Right, except the magic giant purple walrus belief is absolutely ridiculous, so why not tell me that?



Well then you can continue to be offended.
Quite recently, Stephen Hawking had to admit defeat because he had claimed that no information can escape from a black hole, and it was discovered that it can. He was told that his belief was not true. It was proven that his belief was not true. Was he 'offended'? No, he accepted the other guy was correct, and admitted he was wrong. He even donated a book to him, or something. Why don't you do the same?




See, saying "well that's your opinion" achieves nothing. Saying "this is my opinion and this is your opinion, let's leave it at that!", that achieves nothing.


If it makes you happy, you can stick a little imaginary "I believe" infront of all my sentences. You're damn right it's 'my opinion', who else's opinion would it be?

You evaluate one 'opinion', you evaluate the second 'opinion', and the one that stands up best against scrutiny is superior.

So far, evolution had stood up to evaluation far better than creationism, so it can safely be concluded that evolution is the superior theory. Some other theory comes along, and we follow exactly the same process of evaluating that against evolution, and we decide the better theory, the one that explains observation the best. That is how we make achievements, that is how human knowledge advances.
Clinging on to the disproven claims only holds back humanity.

Yes, I realise this is probably a whole "politeness" thing, and you'd feel happier if you thought that I respect your opinion. Well, I don't. I've thoroughly disproven Creationist claims, so there is no logical reason to believe in Creationism. What's there to respect? I don't respect opinions simply for the sake of being opinions. Why should I respect it? I mean that as a serious question, why should I respect it?
Should I respect you for believing something that is factually incorrect? If you want me to respect you, don't just tell me your opinion and expect me to respect that. I am not so much interested in what your opinion is, but rather why you believe it. The fact that you have an opinion, how is that alone worthy of respect?

Tell me why you believe what you do, and if you make a sensible, logical and interesting argument for your case, one that I cannot easily refute, then and only then will I respect you.
But until you do, I consider it exactly the same as my magic giant purple walrus theory. That is, nonsense.

I believe in what I call divine evolution: that the Theory of Evolution is true, and that it was done so by God. I don't believe that Creationism should be taught alongside the Theory of Evolution, nor should any religious topics be taught in class unless in proper context -- history, religious studies, psychology, etc. If you want to learn about religion without taking such courses, go to a church/mosque/synagogue/[insert appropriate place of worship].

You can consider my idea ridiculous; that's fine. I consider your beliefs to be wrong, but not ridiculous because I admit that there is actual solid basis for your beliefs. I admit that there exists a strong possibility that I am wrong in my belief of God. But you know what? I really don't see a downside to my belief. I try my best to treat people with respect (and I am, by no means, a saint) and follow the simple principle of "love thy neighbor." I don't look down on you, and I don't think less of you for believing differently. What I do think less of you for is your arrogance and intolerance of ideas that you think are less than your own.

People want to believe in Creationism? Let 'em. Unless their beliefs are somehow going to hurt someone, what reason, what justification, do you have to tell them they're wrong? Because they believe in something you believe is wrong?

I know you hate the very idea of tolerating someone else's ideas, but some day you're going to have step down off your high horse and join the rest of us in accepting the fact that other people do and will believe differently than us, and that's no reason to berate them, insult them, or otherwise disrepect them. You can try to correct them, if you wish, but there's absolutely no justification for being as blunt, tactless, and rude as you have been.

That's so cool. Where's Yoshimi when she's needed? :p

[Everything Wolfy said] + 1.

The problem, Mort, is that you've come up with this illogical argument:

You've made this false assumption that all Christians believe in literal creationism, literal 7 days of creation. You're assuming Christianity is wrong because of these interpretations. Or you interpret Genesis as literal, and base your argument that Christianity is wrong on that interpretation.
That's a perfect example of a straw man fallacy.

I might add:
The Hebrew word "day" can mean "a period of time," the same way it does in English (as in the phrases "back in my day..." or "back in the day..." or "in the last day...").
LOOK at genesis. It starts referencing days before the sun was even created. There's no way you can interpret that literally... unless "day" is not based on our own days. There's mention of another heaven and earth in Proverbs; God's perfected earth. It goes hand-in-hand with a verse in revelation: The old earth and heaven (sky) had passed away, and Paul saw a new heaven and a new earth. Interestingly fits in with the multiverse theory, yes?

My idea is pretty much the same as Wolfy's; evolution with the help of God.

I've made it quite clear what I've been disproving. I've been disproving Creationism. I've never claimed that all Christians are Creationists.

On separate points, I've been disproving the notion that God is in some way necessary for the Universe to work.

You don't believe in Creationism? It doesn't really matter, the point still stands that I'm not going to respect your opinion simply for the sake of being an opinion.
'Respecting' an opinion means you have to acknowledge another opinion as being as valid as your opinion (they have an equal value to you). If this was the case, you wouldn't have an opinion at all. Just 6 billion different views all of equal value.
"I respect your opinion" is incorrect.
"I respect the fact that you have a differing opinion" would be correct (and more or less meaningless, unless they have a brainwashing outfit going)

You accept that 'my opinion' has some evidence to back it up? That's fantastic. But I don't accept that 'your opinion' does.




Why? Evolution doesn't require God. It doesn't require Creation. There are dozens of different ways the first cells could have emerged through simple self-replicators. From there on, it's simply natural selection.



I'm here to evaluate an argument. You make a claim, I try to disprove it. We're not having a tea party here, we're trying to get somewhere.
I think we've fully concluded that Creationism is incorrect (unless you have some different points you want to throw in), and that's a fine achievement. But that's been done through the simple process of responding to arguments. Superfluous and unnecessary niceties only confuse things.

But don't think I'm out to insult anyone personally. I use the word 'ignorance' as it is intended, 'lack of knowledge'. There's no "insult" there. I don't have anything against you personally. I don't really care about you personally. I'm sure you're a real nice person, but I'm only interested in your arguments.



The point of this thread is to work out what is factually correct and what is factually incorrect, through the process of logic, reasoning and scientific validity. We've shown that Creationism is factually incorrect.

Whether you still want to believe in it, that's a different matter.

Creationism is factually wrong, but belief in it might still be useful. The usefulness of it is a completely different discussion, it may well serve some psychological benefits to some people, but it doesn't make it any less incorrect.

We're trying to sort out what is correct and what is incorrect. That's it. What you do is up to you, I don't really care what 'you believe', unless you have something interesting to introduce into the argument that might change what is correct and what is incorrect.

Um, sorry, but that's just simply not true. you're saying the the probability for something happening must always be one if it happens. The probability that you, Matthew Pate from Australia, came into existence exactly as you are now was quite improbabile, given the amout of possibilities were. just because you were the end result doesn't change that in the least.

The probability of a Universe supporting life may very well be 1, but not for the reason he gave.

However, the probability that Mathew Pate came from Australia might very well be 1, because it simply isn't random. He wasn't thrown out of a plane as a baby and left to land in some country. If that were the case, there's a 75% chance that he'd land in water. But that (hopefully) wasn't the case, so it's not a good analogy because the location of his birth wasn't entirely random.

Life occuring in the Universe, on the other hand, is quite random. Probably.

No, i just said 'Matthew Pate from Australia' to point out the fact that i was refering to him specifically.

Oh yes, it makes sense now that I read it again. Silly me.

Yeah, you're correct, if his parents were to have another child then the probability of the child being exactly the same as Mathew Pate is so small it's effectively 0. The problem is that unless you go back in time, you're not going to be able to repeat the 'experiment' under exactly the same conditions.

