Either you changed the meaning of ‘belief’ partway through your sentence, or you misunderstand the atheist position: The theist position posits an entity outside the physical universe whereas the atheist one does not. They’re not on the same level, as the theist position clearly violates Occam’s Razor.
I always did like this “letter” that got passed around years ago here in Kansas, after a controversy about evolution and it’s teacing in public schools.
http://www.bio.net/bioarchives/plant-ed/1999-August/004911.html
It’s worth it to be able to play a mean pinball.
Ken Ham Challenges Pat Robertson To A Debate On Young Earth Creationism
Hey, the ‘Dumb And Dumber’ sequel is almost out already!
Wow. Words fail me. As, no doubt, they would fail everyone involved in such a “debate”.