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Creation vs Evolution
- Thread starter Total_cho
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FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
This appears to be the only 'point' in 247:
Tellya what. You post a link to an intermediate fossil, from a credible source (that means no TalkOrigins crap, it's all decades out of date), and I'll refute that.
Next stop 274-276:
Archaeopteryx has already been debunked as a missing limk between reptiles and birds, so I'll not re-hash it.
I'll also go you one further, and point out that eohippus, mesohippus, and equus could not possibly be considered a gradual progression, as the eohippus attempting to birth a mesohippus foal as large as the mother would be invariably fatal, likewise mesohippus to equus.
Clearly, the downside greatly outweighs the benefits.
Known scienctific fact:
The earth is a sphere, and is not 'held up' by anything.
What the Bible says:
"The sphere of the earth hangs upon nothing."
(I note here with some satisfaction that this happens to prove that the Roman Catholic Church was wrong to harrass Copernicus and Galileo.)
Known scientific fact:
The water cycle. Water evaporates from the oceans, falls as rain on the mountains(and elsewhere) and flows back down to the sea.
What the Bible says:
"The waters of the earth flow from the mountains to the sea, and then back to their source in the heavens."
Known scientific fact:
Animals of the same species breed true, and do not have children of other species.
What the Bible says:
(Numerous spots in Genesis)"...and they reproduced after their own kind."
Shall I go on? Or maybe you would like to provide me with an instance in which the Bible (not some church that claims to be Christian mind you, but the Bible) contradicts something that science has done the math on.
While there was a lot of other stuff in your posts, when it wasn't some sort of personal attack on me, that was a point in one way or another, they were either exteremly weak points that did not hold up under their own weight, or were completely unrelated to the topic, so I'll stop now. I'm probably near or over the limit already.
I said one thing, and you contradicted by saying 'nuh-uh.'
Tellya what. You post a link to an intermediate fossil, from a credible source (that means no TalkOrigins crap, it's all decades out of date), and I'll refute that.
Next stop 274-276:
Well, first off, all you said was 'nuh-uh'. That's hardly a refutation, by anyone's standards. Secondly, Lucy has no legs, so how can anyone say whether she went on two legs or four? Also, her hip sockets are clearly elongated, like most quadrupeds, not round like a human's, further indicating that she went on all fours, like an ape.
Archaeopteryx has already been debunked as a missing limk between reptiles and birds, so I'll not re-hash it.
I'll also go you one further, and point out that eohippus, mesohippus, and equus could not possibly be considered a gradual progression, as the eohippus attempting to birth a mesohippus foal as large as the mother would be invariably fatal, likewise mesohippus to equus.
Oh, let's see, Piltdown man, Java man, and every other hoax, fraud, and 'mistake' that journalists and ToEers have tried to sweep under the rug. The fact that the mutation experiments on Drosophilia melanogaster produced neither a single beneficial mutation, nor any new species, as all the mutations that did appear, in a carefully controlled environment, bred out in two to three generations.
The experiment described above is one such piece of evidence, and a damning one at that. Mutations have been proven in the lab to not stick around. So much for the first pillar of the ToE.
Evidence? If any were to exist, then the secret would be out, n'est pas? No, like all good conspiracies, this one is well-hidden.
You'd think that wouldn't you? It almost sounds logical at the outset too. But what is this famous-for-15-minutes young punk going to do once the fame goes away? Who is going to protect him from all of his colleagues that he put out of work? How is he going to earn a living once the realization sinks in that he wasted 8 or so years at university, and who knows how many thousands of dollars, on an education that, with a good resume, will get him a killer job at Starbucks?
Clearly, the downside greatly outweighs the benefits.
Historical I feel speaks for itself. As to scientific, here are some examples:
Known scienctific fact:
The earth is a sphere, and is not 'held up' by anything.
What the Bible says:
"The sphere of the earth hangs upon nothing."
(I note here with some satisfaction that this happens to prove that the Roman Catholic Church was wrong to harrass Copernicus and Galileo.)
Known scientific fact:
The water cycle. Water evaporates from the oceans, falls as rain on the mountains(and elsewhere) and flows back down to the sea.
What the Bible says:
"The waters of the earth flow from the mountains to the sea, and then back to their source in the heavens."
Known scientific fact:
Animals of the same species breed true, and do not have children of other species.
What the Bible says:
(Numerous spots in Genesis)"...and they reproduced after their own kind."
Shall I go on? Or maybe you would like to provide me with an instance in which the Bible (not some church that claims to be Christian mind you, but the Bible) contradicts something that science has done the math on.
While there was a lot of other stuff in your posts, when it wasn't some sort of personal attack on me, that was a point in one way or another, they were either exteremly weak points that did not hold up under their own weight, or were completely unrelated to the topic, so I'll stop now. I'm probably near or over the limit already.
Portuguese
Vassalising Spain
Originally posted by The Troquelet
Portuguese, that's not an argument and you know it!
Puglover: You're using Biblical evidence to support the Bible. Circular argument.
Just kidding. I'm not going to enter this deep discussion about a thing so complicated to see from the XXI century point of view. Perhaps it'll be more simple to see this question answer later, as the science makes new discoveries. Personally I think science will prove some religious believes- But that just an opinion though...
But this is an interesting thread to read
The Troquelet
Conscious
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First of all, there are several points in 247 that you refuse to acknowledge. In one part of that post you go on - just as you are doing now - by bringing up failures of the theory - or hoaxes that discreditable scientists have perpetrated in search of riches and fame.
What I want to know is, how does this discredit the THEORY? Changing a theory in light of new evidence does not discredit it, as we've already established - it brings it closer to the truth [we hope!]. And because some fossils are incomplete, and because some scientists are hoaxers, does not mean ALL of them are. You are using the same argument as "My dog is brown, therefore all dogs are brown". Condensed to this form, we can see that your argument is a clear logical fallacy.
Secondly, and this is even more important, you make a clear mistake when you say that eohippus led directly to mesohippus, etc. We don't know ALL the links, and as I've said before this does not discredit the theory. What we DO have is a chain - with links missing - of animals that had their heyday in geology, and are now extinct - and these animals SEEM to form a gradual progression from one type to another, and so on. The logical INFERENCE is that these animals slowly changed over time to suit changing environments, and that the old types died out when their adaptations were no longer suitable. Creationism, another theory we could use to explain biology, can't deal with this evidence - in fact creationism was out of date as soon as dinosaurs were discovered. Trying to fit extinct species into a theory of creationism is only possible with word-twisting - hard to fit at all into the theory of a purposeful, created universe, at that, even without a God.
