Ed and God

Jeanie

slightofjeff wrote:

Pretty much every single author of the New Testament ended up executed. So, I'd actually say it's pretty accurate. These guys had no incentive to write what they wrote, other than they believed it.

So even supposing that was true, that they had no incentive other than they believed it and they knew they would be executed for doing so, wouldn't you have to agree that perhaps their logic on the subject might have been a little flawed? That pehaps their thought processes in general were flawed?
And again I still say it's their interpretation of the events written through their own filters.

Collin

PJammin' wrote:

to compare Jesus to david koresh is just absurd. not only did Jesus perform numerous miracles that were well documented by different eyewitnesses, but Jesus NEVER took advantage of people for his own gain...ala mr. koresh. Jesus talked the talk and walked the walk. He backed up what He said. If you read all of His words it's quite obvious that He's not just "a good guy who said a lot of neat stuff."

Well documented?

You have that bible, that's all. That's not exactly what I call well documented.

It's an account of people who believed something to be true. If anyone came up with stuff like that today, everyone, everyone would say you couldn't get a more biased source.

We don't know shit about Jesus. There's hardly any evidence he existed.

It's faith. Koresh, Jesus, Mozes, thousands of people who claim to have heard god, to be god or Jesus. It's all faith. No proof whatsoever.

Perhaps there are still some Koresh followers, maybe you should let them write about Koresh. Read it and you'll see how wonderful he is. What miracle he did. Read about his death as a martyr. And don't forget, all the writers were of course inspired by the divine word of god. Who's to say it's wrong?
Do you have any proof? Maybe they can even put references to the OT in it, you know, to make the prophecy sound more real or accurate, that's what they did in the bible.

timsinclair

grazman wrote:

Actually Darwinism does have observable facts in fossil evidence of animals that lived millions / billions of years ago which can be accurately dated by carbon dating the rocks, so actually the past can be observed, quite clearly. And i don't know what website you read that says that mutations reduce genetic information because that i complete b######s, mutations change (not reduce) the genetic information giving the animal/plant an advantage or disadvantage. A mutation that gives the animal an advantage means it has a better chance of survival than the rest and so has a good chance of replacing the population. Through fossil evidence and natural selection there is a clear map of how the animal kindgom evolved over 6.5 billion years ago. Do i believe that, or do i believe a fairy tale written by man 2,000 years ago that has more holes in it than a fishing net....hmmmm.

Think about what you are saying grazman. Where do we observe the fossils, in the past, or in the present? The ONLY way we can observe the past is to travel back in time. Of course there are many important clues in the present that the past has left for us to study but fossils are not dug up with those little stickers that say 'Jurrassic period 65 million years ago', these are interpretations of the evidence imposed by the currently dominant model of origins, i.e darwinism. Look there are only two ways that the sedimentary rocks could have got there: 1. gradually through milions of years of sediment falling down through the air. or 2. very quickly through a global flood. Which way you interpret the strata depends on your philosophical outlook. If you believe in evolution the when you look at the strata in a cliff you will say 'wow look these bottom layers must be so old' but if you are a creationist you will say 'wow that was a serious flood'. We all use filters when we look at the evidence, a new perspective can radically alter our understanding of the sediment from representing billions of years of death and struggle to one year of catastrophie. when I look at the strata, I see a snapshot of life 5000 years ago, suddenly snuffed out and frozen for us too see. All the fossils show overwhelming evidence of sudden catastrophic burial, not gradual burial. Without sudden burial, animals do not fossilize, they are consumed, they rot, they leave nothing behind. When you next observe a cliff face, see how the different stratas bend and warp together, this shows that they were all soft at the same time, were distorted at the same time, and hardened into rock at the same time. Also search for images of polystrate fossils and you will see tree trunks that stretch across layers that are supposed to be millions of years apart.

timsinclair

grazman wrote:

Actually Darwinism does have observable facts in fossil evidence of animals that lived millions / billions of years ago which can be accurately dated by carbon dating the rocks, so actually the past can be observed, quite clearly. And i don't know what website you read that says that mutations reduce genetic information because that i complete b######s, mutations change (not reduce) the genetic information giving the animal/plant an advantage or disadvantage. A mutation that gives the animal an advantage means it has a better chance of survival than the rest and so has a good chance of replacing the population. Through fossil evidence and natural selection there is a clear map of how the animal kindgom evolved over 6.5 billion years ago. Do i believe that, or do i believe a fairy tale written by man 2,000 years ago that has more holes in it than a fishing net....hmmmm.

