In The Beginning.

[Taure]

Wow...reading this thread makes me want to become an atheist...not because of the arguments being put forth (I've heard most of them before, and agree), but 'cos of the sheer embarrassment this thread gives me to be associated with Christianity.

There no evidence for God - it is entirely possible for the universe to come about without a God.

I simply choose to believe in God, which is a personal belief that makes sense to me, not something that can be proven. To attempt to prove God is to not understand what the concept of God is.

As a Christian, I say this now:

1. It is entirely possible for something to come out of nothing, for no cause.

2. It is entirely possible for life to come about without a God.

3. Evolution is true.

4. Life is a proof for nothing other than life.

5. Personal opinions are not evidence.

 

[flatworm]

I have not explicitly rejected logic at all I have simply pointed out that The omnipotent, omniscient God does not have to be limited by it.You failed to explain why He should.

FoeHammer.

You have explicitly rejected logic by positing a real being that breaks the rules of logic. This is the same thing as stating that logic itself does not hold for certain very special circumstances which you yourself decide by fiat.

I have tried in vain to arouse an interest in the life sciences in my fellow creationists, this thread is a stereotypical example of why. The ablility of evolutionists to alienate any view other then a purely naturalistic one is what characterizes their arguments.

Now this poster is going to put a blanket curse on the whole topic. Congradulations debaters, you have intrenched yet another creationist.

Hmmm, a creationist explicitly throws your God outside the realm of rational thought, but you take issue with the person who pointed out the flaw in his thinking. I find that... fascinating.

Note that my argument is not on God but on a piece of shoddy thinking. Do you think such arguments should be suppressed to spare the feelings of the entrenched? Do you think you will win converts by telling them they must choose between reason and God?

I think it should be obvious to anyone following this forum that FoeHammer was entrenched in his views long before I said a word to him, indeed probably before he was 10 years old. All I have done is strip away any veneer of legitimate science and philosophy in which he had cloaked his arguments and exposed his intellectual dishonesty to the light of day.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

but 'cos of the sheer embarrassment this thread gives me to be associated with Christianity.

it is not just this thread. but the whole topic of creationism.
the only hope is to break this association that ties YECism to Christianity in so many people's minds. for the absolute foolishness of YECism is the first thing so many people see when they encounter the issues. and like Augustine said so long ago:

“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” [1 Timothy 1.7]

(From The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim). This translation is by J. H. Taylor in Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41)

i cut and pasted it from: http://www.caidweb.org/blog/?p=15
whitespace added for readability.

being a YEC is not being a fool for Christ*, for it has nothing to do with believing the Resurrection, but rather simply being a fool.

notes:
1Cr 4:10 We [are] fools for Christ's sake, but ye [are] wise in Christ; we [are] weak, but ye [are] strong; ye [are] honourable, but we [are] despised.

 

[FoeHammer]

No. Perhaps you need further clarification (or electroshock treatment).

I too can cast aspersions if that’s the way you want it.

The 'god of the gaps' is effectively the goddidit argument; wherever there is an unknown process (why the sun rises, how plants grow, where babies come from, etc), people say 'Oh, god does it'. Since pretty much all such phenomena can be explained via science, the 'goddidit' argument can only be used to explain what few unknowns are left (notice that people rarely use it to explain, say, the probabilistic nature of quantum particles, but for vague and grandose concepts like 'revelation', 'life', 'OBEs', etc). What was attributed to divine intervention before, is now known to be simply the consequence of (macroscopically) predictable behaviour.

The fact that science can explain a process does not mean that it is the only explanation of that process nor does it mean that God wasn’t the originator/author of that process. As for any gaps in current scientific understanding, if that is a problem then it is a problem for those who put their faith scientific understanding, and I don’t.

If you hadn't noticed, that was the definition as given by T. H. Huxley in 1870.

So what?

