The best evidence for Creationism

[Davian]

God allows the consequences of sin to appear because there is an overall plan involving lessons to learn.

You said "The fetus was knit together by God. We are his most precious creation, far beyond anything else we see" and now you say that God allows these babies that that he knits together himself to be defective, die in the womb, or at childbirth (sometimes with the mother). Tell me, what lessons are to be learned by these babies by this process?

Jesus didn't think so.

Jesus probably would not have edited my post to alter its intent.

You can look at him and see good -- wouldn't you want to be good, full of the spirit of life with joy, peace and hope or are you content with life and who you are now?

When asked how my life is at this time, my response is, life is sweet. I have the love of a good woman, three healthy kids (honor role students!), a well-paying job, and little debt. I wished my dad - my best friend - a happy birthday today (76) when he stopped by while out and about on his new motorcycle. Life is good.

I live life as if karma exists, knowing that it doesn't.

If you are content, then what are you seeking?

Understanding.

Life to you is as you understand it and so no need for me to go on beating a dead horse ... unless there's a dead horse forum.

May I suggest Christian Apologetics as an alternative?

 

[SavedByChrist94]

I agree - so why is it repeatedly condoned, commanded, and even caused by God (Judges 5:30; Judges 21:10-24; Numbers 31:7-18; Deuteronomy 20:10-14; Deuteronomy 21:10-14; Deuteronomy 22:28-29; Deuteronomy 22:23-24; 2 Samuel 12:11-14; Exodus 21:7-11; Zechariah 14:1-2)?

All those verses taken out of context. rape isn't condoned at all, actually condemned.

Deuteronomy 22:25:

25, But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

1) You've yet to show any example of intelligent design.

Our bodies being irreducibly complex, ATP, DNA, The eye, the ear.

which brings me back to my point, Intelligence doesn't come from nothing, intelligence comes from something more Intelligent. The earth and us humans are made with Intelligent design that shows us it has an Intelligent designer.

2) You've yet to prove that intelligence can only come from intelligence.

Mistake where I wrote "intelligence comes from something more intelligent", that would make no sense. meant to say, an intelligent creation cannot be created from less or no intelligence. intelligent design only comes from an intelligent designer. a clock would be a good example. a clock is irreducibly complex, and has intelligent design, thus it needs an intelligent designer. we are of course far more complex than a clock. we are intelligently designed, thus we have an intelligent designer.

So you keep saying, but even your own source only makes it improbable, not impossible. If you keep saying it's mathematically, logically impossible, then prove it.

Extremely Improbable, in other words, extremely unlikely, in other words didn't happen. "macro-evolution" didn't happen, the "evolution" theory is impossible.

from cogwriter.com: A Series of Impossibilities Should Lead One to Realize the Existence of God

But what if we allow the impossibility of spontaneous primitive life to have occurred? The primitive life would have to die. Part of the reason for this is that even a single-cell is so complex, and so full of various biological subsystems, that scientists have learned that many systems are essentially necessary for life to exist or continue. Science recognizes that living organisms must be self-contained, eat, digest, and reproduce to continue to exist.

Spontaneously alive lined-up amino acids/proteins (with other substances coincidentally there) would die because:

1) All living organisms need biological structures such as organelles and membranes. Without a membranous structure, the proteins would ultimately diffuse and destroy the living organism. Living organism must be somewhat self-contained.
2) All living organisms need nourishment and direction. Since randomness would not have created the biological structure known as a DNA-containing nucleus (or some primitive equivalent), the cell would die. Even if it had some type of nucleus to provide direction, the nucleus would have to have come into existence with ability to determine what to eat and how to find food, another impossibility.
3) Proteins cannot survive without DNA and DNA cannot exist without proteins, hence there is no way both happened at the same time.
4) Even if the cell had all the above with simultaneous protein and DNA, it would die, because there would have been no reason for it to have spontaneously generated a digestive system in order to utilize the food.
5) Even if evolutionists are granted all the improbabilities and impossibilities this article discusses, the primitive life would quickly die out as there would have been no reason for it to have spontaneously generated an ability to reproduce, nor would it have any innate ability to do so.