Also grazman.
Yes mutations can reshuffle genetic data but darwinism requires the generation of new data and no mutation has ever been observed to do this. to get from an ameba to a man, the information has to increase over time. By analogy, lets say the ameba has the same information as a childrens book and man has the information equivalent of an encyclopaedia. If you are going to get from one to the other you have to generate ne information - that is the problem.

Collin

timsinclair wrote:

Wow, you've been busy.
ok. When I talk about evolution, I am refering to Darwinism, and to neo-Darwinism.

It's called evolution. Just a tip. If you're looking up Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism you'll find plenty of christian propaganda sites and creationism sites and ID sites.

Look up the modern evolutionary synthesis. A good starting point is the link I gave you earlier.

I really think you've been misled about what evolution is.

I agree that ID has a large amount of philosophy in it too, unlike darwinism, it is open about this. The problem is that we are all taught Darwinism as if it is an observable fact but it is not, the past cannot be observed. We can only make inferences about the past by what it has left us in the present.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

Here's an interesting read. I suggest you look at it, because "Darwinism" isn't what you've been taught it is. It will explain what is meant by observable fact.

ID has many philosophers within its ranks because ID is proposing a wider definition of science that allows design to be considered as a plausible alternative to Darwinism. ID also has many prominant scientists within its ranks, such as Dean H. Kenyon, Michael Denton, and Micheal Behe, who are doing ID science, i.e looking for evidence of design in biological systems.

When scientists find information, data that doesn't fit their original hypothesis, they change their hypothesis. When ID "scientists" find data that cannot be reconciled with their theory... they have to drop it, distort it or ignore it. They're fixed, bound to a belief. You say evolution is an philosophy (the irony is just too big, by the way), but it's not. There are plenty of christian, moslim, hindu evolution scientists , there are, however, no secular, moslim, hindu ID scientists.

Evolution is not tied to a belief that god cannot exist. No one is saying god didn't create evolution.

Many peer reviewed scientific papers have been published to this end. Saying that ID is 'not science' is such a lame piece of rhetoric. If You are a Darwinist and you are not afraid of ID, engage with the evidence and argument, dont just repeat the worn out mantra of the establishment. free your mind.

Show me evidence that hasn't been rebutted several times before. In fact, just show me one of the many peer reviewed scientific papers. One.

Collin

catefrances wrote:

i disagree with you jeanie. how can you be an atheist and still consider the possibility that you are incorrect about the existence of God? thats what i call agnosticism.

up until the age of 11 i was entertaining the idea that God was possible. then i guess i had a revelation of sorts and decided for myself through reading and conversation that i could not reconcile the existence of a God with what i felt inside. it just made zero sense to me. and it still makes zero sense to me. i have never wavered in this opinion and never ever considered that i could be wrong. i guess my extreme conviction is the only thing i have in common with believers.

I sort of agree with this. God makes zero sense to me. Any god.

I could believe in a sort of Spinoza's god, but not even that. If there is something out there, I think it's a force, like gravity. Not a force that thinks, or has intentions, and certainly not one that has anything to do with human beings. It just is, it doesn't think, doesn't wish... So if that were to exist, I would not worship it, because to me it would be like worshipping gravity. Pointless.

So, there is a shred of doubt in my mind, but even that isn't anything close to the image of god most people have.

Collin

slightofjeff wrote:

It's not like the Gospels were written 2000 years later, by people who were not there. They were written almost immediately, by people who were.

Jesus said what he said. It's as much an historical fact as the Magna Carta or Declaration of Independence.

