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i will pay $$

Pete Harcoff

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Fisherma: This is a real deal - If anyone can provide any real hard proof for the origin of the universe I will pay them $25.

DNAunion: Okay.

1) Our Universe exists.
2) Our Universe had to either originate or exist forever.
3) If the Universe existed forever, the sky would not be dark at night. Since the sky is dark at night, we know the Universe has not existed forever.

Therefore, I have proved that the Universe originated.

When do I get my $25? :)
 
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ikester7579

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Yesterday at 10:03 AM Eddie said this in Post #20

The workings of a sad man. Check this link. members.aol.com/paluxy2/hammer.htm

I always makes me shake my head in wonder when a person cannot see the magesty of God in the complexity of His work and feels, pridefully, that if he cannot understand it it cannot be. I also smell the taint of money.

Be very watchful of those that make money on these teachings.

 

Say what you will about Carl Baugh. But when's the last time you appeared on Nova? Carl Baugh has. You see everyone was quick to refute what he found because it supported the Bible and creation, but no one ever went out to paluxy river to check out and report on National T.V. whether his finding were true or false. The foot prints are there for everyone to see. Have you seen them? I have. They are real. I also have the tape that shows him on Nova when he discovered these prints. And foot prints of dinasaurs and humans are not the only thing they have found in the area. A hand print was found recently.

Carl Baugh is also building a bio sphere. In this bio sphere he will simulate a pre flood atmosphere. In this atmosphere he will conduct hundreds of tests. The building is almost finished. A lot of these test have already been done in a smaller bio sphere where he kept plants and animals. So he already knows what some of these out comes will be. It will be interesting because he will now be able to conduct his tests on humans and how they were effected by the preflood atmophere. You can see picture of this building which will contain the bio sphere here: http://www.creationevidence.org/general_info/gnrl_info.html#

Make sure to click on photo gallery to see the pictures. Also from here you can click on "Archaeological Excavations" and see some of these foot prints. I will be putting a pic of them in my avatar.




 
 
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Say what you will about Carl Baugh. But when's the last time you appeared on Nova? Carl Baugh has. You see everyone was quick to refute what he found because it supported the Bible and creation, but no one ever went out to paluxy river to check out and report on National T.V. whether his finding were true or false.

I would love to see that episode of Nova... I'd love to see what they had to say about Baugh.. In answer to your other question, yes many people have gone to the Paluxy river to check out the report and have foudn that it was false. In particular, the ICR (Institution for Creation Research) has done so.

This radical creationist organisation found that the Paluxy tracks were not evidence of humans co-existing with dinosaurs. I doubt very seriously that they refuted this claim just because it was a claim that appeared to support the Bible. After all, they share your views and Carl Baugh's views about the Bible and what it means. Here is the link:

http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-151.htm

Several secular paleontologists have also determined that Baugh was out in left field on this one. I won't link to them because you won't believe them anyway. Answers in Genesis and the ICR have shown Baugh to be wrong, secular scientists have shown Baugh to be wrong, and I don't care if he was on 60 Minutes... wrong is wrong!
 
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Pete Harcoff

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Today at 03:48 AM ikester7579 said this in Post #26 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=656235#post656235)

Say what you will about Carl Baugh.  

Did you miss my Carl Baugh link? It was to Answers in Genesis (another YEC organization), under their list of Arguments We Think Creationists Should NOT Use.

Here, I'll post what they say:

Which arguments should definitely not be used? (their emphasis)

Many of Carl Baugh’s creation ‘evidences’. Sorry to say, AiG thinks that he’s well meaning but that he unfortunately uses a lot of material that is not sound scientifically. So we advise against relying on any ‘evidence’ he provides, unless supported by creationist organisations with reputations for Biblical and scientific rigour. Unfortunately, there are talented creationist speakers with reasonably orthodox understandings of Genesis (e.g. Kent Hovind) who continue to promote some of the Wyatt and Baugh ‘evidences’ despite being approached on the matter (ed. note: see our Maintaining Creationist Integrity, our response to Hovind’s reply to this article).

So, even fellow creationist organization AIG thinks his 'evidences' are "not sound scientifically" (never mind the irony in that, but I digress).
 
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Tenek

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Yesterday at 12:42 PM DNAunion said this in Post #23

DNAunion: Okay.

1) Our Universe exists.
2) Our Universe had to either originate or exist forever.
3) If the Universe existed forever, the sky would not be dark at night. Since the sky is dark at night, we know the Universe has not existed forever.

Therefore, I have proved that the Universe originated.

When do I get my $25? :)

Nice way to skip the meat and potatoes of Olber's Paradox. Perhaps you should stop worrying about 'if' you'll find a star in any direction and start worrying about 'when' - avg 10^23 light years. IIRC.
 