What is bothering me, with not only Mort-Hog, but with many people, is they believe that religion is ultimately suppose to answer a WHY[/b] humans live and not HOW[/i] humans live, or more accurately, should (what with the inclusion of free will and all...). Science and Religion can co-exist because they don't go about attempting to answer the same thing. Religions exist in its most fundamental state to set a guide for human conduct, last I checked, that didn't fall under the sciences (philosophy is the closest one can come, and philosophies and religions are "ways of life.")

As for the Universe not needing God... well, I happen to think that there mere existance of anything at any time is dependant on God willing it to exist, and that we can't see it being "inside the frame" so to speak, but as Mort has made clear so many times, there's really no way to logically prove such. But then again, I'm a fan of Star Trek...

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." -- Spock, Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country

Anywhos, I'd rant more about how truth does not need to equal fact (please don't make me type out my logic books...) how the Hebrew people of ancient times were pretty scientific for their days, and that Creationism was accepted as the truest scientific theory by the scientific community (or at least something close to it) until Darwin, which in the grand scheme of humanity and even modern science wasn't too long ago... but I suck at making most of my points valid. I'm sure someone else could do a better job at it like DogsRool or Dormouse.

As for respect, I wasn't under the impression that it meant you had to believe the opposing side's arguments to be true or even of equal footing... just that respect helps both sides listen to each other and hopefully learn the truth of their beliefs a little better (please don't make me type out my logic books/repeat an argument I had with Firefox...I'm sure DogsRool remembers that...)

Get a sense of humor. It’s usually marked of by a or some thing like I put before.


Disagreeing with me is no reason to needlessly insult me.


Exactly. That’s how science works. You can’t start over with an entirely new theory every time you find evidence against it. You have to modify you theory to make it fit. I was just showing how that cartoon was a bit hypocritical.



http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/PUNCTUEQ.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/modern-synthesis.html
Like I say, the numbers of alleles remain constant in a creature unless a mutation occurs. Normal natural selection alone cannot turn a dog into a cat for example.


There is a difference between an inherited trait and a mutation you know…


Or evolutionist for that matter I suppose. They’re always the ones talking about billions and billions of years.



Well, you’ve said that creationist’s are stupid and that evolution is right. You’ve also sealed yourself off from any argument you cannot understand. Congratulations. There are many creationist PHD’s in the field, but I’m sure you’re way smarter than them.
Creationism has been defeated on some issues but so has evolution. The only thing creationists are not willing to go back on is that God created the earth in 6 days. I’m not willing to say that creationists are necessarily right on every single the issue, and neither will most creationists scientists. I also won’t say that evolutions are necessarily wrong about every thing. The argument is about the very core principles of each world view. Not the tertiary issues. All this arguing back and forth has produced a lot of learning.

o_O what's wrong Mort, were you kicked around by religious people as a child?
It seems you're making some pretty big jumps. You can't prove that God isn't necessary if he set everything up as science sees it.
There's a difference with the Stephen Hawking thing. He was proved wrong. You can't prove or disprove God's influence on the universe. To say otherwise would mean you're trying to force an agenda on people.

Hardcore literal extremist extrapolative [eg taking utterly irellevant excerpts to 'prove' something] 6-day young-earth Creationism is bunk. Utter.

And i say this as a Protestant who feels that this extremely small and extremely unrepresentative minority gives those of us with brains and education a bad name.

If youre going to do things like Bishop Usher and try to prove that the earth was formed 6000 years ago, please avail yourself of the Sumerian or Chinese documents dating back say 10000 years ago. Then, if you need more things beyond that, well, i am certain there are any number of other areas in which it can be poked to death.

[Clearly Sumer and China were left over from the /previous/ build of the Earth because god forgot to run a make clean before installing the new Mesopotamia kernel]

However, as has been pointed out several times, Creationism != Young Earther or Six-Dayer. Creationism at its most basic is the belief that god created the universe. Someone did a very good job of pointing out already what is commonly referred to as the Day-Age stance, eg that one 'day' of creation could very easily apply to an epoch or however long. That isn't to say god /couldn't/ have made it all in 6 literal days, but there also is no reason to say that he did or necessarily had to have.

Similarly, there is the belief in the God-driven Big Bang [as allowed even by Pope John Paul II a couple years ago], which should be fairly self-explanatory. Basically that the conditions and such responsible/necessary for the Big Bang were brought about via a Prime Mover.
[and, incidentally, that the universe hasn't just Always Existed as some schools of thought propose]

There are even those [eg Wolfy] who believe that evolution is a mechanism used by god to create progressive diversity of life.

In short, the vast vast majority of people who believe in creationism as it were, do /not/ in any way think it invalidates or is mutually exclusive of science and thought and scholarly research.

Now that i have those all out of the way.

Regarding well if all of that could just happen naturally or are just mechanisms used by god for creation, if it all follows physical laws and set dynamics and so forth, why add the extra layer of the divine.

To be overly concise and simple, because something is responsible for /those/ laws and dynamics and universal constants and so forth. Now, it could be argued that those are the result of one of the various string theories or some such, which are so popularly thrown around regarding such things. I am not convinced, however, that it could be argued very well, considering how extremely convoluted and mutually exclusive even those theories tend to be.

At some point /something/ was the Uncaused Cause. I find utterly no contradiction in believing that to have been god. If one allows for an atemporal non-contingent god of creation, there is utterly no contradiction between believing in god and pursuing science. Finding out more about how the universe works or its dynamics or whatever does utterly nothing to contradict the existence of god. There are many people who pursue and study science as an exploration of how intricate or whatever a job the creator-god they believe in had done with its creation.

For instance a great many scientific [be it biology chemistry genetics astronomy &c] in the middle ages were done by clergy.

This is also not in any way a [false] discrepency solely in the realm of the western catholic/christian tradition. Just look at any number of the scientific discoveries from very religious very devoted Muslims during that time period. Or the various greek/roman philosophers who spent a great deal of time debating the makeup and nature of the universe and various theories of matter and so forth, and who in general were very devoted pious sorts. Or the Royal Society of Natural Philosophers who made an enormous contribution to science and many other fields and who tended to be at least Deist.
[not to imply that such discoveries are not still being made by similar people]

Or for a more contemporary example, take a look at Hinduism. They believe [generally speaking] that nothing material exists independantly, or more accurately that all is one and one is all. yet they see utterly no contradiction in devoting themselves to learning about and acting upon the material world, despite it most likely not even really existing, and at the very same time to devote a great deal of time and energy to learning about the spiritual world. They have no illusions about there being a dichotomy between the scientific and the spiritual, that is that they are mutually exclusive.

And for that matter neither did Darwin apparently, for instance a couple quotations he included in the first few pages of On the Origin of Species:



And in at least one location within the text [page 167] he specifically refers to animals as the works of God. Now whether he means the literal biblical judeo-christian god is more or less irellevant in my opinion.

Beyond that, Geb did a very good job i think.

Someone alluded to [was it you, Mort?] that there may be some benefit to creationism even if it isn't necessarily factual. I tend to hold a similar stance, on a broader scale. I figure at the very least religion is Bokononism, to greatly paraphrase it is "all the little lies that people have to believe in order to survive". Which isn't to say i personally believe religion to be false/whatever, but i am highly fond of Bokononism, and Discordianism for that matter [but that is somewhat unrelated].

That was interesting, I didn't know about that theory. But it does nothing to disprove evolutionary theory, it merely respecifies some of the details. I'm not sure where you're going with it, but the punctuated equilibrium doesn't really do anything for creationist theory at all. It seems to be a form of speciation.

and http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/modern-synthesis.html is building on that too.