I'd be willing to concede some things could get lost in translation, but not everything.

Depends of course what you mean by almost immediately. Twenty years after his death and up to 120 years after his death, that's hardly what I'd call 'immediately'.

To say that the things in the bible are historical fact just as the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence is absolutely absurd.

There no debate about these two documents, and that's what they are documents. What is in them is just what is in them; rules, guidelines, etc. What is in the bible are the supposed words of someone who died 20 years after it was written - and in an age where information wasn't easily stored, it was mostly passed on orally.

Collin

grazman wrote:

It doesnt matter which way you interpret it and how much spin you put on words in the bible to make them fit, you cannot make the line 'God made Adam out of dust' into 'human beings evolved from primates'. Thats the contradiction, thats the basic arguement of Darwinism vs Creationism.

Star dust, dude.

When stars explode elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen... are released. Then these elements turn into new stars, the planets around them and life on these plantes.

Collin

slightofjeff wrote:

Pretty much every single author of the New Testament ended up executed. So, I'd actually say it's pretty accurate. These guys had no incentive to write what they wrote, other than they believed it.

Who cares if you're going to die in this hellhole, they all believed they were going to paradise.

How does their execution mean that they're writings are accurate at all? I don't see the link. Heretics were executed by the church too. Plenty of them. I guess all they wrote and said was accurate too, after all, what did they have to gain?

Collin

timsinclair wrote:

Darwinism was dreamed up as an alternative to the Genesis account and as I have said it is based entirely on the philosophy of naturalism, which explicitley rejects any divine cause for the natural world.

It was not 'dreamed up' it is not entirely based on the philosophy of naturalism and it does not reject a divine cause.

timsinclair

Collin wrote:

It's called evolution. Just a tip. If you're looking up Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism you'll find plenty of christian propaganda sites and creationism sites and ID sites.

Evolution is not tied to a belief that god cannot exist. No one is saying god didn't create evolution.

Show me evidence that hasn't been rebutted several times before. In fact, just show me one of the many peer reviewed scientific papers. One.

I have looked at your links, and I'm still not sure why you dont want to be called a Darwinist. The only other kinds of evolution I am aware of of are Lamarkianism or punctuated equilibrium, both of which are mostly discarded by modern evolutionists. No-one is saying God didn't create evolution!! Are you serious? Have you ever read any Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, or any publications from the Evolutionary elite. Sure there are a few theistic evolutionists (syncretists) out there, Peacock, Polkinghorne etc. but this is not the norm and they are ridiculed by most Evolutionists. Listen, for example to what Dawkins says about them:

‘Now the conclusions of science must be accepted a priori, and religious interpretations must be finessed and adjusted to match the impeachable results from the magisterium of natural knowledge. The big bang happened and now we must find God at this tumultuous origin – I’m sorry. I know that I shouldn’t be so dismissive…but I find the arguments of syncretism so flawed, so illogical, so based on hope alone, so freighted by past procedures and certainties that I have difficulty keeping a straight face or a peaceful pen.’

If you want one example of a peer-reviewed ID paper: The Design Inference by William A. Dembski, which appeared in Cambridge University Press's monograph series 'Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and decision Theory' The series was edited by Brian Skyrms (a member of the national academy of sciences) and an impressive editorial board. Cambridge university Press has also published a book called 'debating design' that Dembski co-edited with leading evolutionist Michael Ruse. Although the first round of ID papers were published in the peer reviewed literature, more recently the Evolutionist establishment has had some success in convincing publishers that giving voice to these dangerous 'creationists' is a bad idea and they have enforced a high degree of censorship on anything percieved as supporting design theory. For this reason pro ID scientists have established their own proffesional society of over 50 research fellows, all of whome have had peer-reviewed papers published in the past. This group includes Fritz Schaefer, the inventor of computational quantum chemistry who has published over nine nundred peer-reviewed papers, is the third most cited chemist in the world, and has been considered for the nobel prize five times. The claim that these peoples are not scientists is just ridiculous, you can check their credentials on http://www.iscid.org Peace.

