I may give evolution a shot.

[Mike Flynn]

I said that I criticize people who don't even try to understand the Bible. You try, that is evident, and I applaud you for that. But at the same time, we have to look at Genesis, 1 Corinthians 15:26 et al. and realize that death is an enemy right now, today, and it will be done away with. It is the last enemy which came into the world, and the last one that will be defeated

It has been defeated. I'm sorry you don't see that. One day when all souls are either saved or lost, then there will be no death because there will be no sinners left to be destroyed by sin. Thats what Corinthians 15:26 is talking about...real death...not the passing of this temporary shell of an existence.

Nonsense. While I agree that everyone is fallible and doesn't always get it 100% right, there will be no compromising on the issue that says God created everythng through death, mistakes, bloodshed, disease and deformaties, and then calling it all "very good."

If you want to ignore Jesus teachings on real life and death, then go ahead. If you want to ignore God's creation, then go ahead. If you don't want to compromise then I leave that to you. That doesn't mean you are right, it just means that you have convinced yourself that you are.

There are a plethora of Biblical facts that clearly contradict the ridiculous idea of evolutionary 'theory,' and your answer to that is to change God's Word to make it fit man's ideas, and to allegorize parts that disagree with it.

The only 'facts' that disqualify evolution are made up of your own assumptions...how are your assumptions equal to biblical facts? How am I allegorizing it if God intended the Genesis account as allegory in the first place?

Here are a few questions for you:

What is the purpose of the tree of life in Genesis? Was it there to give something to Adam and Eve that they did not already have before they ate from it?

If Adam couldn't die, then why did he have to eat? What would happen if he was fruitful and multiplied until the earth was packed with humanity?

Why did the animals have to reproduce if they could not die?

Could plant cells die in the garden of eden? If not, what happened to the cells in a leaf of lettuce when Adam ate it?

Now, can you answer these questions without imposing your own plethora of fallible assumptions? You make scads of assumptions by assuming the Genesis account was meant to be taken literally. And you don't even realize it. Moreover, you are arrogantly proclaiming that you know that God has intended it this way.

Clearly, things that are not of a sound doctrine, we must rebuke and test; for Titus 1:13 says, "This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith." and 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says, "Critically examine everything. Hold on to the good." Amen.

I suppose that describes what we are trying to do with each other. But let me ask you this: What part of human understanding is involved in accepting Christ and becoming a servant of God's will? Could an illiterate, brain damaged man do it?

My point is this: these arguments have nothing to do with salvation. Lets make sure we don't stand in the way of people who might have come to Christ if it wasn't for our arguments. Thats just wrong.

IOW, its OK to debate theology...lets not pass judgement on anyone's faith or attach strings to people coming to Christ with our fallible words.

 

[lucaspa]

"So far you haven't given us any facts. Just fanciful criticisms that evaporate when we look at the facts."

Lucaspa, you getting up set? Looks like it. Are you getting up set cause he is right? Perhaps...
People get upset normaly if they start to feel over whelmed, or wrong.

Often people get upset for that reason. However, they also get upset when people use an argument, you refute them, and they use the same argument and ignore the refutations. That's what is happening here.

Lonnie, criticisms don't get a free ride. They too get tested to see if they are valid. Napajohn has the opinion that criticisms are valid simply because they are criticisms. What has happened in the evolution vs creationism dialogue over the years is that creationists post criticisms of evolution. Evolutionists critically examine the criticisms -- like we critically examine any idea -- and find fatal flaws with them. Usually data that contradicts and falsifies the criticism, but sometimes logical flaws, too. Such as the "improbability of life" calculations.

This shows that we are actually paying attention to the criticisms. We understand what they are and treat them honestly. However, what we find is that evolution is not treated honestly and that our refutations of the criticisms is not treated honestly. After awhile, that dishonesty of the creationists does lead to frustration.

Are you a parent? See what happens when a child ignores repeatedly that keeping the air-conditioning on full blast costs money, or instructions to clean their rooms, or that sharing is good. Or look at how your own parents reacted when you did these behaviors.

 

[lucaspa]

8He who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean.

may be clean, again describing the day of his cleaning...oh, still could be a day...