The point behind this is the same as previously - that individual mistakes SHOULD be acknowledged, and rectified, but that the theory itself is still credible, and more so than any other that I have read.
Again, your support of your conspiracy theory is merely sophism - in fact you lost all credibility in this debate when you started claiming that all scientists were allied together in a secret conspiracy at all. But let's look at the evidence dispassionately. If your conspiracy is real, the theory would not be as hotly contested as you claim and I acknowledge. It would be quite easy for one scientist to get great fame by pretending to have [or, in fact, discovering] an alternative - Darwin proves this, I would hardly call his legacy "15 minutes", would you? Finally, under the hot scrutiny of such contenders as yourself the conspiracy would quickly be discovered. From all these points we can see that there IS NO conspiracy, and that your attempt to fabricate one is merely an ad hominem attack against scientists in general, attempting to discredit them and their work because you are unable to refute them.
As for your scientific vindication of the Bible, it is not science but common knowledge. Claiming, for example, that the Bible is a scientific document when it states that all animals reproduce after their own kind is illogical. The people of the area were nomadic, as we know, and herded animals. Any peasant could observe this fact by watching one of his lambs give birth. This is hardly scientific discovery - the Sumerians could have claimed to have known so much - no, the average caveman could have, for did he not observe his own kind in reproduction if not the cubs of bears and foxes? Yet again, observing that water flows to the sea and that more water falls from the heavens, a people whose lives revolved around cycles - the farming and seasonal cycle, the nomadic cycle, and so on - could hardly help but infer the missing link - that water must flow from the seas to the heavens. These are not scientific proofs, but common sense. For the spherical nature of the earth, I have no answer. I do not know if Jesus ever saw the sea? I do know that the earth was known to be round by Greek scientists in Alexandria, predating Jesus, and that any common sailor could observe that the earth was at least not flat by observing a ship rising above the horizon of the Mediterranean. So the knowledge that the earth is round neither begins with the New Testament, nor was it erudite knowledge at the time. The Goths and later the Catholic Church were responsible for the loss and then repression of this knowledge and make it seem as if the Bible's acceptance of it is premonitory or miraculous, which it is not.
You skim over the rest of my points, which are not so much arguments in themselves as refutations of your arguments. I'll condense them for ease of reading.
Several Creationists have argued that because evolutionism is unprovable, just as creationism is unprovable, then they are equally credible. This is a logical fallacy of some sort - I forget the name - but it is patently false since there is more experimental evidence for evolutionism than there is for creationism - and as posted, I've yet to see an experiment [a reproducible one, mind you] for testing the existence of a God.
Several Creationists have posted that the universe is too complicated to have not been created. That's not an argument either - even the relationship between a circle's diameter and circumference is too complicated for us to truly understand - how can we explain the workings of the human body in a single moment, much less that of a planet or a universe? The argument corroborates evolutionism, not creationism, in that the idea that one person possesses absolute knowledge of ANYTHING so complicated as a piece of the universe, much less the creation and inner workings of that universe, is fallacy once more. This is where evolutionism wins out - because it does not claim to possess absolute truth but merely proposes a working theory that can easily be changed to fit new facts.
Again, quoting the Bible as evidence for the Bible is a circular argument. It is like saying "My dog is brown because, as you can see, he is brown, because..." It leads to moral absolutism just as FL2 possesses, because he believes he knows truth because he knows the truth because...
I've already responded to your claim that we don't know how animals used their bodies. We know that animals today in the modern world possess [let's concentrate on one thing] teeth that are exactly speciated to their needs. The logical inference is that animals in the past did so as well, and therefore an animal with sharp teeth for tearing probably ate meat, flat-toothed animals ate mostly plants, and so on. So your quote "there is no way to say with certainty how these structures were used" is wrong. We may not know for 100.000% CERTAIN, but all science is uncertain, and I think for the purposes of debate we can acknowledge that they are correct in their inferences. Or you can present an alternative.
Another Creationist argument that I have seen you use when you get frustrated is that the Bible must be proof of God because it has survived for 2000 years and is such a well-written book - or a miracle of some sort. This is wishful thinking. The Bible survived because people liked it - and it certainly did NOT survive intact, despite the hair-raising warning about changing content in the back of Revelations. I already brought up the issue of the magical 500-year phoenix that visits Babylon that was [by a "miracle" of common sense] later edited out when it was seen that that sort of talk wouldn't wash. This comes from an epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians that "was considered genuine 14 or 15 centuries ago". You can read this and other extractions in "The Innocents Abroad" by Mark Twain [Chapter XXIV] and there's more of course in various books by other authors.
The last argument I see you bring up is that the intangibility of God is no argument against his existence, for, you say "We can't see air or vacuum!" I think I refuted this nicely. We INFER air by things like Bernoulli's principle, and the chemical processes that forge iron, run your car, whatever. We can NOT infer God by a reproducible experiment. Or at least I have not seen one capable of doing so. That lends credibility to science and takes it away from faith.
What I want to know is, how does this discredit the THEORY? Changing a theory in light of new evidence does not discredit it, as we've already established - it brings it closer to the truth [we hope!]. And because some fossils are incomplete, and because some scientists are hoaxers, does not mean ALL of them are. You are using the same argument as "My dog is brown, therefore all dogs are brown". Condensed to this form, we can see that your argument is a clear logical fallacy.
Secondly, and this is even more important, you make a clear mistake when you say that eohippus led directly to mesohippus, etc. We don't know ALL the links, and as I've said before this does not discredit the theory. What we DO have is a chain - with links missing - of animals that had their heyday in geology, and are now extinct - and these animals SEEM to form a gradual progression from one type to another, and so on. The logical INFERENCE is that these animals slowly changed over time to suit changing environments, and that the old types died out when their adaptations were no longer suitable. Creationism, another theory we could use to explain biology, can't deal with this evidence - in fact creationism was out of date as soon as dinosaurs were discovered. Trying to fit extinct species into a theory of creationism is only possible with word-twisting - hard to fit at all into the theory of a purposeful, created universe, at that, even without a God.
