Is believing in creationism (e.g. that lifeforms were independently created) required for salvation?

[Kenny'sID]

Where's that "irony meter" gif when you need it?

You sure put me in my place.

 

[Kenny'sID]

That thread I linked is littered with evidence.
I'm not gonna repost everything that you can see for yourself by simply clicking on it.

Cop out.

But what else can I expect from someone who tells me where evidence is when I've made it 100% clear what I'm looking for, "confirming evidence evolution is a fact"

And of course you won't post somthjing you don't have. lol

 

[Doveaman]

You can call it blind faith if you want, you may even utter the accursed word "fideism." I call it Apostolic Tradition.

What's your evidence?

If a homeless vagrant prayed to God for food, and you gave him food, could that be evidence that God answered his prayer?

 

[Speedwell]

If a homeless vagrant prayed to God for food, and you gave him food, could that be evidence that God answered his prayer?

No, that would be an unfalsifiable proposition.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

i was joking actually.

Well, of Course you were. Still, I can't help but notice you're avoiding answering these questions I keep asking of you - is there a problem with them? Here they are again:

So, you didn't answer this question though, is evolution by natural selection now considered ID to you?

Also, you didn't answer my other questions raised by your 'intelligent designer answers it just the same', so let me ask these again too: How does this 'designer' make changes? Why does this 'designer' make these changes? What changes can this 'designer' make, and should we be concerned? Why does this 'designer' look exactly like it doesn't take any part in the process, is it hiding from us? and Who is this 'designer' anyway?

After all, you want your ID nonsense treated as Science - surely these questions will be easily answerable and provide more explanatory scope than the current designer-less Theory of Evolution?

 

[Jimmy D]

Cop out.

But what else can I expect from someone who tells me where evidence is when I've made it 100% clear what I'm looking for, "confirming evidence evolution is a fact"

And of course you won't post somthjing you don't have. lol

Here you go...

The Scientific Test for Macroevolution

Creationists have claimed that Macroevolution is not testable. They couldn't be farther from the truth. Here is the test for macroevolution as described clear back in 1965 before we had any real DNA sequence data:

"It will be determined to what extent the phylogenetic tree, as derived from molecular data in complete independence from the results of organismal biology, coincides with the phylogenetic tree constructed on the basis of organismal biology. If the two phylogenetic trees are mostly in agreement with respect to the topology of branching, the best available single proof of the reality of macro-evolution would be furnished. Indeed, only the theory of evolution, combined with the realization that events at any supramolecular level are consistent with molecular events, could reasonably account for such a congruence between lines of evidence obtained independently, namely amino acid sequences of homologous polypeptide chains on the one hand, and the finds of organismal taxonomy and paleontology on the other hand. Besides offering an intellectual satisfaction to some, the advertising of such evidence would of course amount to beating a dead horse. Some beating of dead horses may be ethical, when here and there they display unexpected twitches that look like life."

Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling, discussing the possibility of the twin nested hierarchy before the first molecular phylogenies had been made.
(1965) "Evolutionary Divergence and Convergence in Proteins." in Evolving Genes and Proteins, p. 101.
In short, it was predicted 50 years ago that there should be a match between independent DNA based trees and morphological trees.

So does macroevolution pass that test? Yep, sure does:

"So, how well do phylogenetic trees from morphological studies match the trees made from independent molecular studies? There are over 10^38 different possible ways to arrange the 30 major taxa represented in Figure 1 into a phylogenetic tree . . . In spite of these odds, the relationships given in Figure 1, as determined from morphological characters, are completely congruent with the relationships determined independently from cytochrome c molecular studies . . . Speaking quantitatively, independent morphological and molecular measurements such as these have determined the standard phylogenetic tree, as shown in Figure 1, to better than 38 decimal places. This phenomenal corroboration of universal common descent is referred to as the "twin nested hierarchy". This term is something of a misnomer, however, since there are in reality multiple nested hierarchies, independently determined from many sources of data."
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1
For 30 groups there are 100000000000000000000000000000000000000 possible ways to organize them into a tree. There is just 1 tree out of those billions and billions of possible trees that is a perfect match to the predictions made the theory of macroevolution. We see that exact tree.

 

[Jimmy D]

Cop out.

But what else can I expect from someone who tells me where evidence is when I've made it 100% clear what I'm looking for, "confirming evidence evolution is a fact"

And of course you won't post somthjing you don't have. lol

I did ask you about this blog post from SFS three times already, you know, the one that discussed genetic evidence for common ancestry, how about addressing it instead of merely dismissing it as lies?

Testing Common Ancestry: It’s All About the Mutations

 

[Doveaman]

No, that would be an unfalsifiable proposition.

The proposition is that if you prayed for food God would provide the food.

If the food is provided, this would serve as evidence to confirm the proposition.

 

[Speedwell]

The proposition is that if you prayed for food God would provide the food.

If the food is provided, this would serve as evidence to confirm the proposition.

But the proposition that it was God who provided the food is unfalsifiable.

 

[pitabread]

Just what where does your standard for 'harm' come from? Is that a subjective harm? Because it if is, then why should your opinion matter more than someone else subjective opinion?

