inconsistent Creationists

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This is so blatantly wrong that it has actually managed to rustle my jimmies.

The existence of the heavens and earth are evidence of the existence of the heavens and earth, not evidence that the God of the Bible exists or is responsible for their creation, unless one accepts the Bible as a believable authority. I have reasons to doubt the Bible on spiritual matters since it makes such fantastic claims about some physical matters that can be checked and are found to falsify what the Bible says (and I'm not just talking about evolution...read on if interested).

I've seen more than once in this thread where AngelRho claims to not deny evolution might be true, but even if it is that is not crucial to AngelRho's belief in God. I admire that position. It is the position of MOST Christians worldwide (or at least the official position of their particular denominations). That is not necessarily anti-science, but AngelRho does seem a bit confused about what constitutes scientific evidence.

As for taking the Bible as a believable authority, it isn't just evolution where the accounts in Genesis seem to be contradicted by observable reality (and no, the "Gap" theory does NOT account for how observable reality seems to contradict the order of creation given (which contradicts itself in the two accounts of the first two chapters).

What about Noah's flood? AngelRho claims Genesis is eyewitness testimony too. However, we have not found any physical evidence of the types we would expect to find if a global flood occurred, yet we DO find much evidence (ice cores, tree ring samples, different erosion levels of different mountain ranges, histories of extant civilizations that were apparently unaware they were submerged for some time, etc.) of the type to be expected if such a flood did not occur.

So AngelRho, you seem willing to admit that evolution might occur so long as it was the God of the Bible who started everything and made things happen the way they do, even if it conflicts with a strict literal reading of Genesis? Then why are you arguing in this thread? I don't have a beef with that unless your ultimate goal is to sabotage the education of American schoolchildren by dumbing down the science curriculum.

But you argue still for the Bible's authority as a reliable source. Why should I trust it as an authority on anything when it seems to be contradicted by nature, not just with evolution but with Noah's Flood. It seems that everything that humans can observe and measure indicates a global flood did not occur. Also, there really is no evidence at all that all the species of animals on earth were ever in one spot disembARKing from a boat and limited to two individuals each for most species, while there is abundant evidence from the fossil record and from genetics that this never happened.

So are you also willing to admit that maybe Noah's flood did not happen, or if it did happen it was a local event (not one that covered the entire earth at one time)? See, that is another problem I have with accepting the Bible as a spiritual authority, since it is full of such stories (Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, the earth being the center of the solar system, the earth being flat) that are contradicted by the evidence of the physical world. That's not even talking about problems with the historicity of Jesus (whether or not He even ever existed as a person, or is just a myth), much less whether or not He actually rose from the dead and really is who Christians claim He is.

Also, myth is not a dirty word. A myth is a metaphor, not something untrue. Yes, Christianity IS a myth, like it or not! Some religious people seem to think that a myth is someone else's religion that is false, while it is more similar to the idea of having an accent in one's language. Everybody has an accent lol. If you had been born in India, you might feel the same way about Hinduism as the way you do about Christianity now. Alan Watts said if Jesus had been born in India, he might not have been crucified. When He told His friends "I and the Father are one," they would have told Him "Congratulations. You finally figured it out."

Since God cannot be proven nor disproven, I have no beef with accepting the stories in Genesis as allegories teaching us that God made us, loves us and has plans for us. Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, heck even go to the New Testament and talk about Jesus and His resurrection, so far as I am concerned all of these can be great spiritual teachings without ever having had to have actually occurred. Of course many people are of the mind that if things didn't happen exactly the way they THINK the Bible says things happened, then their religion must be wrong and that is unacceptable to them.

Fundamentalists seem to take an all or nothing attitude towards many things, so they think if any part of what they believe really isn't true then their religion is completely worthless. That is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater though. You know, instead of spreading lies and distortions about reality, I think Creationists really should embrace the fact that all the evidence of the world contradicts their interpretation of Genesis. Then they can be proud that they are believing something entirely on faith! That should make Jesus very proud (check what Jesus said at the end of the Doubting Thomas story).

I am sure Craig Venter and his team (or a similar group) will deal with that.

ruveyn

Here's why:


What am I missing exactly? You wrote:
You don't leave much up to interpretation. This looks like pretty plain language to me. God cannot be proven or disproven. Period. EOS.

I'm not asking for evidence that a hypothetical supreme being does not exist. I'm asking for evidence that a REAL supreme being does not exist. I take it you cannot provide evidence for that either? Then why should I believe a word you say?

