God wins!!

Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
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Furstentum Liechtenstein
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Re: God wins!!

Post by Furstentum Liechtenstein »

ManOfScience wrote: That just made me think. What is the point to the other 80 billion plus galaxies (~50 sextillion stars) in the universe?
The official explanation is: The heavens declare the glory of God. Ps 19:1

As an atheist, you are not able to understand. :beat:

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Gman
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Re:

Post by Gman »

ManOfScience wrote: I'm not. I've been saying the same thing all along. I'm nearly certain an objective reader would agree.
The facts is you don't read your own posts...
Gman wrote:And now this is the 4th time I'm asking you for the scientific evidence that shows us that God didn't mold us out of clay or other creations..
ManOfScience wrote:Are you seriously asking me to provide you with specific links to research papers about evolution and natural selection? There's a veritable mountain of peer-reviewed research out there; I'm sure you can find something!?
And there you go again... Again you postulate that evolution and natural selection is "proof" against the existence of God or God's creations. Which makes this the 5th time now I'm asking you to reveal the evidence for your assertions..
Gman wrote:Call it reading the Bible.. Genesis 2:15.
ManOfScience wrote:That doesn't answer my question. Millions of people have read the Bible, and they certainly haven't all turned the last page holding the same belief set!
The majority of people that read the Bible obviously understand that God didn't put people on the planet to rape pillage and plunder it.. Many of our most historic environmentalists are Christian. Christians like Al Gore, Robert F. Kennedy, and the Clintons. You are simply trying to create a strawman argument...
ManOfScience wrote:I've already rejected "chance"; I'm not sure why you're still attaching it to me. Let's take a more down-to-earth example than the origin of life or the universe. Let's say you're walking down the street and you see a baseball rolling across your path. Are the only two explanations you can think of (i) God did it and (ii) it was chance (all the atoms in the ball happened to move in sync, causing the ball to move)?
Rolling balls? No.. The question is where did the ball come from.. Was it created by a baseball company or did it magically create itself by chance?
ManOfScience wrote:Isn't there a third, much more likely, explanation?
What do you mean? An evolution of the gaps belief? Oh, well sure you could say that matter doesn't exist or that we don't live in an old universe or that proton decay and that the first and second laws of thermodynamics don't exist. And the big bang? Well that didn't happen either because nothing came out of nothing.. Sounds scientific to me... But you will need more faith to believe that than I..

But then again, you wouldn't be arguing for arguing's sake, you would be arguing against science...
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo

We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
ManOfScience
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Re: Re:

Post by ManOfScience »

Gman wrote:And there you go again... Again you postulate that evolution and natural selection is "proof" against the existence of God or God's creations. Which makes this the 5th time now I'm asking you to reveal the evidence for your assertions..
For the record, quoting from one of my previous posts, this is what I'm postulating: Adam and Eve didn't spring into existence: we didn't go from nothing to a fully-formed human being. I get the feeling that anything I say will fall on deaf ears. However, there's plenty here to get you started: http://www.newscientist.com/topic/evolution
Gman wrote:The majority of people that read the Bible obviously understand that God didn't put people on the planet to rape pillage and plunder it.. Many of our most historic environmentalists are Christian. Christians like Al Gore, Robert F. Kennedy, and the Clintons. You are simply trying to create a strawman argument...
I simply want to know, how do you decide which parts of the scriptures to pick and choose, and which to ignore or reject?
Gman wrote:Rolling balls? No.. The question is where did the ball come from.. Was it created by a baseball company or did it magically create itself by chance?
The chance of it having been spontaneously formed during the compaction process at a landfill is quite slim. In this case, I think we can agree that the ball had an intelligent designer. However, assigning the same logic to the ball's designer is a bad idea: who designed the ball's designer's designer?
Gman wrote:What do you mean?
The third explanation was that some kid hit the ball out of the ballpark, and it rolled across the road.
Gman wrote:Oh, well sure you could say that matter doesn't exist or that we don't live in an old universe or that proton decay and that the first and second laws of thermodynamics don't exist.
Now I'm confused. Why are you talking about thermodynamics?
Gman wrote:And the big bang? Well that didn't happen either because nothing came out of nothing.. Sounds scientific to me... But you will need more faith to believe that than I..
What in the world are you talking about? Are you just attempting to obfuscate this conversation? It doesn't require faith to believe that the Big Bang happened. As I said previously, the Standard Model does a pretty good job of explaining it. Admittedly, it's likely to go through a few amendments as our knowledge increases, but it's the best model we have right now.
Gman wrote:But then again, you wouldn't be arguing for arguing's sake, you would be arguing against science...
Huh?
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Re: Re:

Post by Gman »

ManOfScience wrote:For the record, quoting from one of my previous posts, this is what I'm postulating: Adam and Eve didn't spring into existence: we didn't go from nothing to a fully-formed human being. I get the feeling that anything I say will fall on deaf ears. However, there's plenty here to get you started: http://www.newscientist.com/topic/evolution
It appears that you don't wish to answer the questions but disengage from the discussion. I have asked specifically how does evolution thwart the idea of a god, and all you can do is link a website that doesn't even address this issue? Then you repeatedly say that evolution has nothing to do with origins and yet you postulate that Adam and Eve didn't go from nothing to a fully-formed human being but then try to explain it (abiogenesis) through an evolutionary website?

