"Kaitlyn said... Actually, scientists recently created an entire reproducing ecosystem through chemicals (mostly RNA) they concocted themselves, synthetically. The ecosystem and RNA are self-replicating and evolving just at the RNA-world hypothesis (abiogenesis) predicts. So much for scientists unable to create life (or at least the precursor to it)."
Kaitlyn...No, they didn't "create" anything. They manufactured something using God's existing materials. To "create" you have to start from nothing. Scientists can't make a bean, a pea, or even a tiny grain of sand from nothing. They don't know how. Unless you know something I don't. Enlighten me.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Cheating "Creators"
145 comments:
You know what bugs me about Christians? It's that they all have to offer to sacrifice their first-born children just like Abraham did. I think that that's wrong.
Oh, and they practice human sacrifice. That's what communion is right: Christ's flesh and blood? Try to deny that, Christians.
Ray, your semantic nitpicking and meaningless criticism of modern science have convinced me to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank you for showing me the Light.
Ray,
what exactly is this "nothing" you keep talking about? I've never seen any...
Shouldn't I know?
Ray,
I already mentioned this in the other thread, but you are absolutely right. Nobody can make matter and energy from nothing.
I hope everyone is having a good day. I'm sneezing up a storm here, and I don't know if I'm sick or if it's allergies. :/
this post is just semantics.
she didn't mean 'create' in the hard line way you define it... which isn't in any dictionary i've ever read.
by your definition of create, it is impossible to create anything. a story. a painting. a house. a blog. anything.
Wow Ray, you seem to just be getting more and more ignorant.
Only a Creationists misrepresent the arguement that something came from absolutely nothing.
I am just waiting for you to say that they cannot use their hands or eyes.
Ray.
Why would anyone bother trying to enlighten you? It would be easier to bring enlightenment to a sack of bricks, which I believe resides ten steps up the evolutionary ladder from you.
You don't want enlightenment. You don't want discussion of ideas. As you said before, this is your blog and you want to be king. Of course you are king for a day. Punch.
It's time for your appointment with the Wicker Man.
. To "create" you have to start from nothing.
You are evidently using a very limited definition of "create". While there does exist, within Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, a definition of "to form out of nothing" for the word" create", that is only one of several available definitions, there also exist other, valid, definitions of the term that do not require a starting condition of "nothing"; it is not rational for you to entirely ignore these definitions.
Ray, I have actually worked out to this problem you have posed. I have devised a way to turn nothing into something.
Remarkable, I know, and not to try and be evasive but it is significantly more complicated than I would be able to explain in the comments page of your illustrious blog, using symbols for instance that the ASCII code does not allow for and more words than the comment field can accept. It is really a most amazing process and I could even demonstrate it to you if you would like. Worldview-shattering that it may be, surely you would acknowledge that this is a fascinating development, no? And it's worked every time I've tested the principle so far, and I'm reasonably sure will work no matter what the general circumstances so long as the fundamentals of the process are in place.
Perhaps this would be better explored, instead of a lenghty essay from me, in a sort of Q and A, does anyone have any questions on how it works, or how to test it? I'd be most happy to oblige you with answers.
Hi Ray, what's you point ?
Because your hypothetical God didn't create anything out of nothing either. He was there, and he's not "nothing" is he ?
Is God "nothing" Ray ? Just curious.
Cap'n Ray Comfort said, "Enlighten me."
Ahhh... enlightenment. We should all be so lucky. If only there was a monk with a koan and a stick to beat some truth into all of us. Or maybe a whole new Age of Enlightenment. I heard that happened once. Maybe it could happen again. I could deal with a resurgence of "a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority." (From Wikipedia... omg! Internet!)
Dinosaur and I were talking to Richard Dawkins and some friends of ours in his Hot Air Balloon just the other day. Our conversation went like this:
Act 1
Admiral Akabar: hi guys!
Dinosaur: Rawr
Admiral Akabar: March Hare, can I use some of your characters?
March Hare: sure!
Spectator 1: YAY!
Spectator 2: WOOT!
Joe Evangelist: REPENT!
Richard Dawkins (seethingly British): GET OUT OF MY BALLOOOOOON!
(Dawkins pushes Spectator 1, Spectator 2, and Joe Evangelist out of the balloon)
Spectator 1: OH NOES!
Spectator 2: OH WOES!
Joe Evangelist: REPENT!
Admiral Akabar: HOLY CRAP!
March Hare: HOLY CARP!
Admiral Akabar: IT'S A TRAP!
March Hare: IT'S A TARP!
Admiral Akabar (to March Hare): I like you.
Dinosaur: WHY did you do that, Richard Dawkins?
Richard Dawkins (seethingly British): My balloon, my rules.
Dinosaur: That reminds me, we should start a new age of Enlightenment.
Dimensio: Please substantiate your assertion that starting a 'new age of Enlightenment' would be a good thing.
Dinosaur: HOW TH'? When did you get here? Ummmm... jeez. Help me out, AA?
Admiral Akabar: well, we have a lot of dumb people in the world, and a lot of arguments against learning. It seems to me that if we actually had a resurgence of the idea that logic and reason were good things then...
Dimensio (passing a flask): Oh, I'm just kidding. Have some Hooch.
ALL: YAY!
Richard Dawkins (seethingly British): NOW GET OUT OF MY BALLOOOOOOOON!
Spectator 1 (still falling): This play was terrible!
Spectator 2 (still falling): Agreed!
Joe Evangelist (taken off in the rapture): WOOSH!
FIN
Ok, so I’m a liar. That didn’t happen. Dimensio only had milk.
I mean, help me out guys?
It’s a Trap,
AA
@Ray: Are you working for the other side? Seriously. What are you trying to accomplish here? The only thing I've learned since coming here is how to not run a blog.
Even though I don't think you understood what Kaitlyn was saying (or deliberately played a fool), I will play semantics with you:
So what, in order to create you have to create something out of nothing? I'm glad you believe that somebody created something out of nothing.
And no, you can't say "But he's GOD HE CAN CREATE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING SEE" and then turn around and say that it can't possibly happen naturally.
And no, you can't backslide and try to redefine what you actually said. What you actually said was "To "create" you have to start from nothing."
You have to start with nothing and make something.
So if that's the case, why do you consistently spew venom at atheists for your mistaken belief that we believe everything came from nothing, but then turn around in the same breath and say the exact same thing as if it validates God?
Hey Ray,
I'm thinking of going Gnostic. Any pointers? Advice?
I mean, help me out guys? Ray? Guys?
It's a trap,
AA
So now you're just reduced to cut and pasting your own blog entries? If you don't want to bother with the blog any more just say so. You are the only person I have ever seen claim that the word 'Create' means 'Create from nothing'. It's a singularly odd position, probably even amongst Young Earth Creationist.
Ray, you are absolutely correct that nobody you have any experience with creates something from nothing. Since you have never seen it, and also since it is against one of physics most basic principles, that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, what makes you think that your God is capable of doing it? 'Creation' does not mean something from nothing.
Ray sez:
No, they didn't "create" anything. They manufactured something using God's existing materials. To "create" you have to start from nothing.
Ray, you have not produced any evidence that this "God" of yours can create something from nothing. Please correct that omission before continuing.
And to forestall the inevitable idiocy, no, the mere fact that things exist is not proof that your God created them.
Before you start, you might want to address some more fundamental issues with your contentions...like producing some sort of evidence of the existence of God, and producing some sort of evidence that the universe we reside in is indeed a "creation". Then, you might have enough grounds to tackle the first problem I mentioned.
This is really just an argument about the definition of create here. Mot people use it in a different sense, since defining it as "making something from nothing" has no usefulness outside of scripture.
I love the idea that scientists might one day create life from raw materials and you would be waving your arms saying "So what! Who cares? They didn't make it from nothing!"
[You are so low on material you are elevating this exchange from the comments to a post of its own?]
You say "unless you know something I don't" sarcastically, but the point of almost all your posts is to present a deceptive or ill informed picture of science in order to make your particular brand of pseudoscience seem more credible. Included in the regulars of your blog are many people who know vastly more than you about subjects highly relevant to your arguments, and you continually ignore them. In this case, where you are dealing with the origin of matter itself, you should be highly interested in the non-intuitive nature of simple systems of matter (e.g. a singularity).
To give one example from my own area; when you talk of nothing, are you thinking of a vacuum? Do you know that a vacuum is not a complete absence of matter in its strictest definition? Do you consider that the symmetries present in a vacuum actually change its content. These facts (or at least very well supported theories if you want to split hairs) completely change the meaning of a statement like "Nothing created everything". If you were serious about understanding the universe in the way you talk about, you would be keenly researching these topics. Instead, you continually spout scientific garbage for purely rhetorical purposes, with no interest in increasing your own understanding, or the understanding of any of your followers.
Also bear in mind that none of the scientific information presented to you here is twisted in order to meet ideological ends. We are more honest than that. So even if you disagree with our interpretations, why on earth do you not take the opportunity to study the science your arguments depend on?
Word verification: Gaudi. If a parabolic arch is found on the side of the Higg's Boson I may start to take intelligent design seriously. Until then, universal architect still discounted as useful or sensible theory.
Despite his willingness to spit on scientists for their earnest research, Ray has no idea what his God does or how He does it. Stay tuned for a nervous song and dance about some obscurantist notion of "divine power" or "the will of God" translating the vacuum of space into an endless stream of buildings, paintings, and hummingbirds. In reality, whatever method Ray's God employs to create the world is no different from the emperor's new clothes- instead of robes only intelligent people can see, it's magic only self-righteous people can understand. This explanation is divine juju, plain and simple, and I find it at a disgraceful loss compared to the efforts of today's scientists.
Also, once again, you've failed to discern the difference between "creation" in a technological application and "creation ex nihilo", which is a theological one.
Jeez, Ray, you've fallen to a new low... You couldn't find an honest point of discussion, so you had to resort to petty little word games?
This is just pathetic.
You know, I am starting to wonder if this is all a joke. I mean, your harsh, ignorant, baiting manner seems to overdone, too over the top. No individual can be this irrational, can they?
And, as it has been stated before, no Atheist is claiming the everything comes from nothing. Only you theists believe that. You guys have your silly little fairy tales and magic words. The rest of us have the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy.
Yeah, and we all know the only thing that can create anything is a cosmic jewish zombie.
Silly atheists. EVERYTHING was created by the creator.... except for the creator, who for some reason doesn't need to be created because theists say so.
So THERE!
Ok Ray. Please tell us exactly what raw materials God used to "create" the universe?
Mankind doesn't know everything / can't do everything so therefore the God of the Bible exists? Is this the argument you are putting forth Ray?
I don't see how the second premise necessarily follows from the first.
Can you point to any rational evidence that demonstrates that the Universe was created by an intelligent being rather than any of the alternative hypotheses?
I think it's funny that almost every post you make, Ray, there is someone that comments that you have fallen to a "new low".
I don't have the time to read all of the posts, but that seems to jump out at me each and every time I visit here.
And I had to close down comments on my blog (my atheist friends are more than welcome to email me if you want to wait awhile for a response) because they are infiltrating.
God bless you Ray. You really are one of my earthly heroes and I look forward to hearing you at Transformed. :)
Creation is evidence there is a creator. You guys are blind and will remain blind until you humble yourselves and realize you are blind. I was dangerously close to becoming an occultist in the beginning of 2008. Satan blinded my eyes. I had just come back from a Missionary trip from Guatemala, and when I got home, the devil attacked me. I denied I was blind for a few months, but I finally got out of it through many prayers. I confessed I was wrong and that Satan blinded me. I am so thankful God took me out of that, I was very arrogant, but I did not see myself as arrogant. Really what it was, was a delusion, a huge delusion. Only the Ten Commandments will make you see your sinfulness. You guys are blind. You guys are wrong, and I am sad at your arrogance, it is appalling. God please show these blind people their blindness through Your Ten Commandments, then show them Your Grace and Mercy. You are Faithful Lord God.
March Hare said...
@Ray: Are you working for the other side? Seriously. What are you trying to accomplish here? The only thing I've learned since coming here is how to not run a blog.
I was curious, so I went to your blog and I notice something a little odd for someone who just made the comment above.
I looked at your posts for this year;
Rebuttal to Young Earth Creationists:
(0 comments)
Words and Phrases That Are Not In The Bible
(0 comments)
What Are the Fundamentals?
(0 comments)
Lazarus and the Rich Man
(3 comments – 2 by same person, 1 was yourself)
God’s Plan 3: Man Fails the Test
(0 comments)
A Loving God, or a Monster?
(0 comments)
God’s Plan 2: What is Man?
(0 comments)
The Ten Commandments
(1 comments)
God’s Plan 1: Who Is God
(1 comments – yourself)
So what is the right way to run a blog?
Hi everybody hope that all of you are doing great. Oh thanks by the way for the blogger that responded to me yesterday about the problems with information in neo darwinism and irreducible complexity. Im happy ,one because the reply was lenghty and its good to learn the counter argument, that is how we learn you know. Also because his response did not involve any form of mockery that was pretty cool on your part too!
Man I cant remember that blogger alphgeek??? lol I think you asked to get some kind of evidence that the universe is design, have you heard of the anthropic principle. Its really interesting, thankfully my american religion teacher reminded me of it or I probably would have forgotten it. It states that the universe excibits fine tuning. This fine tuning, is tuning for life, specifically human life. So in other words the universe seems to have been fine tuned for humans.Now as a Christian I look at that and it goes pretty good with the Genesis account that humans are the pinnacle of our loving Gods creation. Please correct me if im wrong ofcourse :)
Okay I hope that was helpful, and im pretty sure the guys at answers in genesis have more on that and have alot of the stuff you guys want to find out regarding evolution, dinosaurs, God, the Bible and such related topics too.
Hey take care everyone and I hope you find this interesting
Hector
(Hey Ray, looking forward to the Atheist Bible by the way)
"Kaitlyn said... Actually, scientists recently created an entire reproducing ecosystem through chemicals (mostly RNA) they concocted themselves, synthetically. The ecosystem and RNA are self-replicating and evolving just at the RNA-world hypothesis (abiogenesis) predicts. So much for scientists unable to create life (or at least the precursor to it)."
___
I liked some of the comments about this in an article on the Wired blog network.
“Chemists have shown that a group of synthetic enzymes replicated, competed and evolved much like a natural ecosystem, but without life or cells. ‘So long as you provide the building blocks and the starter seed, it goes forever,’ said Gerald Joyce, a chemist at the Scripps Research Institute…”
“So long as you provide the building blocks and the starter seed…” Exactly, ….and it also took an intelligent mind carry out this experiment. Are they trying to prove ID?
“Scientists believe that early life on Earth was much more primitive than what we see around us today.”
I applaud the author of this article for using the world “believe” in that statement.
“"This is a nice example of the robustness of the RNA world hypothesis," he said. However, "it still leaves the problem of how RNA first came about. Some type of self-replicating molecule likely proceeded RNA and what this was is the big unknown at this point."”
But I’m sure they’ll invent a hypothesis for their “big unknown” someday. But then they must ask, “What proceeded that?” and on and on and on and on and on it goes – until it all began with nothing or with God, or they could just keep avoiding an answer like all the skeptics on Ray’s blog and plead "infinite ignorance."
Imagine if these “synthetic enzyme” evolved to become creatures with a mind and the ability to communicate among themselves. Then so some of them can claim that they were created in a Lab room by creatures called human beings who were doing scientific experiments, and a few others can mock them and claimed to be flukes of purely natural causes without any intelligent maker. Then the Scientists of our day can claim, “We truly can make a universe just like ours, with believers and fools alike.”
4 Chuck,
Hebrews 11:3 ...we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Something to consider, from preachingtoday.com:
A chance of 1 out of 1,000,000,000,000,000 (quadrillion, 10 with 14 zeros) is considered a virtual impossibility. But when DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick calculated the possibility of a simple protein sequence of 200 amino-acids (much simpler than a DNA molecule) originating spontaneously, his figure was 10 with 26 zeroes after it.
Those who remember one fad of the past will appreciate British scientist Fred Hoyle's view of the odds against evolved life. "Anyone acquainted with the Rubik's cube," he wrote, "will concede the impossibility of a solution being obtained by a blind person moving the cube faces at random."
Mr. Hoyle's best-known analogy, however, has a tornado in a junkyard taking all the pieces of metal lying there and turning them into a Boeing 747. It might be possible for two pieces to be naturally welded together, and then two pieces more in a later whirlwind, but production of even a simple organic molecule would require all of the pieces to come together at one time.
Source: Marvin Olasky, "Things Unseen," World (4-14-01)
Char'Els, nice try. No evidence whatsoever.
Whoa, Ray is one of the most intolerant, ignorant, arrogant, obnoxious, stubborn, idiotic, douchebag person in the world.
How I know this? I don't it's an opinion and my opinion is based on how you see Atheists.
