Supremacy challenge part 2

TaylorSexton said:

of course, because Christians are fallible, often very much so. But, this fallibility has many causes: sometimes ignorance; perhaps mostly malice. It does not detract from the fact that Scripture has one meaning, and that Scripture is very, very clear on many matters, such as the prohibition to do harm to one's neighbor in any fashion.

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Unfortunately, as comforting as your personal opinion may be, not everyone agrees with it.

Subduction Zone said:

Nope, for example if you believe in a global flood then you have to believe in a lying God. All of the evidence out there tells us that there was no flood. That evidence would have had to come from the God that flooded the Earth. In other words he would have had to cover up his activities and make it look like the Earth is billions of years old. Most Christians do not believe in a lying God.



Again, if you want to make that claim the burden of proof is upon you.



Or perhaps your interpretation of what the Bible is trying to tell you is wrong. Let's try to look at it sensibly. The science that you depend upon every day says that the book of Genesis is wrong. Why use science that says that your beliefs are wrong if you really believe what you say that you do?

There are many Christians out there that do not deny science. They can drive their cars without feeling hypocritical. They can use plastic, eat food that is dependent upon the science that you deny. Use medicines that are based upon the theory of evolution. The list goes on and on. If you rally want to put your money where your mouth is you would almost have to live in a cave.

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Well count me in with those that drive cars and go to doctors and own a fridge and take medicine. Not all of us Bible thumpers are uneducated backward hicks who think the world is flat. I can do all that without feeling hypocritical and still believe that Genesis is right and evolution is wrong. Imagine that!





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rjs330 said:

Well count me in with those that drive cars and go to doctors and own a fridge and take medicine. Not all of us Bible thumpers are uneducated backward hicks who think the world is flat. I can do all that without feeling hypocritical and still believe that Genesis is right and evolution is wrong. Imagine that!





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Of course cognitive dissonance doesn't always lead to feelings of hypocrisy, but you are hypocritical nonetheless.

TaylorSexton said:

No, I want you to tell me. You made the assertion, now defend it. Surely being on a tablet does not prevent you from jotting a Scripture reference; it didn't stop you from writing entire sentences.

Now, where does it say this?

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He can't. He like others like him take scriptures and twist them to mean something they do not say.

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rjs330 said:

Well count me in with those that drive cars and go to doctors and own a fridge and take medicine. Not all of us Bible thumpers are uneducated backward hicks who think the world is flat. I can do all that without feeling hypocritical and still believe that Genesis is right and evolution is wrong. Imagine that!





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But the problem is that when you are doing that you are being hypocritical. All of those rely on science that tells us that your beliefs are wrong. Your actions tell us that you think the Bible is wrong.

If you have no shame that is fine with me, it just does not seem to be the way that a self professed Christian would act.

I suppose rjs's position can be seen as a form of Instrumentalism.
Instrumentalism is a philosophical view which values scientific theories for resolving conceptual problems and making useful predictions without taking a position as to whether they are meaningful descriptions of reality.

For example, even if geocentrism turned out to be true, astrophysicists would continue to use the heliocentric theory, because it would still have the same predictive power and the equations are easier to work.

The same can be said of the theory of evolution. Even if Special Creation were found to be true, the theory of evolution would be retained for its conceptual and predictive utility--which Special Creation does not possess. For the same reason, "Genesis Flood" models are not employed by Christian geologists in practical applications--whatever the geologists' personal beliefs about the age of the Earth might be.

1984. That is all.

FrumiousBandersnatch said:

Unfortunately, as comforting as your personal opinion may be, not everyone agrees with it.

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...thus proving my point.

TaylorSexton said:

I appreciate your zealous pursuit of truth, friend; I really do.

But, as I remember, all species came from, at one point, a singular organism, according to the atheistic worldview. Would that not be the severest of bottlenecks? Yet, amazingly, life "recovered" and we have not only great DNA variation, but an enormous number of entire species of living things. I cannot imagine that a flood such as the one described in Scripture, which happened we are not sure how long ago (it could have been aeons), would have created the bottleneck you describe, much less one which would be observable even today. I still am not convinced at this point by the evidence.

