Also, you'll have to show me that the Bible says that the universe is billions of years old. I believe that the Bible has more authority than science, so you can not show me through science that the universe is billions of years old.
Also, you'll have to show me that the Bible says that the universe is billions of years old. I believe that the Bible has more authority than science, so you can not show me through science that the universe is billions of years old.
Science is nothing more than the study of nature, and nature is the final arbitrator of science. If nature (which you hold to be God's direct creation) shows that the Bible (which may contain translation and transliteration flaws, and was reproduced by fallible humans and is thus only God's indirect creation) is in error. Which would you hold to be more authoritative?
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
While the Bible was made by humans, it was directly inspired by God. He made sure that what He wanted was in there, but what He didn't want not to go in there. All the contradictions are us misinterpreting what it says.
While the Bible was made by humans, it was directly inspired by God. He made sure that what He wanted was in there, but what He didn't want not to go in there. All the contradictions are us misinterpreting what it says.
So contradictions between the Bible and Nature are simply us misinterpreting the Bible then?
By that logic would it be possible that the 6000 year span in the Bible is similarly a misinterpretation?
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
While the Bible was made by humans, it was directly inspired by God. He made sure that what He wanted was in there, but what He didn't want not to go in there. All the contradictions are us misinterpreting what it says.
So contradictions between the Bible and Nature are simply us misinterpreting the Bible then?
I was saying the "contradictions" within the Bible.
By that logic would it be possible that the 6000 year span in the Bible is similarly a misinterpretation?
Two things. First, the 6000 year span might be wrong, for the Bible doesn't explicitly say that (although it does say that Adam lived for 930 years). But, it does say that the Earth and everything on it were created in seven days. And that's the time that everything would have had to evolve.
EDIT: Also, if the Bible and our interpretation of nature conflict, I would trust the Bible. I would think that our interpretation of nature was wrong.
But, it does say that the Earth and everything on it were created in seven days. And that's the time that everything would have had to evolve.
Does the Bible explicitly state that New York City was already created after those seven days? Because evolution isn't limited to physical changes - it extends to technological changes as well. Four hundred years ago, a self-powered form of land transportation was total blasphamey, but society evolved and it came about a couple centuries later.
That is, unless you think that the world didn't exist before you were born.
Current projects: Yoshi's Island Disassembly
Yoshi's Island any% TAS with Carl Sagan
One of the things that we know about nature is that time is relative, my 7 days is not necessarily the same as your 7 days. If we assume that the time frame presented is accurate, would it be possible that the 7 days presented is time dilated in such a way to allow for a 13.7 billion year old universe from our frame of reference?
This is the argument put forward by Gerald Schroeder in the Science of God, by the way.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
I think the seven days are days on Earth. While God inspired the Bible, humans still wrote it. So they said (because God told them to) that it was created in seven days, which, in their minds, was seven Earth days. So while other parts of the universe may have aged differently, Earth aged seven days.
There is a basis for the assumption that things are written how the writers think. Joshua 10:13 says "So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day." The thing is, the Earth actually stopped spinning, for that is what causes the sun and moon to rise and set. The writers didn't know this fact, however, so they said what they thought happened. God still inspired it. If it had said, "So the Earth stopped rotating" people in that time would have not gotten it. So yes, there is a basis in the assertion.
And another thing. Can you provide evidence that there is no God?
There is a basis for the assumption that things are written how the writers think. Joshua 10:13 says "So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day." The thing is, the Earth actually stopped spinning, for that is what causes the sun and moon to rise and set. The writers didn't know this fact, however, so they said what they thought happened. God still inspired it. If it had said, "So the Earth stopped rotating" people in that time would have not gotten it. So yes, there is a basis in the assertion.
So, if you claim that people would be unable to understand the earth is a rotating sphere, why would they be able to understand a 13.7 billion year old universe?
sudgy wrote:
And another thing. Can you provide evidence that there is no God?
That wasn't part of our deal. I'm not attempting to prove or disprove it. In fact, I am acting in good faith and giving your beliefs respect by not dismissing them out of hand and working within the guidelines that you set out for me, despite my believing them to be completely spurious.
My goal is to convince you that evolution is correct. (Correct being the theory or model that most closely resembles reality as we know it.)
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Bisqwit wrote:
On the risk of stating the obvious...