That's all you have to say...right there. Anything else beyond that is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. I'm not asking for empirical evidence for something else. I'm only concerned about one thing. You've answered my question. There's nothing left to say.

No it isn't.


Actually, we do. We can die. We just don't often have the means to come back from the dead. Jesus died and was buried. He came back on His third day in the tomb. I think Jesus might know something about it. Prior to this, He brought people back from the dead, and resurrections from the dead weren't even unprecedented before Jesus' time.

If that's not enough, then you have NDEs in the present time--occasionally reporting that patients knew about events during clinical death they couldn't possibly have known because they weren't physically present. There are other experiences of what they believe to be early glimpses of the afterlife. Generally these people have radical changes in attitude and behavior afterwards.

An exceptional case is Anita Moorjani:
http://anitamoorjani.com

She has never been particularly religious and still isn't religious after her experience, but she doesn't claim to merely "believe" in the afterlife--rather, she would say she "knows" there is an afterlife. I find it odd that she could go from being riddled with cancer to no sign of cancer at all in a matter of days, but this seems to be confirmed by oncologists and radiologists.

Other experiences aren't nearly that dramatic, but it does show evidence that existence apart from the physical world is possible.

Well, consider the source. Those guys were there for a reason, right?

Take the claims Jesus made. Here's a guy who got other people to claim that He is the Son of God. If that's what Jesus really believed about Himself, He has to be crazy, right? Even got Himself killed over it.

The real trouble is that so many people found Him to be credible. He told people things about themselves a stranger couldn't possibly have known. He healed the sick and restored the disabled. The thing is, He didn't even take credit for the things He did--He told people that His power came from God. So if He can back up a divine origin, He's not crazy. He's telling the truth.

How is that absurd, though? Everything we know is the result of some cause and has the potential to serve as the cause for another effect or a whole string of causes/effect. There is no need for the first Cause to have been caused. An Uncaused Cause is not absurd.


I'll read up more on that later. I enjoy that kind of thing.


OK, fine...

]but [do not cut] neither [do not cut] can you prove empiricism without circular reasoning. All reasoning is circular at some point. You ASSUME that empiricism is correct and true. It applies axiomatically to how science operates. You cannot prove empiricism by empiricism. You cannot prove logic without using thinking skills. You can't even empirically prove the physical universe exists without evidence from the physical universe!

If you can take a transcendent view of the universe and play fast and loose with circular reasoning, why can't a Creator God be axiomatic as well? It certainly makes more sense to me than the existence of a creation without a Creator.


Well, you're the one with exposure to historical documents. Roughly how long after the events were NT texts written? They had to have been written by the mid-60's. You can't have a massive disruption of religious ceremonial life go without mention in what would become a religious document. Think about it. The gospel writers include Jesus' prediction of the temple destruction. The texts indicate that they were written AFTER Jesus' ascension and that the events recorded are written in hindsight. For example, they let the cat out of the bag when it comes to Judas well before his betrayal. So where is the temple aftermath in the gospels? Nowhere, not even in Acts, not even in the epistles. Not really even in Revelation, but there are other indicators of when it might have been written that you don't have with the other texts.

An early date of writing means that the recollection of those events are more accurate than a later writing date. Also, you have manuscripts dating from the 100's of separate books, and complete collections not long after. There are remarkably few variations in the various copies, none of which really change or challenge the meaning of the text from one copy to the next. This is rare for ancient writings.

Fail. Who eyewitnesses these events? Really even the stories of Solomon and David are not supported by physical evidences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed


There is nothing to prove or disprove. 'God' is just nonsense gibberish.


What about you provide evidence the universe is not 5 minutes old?


Many people believe Muhammad is the last prophet. So what?

Then there's nothing to discuss, is there?

Indeed.

AngleRho,

Go read the Gnostics (you know those things that they say shouldnt be in the bible, but are drawn from the same source of texts). Then come talk to us.

You know Mary had a Gospel right?

So did Judas.

And Thomas.

So did Phillip for that matter.

And the Book of Enoch, read that too.

Just ingest the entire Apocrypha, as alien as that may be to you.

There is a hitch, though. A human-constructed scenario in which this DID succeed would actually serve as evidence in favor of intelligent design. I'm not going to argue that it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever occur over an extended period of time, but I do have doubts that the earth really has been around sufficiently long enough for it to happen without any kind of intervention at all to stack the odds.

