Believing VS. Understanding

[pastorkevin73]

We may as well end this discussion, because you refuse to listen to what the truth is and I am unwilling to listen to myth.

 

[artybloke]

The Jews never considered the Jewish Pseudogrippa to be scripture.

Then why did they include them in the Septuagint?

 

[AV1611VET]

Hi, Consideringlily, nice to meet you.

It seems that all Creationist arguments some back to believing that Genesis is literally the word of God.

What's wrong with that?

But if you examine Genesis it is deeply rooted in Mesopotamian folklore.

It should be, a Mesopotamian (Noah) told the story.

The flood story for example bears a strong resemblance to the Babylonian story Gilgamesh.

It's called plagiarism.

The most striking thing about Genesis is that the stories attempt to explain something observed in the natural world using a supernatural explanation.

That would make it a parable, which it isn't. Jesus and all the authors that mentioned Genesis interpreted Genesis literally.

Like rainbows as a promise from God rather than moisture droplets in the air reflecting the light spectrum.

Yes --- a promise from God that He would not flood the Earth again. You see, prior to the Flood, no one had ever seen a rainbow before, because it had never rained. After the Flood, rainbows began appearing whenever it rains, and God is saying that when you see a rainbow, it's a sign that He will never again Flood the entire Earth like that. I don't see any contradiction between science and God at all in this. Look at it this way: even if they had seen rainbows before (which they didn't), God could have still said: "From now on, the rainbow is a sign that I will never again Flood the Earth".

The Eden story is full of supernatural explanations from the creation of the Earth to childbirth pain.

Science explains things using supernatural stories also; only they call them "singularities".

Evolution explains childbirth pain better than a curse from God on women from another woman, who admittedly had no knowledge of Good or Evil.

Huh? Eve knew (and accepted) her punishment. Why? Because the Bible says their "eyes were opened" prior to her punishment. Eve never admitted she had no knowledge of Good or Evil.

Evolution explains that childbirth difficulty in humans is due to the shift from quadrapedalism to bipedalism and the large size of human heads.

Yes --- in contrast to what the Bible says --- not in support of it.

YEC seems to me to be a clinging to the primitive manner of explaining nature.

No --- YEC's let God do the talking --- we just listen and learn.

The old ways required belief or faith in a sacred explanation. Science requires none.

It is the difference between believing and attempting to understand.

As I said --- nothing's changed --- the scientists of today just use another term --- "singularity".

In fact, questioning is discouraged with supernatural explanations.

It was a question that got Eve into trouble.

What is the purpose of beliefs becoming entrenched?

It generates a [reverential] "fear of the LORD", which generates knowledge and wisdom, which generates blessings, which generates a good, long life, and ultimately, a dynamite retirement!

Understanding things like disease and childbirth can lead to breakthroughs that reduces suffering.

We wouldn't of needed "breakthroughs that reduce suffering" if we had of stayed close to God in the first place, and not tried to run this planet on our own.

The only explanation I can think of is that it erodes religious authority.

"Religious authority" is only eroded by misuse. God and science are not enemies, as God is the Author of science.

Most religions are strongly aligned with the patriarchal hierarchy.

Jesus was patriarchal --- He referred to God as His "Father".

What is wrong with questioning religious authority? What is wrong with questioning YECS validity?

Not a thing --- as long as you recognize the right answer when you hear it. Same as gravity. What's wrong with questioning gravity? Nothing --- just be sure and recognize the right answer when you hear it, or you may just become a victim of it.

What is wrong with trying to understand the world rather than believe that the Earth was created in 6 days?

Your question has the answer embedded in it.

Why assign scientific inquiry to atheists?

Good question --- they'll come up with something odd --- like Evolution.

What are YECs protecting?

Nothing --- we are preserving Truth.

 

[Mallon]

Don't even bother responding, Consideringlily. Hovind's signature above says more than you need to say.

 

[pastorkevin73]

Don't even bother responding, Consideringlily. Hovind's signature above says more than you need to say.

Hovind? How do you know?

 

[Mallon]

Hovind? How do you know?

Call it an educated guess based on:
- the signature
- the misconception of science
- the bad haircut and self-righteous smirk of the CF character

 

[AV1611VET]

Then why did they include them in the Septuagint?

The "Septuagint" per se, is a fake document. It was written by Origen some 200 years after the birth of Christ.

The idea that 72 scholars, 6 each from the 12 tribes of Israel, were commissioned by Ptolemy, king of Egypt, around 250 BC to translate the Hebrew writings into Greek is bogus.

• Jews weren't permitted to live in Egypt - (Deuteronomy 17:6)
  It contains some of the Apocryphal Books, and Jesus never quoted from the Apocrypha.
  The Jews also rejected the Apocrypha itself as being Scripture.

