inconsistent Creationists

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The problem is not only is there no evidence that a flood happened, but there IS evidence that a flood did NOT happen. So why is that?


No, there ARE common ancestors. Where did I not make that clear? A breeding population can split and some of its descendants can become different species. Those descendant species can in turn evolve further to become even more different species. All those descendant species have a common ancestor in the original breeding population. So where do you get that I am saying there are not common ancestors?


Look, I've tried to explain it as simply as I can to you. If you cannot understand it, that is not my problem. I am not being inconsistent here.

Evolution and biogenesis are not the same thing. Additionally arguing that Mars *should* present life as some sort of counter-evidence to biogenesis is about as good an argument as the whole "life should be spontaneously generating in this closed jar of peanut butter, but it isn't, so checkmate atheists" garbage

I understand that. That's not exactly the point, though. Genesis deals with origins of life, and what is being disputed is whether evidence points to a divine Creator or not. While evolution doesn't deal with the ORIGINS of life, evolution CANNOT happen without there being life to evolve in the first place. If you want to rule out the necessity of a divine Creator and a creative act to bring it all into being, then you have to accept that the best possibility for life to even occur is that it was an entirely random event. So what is the best explanation for terrestrial life? It would most likely be some form of abiogenesis in which a soap bubble formed out of a mixture of phospholipid and proteins, all of THIS around some kind of self-replicating DNA or RNA that just happens to figure out how to organize itself in an ongoing process of reproduction...and somehow manages to just randomly get a lot more sophisticated than that...and this random event has to "just happen" right at the cooling phase of the earth's crust. The age of the earth seems to make this even an extremely unlikely one. The protein polymers and other elements for making soap bubbles would have to have some off-world origin if we're to remain consistent with the "random event" hypothesis and account for timing.

In reading back over this and other posts, it occurred to me that evolution is really the wrong subject for what TBG is trying to accomplish here. He's using evolution to refute what he sees as an origins hypothesis when what he really needs to do is dig into abiogenesis. My position on evolution is this: I do not DENY that evolution happens. But I don't accept EVERYTHING about evolution or claims made about evolution just on its face value any more than I accept everything about religion on face value. TBG's shortcoming here is his inability to address the problem of origins (which is really what this is all about, not evolution) complicated by his intense desire to dictate to religious people what they should and shouldn't believe.

Ok AngelRho. **Cracks his fingers**

Your statement is that the physical world itself is tied intrinsically to the definition of a spiritual world. By this fact , your using a tome of belief (the Bible, which like God , one must apply Occam's Razor when examining, even Hawking admits this), to define the physical world. Yet there are numerous counter claims to this effect scientifically. Science normally has methods and examinations to explain its claims. Faith cannot be approached from a logical experssion. Nor can it be proven. There is no, nor has there been any, physical evidence to support the fact that God does indeed exist. It requires Faith, an emotion based on trust and belief in something immaterial. NOT physical.


He was born into an Anglican family. And while he believed in God, my understanding is that most of the works that he wrote that were in regard to Christianity and Faith, would be considered even to this day Heretical. Were it publicly known in his time what his exact opinions were regarding God and Christ, they would have killed him immediately I imagine (thus more deserving of Gods wrath even further, and the fact that you think that I was referencing his Scientific work alone, is a sign your not very well read either). The Philosophers Stone itself is a heretical occult study, and makes numerous references to things that a Christian at that time period would never discuss. Are you open to having a tarot card reading, AngelRho?