Not only is this contradictory, but it is circular reasoning...
ManOfScience wrote:I simply want to know, how do you decide which parts of the scriptures to pick and choose, and which to ignore or reject?
Ok, where does it say in the Bible that God put man on earth so that they should destroy it?
ManOfScience wrote:The chance of it having been spontaneously formed during the compaction process at a landfill is quite slim. In this case, I think we can agree that the ball had an intelligent designer. However, assigning the same logic to the ball's designer is a bad idea: who designed the ball's designer's designer?
The designer (who is spiritual) would have to exist either outside time (where cause and effect do not operate) or within multiple dimensions of time.. Time would have no affect..
ManOfScience wrote:The third explanation was that some kid hit the ball out of the ballpark, and it rolled across the road.
Well that explains everything.. Chance didn't create the baseball, a designer didn't do it... The scientific answer is that some kid hit the ball out of the ballpark, and it rolled across the road. Nice..
ManOfScience wrote:What in the world are you talking about? Are you just attempting to obfuscate this conversation? It doesn't require faith to believe that the Big Bang happened. As I said previously, the Standard Model does a pretty good job of explaining it. Admittedly, it's likely to go through a few amendments as our knowledge increases, but it's the best model we have right now.
And what in the world are you talking about? The scientific answer is that some kid hit the ball out of the ballpark, and it rolled across the road? That is the best model we have right now?

This is scientific? This is the Standard Model? Since when?
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo

We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
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Re: Re:

Post by DannyM »

ManOfScience wrote:What in the world are you talking about? Are you just attempting to obfuscate this conversation? It doesn't require faith to believe that the Big Bang happened. As I said previously, the Standard Model does a pretty good job of explaining it. Admittedly, it's likely to go through a few amendments as our knowledge increases, but it's the best model we have right now.
Of course you require faith. So what caused the big bang?
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Post by ManOfScience »

Gman,

I honestly don't know whether you're seriously unable to get what I'm saying, or whether you're playing the fool on purpose.

If you're asking me for 100% proof that God didn't create us, then I've already quite willingly admitted that I'm unable to give you what you want. Just as I'm unable to prove that we weren't created by a giant, omnipotent potato, or that the FSM did it. Alternatively, God might have created us just a few milliseconds ago, complete with all of our memories of the past; everything we remember happening more than a second ago could just be implanted memories. Don't you think? Bet you can't disprove it!

You still haven't answered my question of how you decide which parts of the Bible to pick and choose. You (meaning Christians in general) clearly don't put your faith in the entire thing. If you did, we'd all be stoning our children to death when they disrespected us.

Re: baseball. If you re-read my original question, you'll see that it was nothing to do with creation; you adjusted the question later. Confusing this with the Standard Model (of particle physics) is just ridiculous.

Cheers,

MoS
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Re:

Post by A Y323 »

ManOfScience wrote:Alternatively, God might have created us just a few milliseconds ago, complete with all of our memories of the past; everything we remember happening more than a second ago could just be implanted memories. Don't you think? Bet you can't disprove it!
That would be deception, a form of lying, which is a sin. God can't sin.
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Re: Re:

Post by ManOfScience »

A Y323 wrote:That would be deception, a form of lying, which is a sin. God can't sin.
It's analogous to placing fossils in the sedimentary rock all over the Earth, isn't it?
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Re: Re:

Post by RickD »

ManOfScience wrote:
A Y323 wrote:That would be deception, a form of lying, which is a sin. God can't sin.
It's analogous to placing fossils in the sedimentary rock all over the Earth, isn't it?
I see how you could make that analogy. You do realize this is an Old Earth website, and most people here don't believe that God created the earth with fossils already in place?
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Re: God wins!!

Post by zoegirl »

yep, that's one of the reasons we don't believe in that idea of appearance of age.
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Re: Re:

Post by Canuckster1127 »

RickD wrote:
ManOfScience wrote:
A Y323 wrote:That would be deception, a form of lying, which is a sin. God can't sin.
It's analogous to placing fossils in the sedimentary rock all over the Earth, isn't it?
I see how you could make that analogy. You do realize this is an Old Earth website, and most people here don't believe that God created the earth with fossils already in place?
That realization does seem to be missing. Also, there appears to be an assumption of MoS part that the existence of God is only "necessitated" by invoking God of the Gap arguments. That's a very telling assumption. It explains to me why the material and statements being made are so circular. It seems to be mistaking "cause agent" with "methodology."