It is in the Bible that we are told that when God made life He intended it to reproduce (Genesis 1:11,28,29). The idea of an intelligent design by a Spirit being is the only explanation that does not defy scientifically provable knowledge--for all other explanations result in something that must die out.

Proteins cannot of themselves reproduce--they need DNA. "DNA cannot exist without proteins, and proteins cannot exist without DNA"

Dr. Tipler developed the 'final anthropic principle', something very different to the more general anthropic principle, which states that "wherever we are, we have to be in a place conducive for human life - if it's not, we wouldn't be here". The rest of the paragraph is a melee of Creationist PRATTS (Points Refuted A Thousand Times)

"[M]any claiming or assuming that macro-evolution is simply a result of large quantities of micro-evolution, but this has been shown to be impossible under every kind of testing" Wrong!

"Although micro-evolution (small changes within a species or “kind”) has been observed and does occur in nature, it always results in a loss or lateral drift in information. It never results in an increase in information" Wrong!

From creation.com on lenski experiment:

So what happened? It is not yet clear from the published information, but a likely scenario is that mutations jammed the regulation of this operon so that the bacteria produce citrate transporter regardless of the oxidative state of the bacterium’s environment (that is, it is permanently switched on). This can be likened to having a light that switches on when the sun goes down—a sensor detects the lack of light and turns the light on. A fault in the sensor could result in the light being on all the time. That is the sort of change we are talking about.

Another possibility is that an existing transporter gene, such as the one that normally takes up tartrate,3 which does not normally transport citrate, mutated such that it lost specificity and could then transport citrate into the cell. Such a loss of specificity is also an expected outcome of random mutations. A loss of specificity equals a loss of information, but evolution is supposed to account for the creation of new information; information that specifies the enzymes and cofactors in new biochemical pathways, how to make feathers and bone, nerves, or the components and assembly of complex motors such as ATP synthase, for example.

However, mutations are good at destroying things, not creating them. Sometimes destroying things can be helpful (adaptive),7 but that does not account for the creation of the staggering amount of information in the DNA of all living things. Behe (in The Edge of Evolution) likened the role of mutations in antibiotic resistance and pathogen resistance, for example, to trench warfare, whereby mutations destroy some of the functionality of the target or host to overcome susceptibility. It’s like putting chewing gum in a mechanical watch; it’s not the way the watch could have been created.

Behe is quite right; there is nothing here that is beyond ‘the edge of evolution’, which means it has no relevance to the origin of enzymes and catalytic pathways that evolution is supposed to explain.

I disagree. As I said (did you even read my post?) the core concept that Creationists routinely forget is that of natural selection - evolution is not random, as there is a selection process driving it in a non-random direction.

from antidarwinism.com:

The deer example is true for all species. In any population, natural selection only eliminates those weak, or unsuited individuals who are unable to adapt to the natural conditions in their habitat. It does not produce new species, new genetic information, or new organs. That is, it cannot cause anything to evolve. Darwin, too, accepted this fact, stating that "Natural selection can do nothing until favourable individual differences or variations occur."7 That is why neo-Darwinism had to add the mutation mechanism as a factor altering genetic information to the concept of natural selection.

Why Natural Selection Can't Expain Complexity

As we showed at the beginning, the greatest problem for the theory of evolution by natural selection, is that it cannot enable new organs or traits to emerge in living things. Natural selection cannot develop a species' genetic data; therefore, it cannot be used to account for the emergence of new species. The greatest defender of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, Stephen Jay Gould, refer to this impasse of natural selection as follows;

The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural selection is the creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies that selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit. Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well.

Another of the misleading methods that evolutionists employ on the issue of natural selection is their effort to present this mechanism as an intelligent designer. However, natural selection has no intelligence. It does not possess a will that can decide what is good and what is bad for living things. As a result, natural selection cannot explain biological systems and organs that possess the feature of irreducible complexity. These systems and organs are composed of a great number of parts cooperating together, and are of no use if even one of these parts is missing or defective. (For example, the human eye does not function unless it exists with all its components intact).