I may have caused some confusion here.. When I talk about Darwinnian evolution, I'm not specifically talking about the ideas postulated in his Origin of Species. I talk about the entire modern theory of 'evolution', including the many ammendments. The reason I don't like using the word "evolution" alone to describe the theory is that it might suggest change within a generation, within individuals, and that isn't what the theory of natural selection is about.
But anyway, I hope I've cleared that one up.



I don't see where you're going with this.

Inherited traits are a combination of the parents' genes. The offspring will not display any features that neither parents have, or carry.
But a mutation results in completely different genes, and features that neither parent had, or carried.

Are you suggesting that mutations don't occur at all?



Some Creationists have taken the probability density function of early life occuring, and evolving into complex organisms, and calculated that it would take something in the order of trillions of years. I was assuming someone would introduce those, so I was addressing the statistical errors beforehand.

And yes, evolution does require several billion years. Are you saying that the Earth is not several billion years old?



Go find one, then. I'm sure I can disprove his arguments just as well I can yours.



You haven't shown me anything.
I said that creationism is a result of ignorance, not stupidity. Creationists are misinformed, not uneducated necessarily.

But you seem to be following the whole "there might possibly be evidence to support my argument I just don't know it" line of thought, which means nothing to me.

I'll address each and every argument as it comes.



Yes you can. You formulate a theory, and it explains observation. That is proof. As soon as there is observation that conflicts with that theory, it is disproven (or at least altered, such as the ideas on Newtonian motion)



Bring a creationist with a science degree in here and show me his arguments.



Using simple science, I've shown your various arguments for creationism to be incorrect. Those arguments were based on ignorance. You are no longer ignorant.

If there are so many clever Creationists, give me one their clever Creationist theories or clever proofs against evolution theory.



You can't actively disprove the existance of God. But the burden of proof is on the theists. They are making the positive claim. If God exists, he exists outside of logic, and so you cannot use logic to disprove his existance. This is why the burden of proof is heavily on the theists, as the only way to prove the existance of God is with observation.
Until there is any evidence proving the existance of God, then he doesn't exist. This is the point I was making with my magic giant purple walrus theory. I haven't provided any observation or any evidence of the magic giant purple walrus, so I cannot make the claim that the magic giant purple walrus exists, even though you cannot disprove the existance of the magic giant purple walrus.





Yes. I believe I've said it before, that the two areas of science that we don't understand much of at all (and therefor God may have an influence on those areas) are:
- The Big Bang
- Black Holes

We know enough about planetary motion to know that God doesn't have an influence on the movement of planets. We know enough about particle physics to know that God doesn't have an influence on the movement of subatomic particles. But we don't know enough about those two areas to rule out God. If you're going to find evidence of God, it's going to be inside a black hole, or at the the big bang.

Personally, I think the two may be related.. After all, the big bang took place at a very high density, infinitely high density, and there are similar conditions within a black hole. There's some theory postulating 'natural selection within the mutiverse', which is pretty interesting. Once you get into these types of topics, though, it's not really science anymore. It's meta-physics, or philosophy. That is to say, there isn't any way we're going to "prove" any of this anytime in the forseeable future. We're in the similar position to the Greek philosophers looking up and studying the moon, pondering about whether it'd be possible to travel to it.. But it is a very interesting topic of discussion nonetheless.



Again, why? Where is God involved? Did God start the first lifeform off? Did God create the first strand of DNA? Does God cause the mutations to occur? What exactly does or did God 'do' inside this process?



I like to summarise this as:

1 + 2 + 3 + God = 6 + God
There's God on both sides, so God cancels out.



Yes, God may have been responsible for the Big Bang. Alternatives are being introduced by quantum physicists, and they are interesting, but there is no more 'proof' to them than there is to 'God'.
But if God was responsible for the Big Bang, he hasn't done anything else since. ever.



Yes, through science in history those discovering would often say something like "Okay, so this thing isn't done by God, but there's lots of other things that God does!" because there was a lot that they didn't know or didn't understand.
However, as science progressed, a lot of people started saying "Okay, God doesn't do this precisely, but he must do... something else.." and the whole 'something else' catagory has been shrinking and shrinking as new discoveries were made. Today, it has shrunk to only the two catagories mentioned above. If those two are explained with science, perhaps that will be the nail in God's coffin.

Modern philosophers tend to be atheist. Or agnostic, depending on which definitions you prefer.




Yes, well, this is more to do with the sociology of religion than anything else. Darwin wasn't trying to disprove God and upset all the theists. If he put the word God in there a few times, it'd make the whole work much easier to swallow, and cause less controversy. Or maybe not.
But the fact that many scientists were also religious isn't really significant, as more or less everyone in those times was religious.



I think is is covered by the same "Even if religious is incorrect, it might still be psychologically (and/or sociologically) useful" point. But there are plenty of atheist philosophies that offer 'moral guidelines' without the use of an omnipotent being to enforce them, like Humanism.
Fear of God might be useful, but I'm not convinced it's necessary.

The point in the brackets is a very interesting point, mind you..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3710810.stm

The pope has just beatified the Austrian Archduke who authorised the use of mustard gas by Austro-Hungarian forces in WW1.

Apparently in the 70's a Brazilian nun prayed to him and had her varicose veins cured.



Catholicism has to be the worst organised religion ever.

Right up there with the Mayans who sacrified 15,000 to commemorate the completion of a new temple.

After stupidly closing my browser and retyping my post and probably missing things now.......

No, but you've implied it rather strongly with the last thing I pointed out.

Did I say "necessary?"

Then I hope you don't expect others to respect your views and opinions.

Did I say "require?"

The entire universe isn't "required," yet it exists anyway. Unless that logic only applies to your side of the argument.

How difficult is to replicate a living cell from nonliving matter on purpose? Not impossible, mind you, but can the cell maintain its own life? It's quite primitive. Does it have the ability to absorb nutrition, or even reproduce? Now apply that to a chance occurance of a simple cell in harsh living conditions.

Right. You should expect your opponent to be all-knowing.

You lost me. God exists outside of logic, yet you expect logic like burden of proof to apply?
I think you shot yourself in the foot.

Ad ignorantium fallacy.
You can't tell me, in the face of logic, that lack of proof automatically means something doesn't exist.


Given time for technology to develop, we could travel to the location you disclosed and observe whether or not your purple walrus is there. If not, then it doesn't exist.

Then explain how galaxies are increasing speed as they move through the universe.

We do not know as much about physics as we like to think we do. I'll take the most simple thing I can think of (gravity) and ask you this: Why does matter have gravity?

You seem to have missed that 6 cancels out, too. Yet you'd rather cancel out God than six. Apparently, a number means more than God to you.
Maybe you haven't noticed, but all equations with known values end up as 0=0. Try it.

Didn't I post an equation a few posts back? 0+0=0.

*ahem*
Prove it.

Or is this logic again exclusive to your side of the argument. :p

Wow. Have we totally forgotten to consider for all the unphysical that cannot be seen or detected?

QUOTE]I don't see where you're going with this.

Inherited traits are a combination of the parents' genes. The offspring will not display any features that neither parents have, or carry.
But a mutation results in completely different genes, and features that neither parent had, or carried.

Are you suggesting that mutations don't occur at all?[/QUOTE]

Just clarifying.





Given that I’m coming from a creationist standpoint, that’s pretty self-evident.





Like you would say that if you thought I actually could.



You’re still missing the point.



