Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
AttentionKMartShoppers wrote:
OH I LOVE THIS. I'm sorry. We must stop and reflect on this man's saying. Why? Because he has proposed a while ago a theory that contradicts the laws of thermodyanimcs-the first one-he proposes in his model for how the universe didn't need a beginning by saying that one hydrogen atom per square mile of empty space pops into existence per year...
I'm sorry, but it's obvious how biased he is. I mean...come on, he claims that matter can pop into existence without cause!
You have a problem with hydrogen atoms popping into existance but no problems with elephants popping into existance?
Elephants would have had at least a cause (aka creator)....
So the same creator cannot create hydrogen atoms? Or is this not acceptable because of the implications?
Remember what we started talking about-Fred Hoyle's attempt at a naturalistic explanation for how the universe doesn't require a beginning....Don't stick everything in a blender and hit puree.
So it is the implications. It all makes sence. Obviously you didn't finish reading my post.
Better take care of that ADD of yours.
I'm sorry, but it's obvious how biased he is. I mean...come on, he claims that matter can't pop into existence without cause, if it goes against his beleifs!
Last edited by BGoodForGoodSake on Mon Oct 24, 2005 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It is not length of life, but depth of life. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
August wrote:I think the point that Blob wants to make is that we cannot look at a quote in isolation and determine the validity of the speakers position, that is called quote-mining.
Yes I was having a dig at the non-scholarly practice of quote mining, rather than at Behe himself.
Firstly, unlike the original poster of this thread (sorry ken!) my quote was up-to-date and I provided the source. This enabled you, August, to comment on the context at the click of a mouse. No such privilege for me to check up on ken's dated quotes.
But more importantly I did not quote Behe in order to declare "you see! he admits he is wrong!". This is the main fallacy of quote-miners - selectively quoting the "opposition" as if they secretly support one's own position. One is reminded of dubious posters for mediocre movies that carry endorsements such as "FANTASTIC!" - The Times. When one goes to the actual review it might read "Despite fantastic special effects towards the last ten minutes, this is a truly dreadful movie". (The British magazine Private Eye runs a column devoted to this advertising tactic which it calls "Out of CON-text").
Yet another problem with quote mining is the inversion of evidence to conclusion. I have never read Behe's book. Should I therefore conclude, on the basis of a single quote, that it is nonsense without reading it? Of course not - yet this is what quote miners are doing: dismissing mountains of evidence in favour of a single quote to form an opinion, typically with 100% certainty they are proved right.
Finally, imagine an evolutionist had said what Behe had said, that his ideas were only as scientific as astrology. Imagine creationists' delight! Would they not take this as 100% concrete proof evolution is wrong?
[For the record I do disagree with Behe's definition of science but do not pretend this one comment, under the duress of a legal court, proves there was no intelligent designer to the universe. I'd never make a good quote-miner!]
While in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought.
- Vygotsky
Thinker wrote:Then if there is no "who", then how do we address a person or other being?
I was answering at the cosmological level of "who" as a higher being. At the terrestrial level then you are perfectly correct.
Blob wrote:You absolutely sure we exist as how we perceive it?
No, merely that we exist. I think our perceptions can be and are very misleading.
Thinker wrote:Why must there be a "where"?
blob wrote:Because space exists.
Is that all? Are you sure?
Yes. The existance of space makes "where are we?" a legitimate question.
Thinker wrote:Why must there be a "why"?
There needn't be.
You sure? If a machine works by a "how", then "why" does it work, as in its purpose? How about WHY something exists as it does?
Again I was answering at the cosmological level. At the terrestrial level a man-made machine can be said to have a purpose, yes, because conscious intent is known to be behind it.
But one must know the purpose of the 5 W's as they exist as valid universal questions. An atheist can reject some things out of it, but then left without the full complete picture, a jigsaw puzzle uncompleted.
Or perhaps by answering the 5 Ws the theist constructs not a jigsaw but a castle in the sky.
Blob wrote:Yes, for YOU it is by "hows", but then it begs the questions like "why" does it work for the reason of "how"?
Which in turn begs the question is there a reason (as in conscious intent).
Blob wrote:you think saying "God did it" is too simplistic and needs to be observed scientifically?
No I don't think science can prove or disprove a god.
thinker wrote:Yes, IN YOUR OPINION, but how about God laying out the lab (Earth) for us to "play" with so we get closer to Him? Yet this is still not a valid option for you.
Yes in my opinion. I could be wrong. It is not a valid option because it does not add up or make sense, IMO.
One who believes in no God created everything must ask himself how it is logically possible for a godless universe to even exist, and for scientists this is fun and a hobby/job which just leaves them more confused.
Informed confusion is preferable to naive clarity.
So why go flat out wild trying to discover it when we (generations) have been trying to figure it out but still no answer?
We stand on the shoulders of giants in this era. As I said I do consider the culturally available options as well as use my imagination when pondering the big questions.