The point behind this is the same as previously - that individual mistakes SHOULD be acknowledged, and rectified, but that the theory itself is still credible, and more so than any other that I have read.
Again, your support of your conspiracy theory is merely sophism - in fact you lost all credibility in this debate when you started claiming that all scientists were allied together in a secret conspiracy at all. But let's look at the evidence dispassionately. If your conspiracy is real, the theory would not be as hotly contested as you claim and I acknowledge. It would be quite easy for one scientist to get great fame by pretending to have [or, in fact, discovering] an alternative - Darwin proves this, I would hardly call his legacy "15 minutes", would you? Finally, under the hot scrutiny of such contenders as yourself the conspiracy would quickly be discovered. From all these points we can see that there IS NO conspiracy, and that your attempt to fabricate one is merely an ad hominem attack against scientists in general, attempting to discredit them and their work because you are unable to refute them.
As for your scientific vindication of the Bible, it is not science but common knowledge. Claiming, for example, that the Bible is a scientific document when it states that all animals reproduce after their own kind is illogical. The people of the area were nomadic, as we know, and herded animals. Any peasant could observe this fact by watching one of his lambs give birth. This is hardly scientific discovery - the Sumerians could have claimed to have known so much - no, the average caveman could have, for did he not observe his own kind in reproduction if not the cubs of bears and foxes? Yet again, observing that water flows to the sea and that more water falls from the heavens, a people whose lives revolved around cycles - the farming and seasonal cycle, the nomadic cycle, and so on - could hardly help but infer the missing link - that water must flow from the seas to the heavens. These are not scientific proofs, but common sense. For the spherical nature of the earth, I have no answer. I do not know if Jesus ever saw the sea? I do know that the earth was known to be round by Greek scientists in Alexandria, predating Jesus, and that any common sailor could observe that the earth was at least not flat by observing a ship rising above the horizon of the Mediterranean. So the knowledge that the earth is round neither begins with the New Testament, nor was it erudite knowledge at the time. The Goths and later the Catholic Church were responsible for the loss and then repression of this knowledge and make it seem as if the Bible's acceptance of it is premonitory or miraculous, which it is not.
You skim over the rest of my points, which are not so much arguments in themselves as refutations of your arguments. I'll condense them for ease of reading.
Several Creationists have argued that because evolutionism is unprovable, just as creationism is unprovable, then they are equally credible. This is a logical fallacy of some sort - I forget the name - but it is patently false since there is more experimental evidence for evolutionism than there is for creationism - and as posted, I've yet to see an experiment [a reproducible one, mind you] for testing the existence of a God.
Several Creationists have posted that the universe is too complicated to have not been created. That's not an argument either - even the relationship between a circle's diameter and circumference is too complicated for us to truly understand - how can we explain the workings of the human body in a single moment, much less that of a planet or a universe? The argument corroborates evolutionism, not creationism, in that the idea that one person possesses absolute knowledge of ANYTHING so complicated as a piece of the universe, much less the creation and inner workings of that universe, is fallacy once more. This is where evolutionism wins out - because it does not claim to possess absolute truth but merely proposes a working theory that can easily be changed to fit new facts.
Again, quoting the Bible as evidence for the Bible is a circular argument. It is like saying "My dog is brown because, as you can see, he is brown, because..." It leads to moral absolutism just as FL2 possesses, because he believes he knows truth because he knows the truth because...
I've already responded to your claim that we don't know how animals used their bodies. We know that animals today in the modern world possess [let's concentrate on one thing] teeth that are exactly speciated to their needs. The logical inference is that animals in the past did so as well, and therefore an animal with sharp teeth for tearing probably ate meat, flat-toothed animals ate mostly plants, and so on. So your quote "there is no way to say with certainty how these structures were used" is wrong. We may not know for 100.000% CERTAIN, but all science is uncertain, and I think for the purposes of debate we can acknowledge that they are correct in their inferences. Or you can present an alternative.
Another Creationist argument that I have seen you use when you get frustrated is that the Bible must be proof of God because it has survived for 2000 years and is such a well-written book - or a miracle of some sort. This is wishful thinking. The Bible survived because people liked it - and it certainly did NOT survive intact, despite the hair-raising warning about changing content in the back of Revelations. I already brought up the issue of the magical 500-year phoenix that visits Babylon that was [by a "miracle" of common sense] later edited out when it was seen that that sort of talk wouldn't wash. This comes from an epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians that "was considered genuine 14 or 15 centuries ago". You can read this and other extractions in "The Innocents Abroad" by Mark Twain [Chapter XXIV] and there's more of course in various books by other authors.
The last argument I see you bring up is that the intangibility of God is no argument against his existence, for, you say "We can't see air or vacuum!" I think I refuted this nicely. We INFER air by things like Bernoulli's principle, and the chemical processes that forge iron, run your car, whatever. We can NOT infer God by a reproducible experiment. Or at least I have not seen one capable of doing so. That lends credibility to science and takes it away from faith.
The Troquelet
Conscious
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2002
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Oh, and it's "n'est-ce pas?" not "n'est pas?" 
Sorry to nitpick
Sorry to nitpick 
like i've said before in this forum, i think they go hand in hand. god created a fully functional planet completely capable of doing things on it's own like evolve for it's own needs. eventually came smart primates like neanderthals, who had animal insincts to stay is small clans, keep a large territory, and be very conservative. suddenly, there is homo erectus who has a far superior brain, gobbles up all the land, resources, food it wants without any concern for the future. that is not natural, and i believe "adam and eve" were not the first beings created by god, but the first he tinkered with to be as emotional as him, and smarter then anything else on his earth. even albert einstein said that there must be a god because there is no way that the human brain is natural.
The Troquelet
Conscious
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Oh, there's a LOT we don't understand. Personally I think it's part of the makeup of the human brain - the thoughts we can't avoid, just like hunger or sexual impulses - to believe in a creating force [because we create things ourselves] and to believe that the universe is purposeful [because we constantly give people, places, objects and so on purposes ourselves]. That leads to religion, or at least religious emotions. I'm no exception to the rule of course, though I may sound like an atheist on this thread I'm actually a deist
Originally posted by The Troquelet
Oh, there's a LOT we don't understand. Personally I think it's part of the makeup of the human brain - the thoughts we can't avoid, just like hunger or sexual impulses - to believe in a creating force [because we create things ourselves] and to believe that the universe is purposeful [because we constantly give people, places, objects and so on purposes ourselves]. That leads to religion, or at least religious emotions. I'm no exception to the rule of course, though I may sound like an atheist on this thread I'm actually a deist
Same thng I was saying. Thanks The Troquelet for detailing it for me.
