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.
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?
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.
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.
I was google searching for super mario bros. glitches. It had the super mario bros. game resources page, and after looking at it I started looking at other things on the site.
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.
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.
I'm just working out the terms of the argument.
So as it stands, my understanding is I have to convince you that:
1) The Biblical time frame is in error and inconsistent with nature.
2) Evolution is not inconsistent with nature (or scientific research, which is the same thing).
Basically, but I don't think you can convince me that the Biblical time frame is in error and inconsistent with nature. Earth (and the universe) could easily be only about 6000 years old (which is about what the bible says). I also don't think you can convince me that macroevolution is not inconsistent with nature.
So I'll have to disprove both the asserted age of the universe in the Bible, and then prove to you that the theory of evolution is valid on a multi-million year time scale then?
The Bible specifically says that God created everything in seven (six to be exact) days. I don't think everything could evolve in seven days.
1. So what you're saying is: Adam didn't have nipples; Adam and Eve didn't have a curved spine or a tailbone; their voice box nerve went from the brain to the voice box without curving around the cardioid artery, etc etc, but once the Fall happened we suddenly got all of these poor design traits that we seem to share with other species in some cases?
I believe that all those things had (or have) a reason for being there.
2. Actually, that post is an argument for "macroevolution" is possible given "microevolution" which are both just simply evolution. Over generations, yes, both can happen. The evidence is overwhelming.
As I said earlier, microevolution is different from macroevolution. Microevolution has its limits. Macroevolution happens through mutations. Scientists even say this.
Here's a challenge. What evidence would be sufficient to convince you that evolution is true? Assuming that the request is a valid claim of evolution, I can present evidence to support it.
First of all, I will never believe in macroevolution. It is clearly in conflict with the Bible, and with the scientific research. If your evidence is showing that organisms can change over time, I believe that can happen. Wild dogs evolved into domestic dogs. But, that was microevolution. There has never been a complete change from one species to a completely different species that we have recorded. They are able to change somewhat, even to the point that they are a new species, but they still are similar to what they originaly were, as with dogs. And if you were to look at the DNA of a wild dog and a domestic dog, they would still be similar. That is not the case with other similar species.
Even if there are beneficial mutations that would make that problem go away, (I could see the examples on the page to be from simple microevolution though, as they just looked at the species at the beginning then at the end. It still could have been mutations though) there still is the problems with structural homology and molecular biology.
Regarding macroevolution, it's just microevolution on a larger scale (over a longer period of time)
This is entirely false. This assumption was one of the reasons that macroevolution became accepted. But, microevolution occurs when through reproduction, the genetic code is changed slightly. This happens over and over again with the guidance of natural selection so that after a while, a new subspecies emerges (this is what happened to dogs, and Darwin's finches). People thought that this could happen over and over again to lead to macroevolution. But microevolution has limits. When changes in microevolution occur, the organism is changing within its genetic code. However, macroevolution says that organisms can add information to the genetic code. Reproduction can't do that, and microevolution counts on small changes occuring through reproduction. The only way that an organism can add to the genetic code is through mutation. As I said earlier, there are no benificial mutations. So, if an organism were to receive a mutation, they probably wouldn't be naturally selected to survive.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
1. The argument from poor design in invalid. Humans were created perfectly. The Fall (when Adam and Eve fell into sin) upset the balance in nature, and then everything was imperfect.
2. This is the same thing as microevolution not being able to lead to macroevolution. Living organisms can not slowly turn from "red to blue" like it does there.
It's not a question of belief. The term "belief" implies some kind of blind faith based on flimsy or no evidence, based more on feelings. I prefer to use "I don't have any reason to doubt" that gravity exists.
I don't have any reason to doubt that God exists.
So you are not only saying that a creator must have created this universe, you are moreover saying that this creator is the God of the Bible. Why do you assume that the Bible is correct and accurate?
sudgy wrote:
I shall answer these from a Christian standpoint
What I meant by saying this was that the questions can be answered. I wasn't saying that they are the truth (even though I think it is).
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.
The existence of God is none of those things. God is a hypothesis that cannot be tested nor verified.
We can in some ways test and verify God. We can through what he does on Earth.
The very first form of "life" (if it can be called that) were most probably simple molecules that could self-replicate in one form of another. It probably took hundreds of millions of years of natural selection before the first simple single-celled organisms evolved from these self-replicating molecules.