 

[AV1611VET]

Call it an educated guess based on:
- the signature
- the misconception of science
- the bad haircut and self-righteous smirk of the CF character

Who is "Hovind"?

 

[Poke]

Evolution explains childbirth pain better than a curse from God on women from another woman, who admittedly had no knowledge of Good or Evil. Evolution explains that childbirth difficulty in humans is due to the shift from quadrapedalism to bipedalism and the large size of human heads... Understanding things like disease and childbirth can lead to breakthroughs that reduces suffering.

Evolution is worthless in helping with any sort of medical breakthrough. The stories told by Evolutionists are just stories, often absurd stories. The reason Evolutionists accept these absurd stories is because they meet the Evolutionist's biggest qualifier, the stories must be godless.

Consideringlily, do you have any evidence (not stories) that childbirth pain is caused by the transition from four legs to two legs (excuse my use of plain English)? How has this supposed knowledge helped reduce suffering in childbirth? (When you make major assertions, how about supportive examples?)

Consideringlily, do you not believe in Natural Selection? Childbirth is a very dangerous process, that's why in modern times it's always done under medical supervision. Without medical help, with significant frequency babies are killed or permanently disabled in childbirth. Sometimes even the mother is killed by the process. Even when there are no medical complications, the pain alone can discourage women from having babies. In other words, there's a powerful selective advantage for any variation which reduces pain of childbirth.

Do you want me to believe in the time it took horses (or whatever four-legged animal you think humans evolved from) to evolve into humans, that somehow Natural Selection was not operating?

The irony is that your post is a lecture on belief vs. understanding. I understand that your Evolutionist position doesn't hold up to reason, aside from having no evidence to support it.

 

[Assyrian]

The "Septuagint" per se, is a fake document. It was written by Origen some 200 years after the birth of Christ.

The idea that 72 scholars, 6 each from the 12 tribes of Israel, were commissioned by Ptolemy, king of Egypt, around 250 BC to translate the Hebrew writings into Greek is bogus.

• Jews weren't permitted to live in Egypt - (Deuteronomy 17:6)
  It contains some of the Apocryphal Books, and Jesus never quoted from the Apocrypha.
  The Jews also rejected the Apocrypha itself as being Scripture.

So how did Origen manage to convince Josephus and Philo, who lived back in the first century, that there really was a Septuagint translation? And if the Septuagint couldn't have been translated in Egypt because Jews weren't permitted to live there, does that mean Joseph and Mary didn't take Jesus to Egypt either?

Just because some pious myths grew up about how the Septuagint was translated, it doesn't mean there wasn't a Septuagint translation. It was well known in the first century.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The "Septuagint" per se, is a fake document. It was written by Origen some 200 years after the birth of Christ.

So how did Origen manage to convince Josephus and Philo, who lived back in the first century, that there really was a Septuagint translation? And if the Septuagint couldn't have been translated in Egypt because Jews weren't permitted to live there, does that mean Joseph and Mary didn't take Jesus to Egypt either?

Just because some pious myths grew up about how the Septuagint was translated, it doesn't mean there wasn't a Septuagint translation. It was well known in the first century.

i'll add my voice to Assyrian's to answer what ought to get the award for this week's most erronous posting.

in fact, most of the New Testament quotes of the Old Testament are from the LXX.

But this is for the lurkers, the author of the original quote above is well beyond kind or thoughtful instruction, it is no wonder that the church is so fragmented, when we have ideas like this floating around and everyone doesn't respond with a hearty---that is not even wrong.

 

[shernren]

Evolution is worthless in helping with any sort of medical breakthrough. The stories told by Evolutionists are just stories, often absurd stories. The reason Evolutionists accept these absurd stories is because they meet the Evolutionist's biggest qualifier, the stories must be godless.

May I remind you that you are directly accusing theistic evolutionists of being atheists in disguise. I hope you have the substance to back up this claim.

Consideringlily, do you have any evidence (not stories) that childbirth pain is caused by the transition from four legs to two legs (excuse my use of plain English)? How has this supposed knowledge helped reduce suffering in childbirth? (When you make major assertions, how about supportive examples?)

Actually, it is also caused by a change in the timetable of fetal development, a change which has been vital to our understanding of human biology. If you ever look at any other mammal giving birth, you would see that in most cases the newborn mammal is approximately a scale model of an adult - the head:body proportion is roughly similar to that of an adult. Not only that, the body is well-developed in utero so that, for example, a foal can (IIRC) kick and run within minutes of being born. It's pretty clear how this serves as a selective advantage - the more independent a newborn quickly becomes, the less parental care a parent has to devote to its survival and the more likely the children will survive to pass on the parent's genes.