Proof the Bible is true?
If Jesus' resurrection was a fake, would the apostles risk their LIVES to protect it? Would a sane man die for what he knows is not true?
TT,
If you're a christain, why don't you answer the evolutionists' questions instead of telling us to?
If Jesus' resurrection was a fake, would the apostles risk their LIVES to protect it? Would a sane man die for what he knows is not true?
TT,
If you're a christain, why don't you answer the evolutionists' questions instead of telling us to?
The Troquelet
Conscious
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2002
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- 1,950
Oh, I'm no Christian. I was raised a Jew and now I am merely a deist
Yes, the apostles thought Jesus had it right. That's their opinion, not proof. Their actions certainly show how convinced they were - but don't determine what the real truth is. People have died for worse and wronger causes - what about these recent terrorist attacks, for example? Because they were willing to die for their cause, does that mean they must be right?
Yes, the apostles thought Jesus had it right. That's their opinion, not proof. Their actions certainly show how convinced they were - but don't determine what the real truth is. People have died for worse and wronger causes - what about these recent terrorist attacks, for example? Because they were willing to die for their cause, does that mean they must be right?
Ill begin to make this reply and take a big chance due to two reasons. First, As if no one posts before me, this will be post number 302, and the OT limit is 300, so chance is that it will be blocked when Im done.
Second, because I have just had a particular hard day of work, followed by classes until 11:00 pm, and Ill have early post-graduation classes tomorrow, so my tiredness and lack of time will probably prevent me from making this as extended and as rigorously revised as it should.
Anyway, my masochistic love for debate is overwhelming.
Thank you for the compliment, Troquelet. I do try to guide myself by logic, something that is somewhat lacking in this particular thread.
Anyway, I AM a lawyer. Does it show here? I imagined people might have noticed in the threads I discussed politics (well, in the ones that I dont state it myself, what I always do when Ill go as deeply as to analyze law articles), but not in one about religion
I really imagined that you would stop playing victim after the tact was exposed for what it is. I guess I was wrong. But I refuse to follow that line of debating, fearless, I really do. So, for now on, whenever you play damsel in danger, Ill simply pretend that that paragraph is not present in the text.
I dont bet to loose, Fearless. But even with you arguing on me that we cannot use intellect to conclude what the hands of the ancient were used for, I will not follow the same unreasonable line of arguing, and Ill use the intellectual quality of extrapolation to conclude, in agreement to you, that 2.000 years ago the Aramaic did not had terms to describe the microscopic life.
But the really funny part, Fearless, is that nor did English or French, before those forms of life were discovered. See, the words we have now to deal with them were not dormant in our vocabulary; they were created to describe those things that were discovered.
The very same thing could have being done in Aramaic. Moses, that you now have admitted that received the perfect knowledge from God, could simply make use of that knowledge to be the worlds first microbiologist, and say that in the second day, God created the insert the recently created Aramaic term for bacteria and fungi.
Sure, you may argue that Moses did not have the intellectual capability of describing the revelation made by God. But to admit this would be to admit that the book does not possess the information that God intended it to have.
Or you could say that Moses wrote it perfectly, but it was lost in copies and translations. What is, yet again, to admit that the book that you and I have available fails to express the will of God.
Fact is, for whatever angle you wish to look at it, the bible is simply plain wrong about the first forms of life. It threatens terribly your perspective about the bible proving itself over and over as flawless, what is, quite frankly, a very false statement.
Fearless, I am admittedly ignorant of the bible. But I can read, you know. So, before I even started this line of arguing, I have read the genesis. I actually have read the genesis of 4 or 5 versions of the bible, to make it sure that I was not missing anything important. And this is what I got, with minor variations, in all of them:
As you see, the bible makes it quite clear that the animals of the air and the sea were created in the 4th day, while the beasts of the earth, the cattle and the creeping things, all of them were created in the 5th day.
Thus, bible calls for compartments. Whether you like to say that the biblical days are real, 24 hour days, or just the poetic description of an whole era, fact is that to its description, animals of air and sea were created in a fragment of time that is different and previous to that of the earth animals.
Well, that happens to be incorrect. And I care to give again the same link that I gave before.
So, please, do not argue anymore in the lines that you are just getting it wrong because you are ignorant about the perfect description of the bible". I am giving you a very well substantiated display of the reason why it is simply not the truth, something that you have being requiring constantly, even if not granting us equal privilege.
really, fearless, If I find teeth, Ill know it was used for chewing. Even modern monkeys use their hands to manipulate objects. Thus knowing what the hands of extinct species were used for is not an exercise of imagination, it is the simple applying of common sense. I dont know why you even attempted this line of arguing.
By the way, you are completely wrong to imagine that I base my agreement with the evolution in blind admiration to scientists. The reason why I do it is because it is the simple logical conclusion drawn from observing the DNA resemblances and the fossil record.
So we are in the point of measuring our premises. The problem in here is that you simply do not accept that the enormous genetically resemblance between man and monkey is indicative of common ancestry; also, that you simply discredit all the evidence of the fossil record in the manner that you previously did insufficient (thousands are not enough), incomplete (yes, complete skeletons are somewhat hard to find, but there are pieces of each part). As long you simple refuse to accept the fact that the evidence DOES allow a margin of conclusion, there is simply no point in arguing with you. You decided that you will not acknowledge anything I may present as demonstrative, and that whatever value of proof they may have is simply unacceptable.
But, more importantly, you have as premises of absolute value. God exists, and the bible is right. The weight of this two affirmations is so big for you that whatever appears to deny it, no matter how reasonable, is instantly discredited. That is why you simply do not make the connection between all the data so strongly defended by the evolutionists here and the simple conclusion that it leads to. That is why things as lunatic as world scientific conspiracies sound reasonable to your ears.
