Coccyx - tale of a creationist disinformation post

[AV1611VET]

Kind of tough to see the trees when you're stuck in the forest.

Thanks for the QED.

 

[AV1611VET]

Using "X" in place of Christ has a history going back hundreds of years that has nothing to do with secularism. It appears to derive from the Chi Ro which itself goes back over 1000 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christogram

Why use it today?

Don't you think it's a little more than coincidental that English-speaking people substitute "Christ" with "X"?

 

[Astrophile]

Why use it today?

Don't you think it's a little more than coincidental that English-speaking people substitute "Christ" with "X"?

This is ungrammatical. You should write either 'English-speaking people replace "Christ" with "X"' or 'English-speaking people substitute "X" for "Christ". Why do you think that it is more than a coincidence?

 

[AV1611VET]

This is ungrammatical. You should write either 'English-speaking people replace "Christ" with "X"' or 'English-speaking people substitute "X" for "Christ". Why do you think that it is more than a coincidence?

Huh? which came first, "Christ" or "X"?

And for the record, it doesn't matter which came first: "Christ" is being exed out by our intellectual infrastructure.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

The only ones I see pushing slavery and genocide from the Bible are academians.

They'll find anything in Its pages to discredit it,

or are just critical thinkers wanting to ensure the truth presented is actually true... are you really going to deny it proposes your God condoned or ordered these things?

God shows us He exists through cause-and-effect;

Just like all the other religions and their God(s).

Get God out of our government, the Bible out of our schools, various slogans out of our pledges and off of our coins, change "Christmas" to "X-mas," pluto greetings down to HAPPY HOLIDAYS and SEASONS GREETINGS; and now they're going after another one of His cause-and-effects: songs.

Who's God should be excluded from government? What's appropriate for one, is appropriate for all.... or would you be good if your Government one day decided Allahu is the one true God, and Sharia will be observed? Same with Schools, same with slogans,in pledges and on coins, same with changing Christmas and Greetings to Hanuka, or Ramadan, or Winter Solstice equivalences, same with Jewish and islam calls to prayer and Hindu hymns, so on. If you want to institute all these things freely, then you open the door to any and every other religion doing the same.

https://thinkprogress.org/texas-school-muslim-prayer-room-b46e018773cd/
https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...video-netherlands-mosque-school-children-pray
https://gellerreport.com/2017/03/muslim-prayer-is-school.html/

You'll love that last one, AV, it shows you what you'd potentially allow if you had your way - because unless you want to be a Christian ISIS, other religions will have all the same rights as your Christian religion would.

Truth be told though, nobody has taken any prayer away from schools since they never did have prayer to start with. As this article follows says, everyone is free to pray as much as they like at public schools, so long as it isn't promoted by the School and doesn't impede the regular operation of the school and its students too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...log.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d1b398319928

 

[USincognito]

Probably depends on who you talk to. I'm a biblical creationist, but my background is finance - then there are folks like Todd Wood who is also a biblical creationist, but he also has a PhD in Biology. Guess who knows more about baraminology... get my point?

You mean this Dr. Todd Wood?
http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.​

If you find creationist claims from like someone's FB page or some random church website, I'd check it against the Bible and against research by well credentialed creationist scientists. Keep in mind, these are humans like the rest of us and are not above error.

Given how notoriously dishonest professional Creationists are, it's best to check the original research. About 90% of Creationist "research" consists of taking legitimate, peer reviewed papers and spinning the content/findings for their agenda.

Webbed toes doesn't make a dog a non-dog any more than a person with webbed toes makes a human a non-human.

It does, however, make them dogs with webbed toes which is a characteristic that dogs don't have and if the allele fixes in the population, that is an example of evolution in action.

ToE asserts that a dog could develop feathers and anything else given the right environmental pressures, random mutations, natural selection, genetic drift, etc...

That is absolutely, 100% false. Feathers are a highly derived characteristic of theropod dinosaurs and their bird descendants. We would never expect to find them in any non-theropod dinosaur and if we did it would falsify evolution.

it's just that the evidence does not show that dogs ever produce anything other than dogs and when going through the fossil record, not surprisingly, fossils are found that very closely resemble modern-day canines from the time of their first appearance.

