My YEC Evidence Challenge

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I know. He just left office.

I was talking about Joshua Abraham Norton.

 

[SkyWriting]

So, I've decided to ask this question of Young (or Young at Heart) Earth Creationists in a challenge response to AV's numerous 'Challenges'.... though, I'd like to think this would actually be constructive over AV's hypothetical scenarios with no fixed facts... (not meaning to offend of course AV! )

If this universe is a direct fiat creation by God, and the bible is God's word filtered through fallible men, why is it that the second option is believed above the directly observed evidence of the creator of the universe?

Points to consider in a reply:

• We don't have the original books making the Bible
• We can directly examine the world around us, life, the universe & everything in between
• There is tangible and demonstrable advantage to knowing facts about the world around us, life, the universe & everything in between
• The Scientific Method is the most effective method in narrowing in on these facts about the world around us, life, the universe & everything in between

The Scientific method can only predict possible outcomes.
Naturally a past event is not a future outcome or experiment.
Gods direct Creation leaves no scientific tells.
"Science" requires that one create a theory, then test it.
God only cooperates in this way on a personal level.
Answered Prayer, as listed below, is not open to "hostile" examination.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

Not all dust.
When my stepson was 15 he saw an orb. It was a glowing bluish color. It came in through an outside wall and hovered near the ceiling for a bit before exiting again. He and his friend both saw it. It scared the daylights out of them.
These things exist. Not all sightings are supernatural, but some are. Some have no other explanation.

so, St. Elmo's Fire? From St. Elmo's fire - Wikipedia :

St. Elmo's fire is a bright blue or violet glow, appearing like fire in some circumstances, from tall, sharply pointed structures such as lightning rods, masts, spires and chimneys, and on aircraft wings or nose cones. St. Elmo's fire can also appear on leaves and grass, and even at the tips of cattle horns.[5] Often accompanying the glow is a distinct hissing or buzzing sound. It is sometimes confused with ball lightning.
​

And More! : http://gizmodo.com/scientists-have-recreated-st-elmos-fire-in-the-lab-1171146134 It's Amazing what the Scientific Method can accomplish...

So, back to the point of this thread - In this case, the Scientific Method and an assumption free start gave us an insight to a natural phenomenon of St. Elmo's Fire that can now be recreated at will. No ghosts or supernatural entity involved. On the other hand, superstitious minds make for incredulous storytelling about this phenomenon which would undoubtedly amplify & feed into other peoples superstitions.

As I said, we have recordings but they are inconclusive, Many can be explained. Some cannot. There will never be conclusive, irrefutable evidence of the supernatural world in your lifetime. Most people will never believe in God until they meet Him. The only true way to find the Lord is to open your heart and truly seek him through faith. Proof will always have another explanation.

That you've already written off these phenomena with your superstitions & resigned yourself & everyone else around you as never being able to know evidence of the supernatural is exactly the point of this thread. This is the concern over education and science in particular and this position is absolutely toxic to progress.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

The Scientific method can only predict possible outcomes.

Which is handy, right? Such as Flu Vaccines.

Naturally a past event is not a future outcome or experiment.

but it can be verification of an accurate working model, such as the finding of Tiktaalik using the evolutionary timeline matched to the geological stratum & location for the time and conditions we would expect it to have been.

Gods direct Creation leaves no scientific tells.

so doesn't interact with reality then?

"Science" requires that one create a theory, then test it.

Which is how you get to enjoy every piece of technology and comfort you enjoy today

God only cooperates in this way on a personal level.

Why am I not worthy of a damascus road experience, am I not important enough?

Answered Prayer, as listed below, is not open to "hostile" examination.

Why would it be hostile?? Who wouldn't want to know that the efficacy of prayer is actual? That experiment has been done a few times now, it failed btw...

 

[KWCrazy]

So, back to the point of this thread - In this case, the Scientific Method and an assumption free start gave us an insight to a natural phenomenon of St. Elmo's Fire that can now be recreated at will. No ghosts or supernatural entity involved.

St Elmo's fire has specific characteristics not found in most encounters. For one thing, it's an electrical phenomenon associated with thunderstorms. It does not behave in the same manner as described.