When I talk about 'harm', I'm talking about like parents denying their children medical treatment because of faith-based beliefs (i.e. belief in faith healing), people who oppose or try to ban gay marriage, and so on.

Basically, scenarios where people try to force their faith-based beliefs on others with detrimental results for those being impacted.

I would like to see you engage with the inference of ID theory in a more formal manner, while comparing it to the ToE (read 2nd thesis of random mutation and natural selection).

You seem to be under the impression I haven't already done that. Here is some background:

I first became interested in the issue of evolution/creationist/ID back in the early 2000's. I spent a considerable amount of time researching the subject of biological evolution, creationism and ID. This included absorbing material from various sources including creationist and ID authors. I also took science courses in University including on biological evolution.

What I found was people in the creationist/ID camp massively underestimate the relative import of modern biological evolution. Learning about real-world applications of evolutionary theory and even that biotech companies that have filed patents for techniques based on evolutionary theory, demonstrates biological evolution isn't just an academic pursuit. There are real-world industry implications to the practical value of the theory itself.

On the flipside, I've found that ID is still 'stuck' in trying to formulate methodologies to detect design. This is especially problematic in reading ID literature where it seems nobody is really sure where and when the designer did their work. I've read everything from claims of a designer having their hand in the origin of life to the Cambrian explosion (~3.4 billion years later), to other species further along the history of Earth.

In order to even begin to take any of this seriously, ID needs far more cohesion. They need to get past merely trying to detect design and actually formulate the where and how this design supposedly occurred. They need to be able to separate deliberate design from biological evolutionary forces (which we already know exist). In my experience with ID literature, including more recent publications highlighted by the Discovery Institute, they are nowhere close to that. It will probably take them another hundred years and that assuming they are correct in the first place.

So no, I've done my research, read the literature and am not at all impressed with the state of ID. I think it's an incredibly cool idea; just the thought there may be something else out there that had a hand in shaping life on Earth is incredibly powerful. But like anything with such large ramifications on our understanding of biology, there needs to be the level of rigorous investigation and formulation of a cohesive theory to match.

ID isn't anywhere close.

If you want you can watch a video on youtube called Information Enigma: where did information come from? By Stephen Meyer and Doug Axe to see exactly why evolutionary biologists are seeking elsewhere for answers.

Pretty sure I've seen this video in the past, but I gave it a re-watch and it reaffirms how I feel about a lot of ID arguments.

1) They play the usual shell-game with the term "information". At no point in the video do they define information as it pertains to biology. Instead, they use the usual colorful analogies of language and books and computer code. But books and computers aren't DNA.

2) They massively overstate the conclusions from Douglas Axe's publication on protein folds. Axe's work on protein folds looked at a highly specific scenario and concocted an arguably artificial probability about the formation of stable proteins. To apply that to every single protein fold ever is an overreach of what he actually looked at. On top of that, there is a false equation of stable protein folds with functional protein folds, when based on my understanding they are not necessarily equivalent. It is possible to have unstable yet functional protein folds.

Rebuttals don't do anything to dismiss the mathematical problem of the mechanism that is supposedly random mutation and random selection. Unless they are mathematical rebuttals, which i haven't seen.

If the mathematical problem you are referring to is Axe's work, then I suggest reading this: Axe (2004) and the evolution of enzyme function

 

[PsychoSarah]

The proposition is that if you prayed for food God would provide the food.

If the food is provided, this would serve as evidence to confirm the proposition.

You wouldn't be able to test this via 1 personal experience, you'd need a large experimental group, as well as a decent sized control group that wasn't praying at all, to test if prayer got results. Since over a century of scientific experiments in regards to prayer don't grant any significant or consistent results of it being beneficial, detrimental, or neutral, a lot of people have concluded that it isn't scientifically testable because the biases of the people running the experiments are the likely source of the inconsistency.

However, if you pray to be able to fly by flapping your arms and suddenly you can, I'd view that as a miracle, personally. Why test this with a request that could reasonably be fulfilled by chance? For example, I could pray for food, and later that day find an uneaten sandwich on a bench, but I could have also found it without praying first, because it is not out of the question for someone to forget to grab their sandwich as they leave the bench.

 

[MaudDib]

When I talk about 'harm', I'm talking about like parents denying their children medical treatment because of faith-based beliefs (i.e. belief in faith healing), people who oppose or try to ban gay marriage, and so on.

Basically, scenarios where people try to force their faith-based beliefs on others with detrimental results for those being impacted.

And just who says your worldview is the default one that all people on the planet should adhere to?

If we are going to be open minded and tolerant, and inclusive of world views other than our own, then we can't go around shutting down each others worldview.

As you just did.

Nowhere is a faithless worldview the default worldview.

 

[pitabread]

And just who says your worldview is the default one that all people on the planet should adhere to?

If we are going to be open minded and tolerant, and inclusive of world views other than our own, then we can't go around shutting down each others worldview.

I never said anything about shutting down other world views. If you go back to what I originally said (the context for the "harm" discussion), it was this:

"Christianity is a religion. I generally don't argue against it because I see little point and have no interest in whether or not people are Christian so long as their beliefs don't harm others or impact public policy making in a negative manner." - Is believing in creationism (e.g. that lifeforms were independently created) required for salvation?​

I have no idea where you got this idea about shutting down other world views from...