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First life would have been bacteria like. Reproduction there is quite different from today in complex multi-cellular things.

Populations sizes of less then 200 being problematic for the survival of the species is true in "modern" species... Like rabbits, crockodiles, dinosaurs, humans, etc.

In the very beginning, we talk about "self-replicating molecules" as the "first life" thingies. Those were quite different from what we have today.

There was no sexual reproduction back then either, which also plays a big role in survivability of a species and the importance and implications of genetic variation.

Asexual reproduction is very very different. Every "new generation" is essentially a clone of the "parent", with a bit of variation.

And off course.... that "first life" was at least 3.8 billion years ago.

But, to be frank, the primary issue here is far, far upstream from where we currently are. This is a worldview clash, and those are not resolved easily, if ever.

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Actually.... the only worldview that's being "clashed" here, is YOURS.
I'm not the one here with the relgious/dogmatic attachment to any particular view of history. I just go by the evidence... YOU are the one here who thinks to have the answers before asking the questions.

It's YOUR "worldview" that's being challenged by the actual facts of reality.
YOUR "worldview" is shaped beforehand by your religious beliefs.
While MY "worldview" is dictated and shaped by the actual data. And before having such data, I just simply acknowledge that ignorance and say that I don't know.

We both have faith in different authorities

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Nope. YOU have faith in an authority, yes... which turns out to be a bronze age religious book.

*I* have no such "faith" and I most certainly don't have any "authorities".

I just go by what the data suggests. And I also do not "believe" anything. I consider things likely and unlikely. And the degree to which I do, will be dependend on a combination of actual evidential support, testability and scientific consensus.

, and we both assert that the said object of our faith is infallibly true.

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Nope, I don't do that either.
NOTHING that I consider "likely" or "unlikely" is done so with a degree of "infallibility". All is up for questioning. All is up for doubt. The question is how reasonable the doubt is and what evidence we have at our disposal to support the stance we take.

It's always the evidence that determines how "certain" I am about something. And I never consider something certain for "100%". Some things are SO LIKELY that we might just as well call them facts, sure... But then still, I'ld never put it at 100%. It'll always get stuck at 99.999999999....%

Fortunately, contrary to what many think, the Christian worldview, alongside believing that all truth is God's truth (which includes science), also believes that we simply do not and cannot know everything with certainty (and this also includes science), and that we as a human race will be constantly learning new things until the end. I think for everyone an acknowledgement of fallibility is crucial.

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Yes. As I have said above.
However, that doesn't mean that we get to reasonbly doubt anything.

For example, that the earth orbits the sun and not the other way round, cannot be rationally doubted today by any sane and educated person.

Does that mean that we are absolutely, infallibly, certain that the earth orbits the sun? No. It just means that the evidence we have at this point makes it completely unreasonable to think otherwise. But for all practical intents and purposes, we call that a fact and true (small "t").

With that in mind, I would suggest a little more tolerance on your part. Ridicule, sarcasm and superiority complexes never help these conversations, and only drive your conversation partners away.

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Sorry, but I feel that sarcasm, ridicule and a sense of intellectual superiority to anyone who thinks the biblical flood story is literally true, is MORE then justified in the 21st century. Especially if that someone lives in a first world country and has access to the internet.

To believe the biblical flood story to be literally true and that it happened somewhere in the past few thousand years, is quite on par with denying embryology and believing in Stork Theory.

It's insane.

Anyways, I will look more into the issues

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Please do and don't be afraid to ask questions. Plenty of people here, including me, will be more then willing to help you out.

So Taylor, you were saying?

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
Translated to Modern English:
"You must not allow a sorceress to live."

Yep, the Bible never says to kill anyone.

[serious] said:

Huh? I'm just playing devils advocate here. it's possible to construct a global flood hypothesis that does not require a last Thursday style deception, but it requires a lot more creativity, arbitrary extra textual miracles, and deep time. I don't posit this as a reasonable explanation, just an improvement on the YEC approach.

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Yes - it wasn't a criticism of your post, just pointing out that being creative with an omnipotent God allows anything, however extreme.