Madagascar and Australia, a question for creationists.

[USincognito]

citation for what part?

The part I bolded. That's why I put it in bold.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

The time to believe something is when there is sufficient evidence to justify belief, not before.

I concur with no reservations.

I have that level of evidence in the existence of the God as described in the Bible. Since you self-identify as 'agnostic', you do not have that level of evidence; at least not so far.

With both of us understanding the two of us are different sides of the 'sufficient evidence' fence, allow me two bits of information.

1. If one (you included) seriously is seeking to find out the reality of God, one will indeed find it. (Conversely, if one seeks justification for ignoring God, one will find that as well.)

2. When (if, I suppose) you 'find' God, you will shortly after realize God has been calling you all your life.

 

[AV1611VET]

Also written by men.

Psalm 119:1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.

 

[AV1611VET]

Just by investigating this debris, an expert might even be able to tell you how and where the fire started.

Let them investigate this and tell me how and where it started.

 

[The Stamp]

I concur with no reservations.

I have that level of evidence in the existence of the God as described in the Bible.

Faith is not evidence of a God, an experience you have had that you mark down to a God is not evidence of a God.
If you have a funny feeling in church how can you jump to a God as being the cause of that feeling? why would you unless you wanted the cause to be God or you were told it was a God?

 

[Archie the Preacher]

Faith is not evidence of a God, an experience you have had that you mark down to a God is not evidence of a God.

Really? Could you present your credentials proving your statement has any validity?

If you have a funny feeling in church how can you jump to a God as being the cause of that feeling?

"Funny feeling"? This statement establishes a lack of knowledge and understanding of Christianity. Which is expected from someone who isn't intimately involved. This statement is a further corroboration of how those who refuse God are as ignorant of God as YEC proponents are of Earth sciences.

... why would you unless you wanted the cause to be God or you were told it was a God?

I was told God exists, Stamp. God told me.

The common tactic of those who deny God - atheist or agnostic or other - is they constantly demand 'proof'. Then they define 'proof' as what they want to see. Perhaps chocolate pudding for desert in the manner of Frank Burns or God appearing on command, or possibly showing up in a test tube or equation. In other words, nothing is acceptable. As I said in the previous post, that is exactly what such a person will find.

 

[The Stamp]

Really? Could you present your credentials proving your statement has any validity?
"Funny feeling"? This statement establishes a lack of knowledge and understanding of Christianity. Which is expected from someone who isn't intimately involved. This statement is a further corroboration of how those who refuse God are as ignorant of God as YEC proponents are of Earth sciences.
I was told God exists, Stamp. God told me.

The common tactic of those who deny God - atheist or agnostic or other - is they constantly demand 'proof'. Then they define 'proof' as what they want to see. Perhaps chocolate pudding for desert in the manner of Frank Burns or God appearing on command, or possibly showing up in a test tube or equation. In other words, nothing is acceptable. As I said in the previous post, that is exactly what such a person will find.

If it works for you then good luck, it's none of my business how you choose to live your life just as long as you don't interfere in mine, if I was an American I would however have plenty to say.

 

[miamited]

The time to believe something is when there is sufficient evidence to justify belief, not before.

Hi stamp,

In the world I would agree that is a true statement. However, it's different for God's people. God's people shall live by faith. What is faith? It is the assurance of things not seen. God provides, through the testimony of His word plenty of evidence for me, that He can do some mighty miraculous things. Jesus even said that what is impossible for man is possible for God. So, I would agree that one needs sufficient evidence to believe and trust in God, but evidences of the physical realm that God created and all of the miraculous things that God has done is not going to be forthcoming.

We really don't have any evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin, except for the testimony of God.
We really don't have any evidence that a sea parted, except for the testimony of God.
We really don't have any evidence that the sound of trumpets took down the wall of Jericho, except for the testimony of God.

So, I'm always careful about adopting the idea that the only things I should believe are those things for which I can find physical evidence to support.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[miamited]

All of that is you believing the words of other men, that's all...