This is like a typical blind Christian to make this statement. I would have expected a little more from you AngelRho, but I assume now I shouldn't. God smote The Cities of the Plains (by the hands of the Archangels, though the bible doesn't necessarily suggest who this is, its been stated by a few theologians that Michael and Uriel may have been the two, that transported Lot and his family away, commanding them to leave Sodom) in a bale of Fire. God commanded the same of Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela. It is these passages in the bible that directly reflect Christianity's strong disdain for Homosexuality (and is the primary source of text that churches like The Westboro Baptist Church push to validate their claims.). God's Divine retribution is rife in the Torah (as it is in the Quran as well, speaking from a parallel view), commanded by God or by God's own hand. The Yahweh (Elohimm, God, Jehovah, or whatever you wish to refer to God as) of the Torah was a powerful entity upon which if you screwed up bad enough REALLY bad things happened to you. Unless of course your Job, then really bad stuff happened to you because Satan and God were having a discussion about Job, and it was just happenstance. But then thats where the Fire Breathing Dragons in the bible show up. Cool. Then in the New Testament (even in the Greek translations, which is what most die hard Christians fall to) God becomes a merciful and kind being upon which only love and trust can exist. That extreme paradigm shift is why Christianity to many is hard to approach.

God Commands those to kill

Deuteronomy 17:12, Exodus 22:17, Leviticus 20:13, Leviticus 20:27, Exodus 21:15, Proverbs 20:20, Leviticus 20:9, Leviticus 20:10, Leviticus 21:9, Exodus 22:19, 2 Chronicles 15:12, Zechariah 13:3, Deuteronomy 13:13-19, Deuteronomy  22:20-21, Deuteronomy 13:7-12, Deuteronomy 13:1-5.

God commits Genodcide and murder -- My top 4.

Sodom and Gomorrah
Gen 19:24
God's seven year, world-wide famine
Gen 41:25-54
God burns Aaron's sons to death
Lev 10:1-3
God slowly kills the Israelite army
Dt 2:14-16

It is important to note, AngelRho, that if you have not done the God's works as many of those passages suggest, then Jeremiah 48:10. And you should probably smite yourself.




Well see, AngelRho, Voltaire was this thing called a Satirist. A satirist, probably something you weren't aware of utterly, is a form of humor and social criticism. Voltaire was also known to have quote as well.

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

So, when voltaire made such a statement, it was a form of Satire, and spoke about the dependence of a society on the existence of something for and in which to blame their problems.

Voltaire made numerous such "jokes", which are probably clearly beyond you.



You only want two? I have a list of roughly 500. So Ill give you my top 3. How about that?
-------------------------
God is everywhere present, sees and knows all things Prov 15:3/ Ps 139:7-10/ Job 34:22,21

Yet ,

God is not everywhere present, neither sees nor knows all things Gen 11:5/ Gen 18:20,21/ Gen 3:8
------------------------
God is warlike Ex 15:3/ Is 51:15

Yet,

God is peaceful Rom 15:33/ 1 Cor 14:33
-------------------------
God is cruel, unmerciful, destructive, and ferocious Jer 13:14/ Deut 7:16/ 1 Sam 15:2,3/ 1 Sam 6:19

Yet,
God is kind, merciful, and good James 5:11/ Lam 3:33/ 1 Chron 16:34/ Ezek 18:32/ Ps 145:9/  1 Tim 2:4/ 1 John 4:16/ Ps 25:8
--------------------------

Your Biblical knowledge is rather weak AngelRho, you need to brush up a little. You want the full List, I can email you all 500 inconsistencies that I have, and that my memory allows me to remember off the top (and Im sure there are even more than that). I enjoy these conversations AngelRho, I often times do not meet a person upon whom such voracious faith requires me to actually flex my Religious and philosophical muscles. Most of the people in this thread havent read the bible nearly as much as I have. Nor have such an indwelled understanding of it as I do (as a child it was forced upon me). If your going to quote passages and use them as a definition for your belief system, you better have passages ready to back them up. I bet your one of those deluded Christians that think that Lucifer and Ha-Satan are the same entity. I also bet your one of those Christians who thinks that Cherubs are cute little baby like angels (that look like cupid). How sad.



You really should read the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Thomas. I would find you a more credible source (although not by much) if you had. Some suggest that Mary's Gospel distorts the facts, and she gave birth to the Almighty. That distortion far exceeds anything that Geoffery of Monmouth could have suggested, much less Tennyson. Both of which Im extensively well read.