Atheism is nothing it isn't 10 things and you don't have to believe in Evolution or Big Bang, I don't believe in the Big Bang I just admit that I don't know how and why the universe exists, to claim that a few books totaling only a few thousand pages explain something which is infinatly vast is ridiculous especially when the creation of the universe took only a few seconds(according to the bible)
Ray Comfort said:
Kaitlyn...No, they didn't "create" anything. They manufactured something using God's existing materials. To "create" you have to start from nothing. Scientists can't make a bean, a pea, or even a tiny grain of sand from nothing. They don't know how. Unless you know something I don't. Enlighten me.
Dictionary.com gives the following definitions for "create:"
1. To cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes.
2. to evolve from one's own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention.
3. Theater. to perform (a role) for the first time or in the first production of a play.
4. to make by investing with new rank or by designating; constitute; appoint: to create a peer.
5. to be the cause or occasion of; give rise to: The announcement created confusion.
6. to cause to happen; bring about; arrange, as by intention or design: to create a revolution; to create an opportunity to ask for a raise.
Is there some reason I should trust you, on the meaning of words in the English language, over the Random House Unabridged Dictionary?
In six definitions, the dictionary nowhere mentions that to "create" something, one must start without any raw materials. Indeed, on your own definition, it is false to say that God created man, as the Bible clearly states that God just rearranged pre-existing materials. Now, you could protest that God created the pre-existing materials, but the text of Genesis does not even insist clearly on this: scholars disagree on whether God created the primordial chaos itself, or started with the chaos as uncreated raw material.
Ray, having given this a little thought I can conclude that making something from nothing is actually relatively straightforward from a scientific perspective. There's really nothing we don't understand about the physics involved.
There are a few fairly significant technological challenges to be overcome, but that is really no different from pretty much all of humanity's technological achievements thus far. None of the technologies required are that radical, they are just extensions of things we can do today.
We just need to follow these simple steps:
1/ Create a smallish black hole. This is simply a matter of gathering enough mass in one place. Gravity does the rest of the work.
2/ As you are creating the black hole, add the mass in such a way as to impart a spin to the black hole. This is important. Again, simpler to achieve, it's just a question of trajectories.
3/ As the virtual particle pairs spontaneously pop into existence and annihilate each other, we want to keep a close eye out for pairs forming right near the event horizon. Some of the singletons will be drawn into the black hole prior to annihilation, leaving the other singleton to be captured. We'll need to build an apparatus to capture these. Something based around magnetism should suffice I would think. Lasers would be a good alternative.
4/ Combine the protons, neutron and electrons into whatever atoms we like. This is as simple as combining them together in the right quantities and with the right energy levels so that we don't lose too many. Waste not, want not.
5/ Use the atoms to create whatever various molecules we like. Obviously it'll be easier to make relatively simple compounds like water or methane rather than, say, a steak. Meat is hard.
We should hang on the the antiparticles we capture rather than letting them go to waste. They'll be useful for generating energy to run our apparatus.
NOTE: Please be careful with this. Extreme gravitational and radiation fields can be hazardous. It might be a good idea to do this robotically.
So yes, with a little hard work and ingenuity we'll be able to create things out of nothing. Is this the way that God did it?
Char'Els, you're absolutely right, they all do that.
Did you know that Christianity is the only religion that believes you have to be a virgin at marriage?
Christians:
This is one of the many ways you can tell that Ray is dishonest.
He has repeatedly insisted that atheists claim that nothing made everything. But when challenged to back up that claim by citing even a single instance of an atheist on this blog making such a statement, rather than providing such a citation or withdrawing his claim, he just repeats his claim again and again and again.
Now, when you make a claim, and somebody demands you provide evidence for your claim, and instead of providing evidence, you just repeat the claim again and again, then you are lying. It's that simple.
All of this means that when Ray insists that atheists say nothing made everything, then Ray is lying. And he has told this same lie over and over and over.
And let's face it: If you have to lie about something in order to sell it--whether it be a used car or a used religion--that says something about the thing you're trying to sell. Something bad. It also says something bad about the person doing the selling, too. And quite frankly, if you buy the item in question even tho you know the person selling it is lying about it, then that says something about you, too.
I see the plays of Admiral Akbar, which I thoroughly enjoy, have inspired a flurry of creativity. March Hare and Rex Mundane, I salute you as well. In that spirit, I'd like to offer up my meager contribution.
Just so I'm not completely ripping off the Admiral and others, I wrote mine as a screen play. I'm using "My Dinner With Andre" as inspiration. Andy Kaufman did something similar with a wrestler.
The characters: An amalgam of Ray and the like-minded commentors on this blog. I call him Rayhead and me using the mushed together names of Andre and Andy: Andry.
"My Brunch With Rayhead." Opening scene: Andry and Rayhead sitting at a table at Good Eats Cafe.
Rayhead: You think You're a good person?
Andry: I'm about like you, maybe a little gooder. I'm interested in your notion of "creating" (uses air quotes) being something from nothing. Just when was there nothing?
RH: In the beginning. Or just before the beginning.
A: The beginning of...
RH: The universe. The beginning of everything. God spoke it into existence.
A: So there was something, God. Who was He speaking to? And He must have occupied space.
RH: He exists outside time and space. When He speaks it's completely different than how you and I understand speaking.
A: You just blew my mind. How do you know this?
Waiter: You fellas ready to order?
A: Coffee and a slice of banana cream pie.
RH: Wheat-a-bix.
RH: It's in the Bible. It's God's Word. Have you ever told a Lie?
A: Yeah, but I tell the truth most of the time. Besides, aren't there times when a lie is better than the truth?
(Cut to man sitting at the next table)
Sye: How Do you account for "better" in your wordview, hmmmm? Cheers.
(RH & A ignore Sye)
RH: A lie is a lie.
A: You're changing the subject. If there was God in the beginning, there was someting. And what was before God? What made God?
RH: God is eternal and huge. He is everywhere and knows everything, even your thoughts. If it helps, think of Him as a Disembodied Intelligence.
A: Like in "Man With 2 Brains" or "Young Frankenstien".
RH: Sort of, but without the glass jars. Did you know Jesus said all liars will have their place in the lake of fire?
A: Ouch! For one lie?
RH: Yes. Have you ever stolen anything no matter how small.
A: I robbed a liquor store once. I shot the clerk and 2 customers. I was never caught.
RH: Jesus Christ died on the Cross to pay the fine for your sins. Repent and put your trust in him and you can spend eternity in Heaven.
A: I can get to Heaven but someone who tells one lie and doesn't repent goes to the fiery lake.
RH: Correct. They'll fry for eternity like that processed lamb turning on the spit over there. (Cut to man making gyros.)
A: Sweet. So Jesus was really God in human form. He's a shape-shifter.
RH: That's blasphemy. A very grave sin.
A: Right. Well I've got to go. Thanks for the pie. I'm still not sure about your something from nothing claim.
RH: Repent and trust and read the Bible. It will all become crystal clear. You might walk out of this cafe and get hit by a bus. I'd hate to see you end up in Hell. I'm praying for you.
A: Thanks. (A leaves the cafe and boards a bus)
(RH pays the bill, leaves the cafe and is struck by a taxi. Fade to black.)
While I agree with Ray in most everything he presents...I must suggest to those who are arguing against what he says that you can NOT prove evolution to be truth. You can show evidence that suggests some of what evolution theorizes is mildly accurate - it simply can not be proven.
On the other side - we can not prove that God exists using scientific rationale and tangible means of experimentation.
Those of you who are here offering your preponderance of assimilation and self-meddled idiosyncratic diffusion are in fact betraying your own argument.
To say that there is no God implies that you have infinite knowledge of the subject at matter.
These petty arguments are at best a nonsensical and cyclical self-defeating debate.
Needless to say, I do enjoy reading and find your banter to be relatively amusing. I also find Ray's rapport to be simple, humble, and honest - grounded in the Love and Grace of God through Christ Jesus.
Thank you Ray
"captain howdy said... Christians:
This is one of the many ways you can tell that Ray is dishonest.
He has repeatedly insisted that atheists claim that nothing made everything. But when challenged to back up that claim by citing even a single instance of an atheist on this blog making such a statement, rather than providing such a citation or withdrawing his claim, he just repeats his claim again and again and again."
Captain...you may have noticed that I rarely quote you. That's not because of what you say, but because of your name "Captain Howdy" makes you sound like you are a slow-brain (I know where the name comes from), and I know that's not true. Why don't you put your real name or a pseudonym after the Captain Howdy? Best wishes, Ray
Cap'n Craig said "I see the plays of Admiral Akbar, which I thoroughly enjoy, have inspired a flurry of creativity. March Hare and Rex Mundane, I salute you as well. In that spirit, I'd like to offer up my meager contribution."
The difference between my plays and the works of Cap'n March Hare, Cap'n Rex Mundane, and yourself is that your guys' (grammar?) stuff rocks the heezy fo sheezy and mine is kinda dumb.
I join in your salute. All of you roxorz or whatever the kids are saying these days. And I look forward to the day that we can canonize our collective works.
I was thinking of a title we could use: The Rayterbury Tales. Or We Like Pie.
Just a thought.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, the Gnostic thing is going great so far!!
I mean, help me out guys?
It's a Trap!
PS - OMGREATIDEA! Does anyone have a video camera? We could put these plays on Youtube or something!?!
@erikloza
Ever ask yourself "What are the chances of something happening?" The answer is "100%"
Something to consider from the blogger Canadian Cynic on DNA and the Boeing 747.
"This is a very popular analogy amongst the unwashed masses -- the hurricane, the junkyard, the 747. Calculating huge probabilities are wonderfully popular among the creationist lower classes. They like nothing better than claiming that the chance of something like DNA forming totally "at random" is, like, 10 to the power lots and lots and lots of zeroes, and stuff equally misinformed.
Let me eviscerate this idiocy once and for all. And for this, I will need a simple deck of playing cards. Feel free to play along at home.
Say I take a regular deck of 52 cards, shuffle it thoroughly and deal out a regular 5-card poker hand. Now, being someone that understands simple probability, I can tell you that there are exactly 2,598,960 different possible hands (ignoring the order in which the cards were dealt). Consequently, it means that the probability of dealing exactly the hand that I just dealt would be, of course, one in 2,598,960. With me so far?
Well, then, if you agree with that (and you really have no choice), then you have to agree that I just did something amazingly improbable, don't you? Huh, you say? Sure, I say, based on only the math, I just dealt a poker hand whose chance of being dealt was a miniscule one in 2,598,960. Is that incredible or what? Man, talk about the odds of that! Are you impressed?
Of course not, you'll say, what's to be impressed with? Wait, I say, you don't think what I just did is an amazing statistical feat, it having the odds of about one in two and a half million? No, you'll say. At which point, I'll take all the cards, shuffle the deck again, hand it to you and say, all right, smartass, you do it.
In other words, from a thoroughly shuffled deck, if you're not impressed with what I just did, you do it -- deal out exactly the same 5-card hand. Not so easy now, is it?
Hold on, you'll complain, that's not fair. Why, yes, you're right -- it isn't fair. And why not? It's because, when I dealt my hand, I never made any predictions or put any conditions on the outcome beforehand. I just dealt the hand and, after the fact, went back to rationalize (in a totally meaningless way) the odds of that having happened.
When I shuffle the deck and hand it to you, though, I'm asking you to duplicate, at random, what I just did. And that's a whole new problem.
You can see the same statistical misunderstanding if you walk up to a bridge game, look at each of the players' initial hand of 13 cards, and calculate the incredibly low probability of a random dealing having come up with exactly that set of hands.
Finally, others have referred to this mathematical misunderstanding as the "blade of grass" fallacy, in which a golfer hits a ball onto the green, walks up to his ball and stands there marveling that, out of all of the blades of grass the ball might have come to rest on, it stopped on just that one. How amazing. How incredibly improbable. How thoroughly bogus, as I'm sure you're starting to understand by now.
The mathematical fallacy should now be obvious -- there's no point in calculating the odds of something happening if it's just being done after the fact and there were no pre-conditions to start with. And this is precisely what the creationists/ID proponents do with things like the structure of DNA.
Look, they'll say, DNA is so marvelously complex. It has exactly these components in exactly this order. What are the odds of that? To which the correct answer is, that question is meaningless. It might have been just as likely some other structure that worked equally well."
Pete
The Holy Bible said...
"4 Chuck,
Hebrews 11:3 ...we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
And what exactly do you base such an understanding? Oh,that's it..."Through Faith"!
It's interesting that you would omit the first two words of the verse you quoted. Faith does not enable understanding. Faith merely allows one to accept something as fact, in spite of logical dissonance.
Thanks for trying, but you really didn't amswer the question.
ethan said: So what is the right way to run a blog?
For a Christian blog: By choosing honesty and integrity over being popular, for one thing. Obviously, your post indicates you think it should be the other way around. Just another example of entering in at the broad gates, I suppose.
capt. howdy: "But when challenged to back up that claim by citing even a single instance of an atheist on this blog making such a statement, rather than providing such a citation or withdrawing his claim, he just repeats his claim again and again and again."
You forget that he also sometimes pretends to respond to a challenge made against him with a pointless non-sequitor (e.g., "your name "Captain Howdy" makes you sound like you are a slow-brain").
@Ray
Obviously, you can choose to address whichever point of any post you wish. I do wonder why you ignore the arguments presented in said posts and in stead address such trivial items such as usernames?
Kaitlyn's post is very misleading. A quick look at an article describing the experiment absolutely screams design and nothing like what macroevolution proposes wherein everything came about by chance with no supernatural being involved. Not to mention the fact that enzymes are NOT life. The enzymes were PROGRAMMED to do what they did and they did it. So does my laptop.
"Joyce's chemicals are technically hacked RNA enzymes, much like the ones we have in our bodies..."
"The researchers began with pairs of enzymes they've been tweaking and designing for the past eight years. "
" "This is a nice example of the robustness of the RNA world hypothesis," he said. However, "it still leaves the problem of how RNA first came about. "
The question of origins still is answered only by the self-existent God!
Creation is evidence there is a creator.
As has been noted on multiple occasions, you are appealing to circular reasoning. You are assuming that there exists a "creation" for which a "Creator" is necessitated; the fundamental flaw in your reasoning is that you have not actually demonstrated the status of the "creation". You cannot use the undemonstrated assumption that there exists a "creation" to substantiate your assertion of a "Creator"; you must first justify your initial premise that there exists a "creation" at all.
Captain...you may have noticed that I rarely quote you. That's not because of what you say, but because of your name "Captain Howdy" makes you sound like you are a slow-brain (I know where the name comes from), and I know that's not true. Why don't you put your real name or a pseudonym after the Captain Howdy? Best wishes, Ray
Do you have any actually rebuttal to Captain Howdy's explanation of your alleged dishonesty, Mr. Comfort, or are you acknowledging that you are, in fact, dishonest?
Ray: Again with replying only to side issues (in this case an extremely stupid one no one else would bother to mention) and ignoring the actual content of responses.
Related fascinating fact, the Church of England (of which I am technically a member, my involvement now being purely on a choral basis) requires each diocese to have its own exorcist.
ethan said...
March Hare said...
@Ray: Are you working for the other side? Seriously. What are you trying to accomplish here? The only thing I've learned since coming here is how to not run a blog.
I was curious, so I went to your blog and I notice something a little odd for someone who just made the comment above.
I looked at your posts for this year;
Rebuttal to Young Earth Creationists:
(0 comments)
Words and Phrases That Are Not In The Bible
(0 comments)
What Are the Fundamentals?
(0 comments)
Lazarus and the Rich Man
(3 comments – 2 by same person, 1 was yourself)
God’s Plan 3: Man Fails the Test
(0 comments)
A Loving God, or a Monster?
(0 comments)
God’s Plan 2: What is Man?
(0 comments)
The Ten Commandments
(1 comments)
God’s Plan 1: Who Is God
(1 comments – yourself)
So what is the right way to run a blog?
Ethan, while I do not agree with much if not most of what March Hare says she has demonstrated that she is willing to listen to arguments and is willing to address the actual points people make, something Ray does not do.
So yeah if running a blog honestly results in lest hits than running one with nothing but out right lies then I know which one I would choose to do.
You know it seems that the only real honest Atheist is the one who says, "The real problem what Atheism has is with the beginning." You guys continue to misrepresent your own position by saying that 'atheism never says something came from nothing.'
So here's the more accurate position from what I've heard from most in Atheism: Something came from nothing (well, we just don't know where it came from) it collided, blew up and became an organized everything. I know some of you probably aren't big-bangers though. So then I'd have to ask, where did the stuff come from that the caused the single-cell organism to come from?
You see, its a problem with the beginning. I understand that your next "logical" question is, "So, where did God come from?" or "Who made God?" And to be quite honest, God doesn't have to answer to YOUR logic. I know you don't like that, but that's just the truth. God exists OUTSIDE the jurisdiction of human logic, time, space and matter. He's the creator of all of it. And YES creation DOES prove a creator! (And just because its outside of human logic doesn't mean it should be ignored!)