There are past examples of christians and other theists throughout history invoking "God of the Gaps" arguments in which the claim is made that something cannot be explained and therefore that proves the existence of God. To be fair too, I see that type of argument made from atheists as well that assumes that unexplainable phenomenon today do in fact have a natural explanation and that given enough time, observation and data any mystery can be solved.

For an atheist, that argument is exclusive as only that which is natural and methodological can suffice. Yet it's interesting to me to see militant atheists who make claims that are beyond what the evidence can substantiate and don't appear to recognize that they're making the same type of mistake that they claim people of faith do when they gloss over their gaps and assume that the scientific method is its own proof.

Anyway, I'm watching and will jump in when warranted. Carry on ..... ;)
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Re:

Post by Gman »

ManOfScience wrote:Gman,

I honestly don't know whether you're seriously unable to get what I'm saying, or whether you're playing the fool on purpose.
You are the one coming up with the accusations, stating that nature by itself can create everything in the world, and then when you were asked to show us the evidence to back up your assertions, you willingly declined..
ManOfScience wrote:If you're asking me for 100% proof that God didn't create us, then I've already quite willingly admitted that I'm unable to give you what you want. Just as I'm unable to prove that we weren't created by a giant, omnipotent potato, or that the FSM did it.
By your own assertions, you have beautifully supplied for us that your beliefs, on science, are ALSO faith based.. You have shown that there is an evolution of the gaps which is not scientific at all but is only a simple assertion.. Therefore your beliefs are equal to being created by a giant, omnipotent potato, or the FSM as well..

So choose your faith wisely as I stated at the beginning of this post..
ManOfScience wrote:Alternatively, God might have created us just a few milliseconds ago, complete with all of our memories of the past; everything we remember happening more than a second ago could just be implanted memories. Don't you think? Bet you can't disprove it!
No one here is making that assertion.. As for scientific facts, we have history of it, and it proves that it wasn't created in milliseconds.
ManOfScience wrote:You still haven't answered my question of how you decide which parts of the Bible to pick and choose. You (meaning Christians in general) clearly don't put your faith in the entire thing. If you did, we'd all be stoning our children to death when they disrespected us.
And you still haven't answered my question about where you are finding these "so called" contradictory parts in the Bible.. Again, you are just making assertions, backed up by nothing...
ManOfScience wrote:Re: baseball. If you re-read my original question, you'll see that it was nothing to do with creation; you adjusted the question later. Confusing this with the Standard Model (of particle physics) is just ridiculous.
Again, you were the one that said you had proof that nature, by itself and without God, does the creation and that evolution is capable of molding humans out of clay (abiogenesis) without the hand of God. When it was asked of you to provide the evidence for your assertions, you declined.

By your own statements, including the one where you state that we can agree that the ball had an intelligent designer, it clearly shows that....

God wins.. ;)
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo

We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
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Re: God wins!!

Post by DannyM »

Gman,

You nailed that.
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Re: God wins!!

Post by Gman »

DannyM wrote:Gman,

You nailed that.
Thanks but I kind of like the way Rich put's it too...

"A skeptic or atheist is governed by two main principles: 1) all beliefs must be supported by observational evidence, and 2) beliefs that contradict observational evidence cannot be tolerated. However, strong atheism states that there is no god, even though observational evidence indicates that the universe has a cause that cannot be detected observationally. So despite the lack of observational evidence for a naturalistic cause for the universe, the strong atheist believes that the universe has a naturalistic cause and that there is no god, contradicting the tenet that all beliefs should be based upon observational evidence."

Source: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... MV5Br25mbl

:doh:
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo

We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
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Re: God wins!!

Post by CeT-To »

Gman wrote:
DannyM wrote:Gman,

You nailed that.
Thanks but I kind of like the way Rich put's it too...

"A skeptic or atheist is governed by two main principles: 1) all beliefs must be supported by observational evidence, and 2) beliefs that contradict observational evidence cannot be tolerated. However, strong atheism states that there is no god, even though observational evidence indicates that the universe has a cause that cannot be detected observationally. So despite the lack of observational evidence for a naturalistic cause for the universe, the strong atheist believes that the universe has a naturalistic cause and that there is no god, contradicting the tenet that all beliefs should be based upon observational evidence."

Source: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... MV5Br25mbl

:doh:
Check mate ;) hehe nice work Gman and especially Rich haha man i love this site so enriched with wisdom :)
But joy and happiness in you to all who seek you! Let them ceaselessly cry,"Great is Yahweh" who love your saving power. Psalm 40:16

I Praise you Yahweh, my Lord, my God!!!!!
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