Evidence for macro-evolution

[BCP1928]

Faith.

Neither science nor theology. Good one, AV

 

[Astrid]

So you are not aware that ice floats?

So, @mindlight, you find my question funny?

Perhaps it is, but maybe not in the way you think.

If you do understand that ice floats, you would
understand that polar ice proves, far beyond any
reasonable doubt, that there was no biblical flood.

So whats funny to you?

 

[Astrid]

They cannot know but pretend to know better than God. This smells like blind hubris.

There is no such pretense.

But its ok for you to pretend you know
more than every researcher on earth.
And more than every christian who knows your version cannot possibly be true.

Are you aware that the creationist churches draw their
membership from among the least educated in America?

 

[partinobodycular]

He documented what He did, how He did it, why He did it, where He did it, when He did it, what order He did it in, how long it took Him to do it, why it took Him that long, and who the eyewitnesses were.

Hmmm, I wasn't aware that the bible tells us why it took God six days for creation, please enlighten me.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

We have a historical report of the first murder. But I think we can agree that science is irrelevant to solving the crime. You suggest this is because it is just a story. But you cannot dismiss the story on scientific grounds either because there is no evidence at all pertinent to it. The evidence is revealed and historical only.

This is one thing that sticks out to me... because we can dismiss the story on scientific grounds, because you admit right away that there is no evidence to it.

Now, historical evidence... I have no idea how you're trying to use that term, but you're not using it correctly at all, because historical evidence for the Bible is a hot mess of maybes, mayhaps and not rights, especially for places and people. The story for Cain and Abel, the children of Adam and Eve, would leave so much evidence behind in genetics alone (not just because of being the male children of the first two people which raises some very uncomfortable genetic questions vis-a-vis incest and how some traditions says they were born with a female twin, which make things even worse) but also from the fact that it would be a serious genetic issue, because we would be able to tell if such a thing happened: we would all be family. Not hyperbole or rhetorically or poetically or any other fancy way: if Cain and Able existed, every person in the world would, in their genetics, be shown to be related to each other as family.

We do not see that at all.

Now, going back to the murder: we don't have a 'historical report' of the first murder. "And Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field," and when they were in the field Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him." is not a report in any sense of the word. It's a statement of events, but not a report. The Medieval chroniclers made reports on events and battles (egregious and strange they may be at times), but they rarely just said "And this man killed this man." Where was Able killed? What field? What month? That's what a report would include. A report is by a person who was an eye-witness or is repeating information given to them, especially in the context of a Medieval chronicler, by people who were there as an eye-witness and could not write, or even a second-hand witness, or even third-hand.

The line "And Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field," and when they were in the field Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him" is not a report by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Astrophile]

That's because academia "accordions out" the layers of the earth, putting millions of years between them.

Dig down 20 feet and find animals with shells.

Dig down another 20 feet and find worm-like animals.

Then simply say a jillion years passed between those two layers, and then claim they never co-existed.

When in reality, they lived side-by-side.

It would be more like digging down 10 metres and finding ammonites, and then digging down another 1000 metres and finding different genera of ammonites. or like digging down 10 metres and finding ammonites (but not trilobites) and then digging down another 10,000 metres and finding trilobites (but not ammonites). Would you or anybody else be convinced by the claim that the different genera of ammonites separated by 1000 metres, or the ammonites and trilobites separated by 10,000 metres, lived side-by-side?

 

[mindlight]

I am not sure that is true. Ex materia is still very popular, especially in non-Abrahamic religions, as it was in the early days of Christianity. Even now, I don't believe that ex nihilo creation is universally considered an essential tenet of the faith.

Before you can reach that conclusion you must justify your first assumption. Otherwise your reasoning is circular.

The majority of the world's population are either Christian or Muslim and the position of the teaching authorities of both is that God created ex nihilo.

My first assumption is that science operates with a naturalistic premise. To dispute that you would have to allow for the supernatural, which kind of wins me the argument, so what's your point here?

 

[AV1611VET]

They cannot know but pretend to know better than God. This smells like blind hubris.