① Anyone likes resting, whether they're weary or not. When you wake up at morning, you are supposedly very refreshed and not weary in any way (at least if you slept well). In that situation, which scenery would you more like to observe, as you open the curtains: a busy street with chaotic traffic and honking, or this one? Which one would refresh you, despite you being not weary in any way? That's what God did: On the seventh day he rested (as in defense may rest in a courtroom), and observed everything he had created, which was good. And he set us an example. I don't see a contradiction here. (Tangential: The Finnish translation uses, rather than "was refreshed", a word which simultaneously means to breathe and something to do with his spirit/soul. The original Hebrew text shares this dual meaning, except stronger. However, I found this claim of contradiction perfectly debunkable without such detailed study.)
I would ask for a more detached interpretation.
'Rest' is indeed ambiguous but I don't recall any other part of the text mentioning God randomly resting other then after the creation of the world. The obvious conclusion here is that he is tired after all the work.
See Genesis 2:2 and tell me I'm wrong.
So God WAS tired. Cool story bro.
Bisqwit wrote:
② Logical argument: All things being possible does not mean all things do happen. Literally minded argument: The verse does not say that Lord was with Judah when he tried to drive out the inhabitants of the valley; only that He was with him when drave out the inhabitants of the mountain. The wording in the Finnish version makes this more obvious than the somewhat ambiguous English version ("for he was not able" rather than "but could not"). However, a relationship to God is not an open license to do-what-you-damn-please and he will bless you and you will succeed. It is always with a notion of "as long as you stick to my plans" (which, as Isaiah 55:8 puts it, are completely alien to men's plans). Which, cynically taken, really makes for a fantastic fatalistic counter-argument to almost any argument about God's actions.
Yes, the verse does not say that Lord was with Judah when he tried to drive out the inhabitants of the valley but it says "could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron".
Even though I agree that there could exist some other reason, it's not mentioned. And I'm not making nothing up. This isn't a battle of imaginations.
sudgy wrote:
And another thing. Can you provide evidence that there is no God?
How can he disprove something that lives in your imagination? I ask you to provide evidence that there is no Santa Claus.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
First of all, there is a lot of evidence that the universe has a beginning. And so, quite obviously, something must have done it. Second of all, that "thing" must have been smart, for the great galaxy seeds (in the link) show that things needed to be precise for the galaxies to form. So that shows that there is a sentient God.
ShadowWraith wrote:
The earth.
Stopped.
Rotating.
Right. That makes sense.
God can do anything. He could make the Earth stop rotating and make sure everything on it still survives with the snap of a finger (this is a figure of speech. He doesn't have fingers).
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
My goal is to convince you that evolution is correct.
I feel that through structural homology and molecular biology (which I explained earlier) I already said that macroevolution couldn't have happened.
First of all, there is a lot of evidence that the universe has a beginning. And so, quite obviously, something must have done it. Second of all, that "thing" must have been smart, for the great galaxy seeds (in the link) show that things needed to be precise for the galaxies to form. So that shows that there is a sentient God.
So galaxies formed in the last 6000 years then, in your opinion?
sudgy wrote:
God can do anything. He could make the Earth stop rotating and make sure everything on it still survives with the snap of a finger (this is a figure of speech. He doesn't have fingers).
No? So we are not made in his image then? That's what I thought.
I wonder if the christian god has foreskin though. Maybe he messed up there (sorry guys!) and that's why he commands us to cut it off. He seems to be pretty obsessed about it.
sudgy wrote:
I feel that through structural homology and molecular biology (which I explained earlier) I already said that macroevolution couldn't have happened.
It means it's a good hypothesis, but you can't prove that that's how reality truly works that way
Note that I said "I don't have any reason to doubt that gravity exists". That wording is carefully chosen. I did not say anything along the lines of "I have proof that gravity exists" or "gravity is caused by this and that".
sudgy wrote:
I don't have any reason to doubt that God exists.
Equivocating different categories of evidence, but whatever. When someone starts nitpicking, the conversation is already lost.
Warp wrote:
What kind of experience would that be?
Very simply, I have prayed, and the prayer has been answered. He also still does miracles today.
Even assuming that both claims are completely and absolutely accurate (something quite extraordinary, but let's just grant those premises), that's still not proof for the existence of a god. In short: You are disregarding other possible sources for such "answers" and "miracles".
The fallacy you are falling for here is called "affirming the consequent". Granted, it's quite hard to spot, and even to see it even when pointed out, but let me try to explain. The archetypical example of the "affirming the consequent" fallacy is something like:
1) If it rains, I get wet.
2) I'm wet.
3) Therefore it's raining.