I said it before, and Ill say it again. Fearless, creationists follow an agenda. They believe that bible is correct. Any other information must be first filtered by this take on the reality. So, if something is not correspondent to the bible, it is naturally wrong.
Science does not follow agendas. Its committed to nothing but the truth. They apply scientific method as tool of filtering great truths from great mistakes.
So there you have it. The bible and the Scientific method as two ways to measure the reality. Choose whatever you see fit. But, just know, that being the scientific method the ultimate celebration of logic, while bible is an arbitrary set of information, that defending things under biblical perspective will never allow you win an argument through logical application, something that you seen to be fooling yourself in believing that you are doing.
Interesting attempt to reverse my argument. But not very successful, I tell you that.
Im not applying my endless creativity here, Im applying the scientific principle called the occan razor, something that a person that is used to debate in scientific terms like you certainly have heard of.
Given two scenarios all life forms are based on the same element because they have the same origin and an invisible deity cried Shazan and created life in alike manner because he/she/it, able of doing anything, simply decided to do so. Whats simpler?
But more than that, fearless, the first explanation is much more satisfactory in other terms. Why only carbon? No reason, except that it happened to be more viable. Could it be different? Possibly, it simply wasnt. But once you get to the point where life could have being phosphorus-based, or iron-based, or helium-based, but turned out to be carbon-based, understanding the maintenance of this characteristic does not require much loop of imagination.
But the problem remains for God. He/She/It could have created life differently. And, unlike evolutionist explanation, that satisfactorily says that from a given point 0 everything derived must have the same premises, God does not have to be coherent. Why not create a form of life based on every element of the periodic table? Cant you see that while you demand complete perfection from evolution, something that no human discipline ever achieved, you are willing to admit quite a lot of assumptions and half-answers in behalf of supporting the bible?
But really, placing this credit on God, actually this or any other does it really answer anything to you? Is saying I dont understand really that much different than saying I understand, God did it but about God I dont understand?
Please take some time to think about it.
Yet another attack on me. But, unlike others, its impossible to make me loose my temper through an Internet contact. It would be better not to even try.
You have a very interesting grasp on reality, Fearless. The academical debate on the functionality of the complex aspects of a theory that never claimed to be an envision of perfection are held by you as if it were a absolute demonstration of the wrongness of the premises.
Ate the same time, you are capable of saying that the bible have being proved right time after time after time without shooting in the water once. It is not the reality, fearless, the bible has many wrong things. I wont bother to post others than the one I did in the beginning of this post, most of all because it would be useless, you will always find a way to interpret around any misconception I could possibly present. But, as I said, it is a derivation from your absolute premises. Your entire notion on reality is bible-filtered, because you know YOU KNOW that the bible is always right. To the point that, when we ask for evidence about it, you present the bible itself as the evidence.
Regards.
Second, because I have just had a particular hard day of work, followed by classes until 11:00 pm, and Ill have early post-graduation classes tomorrow, so my tiredness and lack of time will probably prevent me from making this as extended and as rigorously revised as it should.
Anyway, my masochistic love for debate is overwhelming.
Originally posted by The Troquelet
Thank you for the compliment, Troquelet. I do try to guide myself by logic, something that is somewhat lacking in this particular thread.
Anyway, I AM a lawyer. Does it show here? I imagined people might have noticed in the threads I discussed politics (well, in the ones that I dont state it myself, what I always do when Ill go as deeply as to analyze law articles), but not in one about religion
I really imagined that you would stop playing victim after the tact was exposed for what it is. I guess I was wrong. But I refuse to follow that line of debating, fearless, I really do. So, for now on, whenever you play damsel in danger, Ill simply pretend that that paragraph is not present in the text.
I dont bet to loose, Fearless. But even with you arguing on me that we cannot use intellect to conclude what the hands of the ancient were used for, I will not follow the same unreasonable line of arguing, and Ill use the intellectual quality of extrapolation to conclude, in agreement to you, that 2.000 years ago the Aramaic did not had terms to describe the microscopic life.
But the really funny part, Fearless, is that nor did English or French, before those forms of life were discovered. See, the words we have now to deal with them were not dormant in our vocabulary; they were created to describe those things that were discovered.
The very same thing could have being done in Aramaic. Moses, that you now have admitted that received the perfect knowledge from God, could simply make use of that knowledge to be the worlds first microbiologist, and say that in the second day, God created the insert the recently created Aramaic term for bacteria and fungi.
Sure, you may argue that Moses did not have the intellectual capability of describing the revelation made by God. But to admit this would be to admit that the book does not possess the information that God intended it to have.
Or you could say that Moses wrote it perfectly, but it was lost in copies and translations. What is, yet again, to admit that the book that you and I have available fails to express the will of God.
Fact is, for whatever angle you wish to look at it, the bible is simply plain wrong about the first forms of life. It threatens terribly your perspective about the bible proving itself over and over as flawless, what is, quite frankly, a very false statement.
Fearless, I am admittedly ignorant of the bible. But I can read, you know. So, before I even started this line of arguing, I have read the genesis. I actually have read the genesis of 4 or 5 versions of the bible, to make it sure that I was not missing anything important. And this is what I got, with minor variations, in all of them:
As you see, the bible makes it quite clear that the animals of the air and the sea were created in the 4th day, while the beasts of the earth, the cattle and the creeping things, all of them were created in the 5th day.
Thus, bible calls for compartments. Whether you like to say that the biblical days are real, 24 hour days, or just the poetic description of an whole era, fact is that to its description, animals of air and sea were created in a fragment of time that is different and previous to that of the earth animals.
Well, that happens to be incorrect. And I care to give again the same link that I gave before.
So, please, do not argue anymore in the lines that you are just getting it wrong because you are ignorant about the perfect description of the bible". I am giving you a very well substantiated display of the reason why it is simply not the truth, something that you have being requiring constantly, even if not granting us equal privilege.
really, fearless, If I find teeth, Ill know it was used for chewing. Even modern monkeys use their hands to manipulate objects. Thus knowing what the hands of extinct species were used for is not an exercise of imagination, it is the simple applying of common sense. I dont know why you even attempted this line of arguing.
By the way, you are completely wrong to imagine that I base my agreement with the evolution in blind admiration to scientists. The reason why I do it is because it is the simple logical conclusion drawn from observing the DNA resemblances and the fossil record.