As for intelligent Creationists…

http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=23
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=12
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=14
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=33
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=11
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=18
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=10
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/e_silvestru.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=26
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=16
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=21
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=36
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=37
http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=38

You get the idea…

Pay special attention to these:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/about/ham.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/bios/c_wieland.asp

The one on the bottom has links to many, many articles the guy wrote.

For a longer list of Creationist PHD’s try here:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/bios/default.asp

Anyway you get the idea. Hundreds of scientists with way more learning and experience in science than you. This does not prove Creation to be true, it only shows that its not a theory developed through ignorance. You might try reading their books.



Prove existence.

Sorry, DogSRoOL, but you ahve a few problems in your arguments (though i'm still technically on your side):



The period during which life may have first begun is several millions of years long, and scientist have already been able to create amino acids in similar (smaller) conditions. given this immence time period and a huge amount of similar reaccurences for it to happen, life had a pretty good chance of occuring. (To Mort et all: This still doesn't prove that God couldn't have had a hand in it)



Actually, Einstien has a theory for this which he actually called his 'greatest blunder', which describes the way that galaxies are accelerating away (which was sort of death for the pulse theory group). now, why this occures isn't quite known, though it does have a physically explainable rate.



That occures (according to Einstien) because of a warping of spaced caused by matter ("Time tells space how to move, and space tells time how to flow"). Matter, more obviously in the case of large bodies, creates a sort of 'sinkhole' in space, so that things nearby sort of 'fall' into it. As i said before, though, this really isn't how it works, but its a very useful metephor (aka lie).

Ah, you should have said so in the first place. You seem to be fighting a battle on multiple fronts: most of us here who believe in God aren't trying to push it on you as a scientific fact. I believe he exists, naturally, and have had many experiences that have convinced me even more, but I know it's stupid to try to prove God's existance to someone else based on my experiences.
I'm not expecting you to believe in God. I'm pretty sure the burden of proof wouldn't apply to me.

Let's see if I can sum up my position without analogies.

BEGIN UNIVERSE

99% chance - no life since conditions aren't good.

SO

We don't have this discussion since we don't exist. We can't claim events are fortuitous because they aren't, and because we don't exist.

OR

1% chance - opportunities for life exists

1% chance - life evolves

1% chance - intelligent life evolves

SO

Someone argues that God must have created the universe; how else could we exist? It's so unlikely, etc. etc.

---

But who knows if there's been billions of previous universes where life didn't, and couldn't, exist? No one would be there to point it out. We can only point out that God made the universe support us when he's already done so.

Further, life may be able to exist in conditions not exactly as they are, just life as we don't know it. Although WE might only be able to exist in this universe, it's possible something ELSE could exist in any number of other universes. Something else that would marvel at how the universe was created just for them.

Please, someone, tell me that you understand what I'm getting at...!



Sorry, my analogy sucked.

What I meant was, it was, probability wise, it is exceedingly unlikely that I would be exactly as I am; millions upon millions of circumstances throughout the entire history of the universe have had an effect on exactly how I would be. But this doesn't make me special. I can say how "If the Roman Empire hadn't fallen, I'd be so different!", but then that Matthew in an alternate universe where the Roman Empire didn't fall could say "I'd be so different if the Roman Empire had fallen!". All were equally likely, I just happened because everything else happened in a specific way. Like looking at a sequence of flipped coins after the fact; it was very unlikely to flip that exact sequence, but you did, and they ended up like that. It doesn't mean that there's been any divine interference.

That's very very weak Obi, and you know it.

For the following, I used a lot of material from iidb.org (only gonna mention it this once)...



Microevolution happens at the rate of one generation. Macroevolution is just the same process multiplied. After X number of microevolutions, a new species will emerge. A "new" species is usually defined as a group of animals that can no longer reproduce with its "cousins" (not a correct term). This is the rate of macroevolution.

Second, you're right that natural selection can not add alleles; natural selection can only 'substract'. Mutation, on the other hand, can add alleles. Again, the above leads me to believe that you do not fully understand evolution. And I really would like to see a quote on those 'cataclysmic happenings'.

There is no difference between micro- and macroevolution except that genes between species usually diverge, while genes within species usually combine. The same processes that cause within-species evolution are responsible for above-species evolution, except that the processes that cause speciation include things that cannot happen to lesser groups, such as the evolution of different sexual apparatus (because, by definition, once organisms cannot interbreed, they are different species).

The idea that the origin of higher taxa, such as genera (canines versus felines, for example), requires something special is based on the misunderstanding of the way in which new phyla (lineages) arise. The two species that are the origin of canines and felines probably differed very little from their common ancestral species and each other. But once they were reproductively isolated from each other, they evolved more and more differences that they shared but the other lineages didn't. This is true of all lineages back to the first eukaryotic (nuclear) cell. Even the changes in the Cambrian explosion are of this kind, although some (eg, Gould 1989) think that the genomes (gene structures) of these early animals were not as tightly regulated as modern animals, and therefore had more freedom to change.



It is suspected that harmful mutations are probably more frequent than beneficial ones. From an evolutionary perspective this is not a serious problem. By definition, a bad mutation is one that will reduce the likelihood of an organism passing on its genes to the next generation. A beneficial one will tend to increase the likelihood of the organism passing on its genes. So natural selection tends weed out the bad genes and keep the good ones. Evolution isn't just a process of random mutation. It is a combination of random mutation and a deterministic filtering process. One of the most common mistakes in understanding evolution is to assume that it is a purely random process.



Woah man, who says those two creatures should have the same mutation in order to reproduce?



One, you got both A and B wrong. Two, I wouldn't call it 'countless' times, just 'so much that it's very hard to count' or something.

It's great that you actually propose arguments, but still, I need to say the physical evidence you claim to have above. This will be sure to speed up your arguments. Now post the 'physical evidence' pro creationism, apart from the wrong guesses contra evolutionism.



Yes it is. That's EXACTLY the point. Really, are you in this with a scientific mindset? Are you here to make solid conclusions or not? Did you actually know beforehand that your claims were wrong and that they were 'explainable quite quickly'? Come on dude, don't save your best material for later. Present it now. That was a very doubtful paragraph you wrote there.



This would require sensible proof from both sides. Evolutionists have it, so where's the proof pro creationism you say you have, and which I asked for on MULTIPLE occasions. It's proof, right? Just post it up, and if it's really the proof you say it is, I will personally consult Mort-Hog over PM, and together we'll write up a new topic explaining we were wrong and you were right. I'll even write your name in red, font size 10, saying you managed to shut up both me, Mort-Hog and the entire scientific community. Wouldn't it be heaven for me to shut up? Because seriously dude, lots of guys tried that what you claim you can, and every single one of them failed to debunk the objective evidence pro evolution and every single one of them failed to present material that led us to give even the SLIGHTEST credibility to creationism. I do encourage everyone to keep trying, preferably with new ideas though instead of the claims that have been debunked over and over and over and over and ....

...OVER.



Well, I fully respect your intelligence, and you probably have lots of it, so no, I won't call you uneducated. Judging from the above attacks on evolution, I'd just call you misinformed/uninformed.

Seriously, I took the time to read the bible, and I, inexperienced at it, am not afraid to debate it together with expert guys like Dogsrool, with a very sincere willingness to learn. I can only hope you'll take up learning about evolution from an objective, scientific source after this, cause it's definitely needed.