A newborn human, however, looks quite frankly like an alien from a cheesy sci-fi flick - big head, small body. What happens is that in the fetal development timetable of a human, the head receives the bulk of prenatal development. It's quite clear how this has helped give an advantage to humanity. Because a fetus in development can receive nutrients directly, and not worry about predatorial attack (which is the mother's concern), supercharging brain development in the womb helps humans be more intelligent, especially seeing as the human brain is able to process and remember input practically right from birth. The downside, of course, is that it takes a human baby months (years? I'm not a parent ) to learn how to walk. Also, a bigger head means more stress on the birth canal during birth, and it means that a breech birth represents a serious danger to the mother. However, the payoff of a more intelligent child more than compensates for momentary pain and a higher likelihood of death.

Consideringlily, do you not believe in Natural Selection? Childbirth is a very dangerous process, that's why in modern times it's always done under medical supervision. Without medical help, with significant frequency babies are killed or permanently disabled in childbirth. Sometimes even the mother is killed by the process. Even when there are no medical complications, the pain alone can discourage women from having babies. In other words, there's a powerful selective advantage for any variation which reduces pain of childbirth.

Do you want me to believe in the time it took horses (or whatever four-legged animal you think humans evolved from) to evolve into humans, that somehow Natural Selection was not operating?

Explained above. In animals which can get by without intelligence, a huge brain at birth represents a liability for the above reasons. In animals which evolved intelligence, however, a huge brain at birth (and bipedalism, which frees the hands for intensive tool-usage) offsets the costs of a more painful birthing process.

The irony is that your post is a lecture on belief vs. understanding. I understand that your Evolutionist position doesn't hold up to reason, aside from having no evidence to support it.

The real irony is that you are asking evolution to show proof that it has contributed to human well-being. Here: http://evonet.sdsc.edu/evoscisociety/eb_meeting_societal_needs.htm
Read and refute or cease and desist.

What if I asked you how "creationist biology" has contributed to human well-being? Don't tell me about creationist scientists, Louis Pasteur for example would still have uncovered the germ theory of disease if he had been an evolutionist. Name me any biological breakthrough, which directly stems from the idea that all life was supernaturally created directly into various family-level "kinds" without any prior common ancestor, and which directly contradicts the idea that (say) humans and apes have a recent common ancestor.

 

[Lilandra]

We may as well end this discussion, because you refuse to listen to what the truth is and I am unwilling to listen to myth.

The discussion will end naturally regardless of whether you want it to end or not.

 

[Lilandra]

Hi, Consideringlily, nice to meet you.

Hey nice to meet you as well.

What's wrong with that?

If Genesis is not meant to be taken literally then there is definitely a problem.

It should be, a Mesopotamian (Noah) told the story.

Point is, The Flood story is unmistakenly similar to the one in Gilgamesh, named after a Sumerian king.

It's called plagiarism.

No it's called oral tradition. The story of Gilgamesh was circulated orally before the Hebrew flood story. I don't think you are saying that the Hebrew story is plagiarism?

That would make it a parable, which it isn't. Jesus and all the authors that mentioned Genesis interpreted Genesis literally.

Jesus used references his audience understood.

Yes --- a promise from God that He would not flood the Earth again. You see, prior to the Flood, no one had ever seen a rainbow before, because it had never rained.

You know this isn't true right? Even if you go by Genesis. Abel was a farmer. How could that be if it never rained? If it rained, there were surely rainbows. The moisture created by rain refracts light into a spectrum.

After the Flood, rainbows began appearing whenever it rains, and God is saying that when you see a rainbow, it's a sign that He will never again Flood the entire Earth like that. I don't see any contradiction between science and God at all in this. Look at it this way: even if they had seen rainbows before (which they didn't), God could have still said: "From now on, the rainbow is a sign that I will never again Flood the Earth".

This contradicts what you just said.

You see, prior to the Flood, no one had ever seen a rainbow before, because it had never rained.

Science explains things using supernatural stories also; only they call them "singularities".

This shows that you do not understand the principal behind the singularity. Better to have not said anything than to open your mouth and prove you don't know what you are talking about.

Huh? Eve knew (and accepted) her punishment. Why? Because the Bible says their "eyes were opened" prior to her punishment. Eve never admitted she had no knowledge of Good or Evil.

You misunderstood. It can be inferred from the Bible that she didn't know the difference between Good and Evil before she ate the apple.

No --- YEC's let God do the talking --- we just listen and learn.

This is called bibliolatry. TEs worship God not a book.

It generates a [reverential] "fear of the LORD", which generates knowledge and wisdom, which generates blessings, which generates a good, long life, and ultimately, a dynamite retirement!

You don't have to sale this to me. Neither your carrot(heaven) or stick (fear of Hell)will convince me that Genesis is a literal event.

We wouldn't of needed "breakthroughs that reduce suffering" if we had of stayed close to God in the first place, and not tried to run this planet on our own.

You be the first to refuse any breakthrough to reduce suffering.