So we are in the point of measuring our premises. The problem in here is that you simply do not accept that the enormous genetically resemblance between man and monkey is indicative of common ancestry; also, that you simply discredit all the evidence of the fossil record in the manner that you previously did insufficient (thousands are not enough), incomplete (yes, complete skeletons are somewhat hard to find, but there are pieces of each part). As long you simple refuse to accept the fact that the evidence DOES allow a margin of conclusion, there is simply no point in arguing with you. You decided that you will not acknowledge anything I may present as demonstrative, and that whatever value of proof they may have is simply unacceptable.
But, more importantly, you have as premises of absolute value. God exists, and the bible is right. The weight of this two affirmations is so big for you that whatever appears to deny it, no matter how reasonable, is instantly discredited. That is why you simply do not make the connection between all the data so strongly defended by the evolutionists here and the simple conclusion that it leads to. That is why things as lunatic as world scientific conspiracies sound reasonable to your ears.
I said it before, and Ill say it again. Fearless, creationists follow an agenda. They believe that bible is correct. Any other information must be first filtered by this take on the reality. So, if something is not correspondent to the bible, it is naturally wrong.
Science does not follow agendas. Its committed to nothing but the truth. They apply scientific method as tool of filtering great truths from great mistakes.
So there you have it. The bible and the Scientific method as two ways to measure the reality. Choose whatever you see fit. But, just know, that being the scientific method the ultimate celebration of logic, while bible is an arbitrary set of information, that defending things under biblical perspective will never allow you win an argument through logical application, something that you seen to be fooling yourself in believing that you are doing.
Originally posted by FearlessLeader2
Again, facts not in evidence. If this 'primordial origin' could happen in one place once, using DNA, why did it not happen in a hundred others, using other chemicals? IF you make your first assumption, THEN you must follow it with at least that second, AND then with a third, that DNA was more robust, and ate its competition. In that case, should there not be micrscopic fossils of non-DNA based life in the pre-Cambrian era? Well, then, where are they? No, wait, don't tell me. MORE missing links?
(And they gripe when I use the word miracle...)
Interesting attempt to reverse my argument. But not very successful, I tell you that.
Im not applying my endless creativity here, Im applying the scientific principle called the occan razor, something that a person that is used to debate in scientific terms like you certainly have heard of.
Given two scenarios all life forms are based on the same element because they have the same origin and an invisible deity cried Shazan and created life in alike manner because he/she/it, able of doing anything, simply decided to do so. Whats simpler?
But more than that, fearless, the first explanation is much more satisfactory in other terms. Why only carbon? No reason, except that it happened to be more viable. Could it be different? Possibly, it simply wasnt. But once you get to the point where life could have being phosphorus-based, or iron-based, or helium-based, but turned out to be carbon-based, understanding the maintenance of this characteristic does not require much loop of imagination.
But the problem remains for God. He/She/It could have created life differently. And, unlike evolutionist explanation, that satisfactorily says that from a given point 0 everything derived must have the same premises, God does not have to be coherent. Why not create a form of life based on every element of the periodic table? Cant you see that while you demand complete perfection from evolution, something that no human discipline ever achieved, you are willing to admit quite a lot of assumptions and half-answers in behalf of supporting the bible?
But really, placing this credit on God, actually this or any other does it really answer anything to you? Is saying I dont understand really that much different than saying I understand, God did it but about God I dont understand?
Please take some time to think about it.
Yet another attack on me. But, unlike others, its impossible to make me loose my temper through an Internet contact. It would be better not to even try.
You have a very interesting grasp on reality, Fearless. The academical debate on the functionality of the complex aspects of a theory that never claimed to be an envision of perfection are held by you as if it were a absolute demonstration of the wrongness of the premises.
Ate the same time, you are capable of saying that the bible have being proved right time after time after time without shooting in the water once. It is not the reality, fearless, the bible has many wrong things. I wont bother to post others than the one I did in the beginning of this post, most of all because it would be useless, you will always find a way to interpret around any misconception I could possibly present. But, as I said, it is a derivation from your absolute premises. Your entire notion on reality is bible-filtered, because you know YOU KNOW that the bible is always right. To the point that, when we ask for evidence about it, you present the bible itself as the evidence.
Regards
.Hello troquelet.
I have read your post only to come to know that you offer what most evolutionists offer in defense of their 'belief' in evolution, namely, a lot of unsubstantiated declarations and no scientific evidence on its behalf what-so-ever.
I propose to you that it is the evolutionist whose acceptance of evolution is based on a "blind faith" that is "devoid of reason".
You allege that evolution is demonstrated via known (i.e. scientifically established) intermediates in the fossil record. To qualify as an evolutionary intermediate, it must be established that the fossilized creature must have descended from a species somewhat different and has a descendant that is also significantly different. In other words, an established phylogeny.
Phylogenies are what Darwin theory predicts, and Darwin was embarrashed by the lack of evolutionary transitions in his day. He blamed it a very imperfect fossil record and claimed that future generations of scientists will establish these phylogenies predicted by Evolution. This has not happened. There are fewer examples of major evolutionary transitions from the fossil record than there were in Darwins day, and there were hardly any in Darwins day.
So I await your examples of scientifically established intermediates from the fossil record.
It is my view that science has demolished the Theory of Evolution. It is now known that abiogenesis is a scientifically absurd concept. The Miller-Urey experiments was the first step in scientifically disolving this concept of abiogenesis. Pasteur had it right, life only comes from life. If life could not have arisen from material considerations only, then there must be an Intelligent living Creator, God Himself.
The Troquelet
Conscious
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2002
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- 1,950
Hey tyrus, nice to read you.
Evolution [in this thread] has been separated a little from pure science, but that's not where it belongs. Evolution is a theory, a hypotheses, and thus an extension not only of science but of logical thinking. The Bible is based on suspension of disbelief - that known impossibilities can take place illogically, for example the crossing of the Red Sea, the resurrection of the dead, and so on. Thus the phrase "devoid of reason" applies most closely to the Holy Bible since a computer loaded up with the reason and basic knowledge that any five-year old knows [the law of gravity, the reality of death, the basic actions and interactions of the material world] on being fed an e-text of the Testaments, would have a system error. A truly logical machine would be unable to correlate the known facts and theorems of the universe [gravity] with the SUSPENSION of these natural laws for no reason but the will of some entity. This is why religion survives: humans are not absolutely logical machines. The will to believe in life after death, the desire for better things, leads humans to believe that the laws of the universe can be bent in their favor - if they pray for it often enough.