After that he shall come into the camp, and shall stay outside his
tent seven days. 9But on the seventh day he shall shave all the hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows—all his hair he shall shave off. He shall wash his clothes and wash his body in water, and he shall be clean.

Now here you have a problem. Clearly, for the day of his cleaning, he has to come into the camp, stay outside his tent for seven days, then do the rest. There is no way the day of cleaning is one day long. Sorry, but it's not nice to misquote the Bible.

I don't see the problem. On the day he is presented to the priest, he shaves his head and washes. Then he waits outside the camp for 7 days. Don't you think his hair will start to grow back in those 7 days? That his clothes and body will again be dirty? So on the 7th day the man shaves his head and washes.

"in the day" still refers to that first day. Not to all 8. I really wish you would stop abusing the Bible.

 

[Svt4Him]

The Bible also clearly states that the world was made in one day (altho Svt4him is trying desperately to wriggle out of it.). The Bible also clearly states in Genesis 1 that all the animals were made before man. But in Genesis 2 it states that Adam was made first, then the animals.

Is that the best you can do? See, that's why it's hard to argue with atheists, they do the same thing they accuse us of doing. It's pretty clear that it's not refering to one day, yet you choose to see what you want. Address the issue that I put forth, and tell me how I'm 'wriggling out'.

 

[Cantuar]

Is that the best you can do? See, that's why it's hard to argue with atheists, they do the same thing they accuse us of doing.

Notice that little yellow cross by Lucaspa's name? It doesn't signify "atheist" - or are you calling him a liar?

 

[PhantomLlama]

Is that the best you can do? See, that's why it's hard to argue with atheists, they do the same thing they accuse us of doing. It's pretty clear that it's not refering to one day, yet you choose to see what you want. Address the issue that I put forth, and tell me how I'm 'wriggling out'.

When Lucaspa sees this you are so dead, if you'll excuse the term.

 

[Eru]

See, that's why it's hard to argue with atheists, they do the same thing they accuse us of doing.

The lack of evidence for God in any form should be enought reason for anyone to no believe in him. We do not do the same as you, you believe in things that have no evidence, we do not.

 

[Mike Flynn]

The lack of evidence for God in any form should be enought reason for anyone to no believe in him. We do not do the same as you, you believe in things that have no evidence, we do not.

Thats not true, you believe that there is no God, there is no evidence that this is true either....IOW, it is also a claim not supported by facts.

 

[lucaspa]

Well, you dont believe in creationism do you? So anything supporting it would seem false to you right? Thats what you are doing. And us creationists have felt like this before, when people ignore facts, or believe facts that have been falsified.

Lonnie, this isn't about "believe". Creationism is a scientific theory. One accepts or rejects it based on the data. My personal beliefs about God and Creation have nothing to do with this.

Again, you can find supporting evidence for any and every theory if that is all you are looking for. So supporting evidence takes a back seat to evidence that falsifies a theory.

Now, creationists have come up with a lot of "evidence". From Lord Kelvin's sun shining from gravitational collapse to William Dembski's "complex, specified, information." Each of those evidences have been looked at. And each has been falsified using data independent of the theory of evolution. That's a key, Lonnie. It is invalid to dismiss evidence because you don't like the implications for another theory. You must dismiss it based on criteria other than evolution.

Let's take the two I mentioned to show you how this has to be done. Lord Kelvin in the 1880s said the earth could not be hundreds of millions of years old because, according to him, the sun gives off heat and light because it is collapsing. Kelvin calculated how long ago the sun would have been at the orbit of earth and came up with something like 2 million years. Not enough time for evolution.

This caused Darwin and geologists severe problems. Their data from geology said the earth was much, much older than Kelvin calculated. Geology was independent of evolution so they had two conflicting sets of data. Kelvin, using the arrogance of physicists, said his was right because it was physics. However, in the early 1900s radioactivity was discovered -- physics. Then fusion. Physics again. Fusion provided the energy source of the sun and falsified Kelvin's calculations. But the falsification came from physics and did not use the theory of evolution. So it was OK.

