Creation-Evolution-Creative Days-Age of the Earth-Humanoid Fossils-Great Flood

[AlanF]

23 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Don’t you have any sense of metaphor at all? Are you nothing more than an insulting tabulation machine....or a tabulating insult machine?

They don’t survive, is the point—just as the beneficial mutation (my solved rattle) does not survive the hundreds of deleterious mutations (my towed-away car).

I know you think you're clever enough to formulate sensible metaphors, but you're far from it. More like a small petulant child.

[TrueTomHarley]

14 minutes ago, Ann O'Maly said:

What, in your metaphor, was analogous to a living organism, @TrueTomHarley? You, the driver? What mutation did you spontaneously develop that caused you to lose control of the car? 🤪

Yes, in a living organism, the beneficial mutation is passed along to the next generation . But so are the hundreds of harmful ones. And the idea that the beneficial mutations successfully swim upstream against a torrent of harmful ones, like spawning salmon in the Chinook, is a sell that makes any religious claim of faith look like a square deal in comparison.

[Ann O'Maly]

So, what does the rickety car represent, @TrueTomHarley? Is there an antitype in there somewhere? 

[TrueTomHarley]

20 minutes ago, Ann O'Maly said:

So, what does the rickety car represent, @TrueTomHarley? Is there an antitype in there somewhere? 

I ran it into a tree. This is what it represents:

 

and this one represents the “science” that has me celebrating my fixed glove box rattle:

[Ann O'Maly]

@TrueTomHarley, maybe the tree has an antitype? 

[TrueTomHarley]

5 minutes ago, Ann O'Maly said:

@TrueTomHarley, maybe the tree has an antitype? 

Yes. It is a blockage on Evolution Row.

[Ann O'Maly]

2 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Yes. It is a blockage on Evolution Row.

... which life then channels through and/or gets around.

What was your metaphor trying to teach again? 

[TrueTomHarley]

17 minutes ago, Ann O'Maly said:

... which life then channels through and/or gets around.

A pure article of faith.

18 hours ago, AlanF said:

Ah, Behe. The Society used him as an authority until it figured out that Behe actually accepts evolution -- but a divinely guided sort

Did he force them to publish the interview, too, which plainly shows what he believes?

21 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Yes. It is a blockage on Evolution Row.

The only sound that's left after the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up on Evolution Row

And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing, he's getting ready for the show He's going to the carnival tonight on Evolution Row

And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbow She spends her time peeking into Evolution Row

You would not think to look at him, but he was famous long ago For playing the electric violin on Evolution Row

They all play on the penny whistles, you can hear them blow If you lean your head out far enough from Evolution Row

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls, "Get outta here if you don't know" Casanova is just being punished for going to Evolution Row"

Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow And nobody has to think too much about Evolution Row

Right now, I can't read too good, don't send me no more letters no, Not unless you mail them from Evolution Row

[AlanF]

5 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Did he force them to publish the interview, too, which plainly shows what he believes?

Yeah, he pulled a gun on the Writing Department.

Give it up, TTH. You're nowhere near as clever as you think.

[TrueTomHarley]

2 hours ago, AlanF said:

Yeah, he pulled a gun on the Writing Department.

Give it up, TTH. You're nowhere near as clever as you think.

You also didn’t answer my question, you blowhard.

If, as you say, the Watchtower dumped him the moment they learned he basically believes in evolution, only allowing for its “edge,” why did they publish their interview with him, in which he is quite open as to how he thinks?

2 hours ago, AlanF said:

You're nowhere near as clever as you think.

Fortunately, that is not a liability when speaking with you.

[AlanF]

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

You also didn’t answer my question, you blowhard.

Sure I did. You're just too dumb to understand.

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

If, as you say, the Watchtower dumped him the moment they learned he basically believes in evolution,

I didn't say that, you moron.

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

only allowing for its “edge,” why did they publish their interview with him, in which he is quite open as to how he thinks?

If you think he was truly open, then quote him about that.

Of course, you won't.

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Fortunately, that is not a liability when speaking with you.

Here's a good video for you. It's animated, so you should be able to understand it:

 

[TrueTomHarley]

You know, it started as a joke. Explaining a metaphor to Ann that any child would instantly understand, it reached the point of my posting a tree fallen across the road with the comment that it was blocking “Evolution Row.”

Of course, that was a reference to Desolation Row, and I afterwards posted the lines with that phrase.

Sometimes something gets in your head and you knock it around a bit and come up with something more. “Evolution” Row is actually not a bad interpretation of the song. Take this portion:

At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row.

Anyone familiar with the Bible (as Dylan is—he did a stint as a born-again Christian. Listen to Slow Train Coming, for example, and you’ll see he is thoroughly familiar with scripture) will know who is “all the agents and the superhuman crew.”

At the darkest time, they round up everyone “who knows more than they do.” Well, nobody knows more than does the “superhuman crew,” so it must be a reference to those who think that they they know more than others, who think that are very smart indeed and that take great pleasure in parading their knowledge before everyone else, quick to disparage anyone in their path, ones who don’t suffer fools gladly—and a fool is anyone who disagrees with them.

Despite their self-heralded knowledge, they are “rounded up” and processed, as though in a “factory.” The knowledge that they take such pride in is nevertheless death-dealing, like a “heart attack machine strapped across their shoulders,” with “kerosene” thrown in for good measure. 

Despite their knowledge being death-dealing—settling for a few dozen years lifespan at best and then eternal blackness—nobody must escape this tripe. “Insurance men” see to it. Nobody will escape from Evolution Row. (Of course, Dylan actually wrote “to Desolation Row,” not “from,” but it was probably a typo.) Let us not forget that the evolution teaching (in its full measure— not counting the intelligent design variety) is desolation to the Bible based hope of living forever on a paradise earth.

Naw, I don’t really think Dylan had that in mind. Other stanzas don’t so readily lend themselves to that interpretation. But it’s not a bad interpretation all the same. Dylan often writes in a stream of consciousness and doesn’t necessarily have any underlying message. It’s like decrypting Kafka. The tone is distinct, but the underlying words can be taken any number of ways.