Therefore, the will that brings all these parts together should be able to foresee the future and aim directly at the advantage that is to be acquired at the final stage. Since natural selection has no consciousness or will, it can do no such thing. This fact, which demolishes the foundations of the theory of evolution, also worried Darwin, who wrote: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

 

[SavedByChrist94]

Bingo: your conscience tells you to do it. You evolved a set of instincts that guide your behaviour, and to you this manifests as a nebulous sense of 'this is right' and 'this is wrong', tempered or exaggerated by culture. City-dwelling and globalisation has taken these evolutionarily useful instincts and put them in a situation where, strictly speaking, they no longer provide a genetic advantage, but they exist nonetheless.

Allegedly. You keep saying, "It's just wrong", as if that's proof of anything. It's not. If anything, you're proving my point, that this nebulous feeling of 'right' and 'wrong' is rooted in biology, not rationality.

Morality is a series of instincts and cultural mores that evolved and developed for real reasons. You may not like a world without God, but that doesn't prove he exists. It may upset you for morality to be subjective, but that doesn't mean it isn't. "I don't like it, therefore it's not true", is a fallacious argument, my friend.

Altruism contradicts "survival of the fittest", it doesn't benefit oneself, it is selfless.

Morality is an ought to and ought not. not an opinion. it isn't subjection. why ought we not rape? evolution can't explain that. God can.

Morals without God make no sense at all, in a naturalist sense, there would be absolutely no reason to seek justice, to seek love, right and wrong etc. it does nothing for our survival. you say we evolved that way, the reason you are giving is making no sense. rape is wrong not because it "breaks parent bonds", that isn't the reason. if it was it would still in some way be.

"evolution" would encourage rape, "breaking parent bonds" wouldn't stop it from happening because the "evolutionary" view is "survival and passing of the genes". we ought not to rape because it is perverse. why is it perverse? it's assault, it's traumatizing, it's being held against your own will. it's taking something sacred and perverting it into something that is against ones own consent, dignity, and body. that is why rape is wrong.



a good question would be, why is sex sacred? in an "evolutionary" view, there would be no reason why sex is sacred. promiscuity wouldn't be frowned upon but encouraged if "evolution" happened because there would be more passing of the genes. but promiscuity is wrong. why would being with only one person for the rest of your life help in "evolution", "evolution" cannot explain why being promiscuous.

God can explain why we ought not to be with more than 1 spouse, because he commands it.

you never explained how morals are exaggerated by culture. it would be impossible to exaggerate them. leads us to authority. no one could have exaggerated morals, because no one under the universal law of morality has the authority, only the universal law giver, which has authority above all humans can tell us what we ought and ought not to do.

Saying morals "evolved" isn't explaining why things are right and wrong.

right and wrong are from rationality. I could want to go clubbing, but I ought to spend time with my family. it isn't if I want to or not, but ought to.

why is it morally wrong? because it is obligated that it is wrong. something that is obligated won't be followed unless commanded, thus the commander of morality needs authority. since doing right and not wrong is obligated, and we all live by that obligation, and morality is universal law, then there is an authority over all of us, the commander has the authority and is the universal law giver and is above all humans, the commander in authority is God.

Conscience is not instinct.

from Peter Keeft :