And this is not just hand-waving. There's a good deal of research done on the mechanisms of these self-replicating molecules. Of course fully understanding this would require reading quite a lot of scientific papers on the subject, and it would require advanced knowledge in biochemistry and molecular biology...
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. First of all, don't try to say that the geological column is evidence, because it can be evidence for it or against it. We don't know how the rocks were made. 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). If it were made quickly (by some catastrophical event) then it is evidence against macroevolution. Because we don't know how it was formed, it is inconclusive.
Second, there are barely any (if there are any) fossils of intermediate links. Don't try to say that the eohippus to equus evolution is true. The parts of the fossils were found in many different continents, they all lived at (according to the assumption that the geological column was made slowly) the same time, and other bones (such as the ribs and spine) change randomly through the course of time. Even macroevolutionists admit this. Dr. Niles Eldredge, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, and a believer in macroevolution, says:
"I admit that an awful lot of that has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in his museum] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable..." (As quoted in Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, Master Books 1988, p. 78)
Macroevolutionists sometimes have to lie to make people believe it. 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. Natural selection then selects the few who got a beneficial mutation, and this process repeats until the high amounts of radiation go away. This gets rid of the need for intermediate links. The problem is, there has never been a mutation that has been completely benificial. The best one is one is that there is a mutation that makes you not as likely to die from malaria. But, it makes your blood much less efficient in transporting oxygen, making 25% of the people who have it die prematurely. I wouldn't call that benificial.
Those first two don't do to much to provide evidence, but the next two do. Structural homology is "The study of similar structures (bones or organs, for example) in different species." When Darwin saw that many very different organisms had some of the same features, he said that this probably meant that they all had a common ancestor that had those features, and as the organisms evolved, they changed just slightly. This would lead you to assume that the DNA which codes these things in different species are similar. This is not the case at all. Dr. Michael Denton, an macroevolutionist says:
"The evolutionary basis of homology is perhaps even more severely damaged by the discovery that apparently homologous structures are specified by quite different genes in different species...With the demise of any sort of straightforward explanation for homology one of the major pillars of evolution theory has become so seakened that its value as evidence for evolution is greatly diminished." (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Michael Denton, Adler and Adler 1985, pp. 149 and 151)
The DNA is coded very differently for each of the species that has the same structures. This is actually great evidence for a Creator, for if you were making something and found a good design, you would want to use that design in other things too.
Molecular bology is the best evidence against macroevolution. A good explanation of why is here. There is no progression from one species to the next. This says that macroevolution simply did not happen.
Kuwaga wrote:
Science isn't truth, it's just our best guess. It works and has been tested, so it's a working approximation/substitute for how reality really works.
From the evidence, evolution is NOT how reality really works. We need to find a new hypothesis to try to answer the question "how did we get here?" Creation agrees with all the data, so I think that should be the new "working approximation/substute" for that question.
Warp wrote:
I'm not sure if this thread should become such an endless back-and-forth discussion that will not convince either one of us.
If you want to, we can stop the discussion. I won't change my views, so if you stop, then I'll stop too. And on that, I have a question for Bisqwit. What do you think of people arguing on a forum topic made for you?
Surely you understand that "science cannot prove everything, hence God" is a really blatant argumentative fallacy?
Science has shown great evidence for certain things. It can't prove anything, but do you believe in gravity? Science shows evidence for it. Lots of evidence. It hasn't proved it, but you still believe it (you also believe in gravity from personal experience, I know, but this is just an example). What I was saying was that it shows a LOT evidence for it.
It is not completely reliable.
And what is completely reliable? That's right: Nothing.
I disagree with you here. There is one thing that is completely reliable. And that is God. You don't agree with me on this, so please don't talk about it further.
(I'm numbering these myself and reorganizing this so I can answer easier)
1. What kind of "creator"?
2. Is this "creator" sentient?
3. Does he exist currently? (After all, it's possible that this "creator" created the universe, but consumed itself completely in order to do so and thus ceased to exist.)
4. Are there more than one, or is this "creator" unique?
5. Was this "creator" itself also created by another?
6. How long has this "creator" existed?
7. Where is this "creator"? (Is he in a specific place, or is he "everywhere"?)
8. What are the properties of this "creator"?
9. Does he observe us?
I shall answer these from a Christian standpoint (I know you may think this unnecessary, but I still feel like I should).