This is part of the problem with the Creationists "understanding" of evolution - they don't. They think that a single dog should have a litter of kittens or sea lions or white-tailed deer. That's now how it works. Descendants never stop being what their ancestors were so obviously dogs will only "produce" dogs. Whatever dogs evolve into in the future, they will never stop being dogs. Just as they never stopped being grey wolves. And never stopped being Canis, Canidae, Caniformia, Carnivora, Farae, etc.

Only in the imagination is there no boundary, only in the imagination...

And yet no Creationist has ever produced evidence showing there to be no boundary. They just make empty assertions and insist it exists.

 

[NobleMouse]

First, let us clear up the accusations of dishonesty. Let me give you an example: Everybody agrees that atoms contain protons. Now I can define "proton" any way I want, being as it's a free country, so I define "protons" as "invisible purple pixies." Then I go on to quote many secular physicists as asserting that atoms contain protons and point to that that as support for my claim that atoms contain invisible purple pixies. Do you see why doubts about my honesty might arise, given that these physicists define protons as hadrons made up of three quarks, not invisible purple pixies--especially if that definition supports my religious views and is only used by me and my coreligionists?

CC: @HitchSlap, @pitabread, @PsychoSarah, @tas8831

Shannon's and Gitt's definitions of information both involve purposefully sending a message with the goal that that information is received and acted upon/reconstructed. Further, and perhaps unintentionally, the source you cited successfully applied Shannon's mathematical models of information to DNA. DNA contains information. None of this is my definition, in fact, I'm fine using Shannon's definition alone (not Gitt) as supporting that DNA contains purposeful information. Shannon's definition... the one that has a sender, a receiver, and a goal. Too bad you can't argue with Shannon about his definition, but regardless you have decided to not change the words but instead the "meaning" behind the words to be something other than what they say in order to maintain your beliefs. Sound familiar?? You do the same thing with Genesis and other parts of the Bible too in order to maintain your belief that God did not really create everything in 6 days or that there could have been a flood that destroyed all life on land.

Now, if anyone would like to propose examples of purposeful information arising from random chance, I'm all (mouse) ears.

As to the difference between Shannon and Gitt, there is an important distinction to keep in mind between "message" and "information." Shannon originally developed his theory while working at Bell Labs on a particular problem. Sending information through a communication channel costs money. If the amount of information sent can be reduced without corrupting the message encoded into it then money can be saved, so you can see that the distinction is important. Shannon's information can be quantified as being proportional to the size of the algorithm required to reproduce it. For example, a transmitted long string of the letter A, AAAAA... can be reproduced at the other end of the line by merely sending the algorithm "repeat A" and so requires very little information to be sent. On the other hand, a long string of random letters, FCMUKL... can only be reproduced by repeating the whole string, which is the maximum amount of information. Shannon discovered that meaningful content (a "message") is arbitrary to information content; a string of dots and dashes with a message encoded does not necessarily contain the same amount of information as the same message encoded into a different symbol system.

Good to know. Still doesn't negate that DNA contains purposeful information.

Think on that a little; I have to keep this short because I am sitting in a meeting I am supposed to be paying attention to, but the thing with Gitt is that he has confounded "message" and "information." The other thing is that he has included "purpose" in his definition, but the presence of purpose is unfalsifiable and thus has no place in a scientific definition, either to confirm or deny it.

Ordered information that produces life, can replicate, can even make repairs (to an extent) is something you will never be able to demonstrate as coincidence that comes about by random chance and without a purpose. Even BioLogos would say DNA and evolution are from God. As I read more on Anglicanism here, in case I was assuming incorrectly, I do see it is a tradition within Christianity and has associations with the Church of England as well as others here in the States... but oddly enough I don't think our atheist friends here would pick that up from your statements as your angle seems more bent on asserting there is no connection between the characteristics of DNA and obviously requiring an intelligent creator to put that information there, namely God. Odd...

 

[NobleMouse]

You mean this Dr. Todd Wood?
http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.​

Given how notoriously dishonest professional Creationists are, it's best to check the original research. About 90% of Creationist "research" consists of taking legitimate, peer reviewed papers and spinning the content/findings for their agenda.