The second possibility means that we trace conscience to a biological instinct. "We must love one another or die", writes the poet W. H. Auden. We unconsciously know this, says the believer in this second possibility, just as animals unconsciously know that unless they behave in certain ways the species will not survive. That's why animal mothers sacrifice for their children, and that's a sufficient explanation for human altruism too. It's the herd instinct.
The problem with that explanation is that it, like the first, does not account for the absoluteness of conscience's authority. We believe we ought to disobey an instinct—any instinct—on some occasions. But we do not believe we ought ever to disobey our conscience. You should usually obey instincts like mother love, but not if it means keeping your son back from risking his life to save his country in a just and necessary defensive war, or if it means injustice and lack of charity to other mothers' sons. There is no instinct that should always be obeyed. The instincts are like the keys on a piano (the illustration comes from C. S. Lewis); the moral law is like sheet music. Different notes are right at different times.
Furthermore, instinct fails to account not only for what we ought to do but also for what we do do. We don't always follow instinct. Sometimes we follow the weaker instinct, as when we go to the aid of a victim even though we fear for our own safety. The herd instinct here is weaker than the instinct for self-preservation, but our conscience, like sheet music, tells us to play the weak note here rather than the strong one.
Honest introspection will reveal to anyone that conscience is not an instinct. When the alarm wakes you up early and you realize that you promised to help your friend this morning, your instincts pull you back to bed, but something quite different from your instincts tells you you should get out. Even if you feel two instincts pulling you (e.g., you are both hungry and tired), the conflict between those two instincts is quite different, and can be felt and known to be quite different, from the conflict between conscience and either or both of the instincts. Quite simply, conscience tells you that you ought to do or not do something, while instincts simply drive you to do or not do something. Instincts make something attractive or repulsive to your appetites, but conscience makes something obligatory to your choice, no matter how your appetites feel about it. Most people will admit this piece of obvious introspective data if they are honest. If they try to wriggle out of the argument at this point, leave them alone with the question, and if they are honest, they will confront the data when they are alone.

Causality: Causality is an empirical observation that doesn't hold true in all scenarios - quantum mechanics is replete with uncaused events, like radioactive decay. There's no evidence that the universe had a beginning, let alone that that beginning must have had a cause.

Hilbert's Hotel: Err, relevance?

The universe isn't infinite: There is no evidence whether it is or it isn't, in any capacity - temporally infinite, specially infinite, energetically infinite, etc.

So you allege, but you haven't explained why this must be the case. It is absolutely possible that the universe spontaneously sprang into existence, uncaused.

McCabe's understanding of infinity is naive. Simply put, an infinity can be traverse, itemised, counted, and spanned. You need either a finite number of infinitely large steps, or an infinity of finite steps - an eternity fits the latter. Moreover, the "we could never get to the present" argument fails at the first hurdle, as it fundamentally works under the auspices of a universe with a 'first moment' - that is, the argument only works if you try to treat the eternal universe as if it were a finite one, which by definition it's not.

First, there's no reason that that cause has to be eternal - who's to say it still exists?

Second, who's to say that this cause must be something intelligent? Two m-branes in hyperdimensional space collide, and the two subsequent 4D ripples along their 'surface' are, from our perspective, the universe. The Big Bang is the expansion of these ripples, the cause of the universe was simply the collision of these two m-branes. This real, hyperdimensional space could well be eternal and uncaused, and isn't an intelligent deity.

That is a perfectly valid scenario, disrupting your 'proof' that it must be God.

Infinite regression is impossible. if there were an infinite amount of past events, we would never get to the present. there cannot be an infinite amount of past causes. since infinite regression is impossible, there has to be a beginning. since there is a beginning, the cause of the beginning must be uncaused, otherwise it would have a cause as well and we'd just keep going until we got to that first uncaused cause. since the cause is, uncaused the uncaused cause is eternal. so since the first uncaused cause is eternal, the first uncaused cause has always and will always exist, the first uncaused cause is not bound by time.

since there is a first uncaused cause, it is God. the first uncaused cause is the creator of everything. it cannot be nothing, it has to be the greatest. since the uncaused cause, caused everything, the first uncaused cause must be which no greater can be conceived. the lesser cannot produce the greater.

Add all the evidence up, Intelligent design, Irreducible Complexity, Fine Tuning, Morality, The Bible, The Prophecies, Jesus Christ Death and Resurrection, it just all adds up. It isn't a coincidence, God exist.

You cannot be an "atheist", and if you say you are then that is a lie because there is no such thing as "atheism". in the words of ShockAweNow, "atheism" is a clown and it did not know it.

Romans 1:20, For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

God Bless!

 

[USincognito]

Extremely Improbable, in other words, extremely unlikely, in other words didn't happen. "macro-evolution" didn't happen, the "evolution" theory is impossible.