I assume you see why the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. (In other words, there may be other causes for you being wet.) How does this relate to "miracles" and "answered prayers"? Like this:
1) If the God of the Bible exists, he performs miracles and answers prayers.
2) Miracles do happen and prayers are answered.
3) Therefore the God of the Bible exists.
Thus even if we grant that miracles do happen and prayers are answered, that still doesn't prove anything. Arguing that the source must be the God of the Bible is an argumentative fallacy. (Again: You might be misattributing the source.)
(As I said: Yes, I have seen all these arguments a million of times, and I know why they don't work.)
We can in some ways test and verify God. We can through what he does on Earth.
Ok, give me a repeatable and falsifiable controlled test that can be performed by independent neutral parties and explain the theory behind it. Be accurate, and explain what other causes there might be for the results and explain why they should be dismissed.
Let's say that these self-replicating molecules somehow did evolve into single-celled organisms. But there is very little evidence that the single-celled organisms evolved into more complex organisms.
You might not notice it even yourself, but you are now changing the subject, without acknowledging the answer to the original question (at least not directly).
This is a very typical (and bordering the dishonest) discussion tactic employed by creationists (and also by conspiracy theorists, denialists, homeopaths, etc): Keep presenting objections and arguments to established science, and every time an answer is given, just present a new objection about another subject without acknowledging the answer. If at some point you are able to present an argument that the opponent doesn't have an immediate answer to, you can declare victory on that one argument alone (naturally ignoring the myriad of previous arguments that were answered).
We don't know how the rocks were made.
*sigh* Yeah, we are completely stupid, and we don't understand geology at all. We are just shooting in the dark.
They could have been made slowly, and then it would be evidence for macroevolution (I say macroevolution because it is completely different than microevolution. Microevolution has a lot more evidence than macroevolution).
Those concepts are antiquated. They might have been used a hundred years ago, but the distinction is so fuzzy that it's not very practical to keep them as separate concepts. There's no divisive line where you can unambiguously state "microevolution ends here, and macroevolution happened". Of course creationists love to keep these two concepts separate because there's too much evidence for evolution to deny it, and hence creationists want to shove it all into "microevolution" so that they can still deny "macroevolution".
Of course even creationists themselves are unable to define the difference. Some say that it's the formation of new species (something that has been directly observed), others start waving hands a lot more and start talking about some vaguely defined "kinds". None of them can explain what exactly stops a species from spawning new species or "kinds" over time, when enough "microevolution" happens.
Second, there are barely any (if there are any) fossils of intermediate links.
Ah, the creationist mantra: "There are no transitional fossils." Repeat it enough times, and perhaps people will start believing it. Too bad that this claim is completely false and fabricated. There are plenty of transitional fossils, which you will find info about if you do a bit of research (from non-creationist sources, of course).
And this not even going to the discussion of the term "transitional". You see, most creationists have this antiquated notion that there exist a bunch of idealized "species" to which every living being unambiguously belongs to and which are clearly distinct from each other. Hence if a group of such beings "transforms into another species", then for a time they are "in-between" these two "idealized species" and thus are "transitional". This is where the ridiculous arguments about "half wings" and "half beaks" stem from. All these notions are complete bollocks.
Even though some (probably now extinct) species X evolved from an older species Y, and spawned a modern species Z, making it "transitional" between Y and Z, that doesn't make it "intermediate" in the sense of being "half-Y and half-Z". It was a whole species in its own right. Every single individual in the entire evolutionary history of a modern species was a species on its own right. There are no hard transition points between a modern species and its ancestors. It's all one smooth curve. We can mark some points in this curve and give them names, but they will be more or less arbitrary (we could well shift the points and it wouldn't be any less right).
Also, there are no "idealized species" (or "kinds"). Every single species is changing constantly. Some species change significantly more slowly than others, but they all change.
Macroevolutionists sometimes have to lie to make people believe it.
Ah, now we are going straight to conspiracy theory land. Your arguments are plummeting quite rapidly, I must say.
The hundreds of thousands of evolutionary (and many other type of) scientists from all over the world, from different countries, cultures and religious backgrounds, are all in a huge world-wide conspiracy to keep quiet about the "problems" in "macroevolution". They won't discuss these problems publicly, they won't publish papers and research about them, and they all agree on what kinds of lies they will tell the world, and hope that no scientists who are not "in the loop" will ever notice. And they have been successful at this for over a hundred years.
Yeah, sure. And Santa Claus brings me gifts every Christmas using flying reindeer.