Check this doosey out:

Stephen Hawking was the most influential know-it-all. In his 1988 mega-bestseller A Brief History of Time, Hawking predicted that physicists would soon find an “ultimate theory” that would explain how our cosmos came into being. He compared this achievement to knowing “the mind of God.” This statement was ironic. Hawking, an atheist, wanted science to eliminate the need for a divine creator.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Check this doosey out:

Stephen Hawking was the most influential know-it-all. In his 1988 mega-bestseller A Brief History of Time, Hawking predicted that physicists would soon find an “ultimate theory” that would explain how our cosmos came into being. He compared this achievement to knowing “the mind of God.” This statement was ironic. Hawking, an atheist, wanted science to eliminate the need for a divine creator.

Where did you get this from? I've been meaning to ask.

 

[Hans Blaster]

The majority of the world's population believes that God created ex nihilo and this is established Christian doctrine also. Science assumes a naturalistic methodology. How can science speak of the Creation Event before there was nature or senses to observe it? Since Science cannot be used to describe this event the only valid tool is theology and a reflection on the revelations of the only witness to the Event.

Are you saying "creation" was not natural. I can't tell since your post seems to be about arguing science into nonexistence.

 

[AV1611VET]

Regardless of what they said, disproof of TOE would blow a crater in the basics of all the physical sciences, and proof of God.

That's why scientists guard it, even with their spiritual lives on the line.

The Nobel of Nobels awarded for the discovery of all of all time would hardly be a footnote in the vast intellectual /
spiritual revolution that would sweep the world.

I'd venture that some scientists would even jump out of windows; like some did when Wall Street collapsed in 1929.

It would reverb everywhere.

Yup.

Curious it should be- if not to deniers- that nobody can show ToE is false.

That's because the Theory of Evolution is going to wax stronger and stronger; culminating during the Tribulation period, when the Antichrist demonstrates abiogenesis by making an image come to life.

Revelation 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

The Antichrist will make evolution look so simple, a little child can understand it.

Then Jesus is going to return and put an end to it.

What I'm saying is:

Disproving evolution is a task reserved for Jesus.

Not us.

 

[mindlight]

This is one thing that sticks out to me... because we can dismiss the story on scientific grounds, because you admit right away that there is no evidence to it.

Now, historical evidence... I have no idea how you're trying to use that term, but you're not using it correctly at all, because historical evidence for the Bible is a hot mess of maybes, mayhaps and not rights, especially for places and people. The story for Cain and Abel, the children of Adam and Eve, would leave so much evidence behind in genetics alone (not just because of being the male children of the first two people which raises some very uncomfortable genetic questions vis-a-vis incest and how some traditions says they were born with a female twin, which make things even worse) but also from the fact that it would be a serious genetic issue, because we would be able to tell if such a thing happened: we would all be family. Not hyperbole or rhetorically or poetically or any other fancy way: if Cain and Able existed, every person in the world would, in their genetics, be shown to be related to each other as family.

We do not see that at all.

Now, going back to the murder: we don't have a 'historical report' of the first murder. "And Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field," and when they were in the field Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him." is not a report in any sense of the word. It's a statement of events, but not a report. The Medieval chroniclers made reports on events and battles (egregious and strange they may be at times), but they rarely just said "And this man killed this man." Where was Able killed? What field? What month? That's what a report would include. A report is by a person who was an eye-witness or is repeating information given to them, especially in the context of a Medieval chronicler, by people who were there as an eye-witness and could not write, or even a second-hand witness, or even third-hand.

The line "And Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field," and when they were in the field Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him" is not a report by any stretch of the imagination.

As you say we can neither prove nor disprove the account scientifically making science irrelevant to your analysis of the credibility of the story.

The Bible is both a historical and a Divinely inspired manuscript. It was written down by historical figures like Moses in this case on the back of a very long oral tradition and describes literal-historical events. It differs from the metaphorical approach of non-Abrahamic religions in this respect.

Adam and Eve had other children. Cain also had other children, there may have been some interbreeding between the two lines though we do not know for sure. The loss of Abel would not figure in the genetic record as he would never appear in it. The genetic code and environment were not as broken as they are now in the pre-flood world making analysis based on today's conclusions dubious.

