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My two favorite arguments for creation

Gracchus

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nyjbarnes said:
Now for the predictive nature of the Bible. The Bible predicts over 300 things that relate specifically to Jesus Christ. I will name a couple.

That Jesus' legs would not be broken during his crusifixion
That Jesus would be born in a manger
I found only this in the old testament about breaking bones. And it is an injunction against breaking the legs of the Passover lamb. This is prescription, not prophecy.

KJV Exodus 12:46
In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.
KJV Numbers 9:12
They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep it.
You have to ignore the plain meaning of the passages if you are trying to make the case it foretells any of the events of the crucifixion. I thought you folks were all about taking the Bible a face value without far-fetched interpretations.


There are three references to "manger" in the King James Bible, all in Luke 2:7-16. Since this is supposed to be an after the fact account, I don't see how it can be taken as prophecy. So which verses prophecy that the messiah will be laid (even Luke doesn't say "born") in a manger?

Perhaps you weren't using the King James Version as your reference. If not, please inform us which version you are using, and cite the book, chapter, and verse where these prophecies are recorded.

:confused:
 
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nyjbarnes

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Mistermystery said:
I like that passage a lot. Especially when you read it In context instead of quotemined. Last time it was John who did that if I recall correctly.

I am curious...what point are you making. It's obvious to me that you are trying to say that I am using scripture out of context. Unfortunately for you I know that passage and the surrounding scripture very well. It speaks specifically of what I am referring to. Please expand your thoughts..and John who?
 
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nyjbarnes

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Arikay said:
I may be incorrect (haven't looked it up recently) but I don't believe the full christmas manger story is actually part of the bible.

Sometimes for long posts I like to type it in a text program and then copy and paste into here. The time it takes to save the file beats the frustration of a bad browser or misclick killing your post. :)
Arikay,

I owe you a response, however I can't seem to remember the motivation for the riveting piece of literary art I my browser erased last night...;)

Now, what I expect is that we will run into one another again and a similar thought will come to mind. In the mean time, if it does, I will post it. Sorry for the let down.
 
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nyjbarnes

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Arikay said:
Actually it is more than just a specific verse, its a theme that runs through out the entire NT.

Really? Now its your turn to present evidence to back up your statements.
Show us how a watch in a box is the same as life and the environment. show us How mutation and natural selection can act on that watch.

Your argument completly ignored the basis of evolution (this basis is accepted by pretty much every creationist group, they don't argue against evolution, but against non constrained evolution which is basically what creationism is about).


Out of curiousity, where are the verses in the bible that predict jesus will be born in a manger, and then the verse that says he is born in a manger? (were you the one talking about that, or was it someone else?)
Arikay,

My theories about creation stem from my faith in Jesus Christ and my ability to decode the Bible. My analogy of a watch is simply an illustration of complexity. The trouble that scientists have, though everyone has proven that science is agnostic, is that they cannot rely on God for their theories. This is somewhat of a bunny trail.

Back to the watch. A watch is a complex piece of equipment. It has many intriquete (spell check) moving parts. They all work in perfect order. If you apply the methodology of mutation and natural selection to the parts of a watch you would never get to a watch.

Imagine that every piece of a watch maps to a specific piece of an organism. Then you take all the pieces of a watch and throw them into a show box and shake it up, you'll never get a completely put together watch, much less functional.

Worse than this, you'll say this is not representative of life or organisms and I say to that, put down the nebulous of organic matter and start using math to figure this out. Even if it were possible to put a watch together just by shaking all of the pieces together, how would you give it life?

Now here's another piece to that argument, this analogy REQUIRES outside influence. Someone must put the watch in the box, someone must have the box, someone must shake the box. So does the primordial soup theory.

Primordial soup, the beginngings of life, require outside influence to begin life...you know how I know that? How many can's of campbells have you opened that had a critter spawn out of it? It has all the ingredients...organic material, in a vaccum...technically life should be starting there. But it doesn't. It requires something to get the process started...what's the outside influence? Where did it come from? Who has control over it? Since there was no intelligent life, and no intelligent designer, what un-intelligent thing decided to add that outside influence?