The DNA in your wrist is way more complex than the watch around your wrist. Of course, complexity doesn't necessarily prove God, but the design of it all does. You just CAN'T have a design without a designer. Even if paint "falls" on a canvas and makes a piece of art, it was still designed to be art. (At least in the mind of the artist...even if that artist is God)
Sorry, but you guys have NOTHING to present as a viable argument against the existence of God. You all put so much trust in your own thinking that you fail to think that there could actually be something GREATER than you. I'm not trying to be snarky for the sake of being snarky. I genuinely love you guys and DO NOT want ANY of you going to Hell whether you believe in such a place or not. And if you DO end up there, as Ray said in an earlier post, "You'll have no one to blame, but yourself!." Amen to that.
We as believers in Christ want nothing more than for you to experience the love and awesomeness of God. I know you're upset about the way life is here on Earth. I know you don't like the idea that God allows or quite possibly causes certain things to your disdain. But I would only encourage you to take that step of faith. Repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in the Savior! Jesus came to this Earth to die for you!! Romans 6:23
We ALL broke God's law and He paid our fine in His life's blood! All of these silly arguments for God's existence will just go away if you would only humble yourselves (hard thing to do I know) and repent and trust in Jesus! We have what's called experiential faith. We KNOW God exists because Christ has revealed Himself to us via His Holy Spirit! Don't wait too long..life is very short and eternity is way too long to be wrong!! In Christ, Eric L. :)
Iam4Jesus said...
Needless to say, I do enjoy reading and find your banter to be relatively amusing. I also find Ray's rapport to be simple, humble, and honest - grounded in the Love and Grace of God through Christ Jesus.
You find Ray honest? Really? I have asked this of others and have yet to get a reply but can you explain to me which part of continually saying the same thing over and over again even though dozens of people have pointed out that you are mistaken is the honest part?
Now I am completely willing to put aside all arguments about the existance of God. There is no way either side of the argument can know 100% if they are right or not. They may believe they are right but they can't know it.
However what we can know is what the theory of evolution says about life. You may not agree with it, you may think it is wrong but all of us can know what it actually claims.
And it does NOT claim that life came from nothing. It just doesn't.
However Ray keeps saying that it does say this, even though he has probably had almost two hundred comments in just the last few posts telling him that this is not the case.
So seeing that we can find out what evolution claims and seeing that what it claims has been pointed out to Ray many times again I ask which part of his argument is the honest part exactly.
By supporting him in his dishonesty you do a great disservice to the God you are trying to represent.
Right now I do not know God, if he is there to be known, but I can judge him by the quality of his followers. Right now I am not at all impressed. If you are really a Christian then you, rather than us nonbelievers, should be standing up and telling Ray that you will not accept his dishonesty in the name of the God you believe in. Maybe he will listen to you.
Ray Comfort said...
"captain howdy said... Christians:
This is one of the many ways you can tell that Ray is dishonest.
He has repeatedly insisted that atheists claim that nothing made everything. But when challenged to back up that claim by citing even a single instance of an atheist on this blog making such a statement, rather than providing such a citation or withdrawing his claim, he just repeats his claim again and again and again."
Captain...you may have noticed that I rarely quote you. That's not because of what you say, but because of your name "Captain Howdy" makes you sound like you are a slow-brain (I know where the name comes from), and I know that's not true. Why don't you put your real name or a pseudonym after the Captain Howdy? Best wishes, Ray
Wow, I mean just wow Ray. So rather than actually addressing the point he is making or acknowledging that you have been dishonest and promising to do better in the future you decide instead to compound the issue with an ad hominem attack. Is that really the best response you can come up with.
So as captain howdy said, Christians if you want a way to tell if Ray is being honest or not then just look at the things he says. Here he was given a chance to defend his actions and instead he decided to call his accuser names.
When he does things like this he is painting all Christians in a bad light as he is standing up as your representative. If you are happy being tared with the same brush then continue to support him. If however you do not wish to be associated with his continued dishonesty then stand up and let him know that he does not speak for you when he continues to lie over and over again about what atheists and evolution say.
@Alphgeek, you said:
"Ray, having given this a little thought I can conclude that making something from nothing is actually relatively straightforward from a scientific perspective. There's really nothing we don't understand about the physics involved.
[...]
1/ Create a smallish black hole."
A black hole is a 'thing'. It has physical properties and is therefore a thing. You're obfuscating (and hopefully using hyperbole) if you say that this is an example of something arriving from nothing.
Hector said:
"Man I cant remember that blogger alphgeek??? lol I think you asked to get some kind of evidence that the universe is design, have you heard of the anthropic principle. Its really interesting, thankfully my american religion teacher reminded me of it or I probably would have forgotten it. It states that the universe excibits fine tuning.This fine tuning, is tuning for life, specifically human life. So in other words the universe seems to have been fine tuned for humans.Now as a Christian I look at that and it goes pretty good with the Genesis account that humans are the pinnacle of our loving Gods creation. Please correct me if im wrong ofcourse :)""
I have heard of it and I find it interesting too.
Is the Universe shaped to us or are we shaped to the Universe? Is it possible for other sets of laws to exist in other Universes or in distant parts of our own Universe? Who knows? But the Bible has already said everything that it has to say on the topic. Any new information that we discover will either need to fit the Bible perfectly, be modified to be compatible with the Bible or be discarded out of hand like natural selection...
Are many forms of life possible, not simply carbon-based life forms like us? Maybe life can take hold in forms that we can barely comprehend.
It's easy to imagine this stuff but until we see some evidence...it's just speculation, not fact. Would you agree?
Not only that but the vast majority of the Universe is absolutely unsuited to human life. Too much radiation, too cold, not enough oxygen or water, too hot, too dark and so on. Only our local environment, the Earth, is remotely suitable. Of that, even vast portions are totally unsuitable for human life...the Gobi desert, the oceanic trenches, the upper atmosphere...
Remember that in the early part of life on earth the atmosphere would have been deadly to humans due to too much carbon dioxide.
If somehow the lifeforms that exist in the hot smoking vents deep in the ocean could speak, do you think that they might wonder at how amazing it was that their environment was so well fine tuned for their existence? Plenty of sulphur to feast on, nice warm 120 degree celsius water, plenty of pressure to stop them from exploding...
I can't say that you are wrong, definitively. But the anthropic principle also fits well with the Australian Aboriginal creation myth of the rainbow serpent. The serpent created the Universe for humanity to live in. Or perhaps the Egyptian creation myth is the true story. Why, except for the word of the Bible, is the Christian creation story necessarily more valid than these other myths?
I think you are making a jump of presumption to go from "the anthropic principle exists" to "the anthropic principle exists for humanity because the Christian God made it so". How can you be so sure? And if you aren't sure, how is this evidence that the Christian God exists?
Ray says,
"Captain...you may have noticed that I rarely quote you. That's not because of what you say, but because of your name "Captain Howdy" makes you sound like you are a slow-brain (I know where the name comes from), and I know that's not true. Why don't you put your real name or a pseudonym after the Captain Howdy? Best wishes, Ray"
Just because his name refers to a demonic presence in an old movie really doesn't excuse you, Ray from answering his question.
Why do you continue to state that we say "nothing made everything" when you know that to be wrong and effectively lying about it?
I don't care how you cut it, Ray. You are lying.
Eric wrote...
"So here's the more accurate position from what I've heard from most in Atheism: Something came from nothing (well, we just don't know where it came from)"
Err... no. We don't know what caused the big bang, but that's very different than saying "something came from nothing." In fact, the leading hypothesis states that the big bang did not come from nothing but rather higher-dimensional interactions.
it collided, blew up and became an organized everything.
What collided? What blew up? The big bang wasn't an explosion. And the Big Bang lead to entropy not organization.
I know some of you probably aren't big-bangers though.
??? big-banger?
So then I'd have to ask, where did the stuff come from that the caused the single-cell organism to come from?"
If enough energy is packed into a small enough space, matter forms. Thus the equation e=mc^2. Matter and energy are interchangeable.
After the big bang, the universe cooled down enough but was still dense enough for matter to form. Thus we have the first hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen atoms, due to gravity, formed stars where nuclear fusion turned hydrogen into helium and other heavier elements.
Our sun is a second generation star. When a first generation star supernovas, its material is scattered until gathered up by gravity again creating a new star and planets that orbit the star.
To simplify, all life is made up of stardust from a star or stars that went supernova billions of years ago.
Any questions?
Pete...
That was most excellent. Thank you.
Gabriel...
Did you actually read anything about the experiments. If you did you would have known that the scientists involved DO NOT think they are creating life. They are doing what scientists do.
That thing that you fear and despise so much. They are asking questions. I find it quite amusing how you shriek and dismiss their experiments.
You don't seem to mind when their work ends up in medicine that keeps you alive or that computer you're typing out your nonsense on.
And then you just proclaim "God did it."
And then pat yourself on the back. Good one. You really stuck it to those atheists.
You sir are a first degree dunce.
Admiral Akbar said:
I was thinking of a title we could use: The Rayterbury Tales. Or We Like Pie.
[Homer Simpson impression] Mmmmm, pie ....
@Ray--
Captain...you may have noticed that I rarely quote you. That's not because of what you say, but because of your name "Captain Howdy" makes you sound like you are a slow-brain (I know where the name comes from), and I know that's not true. Why don't you put your real name or a pseudonym after the Captain Howdy? Best wishes, Ray
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
See what I mean, Christians? He doesn't even try to deny it! That's how obvious it is that Ray's got the integrity of a used car salesman.
Ray got called numerous times on his whole "something from nothing" line. Not a single atheist on this whole blog has ever said it. And yet Ray still repeats it as if that's what we say and believe. Ray's lying about us and about atheism repeatedly, and that's all there is to it.
And like I said before: If he has to lie to sell you his religion, what does that say about his religion? Or him?
Ray--That name really grates at you, doesn't it?
ahh now Froggie is back, guess the Raytractors really couldn't stay away even after their supposed ban and last words.
Alex said:
"1/ Create a smallish black hole."
A black hole is a 'thing'. It has physical properties and is therefore a thing. You're obfuscating (and hopefully using hyperbole) if you say that this is an example of something arriving from nothing."
We aren't creating matter from the black hole, we are simply using it as a tool to help us create matter from the vacuum. Of course, the vacuum isn't really nothing either. It's a vacuum.
So you have found that my example, while maybe feasible or not, isn't really creating something from nothing. How did God do it then?
How did God create everything out of nothing? I presume that He existed prior to creating stuff. God is infinite. How can there be room, in the same space as an infinite God, for 'nothing'? If God is infinite then he must have created everything out of himself - he is everywhere; there is no space where God is not. So did God cheat a little bit too, just like I was? By using His infinite self as building material?
If God existed eternally and is perfect, when He creates something does that creation add to his perfection or take away from it?
Prior to God's manufacture of the Cosmos he is simply God. After the creation, he is God + Cosmos. Is he now greater than he was? If the Cosmos is less than perfect then is God now less than he was? Can a perfect God actually make something that is less than perfect?
I really am curious to understand the answers to these questions.
Rabbitpirate.
TO respond directly to your question directed at my comment:
Yes, I can say that he is being honest - becuase he isn't trying to be or present something other than what he is convinced of. Sure, people time and time again have told him that he is wrong - but that doesn't change what he believes to be truth.
He says that atheists claim that nothing creating everything...I agree, it is an all encompassing blanket sweeping statement. However, does he say specifically that evolution says this?
From the current cartoon associated with this post:
We are such CLEVER SCIENTISTS... and make BOLD CLAIMS...
I think few, if any, people have a problem with anyone thinking that scientists make bold claims, or incorrect claims, or crazy claims, or dishonest claims.
It would simply be nice if some of the people on this blog (notably Ray himself) actually knew what those claims are.
The question of origins still is answered only by the self-existent God!
That you may have "answered" a question of origins is not itself a demonstration that your answer is correct.
Pete,
It's true that the chances of something that has happened, happening are 100%, but this is not the question that the creationist asks. The question is, "What are the chances of a simple protein sequence of 200 amino-acids (much simpler than a DNA molecule) originating spontaneously?" with an emphasis on spontaneously.
With reference to the deck of cards example, in order to make the analogy more applicable, you would have to remove the person who deals the cards. So, now, what are the chances of five cards being dealt at all?
To address those atheists who do not believe they believe the universe came from nothing, even if you believe there was something that existed at the beginning, what made that? If you do not believe Someone made it, then how did it come into existence?
@Alphgeek:
I believe these questions of 'how' are only weighted by the curiosity of the person asking. As a Christian, I believe that it can be un-answerable down to the detail you ask.
The line of questioning that would come from the full searching of our desire to know these question could be likened to asking what number will I stop on when I finish counting to infinity. As Christians, we believe that God's being is boundless and immeasurable. So much so that even the angels stand in awe of Him in the breadth of eternity. Imagine having a intensely brilliant crystal with infinite sides on it, so that each time that you gaze upon it you never see the same side twice. Even this is a poor analogy to the vastness of God.
erikloza said:
"To address those atheists who do not believe they believe the universe came from nothing, even if you believe there was something that existed at the beginning, what made that? If you do not believe Someone made it, then how did it come into existence?"
My answer is that I don't know. Maybe we will never know. Perhaps we will find, by virtue of continued investigation, the answer to this question. But I'd rather keep my mind open than jump to the wrong answer, simply because I'm not comfortable with the unknown.
What I don't understand is why not knowing seems to lead to the conclusion that a particular god must have done it. That seems like a large leap to me, without a great deal of supporting evidence.
I have no issue with Christianity or any other religions per se, but treating the Bible as a history textbook doesn't really seem sensible. We wouldn't rely on the Bible for advice in the fields of medicine, engineering, geology, cosmology, physics, chemistry or mathematics. Why would we expect it to provide a reliable history?
Even some of its moral and ethical advice would be considered the grossest barbarity and cruelty today.
Most of this isn't an issue for the majority of Christians. They seem to be able to accept that much of the Bible is allegory rather than literal truth. Are they all destined for Hell as heretics? Heaven is going to be an awfully lonely place.
Why is the Christian God any more -or less - likely than any of the other mythological explanations for the existence of the Universe?
If the Universe needed to be created then who created God? And who created God's creator?
When we get to the crux of the argument, it seems that literalist believers must exempt God from requiring a first cause. But since it is the believers who are suggesting that God is the answer, it is up to those believers to provide the reasons why it is this way.
By all means say that God's will makes it so, or God's ways are mysterious but please don't dress the answer up as science, logic, rationality or reason. It's simply not. Be honest.
Kaitlin said...
QUOTE: Eric wrote...
"So here's the more accurate position from what I've heard from most in Atheism: Something came from nothing (well, we just don't know where it came from)"
Err... no. We don't know what caused the big bang, but that's very different than saying "something came from nothing." In fact, the leading hypothesis states that the big bang did not come from nothing but rather higher-dimensional interactions.
it collided, blew up and became an organized everything.
What collided? What blew up? The big bang wasn't an explosion. And the Big Bang lead to entropy not organization.
I know some of you probably aren't big-bangers though.
??? big-banger?
So then I'd have to ask, where did the stuff come from that the caused the single-cell organism to come from?"
If enough energy is packed into a small enough space, matter forms. Thus the equation e=mc^2. Matter and energy are interchangeable.
After the big bang, the universe cooled down enough but was still dense enough for matter to form. Thus we have the first hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen atoms, due to gravity, formed stars where nuclear fusion turned hydrogen into helium and other heavier elements.
Our sun is a second generation star. When a first generation star supernovas, its material is scattered until gathered up by gravity again creating a new star and planets that orbit the star.
To simplify, all life is made up of stardust from a star or stars that went supernova billions of years ago.
Any questions? END QUOTE
Yes, I do have questions.
Why is it that you and many agnostics and/or atheists think that just because you throw out a lot of "smart" scientific words out there that it therefore authenticates your position and must be true?? Furthermore, how do you KNOW any of what you wrote TO be true? Ergo absolute knowledge!
If the big-bang "wasn't an explosion" then what's with the whole "big-bang"?? And what would the universe need to cool down from??
Entropy?? Really? So let me get this straight. With all due respect to your intellect...you believe...or should I say THINK...that we all came about by a random process that took over billions of years to perfect and in the progress of that random act and process we all ended up with eyes, ears, mouth, nose, fingers and such in the SAME anatomical PLACE as other human beings?? You MUST be playing your local lottery!!! Cause you're bettin' A LOT on mere chance!!
Iam4Jesus said...
"You can show evidence that suggests some of what evolution theorizes is mildly accurate - it simply can not be proven."
"suggests some of what evolution theorizes is mildly accurate"? Some would call those weasel words. Like all scientific theories, evolution is based on evidence, therefore everything it theorizes is supported... by evidence. Please don't try to make it sound like a "lucky guess".
"On the other side - we can not prove that God exists using scientific rationale and tangible means of experimentation."