Why would you claim that evolution is impossible and then link to a blog or whatever that then talks about nothing but abiogenesis?

from cogwriter.com: A Series of Impossibilities Should Lead One to Realize the Existence of God

{snip}
2) All living organisms need nourishment and direction. Since randomness would not have created the biological structure known as a DNA-containing nucleus (or some primitive equivalent), the cell would die. Even if it had some type of nucleus to provide direction, the nucleus would have to have come into existence with ability to determine what to eat and how to find food, another impossibility.

Archaea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Archaea (/ɑrˈkiːə/ ( listen) or /ɑrˈkeɪːə/ ar-KEE-ə or ar-KAY-&#601 are a group of single-celled microorganisms. A single individual or species from this domain is called an archaeon (sometimes spelled "archeon"). They have no cell nucleus or any other membrane-bound organelles within their cells.​

bold mine

 

[USincognito]

Altruism contradicts "survival of the fittest", it doesn't benefit oneself, it is selfless.

Survival of the fittest doesn't mean what you think it does. It's also an archaic 19th Century concept (much like "missing link") coined by Herbert Spencer and meant exactly what Darwin meant when he referred to natural selection.

An perfect example of altruism within an evolutionary context is a parent being sacrificing themselves so their offspring can survive.

If you don't understand why that is an example of altruism within an evolutionary context, we've got a lot of misconceptions you have about evolution to clear up before we can continue discussing the subject.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

All those verses taken out of context.

Prove it.

Deuteronomy 22:25:

25, But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

So what happens if the woman isn't married?

"If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." - Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Or if she doesn't scream?

"If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her,you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you." - Deuteronomy 22:23-24

The woman is treated like property. A man who rapes an unbetrothed woman has to marry her. That is not a condemnation of rape.

Our bodies being irreducibly complex, ATP, DNA, The eye, the ear.

Yes, those are all parts of the human body. But you haven't shown that they're irreducibly complex. Prove it.

Mistake where I wrote "intelligence comes from something more intelligent", that would make no sense. meant to say, an intelligent creation cannot be created from less or no intelligence. intelligent design only comes from an intelligent designer. a clock would be a good example. a clock is irreducibly complex, and has intelligent design, thus it needs an intelligent designer. we are of course far more complex than a clock. we are intelligently designed, thus we have an intelligent designer.

'Complexity' is not the same as 'design'. Being complex is not a hallmark of design - designed things can be simple, and undesigned things can be complex.

Extremely Improbable, in other words, extremely unlikely, in other words didn't happen. "macro-evolution" didn't happen, the "evolution" theory is impossible.

'Extremely improbably' doesn't mean 'didn't happen'.

from cogwriter.com: A Series of Impossibilities Should Lead One to Realize the Existence of God

From creation.com on lenski experiment:

from antidarwinism.com:

Why Natural Selection Can't Expain Complexity

SBC, I'm interested in debating you, not someone else. By all means, use those sites as research, but write things in your own words.

 

[AV1611VET]

"If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." - Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Addressing this passage as it was written, this law would insure that any child born from this would not be born out of wedlock.

Today, if that happens, the man goes to jail and that's the end of the matter ... punishment-wise.

If a child is born from this crime, then 1) it is born out of wedlock, and 2) the biological father has to pay child support until 18, thus insuring his involvement in the child's life.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Addressing this passage as it was written, this law would insure that any child born from this would not be born out of wedlock.

Today, if that happens, the man goes to jail and that's the end of the matter ... punishment-wise.

If a child is born from this crime, then 1) it is born out of wedlock, and 2) the biological father has to pay child support until 18, thus insuring his involvement in the child's life.

That may well be the reasoning behind it, but keeping a child in wedlock is not worth forcing a woman to marry a rapist.

Put yourself in the woman's position - would you feel it was a just and fair punishment for the man, that he have to marry you?

 

[AV1611VET]

That may well be the reasoning behind it, but keeping a child in wedlock is not worth forcing a woman to marry a rapist.

Put yourself in the woman's position - would you feel it was a just and fair punishment for the man, that he have to marry you?

Let's put it this way, what you or I think wouldn't matter.

Deuteronomy said it, that settles it.