In any case, this definition is erroneous because it has not been refuted. Dictionary.com pales in the light of Wikipedia (incedentally, did you ever stop to think about the other definitions? Nothing refuted or disproved there:

n. The supposed development of living organisms from nonliving matter. Also called autogenesis, spontaneous generation.

nouna hypothetical organic phenomenon by which living organisms are created from nonliving matter
Function: noun
: the supposed spontaneous origination of living organisms directly from lifeless matter called also spontaneous generation; —compareBIOGENESIS—abi·og·e·nist /"A-(")bI-'äj-&-n&st/ or abio·gen·e·sist /-"bI-O-'jen-&-s&st/ noun

Autogenesis, spontaneous generation also known as abiogenesis.

Or, wikipedia:

Today the term is primarily used to refer to hypotheses about the chemical origin of life, such as from a primordial sea or in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents, and most probably through a number of intermediate steps, such as non-living but self-replicating molecules (biopoiesis).

So, some are slow reluctant to let the idea go. Perhaps they’ll end up forming their equivalent of the flat earth society.

I'm sorry? If we're talking about terrestrial life, then panspermia? Extraterrestrial terraforming? If we're talking about any and all life, then Abiogenesis (the still-valid hypothesis that life can and indeed has come from nonlife) is far more probable that 'goddidit' (Occam's Razor, anyone?).

All life. Exactly how much more probable is abiogenesis and why?

FoeHammer.

 

[FishFace]

Please state your position clearly, do you or do you not believe that the universe had a beginning?

I do not know. Do you know, and, more importantly, do you have any evidence? (That has not already been refuted)

 

[FoeHammer]

And therein lies the problem. You're using an opinion as evidence.

No I am not, I am expressing my opinion of the evidence.

Do you still not see the fallacy in that statement? It's akin to saying "light is evidence of the lightmonster." It is not necessarily true.

I have scripture to support my statement.

This has been explained several times already. I'm not going to waste my time doing it again.

It was an unconvincing/unsatisfactory explanation.

Logically, one statment is just as valid as the other.

But again I have scripture to back mine up.

FoeHammer.

 

[FishFace]

How could God create no life?

By... not... creating... life? Are you saying god had no choice whether to create life or not? That's... inventive.

Well that's the claim but there is nothing to back it up is there?

First of all, there need not be. The fact that there is no evidence for fairies does not mean there are no fairies. In the absence of any evidence against fairies - i.e. - one way or the other, we must adopt that wonderful position, "I don't know." So, even if there were no conceivable way in which life could have come about naturally, you would have to have positive evidence that life was created by god to say that. By which point, you've proven god anyway.
But I suggest you look up modern abiogenesis hypotheses. I believe the RNA world is quite plausible, although modern scientists believe it unlikely. From what I gather, current belief is that the first bits of life were amino acids (shown to be produced naturally in conditions like those of the early earth) which then assembled into a protein that could obtain energy from other organic molecules that would be lying around (methane, for example) and went on to replicate (by the same process of random polymerisation)
All this is entirely plausible. And so you have even less justification in leaping in, frothing, with "GODDIDIT." Even if there were no evidence for this view, it doesn't matter - since we have an alternative, no evidence for either means "I don't know."

Why would I believe in a different deity or non-deity if I were born somewhere other than where I was born?

Because almost everyone adopts the religion of their parents. Children are evolved to be information absorbers - they're quite willing to believe pretty much anything told to them early enough. Religion preys (geddit? "prays?" )on this "feature."

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The fact that science can explain a process does not mean that it is the only explanation of that process nor does it mean that God wasn’t the originator/author of that process. As for any gaps in current scientific understanding, if that is a problem then it is a problem for those who put their faith scientific understanding, and I don’t.


You are confusing people's metaphysics with science.
science never says that it has the only, or complete, or sufficient explanation. only that it has what it can. leaving it open for other facts to present themselves.
for example:
man is an animal
is a scientific statement. it doesn't mean the same thing as
man is nothing but an animal.
for this statement is a metaphysical one.