With you so far...
"Those of you who are here offering your preponderance of assimilation and self-meddled idiosyncratic diffusion are in fact betraying your own argument."
Ok, you lost me again. I've no idea what this paragraph means.
"To say that there is no God implies that you have infinite knowledge of the subject at matter."
Even though we constantly admit that there's a whole bunch of stuff we don't know, you think this is implied? We simply say "show us the evidence!" and when you can't we relegate God to the same level of likelihood as fairies and unicorns. That is we assume (yes assume) that there is no God, until we see some evidence of Him. We also have some pretty good explanations for why people would believe in a God, and that's largely based on looking at the history of humanity and how many Gods and superstitions there have been throughout the ages, almost all of which were created during times when people knew virtually nothing about physics, biology etc.
"These petty arguments are at best a nonsensical and cyclical self-defeating debate."
That's rather pessimistic of you. I would suggest you go back and re-read some of the "petty arguments" with an open mind. When you read them, imagine them being spoken in a friendly tone (perhaps with a slight sardonic edge).
"Needless to say, I do enjoy reading and find your banter to be relatively amusing."
Glad to hear it.
"I also find Ray's rapport to be simple, humble, and honest - grounded in the Love and Grace of God through Christ Jesus."
Ah, you had to throw the "honest" in there didn't you? Please understand that we don't call Ray a liar for believing in Jesus, or even for thinking he's got a superior explanation for everything (although he does sound deluded). We call him a liar because he lies about us.
If I said "Ha! Ray thinks Jesus talks to him every morning over breakfast, what a fool!", that would be a lie, since Ray has never made any such claim, and you would be utterly right to call me on it.
This is not about different worldviews, this is about his misrepresentation of (and contempt for) people who don't think the way he does.
There are other Christians out there who enjoy a good debate with an atheist, but Ray is not one of them. He appears to prefer insulting us and lying about us, for purposes that remain unclear.
Erikloza replied to Pete:
It's true that the chances of something that has happened, happening are 100%, but this is not the question that the creationist asks. The question is, "What are the chances of a simple protein sequence of 200 amino-acids (much simpler than a DNA molecule) originating spontaneously?" with an emphasis on spontaneously.
That question could be read in either of two ways: what are the odds of getting any chain of 200 amino acids in a row, or what are the chances of getting some particular sequence of 200 amino acids in a row?
The first question is basically asking, what are the chances of some lifeless environment existing, in which spontaneously formed amino acids (amino acids, and other components of biochemistry, form spontaneously in a variety of lifeless chemical environments) would self-assemble into long chains?
The second question, which Pete addressed, is basically asking "out of all the possible sequences of amino acids, how many form useful proteins?" Crick calculated the odds of getting one particular sequence (one chance in 20 of getting the first amino acid "right," multiplied by 1 chance in 20 of getting the second one "right," and so on through 200 amino acid residues), but that figure is irrelevant: as one mathematician put it, it's an example of "the fallacy of denominators without numerators."
I've mentioned, in past posts, the enzyme cytochrome-c, a very important, very widespread enzyme, that exists in scores of thousands of variants throughout the animal kingdom, with further variants among plants, fungi, protists and bacteria. And cytochrome-c varies less, from one species to another, than do many other proteins. And just asking how many different versions of cytochrome-c would work is less than half the question: how many different proteins would do the same job? How many trillions of possible sequences of amino acids would form a protein that could do something, if not one particular thing?
With reference to the deck of cards example, in order to make the analogy more applicable, you would have to remove the person who deals the cards. So, now, what are the chances of five cards being dealt at all?
Well, if you want to make the analogy still more applicable, you need to remove the cards themselves, or posit that they can deal themselves. As noted, amino acids, simple sugars, and nucleic acids form spontaneously in a variety of atmospheres and conditions (they have even been spectroscopically detected in interstellar space). Chemicals don't need intelligent manipulation to get them to combine with one another.
To address those atheists who do not believe they believe the universe came from nothing, even if you believe there was something that existed at the beginning, what made that? If you do not believe Someone made it, then how did it come into existence?
The exact and appropriate answer to your question is, of course, no one knows. That includes creationists: certainty that you're right is not a guarantee that you actually are. On the other hand, why do you assume that whatever preceded the universe "came into existence" at all? You exclude God from the requirement of needing a cause or explanation; why should there not be some sort of meta-universe, or laws of physics, that have always existed and required neither origin nor Creator? Or, to put it another way, why assume that the self-existent uncaused Cause is actually conscious and purposeful. or omniscient and omnipotent?
Side note: you are conflating "evolutionist" with "atheist." That is not strictly accurate. There are a few atheists who have problems with anything that could reasonably be called "evolution." Conversely, there are theists who have no problem with the idea that God created a nascent universe with laws of nature that were, without constant miraculous intervention, capable of producing life and evolution.
It's true that the chances of something that has happened, happening are 100%, but this is not the question that the creationist asks. The question is, "What are the chances of a simple protein sequence of 200 amino-acids (much simpler than a DNA molecule) originating spontaneously?" with an emphasis on spontaneously.
In so doing, the creationist establishes a strawman argument, as no biologists suggests that such an event ever occured "spontaneously".
Iam4Jesus said:
He says that atheists claim that nothing creating everything...I agree, it is an all encompassing blanket sweeping statement. However, does he say specifically that evolution says this?
That's irrelevant, as people have also pointed out to him repeatedly that none of us knows any atheist who thinks "nothing created everything", nor is he able to present a single one to support his claim that anyone makes that claim.
For the record though, I'm pretty sure that he *did* say that the theory of evolution claims "nothing created everything", but I could be wrong.
Erikloza said:
To address those atheists who do not believe they believe the universe came from nothing, even if you believe there was something that existed at the beginning, what made that? If you do not believe Someone made it, then how did it come into existence?
The top turtle in the pile, of course.
I find it absolutely fascinating that you would ask this question, especially the "If you do not believe Someone made it" part; that's by far the most interesting phrase in your comment.
Why would I think it was a "Someone", much less capitalize the 'S' in the word?
Amplified Bible (AMP)
1 Corinthians 15:34-58
34Awake [from your drunken stupor and return] to sober sense and your right minds, and sin no more. For some of you have not the knowledge of God [you are utterly and willfully and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, lacking the sense of God's presence and all true knowledge of Him]. I say this to your shame.
35But someone will say, How can the dead be raised? With what [kind of] body will they come forth?
36You foolish man! Every time you plant seed, you sow something that does not come to life [germinating, springing up, and growing] unless it dies first.
37Nor is the seed you sow then the body which it is going to have [later], but it is a naked kernel, perhaps of wheat or some of the rest of the grains.
38But God gives to it the body that He plans and sees fit, and to each kind of seed a body of its own.(A)
39For all flesh is not the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for beasts, another for birds, and another for fish.
40There are heavenly bodies (sun, moon, and stars) and there are earthly bodies (men, animals, and plants), but the beauty and glory of the heavenly bodies is of one kind, while the beauty and glory of earthly bodies is a different kind.
41The sun is glorious in one way, the moon is glorious in another way, and the stars are glorious in their own [distinctive] way; for one star differs from and surpasses another in its beauty and brilliance.
42So it is with the resurrection of the dead. [The body] that is sown is perishable and decays, but [the body] that is resurrected is imperishable (immune to decay, immortal).(B)
43It is sown in dishonor and humiliation; it is raised in honor and glory. It is sown in infirmity and weakness; it is resurrected in strength and endued with power.
44It is sown a natural (physical) body; it is raised a supernatural (a spiritual) body. [As surely as] there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
45Thus it is written, The first man Adam became a living being (an individual personality); the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit [restoring the dead to life].(C)
46But it is not the spiritual life which came first, but the physical and then the spiritual.
47The first man [was] from out of earth, made of dust (earthly-minded); the second Man [is] the Lord from out of heaven.(D)
48Now those who are made of the dust are like him who was first made of the dust (earthly-minded); and as is [the Man] from heaven, so also [are those] who are of heaven (heavenly-minded).
49And just as we have borne the image [of the man] of dust, so shall we and so [b]let us also bear the image [of the Man] of heaven.
50But I tell you this, brethren, flesh and blood cannot [become partakers of eternal salvation and] inherit or share in the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable (that which is decaying) inherit or share in the imperishable (the immortal).
51Take notice! I tell you a mystery (a secret truth, an event decreed by the hidden purpose or counsel of God). We shall not all fall asleep [in death], but we shall all be changed (transformed)
52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the [sound of the] last trumpet call. For a trumpet will sound, and the dead [in Christ] will be raised imperishable (free and immune from decay), and we shall be changed (transformed).
53For this perishable [part of us] must put on the imperishable [nature], and this mortal [part of us, this nature that is capable of dying] must put on immortality (freedom from death).
54And when this perishable puts on the imperishable and this that was capable of dying puts on freedom from death, then shall be fulfilled the Scripture that says, Death is swallowed up (utterly vanquished [c]forever) in and unto victory.(E)
55O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?(F)
56Now sin is the sting of death, and sin exercises its power [d][upon the soul] through [e][the abuse of] the Law.
57But thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory [making us conquerors] through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58Therefore, my beloved brethren, be firm (steadfast), immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord [always being superior, excelling, doing more than enough in the service of the Lord], knowing and being continually aware that your labor in the Lord is not futile [it is never wasted or to no purpose].
Glory to God! The Creator of all things! Praise His Holy Name, forever and ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Did you actually read anything about the experiments. If you did you would have known that the scientists involved DO NOT think they are creating life. They are doing what scientists do."
Don, your post is just as misleading as Kaitlyn's. I didn't make the claim that these scientists were creating life or precursors to life: Kaitlyn did. So I was addressing that only. The experiment cited makes no advance to the argument that life could have originated out of non-life, which Kaitlyn seems to be suggesting (correct me if I'm wrong).
If I were so afraid of questions as you suggest I wouldn't even be reading these blog posts or the comments. Heck, I'd still be an agnostic with a false understanding of the Bible since this would let me sin to my heart's delight (until judgment day that is). Praise God for his mercy through Christ for awakening me to my ignorance. I pray that you would also come to your senses.
Erikloza, thanks for that comment on the card analogy!
† Eric † said...
"You know it seems that the only real honest Atheist is the one who says, "The real problem what Atheism has is with the beginning." You guys continue to misrepresent your own position by saying that 'atheism never says something came from nothing.'"
We don't tell you your position, Eric the humble, so don't tell us ours. The only reason "it seems" this way to you is that you get your information on what atheists think from people like Ray. Which is why we are here to try to set the record straight.
The real problem with atheism is we get idiots misunderstanding and misrepresenting our incredibly simple defining characteristic.
We. Don't. Believe. In. God(s).
And that's it, so get it through your thick skull would you? Look it up if you don't believe me!
Abiogenesis is not a problem atheists have to solve. And we don't have to come up with a theory for what caused the Big Bang. We aren't claiming to have a complete picture. Get that through your thick skull.
Even evolution is not something atheists have to explain or even believe in. Get that through your unbelievably thick skull.
Maybe the purpose of this blog is to drive us to despair through frustration by having us respond the same idiocy over and over again...
In summary: You do not get to redefine atheism to mean what you think it should mean! If you want to bitch about the Big Bang, direct your bitching to cosmologists. If you want to whine about how life can't come from non-life, go harass a freakin' chemist! And yes, they are more likely to be atheists than the average person, but that can probably be attributed to the fact that they spend more time studying the world around them than the Bible.
Iam4Jesus said...
Rabbitpirate.
TO respond directly to your question directed at my comment:
Yes, I can say that he is being honest - becuase he isn't trying to be or present something other than what he is convinced of. Sure, people time and time again have told him that he is wrong - but that doesn't change what he believes to be truth.
He says that atheists claim that nothing creating everything...I agree, it is an all encompassing blanket sweeping statement. However, does he say specifically that evolution says this?
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. I'll answer your last question first. Yes, yes he does say that evolution claims something came from nothing, he does so in several posts. As this is not what evolution claims then it is dishonest to say that it does, not matter how hard you believe it to be true. If he said "I believe that evolution says life came from nothing" that would be honest and a representation of his beliefs. However saying "evolution says life came from nothing" is a statement about what evolution claims and not about what you believe it claims and as such is dishonest if this is not what it is actually saying.
Now I can completely accept that Ray may believe this to be the case and if he just stuck to saying things like "I believe that God created the universe because I don't believe it could have come from nothing" then I would think he was wrong, misunderstanding what the science actually says but not dishonest. He would be simply stating what he believes and no matter how wrong others may think he is he is still honestly just stating what he believes.
However when he talks about what other people believe or what science actually says it is a different matter. Let me give you an example.
Lets say I announce to everyone that you, Iam4Jesus, believe that the moon is made of green cheese and is home to space pixies that fly down while we are asleep and stick lumps of moon cheese in our ears and that is where ear wax comes from.
Now you read this, laugh and politely point out that I am mistaken and that you don't believe this. But instead of admitting my mistake I repeat my claim about what you believe.
You, being the nice understanding person I have no doubt you are, again politely point out my mistake and this time take the time to explain exactly what you do believe, both about the moon and ear wax. I in turn continue to ignore you and continue to tell people that you believe something you don't.
Let's say that this goes on for weeks on end. I make a claim about something you believe that you do not in fact believe. You repeatedly point this out in numerous different ways, other people join in backing you up. I even show that I have read your comments by using them to back up my claim about what I think you believe. You know I know that what I am saying about you is not true, there is no way that I could still be saying it as a result of a simple honest mistake.
So the question is would you consider me honest or would you think that I was purposefully lying in order to support my argument and make you look foolish?
This is exactly what Ray does and it is not just me that thinks so, it is the vast majority of people reading this blog.
Ray has been asked repeatedly to provide just one example of an atheist saying that life came from nothing and he can't, what's more is he knows he can't as is evident by the fact he continues to ignore the request.
Now I accept that Ray may well be saying what he things is the truth as you claim. However even if he truly believes that the claims he makes about evolution and atheists beliefs are in fact correct he has still been told that they are not.
As such the honest thing to do would be either to agree to disagree and move on or to qualify his statements by saying "I believe this is what atheists believe even though they say they don't." Either approached would allow him to keep his current beliefs and still remain, on the whole, honest in his claims.
However he doesn't do this and instead continues to state as fact that atheists believe something that he knows they at least claim not to. I'm sorry but this, to my mind at least, is dishonesty plain and simple.
You seem like an honest person yourself, you took the time to reply to my concerns, you admitted that there may be something in them and even stated that Ray's blanket statement probably doesn't include all atheist, if any. This is already more than I have come to expect from the vast majority, but by no means all, of the supposed Christians on this site.
Now I ask if you would be willing to take it one step further. After reading what I have said take another look at the things Ray says with this is mind. Do his actions really appear to be those of someone who is honestly just trying to get across what he believes or do they come across as the actions of someone who believes that the ends justify the means, no matter how dishonest they may be.
I know for a fact that Christians are better that how Ray makes them seem, so stand up and let him know this.
Iam4Jesus: "He says that atheists claim that nothing creating everything...I agree, it is an all encompassing blanket sweeping statement. However, does he say specifically that evolution says this?"
This was strongly implied in his Hummingbird post a few days ago. The post is quite clearly meant to be sarcastic or satirical, but it is so bizarrely far from how the scientific method actually works, or what evolutionary theory actually claims, that the satire makes no sense to anyone who understands these things at all. It simply satirizes a nonsensical strawman. If Ray were honest, and trying to convert people, why would he bother making a post that would simply seem absurd to anyone who actually understood the subject?
"Yes, I can say that he is being honest - becuase he isn't trying to be or present something other than what he is convinced of. Sure, people time and time again have told him that he is wrong - but that doesn't change what he believes to be truth."
Nobody expects Ray to believe evolution. But he repeatedly misrepresents what the theory actually states, despite having numerous informative and explanatory responses posted in this blog.
If Ray says "Scientists say X, Y, and Z" and a scientist responds, "No, we don't, we say A, B, and C", no one expects Ray to believe that A, B and C are true. But for Ray to be told this multiple times, and still claim "Scientists say X, Y and Z" makes no sense to me. No one is obliged to accept evolution, or relativity, or heliocentricism, or any other scientific theory. But where is the sense in Ray being "convinced" that science claims things that he has repeatedly been told that science does not claim? I can not conceive of any logial conclusion other than dishonesty or madness. If you cn think of a better explanation, I'd be interested in hearing it.
Eric: "Why is it that you and many agnostics and/or atheists think that just because you throw out a lot of "smart" scientific words out there that it therefore authenticates your position and must be true??"
Well, first of all, atheists and agnostics, as a rule, do not generally believe that the veracity of an assertion is based upon the words used to express it.
However, in general, many people find that somebody who shows signs of having done some research and thinking is more credible than somebdy who demonstrates ignorance, incredulity, and hostility, as many theists and/or creationists do when discussing science.