Dembski says that only intelligence produces what he calls complex, specified, information. Dembski came up with this idea in 1995. Well, in reading my 1975 grad school textbook on biochemistry, I found this paragraph discussing the protocells:

"In more recent work, Fox and his colleagues have shown that basic proteinoids, rich in lysine residues, selectively associate with the homopolynucleotides poly C and poly U but not with poly A or poly G. On the other hand, arginine-rich proteinoids associate selectively with poly A and poly G. In this manner, the information in proteinoids can be used to select polynucleotides. Morever, it is striking that aminoacyl adenylates yield oligopeptides when incubated with proteinoid-polynucleotide complexes, which thus have some of the characteristics of ribosomes. Fox has suggested that proteinoids bearing this sort of primitive chemical information could have transferred it to a primitive nucleic acid; the specificity of interaction between certain proteinoids and polynucleotides suggests the beginning of the genetic code." A. Lehninger, Biochemistry, 1975, pp 1047-1048

Everyone knows that proteins are complex. Dembski admits this. Notice the bolded phrases. Here we have Lehninger talking about the formation of complex, specified information by a chemical reaction. Long before Dembski even thought up his idea. This is independent refutation, since Lehninger wasn't even thinking of Dembski's idea. What's more, this is coming from chemistry, not evolution.

Now, what happens on these boards, Lonnie, is that we get tired of going thru this every week with a new creationist. So we get lazy and seem to dismiss the evidence. What we are really doing is saying that there are independent falsifications of the "supporting evidence" for creationism but we simply don't want to go thru it in detail. Again. and again. and again.

I suggest you go to www.talkorigins.org and look thru their FAQ files. You will find the detailed, independent falsifications of much of the creationist "evidence" there.

Every time a creationist comes up with a new idea, such as Behe with "irreducible complexity" or Dembski, you will find that evolutionists do take it seriously and do test it honestly by finding the independent refutation of the idea.

Also it would not matter if you dont remember that Dr. Fox theory was flasified when you where in high school. Or any other grade. Cause things change.

Lonnie, you have said this before. But you never give the source. I can't find the falsification anywhere in the scientific literature. And I have looked. And looked. The protocells are alive. They don't do things like modern cells, but they are alive.

Remember, my grad school biochemistry textbook says the work is valid! So, until you can give me a citation, I have no choice but to conclude you are making it up. "Fox's comprehensive hypothesis for the origin of reproductive cells, which postulates the primacy of proteins as the first informational macromolecules, is outlined in Figure 37-13."

 

[Eru]

Thats not true, you believe that there is no God, there is no evidence that this is true either....IOW, it is also a claim not supported by facts.

http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/critical_thinking/unfalsifiable_claims.htm

Nothing more needs to be said.

 

[lucaspa]

He would have been creating through violent death and suffering, not because of any sin or punishment, but because that's simply the way He chose to create. Sorry, but our God does not work that way. Death, deformaties, disease, etc. is not "very good," and obviously neither is your ability to understand Scripture.

But didn't God use all these to create Israel? He used disease and deformities in the form of the Plagues to set the Hebrews free from Egypt. The Egyptians were not doing anything wrong, because God at that time had not made any rules about slavery (those came later). Then God used the death of the Canaanites to make land available for the Hebrews to settle in and form the country of Israel. Again, the Canaanites were't doing anything wrong because God had not revealed Himself to them. They simply had the misfortune not to be His chosen people.

So, God chose to create Israel out of death, deformity, disease, etc. It is you who are putting your label of "not very good" on these things and then declaring "our God does not work that way." Your god may not, but God does.

 

[Eru]

But didn't God use all these to create Israel? He used disease and deformities in the form of the Plagues to set the Hebrews free from Egypt. The Egyptians were not doing anything wrong, because God at that time had not made any rules about slavery (those came later). Then God used the death of the Canaanites to make land available for the Hebrews to settle in and form the country of Israel. Again, the Canaanites were't doing anything wrong because God had not revealed Himself to them. They simply had the misfortune not to be His chosen people.

Looks like God isn't as all-loving as he claims. Killing some people for the benefit of others.

 

[Mike Flynn]

http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/critical_thinking/unfalsifiable_claims.htm

Nothing more needs to be said.