This was probably directed at Mort-Hog, and I agree that it's a strange generalization to suddenly claim he doesn't respect Christianity as a whole all of a sudden. I do understand his outrage, because six months ago I was the same and much worse. I agree with him that I don't really feel inclined to accept the opinion of creationists and other phoney scientists, since it has been disproven many times, and still they cling to it. Thus far, however, I feel like I did a decent job at giving you honest, sober, informed feedback, and I'll keep trying to do so.



Sure, thanks for considering it.

The next part on geocentrism, flat earth is hard to quote, but I'll try to get into what you said a bit, in general.

First, why are these corrections on translation fairly recent, as in post-discovery of earth as a sphere?

Second, today it has more or less been accepted that Bible writer's did have a flat, immovable earth in mind. In addition to the verses posted above, here are some more... (taken from http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Flat_Earth.htm)

Take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it (Job 38:12-13)

How could the earth be held by its "edges"? A sphere has no edges. Would the Job author have spoken of "edges" of the earth if he had known the earth was a sphere? Which makes more sense? The author imagined grabbing and shaking by the edges a flat earth, or the author imagined grabbing the ball of the earth by "edges" which don't exist? Before you answer, consider what else the same author had to say about how the earth is formed

The earth takes shape like clay under a seal. (Job 38:14)

This is the same author who spoke of grabbing the earth by its "edges." If the Job author had known the earth was round, would he have referred to edges which don't exist, and would he have compared it to clay seals, which are pressed flat?

The devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. (Matthew 4:1-12)

Certainly, if the earth were flat, standing atop "an exceedingly high mountain" would allow Jesus to see the whole earth, but there is no mountain tall enough to allow him to see the other side of a spherical earth. At most, one hemisphere would be seen, but not the other.

The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold, a tree in the midst of the earth; and its height was great. The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. (Daniel 4:10-11)

The "whole" earth? No matter how tall the tree was, even if it was only a dream, it would not have been visible from the other side of the earth.

These are particularly interesting towards your argument of wrong translation.

To whom then will ye liken God? ....It is he that sitteth upon the circle (chuwg) of the earth (Isaiah 40:18-23)
He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a BALL (duwr) into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy lord's house. (Isaiah 22:18)

The Hebrew word used in scripture for "circle" in the verse above is chuwg. If the Bible writer had meant for us to believe that "circle of the earth" meant that the earth was round, the writer would have used the Hebrew word for "ball," which is duwr. The fact that Isaiah didn't use duwr shows that he wasn't trying to tell us the earth was like a ball.

Furthermore, there exists a simple interpretation of "circle of the earth" which does not imply a spherical earth. On a hill overlooking a wide expanse free of tall trees and other hills the horizon appears as a perfect circle, 360 degrees of blue sky. If Isaiah meant to tell us the earth was a globe, he would have used another word. A circle is not a ball, nor is a ball a circle. Everyone knew what a "circle" was in those times; it meant the same then as it means today.

I'm following your reasoning behind those translation errors, but really as I see it now, even with 'correct' translation, I think it's more logical to assume flat earth from those writers. Plus, it's assumed that the world view of ANYONE in that age was flat earth/geocentrism.

Finally, I think it's good to realize that these guys' world view doesn't have anything to do with belief in/existence of God. I just think it would be very lame to use the Bible as THE reference guide to natural phenomena.



I love simple answers, and it's a point well taken. I'm wondering though, would Hitler get into heaven? What about Winston Churchill? Hmmmmmmmm... I find it hard to believe that guys get split in two categories. Yet, I'm gonna let go of this part of the debate. The Bible is, surprisingly, very clear and rigorous on this. I was hoping that it wasn't, so I could slip by heaven defenses or something, but at least my life will have been fun.



So, if I said to you that I had PROOF that God doesn't exist, yet that you won't understand it, would you think that's acceptable? Because, strangely, my 'proof' contradicts your 'proof'. Is it still proof then?

Funny, because when I first read the explanation of this 'relative proof', a new concept for me, I immediately associated it with concepts like 'impression'.



Well, ... doesn't the same go for everything? I think it's actually you committing the fallacy.

• Just because we can explain something with science doesn't mean the purple walrus orbiting a distant planet (®MH) didn't have a hand in it
• Just because we can explain something with science doesn't mean my anal sphincter dilation didn't have a hand in it
• Just because we can explain something with science doesn't mean Tenshu didn't have a hand in it. BOW DOWN TO THE TENSHU

We cannot disprove God. Whoever claims that, has no credibility as a scientist. The same actually goes for that purple walrus. But we can understand why the idea of the purple walrus doesn't help us to explain any phenomenon we've encountered.

Where are the indications that God had a hand in anything? What does he have to do with a natural phenomenon, like say, evolution? What's his part? We don't need him to explain the process itself, we don't need him to explain the start of the process. All you could say right now, is that God had a hand at the very beginning, when he designed Big Bangs and such, because honestly, we do not know how they got into being. I think there are ideas though, and I fully believe one day we'll have a complete scientific theory describing Big Bangs and the absolute creation of the universe. If you want, you can explain Big Bangs through God. I'll await scientific development though.

Apart from that: we don't need God to explain anything. Assume for just a sec that God definitely does NOT exist. What is there that we can not explain or are in the process of explaining(apart from the Big B of course)? Important question btw.



Isn't that pretty much the same?



Yes we are man, just in the same way that you can tell a young child what gravity is.



A trail blazing experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California has confirmed a longstanding prediction by theorists that light beams colliding with each other can goad the empty vacuum into creating something out of nothing. The weaker of the two light beams was produced by a trillion-watt green laser. The opposing beam of radiation was boosted by 47-billion-electronvolt electrons shot from the two-mile-long Stanford accelerator until it was some 10 billion times as powerful as the green laser beam. The collision resulted in the creation of two tiny specks of matter — an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron.

Then, of course, you'll ask where those light beams came from. Then we're, admittedly, stuck at the Big Bang.

The Big Bang Theory is the dominant scientific theory about the origin of the universe. According to the big bang, the universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions.
In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître was the first to propose that the universe began with the explosion of a primeval atom. His proposal came after observing the red shift in distant nebulas by astronomers to a model of the universe based on relativity. Years later, Edwin Hubble found experimental evidence to help justify Lemaître's theory. He found that distant galaxies in every direction are going away from us with speeds proportional to their distance.

The big bang was initially suggested because it explains why distant galaxies are traveling away from us at great speeds. The theory also predicts the existence of cosmic background radiation (the glow left over from the explosion itself). The Big Bang Theory received its strongest confirmation when this radiation was discovered in 1964 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who later won the Nobel Prize for this discovery.

Although the Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, it probably will never be proved; consequentially, leaving a number of tough, unanswered questions.

Note the last incredible sentence. This is a nasa article btw, so I got it from a decent source. How we move on from here, I don't know. IF (!!) this last sentence is true, this means science will never know the answer to lots of bigass problems. Cue God.

I refuse to use God in this though, and I'll accept my enormous ignorance... and actually using the tried God-argument solves nothing, because where did he come from? What was his beginning?



This was in reply to Mort-Hog saying We don't need 'God'.. Mort is right... see above, and if you reply, be specific on where we have to accept God to explain anything, and where the indications are to believe that he has a hand in, say, evolution.



Lol – Yep, the Anthropic Principle indeed.

Point is, this is not an argument for the universe being adapted for life. It actually indicates that an immense majority of the universe, 99.9999999999999%, is utterly hostile to life. Even on earth we have only a narrow range of habitable area. The deduction that the universe was created for man is simply ... strange.

The universe is not fine tuned to support us, it is we who are fine tuned to living in it.

