7-Day Creation- Figurative or Literal?

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by BobRyan

Creationism "does not say" that everything came from Nothing - rather they say that it came from God and without Him nothing was made - that was "made".
​

To an ant - a cigarette lighter looks like "magic".

That is simply a given.

Have another shot at it.

So fine - the rocks will never gather themselves together and make a live dog.

I think we all knew that.

But Creationists also know that an amoeba will never turn into a horse -- no matter how much hand waiving and story telling you insert.

in Christ,

Bob

If the understanding of the science goes no deeper than a load rocks appeared from nowhere, gathered themselves together to make an amoeba which magically became a horse, then no wonder it makes no sense to you. If we put other areas of science in the same terms they become equally nonsensical.

Photosynthesis: the sun appeared from nowhere and made light which hits plants which mix it with water to magically grow. Well that is clearly nonsense as light hits water all the time and doesn't become sugar and it violates the second law of thermodynamics.

Gravity: When rocks become heavy they become magically sticky and clump together and the more they clump the stickier they get. Oh what ridiculous guff; I can't stick posters up with rocks and how come I can lift my foot from the ground?

<edit>

 

[Dieselman]

<edit> I have no idea whether you're a molecular biologist or a high school drop out. That has no bearing on the validity of your arguments; neither is it a reflection of your intellect. I understand that they teach evolution in college. Ben there. Dun that. I understand that religion is the antithesis of science. I also understand that scientific does NOT equal truth.

Let's take a very basic miracle. I can use water, yeast and fruit to make wine using known and provable reactions. However, turning water into wine is not possible; not now, not ever. If we were at a large gathering and the son of a carpenter; who presumably was a carpenter as well; claimed to turn a basin of water into a fine wine would you believe it or call him a liar? Would everyone in attendance believe it? Personally, I could slip some Everclear into the water and make it potent, but making wine takes time and materials not present. If it did not happen, all who were present would have called the young carpenter a heritic and he would have been stoned. As it was, they marveled and asked themselves, "Who is this man we thought we knew?"

A scientist would say this is not possible because it doesn't follow natural law. If it did, it wouldn't be a miracle. That means the scientist would be wrong. He would also be wrong about each of the over 150 miracles listed in the Bible. He would say there is NO WAY one person could know the dream of another and by that dream could fortell the future. The problem is that these deeds had contemporary witnesses, none of whom ever proclaimed the story to be a fabrication. You can look for scientific explanations of supernatural events for your entire life. You will never find them, and your theories will never be correct. A ten year old who believes in God has greater wisdom then a learned man who does not; because he knows a truth the learned man will never discover.

Why do YOU think 85% of Americans believe in God? Do you think we are ALL ignorant of what every school tries to pound down our throats? Do you believe that only a lack of understanding of science could make people reject that which you embrace? Are you like so many others who seem to think you are endowed with special wisdom that the rest of us do not possess? You might consider what was written in Psalms 14: 1.

Personally, I've seen more evidence of God than of magic benevolent mutations that import genetic information from nowhere and encode it into the reproductive system for replication. I've seen many examples of adaptation, which always results in a net loss of genetic information, not a gain. I've never seen repeated subtraction become addition. There are no evidences of common descent that are not equally compatible with a comon Ceator. You can puff out your chest and proclaim that creation is unscientific. Who ever said that it wasn't?

 

[Jamin4422]

I have no idea whether you're a molecular biologist or a high school drop out.

High School drop outs can still get their GED and attend the university. As long as they pass all their tests. A friend of my sons had the best math scores in the high school, but his english scores were low. That made it difficult to get into a good college. He ended up out in the middle of a corn field just to get into a university that scored in the upper 20% of the field he wanted to study.

 

[Mr Strawberry]

Personally, I've seen more evidence of God than of magic benevolent mutations

Really? I've never seen anyone present any actual evidence for God before.

that import genetic information from nowhere and encode it into the reproductive system for replication. I've seen many examples of adaptation, which always results in a net loss of genetic information, not a gain. I've never seen repeated subtraction become addition. There are no evidences of common descent that are not equally compatible with a comon Ceator. You can puff out your chest and proclaim that creation is unscientific. Who ever said that it wasn't?

...on the other hand, I'm beginning to see evidence of a lack of understanding.

 

[Dieselman]

High School drop outs can still get their GED and attend the university. As long as they pass all their tests. A friend of my sons had the best math scores in the high school, but his english scores were low. That made it difficult to get into a good college. He ended up out in the middle of a corn field just to get into a university that scored in the upper 20% of the field he wanted to study.

My full quote was, "I have no idea whether you're a molecular biologist or a high school drop out. That has no bearing on the validity of your arguments; neither is it a reflection of your intellect."
Thomas Edison dropped out of school. Albert Einstein failed math. Education or it's lack doesn't equate to intelligence. I know people who are PhD's who have no common sense at all.

 

[CabVet]

Why do YOU think 85% of Americans believe in God? Do you think we are ALL ignorant of what every school tries to pound down our throats?