Collin

timsinclair wrote:

Think about what you are saying grazman. Where do we observe the fossils, in the past, or in the present? The ONLY way we can observe the past is to travel back in time.

And don't forget, we can observe the past by reading the bible, right?

Which way you interpret the strata depends on your philosophical outlook. If you believe in evolution the when you look at the strata in a cliff you will say 'wow look these bottom layers must be so old' but if you are a creationist you will say 'wow that was a serious flood'.

Wrong. A scientist will not say 'wow these look old'. They'll do tests, tests upon tests and more tests. They'll publish their findings if anyone disagree they are free to do more tests. There is data within these layers that can be tested too. This data is compared with different data from all over the world.

This shows you don't really know how the scientific method works.

All the fossils show overwhelming evidence of sudden catastrophic burial, not gradual burial. Without sudden burial, animals do not fossilize, they are consumed, they rot, they leave nothing behind.

Only a very small percentage of living organisms actually fossilized. The conditions have to be right. But this can, of couse, happen without one great burial. If there was indeed one great burial wouldn't there be millions of fossils?

Without a sudden burial, bones can be buried gradually. It's as simple as that.

timsinclair

Collin wrote:

And don't forget, we can observe the past by reading the bible, right?

Nope, the Bible is in the present too.

Wrong. A scientist will not say 'wow these look old'. They'll do tests, tests upon tests and more tests. They'll publish their findings if anyone disagree they are free to do more tests. There is data within these layers that can be tested too. This data is compared with different data from all over the world.

This shows you don't really know how the scientific method works.

I wasn't talking about scientists examining the rocks, I was talking about what we automatically think of as we see cliffs if we have accepted the evolutionary narritive.

Only a very small percentage of living organisms actually fossilized. The conditions have to be right. But this can, of couse, happen without one great burial. If there was indeed one great burial wouldn't there be millions of fossils?

Um there are millions of fossils, billions actually.

Without a sudden burial, bones can be buried gradually. It's as simple as that.

No. when animals die, the bones decompose before they are buried under normal conditions. plus the carcasses are torn apart by scavengers. The fossils in the strata are complete and many even have the soft parts preserved.

timsinclair

Hey. How do you do little quote boxes like that?

Collin

timsinclair wrote:

I have looked at your links, and I'm still not sure why you dont want to be called a Darwinist. The only other kinds of evolution I am aware of of are Lamarkianism or punctuated equilibrium, both of which are mostly discarded by modern evolutionists.

I don't care what you call me. It's kind of like calling you a creationist, though.

No-one is saying God didn't create evolution!! Are you serious? Have you ever read any Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, or any publications from the Evolutionary elite. Sure there are a few theistic evolutionists (syncretists) out there, Peacock, Polkinghorne etc. but this is not the norm and they are ridiculed by most Evolutionists. Listen, for example to what Dawkins says about them:

‘Now the conclusions of science must be accepted a priori, and religious interpretations must be finessed and adjusted to match the impeachable results from the magisterium of natural knowledge. The big bang happened and now we must find God at this tumultuous origin – I’m sorry. I know that I shouldn’t be so dismissive…but I find the arguments of syncretism so flawed, so illogical, so based on hope alone, so freighted by past procedures and certainties that I have difficulty keeping a straight face or a peaceful pen.’

Well, yes.

The point was, though, that you keep claiming evolution cannot be reconciled with a higher power. That is simple not true, regardless of Dawkin's opinion on it.

If you want one example of a peer-reviewed ID paper: The Design Inference by William A. Dembski, which appeared in Cambridge University Press's monograph series 'Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and decision Theory' The series was edited by Brian Skyrms (a member of the national academy of sciences) and an impressive editorial board. Cambridge university Press has also published a book called 'debating design' that Dembski co-edited with leading evolutionist Michael Ruse.

Thanks.