That you've already written off these phenomena with your superstitions & resigned yourself & everyone else around you as never knowing evidence of the supernatural is exactly the point of this thread.

Evidence and proof are not synonyms. Evidence we have. Proof we will not have.

 

[SkyWriting]

Which is handy, right? Such as Flu Vaccines.

but it can be verification of an accurate working model, such as the finding of Tiktaalik using the evolutionary timeline matched to the geological stratum & location for the time and conditions we would expect it to have been.

so doesn't interact with reality then?

Which is how you get to enjoy every piece of technology and comfort you enjoy today

Why am I not worthy of a damascus road experience, am I not important enough?

Why would it be hostile?? Who wouldn't want to know that the efficacy of prayer is actual? That experiment has been done a few times now, it failed btw...

That's what I said. It can only be experienced personally.
And the efficacy is 100%.
You are worthy, just have not yet put in the effort to believe it.
God already has answered every prayer that ever will be offered.
You just need to tune in to His requests.
Flu vaccines have worked as much as 50% of the time in a good year.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

St Elmo's fire has specific characteristics not found in most encounters. For one thing, it's an electrical phenomenon associated with thunderstorms. It does not behave in the same manner as described.

It's not only in thunderstorms that they're found. Again, from the wiki on St. Elmo's Fire:

In Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. describes seeing a corposant in the Horse latitudes of the northern Atlantic Ocean. However, he may have been talking about ball lightning; as mentioned earlier it is often erroneously identified as St. Elmo's fire: "There, directly over where we had been standing, upon the main top-gallant mast-head, was a ball of light, which the sailors name a corposant (corpus sancti), and which the mate had called out to us to look at. They were all watching it carefully, for sailors have a notion, that if the corposant rises in the rigging, it is a sign of fair weather, but if it comes lower down, there will be a storm".[20]​

So, they were yet to experience a storm at least...

Evidence and proof are not synonyms. Evidence we have. Proof we will not have.

Where is the evidence then? What is evidence for you? Are you critically minded at all?

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

That's what I said. It can only be experienced personally.
And the efficacy is 100%.

Except that it is demonstrably not.

You are worthy, just have not yet put in the effort to believe it.

Belief isn't a choice. If I were to put effort into fooling myself into accepting something I have no reason to, which version of which religion is the right one, how would I determine this independent of the religious text pertinent to each of them?

God already has answered every prayer that ever will be offered.
You just need to tune in to His requests.

....so, who is praying to whom? How does one 'tune into his requests'?

Flu vaccines have worked as much as 50% of the time in a good year.

so, they Work then? Good! Evidence the Scientific Method gets results that are useful.

 

[Dave-W]

so, St. Elmo's Fire?

I always liked that song.

 

[Dave-W]

The problem with studying the supernatural is that it is invisible. You never know where to point the instruments. You can't anticipate a visitation, so results are very inconsistent. There's no real way to move this study into the "hard science" realm because you can't study a passing fluctuation on heat energy in depth and conclude that it is anything more than an anomaly. Thus, paranormal investigation is given little credibility.

But that should NEVER be taken as proof it does not exist.

 

[Dave-W]

When my stepson was 15 he saw an orb. It was a glowing bluish color. It came in through an outside wall and hovered near the ceiling for a bit before exiting again. He and his friend both saw it. It scared the daylights out of them.

That sounds like typical ball lightning. It has been recreated in the lap.

 

[KWCrazy]

But that should NEVER be taken as proof it does not exist.

It isn't. It just shows that you can't prove the supernatural with normal methods.

 

[KWCrazy]

That sounds like typical ball lightning. It has been recreated in the lap.

Ball lightning doesn't hang around that long or act in the same way. That was my first though. He said it hung around at least 3-4 minutes.

 

[Dave-W]

Ball lightning doesn't hang around that long or act in the same way. That was my first though. He said it hung around at least 3-4 minutes.

I have read reports of it lasting up to a half hour. (back in the 1950s and 60s)

In the lab it only lasts a few seconds.