Thinker wrote:How can you think with your intelligent mind for a second that everything everywhere just came to be or eternally existed without a creator?
Using my imagination.
And how far does that get you?
Who knows how far it may take me? Imagination certainly took Einstein a long way, for example.
Thinker wrote:A God offers salvation to His believers only to punish them .
Why not? Your god is said to be limitless and anything is therefore possible. This kind of possible absurdity is why I say I find the god-concept does not add up and makes no sense.
Thinker wrote:So, those that don't agree with what I said, means they are not intelligent? Human beings are most intelligent, if brain mass increases, does that person get smarter? Yes they do, but it is still limited to what we currently possess in that we still have all the same functions, just an increase in memory and the ability to out-smart people better, yet it still does not address core issues.
I'm not sure exactly what you are saying here. However, if it is that humans are limited in what they can know then I wholeheartedly agree. Hence my rejection of claims of absolute certainty.
While in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought.
- Vygotsky
Thinker wrote:A God offers salvation to His believers only to punish them .
Why not? Your god is said to be limitless and anything is therefore possible. This kind of possible absurdity is why I say I find the god-concept does not add up and makes no sense.
Blob wrote:Your god is said to be limitless and anything is therefore possible.
So you only assume this by what you hear from people but you yourself do not investigate any articles on the Bible or even read the Bible itself? I would recommend to start investigating for yourself, because you obviously have the wrong concept of who our God is. And that is why it doesn't make sense to you .
No, God is not limited and anything is possible that is of HIS WORD to the HUMAN RACE. Show me where in the Bible, God will punish His believers. Re-evaluate that asinine assumption you made without any research on the topic. And I do mean RESEARCH, just like you do with your science you study so religiously.
And I do mean RESEARCH, just like you do with your science you study so religiously.
I have had more exposure to and read more of the bible than you give me credit for. Yet I have never read any of Darwin's Origin of Species nor Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica nor Einstein's On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies whatsoever. But I understand the key ideas of those scientists and consider the bible to not make sense, despite having researched it in a more direct way.
The ideas in the bible I find, quite frankly, dull and uninspiring. The ideas of those famous scientists I find satisfying and thought-provoking.
While in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought.
- Vygotsky
SpaceCase wrote: "Hey Ken, back to your original post... Can I assume that the individuals in your quotes have one thing in common? They all are trying to prove, we arose from nothing, for no reason, with little time, to where we are today? Of course they will fail, because their goal is to prove God doesn't exist... However, when we accept that God exists... why couldn't He have CREATED using evolution? According to his purpose, he steered and molded a wonderful masterpiece... Not by chance, but by His will..."
Hello SpaceCase, The only thing in common the individuals I quoted have is that they admit that evolution is not true ...its a theory and not even a good one. In fact, many of the persons quoted are professed evolutionists - they only believe evolution because to admit otherwise forces them to consider God in the equation - their hard hearts and blinded eyes won't allow that.
---EXACTLY, which is why I said anyone trying to prove random, chance undirected evolution, WILL FAIL!!!
You ask that, for those of us who believe, why couldn't God have created using evolution. It is not that God couldn't have done so but the matter is that He DIDN'T use such a method. The bible tells us that God created the heavens and the earth in seven literal days.
----It doesn't say that, it implies that...besides it was six... Anyway, do you think the average sheep hearder of the time would have comprehended a detailed explanation of time as a variable, and its relativity between moving reference frames? What would that have accomplished?
We also know that death entered the world because of the sin of the man (not caveman) Adam.
----Yes...
There is no way an intelligent Christian should believe that billions of dead things were around millions of years before Adam walked the earth. Death was not present until Adam's sin.
----Physical death was present, I don't see anyone suggesting dinosaurs lived anytime recently. Adam was the first with a God given spirit, Spiritual death was not present until Adam.
Also Adam was created in God's image - God is not a single-celled amoeba in some primordial slime.
----No, but God has a spirit, God took Adams body (which he had previously created with all creation) and created, in Adam, HIS spirit.
God says kind reproduces after its kind so while there may be breeding within a species cause subspecies, the offspring will always belong to the original "kind."
----They do, on there own, but not when God intervenes, according to HIS purpose..
The truth is Christians did not want to appear 'dumb' to the world and, valuing the world's opinions more than God's, chose rather to adopt the fantastical faith in a big bang and evolution. Christians should value God's truths more than man's conjectures.
Some simple thoughts for an evolutionist to consider (no, you don't have to be a scientist to figure it out):
1.) Every ancient culture has tales of a great flood. If this flood was true we should expect to see seashells on mountaintops and millions of dead things laid down in layers all over the earth. Hey, that is exactly what we find, isn't it? Just think about it.
----I'm sorry, did someone say there was no flood? Surely your not suggesting that lack of erosion (seashells surviving in the mountains) over the last 4000 years is reason to expect a greater number of 2 billion year old fossils to have survived? thats 2,000,000,000 years...
