The Demise of Evolution

[OldWiseGuy]

You do not appear to understand what the idea of 'falsifiability' is. You should take back your earlier claim.

You are conflating denial with falsification. If you really truly believe what you claim to be believe then you should not be afraid to test your ideas. An idea that is not falsifiable is all but worthless. There can be no evidence for that idea. All that one can find is confirmation bias at best and that demotes your religious views to the same as all other religions. If you want to claim that Christianity is better than other religions or more true than other religions then you need to find a way to demonstrate that. And that is what falsifiability is.

If an idea is falsifiable that means that there is a test that could show it to be wrong if it is wrong. It does not automatically mean that they idea is wrong. Confirmation bias is rather insulting to a religion since it lowers itself to the same level as voodoo. I am sure that you do not want to do that to your own beliefs.

Are you saying that morality cannot be tested, not even as a social science?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

What makes you think that they were needed? And as pointed out you do not understand falsifiability.
Once again, we know the sources of the Ten Commandments. The Hebrews took quite a bit of Babylon with them from the period of Babylon Captivity:

Babylonian captivity - Wikipedia

The commandments predate the Babylonian captivity. In fact Israel went into captivity because they spurned the commandments. You are conflating history and news.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

How?

By measuring the well being of people against their morality. Personally my life got better in every way after I abandoned my immoral behaviors.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

You do not appear to understand what the idea of 'falsifiability' is. You should take back your earlier claim.

You are conflating denial with falsification. If you really truly believe what you claim to be believe then you should not be afraid to test your ideas. An idea that is not falsifiable is all but worthless. There can be no evidence for that idea. All that one can find is confirmation bias at best and that demotes your religious views to the same as all other religions. If you want to claim that Christianity is better than other religions or more true than other religions then you need to find a way to demonstrate that. And that is what falsifiability is.

If an idea is falsifiable that means that there is a test that could show it to be wrong if it is wrong. It does not automatically mean that they idea is wrong. Confirmation bias is rather insulting to a religion since it lowers itself to the same level as voodoo. I am sure that you do not want to do that to your own beliefs.

You are putting the cart before the horse. Something must be tested before it can be deemed 'falsifiable'. Otherwise how would you know?

 

[pitabread]

The commandments predate the Babylonian captivity.

[citation needed]

 

[Speedwell]

You are putting the cart before the horse. Something must be tested before it can be deemed 'falsifiable'. Otherwise how would you know?

No, that is not how it works. A falsifiable statement is one that can be tested. It merely has to be testable, it doesn't have to actually be tested in order to be the kind of statement which can be tested.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Are you saying that morality cannot be tested, not even as a social science?

Now you are changing the topic.

And one has to be very careful. Morality must be defined and justified. "Because the Bible tells me so" is never enough when discussing the validity of an order or law.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The commandments predate the Babylonian captivity. In fact Israel went into captivity because they spurned the commandments. You are conflating history and news.

No, Bible scholars would disagree with this. Bible literalism is not a wise course to follow. It portrays God in a bad light and leads ideas that have been shown to be wrong. In fact shown to be wrong to such a degree that Bible literalism relies on a God that plants false evidence. Or in other words a lying God. That would appear to be rather blasphemous to me. Please note, it is not others that claim that "God lied" it is the Bible literalists that are making that claim, though they do not realize it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You are putting the cart before the horse. Something must be tested before it can be deemed 'falsifiable'. Otherwise how would you know?

Not true. There are many ways that an idea can be tested. You are trying to shift the burden of proof. Scientific hypotheses are often tested in ways that are not possible when formed. They are often tested by research in areas that people had not thought of following before.

 

[Subduction Zone]

By measuring the well being of people against their morality. Personally my life got better in every way after I abandoned my immoral behaviors.

That is hardly a proper test. How would you measure "well being"? How would you measure "morality"?

Now you may have abandoned self destructive behaviors. But your one case would merely be confirmation bias. Hand waving is not a proper argument.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

[citation needed]

God gave Israel the law through Moses 600 years before the Babylonian captivity.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

No, that is not how it works. A falsifiable statement is one that can be tested. It merely has to be testable, it doesn't have to actually be tested in order to be the kind of statement which can be tested.

So the commandments, as pertains to behavior, aren't really testable.

 

[roman2819]

Post-hoc probabilities of events that have already occurred is always going to be 1.0 because those things have already occurred. The probability of Earth having the eco-system it currently has is 1.0 because it already exists.

This is why discussions of probabilities in post-hoc analysis isn't useful.

The premises, however, could not be more different. I am sure that God created the earth and all life on it, and after that species can change in limited ways. I do not believe that life begins by itself and evolved so much through 100 million years, even though evolution is silent on origins of life.

 

[pitabread]

The premises, however, could not be more different. I am sure that God created the earth and all life on it, and after that species can change in limited ways. I do not believe that life begins by itself and evolved so much through 100 million years, even though evolution is silent on origins of life.

Either way we can both agree that Earth has a diverse, functioning ecosystem.

If we want to talk about how this came to be, that's a different discussion and one where probability isn't relevant (though to be honest, probability isn't relevant at all in these discussions).

Instead we need to be looking at what the picture nature paints indicates. As I stated earlier in a couple posts, the patterns we observe in nature point to an evolutionary history of life over ~3.9 billion years (give or take).

 

[Subduction Zone]

God gave Israel the law through Moses 600 years before the Babylonian captivity.

No, Moses appears to be one of the fictional characters of the Bible. Have you ever studied the history of the Bible?

 

[Subduction Zone]

The premises, however, could not be more different. I am sure that God created the earth and all life on it, and after that species can change in limited ways. I do not believe that life begins by itself and evolved so much through 100 million years, even though evolution is silent on origins of life.

But all of the evidence out there supports evolution. There is no scientific evidence for creationism. How do you explain that?

 

[Subduction Zone]

So the commandments, as pertains to behavior, aren't really testable.

Perhaps not. At he very least you do not seem to be able to come up with a test for them.

 

[pitabread]

No, Moses appears to be one of the fictional characters of the Bible. Have you ever studied the history of the Bible?

It's amazing how so many conservative Christians are unfamiliar with basic Biblical scholarship.

 

[Lazarus Long]

By measuring the well being of people against their morality. Personally my life got better in every way after I abandoned my immoral behaviors.

What immoral behaviours and immoral by whose measure?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

No, Moses appears to be one of the fictional characters of the Bible. Have you ever studied the history of the Bible?

Even Jesus 'appears' to some to be a fictional character.