Oh, the numbers game again. If the majority makes everything right, Christianity must be wrong because only about 30% of the world's population is Christian.

 

[Dieselman]

Really? I've never seen anyone present any actual evidence for God before.

Evidence does not equal proof. You DO understand the difference, right? If you take a good look at the complexity of the universe it shows evidence of design. However, you will only have PROOF of God when you stand before him. We are saved by FAITH, not because anything is proved to us beyond all possible doubt.

 

[Jamin4422]

I know people who are PhD's who have no common sense at all.

I had a friend with a PhD in Cisco that could not answer rather simple questions about computers. Education has become very specialized so people spend so much time in one area so they tend not to know what the average person knows in other areas. How many times do you see PhD on this board that do not have a third grade level of understanding regarding the Bible? Yet they spent enough time on an infidel web page so they are deceived into thinking they know what they are talking about.

Of course their argument is so what. AT least they are experts in their area of study and that means they know what they are talking about and you do not know about that field of study because you have not studied it or have only studied it on a high school level. They pretty much expect someone to come to the converstation with at least a 101 level of understanding of Biology. Even they sell Bio books on Amazon for ten cents on the dollar.

 

[CabVet]

Evidence does not equal proof. You DO understand the difference, right? If you take a good look at the complexity of the universe it shows evidence of design. However, you will only have PROOF of God when you stand before him. We are saved by FAITH, not because anything is proved to us beyond all possible doubt.

Apparent design is not evidence for God or any creator. But with one thing I agree with you, believing in God requires faith, and it does so because there is no evidence for God. If there was, nobody would need faith to believe Him.

 

[Dieselman]

They pretty much expect someone to come to the converstation with at least a 101 level of understanding of Biology. Even they sell Bio books on Amazon for ten cents on the dollar.

I've had college biology, human biology, psychopathology, and enough hard science classes to receive a B.S. degree instead of the B.A. I originally sought. It's amazing, though, how people make assumptions when they know nothing about you. I tested at graduate levels on my entrance exam, and yet because I've learned that God is real they all think I must be ignorant and uneducated.

 

[Loudmouth]

Let's take a very basic miracle. I can use water, yeast and fruit to make wine using known and provable reactions. However, turning water into wine is not possible; not now, not ever. If we were at a large gathering and the son of a carpenter; who presumably was a carpenter as well; claimed to turn a basin of water into a fine wine would you believe it or call him a liar?

It is impossible to form a rabbit from thin air, so if you saw David Copperfield pull a rabbit from a hat would you believe it or call him a liar?

Even more, we have "provable reactions" for other observations. We observe that 4.5 billion years is enough time to produce the observations we see in the geologic record here on Earth. No magic is needed. You want to ignore these mechanisms and instead replace them with magic. We have the evidence for natural mechanisms producing the observations, but you want to ignore them. Why is that?

A scientist would say this is not possible because it doesn't follow natural law.

This is not what we have with the geologic record. Everything we see follows natural laws and is explicable through natural laws. You want to ignore these natural laws and instead use magic to explain these observations. You want to claim that decay rates magically changed, or that species magically poofed into existence from thin air.

Why do YOU think 85% of Americans believe in God?

Because that is how they were raised. There is a strong correlation between a parent's religious beliefs and their children's religious beliefs. It shows that religions are a product of culture. If you are raised in India then you will probable accept Hindu beliefs. If you are raised in Rome then you will probably accept Roman Catholic beliefs.

Do you think we are ALL ignorant of what every school tries to pound down our throats? Do you believe that only a lack of understanding of science could make people reject that which you embrace?

Someone who understood geology would not make statements like this:

"You have no way of knowing the original state of the isotope. You have no way of knowing the nature of the environmental conditions and whether they were static. You cannot account for trees that were created intact or sand that was never rock. You cannot account for the origination of anything you are measuring."

We can know these things through studying the evidence. We do know these things. You want to throw out this knowledge in order to protect your dogmatic religious beliefs. This is the danger of religiously enforced ignorance. We actually have to throw out knowledge to accomodate faith. What does that say about faith?

Personally, I've seen more evidence of God than of magic benevolent mutations that import genetic information from nowhere and encode it into the reproductive system for replication. I've seen many examples of adaptation, which always results in a net loss of genetic information, not a gain. I've never seen repeated subtraction become addition. There are no evidences of common descent that are not equally compatible with a comon Ceator. You can puff out your chest and proclaim that creation is unscientific. Who ever said that it wasn't?

Just like there is no forensic evidence that is not equally compatible with Leprechuans planting evidence at a crime scene, right? That is the barrier you have erected against the evidence. You will claim that any and all evidence was magically poofed into being no matter how much evidence there is for natural mechanisms producing it.

 

[Phileas]

I've had college biology, human biology, psychopathology, and enough hard science classes to receive a B.S. degree instead of the B.A. I originally sought. It's amazing, though, how people make assumptions when they know nothing about you. I tested at graduate levels on my entrance exam, and yet because I've learned that God is real they all think I must be ignorant and uneducated.