The puddle analogy(Douglas Adams): Us calculating the odds of the Universe coming into existence in such a way as to allow our existence is like a puddle calculating the odds that a hole would form that exactly fits IT.



Why? Do you choose yourself what to interpret symbolically and what to interpret literally?



Ok... now what lead you guys to come to this conclusion?



Woah... aren't we debating this for the very reason that some guys here claim that evolution isn't true? Aren't we here because guys here keep proposing a biblical view of natural phenomena over a objective, historical, scientifical view? You seem to be accusing Mort alone, and I think you left guys out.

And really, I could so marry you because of that last sentence you wrote in that quote. Seriously, I think we should hijack an icecream truck and drive to Vegas right now… oooohhh… I'll be madame Gebohq...

I agree 100%… religion's ONLY field of research should be HOW we should live. So far they haven't done really well at explaining nature.



Nobody says otherwise... quote myself ... you're right that natural selection can not add alleles; natural selection can only 'substract'. Mutation, on the other hand, can add alleles.



Yep?



Are we wrong?



Listen up man. You make these kinds of claims continuously, even though I asked you CONTINUOUSLY to post up arguments. You have once, and I think that's excellent, but even after we thouroughly debunked it, you keep on saying stuff like that, instead of just posting up arguments.

'Creationism has been defeated on some issues, but so has evolution.' What issues man? Post em up! You know of creationist PhDs who can chew us up? Great, I'm here to learn... all you have to do is post. Until then this debate will continue with the assumption that you have no such arguments/information. And again, I'm not calling anyone stupid or uneducated. just uninformed/misinformed.

POST POST POST POST!



Agreed. Mort was hasty in his prejudice I think. Yet you TOO need to adapt. Up till now, you haven't had the courtesy to post the material, the 'physical proof', that you promised at the beginning of this debate. We continuously ask for it, yet you ignore us and don't talk to us, but next to us. I took the time, and believe me man, LOTS of it, this was my sacrifice of the week, to try to answer all of what you said in the way I think that was most informative. Please do us the same favor.



Yes we can, man. Until you have the decency to back up the stuff you claim left and right, nothing you say is acceptable as 'proven'. Nothing. Really dude, take a look at how Dogsrool challenged my claim on flat earth in the Bible: He quoted sources, did research, and offered both an objective/scholar viewpoint as his own. I read his reply and honestly felt rather dumb... what he said even sounds acceptable to me, the bringer of evil, the atheist antichrist. All what you've been saying up till now is 'well I can't argue the stuff I'm saying, but there's someone else who can. Really, he's been to college. I won't quote him, or even reference him, but rest assured, I am right about all this'.

Post arguments for your claims. NOW man!

And btw, I don't think there is a thing like a college degree in creationist science. I actually don't think there's a thing as creationis science at all.



I'm going to rephrase your claim...

You can't prove that The Purple Walrus Orbiting Pluto(®MH) isn't necessary if he set everything up as science sees it.

From now on, I will deal with all of those negative/no disproof arguments in this way. Post some positive arguments please, like I asked before numerous times, and tell us why you think God has anything to do with science.



Agreed. Note that there's also no reason to believe he exists and if so had anything to do with it.



OK... There's nothing I can do to deny external power in the Big Bang, since I know nothing about Big Bangs and should therefor STFU. Yep. God could have something to do with that. I don't believe it, but I can respect people who do.



So where does god come in? What did he do? ****, I must be the most annoying person right now, since I asked like 10 times already. But that's exactly it... I asked 10 times already and noone answered.

11: what does god have to do with natural processes and phenomena after the Big Bang? Don't even dare answering if I can exchange the word 'god' with 'The Purple Walrus Orbiting Pluto(®MH)'. Otherwise, shoot, as I have been dying for such an argument lately.



Exactly...



http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9508/articles/davies.html
http://members.tripod.com/~Glove_r/Folse3.html



Of course, no contradiction at all... if you think there's a personal god beyond that, well, we can't prove that wrong. But again, what are your reasons to believe that it was god? I could understand if you label the 'force' beyond the Big Bang 'god', so as a dynamic, not an identity. I think it was you who were studying the field of logic: don't you think that's strange to be using these kinds of arguments?

What you're saying

ARGUMENT FROM LACK OF CONTRADICTION
(1) I find utterly no contradiction in believing that to have been god.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

To be generalized to:

ARGUMENT FROM LACK OF DISPROOF
(1) You can't prove God doesn't exist!
(2) Therefore, God exists.

Cause, essentially, that's what not only you have been saying, but pretty much every guy who go in here and typed away at anything Mort-Hog or I was saying. Don't you think this kind of reasoning is lacking? And yet, it's being used again and again.



What ARE you saying? Hey, at the very least I'm glad to see you didn't put MH on ignore like you said you would.



What are you saying? So you admit there's no indication of God having anything to do with it?



No, but we have reasons to believe that the universe exists. Not only indications, but evidence too. Up till now, the concept of evolution hasn't even come close to being disproven, it's like you stopped trying after those first already debunked arguments. Up till now, the concept of creation hasn't even come close to being proven. Actually, scratch that, I always get disappointed when asking for proof in threads like this.

Let's see an indication.

Please, dogs, tell us, where god fits in... MH asks you to point out where in creation you think some kind of god is necessary, or even apart from that, where there's an indication that he had anything to do with it.



Firstly, you need a source of energy available to a chemical system and which drives chemical disequilibrium. An example is a thermal vent in the ocean. The ocean, the gasses coming out of the vent and the rocks surrounding the vent provide lots of different simple chemicals. The heat drives chemical reactions "uphill", that is, it takes the simple chemicals and creates more complicated ones that normally wouldn't exist. These chemicals then leave the energetic area (for example, they leave the plume of the vent into the colder water surrounding it) where they form a non-equilibrium solution. This process leaves the area around the vent or whatever energetic source we are dealing with with an astronomical number of different chemicals.

Now some chemicals are autocatalytic; that is, the reactions that make them run faster or at lower temperatures when the chemicals are there than when they aren't. This means that some chemicals will continue to be made in the cooler water when the initial versions had to be made in the hot region. This means that the concentration of those chemicals will continue to increase whereas the concentrations of the chemicals which aren't autocatalytic will stay more or less constant (old molecules in the cooler water will decompose and newer ones will come out of the vent) or be reduced as the autocatalytic chemicals use them up.

After a few million years of this you will get populations of many different kinds of autocatalytic chemicals and these will have lots of different physical properties. Some will form films, some bubbles, some will attach themselves to rock surfaces. After a while you will start to get autocatalytic systems, in which globs of different chemicals stick together one way or another and rather than catalyse the reactions that produce themselves, they catalyse the reactions that produce each other.

Over the next few hundred million years these autocatalytic systems will become more and more complicated and eventually you will call them organisms and the autocatalytic reactions you will call reproduction and you will realise that somewhere in those years life came from non-life, but the change was so gradual that you will never be able to say exactly when.

The distinction between life ande non-life is very vague. Some viruses consist of just one strand of DNA. Is this a life-form or is it a chemical? Certainly it can't reproduce itself without the assistance of other lifeforms, but then, neither can we.



Of course not man... I think it's fair though to ask for explanations though, arguments we asked for before.



Then what are you doing here? I'm not even asking for proof anymore, I've done that in vain for literally hundreds of times across massassi. What are the indications of your god?

Incidently, I think you touched upon a very essential subject here, namely that we're communicating entirely on different levels. Mort-Hog and I have been trapped in logical reasoning, proof, yet you guys are viewing this literally unreasonably. Check it out at dictionary.com.