Voltaire meant that religion was useful to control the plebs. He was himself a deist, like most Enlightenment philosophers, but not a Christian.

The original post that started this thread quoted a creationist web site where the people on THAT web site said they accept certain facts of nature because of the "preponderance of evidence." I point out that there is at least as much a "preponderance of evidence" for evolution, so they are being inconsistent to not accept evolution as just as real a fact as gravity and inertia.

I did not start the discussion of abiogenesis or ultimate origins. All I'm saying is the evidence supports evolution and falsifies a literal reading of the story of Adam and Eve. Later I brought up that Noah's Flood is also contradicted by the evidence of the world. Note that it is not just that the flood story is not supported by evidence, it is contradicted by evidence. In other words, not only is there no evidence that such a flood occurred, but there IS evidence that such a flood did NOT occur.

So do you still say it makes sense to you that God would do that, make it look so much like it didn't happen as part of the event being a miracle? Sure, I'll grant that might be possible, but it is just as likely that we were all created last Tuesday with memories planted of lives we never actually lived, or that we are in a virtual reality like the Matrix movies.

I'm not telling you what to believe or not believe. I want to know how to reconcile the stories in Genesis with the facts of nature that most creationists are apparently either ignorant of, or do not understand, or deny, or distort. You have not demonstrated great reasoning ability in your correspondence with me, considering how you apparently completely missed the point of my explanation of how populations evolve.

To call me a liar was not nice. I am a sincere seeker of truth and always have been. I also will not knowingly spread falsehoods.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 14 Aug 2012, 7:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

See, this proves my point.

I agree with absolutely everything you say there, you've just presumed I don't because I pointed out the flaw in an argument against God. What you said bares minimal relevance to what I said.

I repeat: this is the problem with such debates. The atheists think, with considerable justification I might add, that their position is stronger, so they don't bother to form the strongest argument they can. This means that not only do they fail to refine their technique, and their thought, but the theist doesn't learn how to form appropriate responses because the response they got doesn't properly refute their point.

As long as the theist is willing to argue (often not the case, they'll usually claim that scripture is infallible, or make straw man attacks), the atheist should be able to draw the argument to the conclusion of "we can't know for certain whether any god exists unless we have a personal experience (and even then we could be hallucinating, imagining or being tricked), we can't hope to know much about the nature of any god, the Bible is not infallible and parts of the Bible are downright unhealthy", but the argument is formed badly. Perhaps all the right points are made, but in the wrong order; perhaps a point is not made precisely enough; perhaps a point is used in the wrong context altogether; perhaps a point is made that is a straw man. Either way, the conclusion is not reached and neither side learns anything.

To be fair, this is a forum dedicated to people with autism. We're famous for failing to see non-literal meanings of phrases.

Touche , Walrus.

I haven't read everything other people have said in this debate, but I do remember my main contribution until I more or less abandoned it to answer on questions of detail. Basically, I follow a revised version of your typical "atheist" position: "We cannot inquire into the existence or non-existence of God because it is beyond human understanding, but science can offer a plausible explanation for everything, and there is no need for a supreme being in it; besides, the Bible is shaky as a source, and there is no reason to put more confidence in it than in any other document." The typical answer I received was to cut after "understanding" and before "but", say that I agreed that there was no way to know whether or not God existed, and therefore that the Bible could be right, and therefore that there was no problem with using it to understand the world.

At times, I may not have been very convincing, I may have said thing that I shouldn't have, I may have wrongly presumed that my interlocutor held certain beliefs, I may have been ambiguous, unexplicit or unclear. I can even remember specific examples , and I would find many more if I cared to go through my own argumentation again.

But I'm sorry, I don't see how the blame is on both sides.

Perhaps it isn't in this case- I missed about five pages where AngelRho was talking about Mars and ignoring crucial points and so forth- but often it is. Usually the argument breaks down because one side, usually the theist, refuses to argue, normally by claiming the Bible is infallible in a spectacular show of circular reasoning.