Haven't you ever wondered why everytime creationist come up with a good refutation about the scientific reason how the earth couldn't have been formed the answer is always more time? Apply the same thing to evolution.

When I was in school, the earth was only a few hundred million years old. Don't tell me it's geology vs biology, the concepts are the same.

Back to biology;

When you see the watch you must think that there is a watchmaker...this doesn't change for organic material. How can you account for no transitional forms? Why can't men mate with ape's/chimps? Why aren't their any man-apes? Why Aren't their apes still turning into humans?

Doesn't it bother you that everytime you don't have an answer the only one anyone can provide you is that it takes so long, no one has ever seen it...but it's basically scientific fact????

I am interested to see what your answers to these questions are.
 
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gluadys

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nyjbarnes said:
Arikay,


Back to the watch. A watch is a complex piece of equipment. It has many intriquete (spell check) moving parts. They all work in perfect order. If you apply the methodology of mutation and natural selection to the parts of a watch you would never get to a watch.

Imagine that every piece of a watch maps to a specific piece of an organism. Then you take all the pieces of a watch and throw them into a show box and shake it up, you'll never get a completely put together watch, much less functional.


But this analogy simply doesn't apply. A watch is made of pre-existing parts. Coils, hands, springs, cogs, cases, crystals, etc. were all developed and used in other technology before they were put together into a watch.

But organs did not develop separately and independently to be plucked from here and there and put together to make an organism. The organs themselves had to evolve as part of the evolution of the organism. Even when natural selection co-opts an organ for a new purpose (reptilian jaw bones for mammalian ear bones) the organs themselves have an earlier evolutionary history. E.g. bones have an evolutionary history.

So you cannot map finished watch parts onto finished organs as if they were analogous. Primitive organisms have primitive organs and both the organism as a whole and its organs evolve together. There is absolutely nothing comparable to putting pieces in a box and shaking it up. Nor anything comparable to fitting finished pieces together as a watchmaker does.
 
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Arikay

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The problem with the watch analogy is that it doesn't describe life. Can a watch procreate? Can it mutate?
Does evolution say that if we put an animal in a box and rip it to pieces that it will then evolve?
The analogy does not match reality.

However, since you asked about evolving mechanics,
Scientists evolve a radio
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992732


Abiogenesis
What you call the primordial soup theory. It first should be said that abiogenesis is not part of evolution, but is a seperate theory. Chemical reactions are non intelligent and currently it appears that life started through chemical reactions.


Creationist arguments
Actually the most common answer to creationist arguments is not "more time" but "better understanding and a lack of dishonest research." As many arguments that creationist groups come up with conviently leave out important details or ignore information.


transitionals
The claim that there are no transitional fossils is false.
Here is a pretty huge list,
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html


Apes
Apes aren't turning into humans because evolution is not headed towards a goal. The apes we see today evolved Alongside humans, they adapted to their environment in a different way than humans did.


More time.
Have you been reading Hovind?
As I mentioned above, the common answer is not "more time" but "read more" as often creationist arguments show a misunderstanding of the basic concepts they are argueing against.


 
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Mistermystery

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nyjbarnes said:
I am curious...what point are you making. It's obvious to me that you are trying to say that I am using scripture out of context.
Well sorta. You said that the bible had crafted a passage especially for people like arikay. While I agree that he could have given you a little more leash ( as he has done in the rest of this thread), I have to disagree that this verse talks about people who keep information from others. If you look at the scripture it speaks of people who misuse the bible in order to golrify themself.

At least, that's what I see in this scripture in full context.
 
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Mechanical Bliss

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nyjbarnes said:
When I was in school, the earth was only a few hundred million years old.
You either had a bad and unqualified teacher or weren't paying attention all that carefully during class and are making this up as you go along.

Don't tell me it's geology vs biology, the concepts are the same.
How are the concepts the same? The age of the earth isn't what it is simply because of an excuse like "we need more time." There are several independent lines of evidence demonstrating its age, and none of our dating methods are dependent on the findings of evolutionary biologists.
 