Not governed by reason: an unreasonable attitude.
Exceeding reasonable limits; immoderate: unreasonable demands. See Synonyms at excessive



Can we reasonably assume there's no such thing as a purple walrus orbiting Pluto? Seriously, do you give its existence a chance? Two, now you're back to using logic... can you switch whenever you want? Literally a few inches above what you wrote here you talk about logic not applying, and now you rely on it to answer MH? I actually don't think this debate will work out, cause we can never tell in what 'mode' you are at the moment. We can never get the point across, because whenever you feel your arguments are about to be defused, you flip the 'logical mode' switch. It's something that we seriously can't get past.



Haha, yeah... I think Mort-Hog made an error by giving his walrus a physical form. Theists don't have this problem while talking about god. So I'm gonna rephrase what Mort-Hog said:

This is the point I was making with my magic giant purple etherreal incorporeal walrus theory. I haven't provided any observation or any evidence of the magic giant purple etherreal incorporeal walrus, so I cannot make the claim that the magic giant purple etherreal incorporeal walrus exists, even though you cannot disprove the existance of the etherreal incorporeal magic giant purple walrus.



Assuming it was 'god's doing', what purpose does increasing the speed have?

Also, this has been a recent discovery, so we're not very far yet. The basics are there though...

A landmark discovery of the 1990s was that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. The source of this mysterious force opposing gravity we call "dark energy."

Because he originally thought the Universe was static, Einstein conjectured that even the emptiest possible space, devoid of matter and radiation, might still have a dark energy, which he called a "Cosmological Constant." When Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the Universe, Einstein rejected his own idea, calling it his greatest blunder.

As Richard Feynman and others developed the quantum theory of matter, they realized that "empty space" was full of temporary ("virtual") particles continually forming and destroying themselves. Physicists began to suspect that indeed the vacuum ought to have a dark form of energy, but they could not predict its magnitude.

Through recent measurements of the expansion of the Universe, astronomers have discovered that Einstein's "blunder" was not a blunder: some form of dark energy does indeed appear to dominate the total mass-energy content of the Universe, and its weird repulsive gravity is pulling the Universe apart. We still do not know whether or how the highly accelerated expansion in the early Universe (inflation) and the current accelerated expansion (due to dark energy) are related.

A Beyond Einstein mission will measure the expansion accurately enough to learn whether this energy is a constant property of empty space (as Einstein conjectured), or whether it shows signs of the richer structure that is possible in modern unified theories of the forces of nature.

Also read http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/hubble_expansion_030410.html



See the response above I gave to Dormouse.



No dude, burden of proof is on you. And if you're gonna flip that logic switch again: burden of indication, asked for again and again, is on you.



Or proven, or indicated, or argumented? Yes, we have forgotten. Post about it (info, links, etc...) and we'll be sure not to next time.



Wow man, I respect your young age and all, but are you even trying? A 6-word reply to at least 10 minutes of work from Mort-Hog.

We're missing the point – so TELL US what the point is, and why you conclude from that that you can not give us the info/arguments we requested. Up till now, this is almost all (except from the arguments on page two) I have seen from you: 'I can't explain, so you don't get it, but still I'm right'.

POST!



Okay, now POST one of the reasons why they don't believe in evolution.



Until you take us seriously, I won't do it for you either. I can't man. Do you have any idea how much energy this costs me? I'm going through literally hundreds of sites, trying to back up my arguments as much as possible, and then you reply with two-word pseudo-intellectual/pseudo-philosophical BS. For every 30 minutes of work I do, you put in one minute, and you don't even bother to respond normally. Show some respect man. At least dogsrool is TRYING.

Obi: post the physical evidence you have.
Others: post indications of god
All: POST ARGUMENTS and reply to als much as possible of what I have written.

P-O-S-T

Yes, i know exactly what youre talking about, Matthew. It is commonly referred to as Strong Anthropic vs Weak Anthropic.

Eg that the universe is so perfectly balanced and crafted and such to support life as we know it, and without x state life would not be possible, vs life as we know it may not be able to exist under a different set of circumstances, but that in no way rules out that other forms of life may have.


I don't recall if it was this thread or a different thread suddenly, but to whomever was trying to argue probabilities: the odds of something having happened, after it has happened, are in fact 1. Regardless of what they were beforehand.

Depends on the extremity of the mutation. For example, if you breed a donkey and a horse to produce a mule, the resulting offspring is sterile. Although... Mort-Hog did respond "nope" to Obi's statement, so it wasn't such a generalization.
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm refering to actual manuscripts, not translations.
http://nabataea.net/flatearth.html
Bottom line is that ancient civilizations did not believe the earth was flat. It's simply not something that has historical proof. Quite the opposite, in fact: Even Aristotle taught the earth was round.
Let's first consider something obvious, if you're going to take this literally. Even if Job believed the earth was flat, there's no way he believed it was small enough to grab and shake. Literalism fails.
Even so, all shapes have edges, or we couldn't call them shapes. An edge defines a shape, flat or not.
You may be overanalyzing. Let's follow comparitive grammar and look carefully at what's being said. "The earth takes shape..." it makes no reference to shape prior to the comparison. Therefore, following grammar, what it is being compared to cannot be different. It's comparing the earth taking shape the way clay takes shape.
If that's weak, I'll find something better.
I've heard this lots of times. What people fail to realize is that even if the earth was flat, Jesus would have to have the most exquisite eyesight to be able to see that far physically.
I might point out that many times throughout the Bible, mountaintop is where God gives a revelation or where visions occur (such as when God gave Moses the 10 commandments). Mountaintops have a spiritual significance in the Bible. Why, I don't know. But they do.

A dream is most definitely not a good argument as to what the writers believed. And visions are almost never literal. (Go ahead, check me on it. )

I already adressed this. I also said that duwr has to other meanings, and that it was also used in another passage to describe the formation of an army.
You might also want to consider that geometry was not 2- and 3-D specific in those days.
Heck, I find myself using "square" in reference to something 3-dimensional. So what?

That was up to them, just it's up to anyone else. If you genuinely choose to love God, then you have love. And I'm pretty sure Hitler didn't have too much love.
The whole point in the NT is that you don't have to live by law, for such is impossible for man. The law demands perfection. Grace desires love.

It's relative; that's the key word. Your proof is evidence solely to you, and perhaps even others who think similarly to you. It can't be shared. That's why it's relative.

Well put, but it's still a fallacy regardless of what you put in place of "God."

