D'Abrera

[Anne Kilmer]

Mark Walker wrote:
> 
> Boy, I guess I did miss much.  This is one of those "True Colors"
> threads that leaves no room for speculation.  I live by the following
> three adages:
> 
> 1.  Knowledge is everything.
> 2.  "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do"
> 3.  Human wisdom is but foolishness to God.
> 
> Personally, I was created.
> 
>         From this perspective, most of the discussion here consists of
> "mystical modern disclaimers of unprovable beliefs of certain religious
> people", where in this case the religion is secular humanism.
> 
>         In addition, I consider most of the discussion to be incredibly
> unscientific.  The statement, "A creator isn't necessary for the system
> to work" is just one example.
> 
>         Anyway, have fun with this thread.  It's good to be back, even
> if I'm not in Frost's countryside.
> 
>         Mark Walker
>         Irvine, CA


Being God (as my Brother defined me) I dealt this mess. We apologize for
the inconvenience (as Douglas Adams quoted said creator as having said,
in gigantic letters of fire).
I do not see anywhere in Jesus' life and works where he told us to
squabble and fuss at each other, let alone fling big hard sharp heavy
things.
When we have achieved a knowledge of perfect union with God, the first
thing we will notice is that we all agree just fine.
Meanwhile, it is probably a good idea to pretend that this is already
happening. Ecumenism. Environmental gardening. Even the enthusiastic
agreement of the people on this list that we ought to hunt down that guy
 who is selling endangered Chinese butterflies, and enlighten him
forcibly. (Heretic bashing is a splendid hobby, and don't we jump right
into it!)

Now. My two cents:
We are a tapestry which, from the thread's point of view, has its ups
and downs. You can't see the big picture while you're being one of the
threads, but you can sure have ideas about how your bit ought to be
going.
The big picture is not what God sees; it is God.
Therefore, depending on where I'm looking from, the butterfly is striped
to please me, to please God, to prevent his being eaten, because the
ones that weren't striped were eaten, because he has waste toxic
chemicals to get rid of, because he wishes to warn predators of his
toxicity, to resemble the foliage because (all of the above, none of the
above)
Teleology, my conservation biology professor kept sputtering.
I like the notion that Nature has a wisdom of its own, and, when I
meditate, feel the streaming force of it.
But when, as here, I am addressing scientists, I try to use their terms
and phrases, perhaps for credibility, perhaps out of courtesy. I
describe Nature as a machine, rather than as the person I know. Who is
actually God, I hope.
And a tag I picked up in a Charles Williams novel:
Truth is always in the thing;
never in the reasoning.
 (Est in re veritate; sed non in schemate, if my memory serves me.)

Might we therefore, agree that at some point we do agree, were we all to
define our terms to our satisfaction. This is not the place for such
discourse, and perhaps we could discuss bugs more comfortably were we to
agree that a little teleology is, after all, not such a bad thing.
In this Noah's Ark we are flying into the new millennium, we do have to
provide for the insects, two by two. Best we direct our energies at that
effort.
Anne Kilmer
South Florida