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lucaspa

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14th February 2003 at 06:25 AM JohnR7 said this in Post #10

There are two sides to the issue. First you have Archdeacon William Paley's who argues that the universe had to have a Designer. Then you have Charles Darwin, who spent most of his life trying to prove Paley wrong.  

... Sedgwick felt that it would do great damage to humanity and sink mankind into it's lowest grade of degradation that it had ever been in, sense the beginning of recorded history.
We now live in a Neo=Darwin age and today Dr Phillip JOhnson  leads debate on the side of "Intellegent design". Although William saw the Designer of the universe as more of a artist. Professor Johnson has written the books" "Darwin on Trial" & "Reason in the Balance".

So the earlyer Darwin vs Paley debate or the contempory Neo Darwinism vs Intellegent design argued by Phillip Johnson, would be a good place to start.  


John, your ignorance of history is showing again.  Darwin didn't disprove Paley; he just came up with the proximate designer: natural selection.  Natual selection is an algorithmic process that gives design.  Humans use it now to get designs that are too tough for them (and were not made by God).

Johnson and other IDers simply refuse to accept the data that natural selection is a means to get design.  They try to show that there are some parts of the universe (mostly biological organisms) that have to be manufactured entities.

Unfortunately, Johnson can't convince anyone in his books (yes, I've read both) because he ignores natural selection and because he thinks he can simply look at the organism to see if it is manufactured.  You can't do that.  You have to look at the organism and  the environment.

As to Sedgwick, what you have are Sedgwick's personal objections to what he sees as the social consequences of the theory.  All you quotes show that Sedgwick didn't argue against the accuracy of what Darwin proposed, but stated his fears about what would happen to society.

But Sedgwick's fears were groundless. Society never collapsed.  Christianity adjusted and even eagerly adopted evolution because it got them off the theological hooks that creationism got them into.  Of course, for someone like you trying to destroy Christianity, you want to go back to the pre-evolution days so those problems come back.
 
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lucaspa

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14th February 2003 at 12:29 AM fisherma said this in Post #1

This is a real deal - If anyone can provide any real hard proof for the origin of the universe I will pay them $25. I am writing a persuasive essay about this issue and am currently undecided about it.

if you have PayPal I will pay for real facts.

DNAUnion offered you some of the "proof" for a universe that isn't infinitely old.  Therefore you should pay him because you have "proof" "for the origin of the universe".

Now, if you want "proof" for how the universe originated, the Big Bang has  lot of that.  The new competing theory is ekpyrotic.

If you want to know the cause of the Big Bang, there are several competing hypotheses, but no "proof" that any of them are false.
 
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lucaspa

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14th February 2003 at 10:19 AM JohnR7 said this in Post #13

Darwin was never a christian and never claimed to be. He did go to one of the best christian schools, and he did have some of the best christian teachers available. That is why he was so effective and knew exactly what he was coming out against.

Yes to both. Darwin was a Christian and claimed to be.  In the chapter entitled "Never an Atheist" in Desmond and Moore's biography Darwin, they quote Darwin's answers late in life to people who asked him f evolution were against Christianity:

"No, he responded to the prelate E.B. Pusey's sermon, the Origin had no 'relation whatever to Theology', although when he wrote it his own 'belief in what is called a personal God was as firm as that of Dr. Pusey himself.' "

Toward the end of his life he and Asa Gray were talking about beliefs.  "a man undoubtedly can be 'an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.' For himself, he had 'never been an atheist in the in the sense of denying the existence of a God,' but he still felt profoundly uncertain.  If he had to wear a label, Huxley's suited better.  'I think that generally (& more & more as I grow older), but not always, that an agnostic wold be the most correct description of my state of mind.' pg 635-657

Darwin all his life attended the Down Anglican Church and supported it with time and money.

You should note, John, that Darwin was buried in a Christian ceremony in a Christian church.  Darwin's family and close associates never objected that this went against his beliefs.
 
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lucaspa

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14th February 2003 at 10:33 AM JohnR7 said this in Post #16

I have not read that much of it, why would I need to? There is enough Neo-Darwinism splattered all over the place that I would not have to go back to the origional source.

Sooner or later the truth and the error are going to have to be seperated out.


Have you ever read an evolutionary biology textbook? Or even Ernst Mayr's What Evolution Is? How about watching the PBS series Evolution?

And yes, you should go back to the original source to figure out what Darwin said and what has been changed later.  But then, if you did that then you might have to change your opinion, right John? And that you simply can't allow to happen.
 
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lucaspa

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14th February 2003 at 06:25 AM JohnR7 said this in Post #10

There are two sides to the issue. First you have Archdeacon William Paley's who argues that the universe had to have a Designer. Then you have Charles Darwin, who spent most of his life trying to prove Paley wrong.  

There aren't two valid sides to the issue.  One valid side -- common descent and natural seleciton -- versus the invalid side of deity manufacturing organisms retail.

You should be aware, John, that Paley wasn't offering a scientific theory.  Instead, he was offering an argument against atheism. See below since I doubt you have read Paley, either.