Not a thing --- as long as you recognize the right answer when you hear it. Same as gravity. What's wrong with questioning gravity? Nothing --- just be sure and recognize the right answer when you hear it, or you may just become a victim of it.

Again listen to you or I'll be sorry.

 

[Lilandra]

I would add to Shernen's response that the adaptions of the human pelvis to bipedalism have contributed to the difficulty of childbirth.

Consideringlily, do you not believe in Natural Selection? Childbirth is a very dangerous process, that's why in modern times it's always done under medical supervision. Without medical help, with significant frequency babies are killed or permanently disabled in childbirth. Sometimes even the mother is killed by the process. Even when there are no medical complications, the pain alone can discourage women from having babies. In other words, there's a powerful selective advantage for any variation which reduces pain of childbirth.

Evolution is not actively goal oriented. Natural selection guides development. However, it does not take into account how difficult childbirth is unless it makes it physically imposssible to breed.

Human females could give birth until childbirth killed them as long as they left enough offspring to continue the process.

Frankly, that was the reality and still is in underdeveloped countries. Before modern medicine, life expectancy was under 50 for females. No amount of clucking about Original Sin changed this.

Understanding biology changed this.

 

[Poke]

May I remind you that you are directly accusing theistic evolutionists of being atheists in disguise. I hope you have the substance to back up this claim.

I didn't say any such thing, unless you are asserting that someone who insists on stories that do not invoke God must be an atheist.

The downside, of course, is that it takes a human baby months (years? I'm not a parent ) to learn how to walk.

One to two years of age for a baby to really walk.

Also, a bigger head means more stress on the birth canal during birth, and it means that a breech birth represents a serious danger to the mother. However, the payoff of a more intelligent child more than compensates for momentary pain and a higher likelihood of death.

Other than backward's reasoning, what reason is there to believe that the advantage of a big baby brain outweighs the risk of the related childbirth? All non-human animals do just fine with relatively small brains. But, childbirth is a significant problem. And, you still haven't explained why Evolution hasn't found a solution for the high-risk birth process, given all the time it has had. Why not tall heads instead of fat heads? Birth canals that open much wider? Shift more brain growth to after birth?

The real irony is that you are asking evolution to show proof that it has contributed to human well-being. Here: http://evonet.sdsc.edu/evoscisociety/eb_meeting_societal_needs.htm
Read and refute or cease and desist.

Is this your way of claiming that without Evolution, we wouldn't know that some diseases are genetically caused??? I didn't find the part that made the case that Evolution was actually helpful to medical science (and, the article doesn't even address childbirth)

What if I asked you how "creationist biology" has contributed to human well-being?

A creationist, Mendel, discovered those genes, in the fist place. Evolutionists originally resisted the idea of genes because it explained variation in a way that wasn't conducive to Evolution.

Don't tell me about creationist scientists, Louis Pasteur for example would still have uncovered the germ theory of disease if he had been an evolutionist.

But, Pasteur knew life wasn't just popping up in organic soups here and there, so he set out to prove it. If he were an Evolutionist, he probably would have spent his time trying to cause life to pop up from non-life.

 

[Willtor]

Other than backward's reasoning, what reason is there to believe that the advantage of a big baby brain outweighs the risk of the related childbirth? All non-human animals do just fine with relatively small brains. But, childbirth is a significant problem. And, you still haven't explained why Evolution hasn't found a solution for the high-risk birth process, given all the time it has had. Why not tall heads instead of fat heads? Birth canals that open much wider? Shift more brain growth to after birth?

Actually, now that you mention it, a human baby's skull is not a single bone but a few that permit it to deform, slightly, in order to fit through the birth canal. As time passes, the skull solidifies into the single entity with which we're familiar. But aside from that, a modification isn't necessary. As ConsideringLily pointed out, as long as a mother can have enough children to pass on her genes before she dies (even if it's death from childbirth), the mutations that would make it not hurt would not necessarily be "beneficial."

 

[pastorkevin73]

Last night on CBC (canada) there was a story on some artifacts that was found on a mountian floodplain in Montana. Apparently there was sediment also found there. This seems to support a world wide flood.

Interesting, evidence at the doorstep.

 

[steen]

But, Pasteur knew life wasn't just popping up in organic soups here and there, so he set out to prove it. If he were an Evolutionist, he probably would have spent his time trying to cause life to pop up from non-life.

Why would he do that? It seems like you have no clue what evolution actually is, yet you mount this big assault against it. Wouldn't it be better if you knew what it was first, before trying to criticize it?

 

[gluadys]

Last night on CBC (canada) there was a story on some artifacts that was found on a mountian floodplain in Montana. Apparently there was sediment also found there. This seems to support a world wide flood.

Interesting, evidence at the doorstep.

It supports a flood in Montana. No one disputes that floods have happened at various times in various places.