Hi allandavid,

I can see your point. However, for the believer, there is a different understanding of 'who' the author of the Scriptures is. Yes, men penned the words to parchment and scroll, but the thoughts and ideas that were penned came through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Buit, that's only going to be believed by those who agree that when Jesus said 'Thy word is truth', that he was speaking of the ancient writings handed down to that point in time when he made that statement. It's only going to be believed by those who believe that when Paul wrote that men wrote as they were led by the Holy Spirit, that Paul was even then being led by that same Holy Spirit.

For the world, the writings of the Scriptures, or what most refer today as the 'bible', are merely the writings of men. Not really any different than the Greek and Roman mythologies of God. Not particularly different than the Quaran or the Vedras or any other 'religious' writings. The understanding of the Scriptures as the words given to men through the Holy Spirit of God, comes only by faith.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[miamited]

Gratz, you've basicaly just thrown all of science under the bus....

You've also deleted any and every chance of ever again convicting someone of a crime. Because in your world, evidence in the present can't be used to determine things from the past.

In other words, if DNA at a crime scene indicates that person X is guilty, then that is meaningless, because perhaps supernatural entities planted that DNA at the scene.

Great

Hi TM,

Let me be clear on my understanding of science. For science to be able to 'prove' that it has found the answer to an event or cause, it must be able to reproduce said event or cause. In the here and now, investigating a fire and using DNA for its evidentiary value, I have no problem with science. I don't deny all science. What I deny is science that is extrapolative in its nature. It may or may not be giving us the right answers. We don't know. As I've always said, when science can bring to me a woman giving birth to a baby who has never had human sperm introduced into one of her eggs, I'll give it more consideration. And, since we're dealing with a time some 2,000 years ago, however they present this woman, she would have had to have been made pregnant through some method that would have been available to men 2,000 years ago.

But, I fully and completely understand the lack of agreement between us. We each have and operate under a different world view.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[Armoured]

Hi TM,

Let me be clear on my understanding of science. For science to be able to 'prove'

Let me stop you there. Science doesn't "prove" anything. The fact that you insist on discussing it in such terms rather suggests your understanding of scientific methodology is limited. Science determines what is likely. It never "proves". If anyone starts a claim with "science proves" in a serious discussion, you can be pretty sure they're selling something.

that it has found the answer to an event or cause, it must be able to reproduce said event or cause.

You misunderstood that as well. An event doesn't have to be repeatable to be understood. Multiple observations of similar events are all that is required to gather evidence.

Consider forensic evidence. A murder can only happen once. No scientist can recreate a murders. But, by observing many similar murder, a data set is gathered from which we can draw certain conclusions about what is or is not likely. So even though science never proves anything, and a murder can't be replicated, it's absolutely fine for a forensic scientist to assess the information we have about a murder, analyse it and compare it to what we know about other murders, and draw conclusions.

 

[The Stamp]

I can see your point. However, for the believer, there is a different understanding of 'who' the author of the Scriptures is.

The authors of the scripture were men who said the words came from a God, if you believe what they wrote then you believe those men were telling the truth, to get to your God you must first believe those men which you obviously do, why? only you can answer that.
In short before you can even start believing in your God you must first believe in those men.

 

[xianghua]

Feel free to prove me wrong. .

no problem:

"Using the
kinetics of DNA depurination,
members of the ABG have conducted
a comprehensive estimate of the limit
of DNA survival, which they believe
to lie at 17 500 years at a constant
temperature of 10"
C (Table 1)

 

[AV1611VET]

Hi stamp,

In case you haven't figured it out, Stamp is consol.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

If it works for you then good luck, it's none of my business how you choose to live your life just as long as you don't interfere in mine, if I was an American I would however have plenty to say.

So you admit you have NO reason for your definition of 'evidence' other than your own prejudice. That's what I suspected.

And as I said before, what one seeks is what one will find.

 

[HitchSlap]

The common tactic of those who deny God - atheist or agnostic or other - is they constantly demand 'proof'.

Silly tactics, asking for someone to support their claim.

Let me ask you this: Does belief in your convictions qualify as a justification of your assertions?

 

[miamited]

Hi armoured,

You responded:

Science doesn't "prove" anything.

So, you still don't know for sure that a plant uses sunlight to photosynthesize sugars to provide nutrients to make the plant grown. No one has really ever shown, on a cellular level, this process of plants converting the energy of sunlight to food. It's just the scientific 'best guess' that we can make right now.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[miamited]

The authors of the scripture were men who said the words came from a God, if you believe what they wrote then you believe those men were telling the truth, to get to your God you must first believe those men which you obviously do, why? only you can answer that.
In short before you can even start believing in your God you must first believe in those men.