It does, however, make them dogs with webbed toes which is a characteristic that dogs don't have and if the allele fixes in the population, that is an example of evolution in action.



That is absolutely, 100% false. Feathers are a highly derived characteristic of theropod dinosaurs and their bird descendants. We would never expect to find them in any non-theropod dinosaur and if we did it would falsify evolution.



This is part of the problem with the Creationists "understanding" of evolution - they don't. They think that a single dog should have a litter of kittens or sea lions or white-tailed deer. That's now how it works. Descendants never stop being what their ancestors were so obviously dogs will only "produce" dogs. Whatever dogs evolve into in the future, they will never stop being dogs. Just as they never stopped being grey wolves. And never stopped being Canis, Canidae, Caniformia, Carnivora, Farae, etc.



And yet no Creationist has ever produced evidence showing there to be no boundary. They just make empty assertions and insist it exists.

Ha ha, apparently not as familiar with T. Wood's works as appeared at first glance, showing that there are boundaries is exactly what he demonstrates in his research, but I think you spent more time quote mining his reference to evolution not being a theory in crisis than reading His research. Watch the video on Is Genesis History's website and go past the 1st minute. In any event, I'm talking with others on information existing in DNA at the moment, so you're welcome to join in on that discussion.

 

[AV1611VET]

Shannon's and Gitt's definitions of information both involve purposefully sending a message with the goal that that information is received and acted upon/reconstructed.

Reminds me of this thread I started some time ago:

The Entropy of the Bible

 

[USincognito]

Ha ha, apparently not as familiar with T. Wood's works as appeared at first glance, showing that there are boundaries is exactly what he demonstrates in his research, but I think you spent more time quote mining his reference to evolution not being a theory in crisis than reading His research. Watch the video on Is Genesis History's website and go past the 1st minute. In any event, I'm talking with others on information existing in DNA at the moment, so you're welcome to join in on that discussion.

Afraid not. I'm actually more familiar with his research than many professional Creationists. That's because unlike many professional Creationists he actually engages in research. For instance his baraminological analysis of horses found that every horse species, from Hyracatherium to Equus was one horse baramin was quite interesting and was met with much sturm and drang from other Creationists. His hominid analysis was even more interesting.

And I'm sorry but that quote from Dr. Wood was not a quote mine. It was a bold statement on his part quoted in full. I even included the bold for emphasis from the original. Wood is quite clear that evolution is science and robustly supported. He just disagrees with it. He's one of the more interesting characters in the Creationist movement.

As far as Is Genesis History goes, I don't watch Creationist propaganda and I have no need to. Genesis is not history and that was demonstrated 200 years ago and it's only gotten worse.

 

[NobleMouse]

These are all unfounded claims. You have yet to explain emergent intelligence we see in the fossil record (both in cranial capacity and improvement tool creation and usage in hominids) and/or demonstrate your God that has always existed with said omni-intelligence, and/or that intelligence can only be brought about by a higher intelligence. You've not demonstrated any of this. Your assertions are of the same calibre as a Hindu's assertions of their Gods and creation narrative, or for that matter, any religion's version of anything.

An unfounded claim is asserting no god exists while at the same time having no experiment that demonstrates the emergence of information to the contrary. On the contrary, the presence of information in DNA is perfectly analogous to every known circumstance where information is present... it originates from a mind. You can continue to say the words, "you've not demonstrated..." as much as you wish.

Again, why would Satan be rebelling with full knowledge of God's omnipotence, and while in Heaven to boot? Would/could human souls be doing this too?

Satan's rebellion was not with the thought that he would somehow overthrow God. Satan's goal is to get people to turn away from God. Satan cannot hurt God, but he can hurt his children by deceiving them to thinking there is no God, the result of which is eternal separation from God. People do also have a sin nature (since Adam sinned) and so God has given us His truth, and His son so that we may know the truth, die to our old self and have life found only in Jesus Christ.