"Entropy?? Really? So let me get this straight. With all due respect to your intellect...you believe...or should I say THINK...that we all came about by a random process that took over billions of years to perfect and in the progress of that random act and process we all ended up with eyes, ears, mouth, nose, fingers and such in the SAME anatomical PLACE as other human beings?? You MUST be playing your local lottery!!! Cause you're bettin' A LOT on mere chance!!"
"Random" does not mean what you seem to think it does. The mere absence of a guiding intelligence is not "randomness". No one is saying that what you describe happened as a result of random chance, only that it did not require a Deity's supervision and guidance in order to happen. Like gravity: gravity is a force of nature, with no awareness or intelligence,but it is not "random". If I drop a pencil, it doesnot fly off in a random direction, it falls DOWN. And odds are good that it will continue to do likewise with multiple tests (assuming that they are conducted here on Earth, of course). Of course, if you believe that gravity requires God's active participation to function, this may be an unconvincing example. If so, I apologize.
Eric
So let me get this straight. With all due respect to your intellect...you believe...or should I say THINK...that we all came about by a random process that took over billions of years to perfect and in the progress of that random act and process we all ended up with eyes, ears, mouth, nose, fingers and such in the SAME anatomical PLACE as other human beings??
Haha! Why wouldn't we have all those parts in the same place as other humans? We all come from other humans.
You don't really get what evolution is, do you?
Oh, and considering congenital birth defects, not everyone ends up with everything in the SAME place. But that's because a couple of people ate some forbidden fruit 6000 years ago, isn't it?
Maybe the reason Ray continually misrepresents scientists and science is that if he was honest about them his own beliefs would have to stand and fall on their own merits; having something stupid (his strawman of evolution and science) to stand next to his own beliefs about the origins of life makes them look good in comparison.
Susan said... Glory to God! The Creator of all things! Praise His Holy Name, forever and ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amen Susan, Amen!!!
AllFiredUp said...
ahh now Froggie is back, guess the Raytractors really couldn't stay away even after their supposed ban and last words.
-------------
Sorry lil uddy. I am a sect of and unto myself.
Remember, your belief sysem is not an idea that your mind posesses. Your belief system is an idea that posesses your mind.
You are posessed by an irrational belief system. It controls everything you do and say.
Hey Eric,
You wrote:
Why is it that you and many agnostics and/or atheists think that just because you throw out a lot of "smart" scientific words out there that it therefore authenticates your position and must be true??
Oh, I don't, and I really try not to throw out an unnecessary and uncommon scientific jargon.
Furthermore, how do you KNOW any of what you wrote TO be true? Ergo absolute knowledge!
I suppose I can't know with 100% certainty that what I wrote is true. However, there are facts to back up all of my statements.
For example, we can see the aftermath of the big bang with telescopes. This is what's known as the cosmic background microwave radiation, and it permeates our entire universe. Scientists have also been able to track the expansion of galaxies from one another showing the Universe is indeed expanding.
How can we look into a star and see if it's really undergoing unclear fusion? Scientists study the neutrino radiation from the sun which will pass to Earth undisturbed. Since nuclear fusion releases energy in the form of neutrinos, counting neutrinos allows scientists to have a good understanding of the nuclear reactions that a star undergoes in its center.
If the big-bang "wasn't an explosion" then what's with the whole "big-bang"??
It's an expansion of space and time. The universe is like a balloon, and the moment you begin inflating the balloon is like the big bang.
Nothing exploded, just expanding. And it's still expanding today.
So you can say that the Universe is still "big banging." :)
And what would the universe need to cool down from??
All the energy in the universe was compacted into a space smaller than an atom. That's extremely dense and therefore "hot."
Entropy?? Really? So let me get this straight. With all due respect to your intellect...you believe...or should I say THINK...that we all came about by a random process that took over billions of years to perfect and in the progress of that random act and process we all ended up with eyes, ears, mouth, nose, fingers and such in the SAME anatomical PLACE as other human beings?? You MUST be playing your local lottery!!! Cause you're bettin' A LOT on mere chance!!
No, I don't think that at all.
First of all, natural selection is non-random. Any time you have a self-replicating system capable of introducing changes or mutations to their genomes, when you apply selective pressure, it will evolve. This applies to living and non-living structures alike.
Evolution is inevitable. So you would expect that something like the human eye would be complex because simpler eyes will evolve into better eyes when selected to by the environment.
And yes, scientists have both living and fossilized examples of every evolutionary step of the modern eye from simple photosensitive patches of cells to a complete lens and iris system we have today.
Now the problem I think you wanted to get at is how entropy is at odds with evolution. You are right. Entropy is evolution's worst nightmare.
However, scientists believe that the Earth is in an open system as opposed to a closed system. In other words, there is some kind of massive energy source supplying enough energy to the planet to allow organisms to live and continue to evolve.
Thanks for your questions. They were very good. Let me know if you have any more.
@Susan:
Glad to see you that you read 1Co 15, sometimes called "The Resurrection Chapter". It isn't clear why you quoted it. Do you understand the concept of "resurrection"? The part you quote goes into a lot of detail about how the saints who are dead will be raised out of their graves to eternal life (a gift from God), then the saints who are alive will be transformed into spirit beings as well.
There is also another resurrection at the end of the 1,000 years of Christ's rule, after Satan is put away permantly. Take a look at vv22-24:
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
Christ will triumph all who oppose God, then death itself, then everything will be handed over to God the Father.
Do you understand what I am saying?
Hang on just a moment Mr Comfort, you little shifter of goal posts you!
The claim you and your brethren have always made, has never been "you silly scientists can't create life from nothing" it has been "You silly scientists can't create life, neh neh neh, neh neh neh".
We have proved you wrong, now you're altering your original claim to avoid admitting your defeat.
You were wrong. Scientists can create life from non - life, and if they are ever able to create 'something' from 'nothing', then you would simply shift the goal posts yet again.
Then you will claim that they hadn't created something from nothing, they had used the 'nothingness' that God had put there, to create the 'somethingness' that God allowed them to create. You're plain silly, can't you see that?
† Eric † replied to Kaitlin:
Yes, I do have questions.
Why is it that you and many agnostics and/or atheists think that just because you throw out a lot of "smart" scientific words out there that it therefore authenticates your position and must be true?? Furthermore, how do you KNOW any of what you wrote TO be true? Ergo absolute knowledge!
The "smart scientific words" are technical terms, used to compress a lot of ideas into a single word. For example, one evidence for the Big Bang is the "cosmic microwave background." To explain the CMB in more common words, I'd need to explain blackbody radiation (another "smart scientific" phrase), how the temperature of the universe is expected to drop as it expands, and how the Big Bang theory predicts that the temperature of the universe, at present, will fall within certain ranges. There are entire books you can read if you want a detailed explanation from (more or less) scratch. Other evidences for the Big Bang include the distribution of galactic redshifts, and the relative cosmic abundances of hydrogen and helium. Similar points apply to those "smart scientific words."
Stellar nucleosynthesis (the formation of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium in the cores of stars through fusion and supernovas) is based on mathematical models, derived from actual experiments and applied to computer models of stars. The Big Bang itself is a mathematical model that predicts certain observations (like those mentioned above) that have actually been made.
One does not need "absolute knowledge" to infer causes from effects, any more than an arson investigator needs to be omniscient to form and test a theory that a particular building fire was arson, or a medical examiner needs either time travel or the ability to resurrect and re-kill a person in order to determine cause of death.
If the big-bang "wasn't an explosion" then what's with the whole "big-bang"?? And what would the universe need to cool down from??
"Big Bang" was a derisive term first applied to the theory by Fred Hoyle, who favored the alternative "Steady-State" theory that the universe was infinite in extent and age: it had always existed and always would, in much its present overall state. The Big Bang theory holds, in contrast, that the universe was originally very small, very hot, and very dense (all its present energy contained in a very tiny region, because at the time that was all the universe there was). Space itself expanded rapidly, and as the energy dispersed through the expanded space, the universe cooled down.
Entropy?? Really? So let me get this straight. With all due respect to your intellect...you believe...or should I say THINK...that we all came about by a random process that took over billions of years to perfect and in the progress of that random act and process we all ended up with eyes, ears, mouth, nose, fingers and such in the SAME anatomical PLACE as other human beings?? You MUST be playing your local lottery!!! Cause you're bettin' A LOT on mere chance!!
No, evolutionary theory assumes that many processes are not random. Heredity is not random (although occasional mistakes in the process are random): you inherit your genes from your parents, not random genes from a random assemblage of organisms. That's why you have eyes, ears, and a nose in more or less the same positions they were in in your parents (and why, indeed, you have them in much the same place where a monkey has them, and in places not so different from where a fish has them).
Natural selection is not random: some variant traits are more likely to be passed on to future generations than are others. Mutations are "random" in the sense that the causes of mutations are quite different from and unrelated to the causes of mtuations being useful, harmful, or neutral in a given environment.
Jason wrote:
"Scientists can create life from non - life"
Not yet Jason. Scientists still have not constructed a single living organism. What they have done is create a working model of the RNA world hypothesis and an artificial ecosystem.
So they have created the preconditions necessary for life, and presumably if you waited long enough, life would emerge.
I just don't want anyone being confused. :)
intepid:
...Please don't try to make it sound like a "lucky guess".
My point is that while there is very much evidence that does support the theory of evolution - there is equal evidence that completely disproves the theory. When science finds something that doesn't align with the theory - it is ignored. I am sorry, but that is the truth. Evolutionists in essence "want to have their cake and eat it too".
You are incorrect to use the word "assume" when you mention what atheists/naturalists/evolutionist say about God. They don't assume there is no God. They say "there is very little likelihood there is no God". That, in science, is a very poor assessment.
Rabbitpirate:
I certainly don't take the time to read every post from Ray...(it seems others here have nothing more productive to do with their time)...but if he has said that evolution believes as such, that I stand corrected.
I am quite familiar with the theory of evolution and know that it has absolutely no valid, viable, or warranted explanation for the origin of life - while the "father" of the theory's wrote the book called the Origin of the Species...a book which I am fairly certain many who believe the theory have not yet read.
I am not assuming or suggesting that you personally have not - but there are many I personally know who have not....and it's a disgrace to the disciples of the theory. (as well Christians who don't read and truly know the Bible).
Chris B:
In light of what I just responded to Rabbitpirate please understand - if I am incorrect in my reception of Ray's postings, that I humbly stand corrected - as I tend to read a few posts each week from Ray, and certainly not every. I simply do not have the time.
HOWEVER, speaking in my defense - in my walk and experience with naturalists - there are many vastly differing views, understandings, and teachings on the subject at hand. Evolution is vague to those who are unversed in its language, teaching, and discipline that unless you are immersed in the theoretical prospectus you can not simply fully grasp the fullness of its whole.
I trust that many here are merely fledgling bystanders who meagerly drift on the surface of the structure of the theory and have not yet fully discovered its immense implausibility.
I am not suggesting by any means that "I am right" - but only that there is such a vast chasm of emptiness within the teaching that it leaves more unanswered questions that it fulfills.
I thank you for your time here, and plan to continue reading. I will not be responding to anymore comments on this post however.
I invite you certainly to read some of my posts and inquire should you find something of interest.
Have a blessed day.
March Hare said...
@Susan:
Glad to see you that you read 1Co 15, sometimes called "The Resurrection Chapter". It isn't clear why you quoted it. Do you understand the concept of "resurrection"? The part you quote goes into a lot of detail about how the saints who are dead will be raised out of their graves to eternal life (a gift from God), then the saints who are alive will be transformed into spirit beings as well.
March Hare,
The reason I quoted this passage is to show that God is the creator and the purposely created man, animals, birds, fish, etc., differently. I was going to just quote verses 34 to 41, but went ahead and posted the whole passage hoping that it would open the eyes of a skeptic, by reading the comparison of the seed dying to a person dying "spiritually" in order to have eternal life. This clearly shows that God created everything according to His plan even to the small details.
I'm so tired of hearing evolutionists comparing human beings to animals, as if we are all the same and to claim that we evolved from some type of animal. It is crazy and makes no sense.
To believe in the theory of evolution one must delibertly go against his/her God given intelligence, and choose to believe something that makes no sense and has not ever been proven. On the other hand, intelligent design is proven as science continues to make discoveries like DNA and it's intricateness and complexity.
My children are homeschooled and they watch a lot of educational type television(history channel, discovery channel, etc.). My boys really like dinosaurs and enjoy watching progams about them specifically. One of the more recent ones explain how "we evolved from a fish". My youngest son facetiously said, "guess what mom? We didn't come from monkeys after all. We actually came from fish." Then he burst out laughing at the thought. Thankfully, he hasn't had to be in public school where children are brainwashed into believing such nonsense.
Look at how many times the theory of evolution has changed(or should we say evolved) over the years because of lack of evidence to support the original claims. First it was claimed that we evolved from apes, now fish. The Truth of the Bible, however continues to remain the same.
God says that His word does not return void, so quoting scripture here on this site inevitably plants seeds in the hearts and minds of those that read it.
My point is that while there is very much evidence that does support the theory of evolution - there is equal evidence that completely disproves the theory. When science finds something that doesn't align with the theory - it is ignored.
Can you provide examples of specific evidence that "completely disproves" the theory of evolution that have been ignored?
You are incorrect to use the word "assume" when you mention what atheists/naturalists/evolutionist say about God. They don't assume there is no God. They say "there is very little likelihood there is no God". That, in science, is a very poor assessment.
If you are under the impression that all who accept the validity of the theory of evolution are atheists, then you are demonstrably mistaken. Not all who accept that the theory of evolution is valid would claim that no "God" exists.
Iam4Jesus said...
"there is equal evidence that completely disproves the theory. When science finds something that doesn't align with the theory - it is ignored."
Equal evidence? I've never heard anything but arguments from incredulity. Can you give an example which hasn't already been torn to shreds?
In fact any evidence which contradicts current theory tends to be focused on to an enormous degree... people write articles about it etc. Scientists love proving each other wrong, because they hate the thought of there being nothing left to discover.
"I am sorry, but that is the truth."
I am sorry, but you are mistaken. You merely want it to be the truth, you love the idea that there is one truth and it's the one you already subscribe to. It's perfectly understandable but rather limiting if you are really interested in learning anything.
"Evolutionists in essence "want to have their cake and eat it too".
Don't we all?
"You are incorrect to use the word "assume" when you mention what atheists/naturalists/evolutionist say about God."
Oh great, please tell me what I and people like me say about God, because clearly I don't know.
"They don't assume there is no God. They say "there is very little likelihood there is no God". That, in science, is a very poor assessment."
a) they don't say that, even discounting what I assume was a typo with a double negative
b) It's perfectly reasonable to assume that something doesn't exist when there is no tangible evidence to suggest otherwise. People are capable of inferring the existence of extra-solar planets from slight perturbations in distant stars, but we are utterly unable to detect any perturbation in the natural world that suggests an external will asserting itself. There's a really simple explanation for why that might be so, and it doesn't require a degree in theology to explain.
The only reason we even know God's name(s) is that we have are a bunch of ancient texts which purport to contain wisdom about Him, and you are clinging to just one of these, for some reason secure in the idea that it is completely true (despite the textual problems and inconsistencies), and that all the others are false.
Atheists/rationalists take a step back and ask ourselves why is this God real? Why is this Book genuine? And the answer is really obvious: It's not. It's just one of many sets of stories that have been handed down to us by our rather superstitious and uneducated ancestors.
"I am quite familiar with the theory of evolution and know that it has absolutely no valid, viable, or warranted explanation for the origin of life - while the "father" of the theory's wrote the book called the Origin of the Species...a book which I am fairly certain many who believe the theory have not yet read."
You've scored an own-goal there... That's why his book was *not* titled Origin of Life, because that's not what it was about.
Also, the great thing about ToE is that is is a really simple theory-- You don't even have to read Darwin's book to understand it! That seems like a bonus to me, when an idea is so simple it can be expressed in a few paragraphs.
"I personally know who have not....and it's a disgrace to the disciples of the theory. (as well Christians who don't read and truly know the Bible)."
Again, you don't get it. Unlike you we are not slaves to one man's idea or a particular sacred Book. I have never read Origin but I understand evolution at least as well as any biology student. If the ghost of Darwin were to catch me reading it, he'd probably ask why I was bothering with such an outdated reference.
"Evolution is vague to those who are unversed in its language, teaching, and discipline that unless you are immersed in the theoretical prospectus you can not simply fully grasp the fullness of its whole."
You're projecting your own attitudes onto us here. That's the sort of baloney we hear from Christians all the time, when we ask why God seems like such a monster one minute and such a feeble presence the next. We have to go read the Bible before we can possibly understand!
At its core evolution is an elegant and concise theory. When Ray asks a simple question about evolution he gets a simple answer from numerous sources. No one says "Oh you would say that, you need to read Origin of Species before you can criticize!" Of course Ray then ignores all the responses, but it's hardly our fault that he keeps his fingers in his ears.