They have now come up with another version of macroevolution, punctuated equilibrium. They say (basically) that at certain points in the past, life forms were exposed to high amounts of radiation or something like it, which would make them mutate.
Where exactly are you pulling this from? Your ass?
Punctuated equilibrium is not "another version of macroevolution" and has absolutely nothing to do with "radiation". It's simply the hypothesis that a small group of animals can experience more rapid evolution if they are isolated and experience strong evolutionary pressure (in other words, their environment changes drastically from what they are used to, and large changes in a certain direction are more easily selected by natural selection).
Larger groups of animals tend to change more slowly than smaller groups, because any changes that an individual has when it's born tend to be "evened out" by subsequent iterative breeding with a large population. In very small populations, however, such changes are more significant and can change subsequent generations more. If the environment favors changes in a certain direction, they tend to be selected more efficiently than with very large populations.
This is in no way any kind of "alternative" to the classical notions of evolution, nor in any kind of contradiction. On the contrary.
there has never been a mutation that has been completely benificial.
Ah, another creationist mantra.
Mutations are not the main driving force of evolution, but they do have beneficial effects from time to time. And yes, there are plenty of examples of beneficial mutations in all kinds of living organisms.
Dr. Michael Denton, an macroevolutionist says:
Quote mining, another favorite creationist tactic.
The strength of quote mining is that it's hard to respond to, because making a proper response requires a lot of research, and if the opponent has not done that research previously, the creationist can then declare "victory".
In surprisingly many cases it's enough to just read the next sentence that was not included in the quote (or, if there are ellipses, to read what was left out). Of course in other cases it's not that easy. The entire paper would need to be read, and later publications from the same person. Then one would have to check if the paper has been peer-reviewed, and what other papers have been published on the subject, possibly as a response.
An individual quote is always suspect if it blatantly goes against everything else that the person has written and said, and/or the general scientific consensus. (And no, it's not a case of the scientific community shunning and ignoring an objection. I already explained that conspiracy theory.)
I won't change my views
I really admire your honesty, but I hope you see why that kind of stance is problematic. It's dogmatic. You are not engaging in a conversation, you are simply stating your stance with the preconceived intention to ignore all the answers and objections. You have decided in advance that you will not consider anything else than what you have already decided.
My goal is to convince you that evolution is correct.
I feel that through structural homology and molecular biology (which I explained earlier) I already said that macroevolution couldn't have happened.
I'm getting to that, first off, you didn't seem to have responded to my last point, do I take this to mean that you have conceded that the Bible does not preclude Evolution and a 13.7 Billion year time frame? If not, I would be interested to hear your reasoning with regard to my last post.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
You are misinterpreting the evidence. All that is evidence that the universe was once compressed in a singularity, which then expanded. It says nothing about where that singularity came from, if it was non-existent and then somehow started to exist, or whether it has always existed in one form or another. It could have been either way, but there's no evidence for either. (In fact, one of the hypotheses that have been presented is that the universe might be cyclic, and that this universe was the result of a previous universe collapsing into a singularity. There's no definitive evidence for this either, but it's not considered a ridiculous hypothesis.)
Moreover, it's hypothesized that the current basic laws of physics (also including space and time), as we experience them now, formed immediately after the initial singularity expanded. What they were before (if there even was a "before" in any sense), that we cannot say.
And so, quite obviously, something must have done it.
Again, even if that conclusion were correct, it's not very useful because we don't know anything about that "something".
Second of all, that "thing" must have been smart, for the great galaxy seeds (in the link) show that things needed to be precise for the galaxies to form.
No, it doesn't have to be smart. Here's an alternative hypothesis to your "smart creator":
Assume that there's some kind of "metaverse" inside which our universe exists (the properties of this "metaverse" may be completely alien to us), and that some kind of property of this "metaverse" causes universes to pop up randomly, like bubbles in a boiling kettle. Each universe has a random set of physical properties and energy. (These universes might pop up in pairs, so that each universe has an "anti-universe" that balances its energy.) From the countless universes that have appeared like this, ours happens to have the properties just right for life to form.
"Where did this metaverse come from?" It may be that the whole concept of "time" is completely nonsensical in this metaverse, and it's just not sensible to talk about a beginning, or even the passage of time. (This isn't even a very far-fetched of an idea, especially if you have studied some quantum physics.) And even if it had some kind of beginning, that cause precludes our universe having been created on purpose and intelligently (because, as said, in this premise it was created completely randomly), which is the point.