Now, this is a very cynical viewpoint and not one which I totally endorse. But it does show, viciously, that religion is very much devoid of logic. You can't support religion on logic - that is why the ancients invented faith.
Evolution [in this thread] has been separated a little from pure science, but that's not where it belongs. Evolution is a theory, a hypotheses, and thus an extension not only of science but of logical thinking. The Bible is based on suspension of disbelief - that known impossibilities can take place illogically, for example the crossing of the Red Sea, the resurrection of the dead, and so on. Thus the phrase "devoid of reason" applies most closely to the Holy Bible since a computer loaded up with the reason and basic knowledge that any five-year old knows [the law of gravity, the reality of death, the basic actions and interactions of the material world] on being fed an e-text of the Testaments, would have a system error. A truly logical machine would be unable to correlate the known facts and theorems of the universe [gravity] with the SUSPENSION of these natural laws for no reason but the will of some entity. This is why religion survives: humans are not absolutely logical machines. The will to believe in life after death, the desire for better things, leads humans to believe that the laws of the universe can be bent in their favor - if they pray for it often enough.
Now, this is a very cynical viewpoint and not one which I totally endorse. But it does show, viciously, that religion is very much devoid of logic. You can't support religion on logic - that is why the ancients invented faith.
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
But Judiasm wasn't the first religion, the first "religion" as we defined it was belief in the spirit world which was practiced by cave-men. On the cave walls, they have paintings that tell why cave men wrapped their dead up tightly---they were afraid of the spirits coming back. The earliest historical evidence that we have of Judisiam from a historical point was maybe from around 2000B.C. and still alot of that is purely religious texts, not hieroglyphics(or any other kind of symbolized script) from that period but writings of later periods. Symbols for writing had been invented before then in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. And many of the Earler Egyptian and Mesopotamian beliefs regarding after had already been carved in walls and burial tombs.
If fact Judiasm has about the same age as some of the Greek Gods that the Myceneans created and worshipped.
And no, don't debate with me that cavemen didn't exist, we have already found their remains and have large ideas what their socities were like, so any biblical evidence you can find in the bible contrary to that is already dissaproven by hard tangible proof.
And just like how the different branches of Christians don't agree, not all biologists agree so the theory that not all biologists don't agree disapproves evolution is also faulty.
If fact Judiasm has about the same age as some of the Greek Gods that the Myceneans created and worshipped.
And no, don't debate with me that cavemen didn't exist, we have already found their remains and have large ideas what their socities were like, so any biblical evidence you can find in the bible contrary to that is already dissaproven by hard tangible proof.
And just like how the different branches of Christians don't agree, not all biologists agree so the theory that not all biologists don't agree disapproves evolution is also faulty.
I prefer to discuss the science. I was an evolutionist and became a Creationist because I saw that the sciences do not support Evolutionism at all.
Above, you talk about known impossibilities. Your statement says more about the narrow limits that your materialistic views have locked you into rather than being a reflection of reality. It is a known truism of science that what one believes determines what one may, and may not, observe.
For some reason you zero in on Gravity as a 'known fact and theorems of the universe'. Yet science has no idea what gravity is!
Newton's Theory of Gravity explained Kepler's laws, Galileo's and Copernicus's observation of planetary motions. Furthermore, Newtons Theory of Gravity is not exactly a Theory, it is a mathematical relationship between masses. In fact Leibnitz took Newton to task on this point, that Newton did not define what Gravity is. Just to say its a force does not cut it. What is the nature of this force?
Einstein refined the mathematical relationship Newton discovered between masses, to account for for masses at high speeds. Einstein also rejected Newtons idea that Gravity was a force and instead speculated it to be a condition in space time created by masses. But no one knows what gravity is or why it exists.
As fo the Bible,
The central message of the Bible is to seek God. Indeed, even Homer's Odyssey had as its central message that 'Without God, man is nothing'. I do believe we humans know very little of the truth and we tend to rationalize the rest in accord with our world view and passions. This is probably why G-d cautions us to rely not on our own understanding, but to trust in Him and His word, the Bible, His basis being the biblical claim that G-d is Truth.
Here is a parable for your discernment:
There exist a two dimensional spherical world that the intelligent inhabitants thereof call "flatland".
Imagine one day, in flatland, that a Flatlander declared to other flatlanders, that he knew of another world and that he had been sent to them to make it possible that they may, in the future, go there. Not only that, but he tells them that it is impossible for them to ever go to this new world in their present bodies, that they would be given new bodies needed to exist in this new world. And he performs miracles in flatland, making things suddenly appear out of nothing. He dies, but comes back to life on the third day as He predicted, and He was seen by and talked with many eye witnesses. Then he disappears from flatland so that his body could nowhere be found in flatland.
And many generations latter, flatlanders had made remarkable discoveries about their world, even understanding its spherical nature. A science and technology revolution brought about great conveniences. Many flatlanders, proud of their achievements, now mocked the "superstitous" beliefs still held by some in this "saviour" of long ago whose miracles, ressurection, and talk of a new and better world are summarily dismissed by the"educated and well informed" flatlanders. After all, they know such miracles violate natural laws and that such a "new world" is not observable and that it would be anti-science to consider that such a Person may have caused anything in flatland, or the World he talked about could actually exist.
Well, of course cave men existed. In my christian view, they were
descendants of Adam and Eve.
Let me begin with a bit about the book of Genesis:
"In the beginning..."
The book of Genesis does not contain any mention of Moses. Yet it does give a record of events, people, places, conversations, and exact circumstances which all occurred before Moses was born. Nor is there any mention of Moses receiving a revelation from G-d about what the book contains.