"I trust that many here are merely fledgling bystanders who meagerly drift on the surface of the structure of the theory and have not yet fully discovered its immense implausibility."
You are being unnecessarily prolix, and often use words that actually hinder your arguments.
"there is such a vast chasm of emptiness within the teaching that it leaves more unanswered questions that it fulfills."
What questions are you thinking of exactly? Even if it were true, if answering one question leads to a new question... is this somehow a bad thing?
Iam4Jesus replied to Intepid:
My point is that while there is very much evidence that does support the theory of evolution - there is equal evidence that completely disproves the theory. When science finds something that doesn't align with the theory - it is ignored. I am sorry, but that is the truth. Evolutionists in essence "want to have their cake and eat it too".
May I make a request of you?
State one or two general lines of evidence for evolution, and, from each of those, state one or two specific items of evidence for evolution. For example, if you pick "transitional fossils," list those transitional fossils you find most compelling.
Then do the same thing regarding evidence against evolution: one or more general categories of problems and one or more specific examples.
I do not think that you are right, but it would be easier to discuss this with actual details.
You are incorrect to use the word "assume" when you mention what atheists/naturalists/evolutionist say about God. They don't assume there is no God. They say "there is very little likelihood there is no God". That, in science, is a very poor assessment.
I think you mean that atheists say "there is very little likelihood that there is a God," not little likelihood that there is no God. But whichever you mean, what do you mean when you say "that, in science, is a very poor assessment?" Are you saying that there's a lot of evidence for God, or some other reason for concluding that there is a God, or that estimates of likelihood have no place in science?
Iam4Jesus replied to Rabbitpirate:
am quite familiar with the theory of evolution and know that it has absolutely no valid, viable, or warranted explanation for the origin of life - while the "father" of the theory's wrote the book called the Origin of the Species...a book which I am fairly certain many who believe the theory have not yet read.
Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, which did not concern itself with the origin of life, but with how, once life existed, new features and abilities arose, and how different local populations gave rise to new species. Evolutionary theory itself does not depend on any particular explanation for the origin of life: the evidence is just as good whether we suppose that single-celled prokaryote life has always existed (and just landed on this planet four billion years ago), or arose here through natural processes, or was specially created here.
I am not assuming or suggesting that you personally have not - but there are many I personally know who have not....and it's a disgrace to the disciples of the theory. (as well Christians who don't read and truly know the Bible).
I rather suspect that of people who accept both evolutionary theory and Newton's laws of gravity and motion, there are a lot more who've read On the Origin of Species than Newton's Principia. But it doesn't matter. Darwin is not the prophet of evolutionary theory, and no one assumes either that his own ideas were without error, or the last or most authoritative word on the subject. The theory has been considerably developed since his day.
Evolution was a discovery, not a revelation, nor even a philosophical position. Modern textbooks are likely to be more useful in understanding the theory than Darwin's original work, just as they are in understanding the modern physics that grew out of Newton's ideas, or the modern atomic theory that grew out of the ideas of Dalton.
As for Christians who don't read the Bible, the idea has been advanced (most notably, but not exclusively, by the Catholic Church) that the Bible is a difficult work to interpret, easily misunderstood and, while it ought indeed to be studied as a revelation from God, incomplete apart from the (Holy Spirit-led) ecclesiastical and interpretative tradition that produced it.
Granted that this has served as a justification for some of the most bizarre and implausible biblical interpretations I've seen advanced, I've also seen many cases where atheists interpret the Bible much more literally than nearly any Christian I've encountered (e.g. references to "sons of God" taking wives from among the "daughters of men" or references to the sun going around the Earth rather than vice-versa).
Susan replied to March Hare:
[snip]
To believe in the theory of evolution one must delibertly go against his/her God given intelligence, and choose to believe something that makes no sense and has not ever been proven. On the other hand, intelligent design is proven as science continues to make discoveries like DNA and it's intricateness and complexity.
William Paley, arguably the father of intelligent design apologetics, noted a problem with his own argument: why would an omnipotent Creator, Who could endow a stone with the power of thought, growth, and movement if He so chose, employ so much intricacy and complexity (what he called "contrivance") in His design? Human artifacts are complicated because we are limited in our knowledge and power: we cannot make, e.g. a car or a computer do what we want if we make it any simpler. Human designers generally strive for as much simplicity in design as their limited powers will permit them. Does God suffer some limit on His omnipotence that forces Him to make life so complicated just to enable it to thrive, reproduce, and act in the world?
Paley argued that God designed this way so that we would be impressed by His power (which implies, it has been noted, that He couldn't think of a way to impress us with His power without "contrivance," which still implies limits on His omnipotence), but it seems to me that if we needed to make a tractor so complicated merely to do a few things, we'd be even more impressed if our bodies could do far more things while being much simpler in design.
It has also been pointed out that, just as great complexity in computer programs is often a result of "kludges," fiddling with bits and pieces of a program until it's loaded with clutter and unnecessary bits of code, but works, rather than simply figuring out the whole thing at once and writing the most efficient and shortest code to do the job. By the same token, much of the complexity of life is the sort of thing we'd expect from millions of generations of modifications to earlier systems, which were themselves modified from earlier systems.
My children are homeschooled and they watch a lot of educational type television(history channel, discovery channel, etc.). My boys really like dinosaurs and enjoy watching progams about them specifically. One of the more recent ones explain how "we evolved from a fish". My youngest son facetiously said, "guess what mom? We didn't come from monkeys after all. We actually came from fish." Then he burst out laughing at the thought. Thankfully, he hasn't had to be in public school where children are brainwashed into believing such nonsense.
That's a bit like saying you aren't descended from your parents, but from your great-grandparents. Humans evolved from monkeys (not any living species of monkey, but a common ancestor of humans and living monkeys, that we'd certainly call a monkey if we saw it today); those monkeys had to evolve from something. Your ancestors were monkeys back around 40 million years ago. Go back 80 million years, and they were generalized placental mammals that looked more like shrews than anything else alive today (and that were the ancestors not merely of you and monkeys, but of rats, rabbits, and tree shrews as well. Go back to 250 million years ago, and your ancestors laid eggs and probably still had scales and cold blood (they looked rather like lizards, but are not considered, in modern classification, to be true reptiles). Go back to 400 million years ago, and your ancestors were lobe-finned fish (albeit with lungs to supplement their gills. Go back to 600 million years ago, and your ancestors weren't even vertebrates yet.
Look at how many times the theory of evolution has changed(or should we say evolved) over the years because of lack of evidence to support the original claims. First it was claimed that we evolved from apes, now fish. The Truth of the Bible, however continues to remain the same.
Actually, that isn't a change to the theory: even from the beginning, when Darwin was unsure whether we shared ancestors with, e.g. crabs, much less cactuses, evolutionists concluded that all living vertebrates were descended from a primitive aquatic vertebrate that, were you to see it today, you would call a "fish." There have been changes to the theory of evolution in the last 150 years. There have also been a great many changes, in the last 150 years, to atomic theory (the theory originally didn't include subatomic particles like protons, neutrons, and electrons, much less things like radioactive decay). That sort of thing happens in science.
It should be noted, though, that if the actual text of the Bible changes little, its interpretation has altered over time. Four hundred years ago, nearly all Christians agreed that the Bible taught that the sun orbited the Earth. Two hundred years ago, creationists held that the Bible taught that species were immutable and did not go extinct (what is the point of Noah's preservation of every kind, if God permitted kinds to vanish from the Earth anyway?). Even a century ago, creationists generally taught that the biblical "kinds" were identical to "species," which few now believe. One sees similar changes in, e.g. common Christian attitudes towards slavery over time: the Truth that Bible-believers take from the Bible has been known to change over time.
Ray, You "created" the content of this blog. Now, according to you, To "create" you have to start from nothing, and it was your mind that created the content of this blog, then that means by your reasoning, you're nothing.
Yours truly
Yet another person with 40 more IQ than you (my IQ is 130, so don't take it too hard).
Dear Susan,
You wrote: "First it was claimed that we evolved from apes, now fish."
Did you know that that we humans are apes and not separate from apes?
Did you also know that humans and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) belong to many of the same taxonomic clades as humans including eukaryota, metazoa, eumetazoa, bilateria, coelomata, deuterostomia, chordata, craniata, vertebrata, gnathostomata, teleostomi, and euteleostomi which strongly indicates common lineage through not only phenotypes but also fossil records? Similarly, genetic comparisons show human and rainbow trout DNA to be mostly identical.
It certainly appears that humans and rainbow trout shared a common ancestor. Not only do I know this, I can tell you what kind of ancestor it was: one of the first bony vertebrates. I can also tell you when we last had a common ancestor: about 400 million years ago. That's a lot of specifics for a theory that, as you put it, "makes no sense and has not ever been proven," eh? By the way, evolution is classified as both a theory and a fact, so it has been proven.
By the way, this is not anything new to evolutionary theory. Darwin himself understood that humans and fish must have had a common ancestor as well.
Iam4Jesus said...
I am quite familiar with the theory of evolution and know that it has absolutely no valid, viable, or warranted explanation for the origin of life
If you were "quite familiar" with the theory of evolution you would know that it does not purport to have an explanation for the origin of life.
- while the "father" of the theory's wrote the book called the Origin of the Species...a book which I am fairly certain many who believe the theory have not yet read.
Have you read it? If you had, you might know that the title of the book is The Origin of Species. Note that the word "The" appears before the word "Origin" not before the word "Species". I know it's a little confusing because "species" is the same plural and singular. In this case it is definitely plural. To which one species did you think Darwin was referring? There is no reason that those who believe in evolution should read Origin except for historical interest. The ToE has moved on and exists independent of Darwin's work. Darwin was certainly a genius, but if he hadn't come up with the idea someone else would have.
Iam4Jesus said...
Rabbitpirate:
I certainly don't take the time to read every post from Ray...(it seems others here have nothing more productive to do with their time)...but if he has said that evolution believes as such, that I stand corrected.
I don't expect you to read all of them, I certainly haven't, and you really don't need to. In fact just reading the last three posts is enough to see the point I am making.
I take it then that you still defend Ray's dishonesty based upon the posts you have read?
I am quite familiar with the theory of evolution and know that it has absolutely no valid, viable, or warranted explanation for the origin of life - while the "father" of the theory's wrote the book called the Origin of the Species...a book which I am fairly certain many who believe the theory have not yet read.
I am not assuming or suggesting that you personally have not - but there are many I personally know who have not....and it's a disgrace to the disciples of the theory. (as well Christians who don't read and truly know the Bible).
Er ok, I'm not really sure what point you are making here. Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life, it deals with the origin of species which is completely different. It is an explaination for the wide variety of life on the planet and not for where the first spark of life came from.
Do you have issues with Germ theory because it doesn't address why objects fall down? Of course not because you know Germ theory doesn't deal with that subject. Evolution does not deal with where the first life came from and as such claiming this as a critism is rather pointless.
Oh and by the way I have read both the Origin of Species and the Bible several times. I know which one I find more convincing. Oh and in no way am I a disciple to the theory just as I am not a disciple to the theory of gravity or any other scientific theory that I accept based upon the evidence.
My point is that while there is very much evidence that does support the theory of evolution - there is equal evidence that completely disproves the theory. When science finds something that doesn't align with the theory - it is ignored. I am sorry, but that is the truth. Evolutionists in essence "want to have their cake and eat it too".
Can you give an example of a peice of verifiable, testable scientific evidence that disproves evolution and which is ignored. You seem like an intelligent chap so can you also explain why your chosen piece of evidence disproves evolution.
HOWEVER, speaking in my defense - in my walk and experience with naturalists - there are many vastly differing views, understandings, and teachings on the subject at hand. Evolution is vague to those who are unversed in its language, teaching, and discipline that unless you are immersed in the theoretical prospectus you can not simply fully grasp the fullness of its whole.
Personally I think evolution is one of the easist scientific theories to understand. Obviously once you get into details it becomes more complex but the basics are something a child could understand.
Perhaps you could give us your understanding of what the theory basically claims, it shouldn't take more than a sentence or two. At least then we would know if we are all on the same page or not.
Thanks again for your response.
Iam4Jesus wrote:
"My point is that while there is very much evidence that does support the theory of evolution - there is equal evidence that completely disproves the theory."
As someone well versed in the theory of evolution, I am very interested in hearing about this evidence that discredits one of science's most developed, studied, and supported theories.
"Demonhawk said...
Ray, You "created" the content of this blog. Now, according to you, To "create" you have to start from nothing, and it was your mind that created the content of this blog, then that means by your reasoning, you're nothing.
Yours truly
Yet another person with 40 more IQ than you (my IQ is 130, so don't take it too hard)."
D...I used words that already existed. Fancy, someone as dumb as me, having to point that out to you.
"Demonhawk said...
Ray, You "created" the content of this blog. Now, according to you, To "create" you have to start from nothing, and it was your mind that created the content of this blog, then that means by your reasoning, you're nothing.
Yours truly
Yet another person with 40 more IQ than you (my IQ is 130, so don't take it too hard)."
D...I used words that already existed. Fancy, someone as dumb as me, having to point that out to you.
D...I used words that already existed.
From whence did these words originate?
susan said:
I'm so tired of hearing evolutionists comparing human beings to animals, as if we are all the same and to claim that we evolved from some type of animal. It is crazy and makes no sense.
Then you should have no problem explaining to me what biologically differentiates human beings from other animals.
Iam4Jesus said:
I am quite familiar with the theory of evolution and know that it has absolutely no valid, viable, or warranted explanation for the origin of life - while the "father" of the theory's wrote the book called the Origin of the Species...a book which I am fairly certain many who believe the theory have not yet read.
One thing I love about many creationists whose comments I read on the internet is how eager they are to admit that they are making stuff up.
When someone starts a comment with "I am quite familiar with the theory of evolution..." and then says something like "it has absolutely no valid, viable, or warranted explanation for the origin of life" or they italicize "theory", etc., then you know immediately that they are actually not familiar with the TOE at all.
It's really rather convenient, and I wish more areas of life were so black and white.
Kaitlyn has left a new comment on the post "Cheating "Creators"":
Dear Susan,
You wrote: "First it was claimed that we evolved from apes, now fish."
Did you know that that we humans are apes and not separate from apes?
Did you also know that humans and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) belong to many of the same taxonomic clades as humans including eukaryota, metazoa, eumetazoa, bilateria, coelomata, deuterostomia, chordata, craniata, vertebrata, gnathostomata, teleostomi, and euteleostomi which strongly indicates common lineage through not only phenotypes but also fossil records? Similarly, genetic comparisons show human and rainbow trout DNA to be mostly identical.
It certainly appears that humans and rainbow trout shared a common ancestor. Not only do I know this, I can tell you what kind of ancestor it was: one of the first bony vertebrates. I can also tell you when we last had a common ancestor: about 400 million years ago. That's a lot of specifics for a theory that, as you put it, "makes no sense and has not ever been proven," eh? By the way, evolution is classified as both a theory and a fact, so it has been proven.
By the way, this is not anything new to evolutionary theory. Darwin himself understood that humans and fish must have had a common ancestor as well.
Kaitlyn,
We and trout do not share a common ancestor, but we do have the same Creator. That explains any similarities in our DNA to fish DNA. If you want to consider yourself to be an ape, go right ahead. Keep drinking the darwinian koolaid if you want, but the truth will be made known to you either when you die or when you face God, your Creator, on judgement day, then it will be too late for you to change your mind. Darwin knows now what a fool he was. Don't let it happen to you.
Seek, inquire for, and require the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. (Isaiah 55:6)
Susan: "We and trout do not share a common ancestor, but we do have the same Creator. That explains any similarities in our DNA to fish DNA."
Since you seem to believe that DNA similarities are not an indication of common descent, would I be correct in guessing that you reject the accuracy of DNA paternity testing?
We and trout do not share a common ancestor, but we do have the same Creator.
What evidence have you for your assertion?
That explains any similarities in our DNA to fish DNA.
It would appear as though you have imposed a post hoc explanation, rather than having derived your claim from physical evidence and known processes. If I am incorrect, please state the specific mechanism or mechanisms by which humans and trout were "created" to show that the creation "event" would be expected to produce organisms with similarities in DNA such as those that are observed. Show also that this "creation" process could not have produced organisms with starkly different DNA, with few or no similarities.
If you want to consider yourself to be an ape, go right ahead.
That humans are apes is a matter of biological definition, not a matter of "belief".
Keep drinking the darwinian koolaid if you want, but the truth will be made known to you either when you die or when you face God, your Creator, on judgement day, then it will be too late for you to change your mind.
Asserting that your position will be substantiated at a later date is not logically equivalent to demonstrating that your position is valid at present.
Darwin knows now what a fool he was. Don't let it happen to you.
Please substantiate your assertion with evidence.
Dear Susan,
You wrote: "If you want to consider yourself to be an ape, go right ahead. Keep drinking the darwinian koolaid."