It isn't a case of blame when the argument fails due to lack of skill, it's just a shame the skills are lacking.

I am not saying the Bible is false. What I said over and over again apparently to deaf ears (deafened by faith?) is that a literal interpretation of Genesis is not supported by the evidence of the physical world, and those claims in Genesis which can be tested have been falsified by the evidence of the physical world.

That is NOT saying that the Bible is necessarily false. What it means is IF the Bible is true, then God either planted tons of false evidence of every different type in an apparent attempt to test our faith, or maybe, just maybe, Genesis is not meant to be read literally. As I said in my Evolution song: "The only problem is your interpretation. Evolution is the better explanation of overwhelming evidence that evolution is a fact of nature. You'll just have to face the fact: you're related to a monkey!"

Of course another possibility is that we cannot trust anything we can observe and measure, but then that would include the Bible too in addition to ALL of science (not just biology but astronomy, geology, chemistry, etc.). I am not saying we should trust science blindly. It has brought humanity much usefulness along with many problems. What I am asking is why I should trust a fundamentalist's advice on spiritual matters I cannot check when they are so very very wrong about something like evolution that does have physical evidence I can check and easily see that they are very very wrong?

I do not like lies. That is one of the main reasons this subject offends me so much, the way Creationists misrepresent evolution and spread falsehoods and quote people out of context in what must be either a blatantly dishonest or incredibly stupid way to misrepresent their meaning.

Earlier in this thread I explained how different species have a common ancestor in the original breeding population of an earlier species, and somehow (I still don't see how) AngelRho quoted my explanation and concluded I was saying there are no common ancestors. I am still waiting for AngelRho (or anyone else) to please tell me how this happened:

There IS evidence that a direct supernatural intervention did NOT happen? What kind of evidence? PHYSICAL evidence?


This kinda relates to my response to Vigilans and would seem to prove my point. Evolution simply is insufficient to address the real issue we're talking about here. If "everything evolves," which I don't totally doubt btw, then "everything" came from "something." That would indicate AT SOME POINT some individual organism or two from whence your other "populations" came from. Without some kind of origins hypothesis, you have no mechanism for evolution. No life=no evolution. There has to be a comparatively tiny number of common ancestors to point to before you can even get into whole populations of evolved agents. If "populations evolve" and not individuals, then how does evolution account for the populations being there in the first place? If they "just showed up one day," then you have just as good or even better possibility that they were created as not. Saying that, "well, uh, POPULATIONS evolve, not individuals" is just making an ad hoc excuse for why your explanation isn't as simple as you'd like it to be. And it certainly doesn't prove creationists wrong by any stretch.

I'll grant you this much: YC inflexibility is just downright silly when you compare their claims to physical evidence.

But the biggest flaw in your particular complaint against them is that your field of interest does not address the problem of life origins, which is precisely what creationists deal with. Also, you don't show that you really have much of an understanding of the Bible, just a preoccupation with the creation account and with a flood that has divine origins. If you don't follow a certain religion or even understand it that well, then you're certainly not qualified to tell its adherents what they should and shouldn't believe.

Believe it or not, I DID see the humor in it, hence the brief chuckle at the beginning of my post.

However, there is usually just a little grain of truth in every joke!

And there I was expecting at least a forgiving retort. I doubt if Voltaire were living today, he would agree with your sentiment.

**chuckle**



And this is any different than an Acolyte as yourself, who does not appear to have as near an intrinsic understanding about the subject matter upon which you speak, without sufficient evidence (even biblically) to support it. Just saying "because the bible says so" isnt really a valid statement to the argument. Perhaps you should maybe, provide actual textual examples to support your claims. I know they exist there in, Ive read them probably more times than you have. Why not at least try to exemplify.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV-WDKyAF7U[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=716eC4w-Q0A&feature=relmfu[/youtube]