I never actually said he did for certain. True, but "the process" considers only itself. My point was: If God exists, does he "nudge" evolution in a specific direction every so often? Or were all species simply random? If God exists as according to Christianity, then he has a plan for everything which would include evolution. After all, nature was perfectly balanced, until man interfered.
Again, science only explains how things happen. If God exists, science was his creation, too, and it makes sense for him to use his own tools. I agree. God serves a much greater purpose than to explain natural phenomena.
Same as above.
Interesting to note that if those particles come in contact with each other, they eliminate each other, and convert back into energy. You'll also note that antimatter was produced with it. If that's the case, we should have equal amounts of matter and antimatter scattered equally throughout the universe. Obviously we don't, because they would eliminate each other, and we'd be back where we started.
Interesting to note how much power was needed just to convert the energy to two simple particles.
Can I work that experiment in with my religion? Definitely (and for me, very interestingly).
1 John 1:5 - "...God is light..."
Genesis 17:1 - "...God Almighty..."
hmmm....
Genesis 1:3 - "And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light."
(Might go well with the last thing I said.) And this light mentioned is not the sun, because it's not created until verse 16.
Depends on what the nature of being a God is?
Proverbs 8:22-30 are an interesting answer, imo, but I'll just quote the last verse. (I mentioned this earlier).
"Proverbs 8:30
Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth[/u]; and my delights were with the sons of men."
The verses before this make it clear that this was before God even created any part of our universe.
It goes hand-in-hand with Revelation 21:1 - "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth..."
Which possibly hints toward a multiverse theory.
Based on context of passages, yes I do. This goes along perfectly with what I said above about God's earth.
Reading the rest of Genesis makes many many clues that it's not literal (or at least that the whole Garden of Eden thing wasn't exclusive to Adam and Eve.) I never said "conclusion;" I said "idea," or more specifically, I meant "belief." And I try my best not to assert my belief as fact, but I'm sure I slip up from time to time. I was half-joking. I guess that's why I half-responded to him after that, too.
But anyway, basically what I'm saying is that just because God isn't required or necessary to explain something doesn't mean he isn't necessary in some other way.
From a Christian viewpoint, mankind exists because God wanted it to, not because it was necessary or required. He wanted someone to love, and to be loved back. That wasn't required, either.
My point basically is that something being unnecessary in no way relates to its existance, or to anything it does.
That still doesn't make it necessary.
I love to mess with people, so how about this:
Prove that:
a.) The universe exists.
b.) Mankind exists.
c.) That I, specifically, exist.

then just for fun, try to prove that you exist.
Then tell me what all this proof lies upon. Then, I'll (hopefully) mess up your concept of reality.

Again, I never said "necessary." Necessary for order, maybe. There's no way to answer that question. Everything we know is based on what is. We cannot possibly compare the difference between a universe with God and a universe without God, simply because we have no idea what we have right now.
The thing is, you'll be hard-pressed to find any religious folks (of any religion) that use God for the sole purpose of explaining how the universe came about.
The best "evidence" I could provide (at this time) is Jesus (specifically his missing body and the resurrection).
Want some historical and archaeological proof?
http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html

Except I wasn't even the one who brought up God existing outside of logic. So before we continue, do you agree with Mort-Hog's assertion?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. According to logical debate fallacies, however, you cannot conclude such a thing based solely on lack of evidence.

No, Mort-Hog said it: wrote: That's what I was referring to, and that's what I asked if you agree with a bit up this post. I'm trying to understand why he said this, then expects logic to follow, too. It's him, not me.
Nice, but still... the fallacy stands, regardless if it's God or something else, just like I said earlier.
The problem is that science makes little to no attempt at researching the spiritual; even to see if it exists. I know a Wiccan scientist at religious-debate.com who is rather disappointed by this. I can't say that I'm too pleased, either. I didn't say it had a purpose.
Technically, it doesn't have a purpose whether God is involved or not. A scientific reason, maybe... and most likely.

You're right, actually. I missed that somehow.
hmmm.... notice how my argument gets fuzzy near the end of each post. :p
What I meant was consider the possibility of that which cannot be detected.
For a clearer example, take the idea of not being able to detect waves of the electromagnetic spectrum some number of years ago. As technology developed, we were able to detect, and thus learn about, the electromagnetic spectrum. Certainly, we could not have possibly learned all of that which can be detected. But again, only time and further development of technology will even allow us to discover such things. And who knows where the end of such discoveries are?

I sure do. This post has taken nearly 2 hours to write. The one about the Bible supporting geocentrism and flat-earth took about 4 hours.

OK... thanks man, very informative. Also, thanks for the time put into it, as I know what sacrifice it is. This goes for all of you by the way.

I'll be taking a break from this topic for a while, since I obviously have other stuff to attend to. I may rejoin in a few weeks, and I hope you guys continue. For me, it has been a solid exercise in both thinking and argumenting (a skill I was really lacking before) and I really appreciate contributions made and that will be made.

I also advise Mort-Hog to get a atheist-buddy who manages to keep up with him, since this thread can get very very tough to keep going by yourself. All the best to MH, and I'm definitely using Walrus-Theory in the future.

Tenshu, Obi is the only one here who's trying to argue God's existance as scientifically correct. Everyone else here is just defending their personal beliefs.
I can't prove God's existance to you, and I'm not trying.

The only thing anyone can really do is convince someone to take the step of faith, but I'm not asking you to do that either.

I don't have to prove my beliefs to you.

Uh..what?

I didn't say it was Religion's ONLY field, I said it was it's ULTIMATE (or fundamental) field. I think religion(s) are capable/possible at explaining what makes the universe tick, but those explainations are put in there to support how to live our lives, not just to enlighten us on what makes it tick. It's called "practical" problem solving -- what do we do with the truths we learn? I don't appreciate how some people seem to scoff at or see less of the "psycho-social" truths. I think they're just as important, if not more, than what makes things tick. Not that I scoff at science, mind you. And to quote another fictional source I love...



The bold, in particular. Things like that, and "The Impossible Dream" are what makes me Christian, but anywhos...

As for my earlier comment, like I said, it was not directed just at Mort; my earlier comment was directed more towards many "literalist" Christians than Mort-Hog. I put "literalist" in quotes because of things DogsRool has posted -- things that could very well make the words of the Bible literally true. It's just with things including (but not limited to) translations and passage of that Bible of times and cultures and the fact that no matter how clearly God might have had a hand in the Bible the writers (and READERS) will always have the free-will to reject it (that's not even taking into account "mere" misinterpretation) as well as hypocrites who will say something is God's will -- Satan himself tried to use the Bible in his favor (Luke 4: 9-12 NIV )... well, let's just say that it involves more personal responsibility of thought than some "literalists" would like to believe and that some people of strict logic would like to give us people of faith credit for in such matters.

And while I am flattered that you would want to be "madame Gebohq" for the thoughts I shared before, keep in mind what I just said, as well as the rest of my earlier post you didn't address :p

I did? :-/

Your stuff about the meaning of "day" for instance... or was I reading that wrong?

Perhaps I should clarify: I didn't mean ALL of the Bible, as there are some things (like some more specific stuff in Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, etc.)... just more of it than most non-literalists would think (i.e. the type that ONLY look at the "psycho-social" aspect/themes as being true, and that little to no "facts" exist within the Bible at all.) Stuff like what "day" meant in Genesis and whatnot.

Heck, under ye "observation school of thought," there's only so much we can say is fact, as we can't go back in time and witness it again and again. Most people consider written material from an outside source(s) to be good enough to call fact, however, so that's mostly a trivial premise anyway, as we'd have to throw out stuff from two minutes (or centuries) ago otherwise. Anywhos... hopefully that made sense.

ehehe, there's always one smarty-pants in the crowd

Well, I guess not. I just hadn't considered it that way for some reason.

56 people have voted, and, of those 56, many have chosen more than one of the available options.

How odd. What was it that made you post what you had posted then. Just playing Devil's Advocate?

Hey man, they weren't hypocrites. It's not like they upheld a certain set of virutes and did something else, which the Catholic Church is guilty of a thousand times over.

I'll reply tuesday I'm over at someone's house now. How ever, people keep losing sight of the point I'm trying to make. I'm not arguing against evolution itself. I don't have the education to properly do that yet. What I am doing is proving that creation is not the product of ingorance. And I have done that.

For a fuller reply, check back tuesday.

Looks like Obi's a bit late on the replyin'.

Don't kill me for bringing back "dead threads" please! I'm just curious if Tenshu (or anyone else) had anything to say on my latest reply, is all.

*hides*