Were you aware that the fact that we are apes actually has nothing to do with Darwinian evolution and was first discovered by fundamentalist Christian creationist about 100 years before Darwin's Origin of the Species was published? It's true!
Carl Linnaeus in the 1700s was first to develop basic taxonomy and made the startling discovery that humans are just as easily classified among the primates. In particular, he discovered that we share a relationship with apes. The reason for this was unknown at the time and puzzled biologists.
Great apes are scientifically known as hominidae, and every physical description we use to define apes (and there are thousands of them among about 30 clades), applies to humans as well.
We are apes, and this is a fact not an opinion. Like I said, this was known a hundred years before anyone know about Darwinian evolution.
Susan wrote:
"That explains any similarities in our DNA to fish DNA."
Ahh, but that does not explain endogenous retrovirus insertion points shared by humans and trout. The chances of the same endogenous retrovirus inserting itself into the same place in two separate genomes is about 1 in 4 billion. Yet this is what we see over and over again when we compare genomes in accordance with common lineage theories.
Your idea also doesn't explain the why the clades I listed above appear in order within the geological record indicating a progression or lineage as opposed to instant creation.
No, I'm afraid DNA and fossil evidence paints a very different picture than what you are proposing.
Susan:
Kaitlyn,
We and trout do not share a common ancestor, but we do have the same Creator. That explains any similarities in our DNA to fish DNA. If you want to consider yourself to be an ape, go right ahead. Keep drinking the darwinian koolaid if you want, but the truth will be made known to you either when you die or when you face God, your Creator, on judgement day, then it will be too late for you to change your mind. Darwin knows now what a fool he was. Don't let it happen to you.
You know it would save you guys alot of time to just jump straight to the "You'll see that I'm right when you're dead" argument right from the get go.
It's what every Christian here eventually falls back on when it is demonstrated they don't have the first clue what they are talking about when it comes to evolutionary theory.
So just save yourself the trouble.
Susan, you wrote: "We and trout do not share a common ancestor, but we do have the same Creator."
In order to fly, birds have a feathered body and light-weight bone structure. They have enlarged pectoralis muscles which power airfoil wings stabilized by a rear tail.
Bats have a system of flight which from the ground up differ from birds. Bats use their skin as a form of unified glider. They have short limbs and long bony fingers to create the shape of their wing. They are of course not feathered, nor do they have a lightweight bone structure found in birds.
Evolution perfectly explains why the system of flight for bats differs so greatly from birds given that birds evolved from reptiles and bats are mammals. Different lineages, different results.
However, you cannot explain why a "common designer" would fail to reuse any of the systems found in birds with bats.
A common designer cannot explain the differences in flight between birds and bats; evolution can.
Kaitlyn has left a new comment on your post "Parents Beware of the UNCRC":
Susan, please let me know if you have any questions about evolutionary theory. I am somewhat concerned that you reject was is essentially the periodic table of elements for biology.
Almost all of our modern medicine relies on evolution being a fact. While you are certainly free to believe whatever you want, you seem confused as to why about 100% of all biologists of all backgrounds including Christians agree that evolution is well supported.
So if you have any questions, let me know.
Kaitlyn,
I appreciate your concern that I don't understand evolution and chemistry. I actually had chemistry in high school and I took a biology class in college.
I believe that God created all the elements, chemicals, creatures and every other living thing in on our planet and that is why they all work together and some things are similar. I have a biblical world view because I know the Creator on a personal level, so I trust His word when it says that He created everything. Therefore, I don't need to know everything about evolution because I will never change my mind and turn my back on my Creator/Savior. Not only has He given me this physical life, but He as granted me eternal life because I repented of my sins and trust Jesus as my Savior.
The wonderful thing is that you can also know Him and have eternal life. If you are right, in your beliefs then I have nothing to loose. If the Bible is true(my belief) then you have your soul to lose. Please don't take that chance.
Romans 1:16-32
16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile.[g] 17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”[h]
God’s Anger at Sin
18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.[i] 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
susan said:
"I'm so tired of hearing evolutionists comparing human beings to animals, as if we are all the same and to claim that we evolved from some type of animal. It is crazy and makes no sense."
Tsk tsk, Christians can be such chauvinists. Can you look into the eyes of an ape and feel no empathy? You don't think they seem a little like us? Perhaps even more similar to us that they are to dogs?
Antagonist Jason said...
"Then you should have no problem explaining to me what biologically differentiates human beings from other animals."
Obviously we humans have souls, silly! Animals are just moving lumps of biomass that appear to exhibit curiosity, intelligence, and even love, but are here simply for our entertainment and our dinner table, nothing more.
Susan,
I'm going to ignore the fact that after accusing me of drinking the cool-aid, you turned around and admitted your bias when you wrote, "Therefore, I don't need to know everything about evolution because I will never change my mind and turn my back on my Creator/Savior."
That feeling you get when you start the question your beliefs for that brief moment and then you want to stop reading what I write... that's called despair.
Just imagining a world without God and without justice is enough to tear your heart in two. Without your divine purpose what's left but despair? Everything changes and you cannot imagine finding any sort of meaning or purpose in life any more. You don't mourn the death of God, but the death of your soul. Then you realize the ultimate truth of our existence ends in death.
But this is the price you pay for wisdom.
You have two choices ahead of you. You can continue to live in fear of the gates of despair, or you can walk through it.
If you choose to embrace God, then you are trading wisdom for comfort. If you choose the embrace the despair, then you trade comfort for wisdom.
Even if you walk through the gates of despair and turn back, you will have gained wisdom.
The choice is yours now.
"If I am incorrect, please state the specific mechanism or mechanisms by which humans and trout were "created" to show that the creation "event" would be expected to produce organisms with similarities in DNA such as those that are observed. Show also that this "creation" process could not have produced organisms with starkly different DNA, with few or no similarities."
Dimensio, I appreciate your methodical and reasonable request, but it is an absurd one, and this is where many evolutionists trip up. You are asking for empirical evidence for God's creative work, which is impossible because God is by his very being outside of time-space. Many evolutionists think they have 'won' with the challenge, "OK, give me evidence for creation!" They only show their ignorance of the bigger picture.
The rationale for a Creator is so simple even a child can understand it (and, paradoxically, this is despite the immense complexity of the creation).
"For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God." - Heb 3:4
You would be absurd to claim that a building did not have a builder, even if you could never give empirical evidence of the specific builder . Why is it not equally absurd to claim that creation does not have a Creator?
Anyone who denies this does so for motives other than lack of evidence. Jesus himself said that it is because they do evil deeds and do not want them to be exposed by an all-knowing God (John 3).
I was in that camp. Please consider that you are as well.
Therefore, I don't need to know everything about evolution because I will never change my mind and turn my back on my Creator/Savior.
How have you determined that what you believe to be the actions of your "Creator" are not mistaken in any way? Essentially, are you asserting that your knowledge on the subject of the "Creator" is infallible? Additionally, as you acknowledge that you have never studied the theory of evolution, why should anything that you say on the subject be considered credible, given that any claim that you make about the subject will have no foundation in reality? I would suggest that it is intellectually dishonest to make authoritative claims upon a subject that you have never studied to any extent.
Susan said...
"If you are right, in your beliefs then I have nothing to lose."
Some might argue that working your entire life to please someone who isn't there is a horrible waste of a life-- hardly "nothing to lose".
"If the Bible is true (my belief) then you have your soul to lose. Please don't take that chance."
What it must be like to live in such fear... For your own soul and those of the ones you love. It has to be terribly corrosive, thinking of all the people you can't possibly save from a monstrous fate at the hands of the supreme being you worship. Your loving brother or sister chooses atheism, or Buddhism, or any of a thousand -isms, and you tacitly approve of your God's plan to burn his/her soul for ever. Because it's good that He will do this horrible thing, and apparently you be unable to feel anything but love for Him...
Are you sure He gave you free will?
intepid said:
Obviously we humans have souls, silly! Animals are just moving lumps of biomass that appear to exhibit curiosity, intelligence, and even love, but are here simply for our entertainment and our dinner table, nothing more.
*forcefully opens Marky Mark's mouth with hands and shouts, "Is there a soul in there?"*
Susan said:
The wonderful thing is that you can also know Him and have eternal life. If you are right, in your beliefs then I have nothing to loose. If the Bible is true(my belief) then you have your soul to lose. Please don't take that chance.
Do you read any of the other comments? Do you realize how many times in the past week alone this argument has been ripped to shreds?
"Kaitlyn said... But this is the price you pay for wisdom."
Kaitlyn...you know how I care about you and pray for you often, so please don't take this personally. The above statement is wreckless. You have no idea what you are saying, and when you come to know the Lord you will cringe at the thought of ever saying that. None of us knows even a tiny drop in the ocean of wisdom, until we come to know God. Read Proverbs chapter 1 to chapter 4. It speaks of wisdom and how to get it. There is a wisdom of this world (which is utter foolishness with God) and there is a wisdom of God which makes no sense to this foolish world. So please please rethink your beliefs. They are futile, as long as you have your back to the God who gave you life. I hope you have a wonderful day Kaitlyn.
Ray: "So please please rethink your beliefs. They are futile, as long as you have your back to the God who gave you life."
You seem very sincere, Ray. I would like to believe you. I really would. But why should I, when you spent so much of last week on writing smug and sarcastic misrepresentations of the claims and methodology of science, ignoring numerous patient and informative attempts to correct you? And when you have openly admitted that you are more interested in baiting or taunting or provoking me than in having an honest conversation with me (maybe not me personally, but atheists and skeptics in general)? When you dismiss the Christian faith I once held deeply and sincerely as "false conversion" without ever having known me? When you and so many of your followers make bigoted statements about atheists apparently without a second thought? When you dismiss my honest skepticism as stupidity or delusion?
In short, why should I believe you, who has only ever shown me contempt and mockery and arrogant judgment, over people like Kaitlyn and Steven J, who are well-informed, patient and thoughtful? Why should I believe you are right about God when you are stubbornly and happily and demonstrably wrong about so many other things?
If you truly cared about me as you claim to care about atheists, you would attempt to speak to me (or, at least, skeptics in general) rather than provoking us and using us as an attention-grabbing gimmick. As it is, your words, deeds, and attitude have only convinced me that my skepticism of Christianity is well-founded.
Ray wrote:
"The above statement is reckless. You have no idea what you are saying, and when you come to know the Lord you will cringe at the thought of ever saying that."
Maybe you're right. If I find out God is real, I'll surely feel like a dunce.
"None of us knows even a tiny drop in the ocean of wisdom, until we come to know God."
What about all the Eastern philosophers like Confucius? Certainly, if God exists, He would have given us the ability to find wisdom within ourselves, don't you think?
"So please please rethink your beliefs. They are futile, as long as you have your back to the God who gave you life."
I understand how you feel, and I appreciate the fact that you speak up to tell me these things. But this is what atheism means to me.
Atheism doesn't promise happiness. It doesn't promise ever-lasting life, It doesn't promise answers. About the only thing atheism offers when you move from a Christian worldview is death and despair.
The only reason I have to be an atheist is that I value truth over purpose and happiness.
And maybe I'm wrong and God exists, but as an atheist, I'm comfortable with the idea I might be wrong. And that's partially why I feel wisdom can come from traveling through the gates of despair.
But, it's also important to remember that once you pass through the gates of despair, the ordeal is behind you, and you can look forward with a fresh perspective.
Thank you for praying for me. Your love and kindness is always appreciated.
Gabriel said:
You would be absurd to claim that a building did not have a builder, even if you could never give empirical evidence of the specific builder . Why is it not equally absurd to claim that creation does not have a Creator?
Then give us some evidence that the world around us is indeed a "creation". Otherwise, you are just believe what you believe because that's just what you believe, and we should believe it too.
Anyone who denies this does so for motives other than lack of evidence.
Not so. I was once in your camp. Lack of evidence is the reason I no longer am.
Furthermore, you said:
You are asking for empirical evidence for God's creative work, which is impossible...
Then you said:
Anyone who denies this does so for motives other than lack of evidence.
If, as you admit, there is no evidence, why would you assume that lack of evidence is not why we reject creationism? That doesn't make sense.
Chris B said:
As it is, your words, deeds, and attitude have only convinced me that my skepticism of Christianity is well-founded.
I second that. And when I started coming here, I really had a lot of hope for Christianity.
Jason, please pay careful attention to what I said. You are asking for empirical evidence for God, which is impossible. Therefore, you are being unreasonable when you insist on such evidence.
The evidence for God as creator is rational if you are willing to be reasonable. The evidence that everything around you is a creation has been presented over and over in this blog and elsewhere. Creation exhibits design and order and intelligence just like the things that we make using the matter God created. Why is that so difficult for you to see?
Basically, as long as you insist for empirical evidence that cannot be provided, you are tightening your own noose. Don't harden your heart and you will get more than enough evidence. This has been my experience going from a pagan to a believer.
Gabriel said:
Jason, please pay careful attention to what I said. You are asking for empirical evidence for God, which is impossible. Therefore, you are being unreasonable when you insist on such evidence.
My mistake.
The evidence for God as creator is rational if you are willing to be reasonable. The evidence that everything around you is a creation has been presented over and over in this blog and elsewhere.
I have apparently missed it.
Creation exhibits design and order and intelligence just like the things that we make using the matter God created. Why is that so difficult for you to see?
If "creation" really did exhibit these things, that would be empirical evidence for the existence of God.
Actually, what you refer to as "creation" does exhibit important differences from the kinds of things that humans make, not the least of which (at least, in regards to biological life) is the ability to reproduce itself with heritable variations, which actually does explain the apparent complexity of biological life without the need to posit a supernatural creator.
Basically, as long as you insist for empirical evidence that cannot be provided, you are tightening your own noose. Don't harden your heart and you will get more than enough evidence. This has been my experience going from a pagan to a believer.
My heart is not hardened. More than anything, I want God to be real.
Actually, what you refer to as "creation" does exhibit important differences from the kinds of things that humans make, not the least of which (at least, in regards to biological life) is the ability to reproduce itself with heritable variations, which actually does explain the apparent complexity of biological life without the need to posit a supernatural creator.
I work in software development, and one of the neat things you can do is software that makes software. You write up code, run it, and it generates newer code and runs it, and so on. Does that therefore prove that the original code had no developer? Or that the original code could have developed itself from random electrical fluctuations within a computer? Why then is it not reasonable to believe that complex, interdependent life implies a creator?
Empirical evidence is evidence that comes from the scientific method, is it not? I don't think you can come up with such an experiment to prove God's existence. And God was wise enough to arrange things so that you don't have to. He made himself evident throughout his creation, down to the atom and up to the galaxy. Hence, you need a degree in evolutionary biology to mess up something so simple.
The Bible says that the heart is devious and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and that we suppress the truth in unrighteous deeds (Rom 1:18). The testimony of scripture is that sin is what keeps you from acknowledging God, not a lack of evidence. No God means I get to decide what is right and what is wrong (and yes, that may mean that by human standards you might be a pretty good guy). But by God's standard of the ten commandments, you fall short like I do.
So what sins are so pleasant that they would keep you from submitting to the God that you apparently want to be real? Lying, stealing, lusting after men/women, coveting the latest material things? I can tell you that they're not worth an eternity in hell.
Gabriel said:
I work in software development, and one of the neat things you can do is software that makes software. You write up code, run it, and it generates newer code and runs it, and so on. Does that therefore prove that the original code had no developer? Or that the original code could have developed itself from random electrical fluctuations within a computer? Why then is it not reasonable to believe that complex, interdependent life implies a creator?
I'll give you that. How do I know that it's the Christian God? How can I know that He cares about me today?
Also, even if God or a god poofed the first life into existence, that doesn't negate the evidence for evolution and the history of life on this planet.
Empirical evidence is evidence that comes from the scientific method, is it not?
AFAIK, it's evidence derived from observation. That includes, but is not necessarily limited to, evidence arrived at via the scientific method. I may be wrong on that.
I don't think you can come up with such an experiment to prove God's existence.
I don't think so either.
And God was wise enough to arrange things so that you don't have to. He made himself evident throughout his creation, down to the atom and up to the galaxy. Hence, you need a degree in evolutionary biology to mess up something so simple.
If God has made Himself evident in biological life, He is a sneaky, deceptive God who values His privacy. In which case I have no interest.
The Bible says that the heart is devious and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and that we suppress the truth in unrighteous deeds (Rom 1:18). The testimony of scripture is that sin is what keeps you from acknowledging God, not a lack of evidence. No God means I get to decide what is right and what is wrong (and yes, that may mean that by human standards you might be a pretty good guy). But by God's standard of the ten commandments, you fall short like I do.
So what sins are so pleasant that they would keep you from submitting to the God that you apparently want to be real? Lying, stealing, lusting after men/women, coveting the latest material things? I can tell you that they're not worth an eternity in hell.
None. And if you refuse to believe me, the conversation's over. It's simply not worth my time.
