Some Reasons I Don't Believe in Biblical Creation

[AnEmpiricalAgnostic]

Correct, then there would be cause to consider that. Do you happen to have such a note?

Heh... newbie mistake.

 

[AV1611VET]

That would indeed be nice. The first problem is that all that seems to exist are a bunch of different writings by men of antiquity.

It may be a problem for you, but it is not a problem for me.

Within that 'bunch of different writings by men of antiquity' is the Word of God, standing head-and-shoulders above all others.

 

[AnEmpiricalAgnostic]

It may be a problem for you, but it is not a problem for me.

Within that 'bunch of different writings by men of antiquity' is the Word of God, standing head-and-shoulders above all others.

I suspected as much. But then again you probably weren't given much of a choice and, at this point, change would be too difficult and risky for you.

I simply enjoy the opportunity to stand in contrast to you for all to see. Giving others the opportunity to view the debate a little more objectively should help moderate things a bit.

If you want to believe Ahura Mazda is the magical creator and reason for everything we cannot yet explain then so be it.

 

[AV1611VET]

But then again you probably weren't given much of a choice and, at this point, change would be too difficult and risky for you.

[sarcasm]

Oh, I had a choice alright.

At the tender age of 27, my parents got me down and held a gun to my head and said to either convert to Christianity or decorate their carpet with my brains.

So I converted to Christianity, and they installed cameras in my house & car to make sure I go to church when I'm supposed to.

Informants within our church will report to my parents anytime I'm caught sleeping or failing to tithe or whatever.

Of course, I had to mail a copy of my baptism certificate to them.

Should I try to change to another denomination, my parents said they have ways of taking care of me that bypass standard forensic tests.

Once my parents "pass over Jordan", then our church will assume the duties of "training me in the way I should go."

[/sarcasm]

 

[British Bulldog]

[sarcasm]

Oh, I had a choice alright.

At the tender age of 27, my parents got me down and held a gun to my head and said to either convert to Christianity or decorate their carpet with my brains.

So I converted to Christianity, and they installed cameras in my house & car to make sure I go to church when I'm supposed to.

Informants within our church will report to my parents anytime I'm caught sleeping or failing to tithe or whatever.

Of course, I had to mail a copy of my baptism certificate to them.

Should I try to change to another denomination, my parents said they have ways of taking care of me that bypass standard forensic tests.

Once my parents "pass over Jordan", then our church will assume the duties of "training me in the way I should go."

[/sarcasm]

Heh. Actually they did even better than that. They made you need your religion.

 

[AnEmpiricalAgnostic]

[sarcasm]

Oh, I had a choice alright.

At the tender age of 27, my parents got me down and held a gun to my head and said to either convert to Christianity or decorate their carpet with my brains.

So I converted to Christianity, and they installed cameras in my house & car to make sure I go to church when I'm supposed to.

Informants within our church will report to my parents anytime I'm caught sleeping or failing to tithe or whatever.

Of course, I had to mail a copy of my baptism certificate to them.

Should I try to change to another denomination, my parents said they have ways of taking care of me that bypass standard forensic tests.

Once my parents "pass over Jordan", then our church will assume the duties of "training me in the way I should go."

[/sarcasm]

Heh.. I've never heard it being this overt before

I think the usual MO is much more subtle. The two general paths are:

1) start going to social gatherings as early as possible (before you can walk, talk , or understand what's going on), listen to assertions over and over while surrounded by the people you love, trust, and depend upon, memorize, recite, become part of a social group, discourage free thought, apply social pressure in case anyone shows signs of straying, ostracize those who stray too far, etc., etc... get them young and keep them "on the path"

2) wait for someone to hit rock bottom and promise to fix them as long as they conform to a particular belief system. then initiate step one.

At one point straying from the flock meant being threatened, jailed, or killed. I guess in some parts of he world that's still the case.

Once it comes down to a choice of something like biblical creation vs. evolution it's simply either too hard to undo all of the inculcation that has been heaped upon a believer or it's not worth being punished by their social group.

But, just like geocentric beliefs, the belief that man was created magically in his present form will give way to reason and science. I guess some people will just have to wait for the nod from their spiritual leaders before they can make the decision for themselves.

 

[AV1611VET]

1) start going to social gatherings as early as possible (before you can walk, talk , or understand what's going on)...

Nah -- my parents were different.

I remember them telling me that, until I was out of diapers and could walk, talk, and understand what's going on, I could do as I pleased; so I stayed at home in my crib or playpen when they went to church, so as not to end up in the nursery.

 

[Greg1234]

Just because a cause is not yet know doesn't mean we should assign a deity to it. Gods are no longer needed to pull the sun across the sky.

No, says one. Gravity = Law of Attraction

They no longer need to be appeased to prevent volcanic activity.

But fault lines don't cause earthquakes. Earthquakes cause fault lines, not vice versa - Predict Weather - the home of long range weather

Simply admitting ignorance and labeling the cause "dark" is far more intellectually honest.

In materialism. That it is caused by a force finer than matter, omnipresent more powerful, and non local does not necessarily justify the label "dark" outside of methodological naturalism.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

After all this time you are still not aware we can see by faith?

I'm aware of the claim, I've simply yet to see any supporting evidence.

Yup.

Then why do you assert it's X, when Y and Z are equally valid?

Please be honest and admit you are not seeing “gravitation from matter”. This is an assumption.

Some scientists see EM fields from plasma. Another assumption.

We then go with the scientific assumption that is consistent with observations.

I don't think you know what the word 'assumption' means.

We all have our presupposed beliefs.

And mine are...?

If your community is giving glory to the creation rather than to the Creator, then it’s a religious community.