Darwin didn't overthrow theism when he discovered that natural selection would give design, but he did remove that particular "proof" for it.

III. Though it be now no longer probable that the individual watch which our observer had found was made immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet doth not this alteration in anywise affect the inference, that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned in the production. The argument from design remains as it was. Marks of design and contrivance are no more accounted for now than they were before. In the same thing, we may ask for the cause of different properties. We may ask for the cause of the color of a body, of its hardness, of its heat; and these causes may be all different. We are now asking for the cause of that subserviency to a use, that relation to an end, which we have remarked in the watch before us. No answer is given to this question, by telling us that a preceding watch produced it. There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order, without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it.  [emphasis mine] Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and mind. No one, therefore, can rationally believe that the insensible, inanimate watch, from which the watch before us issued, was the proper cause of the mechanism we so much admire in it --could be truly said to have constructed the instrument, disposed its parts, assigned their office, determined their order, action, and mutual dependency, combined their several motions into one result, and that also a result connected with the utilities of other beings. All these properties, therefore, are as much unaccounted for as they were before. . .
 The conclusion which the first examination of the watch, of its works, construction, and movement, suggested, was, that it must have had, for cause and author of that construction, an artificer who understood its mechanism and designed its use. This conclusion is invincible. A second examination presents us with a new discovery. The watch is found, in the course of its movement, to produce another watch similar to itself; only so, but we perceive in it a system or organization separately calculated for that purpose. What effect would this discovery have or ought it to have, upon our former inference? What, as hath already been said, but to increase beyond measure our admiration of the skill which had been employed in the formation of such a machine? Or shall it, instead of this, all at once turn us round to an opposite conclusion, namely, that no art or skill whatever has been concerned in the business, although all other evidences of art and skill remain as they were, and this last and supreme piece of art be now added to the rest? Can this be maintained without absurdity? Yet this is atheism.

Application of the Argument

This is atheism; for every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature, with the difference on the side of nature of being greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. I mean, that the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtelty, and curiosity of the mechanism; and still more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety; yet, in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated to their end or suited to their office, than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity.




 
 
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For Christians wanting proof for the origin of the universe here you go:

Genesis 1:1 "In the begining GOD created the heavens and the Earth"

If you are a Christian this should be enough "proof" for you.  Check 2 Timothy 3:16.  Also before I hear calls of circular reasoning please hold yourselves to the same standard :p
 
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lucaspa

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Today at 11:41 AM Sinners_Repent_Now said this in Post #35

For Christians wanting proof for the origin of the universe here you go:

Genesis 1:1 "In the begining GOD created the heavens and the Earth"

If you are a Christian this should be enough "proof" for you.  Check 2 Timothy 3:16.  Also before I hear calls of circular reasoning please hold yourselves to the same standard 

I wondered if you were really thinking you were debating the atheism vs theism battle and, yes, you are.

This isn't "proof", it's belief.  Now, you are welcome to that belief, but you can't pass it off as "proof".

How does your statement, in isolation, contradict Big Bang? Could not God have created the universe via the Big Bang?

I told you there were currently 5 hypotheses for the origin of the Big Bang.  Your hypothesis -- God created -- is one of them.  However, because there are 4 others you can't say this one is proven.
 
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WinAce

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The argument from design in a nutshell:

Stuff is complex, so it needs a designer to account for it.
The designer is even more complex, so it doesn't need a metadesigner to account for it.

Did I get that about right?
 
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lucaspa

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Today at 12:13 PM WinAce said this in Post #37

The argument from design in a nutshell:

Stuff is complex, so it needs a designer to account for it.
The designer is even more complex, so it doesn't need a metadesigner to account for it.

Did I get that about right?

I'm afraid not.  The argument against the designer is applicable only  when the claimant makes the auxiliary claim that complexity can't arise by chance.  When that is done, the claimant loses all explanatory ability for the Designer.

However, in the absence of that claim, you can never use the next layer of questions to invalidate an answer to the first layer.  Inquiry works in layers.  Providing an answer leads to 3 or 4 new questions.

So, we have the question: what accounts for the designs in biological organisms.  Proposed answer: biological organisms are artifacts designed and manufactured by an intelligent entity (Argument from Design).  Next questions: what is the identity of the Designer and how did the complexity in the Designer arise?  Failure to have answers to those questions doesn't invalidate the answer to the first question.

The answer to the Argument from Design is that you can't look only at the subject and its complexity, but at the environment.  In order to infer that the subject is a manufactured entity, you have to eliminate all processes in the environment as producing the subject. For instance, Paley was very careful to put his watch on a heath.  There were no processes on the heath that could produce a watch.

The reason the AfD went down to defeat for biological organisms is that Darwin discovered a process in the environment -- natural selection -- that would give the designs in biological organisms.  With such a process present, the AfD became invalid.
 
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