Gabriel: "Jason, please pay careful attention to what I said. You are asking for empirical evidence for God, which is impossible. Therefore, you are being unreasonable when you insist on such evidence."
Requesting empirical evidence in support of an extraordinary claim is not unreasonable.
Expecting someone to accept an extraordinary claim as true in the absence of empirical evidence IS unreasonable.
Declaring anyone who does not believe you to be "unreasonable" does not make your claim more plausible or believable.
Dimensio, I appreciate your methodical and reasonable request, but it is an absurd one, and this is where many evolutionists trip up. You are asking for empirical evidence for God's creative work, which is impossible because God is by his very being outside of time-space.
What rational justification, then, exists for the assertion that common patterns in DNA across species that were already established as related through common descent (in a fashion consistent with the genetic patterns) are actually the result of "common design"? If it cannot be explained why such "design" is expected to produce such an outcome -- including an explanation of why an entirely different observation, of stark genetic differences, are not expected -- then the assertion that such patterns are "evidence" of a common designer is without merit; the claim is a post hoc explanation, and not a fulfilled prediction that constitutes actual evidence.
Many evolutionists think they have 'won' with the challenge, "OK, give me evidence for creation!" They only show their ignorance of the bigger picture.
I have asserted no victory. I have merely requested a justification of a previous claim.
The rationale for a Creator is so simple even a child can understand it (and, paradoxically, this is despite the immense complexity of the creation). "For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God." - Heb 3:4 You would be absurd to claim that a building did not have a builder, even if you could never give empirical evidence of the specific builder . Why is it not equally absurd to claim that creation does not have a Creator?
Your assertion implies the existence of a "creation". I will concede that a given "creation" requires, by definition, a "creator". The fundamental flaw in your reasoning -- as I have explained upon numerous occasions, as Mr. Comfort employs the same argument in spite of the explanation of its fatal flaw, without making any attempt to demonstrate that the assertion of the flaw is invalid or inapplicable -- is that you are assuming, I presume (please correct my error if I am making an incorrect assumption regarding your position) that life, the planet, and perhaps even the universe entirely is a "creation", meaning that it was constructed with deliberate intent which would then necessarily imply an entity responsible for this intent and construction. This assumption is a flaw because it essentially relies upon the truth of your conclusion -- that a "Creator" is extant -- in order to be valid, which means that your argument is circular. If the universe was not constructed with deliberate intent, then it is not a "creation" and thus no "Creator" is necessary. You are relying upon the assumed truth of your conclusion as an implied premise in an argument for its validity.
It should also be noted that analogizing the construction of a building with the formation of life, planets and stars is problematic, and the analogizing such construction with the origin of the universe. The construction of a building by human builders is a demonstrable, repeatable process. The event can be directly observed, documented, and replicated reliably. Additionally,processes devoid of human intervention neither are known to produce buildings nor have been hypothesized to be capable of producing buildings as a logical consequence of their occurrence, thus it is reasonable to conclude that the observation of a building is the result of the only definable processes known to produces buildings. By contrast, no one has directly observed any construction of life, planets or stars by any human "builder" of such objects, or even by a non-human "builder". This means that their formation must be inferred, rather than directly demonstrated, but thus far there exists no reason to infer deliberate planning or "construction" of such entities; indeed, no construction "method" has ever even been defined, and without such a definition it is impossible to claim that such intent and construction is evident.
Analogizing the existence of the universe -- by which I mean the emergence of the universe (all that exists) where previously nothing, not even space, existed -- to the construction of a building is even more problematic because a building is created from pre-existing materials that are re-arranged in various fashions, while few, if any, who suggest that the universe itself is "designed" was itself built from pre-existing materials. Assigning similar "design" to the fundamental properties of the universe fails in the analogy also, because inherent properties of matter and energy are themselves different than the actual matter and energy; human builders may reshape materials to construct a building, but they do not alter the way by which physics and chemistry affects those materials.
Anyone who denies this does so for motives other than lack of evidence.
As I have noted; I do not "deny" that "creation implies a creator". Such a statement is a tautology, and thus true by definition. The fundamental flaw in the reasoning is that it employs a premise that relies upon the truth of the conclusion.
Jesus himself said that it is because they do evil deeds and do not want them to be exposed by an all-knowing God (John 3).
This is an assertion, not evidence.
I just wanted to let you all know, that I did respond to your last comments and questions (specifically asking for evidence that does not support evolution)...
It included a brief history of the theory showing that it wasn't even Charles' concept...as most are taught today. Charles Darwin only derived the method for evolution "natural selection"....the concept of evolution (common ancestry) has been around much longer (even back to ancient Greek times, perhaps longer)
I also talked about Mendelian Inheritance (hereditary laws) that disprove the aspect of evolution that suggests that animals acquire characteristics through increased use or disuse.
There was quite a bit more that I mentioned...
I wasn't going to post anymore comments on this thread - simply because I hadn't the time...but since I was directly asked some reasonable and cordial questions, I thought to respond.
However - my commentary has not been posted here for some reason.
Perhaps, I didn't meet the established standards for comment posting.
My intent was not to "prove" evolution wrong. Rather, to show that the practice of science does not prove completely the idea of evolution. And certainly the ideals of evolution do not in any way resolve the question of where life originated.
It is all speculative.
@Gabriel said:
"The evidence for God as creator is rational if you are willing to be reasonable."
Reasonable, reasonable. Who's got reasonable now? Lookit, when you talk about resonable and not reasonable, you got to take into account that everything is reasonable to SOMEONE, but no one is going to be reasonable about everylittlething. So, when you say it's not reasonable, someone gonna tell you that you need to think about reason - and that's where you use your mind. See, if your mind don't talk to your soul, then how is your heart going to talk with your brain? You can't do one, and not do one. So, if you gonna say you can't look at God and see God because God is showing Himself like I would, then you can't also say that God is showing Himself when you look because He IS. Why you gonna claim 'reasonable' if you gonna say He is cuz He ain't? Where's that?
@Intepid said:
"It's perfectly reasonable to assume that something doesn't exist when there is no tangible evidence to suggest otherwise."
More Reasonable! well, well. I can't make not reason why something doesn't exist when it isn't showing that it is. Could be my eyes don't know how to tell my brain to see things straight, or, more like, could be that whatever might not be but is is hiding on account of not wanting to be seen as what is. So, when you think about it, why can't you have the thing that is and not is be the same thing? Unreasonable would be to think that you might only see what is, and what isn't wouldn't even be there. It COULD be there, if you think about it. But if you think about it, it's not even true. You have to put your mind to it.
@Gabriel said:
"Dimensio, I appreciate your methodical and reasonable request, but it is an absurd one, and this is where many evolutionists trip up. You are asking for empirical evidence for God's creative work, which is impossible because God is by his very being outside of time-space. Many evolutionists think they have 'won' with the challenge, "OK, give me evidence for creation!" They only show their ignorance of the bigger picture."
Now, I know you think you thinkin and that's what you know, but I KNOW that @Dimensio is the more reasonable of the people I have ever met, and we are friends. He ain't never been abusrd sept to tell others about when they are absurd. You can't tell him where to drink, he's figgured that out. You can't tell him where he sleeps - he already knows. So he knows what's what - like any reasonable man. Or a lady, I don't know.
But you get back on your is is ain't thing, and it don't seem like an Idea that anyone can understand - no matter how much 'reaonsable' you claim up. So take it in: You can't (I mean anyone, here) say that what is ain't unless you look and then it IS because it IS when you look. That's like saying I ain't eating lunch when I eat unless it's lunch time and I'm eating dinner.
Everyone says reasonable, reasonable, reasonable. Now I know that it's only my name, and the name I was given, but you don't even check with the man with the name. Now, you might say I'm crazy, but I know my own name, and I know what it means. High time everyone knew the same in thier hearts, minds, dreams, AND ideas. Lemme lay it out:
You say you know one way and that the way is every way, and you don't have any legs under you.
Iam4Jesus said:
It included a brief history of the theory showing that it wasn't even Charles' concept...as most are taught today. Charles Darwin only derived the method for evolution "natural selection"....the concept of evolution (common ancestry) has been around much longer (even back to ancient Greek times, perhaps longer)
You say this as though it's something to be ashamed of. It's common knowledge. The fact that life changed throughout the history of Earth was known before Darwin was born. Charles Darwin came up with the theory of evolution. Do you know what the word "theory" means in the context of science?
Furthermore, it is also common knowledge that Alfred Russell Wallace independently came up with the theory of evolution at almost the same time as Darwin. Wallace's ideas are what prompted Darwin to publish when he did, in fact.
Did you think that the TOE depended upon the works of Charles Darwin? If so, you thought incorrectly.
I also talked about Mendelian Inheritance (hereditary laws) that disprove the aspect of evolution that suggests that animals acquire characteristics through increased use or disuse.
The modern theory of evolution does not actually claim this. There is no "aspect of evolution that suggests that animals acquire characteristics through increased use or disuse." This idea, called Lamarkiansim (sp) was discarded a very long time ago. You are arguing a strawman.
There was quite a bit more that I mentioned...
Hopefully it was not as factually inaccurate as what you saw fit to bring up in this post.
I wasn't going to post anymore comments on this thread - simply because I hadn't the time...but since I was directly asked some reasonable and cordial questions, I thought to respond.
However - my commentary has not been posted here for some reason.
Yeah, that happens to a lot of people. No one knows why, and Ray doesn't seem to respond to any questions about this. I don't know if it's a software issue or if someone is simply not approving the comments, or some combination.
Perhaps, I didn't meet the established standards for comment posting.
My intent was not to "prove" evolution wrong. Rather, to show that the practice of science does not prove completely the idea of evolution.
I know of no skeptical person or scientist who would disagree with this statement.
And certainly the ideals of evolution do not in any way resolve the question of where life originated.
I am not sure what you mean by "ideals of evolution". A typo, perhaps? Otherwise, again, I know of no skeptic or scientist who would disagree with this statement.
It is all speculative.
In light of the large body of evidence in favor of the fact and theory of the TOE, I do know of many skeptics and scientists who would take issue with this statement.
My friend, you seem to be an intelligent person, but you seem to have some misconceptions about the basic claims of the theory of evolution. I recommend reading some books about it by actual, noncreationist scientists. The Blind Watchmaker is a good start.
Dimensio, that's quite a mouthful. But that whole thing about positing that there is such a thing as "creation" is really simple. You haven't exposed any fatal flaw. The universe had a beginning. There was a time when the universe was not. Why is it a fallacy to conclude that it was therefore created? Do you honestly expect to get empirical evidence or a reproducible experiment for creation or design? Like I said, you are being unreasonable. The burden of proof is on you to reasonably show that the universe and life was not created or that it created itself (which is a contradiction). What you believe is more absurd, and yet you insist on it.
See, I'm looking at the big picture, not just the little mutations that evolutionists focus on (I'm using hyperbole here before you pounce on it :). In the big picture, creation and intelligent design are the only logical explanation for this incredible universe in which we live. Without it, I'm forced to believe that nothing plus random coin tosses plus random environmental factors led to what is around us today.
I agree that the analogy is flawed. Analogies always convey some crucial point(s) with the risk of not representing other things accurately. So lets stick with the points made. The thing itself, with its intelligent design, is sufficient proof of a designer. What is so difficult about this to accept?
thus far there exists no reason to infer deliberate planning or "construction" of such entities...
That's crazy. I work in software because I never liked hardware. I can't give you the processes that went into making the chips running this computer. Is it therefore logical for me to conclude that this computer was not designed? Does that mean that the default explanation is that it came about due to chance events in a computer plant? Or isn't it more rational that the default explanation is that someone designed it, though I may not understand how? Once again, please stick to the point of the analogy.
If you want to insist on this kind of evidence, go ahead. I can only refer you to Job 40 and following when God begins to answer Job's questions with questions of his own. You need to humble yourself and realize that you can't get all your answers in a repeatable, documented experiment. That's just crazy. I used to be in this camp, and now I realize the foolishness of it.
And I bring up Jesus' words because he has the authority to say what he said. No one exposes the human heart like he does. You can try to hide behind the scientific method all you want, but ultimately you have to deal with the moral as well as the intellectual issues, and the looming issue that if there is a God, you are accountable to him. This is not appealing to an unbeliever.
The greatest sin is not believing in God despite his handiwork all around you and the conscience he's given you. Doesn't matter how good a citizen you might be.
Kap'n Kaitlyn said, "What about all the Eastern philosophers like Confucius? Certainly, if God exists, He would have given us the ability to find wisdom within ourselves, don't you think?"
I'm going to write a song called "Hop On My Gnostic Bus", and that's going to be the chorus. Or the bridge. Deal?
I mean, Help me out guys?
It's a Trap,
AA
PS. Hop on my Gnostic Bus! Who are you gonna trus(t)? If God is in you, what'll ya do? Hop on my Gnostic Bu-uh-uh-us!
PPS. Charles reasonable, everyone. What a nutjob. I wish he'd post more often.
Gabriel said:
and the looming issue that if there is a God, you are accountable to him.
So then, Gabriel, why aren't you a muslim yet? Why aren't you following the pillars of Islam?
I mean, like you said, if there is an Allah, you are accountable to him.
Right?
Excellent question, Nohm. The answer is simple: only Christ is qualified to save me from my sins. Islam offers no hope for salvation because it has no savior, only a prophet and a list of rules to keep (to exaggerate a bit for effect).
The solid testimony about Jesus is that he was the sinless God-man (the main proof of which is in his resurrection). Those with him when he was on earth, even his enemies, couldn't find a spot on him. And he performed miracles that even his enemies couldn't deny. Read the gospels and see for yourself.
There is much more to say on this, but it all sums up in Jesus. He said that he is the only way to God (John 14:6), and he backed up his claims.
Gabriel said,
Islam offers no hope for salvation because it has no savior
Gabriel, are you aware that the concept of "salvation" does not exist in Islam? That all you need to do is ask forgiveness for Allah?
And you're technically incorrect when you say "it has no savior". In Islam, *Allah* is fundamentally the savior.
In Islam, if you commit a sin, you repent directly to Allah and ask forgiveness. Islam does not contain the concept of "original sin". You might find it interesting to research this in more depth.
(For the record, no, I am not a muslim)
Gabriel, you asked me to read the gospels, which I have read, many times.
I'm going ask you to do some research of your own in any of the non-christian subjects you mentioned in your last two posts, since you seem to not have full understanding of some of the subjects (with all due respect).
For example, the ID folks have moved away from the "Intelligent Design" language and now the movement is promoting the "critically examine the strengths and weaknesses" language.
You seem to know your own religion and your Bible pretty well, but you also seem to not be up-to-date on the issues you mentioned which are outside of your religion and Bible.
I appreciate your concern, Nohm. I think my understanding of Islam is not inaccurate. I know that Islam claims that Allah is savior. But that is precisely why I said that Islam offers no hope for salvation. There is no guarantee that Allah will forgive you because you are required to uphold the pillars of Islam. If you don't do this as well as you should, it's a coin toss if you'll be saved. The 10 commandments are enough to leave everyone guilty, and if they weren't enough, Islam adds even more commandments to keep. I've read testimonies of ex-Muslims that often feel crushed under the burden of law-keeping.
A Christian can look back at Christ crucified and risen and know that his sins were completely atoned for. This is real, objective forgiveness, and it is a gift for all who believe.
Regardless of whether Islam believes in original sin, what do you do with the guilt of your personal sins? God (and also Allah, who is similar to the Lord in the Bible, and Muslims uphold at least the 10 commandments) cannot so easily overlook them. When God revealed himself to Moses, he said of himself that He will "by no means leave the guilty unpunished" (Exo 34:7). But the lamb of God came to take away sins (John 1:29). That's a massive difference from Islam. It's an eternal difference.
You can say all you want that the concept of "salvation" does not exist, but that's like trying to put out the sun with your thumb. God in his justice is a consuming fire and will judge everyone according to the commandments and will judge fairly. No amount of works can atone for your sins. Muslims need a sacrifice as much as everyone.
And regarding the current ID trends, you're probably right, I'm not in the loop. But I'm still looking at the big issue. I have asked atheists to explain how they can believe the absurdity of evolution over the rationale of a Creator and no one responds to this.
Thanks for your comments.
Hi Ray:
I think you're doing a great job, brother. I believe completely that God created all that exists out of nothing. How He did it, I have no idea, but if He used "something" then He would have had to create the "something" out of "nothing" so we're right back to it. He created the universe from nothing. He spoke it into existence and it's still here.
Blessed be the Lord God forever and ever and glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ!
stranger in the family... babbled:
Hi Ray:
I think you're doing a great job, brother. I believe completely that God created all that exists out of nothing. How He did it, I have no idea, but if He used "something" then He would have had to create the "something" out of "nothing" so we're right back to it. He created the universe from nothing. He spoke it into existence and it's still here.
Blessed be the Lord God forever and ever and glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ!
But what created God? Do you believe that a God creator created God out of nothing, or did a God creator use "something" to create God?
Post a Comment