The murder is given a motive, Cain was angry that his offering was rejected and Abels accepted. The murder took place in a field. The murderer was Cain and the victim was Abel. The Bible then describes the consequences for Cain and his descendants. Sounds historical to me, though it is by no means an exhaustive report in the sense that you mean it.

 

[AV1611VET]

Even now, I don't believe that ex nihilo creation is universally considered an essential tenet of the faith.

That's probably because they're so scientifically minded, they're no theologically good.

They can't let go of the Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy long enough to realize that the Creation Week was a series of events, whereby God raised the level of mass/energy in the universe from zero to what it is now, by performing one miracle after another.

 

[mindlight]

Are you saying "creation" was not natural. I can't tell since your post seems to be about arguing science into nonexistence.

To create out of nothing means that Nature did not exist before creation occurred. So how can creation be anything but supernatural in its origins?

 

[AV1611VET]

There is no " theory of macro evolution" btw.

You evidently made that up.

He made that up, did he?

Did he make it up here:

The theory of macro evolution is an extrapolation from observed micro evolution and fossil evidence. There is no direct evidence for macro evolution, it remains an unproven theory.

SOURCE

So much for 'evidently'.

 

[mindlight]

Check this doosey out:

Stephen Hawking was the most influential know-it-all. In his 1988 mega-bestseller A Brief History of Time, Hawking predicted that physicists would soon find an “ultimate theory” that would explain how our cosmos came into being. He compared this achievement to knowing “the mind of God.” This statement was ironic. Hawking, an atheist, wanted science to eliminate the need for a divine creator.

The guy was not as bright as my brother and he has a lot more humility and is a creationist. Knowing the mind of God is not a bad aspiration but as an atheist, Hawkings never knew what it meant and missed the transcendence implicit in true revelation. Also, he saw it as something to grab and calculate rather than a gift to be received.

For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

 

[AV1611VET]

Neither science nor theology. Good one, AV

Cute.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

As you say we can neither prove nor disprove the account scientifically making science irrelevant to your analysis of the credibility of the story.

The Bible is both a historical and a Divinely inspired manuscript. It was written down by historical figures like Moses in this case on the back of a very long oral tradition and describes literal-historical events. It differs from the metaphorical approach of non-Abrahamic religions in this respect.

Adam and Eve had other children. Cain also had other children, there may have been some interbreeding between the two lines though we do not know for sure. The loss of Abel would not figure in the genetic record as he would never appear in it. The genetic code and environment were not as broken as they are now in the pre-flood world making analysis based on today's conclusions dubious.

The murder is given a motive, Cain was angry that his offering was rejected and Abels accepted. The murder took place in a field. The murderer was Cain and the victim was Abel. The Bible then describes the consequences for Cain and his descendants. Sounds historical to me, though it is by no means an exhaustive report in the sense that you mean it.

No, I didn't say that we can neither prove nor disprove the murder of Abel by Cain. I said that there is no evidence for it and that the Bible statement of "And Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field," and when they were in the field Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him" is not a historical report.

There is no historicity behind the story of Cain and Abel. There is no evidence for it at all, apart from a passage of the Bible. A passage from a book talking about a murder does not evidence make. You've shown brilliantly how it works as a narrative story (there's characters, motives, a place and an event and the consequences) but just going "He was killed in a field" is not evidence. Not in any single, meaningful, serious way is it evidence of an actual event.

And of course, you just pull out the old canard of "Well, the Flood changed everything" which is totally worthless since you can say anything you want and it gets explained away with "Flood did it". An absolutely worthless statement for investigative work.

 

[AV1611VET]

If you do understand that ice floats, you would understand that polar ice proves, far beyond any reasonable doubt, that there was no biblical flood.

The only thing polar ice proved is that amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.

 

[AV1611VET]

Are you aware that the creationist churches draw their membership from among the least educated in America?

Wow.

Reminds me of Someone in the Bible.

John 7:14 Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.
15 And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?
16 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.