Although the first round of ID papers were published in the peer reviewed literature, more recently the Evolutionist establishment has had some success in convincing publishers that giving voice to these dangerous 'creationists' is a bad idea and they have enforced a high degree of censorship on anything percieved as supporting design theory. For this reason pro ID scientists have established their own proffesional society of over 50 research fellows, all of whome have had peer-reviewed papers published in the past. This group includes Fritz Schaefer, the inventor of computational quantum chemistry who has published over nine nundred peer-reviewed papers, is the third most cited chemist in the world, and has been considered for the nobel prize five times. The claim that these peoples are not scientists is just ridiculous, you can check their credentials on http://www.iscid.org Peace.

I won't be reading their "peer reviewed scientific papers". They are openly supporting ID. All of them. This is from their website:

"PCID welcomes survey articles, research articles, technical communications, tutorials, commentaries, book and software reviews, educational overviews, and controversial theories. The aim of PCID is to advance the science of complexity by assessing the degree to which teleology is relevant (or irrelevant) to the origin, development, and operation of complex systems.

Articles accepted to the journal must first be submitted to the ISCID archive. To be accepted into the archive, articles need to meet basic scholarly standards and be relevant to the study of complex systems. Once on the archive, articles passed on by at least one ISCID fellow will be accepted for publication. The journal will be published in electronic form only (there will be no print version)."

That's not what I call peer review.

"Peer review is a standard process by which proposed papers for scientific journals, presentations at scientific meetings, or requests for research funding are evaluated in terms of their scientific appropriateness and possible contribution to the advancement of science. The reviewers are experts in the relevant scientific fields who have no conflict of interest with or especially close personal relationships to the authors or requestors."

I checked their credentials, many of them have a phd in philosophy and other irrelevant fields. There are a few who have the right credentials i.e. experts in the relevant scientific field. But like their website says, only one of them needs to accept a paper, it could be one of the people who have no credentials whatsoever, or by one who has the wrong credentials e.g. a professor in philosophy accepting a paper on biology.

Besides, do they have anything more recent than 2005?

Jeanie

timsinclair wrote:

Hey. How do you do little quote boxes like that?

Hit the quote button of the post you want to reply to and seperate each point with [ quote = person you're quoting ] at the start and [ / quote ] at the end of each point. Minus the spaces I've put in here.

Collin

timsinclair wrote:

Hey. How do you do little quote boxes like that?

Break up the text and place

before the part you want to comment on and

after it.

Like this:

John is a good fellow. I like to play pool with him.

John is a good fellow.

I like to play pool with him.

But without the spaces.

Jeanie

Collin wrote:

Break up the text and place

before the part you want to comment on and

after it.

Like this:

John is a good fellow. I like to play pool with him.

John is a good fellow.

I like to play pool with him.

But without the spaces.

Your explanation makes more sense Collin!

Collin

timsinclair wrote:

No. when animals die, the bones decompose before they are buried under normal conditions. plus the carcasses are torn apart by scavengers. The fossils in the strata are complete and many even have the soft parts preserved.

Under normal conditions. That's right, hence the fact that there is only a very small percentage of fossils.

Conditions have to be perfect, that's not 'normal'.

timsinclair

Under normal conditions. That's right, hence the fact that there is only a very small percentage of fossils.

At least we agree on something.
The notion you have that only a 'very small' percentage of historical animals have fossilised is totally empirically unverifiable since the alleged 'others' left no trace. The idea is necessary because the theory requires countless other species of animals to have existed as transitionional forms between the ones we have fossilised. This was a problem for darwin, as he said in 'origin of the species'

'Why is not every geological formation charged with such [intermediate] links, why does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of life? We meet with no such evidence, and this is the most obvious and forcible of the many objections, which may be urged against my theory.'

today the situation is even worse for darwinists since the proposed transitional fossils of darwin's day have been shown not to be transitional at all and the few proposed transitionals that people speculate about (alleged dino-bird transitionals like archaeoptrix) today are highly dubious (most evolutionists now accept that archaeoptrix is just a bird). The theory demands that the strata be filled with such links. They are not!

Conditions have to be perfect, that's not 'normal'.

Nothing more to say, just testing the quote thing