A religious community is one bound by a religion, and a religion is a set of beliefs that, among other spiritual things, posit the existence of some part of the self that persists after death - i.e., a soul. The scientific community does not 'give glory' to creation, nor does it posit the existence of a soul, nor deities, nor anything else that typifies a religious community.

It never ceases to amuse me when religious types try to denigrate the part of science they don't like - evolution, old Earth, radiocarbon dating, dark matter, the Big Bang, etc - as 'religious', as if it's a bad thing, yet simultaneously singing the praises of religion and faith.

I predict failure on your part.

Of course you do, you have to. We're free to reject dark matter or anything else, but you're worldview precludes any possibility of being wrong. It's one of the core differences between a scientific theory and a religious dogma, and it's why only the former actually helps humanity.

Actually, I was thinking CERN or Fermilab were like Satan to your dark mythology.

They're temptors in the Garden of Eden?

 

[Doveaman]

There are many people who have a real, personal experience of God-Energy. No one has ever had a real, personal experience of dark-energy. I think Occam's Razor is on my side.

Just because a cause is not yet know doesn't mean we should assign a deity to it.

We can if the cause is just a scientifically undetectable as a deity. Dark-energy fits that description.

Gods are no longer needed to pull the sun across the sky.

So why do you rely on dark-energy to do it? Why not rely on something that can be scientifically verified.

They no longer need to be appeased to prevent volcanic activity. Simply admitting ignorance and labeling the cause "dark" is far more intellectually honest.

But if you don't know what the cause is and have no way of scientifically verifying the cause, then there is room for a deity. You call that deity dark-energy. I call it God-Energy.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

There are many people who have a real, personal experience of God-Energy. No one has ever had a real, personal experience of dark-energy. I think Occam's Razor is on my side.

You'd be wrong. "Real, personal experience" doesn't satisfy the Razor.

We can if the cause is just a scientifically undetectable as a deity. Dark-energy fits that description.

Surprisingly, not even then.

So why do you rely on dark-energy to do it? Why not rely on something that can be scientifically verified.

Because it can be scientifically verified. You don't believe that it can, or that it has, but, well, that's simply because it doesn't fit your religious beliefs.

But if you don't know what the cause is and have no way of scientifically verifying the cause, then there is room for a deity. You call that deity dark-energy. I call it God-Energy.

In that particular hypothesis, the only logical recourse is to say "I don't know". Calling it 'God-Energy' is intellectually vapid, regardless of the veracity of dark matter.

 

[Doveaman]

I don't think you know what the word 'assumption' means...

And mine are...?

Your presupposed belief is that gravity holds galaxies together, and your assumption is that you are seeing gravity from matter despite not seeing any matter.

 

[SkyWriting]

False. QV Relativity and quantum mechanics.

I'm sure you converted all readers.

 

[Doveaman]

Because it can be scientifically verified.

Then teach me another lesson beside 'wind'.

How exactly do you verify dark-energy?

Surely not by its assumed effects?

 

[SkyWriting]

But, just like geocentric beliefs, the belief that man was created magically in his present form will give way to reason and science. I guess some people will just have to wait for the nod from their spiritual leaders before they can make the decision for themselves.

Oh we've decided God didn't grant you the gift of prophecy long ago.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Your presupposed belief is that gravity holds galaxies together, and your assumption is that you are seeing gravity from matter despite not seeing any matter.

The former is an extensively verified theory, the underpinning model of which is Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, so I disagree that there is anything presupposed about it. The latter follows from the former.

Then teach me another lesson beside 'wind'.

How exactly do you verify dark-energy?

Surely not by its assumed effects?

You would verify it the same way you verify anything else: make a prediction, and go out and test it. If dark matter exists, we should see its gravitational effects in distant observations of galaxies and stars. We do.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I'm sure you converted all readers.

One can only hope. After reviewing both relativity and quantum mechanics, it should be clear that your claim ("Nothing can occur that is not sourced by something equal or greater [as evidenced by the Law of Conservation of Energy and Newton's Laws]") is false. Do you agree?

 

[Loudmouth]

So rain clouds are wind? That's new. Thanks for the lesson.

Is wind moving gas or not? Is water vapor gas or not?

The same experiments that support your claims.

It is these types of infantile responses that give creationism a black eye. Those experiments found dark matter, not God. You know this too. Why are you pretending otherwise?

Since we can only observe the effects and not the cause, than that cause can be God-Energy instead of dark-fantasy.

Completely non-sensical response. Dark matter is not a fantasy. It is real. It is observed. You think replacing words with "God energy" somehow evidences it. It doesn't. It only makes you look foolish.

 

[Loudmouth]

Then teach me another lesson beside 'wind'.

How exactly do you verify dark-energy?

By surveying type Ia supernovae:

The Dark Energy Survey - Survey

Surely not by its assumed effects?

That is how you measure everything in nature, is it not? When you see something it is due to the effect of electromagnetic radiation on the opsins in your retina. When you hear something it is due to the effect of pressure waves on the sensitive hairs in your cochlea. When you touch something it is due to the effect of electromagnetic repulsion causing pressure changes in the nerves just under your skin. Everything is detected by it's testable and predictable effect on the world around us.

 

[SkyWriting]

By surveying type Ia supernovae:

The Dark Energy Survey - Survey



That is how you measure everything in nature, is it not? When you see something it is due to the effect of electromagnetic radiation on the opsins in your retina. When you hear something it is due to the effect of pressure waves on the sensitive hairs in your cochlea. When you touch something it is due to the effect of electromagnetic repulsion causing pressure changes in the nerves just under your skin. Everything is detected by it's testable and predictable effect on the world around us.

But God is Spirit and answers prayers.