But there is plenty of evidence that Genesis is an edited compilation of approximately 11 books. Each `book' was most likely written on clay tablets, and though long periods of time may have intervened between the writing of one book to the next, the history `toledot' is a continuous one as the books are connected to each other by colophons, a colophon being an a connecting link between clay tablets. The books and possible
authors are as follows:
Book 1. Genesis 1:1 to 2:4. Adam? (Perhaps as revealed to him by G-d, before the fall, or perhaps by direct revelation to Moses)
Book 2. Genesis 2:5 to 5:1 Adam
Book 3. Genesis 5:1 to 6:9 Noah
Book 4. Genesis 6:9 to 10:1 Sons of Noah
Book 5. Genesis 10:1 to 11:10 Shem
Book 6. Genesis 11:10 to 11:27 Terah
Book 7 and Book 8. Genesis 11:27 to 25:19 Abraham, Isaac, & Ishmael
Books 9, 10, & 11. Genesis 25:19 to 37:2 Isaac, Esau, Jacob.
The remainder of Genesis deals with Joseph and was probably written in Egypt on Papyrus instead of clay tablets. The minute details in these later chapters indicate the author was either Joseph or someone who received this history directly from Joseph, such as one of his sons.
The history recorded in the book of Genesis was most likely written over a few thousand years. Names of places change over time. This is one indication that Moses did indeed edit the above `books'. He gives the (then) modern names to ancient sites; e.g. Gen, 14:2,3,7,8,15,17 Gen. 16:14, Gen. 23:2,19, 35:19. Plus, Moses writes of cities that had cease to exist long before his time (e.g. Sodom and Gomorrah) giving their exact locations, and this he knew because he had possession of these ancient books which had been passed on to him.
Since this history contains the revealing of G-d's plan of restoration and salvation for man, undoubtedly the writing and preservation of this history over time was from G-d.
From the above, it can be seen that Noah's record of the great flood was the most ancient and the most reliable record of this flood. The retelling of the events such as the Creation or Great Flood became distorted and corrupted over time as it was retold and passed down by developing and changing civilizations which began to worship the creation rather than the Creator.
For example, the Ebla tablets (dated to about 2,300 BC) attributes creation to one great being, but also mentions other `gods'.
The Babylonian records of the creation and the flood (i.e Epic Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh), written hundreds of years after the Ebla Tablets, though they still contain some similarities with the much older Bible texts, show further deterioration of the original event with elimination of one Creator, the `gods' reflect much human weakness having been made by man in man's image, and they contain superstitions, magic, and grotesque absurdities. The Biblical record is clearly superior and historically acceptable.
Other translated Creation and/or flood tablets include the Sumerian list of Kings (which declares that ancestors had extraordinarily long lifespans), and the Babylon tablets of the Epic of Atrahasis and the Epic of Emmerkur. The Epic of Emmerkur is interesting in that it describes an Eden-like land called Dilmun which translated reads
"a clean and bright place where the lion kills not, and the wolf snatch not the lamb."
The Ebla tablets also make reference to Dilmun as part of a list of known places.
Neanderthals were homosapiens. They did not become extinct, they simply started living shorter lives and were assimilated into other migrating populations.
Here are some findings by Kathleen Gibson, Ph.D., professor of basic science. Like many scientists today, Gibson is reaching conclusions about Neanderthals that contradict a once commonly held theory that Neanderthals did not possess advanced language and thinking skills. Adding strength to the case for a more advanced Neanderthal is the recent discovery of a structure probably constructed by Neanderthals at Bruniquel, in southern France, in a deep underground cavern. The find, reported in the Jan. 26 issue of Science, suggests that Neanderthals had mastered the art of using transportable fire as a source of lightbehavior previously considered exclusive to modern humans.
In her paper, "The Biocultural Human Brain, Seasonal Migrations, and the Emergence of the Upper Paleolithic," Gibson applies, for the first time, comparative data on primate and human cognition to an analysis of the fossil and archeological record. These data suggest that "both Neanderthals and early anatomically modern humans would have possessed an essentially modern cognitive suite," meaning that they had comparable "interacting, mutually reinforcing neurological capacities."
Furthermore, findings in southern Spain have established that Neanderthals and modern humans co-existed in western Europe for at least 10,000 years, lending more credence to the notion that the two human groups may have interbred. "I don't see any reason why they couldn't have interbred," Gibson said.
I would also add that so called modern homosapiens and Neanderthals lived side by side in present day Israel for 50,000 years. In addition, fossil remains of modern homosapiens are found in lower strata than are neanderthals, indicating that Neanderthals may be simply a subspecies of "modern" Homosapiens.
Unfortunately it is belief in evolution that distorts the actually fossil data found by always seeking to fit it into a preconceived evolutionary pattern.
For an excellent "State of the Art" understanding of Neanderthals, I strongly recommend Creationist Jack Cuozzo's book, Buried Alive. (1998, Master Books).
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
Some texts say that neandrathals became extinct, some say they were assimilated. I believe in a cross between the two. The genes of that strand where unfavorable compared to Cro-Magnon man and therefore were assilmilated and overtime the strains dissapeared and were completely asorbed into that of modern Humans. If they wre humans, they were certainly much different that the modern man, that can be seen by examining their skulls.
Besides have you seen what Neadrathals skulls looked like? If god had made Adam and Eve to be the perfect image of himself, it is insane to say that Neandrathals descended from them. Moses lived around 1700B.C. according to any historical texts that mention him. The earliest I think that any historical text mentions Judiasm is relation to anything that is not purely faith is probably going to be Abraham(if even that) and that maybe happened around 2000 B.C. The beliefs in Adam and Eve and purely Mythological and religious in context with no real historical texts mentioning them(The Bible is not a valid historical text and your argument using the Bible to prove the Bible doesn't really work). The Christian creation has about as much reliability as the creation story of any other religion.
Besides have you seen what Neadrathals skulls looked like? If god had made Adam and Eve to be the perfect image of himself, it is insane to say that Neandrathals descended from them. Moses lived around 1700B.C. according to any historical texts that mention him. The earliest I think that any historical text mentions Judiasm is relation to anything that is not purely faith is probably going to be Abraham(if even that) and that maybe happened around 2000 B.C. The beliefs in Adam and Eve and purely Mythological and religious in context with no real historical texts mentioning them(The Bible is not a valid historical text and your argument using the Bible to prove the Bible doesn't really work). The Christian creation has about as much reliability as the creation story of any other religion.
Tsk tsk. Those "early men" are probably people deformed by diseses or birth defects. Or maybe they were a RACE of people who intermarryed with another race and were assimilated. Besides, Evolution is faith-based. What kind of evidence have you brought up that I haven't answered? You surely have not responded to my evidence!
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