To do otherwise would be worse, as history attested.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Altruism contradicts "survival of the fittest", it doesn't benefit oneself, it is selfless.

Read my post. It's all in there. Altruism helps those who also carry the altruism gene - sacrificing yourself to help your fellow man increases the odds that your own genome (which exists in your kids, your siblings, etc) will survive. Direct reproduction is not the only way to help ensure the proliferation of your genes.

Morality is an ought to and ought not. not an opinion. it isn't subjection. why ought we not rape? evolution can't explain that. God can.

Morals without God make no sense at all, in a naturalist sense, there would be absolutely no reason to seek justice, to seek love, right and wrong etc. it does nothing for our survival. you say we evolved that way, the reason you are giving is making no sense. rape is wrong not because it "breaks parent bonds", that isn't the reason. if it was it would still in some way be.

See above. Appealing to God for the source of your morality means it's only immoral because God says so - if God said it was OK, would you be out raping and pillaging? No, because you feel that it's wrong.

"evolution" would encourage rape, "breaking parent bonds" wouldn't stop it from happening because the "evolutionary" view is "survival and passing of the genes". we ought not to rape because it is perverse. why is it perverse? it's assault, it's traumatizing, it's being held against your own will. it's taking something sacred and perverting it into something that is against ones own consent, dignity, and body. that is why rape is wrong.

Right, and that's encoded into our evolved instincts. The reason those instincts evolved is because such acts destroy society - and society is crucial to our survival.

Now, rape can be an adaptive strategy, and we see this in ducks, geese, dolphins, and other aggressively sexual animals. But it isn't necessarily an adaptive strategy - and your error is in thinking it is. In humans, and many other species, rape is a severe disadvantage.

Besides, as I keep saying, our morality is a product of our evolved instincts tempered or exaggerated by our culture.

a good question would be, why is sex sacred? in an "evolutionary" view, there would be no reason why sex is sacred. promiscuity wouldn't be frowned upon but encouraged if "evolution" happened because there would be more passing of the genes. but promiscuity is wrong. why would being with only one person for the rest of your life help in "evolution", "evolution" cannot explain why being promiscuous.

First, yes, it can: raising a child is a twenty-year investment, and a child is reared best by two loving adults (research shows that the sex and race of the adults doesn't matter; they don't even have to be directly related). Your error is in your naive approach to evolutionary success: for reproduction to be a success, you have to become a grandparent. If one or both parents aren't committed to each other and their child, then the child is less likely to survive and reproduce. That's why promiscuity is bad from an evolutionary point of view: it's naive to think it's just about having many kids; you have to raise them, and that takes commitment.

Second, asking how evolution explains why sex is sacred is putting the cart before the horse - you've yet to show that sex is, indeed, sacred.

you never explained how morals are exaggerated by culture. it would be impossible to exaggerate them. leads us to authority. no one could have exaggerated morals, because no one under the universal law of morality has the authority, only the universal law giver, which has authority above all humans can tell us what we ought and ought not to do.

Err, that's not what that means. Culture exaggerates moral instincts because our instincts are not set in stone. Catching a ball is learned, but it also becomes instinctive. Likewise, the culture we find ourselves in can place emphasis on a particular evolved moral or behavioural reflex (e.g., listening to one's elders, because they have survived the perils of the world, and can instruct you on how to survive too).

Sometimes, moral instincts contradict: we have the instinct that killing our fellow man is wrong, but also that protecting our kith and kin is right. So what do we do? That's where culture comes in. Culture affects how strongly these instincts are felt: did we grow up in an aggressive culture that rewards the 'protect' instinct and punishes the 'pacifist' instinct? Or were we brought up among the nobles and elite, where the 'aggression' instinct is derided as barbaric (whether true or not, that's what the culture says) - so when the time comes, we run, rather than fight.

Culture takes what's evolved and changes it once again. The instincts are there, but how strongly they're felt is largely a product of your environment.