 

[joshua 1 9]

why is it that the second option is believed above the directly observed evidence of the creator of the universe?

There is no conflict between Science and the Bible. Look at Bishop Usshers bible chronology written in 1650. For the most part the good Bishop begins with Adam and Eve 6,000 years ago. Bishop Ussher basically say nothing about anything that happened before this point in time because in the year 1650 they have very little if any information at all of anything that happened before 4004 BC. Bishop Ussher's book is as accurate as any book in print. Not one has had to revise his book even once. Our Biology book is going through constant revision because whole chapters need to be rewritten from time to time.

If you want to argue against YEC then you need to go back to Ussher's book and show us where he is wrong or in error. Because YEC is based on his book. I have a very nice copy of his book here and you can find copies of the good Bishop's book online so I am ready to have a discussion about this at any time. This book is almost 1,000 pages that talks about the last 6,000 years of the history of the world. Ussher based this on the Bible and books that were available to him in 1650 that are no longer available to us today because this information is preserved in his book. Just like the genealogies in the Bible were recorded at the temple in Jerusalem around 2,000 years ago. They were destroyed when the temple was tore down in 70 ad. We do not need the original documents anymore because we have a copy of them in our Bible. All of the genealogies from Adam in 4004 BC to Christ Jesus 2,000 years ago.

This is all designed so a 5th grader can understand so that people are without excuse if they do not want to understand the message God has for us in all of this. It is often the Phds that have the most trouble understanding the Bible because they have lost the innocence and purity they need to understand. That is why we need to be born again and become as a child to get back what was lost and to understand the message God our Creator has for us.

 

[joshua 1 9]

You will someday ... that's a fact.

They talk about that. In Heaven if we were to go to a Bible study the person that actually wrote the part of the Bible that we were doing a study on would show up that day to do the teaching. If we have a question we could just to to their house and ask them to explain the passage for us from their perspective.

 

[CrystalDragon]

That's what I said. It can only be experienced personally.
And the efficacy is 100%.
You are worthy, just have not yet put in the effort to believe it.
God already has answered every prayer that ever will be offered.
You just need to tune in to His requests.
Flu vaccines have worked as much as 50% of the time in a good year.

If every prayer was answered, then there would be a lot of spontaneous healings, few (if any) people would die, people would be more prosperous, and both Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump would have somehow won because each candidate had people praying they would win.

 

[joshua 1 9]

But the Person of Jesus (the TRUTH) is not bound by physics or even logic.

Jesus Created the Cosmos. He is the Word of Truth. Through Jesus Universal Laws and Truth are established. He is bound by the laws of physics because He came to establish the law not to break the law. Of course Science and their understanding of Physics has a very long way to go.

 

[AV1611VET]

3. Was it a fact at one time that Thalidomide was a prenatal wonder drug?

No.

Then what's this?

Afterwards, it was used against nausea and to alleviate morning sickness in pregnant women.

SOURCE

Researchers at Chemie Grünenthal also found that thalidomide was a particularly effective antiemetic that had an inhibitory effect on morning sickness. Hence, on October 1, 1957, the company launched thalidomide and began aggressively marketing it under the trade name Contergan. It was proclaimed a "wonder drug" for insomnia, coughs, colds and headaches.

SOURCE

4. Was it a fact at one time that the Titanic was unsinkable?

No.

Then what's this?

Those aboard Titanic were ill-prepared for such an emergency. In accordance with accepted practices of the time, where ships were seen as largely unsinkable and lifeboats were intended to transfer passengers to nearby rescue vessels, Titanic only had enough lifeboats to carry about half of those on board; if the ship had carried her full complement of about 3,339 passengers and crew, only about a third could have been accommodated in the lifeboats.

SOURCE

 

[joshua 1 9]

If every prayer was answered, then there would be a lot of spontaneous hearings, few (if any) people would die, people would be more prosperous, and both Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump would have somehow won because each candidate had people praying they would win.

Perhaps the grace and mercy of God is demonstrated the most in the prayers that He does not answer. That is why we have time and we have a delay. If we got what we asked for in an instant we would all be in trouble.