1. If you mean His personality, then it is explained in the Bible. He is loving (He is love). He is righteous, while still being merciful. These all add up to Him condemning us, but paying the price for it ourselves.
2. Yes. He created us in His image, so He (as we are) is sentient.
3. He has been doing things to history (mainly to people) after He created it. He still does things today (I am a witness to that).
4. The Bible multiple times says that there is only one God. The trinity may confuse things a bit, but He is still only one.
5. No. He always has been, and He always will be.
6. He doesn't "exist" in the same way we do. He was never "made", he always has been.
7. He is in heaven, which isn't in this universe.
8. He doesn't exist in this universe, so we can't quite say what his "properties" are.
9. Oh yes. I know he does from experience.
As long as we can't observe and measure this hypothetical "creator", it's a useless hypothesis. It only raises more questions than it answers.
First of all, a hypothesis that can't be observed and measured doesn't mean it's useless. It just doesn't get answered. But I believe that we can observe and measure Him (through what he does in the world) so we can see some things about Him.
It's also funny how "science cannot prove anything", but immediately when it's time to (ab)use science to prove how life could not have been formed on its own, suddenly science consists of well-proven and irrefutable facts.
There are probably billions and billions of planets in our galaxy alone. (Multiply that by the amount of galaxies in the universe.) Each planet has some randomly-set conditions. Their composition, mass, radius, density, distance from the star, the properties of the star, possible moons, other planets in the same system and a million other variables vary randomly from planet to planet. All these parameters are quite random due to how planetary systems form.
Some planets will be more inhospitable than others due to all these factors. A few planets in existence in the universe will have all these parameters just right for some kind of life to be possible on their surface. Yes, completely by chance. This isn't even far-fetched. One of those planets happened to form around this particular star in this particular galaxy. There's nothing special about this particular star or galaxy; there are probably many other similar planets elsewhere. There's nothing "impossible" about Earth being like it is.
Let's say that in the universe, of all the gazillions of planets out there, there are about a million that can support life (I find this to be a reasonable estimate, if not too large. While there are a lot of planets, there are so many variables (even Jupiter's exact orbit helps us (it pulls meteorites (I'm pretty sure I used the wrong form of the word here) towards it saving us from a bunch of them.)) that not many could support life). And let's say that on each of these, every million years or so (all of these are very rough estimates, you could change these by a lot) all of the EXACT RIGHT chemicals are in the same place to make some life form a bit simpler than a bacterium (I say a bit simpler because something too much simpler wouldn't survive). Let's even go so far as to say that the whole cell (which would be VERY hard to make) (which would include the cell membrane, the DNA, the cytoplasm and ribosomes (which makes proteins) (you can research all these things yourself)) was all made correctly (this should reduce the times of this happening to about a billion years, but let's go with the old estimate of a million).
DNA's code says how to make proteins. I won't put up references, but you can research this part to make sure it's true (I'm not saying it's proved by science). DNA has four nucleotides, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. DNA looks like it does here (I don't know how to post pictures in forum posts :P)
At the middle the nucleotides bond with each other. Adenine only bonds with thymine, and cytosine only bonds with guanine. When the cell wants to make a protein, messenger RNA (mRNA) (which works the same as a strand of DNA but only has one strand and thymine is replaced with another nucleotide called uracil (which works exactly the same)) comes in and while something else is unraveling the DNA it figures out what the DNA says by temporarily bonding with it. It goes to a ribosome, and there there is something called transfer RNA (tRNA), which temporarily bonds with the mRNA. tRNA is connected to amino acids, and when the tRNA links with the mRNA the amino acids link up as well. Proteins are made of amino acids, and when the RNA is all finished, a protein is made.