God can very well be the originator of everything, science is simply silent on the matter because no one has ever figured out how to incorporate the supernatural into science(assuming that this is desirable). but if you want to say God did it, you leave the realm of science and are talking about religion, which not only allows the supernatural but positively revels in it.

if people put their faith in science, they do so as a faith in scientism, not in science. faith belongs like the supernatural to the realm of metaphysics and religion, people are persuaded by reason and the evidence in science, not by faith. again, this failure to make the metaphysical-science distinction makes your arguments into nonsense as you systematically confuse and conflate the domains. One moment criticising scientists for having faith in science and then the next moment castigating them for not allowing God into their laboratories.

 

[FishFace]

I could restate the assertion as "life is evidence of the invisible pink unicorn, all hail the IPU!" and it would still make just as much sense.

To you perhaps.

And that is the problem. To Pikachu, life is the evidence of the IPU, to you, it is evidence to some other being. What is there to decide between them? Exactly, and precisely, nothing.

 

[Psudopod]

As far as I am concerned there is only One God, The Almighty, The creator of heaven and earth as revealed in The (KJV) Bible.

And as far as I am concerned there are no Gods other than the ones we create. Neither of us can give any evidence for our position, we're at an impass. It's what we believe. This is fine, but it is not a scientific position. You can't throw out testable evidence because it doesn't jive with your personal beliefs.

Actually I would say that it is by virtue of the fact that it lives, life is God's signature.

Again, this is a personal belief with no evidence. What you see as evidence for your God, other people see as evidence for theirs, or not evidence at all. Again - there is no magic "I made this" tag, and so you can't claim it's evidence for the existance of God. If it was, we'd all agree and plenty of people the world over do not.

This does not alter my opinion one jot.

I don't doubt that for an instant. But it does show that "it's not just an excuse for rejecting God". Athiests don't reject God, by the way, they just don't belive He exisits. Or are you a unicorn rejecter?

 

[FoeHammer]

Wow...reading this thread makes me want to become an atheist...not because of the arguments being put forth (I've heard most of them before, and agree), but 'cos of the sheer embarrassment this thread gives me to be associated with Christianity.

There no evidence for God - it is entirely possible for the universe to come about without a God.

How?

I simply choose to believe in God, which is a personal belief that makes sense to me, not something that can be proven. To attempt to prove God is to not understand what the concept of God is.

Then what is the point of scripture?

As a Christian, I say this now:

1. It is entirely possible for something to come out of nothing, for no cause.

Without God? How?

2. It is entirely possible for life to come about without a God.

How?

3. Evolution is true.

Is Genesis wrong?

4. Life is a proof for nothing other than life.

Why is it not evidence of God?

5. Personal opinions are not evidence.

Tell that to the evo's.

FoeHammer.

 

[FishFace]

Autogenesis, spontaneous generation also known as abiogenesis.

Abiogenesis, as discussed by modern scientists (i.e. post Darwin & Pasteur) is the theory that life evolved from non-living molecules.
Spontaneous Generation, as refuted by Pasteur, is the theory that whole creatures such as maggots, flies and mice, spontaneously grew out of putrifying meat, for example.

I learnt what spontaneous generation was when I was 15 in History lessons.

Exactly how much more probable is abiogenesis and why?

Let's see, we have two opposing theories. One states "Life arose due to natural forces." The other states, "Life arose due to natural forces + God." Ockham's razor says we shouldn't multiply entities unnecessarily. God is an unnecessary entity, here, because we don't need the concept to explain life.

 

[Pikachu]

No I am not, I am expressing my opinion of the evidence. I have scripture to support my statement.

Which is scientifically irrelevant.

It was an unconvincing/unsatisfactory explanation.

Why? Because it doesn't fit in with your presuppositions and beliefs?

But again I have scripture to back mine up.

See above.

 

[Psudopod]

Is Genesis wrong?

Genesis is only 'wrong' if you take it literally.

Tell that to the evo's.