More likely this could have happened in space, but my guess is that if an alien source "seeded" the earth, to make the likelihood of this happening spontaneously would suggest that the earth wouldn't be the only planet in our solar system to have been seeded. There ought to be evidence of proto-cells (for lack of a better term) elsewhere and earth just happens to be within the habitable zone for life to take hold and flourish.

The thing, though, is if you take evolution as a principle, at least Mars should have some signs of life. A proto-cell would be required to adapt to the environment, so SOMETHING that could hypothetically live in the Martian atmosphere should have presented itself. As it is there are no signs of anything on Mars that we didn't put there ourselves. So what is the likelihood that there was only one fomite that just happened to hit the earth, an asteroid perhaps, and no other traces of it seem to have affected anything else in our solar system?

You know what, I'm going to ignore everything wrong with the post right above me (though I will say this: depending at the speed at which any theoretical life on Mars was wiped out, adaptation may not have had time to happen) and go for this one - why is the existence of the heavens and earth evidence of your god?

I mean, if we're running on Creation being evidence of a Creator, why isn't is evidence of Odin, who shaped the earth and skies from the shattered corpse of his grandfather? Why isn't it evidence for Gaia or Ouranos? Ra? What makes your claim to religion more special than theirs?

This is why the scientific method was established in the first place - as a way to effectively weed out confirmation bias, which is a problem all creationists (but especially you) have in spades.

I'm listening to it all. Continue.

For starters, I'm not a creationist. I believe that God created the heavens and the earth. I don't know with any certainty WHEN that was or HOW God went about it, just that it IS. Science is brought about by our observation of the world around us from which we can draw certain conclusions. I'm not protesting AGAINST evolution at all and I recognize that some YCs are silly about it. But, as I've said before, I don't think all creationist objections are really satisfied by empiricist conclusions. Simply compare when life appeared on earth to the earth's geological age. It's a miracle we're even here.

Agreed that adaptation might not have had time to happen, but I think that the evolution process should have enjoyed a little more time than it apparently had. Even on our planet there are life forms attracted to extreme conditions, be it lack of oxygen, extreme high or low temperatures, and so on. Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, though, so maybe if we could take core samples from Mars we might find something. Someone at NASA needs to get a fire lit under their @$$ and get a crew up there. I might be lucky to have 40 more years of life left, and I'm freakin' tired of waiting.

To answer your last question: Evidence of a Creator God does not take into account Who that God is, merely that there is one. Beyond that, you merely get an understanding of the claims others make to see which one is the most sensible.

I mean, could be FSM, right? Except the trouble with FSM is it's known to be a parody of religion in general intended to expose a flaw in rationality. So FSM fails as something to be taken seriously. What is known about Yahweh from the Bible is that He is real and credible, certain people had more or less direct experience of God and were able to establish their own credibility, and Jesus also had crowds of eyewitnesses who could attest to what He did.

Not only that, but the Bible isn't really evidence of epic story-telling.

Odin, on the other hand, is a member of a pantheon of gods. The problem with polytheism is the inconsistency inherent in dividing up and distributing divine power. If the gods are all in agreement, they are functioning as One, and the names and roles assigned to each god is simply a recognition of specific attributes of the One. There is also lack of a reliable, consistent scriptural cannon associated with Odin. According to Völuspá, Odin either is dead or will die--not exactly fitting of an immortal deity. A religion based on Odin doesn't sufficiently address things like the existence of sin in the world and the reconciliation of imperfect man with the perfect Divine. Christianity does address this problem directly, however, and would make more sense to ME, especially considering that God voluntarily takes the blame for human sin and defeats death in the process, extending eternal life to all mankind who will believe.

STILL displaying incredible confirmation bias. The idea of the 'perfect divine' is something postulted by Judeo-Christian religions and Zoroastrianism. It's not found in all, or even many, faiths. A religion 'failing to deal with it' means only that the religion in question follows a different paradigm, and does not indicate a lack of credibility on the part of that faith in and of itself.

Not if the human construct was made using naturalistic physical principles. Just because an intelligent human could make a living thing from scratch does not prove that natural living things were made by an intelligent agent.

ruveyn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_bilayer

These can happen in nature.

It is evidence for all of those, and it is evidence for creation without any Prime Mover. It just isn't remotely conclusive towards any of them.

If my door is broken down, and I am murdered, that is evidence that you broke it down, that my neighbours broke it down, that David Beckham broke it down, that Ban Ki Moon broke it down. Things like DNA, alibis and fingerprints would maybe show who exactly it was, and any attempt to prosecute you would be utterly useless because the door being broken down doesn't tell us that you broke it down.