Sorry about the biology lesson (I basically copied it from a biology textbook (Exploring Creation in Biology p. 192-199)). But my point is, in the earlier scenerio, the DNA would have to be completly random (the whole thing is random). So, obviously, the nucleotides, and, in turn, the amino acids, are all random. Let's look at the chance that one of the simplest proteins in life (ribonuclease (this is an example from the same textbook, p. 155-156) would be made from random nucleotides. The amino acids need to link up in the exact right way for it to be ribonuclease. The order of amino acids to form ribonuclease are (abreviated) Lys Glu Thr Ala Ala Ala Lys Phe Glu Arg Glu His Met Asp Ser Ser Thr Ser Ala Ala Ser Ser Ser Asp Tyr Cys Asp Glu Met Met Lys Ser Arg Asp Leu Thr Lys Asp Arg Cys Lys Pro Val Asp Thr Phe Val His Glu Ser Leu Ala Asp Val Glu Ala Val Cys Ser Glu Lys Asp Val Ala Cys Lys Asp Gly Glu Thr Asp Cys Tyr Glu Ser Tyr Ser Thr Met Ser Leu Thr Asp Cys Arg Glu Thr Gly Ser Ser Lys Tyr Pro Asp Cys Ala Lys Thr Thr Glu Ala Asp Lys His Leu Leu Val Ala Cys Glu Gly Asp Pro Tyr Val Pro Val His Phe Asp Ala Ser Val (I may have made a typo somewhere in that, sorry). And yes, this is one of the most simplest proteins. Typical proteins have thousands of amino acids.
If you calculate the chance that the nucleotide sequences (the nucleotide sequences and the amino acid they call can be found at this page (most amino acids can be called from more than one set of nucleotides)) will make exactly this protein (if a single amino acid is wrong, it's useless) is 1 in 8442211036948634762598486050803957413514603031263111711861287638137
7899285162557042129229697427303765112836665680647157024923665607092
369548745599623765885246036908449569177600. Remember, this protein is very simple. Now, divide this by the million planets that can support life times the times it happens (the estimated age of the universe (which I don't agree with) of 13.75 billion years / million years (which is 13750 times)) you get 1 in 6139789845053552554617080764221059937101529477282263063171845555009
3017661936405121548530689038039101900244847767743386927217211350612
63239908770881728428017893593341 chance. Remember, other proteins would make this number a lot larger. I won't believe that chance happened randomly. Something had to make that happen.
Sorry about the long post, but I was just wanting to say what I thought I should say.
EDIT: I don't know why it decided to make the whole page three times as long when I made the post. Could anybody tell me how to fix that?
EDIT: I fixed it, but the numbers are not quite right. I don't feel like formating exactly right. :P
SCIENCE CAN NOT PROVE ANYTHING. Ask almost ANY scientest and that's what they say. A lot of people or news or other things say "science has proved..." but science can only provide evidence for things, but NEVER prove things. It is not completely reliable.
Here are pages that explain the contradictions:
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/bible.htmhttp://usminc.org/images/136BC.pdf
there are many more, but I didn't want to say that much.
There is a LOT of evidence for a Creator (the universe was made perfectly, if anything was different, we wouldn't exist). It is impossible for life to have been made randomly (I can show evidence for this if you want) and everything in the universe is in the exact right place for life to be sustained on Earth. I can show evidence for a lot of these things.
I have heard that every single "contradiction" in the Bible is caused by misunderstanding. Sometimes the translation isn't quite right, the writers are a bit different from each other, or the times were different back then.
For instance, in the case of Judas' death, Acts says he fell on a field and died in and one of the gospels (I can't remember which one) says that he hanged himself. In that time, people hanged themself on trees that hung over the edge of cliffs (so that if it broke, they would fall and die anyway). There could've been a field at the bottom of the cliff.
Also, I saw that number 369. on the picture is what Judas did with the silver. He threw the money into the temple, and the priests took it and bought a field with it.
Every one of those "contradictions" in the Bible can be explained. And according to the scientific tests that are done on books/records (the internal, external, and bibliographic), the Bible is the most reliable book for its time. I also looked at some of the contradictions on that picture, and some of them can be instantly thrown out.
When I put a disk in, rawdump doesn't see it and my computer freezes up if I try to look at the computer folder. I have a HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GH40L drive, and on Vista. It seems that the computer isn't able to read it or something... And I'm not getting the wrong drive error or anything.
You're a newbie, so I think you can vote. Only nobodies (people who haven't posted on the forum) and lurkers can't vote.
I've always liked the Mega Man runs, and this one is great.
edit: I just realized you're the guy who wanted to vote yes on the Kirby 64 run but needed to post more to do it. Sorry for telling you twice. :)
Mine is January 8th.
My brother was talking to someone about how he couldn't find anybody with the same month as his, and he asks the guy he's talking to what his birthday is and he had the same birthday.