Saying morals "evolved" isn't explaining why things are right and wrong.

right and wrong are from rationality. I could want to go clubbing, but I ought to spend time with my family. it isn't if I want to or not, but ought to.

why is it morally wrong? because it is obligated that it is wrong. something that is obligated won't be followed unless commanded, thus the commander of morality needs authority. since doing right and not wrong is obligated, and we all live by that obligation, and morality is universal law, then there is an authority over all of us, the commander has the authority and is the universal law giver and is above all humans, the commander in authority is God.

Is that the same God who created the universe and designed the Earth? can you prove that those three deities are the same?

Infinite regression is impossible. if there were an infinite amount of past events, we would never get to the present. there cannot be an infinite amount of past causes. since infinite regression is impossible, there has to be a beginning. since there is a beginning, the cause of the beginning must be uncaused, otherwise it would have a cause as well and we'd just keep going until we got to that first uncaused cause. since the cause is, uncaused the uncaused cause is eternal. so since the first uncaused cause is eternal, the first uncaused cause has always and will always exist, the first uncaused cause is not bound by time.

since there is a first uncaused cause, it is God. the first uncaused cause is the creator of everything. it cannot be nothing, it has to be the greatest. since the uncaused cause, caused everything, the first uncaused cause must be which no greater can be conceived. the lesser cannot produce the greater.

There are numerous flaws at almost every turn, so I'll enumerate them here.

1. Infinite regression is impossible. Your objection to this is that, if there were an infinity of prior time, we'd never had got to 'here'. My retort is that this simply isn't how infinity works. There are an infinity of rational and irrational numbers between '2' and '3', yet '1 + 2 = 3' works. Why? Because you can 'get' to infinity by an infinity of finite steps, or a finite number of infinite steps. It time is eternal, if there is an infinity of prior causes, then that's your infinity of finite steps: if we posit a universe where there is no beginning to time, the issue of how we get to 'here' doesn't exist - it's only when you conflate finite and infinite universes that the problem arises.
2. The uncaused cause is eternal. The uncaused caused only needs to exist long enough to cause the universe. After that, there's no reason why it couldn't wink out of existence - maybe its own destruction is what caused the universe? Who knows. But there's no reason why it must be eternal.
3. The uncaused cause is God. This is just a bald assertion on your part. Even if your prior arguments worked, all you've deduced is a first, eternal, uncaused cause. God is a concious, intelligent being who dictates laws and answers prayers - nothing in the Cosmological argument requires that the first cause do any of that.
4. The uncaused cause must be that which no thing is greater. Again, this is another bald assertion. All we know about the uncaused cause is that it is eternal, and at some point created the universe. Even if your rationale is right, that something cannot create something greater than itself, that only means the uncaused cause is at least as great as the universe. Not 'greatest', just 'as great as'. Moreover, there is a long history of divine simplicity in theology - the idea that God is a single part, the simplest thing in existence. This goes directly against your own assertion.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Let's put it this way, what you or I think wouldn't matter.

Deuteronomy said it, that settles it.

To do otherwise would be worse, as history attested.

Then, if you were a politician with the power, would you enact such a law today?

 

[AV1611VET]

Then, if you were a politician with the power, would you enact such a law today?

I don't know ... I might.

Back then, when Israel was under a Theocracy, with God having a throne physically on the earth, things were different.

I doubt men went around raping women like they do today.

It would be like robbing a bank, with the police station right across the street.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I don't know ... I might.

Back then, when Israel was under a Theocracy, with God having a throne physically on the earth, things were different.

I doubt men went around raping women like they do today.

It would be like robbing a bank, with the police station right across the street.

Why would there need to be laws, then, if God was right there?

 

[AV1611VET]

Why would there need to be laws, then, if God was right there?

So God could impute sin.

Romans 5:13 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

In the case of the passage we're discussing, if a woman was raped, no one would know what to do about it, would they?

The law gave the Israelites God's expectations ... in writing.

 

[Ronald]

You said "The fetus was knit together by God. We are his most precious creation, far beyond anything else we see" and now you say that God allows these babies that that he knits together himself to be defective, die in the womb, or at childbirth (sometimes with the mother). Tell me, what lessons are to be learned by these babies by this process?