2.) If evolution were true then we should see millions of fossils representing every alleged in-between stage of development from microbe to man and microbe to every other form of life(including plant life now!). We see NO SUCH THING. Evolution doesn't only have a missing link ... it has an entire missing chain!
----Yes random, undirected evolution IS missing a lot... no one said it wasn't...
"The number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed on earth must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory." - Charles Darwin 1902 edition.
----Yes, which is why I don't believe it happen by chance, I believe God used it as a tool, and accelerated it at key points in history...
3.) If evolution is true and amoeba evolved why are there still amoebas, etc.? Why are there still lizards?
----I like lizards...
And how did those little Frankenstein cells created when lightning struck the primordial pond evolve into the millions of different species of life - including, plant and animal phylas? This takes much more faith than believing in a Creator.
----I have yet to see an origin evolutionist prove life came from lightning, again we are here by God's will...
4.) Evolution is based on a theory of "survival of the fittest." Consider when the first eyeball was forming over "millions of years of evolution." At some point, maybe thousands or a couple million years, we could get 5-10% of an eye .. but wait such would be a useless bodypart and therfore, by the rules of evolution it would be not fit for survival and disappear from the earth. The first eye had to be 100% functioning and complete - this flies in the face of evolutions millions of years of unoticeable micro-changes.
---- And thats why I believe God inspired Macro-evolution... God is capable of switching on all the genes neccessary to create an entire eye... chance is not...
“…I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science….It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw & holes as sound parts.” Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, cited by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991) pp. 456, 475.
Charles Darwin said"I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wonderings all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People MADE A RELIGION OUT OF THEM."
----It became a religion because, people seized the opportunity to replace God as the creator of life... they had a possible alternative... I know, I used to be one of them...
The truth is it takes much more BLIND FAITH to believe in the fairytale of evolution than it does to believe in the Creator God. Maybe the reason so many people are biased by evolution or conversely biased with Christianity exists in the outcome of both "faiths." (As Ken Ham says, We all have biases - it comes down to what bias is it better to be biased with anyway?) An evolutionist thinks that all of us die and turn to dust to live no more. But a Christian knows that they have eternal life after the Judgment and that the unbelieving (by choice not mere ignorance) and other unsaved sinners perish forever in the Lake of Fire.
----Those pursuing origins evolution, in an effort to prove (to themselves) that God doesn't exist, will fail...
Show me where in the Bible, God will punish His believers.
He punished Adam & Eve, and they believed in him.
I think Brian Mis-Spoke on this. That is like a Father not punishing his Children for doing something Wrong. That is not what God does. Our Sinful Nature causes us to be withdrawn from God. Thank the Lord our Saviour!
Show me where in the Bible, God will punish His believers.
He punished Adam & Eve, and they believed in him.
Why though? Well, because they went AGAINST God's commands to not eat the bloody apple, did they listen? No. Therefore they were punished as well as all of humanity and the like. I still don't believe you have examined the Bible with an open-mind, your statements are not valid.
Thinker wrote:they went AGAINST God's commands to not eat the bloody apple, did they listen? No. Therefore they were punished as well as all of humanity and the like. I still don't believe you have examined the Bible with an open-mind, your statements are not valid.
I didn't know Americans say "bloody". Live and learn.
I've read the first two books of Genesis more than once. I know for a start it doesn't say it was an apple, merely fruit.
Anyway, it wasn't that Adam and Eve didn't listen to god. They simply had no sense of right and wrong therefore did not know that disobedience was wrong. So it was hardly their fault.
That's my call, anyway.
While in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought.
- Vygotsky
Anyway, it wasn't that Adam and Eve didn't listen to god. They simply had no sense of right and wrong therefore did not know that disobedience was wrong. So it was hardly their fault.
Their sense of right and wrong was not internal-they got it from God. So it was their fault nonetheless.
"My actions prove that God takes care of idiots."
He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.
- On Stanley Baldwin
-Winston Churchill
An atheist can't find God for the same reason a criminal can't find a police officer.
You need to start asking out girls so that you can get used to the rejections.
-Anonymous
AttentionKMartShoppers wrote:Their sense of right and wrong was not internal-they got it from God. So it was their fault nonetheless.
Okay, but I thought they got it after eating the fruit not before. So they cannot be held accountable for what they did before eating it.
For the purpose of this discussion, let's assume that Adam and Eve are symbols and not real physical people (just an assumption as I don't intend for this to turn into a Bible argument on symbolism).
In the symbolic sense, what Adam and Eve represent is free will (that dreaded expression I keep referring to), IMO. Why do they represent free will? Because that is what separates us humans from any other living thing on the planet. Because it gives us the choice to believe in God or not. God literally gave us the choice to reject him. Because no matter how much science can explain the universe, I do not believe free will can explained scientifically. Yes, there has been attempts and speculations that point to some biological/chemical reactions but they've all been just that, speculations.
That to me is what I understand from the symbolic Adam and Eve. Whether or not they physically lived is insignificant.
.
.