I agree. God is the penultimate million-dollar question and is a stand alone question irrelevant to the facts of evolution - I'm not at all convinced you are familiar with biological evolution though, given what you've claimed so far. It's good to see you're honest about your goal (for which you ought to be commended) - but this being the case, why are you fighting facts and evidence that completely supports the Theory of Evolution with unsupported assertions about these paradoxical ideas of intelligence only coming from a higher intelligence, when literally all the evidence we have goes against it?

What is all of this evidenced stacked against intelligence only coming from a higher intelligence? I've been citing scholarly sources, using the definitions of others (not my own) for my arguments, but alas I only receive conjecture as some supposed "jack-of-clubs" (trump) response.

This doesn't bode well for your ascribed goal... If you don't mind my asking, is the truth of an idea you have, or position you hold, actually important to you?

My eternal soul rests upon my accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, so yes, that is important to me.

 

[NobleMouse]

Afraid not. I'm actually more familiar with his research than many professional Creationists. That's because unlike many professional Creationists he actually engages in research. For instance his baraminological analysis of horses found that every horse species, from Hyracatherium to Equus was one horse baramin was quite interesting and was met with much sturm and drang from other Creationists. His hominid analysis was even more interesting.

And I'm sorry but that quote from Dr. Wood was not a quote mine. It was a bold statement on his part quoted in full. I even included the bold for emphasis from the original. Wood is quite clear that evolution is science and robustly supported. He just disagrees with it. He's one of the more interesting characters in the Creationist movement.

As far as Is Genesis History goes, I don't watch Creationist propaganda and I have no need to. Genesis is not history and that was demonstrated 200 years ago and it's only gotten worse.

First you state you are more familiar with his work than most creationists then state you don't watch his video lectures... how confusing, and apparently contradictory. Genesis is from the mouth of God, in Whom all truth resides. It's fine that you don't believe it.

 

[USincognito]

First you state you are more familiar with his work than most creationists

Yeah. Again, because he actually does work instead of just making goofy YouTube videos or writing mass market books.

...then state you don't watch his video lectures... how confusing, and apparently contradictory.

I'd say it's confusing, if you conflate videos of presentations with research papers (you know, the actual work). I also wonder how you failed to notice that I specifically mentioned two of his major baraminological studies. Finally I wonder where, exactly did I state that I don't watch his videos? I actually did watch most of his hominid presentation at the IGH conference. The first 20 minutes were him basically presenting the fossil evidence for human evolution.

Genesis is from the mouth of God, in Whom all truth resides. It's fine that you don't believe it.

It's not about "belief". It's about the truth content being theological and not historical or scientific. Literally every field of study falsifies a literal interpretation of Genesis.

 

[Speedwell]

CC: @HitchSlap, @pitabread, @PsychoSarah, @tas8831

Shannon's and Gitt's definitions of information both involve purposefully sending a message with the goal that that information is received and acted upon/reconstructed. Further, and perhaps unintentionally, the source you cited successfully applied Shannon's mathematical models of information to DNA. DNA contains information. None of this is my definition, in fact, I'm fine using Shannon's definition alone (not Gitt) as supporting that DNA contains purposeful information. Shannon's definition... the one that has a sender, a receiver, and a goal. Too bad you can't argue with Shannon about his definition, but regardless you have decided to not change the words but instead the "meaning" behind the words to be something other than what they say in order to maintain your beliefs. Sound familiar?? You do the same thing with Genesis and other parts of the Bible too in order to maintain your belief that God did not really create everything in 6 days or that there could have been a flood that destroyed all life on land.

Now, if anyone would like to propose examples of purposeful information arising from random chance, I'm all (mouse) ears.


Good to know. Still doesn't negate that DNA contains purposeful information.

Show me where Shannon asserts that information always has a message encoded in it.

Ordered information that produces life, can replicate, can even make repairs (to an extent) is something you will never be able to demonstrate as coincidence that comes about by random chance and without a purpose. Even BioLogos would say DNA and evolution are from God. As I read more on Anglicanism here, in case I was assuming incorrectly, I do see it is a tradition within Christianity and has associations with the Church of England as well as others here in the States... but oddly enough I don't think our atheist friends here would pick that up from your statements as your angle seems more bent on asserting there is no connection between the characteristics of DNA and obviously requiring an intelligent creator to put that information there, namely God. Odd...