Pain and suffering along with death causes us to think about life, yearn for a better world, be better people. A drug addict, cigarette smoking alcoholic prostitute gets pregnant and has a baby that's deformed -- who's fault is that? Nevertheless, it is true, sometimes it is just in the genes that have passed down. So happy healthy couple has a baby and it is not healthy. Ask them it they love it and after years of caring, money spent and time just to provide, ask them what they have learned and what they yearn for in the future. Ask them if they think their baby was a gift from God? Babies die too! Life is precious and we reflect on death and the meaning of life. We all die, so what's the point? To live, not die. Our physical life and death helps to conceive and desire an eternal life with God, a free gift. So, when we see all this pain and suffering and death, we can look forward to: "Behold, I create all things new." And an eternal perfect body without sickness or death, and an eternal existence without evil.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Pain and suffering along with death causes us to think about life, yearn for a better world, be better people. A drug addict, cigarette smoking alcoholic prostitute gets pregnant and has a baby that's deformed -- who's fault is that?

If there's an all-powerful being who could, but didn't, ensure the baby's wellbeing - it's that being's fault, as well as the mother's.

Nevertheless, it is true, sometimes it is just in the genes that have passed down. So happy healthy couple has a baby and it is not healthy. Ask them it they love it and after years of caring, money spent and time just to provide, ask them what they have learned and what they yearn for in the future. Ask them if they think their baby was a gift from God? Babies die too! Life is precious and we reflect on death and the meaning of life. We all die, so what's the point? To live, not die. Our physical life and death helps to conceive and desire an eternal life with God, a free gift. So, when we see all this pain and suffering and death, we can look forward to: "Behold, I create all things new." And an eternal perfect body without sickness or death, and an eternal existence without evil.

So when you said that God knits foetuses together, that was a lie? Gotcha.

 

[Davian]

You said "The fetus was knit together by God. We are his most precious creation, far beyond anything else we see" and now you say that God allows these babies that that he knits together himself to be defective, die in the womb, or at childbirth (sometimes with the mother). Tell me, what lessons are to be learned by these babies by this process?

Pain and suffering along with death causes us to think about life, yearn for a better world, be better people. A drug addict, cigarette smoking alcoholic prostitute gets pregnant and has a baby that's deformed -- who's fault is that?

You said "The fetus was knit together by God". Is this God not competent?

Nevertheless, it is true, sometimes it is just in the genes that have passed down. So happy healthy couple has a baby and it is not healthy. Ask them it they love it and after years of caring, money spent and time just to provide, ask them what they have learned and what they yearn for in the future. Ask them if they think their baby was a gift from God? Babies die too! Life is precious and we reflect on death and the meaning of life. We all die, so what's the point? To live, not die. Our physical life and death helps to conceive and desire an eternal life with God, a free gift. So, when we see all this pain and suffering and death, we can look forward to: "Behold, I create all things new." And an eternal perfect body without sickness or death, and an eternal existence without evil.

That still did not address my question. And you are back to preaching.

You said "The fetus was knit together by God. We are his most precious creation, far beyond anything else we see" and now you say that God allows these babies that that he knits together himself to be defective, die in the womb, or at childbirth (sometimes with the mother). Tell me, what lessons are to be learned by these babies by this process?

 

[TLK Valentine]

I don't know ... I might.

Back then, when Israel was under a Theocracy, with God having a throne physically on the earth, things were different.

How so? The throne was as vacant then as it is now.

I doubt men went around raping women like they do today.

The Bible has some explicit rules and punishments concerning rape, AV -- I doubt the Bible would go to so much trouble if they didn't have the problem.

 

[Non sequitur]

I don't know ... I might.

Back then, when Israel was under a Theocracy, with God having a throne physically on the earth, things were different.

I doubt men went around raping women like they do today.

It would be like robbing a bank, with the police station right across the street.

So, back in the learn-ed days of burying live newborns in post holes, to protect the buildings from evil spirits...

...there was probably less raping going on.

 

[AV1611VET]

So, back in the learn-ed days of burying live newborns in post holes, to protect the buildings from evil spirits...

...there was probably less raping going on.

You must be thinking of taotaomo'nas, eh?