Hi stamp,

Like I finished off in that response of mine. I operate on a completely different world view than others.

Why do I believe that the Scriptures are of God and not men? Because of what they tell me and because of 'how' they came to be. There is no other writing in all of the world that covers the span of time that it took for the Scriptures to be completed by so many different authors and yet, the focus of all that writing be about the same thing. From Moses in the desert until John wrote the Revelation, we're talking about roughly 1500 years. Throughout that 1500 years there were many and varied writers who wrote down what they claim to be God speaking to them and every one of their writings has a cohesiveness and sameness in how and what they write. That would be similar to someone taking one of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books and in 100 years someone writing another Harry Potter book and then a couple of hundred years after that someone writing another and another and another and so forth over the next 1500 years. All writing about the same subject, Harry Potter.

Then we have the prophecies of the Scriptures. Daniel wrote of a prophecy that foretold an event happening in the future. He wrote that the main event was that near the end of the timeline that he had delineated in his prophecy, the Messiah would be here. He speaks about there being 70 weeks in all, but he divides the 70 weeks into 3 steps. The end of the second step (69 weeks) he tells us that Messiah would be here. But, what's particularly amazing about Daniel's prophecy is that he says the clock would start ticking when there was a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem established.

Now, let me clarify the scene here a bit. At the time that Daniel was given this prophecy that he wrote of, he was in captivity in Babylon. There really wasn't anything going on at the time that would even portend that Jerusalem would ever be rebuilt. The decree spoken of in the prophecy didn't come along for almost another 100 years. How did Daniel know that there would ever even be such a decree? How would he have known that from such a decree, even if he were to just guess that one day one would be issued, that we would be able to measure the time until the Messiah came from it's issuance?

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[Speedwell]

Hi armoured,

You responded:


So, you still don't know for sure that a plant uses sunlight to photosynthesize sugars to provide nutrients to make the plant grown. No one has really ever shown, on a cellular level, this process of plants converting the energy of sunlight to food. It's just the scientific 'best guess' that we can make right now.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

Some "best guesses" are better than others, and that one rests on a firm empirical foundation. Why? Have you found something in Scripture that shows photosynthesis to be a lie of the satanic conspiracy of science to deny the Bible?

 

[HitchSlap]

Hi stamp,

Like I finished off in that response of mine. I operate on a completely different world view than others.

Why do I believe that the Scriptures are of God and not men? Because of what they tell me and because of 'how' they came to be. There is no other writing in all of the world that covers the span of time that it took for the Scriptures to be completed by so many different authors and yet, the focus of all that writing be about the same thing. From Moses in the desert until John wrote the Revelation, we're talking about roughly 1500 years. Throughout that 1500 years there were many and varied writers who wrote down what they claim to be God speaking to them and every one of their writings has a cohesiveness and sameness in how and what they write. That would be similar to someone taking one of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books and in 100 years someone writing another Harry Potter book and then a couple of hundred years after that someone writing another and another and another and so forth over the next 1500 years. All writing about the same subject, Harry Potter.

Then we have the prophecies of the Scriptures. Daniel wrote of a prophecy that foretold an event happening in the future. He wrote that the main event was that near the end of the timeline that he had delineated in his prophecy, the Messiah would be here. He speaks about there being 70 weeks in all, but he divides the 70 weeks into 3 steps. The end of the second step (69 weeks) he tells us that Messiah would be here. But, what's particularly amazing about Daniel's prophecy is that he says the clock would start ticking when there was a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem established.

Now, let me clarify the scene here a bit. At the time that Daniel was given this prophecy that he wrote of, he was in captivity in Babylon. There really wasn't anything going on at the time that would even portend that Jerusalem would ever be rebuilt. The decree spoken of in the prophecy didn't come along for almost another 100 years. How did Daniel know that there would ever even be such a decree? How would he have known that from such a decree, even if he were to just guess that one day one would be issued, that we would be able to measure the time until the Messiah came from it's issuance?

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

Isn't the book of Daniel pseudonymous?