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Nathan David

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Two points:

1.) You describe a watch as "a complex piece of equipment. It has many intricate moving parts. They all work in perfect order." There is no living organism whose moving parts all work in perfect order. So it should be no surprise that "If you apply the methodology of mutation and natural selection to the parts of a watch you would never get to a watch."

2.) No one who was present at Jesus's birth wrote down an account of the events. There is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was born in a barn or laid in a manger after his birth. So your "prophecy" proves nothing.
 
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J

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Nathan David said:
Two points:

1.) You describe a watch as "a complex piece of equipment. It has many intricate moving parts. They all work in perfect order." There is no living organism whose moving parts all work in perfect order. So it should be no surprise that "If you apply the methodology of mutation and natural selection to the parts of a watch you would never get to a watch."
the miracle of childbirth is a fine example of this. if all the parts work in such order, then why do the mother and foetus fight against one another so much? the father imprints the sperm with a chemical that causes the foetus to grow agressively, and the mother has to fight against this, if the mothers gene is missing then the baby is significantly larger then normal, and if the father's imprinting is defective then the baby is much smaller than normal. seems strange that the system has to fight if it is in such good working order. If the system is perfectly tuned, then why does meiosis sometimes fail? why does the body produce waste chemicals that it cannot use? other things use these chemicals all the time, but our body can't even recycle these things, meaning we need a constant influx of vitamins and so on.

oh I bet we get the following answer: "sin"
 
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Gracchus

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The predictive nature of the Bible argument seems to have dropped off the grid. nyjbarnes cited two examples. He said the Bible predicted Jesus' legs would not be broken during his crucifixion. He said the Bible predicted that Jesus would be "born in a manger".

Both these "predictions" have been called into question, but he has not cited any biblical chapter and verse where these alleged prophecies occur.

The watch on the moor argument was refuted as soon as Paley proposed it, which nyjbarnes might have known had he actually ever read a book or done a google.

It would seem his biblical predictions are equally baseless.

"He opened his mouth to witness, and brayed like a jackass." -- Will Runshome

This clearly shows that mister Runshome correctly predicted the opening post.

:wave:
 
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Nathan David

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Another thought.

If one gear of a watch is slightly malformed the whole watch will cease functioning. But organisms have a lot more tolerance for variation. An animal born with a deformed foot can still function; a body can have asthmatic lungs but function normally otherwise; humans can live with one kidney; etc.
 
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JohnR7

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Nathan David said:
Another thought.

If one gear of a watch is slightly malformed the whole watch will cease functioning. But organisms have a lot more tolerance for variation. An animal born with a deformed foot can still function; a body can have asthmatic lungs but function normally otherwise; humans can live with one kidney; etc.
Congratulations, you just single handedly falsified the theory of evolution. You have demonstrated that what holds true for the micro world, does not hold ture for the macro world. Macro changes does not translate into micro changes and micro change does not traslate into macro change. That is what IDers have been saying all along.
 
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JohnR7

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Gracchus said:
He said the Bible predicted Jesus' legs would not be broken during his crucifixion.
This is a promise we all can claim from the Bible. The Bible clearly says that the Lord guards the bones of the righteous so that none of them is broken. If we are righteous before God, He will watch over us and protect us.

Psalm 34:19-20
Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
[20] He guards all his bones;
Not one of them is broken.
 
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JohnR7

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Nathan David said:
2.) No one who was present at Jesus's birth wrote down an account of the events. There is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was born in a barn or laid in a manger after his birth. So your "prophecy" proves nothing.
Luke was a Greek, a physician and a historian. It is obvious that Luke spent time with Mary, and received a lot of information from her. From what we read about Mary in the Bible and in the personal letters that she wrote at the time, we know that she was eager to share with anyone who would listen about God and how awesome He is and the things He was doing in her life.

Lukes account has shown itself to be very accurate. He is actually the only gentile author that we find in the Bible. Everyone else was Hebrew.

As far as Jesus being born in a manger. This was a sign given to the wise men from the angel that told them the news about Jesus coming into the world.
It was not actually a prophecy, sense Jesus had already been born.

Luke 2:10-14
Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. [11] For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. [12] And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger." [13] And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

[14] "Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!"
 
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