I don't think you're ignorant or uneducated, but I do think you've set things up that pretty much any arguement that's had with you will simply be dismissed with "God did it by embedded age". This makes any discussion on natural history pointless and your own quote is once again most applicable to yourself:

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[Mr Strawberry]

Evidence does not equal proof. You DO understand the difference, right? If you take a good look at the complexity of the universe it shows evidence of design. However, you will only have PROOF of God when you stand before him. We are saved by FAITH, not because anything is proved to us beyond all possible doubt.

As Cabvet pointed out, if you had evidence you wouldn't need faith.

Just to make it clearer for you, finding something complex in nature is not evidence for a supernatural deity who created the universe. To borrow your phrase, "You do understand that, right?"

 

[Herman Hedning]

My full quote was, "I have no idea whether you're a molecular biologist or a high school drop out. That has no bearing on the validity of your arguments; neither is it a reflection of your intellect."

Thomas Edison dropped out of school. Albert Einstein failed math. Education or it's lack doesn't equate to intelligence. I know people who are PhD's who have no common sense at all.

Just for the record, Einstein most definitely didn't fail math in school. He excelled in it.

 

[CabVet]

Just for the record, Einstein most definitely didn't fail math in school. He excelled in it.

This is just one more lie spread by those who don't value education. For the record, here are Einstein's grades in high school:

As you can see, 6 (which is the highest possible grade in that system) in all disciplines related to math: algebra, geometry, descriptive geometry and physics.

The one about Thomas Edison is a lie too. He dropped out of school just three months after he started because he had an illness and started very late, so as a result, his mind often wandered, prompting one of his teachers to call him "addled" (confused). But his mother had been a schoolteacher in Canada and home-schooled him.

 

[Dieselman]

Just for the record, Einstein most definitely didn't fail math in school. He excelled in it.

Actually, I had never looked that up until now because I had been told ththe same thing many times, including by teachers. As it turns out, the rumor came from Robert Ripley who had it published in one of his "Believe it or Not" magazines. You are correct.

 

[Dieselman]

<edit>

Just to make it clearer for you, finding something complex in nature is not evidence for a supernatural deity who created the universe. To borrow your phrase, "You do understand that, right?"

There are many examples of design ranging from irreducible complexity to the patterns of the cosmos, but such evidence is only clear for those who aren't blinded by devotion to evolution. Your hat is evidence you have a head, but that is not proof.<edit>

 

[Dieselman]

And yet, you still don't understand how the scientific method works.

: yawns : Spare me.

You claim that we can not reconstruct the past using evidence found in the present.

Not with certainty. If you held a diamond in your hand you could go into great detail about how many millions of years is takes to make one. However, we make diamonds all the time. We see layers of ediment that took millions of years to produce... only they were created in days by a volcano.

You claim that we can not know how a rock formed by its present state. If you had taken a geology course, you would know that this is false.

Okay, starting with no minerals using only a pool of water, let's see you make a rock. Better yet, what do you think would happen if the earth was suddenly covered in water deep enough so that the animals that lived on it were buried in silt and trapped under thousands of tons of water. Might it create a sudden "explosion" in the fossil record? Too bad we've never seen such a thing.

You claim that current decay rates can not be used to determine past decay rates which means that you really didn't pay attention in physics class.

Please explain, using radiometric dating, how old Adam was in the first hour of his life? If there is no process in science which can create an isotope, how then can we expect to use that isotope to chart time? Moreover, if God decided to create another Earth today EXACTLY like this one, how old would radiometric dating say that planet was?

By not knowing causation we cannot know the orginal integrity of the isotopes. The fact remans that God created the world intact in its mature state. It would stand to reason that such a state would indicate age. Science cannot account for an intact creation from nothingness. Neither can it disprove such a creation. Science is the study of the creation. Religion is the study of the Creator. In the end, it's our knowledge of the Creator that makes all the difference.

 

[Jamin4422]

Oh, the numbers game again. If the majority makes everything right, Christianity must be wrong because only about 30% of the world's population is Christian.

Less then 30% believe in evolution, so that must be wrong according to your logic.

"

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Only 13% of Americans believe in naturalistic evolution (that is that God had no part in evolution)" [/FONT]​

Poll: Most Americans Don&#039;t Believe Evolution

 

[Mr Strawberry]

<edit>

There are many examples of design ranging from irreducible complexity to the patterns of the cosmos, but such evidence is only clear for those who aren't blinded by devotion to evolution. Your hat is evidence you have a head, but that is not proof. I could show you examples, but you wouldn't give them consideration any way so why bother?

Irreducible complexity is an argument only found on hardcore creationist websites that ignore the fact that it has long been shown to be wrong. It is essentially an argument from ignorance.

Patterns in the cosmos? That's, um, just funny really. I suppose you think patterns in snowflakes are positive evidence for your God's existence too.

<edit>.

Evidence acrually has to have something to do with the claim you are making. You can't just say "Isn't it all complicated...there must be a supernatural deity." It doesn't work like that.