Where have we been doing this? We're not the ones saying things like "Actually I would say that it is by virtue of the fact that it lives, life is God's signature."

 

[FoeHammer]

You have explicitly rejected logic by positing a real being that breaks the rules of logic. This is the same thing as stating that logic itself does not hold for certain very special circumstances which you yourself decide by fiat.

Hmmm, a creationist explicitly throws your God outside the realm of rational thought, but you take issue with the person who pointed out the flaw in his thinking. I find that... fascinating.

Note that my argument is not on God but on a piece of shoddy thinking. Do you think such arguments should be suppressed to spare the feelings of the entrenched? Do you think you will win converts by telling them they must choose between reason and God?

I think it should be obvious to anyone following this forum that FoeHammer was entrenched in his views long before I said a word to him, indeed probably before he was 10 years old. All I have done is strip away any veneer of legitimate science and philosophy in which he had cloaked his arguments and exposed his intellectual dishonesty to the light of day.

My original statement was:
Absolutely not, my God (and yours too whether you believe it or not) is not limited by our understanding, logic or imagination... we are.
Who set ''the rules of logic''?

FoeHammer.

 

[flatworm]

My original statement was:
Absolutely not, my God (and yours too whether you believe it or not) is not limited by our understanding, logic or imagination... we are.
Who set ''the rules of logic''?

FoeHammer.

Regardless of who developed the rules of logic, you reject them when it comes to your God. When you do this, your argument becomes illogical.

You might feel justified in doing this within your own mind, but rest assured the rest of us are neither fooled nor impressed.

 

[Chalnoth]

My original statement was:
Absolutely not, my God (and yours too whether you believe it or not) is not limited by our understanding, logic or imagination... we are.
Who set ''the rules of logic''?

The rules of logic are set by how they are applied. Specifically, if an argument is a set of statements that from some number of premises we obtain one or more conclusions, then the rules of logic state whether or not a particular argument is valid, that is, whether or not the conclusions can be drawn from the premises.

The rules of logic are then completely specified by this requirement. In short, if an argument follows the rules of logic, and all of its premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. If this ever turns out not to be the case, we must revise our rules of logic. One can construct most, if not all, rules of logic by simply proposing hypothetical scenarios where the truth and falsehood of all statements are known.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

Is Genesis wrong?

Genesis is WAY wrong, if taken literally.
Light is created on day 1 and the sun is on day 4. How is there light without a light source? There are day and night cycles before both the sun and the earth, when these cycles are cause by the sun and the earth's rotation about it's axis. Earth is created on day 3 and the sun on day 4, unfortunately the earth is in a solar system, not much of a solar system without a sun. The oceans are created on day 2 before the earth. How does the water stay in oceans without the earths gravity holding it together? There's not nearly enough water to hold itself together with its own gravity. And how did the water appear on the earth? Plants are on day 3, before the sun, guess God forgot about photosynthesis. Even if there could be light without a sun, almost no life would survive without the heat from the sun, certainly not most plants. The moon is referred to as a light, it is not a light source it is a reflector of light.

I know this wont convince any creationsts with these scientific facts we all learn as kindergartenders, but I am curious to see the response. Tell me where I am wrong?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Who set ''the rules of logic''?

wow, you can solve this age old paradox as well?
what a bunch of really bright people we have here.

so what is the answer?
are the rules of logic such because they reflect the nature of God or did God create the universe and make these rules true simply because he wanted to?

that is, are the rules of logic necessary or contingent? Could God have created another universe with a different set of logical principles?

if they are necessary then no one created the rules, they simply are. God could not have created the universe in any other way.

if they are voluntary and contingent then they are true only because they are built into the nature of this universe. and other universes can have a completely different set of logical principles.

for those that are interested, this is the problem of theological voluntarism and afaik there is no solution, people just seem to take one side or the other, so i eagerly await FH's answer.
for more see:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voluntarism-theological/

 

[us38]

But again I have scripture to back mine up.

And why do you think scripture is reliable?