Except that God doesn't have to be a god of gaps, Eru. Your reference is referring to people who envoke the divine to explain things that have not been explained....that is not how many believers see it.

Here is the trouble with this: If something is explainable scientifically, does that mean God has no part in it or did not create it? Now, if you say 'yes' then that is simply a belief that the atheists hold. That belief is also an 'unfalsifiable claim', as you put it. And if we accept your argument, then atheism is equally folly. You are simply mistaking god of gaps theology for real theology.

IOW, if science simply reveals God's methods, then your link is irrelevant. An agnostic is someone who will correctly argue that there is no scientific proof of God, therefore we don't know that he exists. That is the position that does not make unsupported claims.

Now, what more do you have to say about this?

 

[Mike Flynn]

Looks like God isn't as all-loving as he claims. Killing some people for the benefit of others.

If you don't understand the theology, then you shouldn't try to refute it. You have it all wrong.

 

[lucaspa]

No, that's your misrepresentation of Scripture. The flood was necessary because the world, every part of it, was permeated with sin. The Bible says that every thought of man was wicked.

"Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Genesis 6:5).

So why did the animals have to die?

What was the penalty for Adam's sin? Let's see what God Almighty has to say about it, in Genesis 3:19:

"In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."

The penalty for sin was clearly physical death,

Out of context. I really hate it when Christians abuse the Bible to get it to say something it doesn't.

"cursed is the ground because of you, in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat teh plants of the field. In the sweat of your face ... "

The punishment is that farming will be very hard. But Adam was already going to return to the ground.

Now, go back to Genesis 2:17 where God forbids him to eat of the tree. "but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." Adam didn't die until 930 years later. So God wasn't referring to physical death.

In Genesis 3:22 we have "lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever."

Adam was always going to die a physical death. The death God referred to in Genesis 2:17 was spiritual, not physical. You have let your own fear of physical death blind you to the meaning of scripture.

The Bible calls death an enemy: "The last enemy that will be destroyed is death." (1 Corinthians 15:26)

Yes, spiritual death.

I agree you have to compare scripture with scripture. But you didn't do that, did you? You simply took the scriptures you wanted and ignored the rest. Creationism's modus operendi.

 

[Eru]

That's not what it looks like to me. Read the Bible, look at all that wrath. God slaughters people time and time again.

 

[lucaspa]

Is that the best you can do? See, that's why it's hard to argue with atheists, they do the same thing they accuse us of doing. It's pretty clear that it's not refering to one day, yet you choose to see what you want. Address the issue that I put forth, and tell me how I'm 'wriggling out'.

I did address the issues you put forth. Now you address mine. How do you have two contradictory orders of creation.

It is referring to one day. Your example also refers to one day.

 

[lucaspa]

The lack of evidence for God in any form should be enought reason for anyone to no believe in him. We do not do the same as you, you believe in things that have no evidence, we do not.

1. There is not "lack of evidence for God in any form". The personal experiences of theists are the evidence. And you don't have an indepedent reason for dismissing those experiences.

2. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

3. Ever hear of tachyons? Care to give us your thoughts about them? Do you believe in tachyons?

Eru, you are using a philosophy called "logical positivism". This says you should not believe in any entity that is not verified (has evidence). This is called the Verification Principle. Unfortunately, this philosophy has been refuted because no one could verify the Verification Principle.

That you believe deity does not exist is OK. That you make incorrect statements about the beliefs of others and the epistemological basis of your own beleif is not.

 

[lucaspa]

When Lucaspa sees this you are so dead, if you'll excuse the term.

I'm not going to kill him. Swallowing his foot up to the knee should do him in without any effort from me.

 

[Eru]

1. There is not "lack of evidence for God in any form". The personal experiences of theists are the evidence. And you don't have an indepedent reason for dismissing those experiences.

They cannot be tested scientifically and could be more accurately termed placebo and hallucinations.

2. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Oh yes it is, Scientifically speaking. Leprachauns have as much evidence going for them as God, so are you going to start believing in them and chase for the end of the rainbow?

3. Ever hear of tachyons? Care to give us your thoughts about them? Do you believe in tachyons?

They are feasibly possible under a reasonable version of m theory, but until they are proven I remain skeptical.