The subtext is clear: I'm not a "real" Christian because I don't believe in your version of creationism. I've had that "message" shoved up my nose for years by you people and I'm tired of it. Let me be clear: it is my profound belief that you cannot use natural phenomena to prove the existence of God. More particularly, that you cannot use natural phenomena to prove a shallow and theologically unsatisfactory interpretation of Genesis.

 

[pitabread]

Huh? which came first, "Christ" or "X"?

And for the record, it doesn't matter which came first: "Christ" is being exed out by our intellectual infrastructure.

Everything is a conspiracy to you isn't it?

 

[AV1611VET]

Everything is a conspiracy to you isn't it?

We're in a war.

Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

An unfounded claim is asserting no god exists

Agreed. Same for asserting that Gods exist.

while at the same time having no experiment that demonstrates the emergence of information to the contrary.

Except for all the evidence of intelligence being an emergent trait of brains in animal life on this planet. The more brain per bodymass ratio, the higher the proportional intelligence.

On the contrary, the presence of information in DNA is perfectly analogous to every known circumstance where information is present... it originates from a mind.

Except DNA (if you really must insist on calling complex chemical reactions "information"), there's no evidence that DNA originates from a mind before we started playing with it.

You can continue to say the words, "you've not demonstrated..." as much as you wish.

Thank you. You've still not demonstrated a higher intelligence is necessary for intelligence, let alone that an intelligence could exist for an eternity, nor that such an intelligence didn't itself need a higher intelligence to get its intelligence at some point.

Satan's rebellion was not with the thought that he would somehow overthrow God. Satan's goal is to get people to turn away from God. Satan cannot hurt God, but he can hurt his children by deceiving them to thinking there is no God, the result of which is eternal separation from God. People do also have a sin nature (since Adam sinned) and so God has given us His truth, and His son so that we may know the truth, die to our old self and have life found only in Jesus Christ.

Okay, this creates more questions than it answers - again, *Why* rebel? What's wrong with Heaven and God for Satan and 1/3 of all the angels to rebel in the first place? ...and Why doesn't God just remove all doubt and reveal himself to us all just like Satan and the Angels 100% know he exists and still have free will? Then, Problem Solved - we can all exercise free will, 100% informed, then go back to what we were doing, Satan or not!

What is all of this evidenced stacked against intelligence only coming from a higher intelligence? I've been citing scholarly sources, using the definitions of others (not my own) for my arguments, but alas I only receive conjecture as some supposed "jack-of-clubs" (trump) response.

That it happens naturally. We see the progression of tool use by hominids throughout the fossil record growing in complexity as cranial capacity becomes larger, there's a direct correlation. That and the complete absence of any evidence whatsoever of an intelligence creating lesser intelligence anywhere in the animal kingdom. everything we have shows intelligence to be an emergent property of brains, and nothing showing a higher intelligence bestowing intelligence in lieu of this - in fact, there's a complete dearth of this alleged "higher intelligence", so establishing that it exists in the first place to bestow this intelligence, would probably have to happen first.

My eternal soul rests upon my accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, so yes, that is important to me.

Firstly, how do you know this to be true? Why isn't it important for you to accept the claims made by Islam for example? or the Jews either for that matter, given a majority of them are still waiting for their Messiah to come as described by the Torah?

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

That is absolutely, 100% false. Feathers are a highly derived characteristic of theropod dinosaurs and their bird descendants. We would never expect to find them in any non-theropod dinosaur and if we did it would falsify evolution.

....like Angels, Angels and their feathery white wings would disprove evolution...

 

[AV1611VET]

....like Angels, Angels and their feathery white wings would disprove evolution...

Science, which is neo-Sadducee* in its doctrine, can't explain how we got angels sans evolution.

* Acts 23:8a For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit:

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

Science, which is neo-Sadducee* in its doctrine, can't explain how we got angels sans evolution.

Science, which is 'A'Sadducee in every way, would indeed have no explanation for Angels. Do you have one to show us?

* Acts 23:8a For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit:

"If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth." - Carl Sagan​