(Now, this is a pair of hypotheses, ie. the "intelligent creator hypothesis" and the "mindless metaverse hypothesis", that are on equal ground, and one is not more believable than the other because neither has evidence. However, it shows that the intelligent creator hypothesis is not the only possibility.)
I believe that the Bible has more authority than science
Moreover, "can you provide evidence that X does not exist?" isn't even a valid argument. It says absolutely nothing about whether X exists or not. Claiming that it does is an argument from ignorance.
It could be used for any supernatural or otherwise extraordinary claim. "Can you provide evidence that the Loch Ness monster does not exist?" "Can you provide evidence that fairies do not exist?" "Can you provide evidence that I can't move this object with my mind only?"
The subject being dealt with here is called burden of proof.
So galaxies formed in the last 6000 years then, in your opinion?
Yes. In the book Starlight and Time it shows how this could be the case.
No? So we are not made in his image then?
We aren't made in His image in that sense. We are made in his image in that we have a conscience, free will, and things like that.
Warp wrote:
Ok, give me a repeatable and falsifiable controlled test that can be performed by independent neutral parties and explain the theory behind it. Be accurate, and explain what other causes there might be for the results and explain why they should be dismissed.
I would say that the best case of this is miracles. Cameron Townsend had appendicitis. He didn't realize it, and his appendix burst. The doctors said that there was no hope for him at all. They said that the best they could do was lessen the pain. His friends came and prayed for him and he got healed. The doctors didn't know how this happened. So basically, these are the facts:
1. His appendix burst.
2. The doctors said there was no hope, they have never been able to treat it before and the patient always died.
3. He got healed in a way that nobody could explain (except if it was a miracle).
How could he have survived if he was doomed to die? There are a lot of cases like this.
Of course even creationists themselves are unable to define the difference.
You're wrong here. Microevolution is when they change within the genetic code, macroevolution is when they add or subtract to the genetic code. There is a fine difference.
Where exactly are you pulling this from?
I pulled it from Exploring Creation with Biology, p. 300-301.
Mutations are not the main driving force of evolution
I was saying that mutations are what need to occur for different species to have a different amount of chromosomes. That must happen for a species to evolve into another.
I won't change my views
I really admire your honesty, but I hope you see why that kind of stance is problematic. It's dogmatic. You are not engaging in a conversation, you are simply stating your stance with the preconceived intention to ignore all the answers and objections. You have decided in advance that you will not consider anything else than what you have already decided
I won't change my views because I feel like everything I know points to what I think.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
I'm getting to that, first off, you didn't seem to have responded to my last point, do I take this to mean that you have conceded that the Bible does not preclude Evolution and a 13.7 Billion year time frame? If not, I would be interested to hear your reasoning with regard to my last post.
You have not convinced me about it. Another thing is, it said that He created all plants at one time, then all the fish and birds at once then all the land animals at once. And it specifically says that he created. Not something like he let them evolve.
I believe that the Bible has more authority than science.
May I ask why?
This is simply a matter of belief. As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is true. It's as simple as that. You put your trust in other things, and I put it in God and the Bible.
I feel like this argument is not going anywhere (any part of it). The reasons:
1. I am not wanting to change my mind because of my beliefs and how I interpret the evidence.
2. You are not wanting to change your mind because of your beliefs and how you interpret the evidence.
3. We both simply don't believe the other person for these reasons. I feel like this argument will never end. I feel that if I can't convince you, then there is no reason to go on with the argument. I'm not saying that you win, or I win, but I'm saying that maybe we should just say that neither of us won and the argument is over.
Of course even creationists themselves are unable to define the difference.
You're wrong here. Microevolution is when they change within the genetic code, macroevolution is when they add or subtract to the genetic code. There is a fine difference.
I've seen a little of genetics and unfortunately this is not correct. It's extremely common that people confuse "genetic code" with the information stored in the genes. The genetic code is nothing more than the relation between three nucleotides and the aminoacids they instruct to produce in the translation process.
Put it simply, where in programming you'd call a hello.cpp file the code, in genetics the genetic code is actually C++ syntax. The interesting thing is that the genetic code remains the same for most organisms, changes to it are very rare. Because of this, it's fair to expect that changes to the genetic code carry much less evolutionary significance than other processes, so it doesn't look like it should be the dividing barrier here.
Holy crap it was a ton of work splitting 11 pages.
My feeling is that religious debate doesn't actually belong here, but it seems enough people want it. However, I'd prefer people know what they are getting into via the topic title.
Please continue to keep it civil. Thank you.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
