To all athiests out there: bring it on

Religion doesn't play by logic's rules.

God can do something he is unable to if he wishes: he can make a rock he can't lift, then lift it. That's the problem logically of omnipotence.

God can do something he is unable to if he wishes: he can make a rock he can't lift, then lift it. That's the problem logically of omnipotence.

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So you're saying that there is a complete dichotomy between the way God works and logic? Hmmm... could be. I kno for certain that God does not function under our cause-effect system, since He is outside of such boundaries as time and space, but can He be what He is not? In other words, can God sin? Can God die? I think what Budoka said is correct

God cannot do xyz not because of a case of lacking the power to do so, but because doing xyz is incompatable with the state of being God.

By definition, God thus cannot die, because to do so would cause Him to cease being God, and that is most certainly incompatible with the state of being God. So Shinto, would you say God can sin, break His promise, or die? Don't answer with "He could, but He never would." That would imply that He never would because it goes against His nature. If it went against His nature, He is not God anymore, or at least not as we imagined Him.

"By definition, God thus cannot die"

Hmm...Christ. Not sure the about the logics involved there. I would describe it as God LIMITING himself. Example: God being not all knowing. Christ limited himself to the knowledge he had when on earth. Did he know nuclear physics? Nope. Could he have? Yes.

Has anyone seen my dinosaur? He's a big brontosaurus, about 6,000 years old. You can't miss him. He likes apple-cinnamon flavored instant oatmeal, and answers to the name Francis. There is a reward for his return.

Originally posted by WetNibble
Has anyone seen my dinosaur? He's a big brontosaurus, about 6,000 years old. You can't miss him. He likes apple-cinnamon flavored instant oatmeal, and answers to the name Francis. There is a reward for his return.

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errr...SORRY DUDE... we didn't know he was a pet... just thought he was a stray...


errr... ummm.... He did make great Bar-B-Que

Hmm...Christ. Not sure the about the logics involved there.

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I meant to die not in the physical sense, but to diein all senses, to be completely annihilated, cease to exist. Physical death is only a transition of our soul, not someone's end.

I would describe it as God LIMITING himself. Example: God being not all knowing. Christ limited himself to the knowledge he had when on earth. Did he know nuclear physics? Nope. Could he have? Yes

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If He didn't know certain things, how did He regain His knowledge? Who would have told Him? I think He just refused to act on any knowledge, or perhaps it was the man of Christ who did not know, but Christ the God did. After all, isn't God unlimited? If so, limiting Him is impossible, even if He limits Himself (by limit I mean to restrict power so it is unusable; this is not the same as refusing to use power).

Originally posted by Outspoken [lucaspa]
"Methodological materialism has nothing to do with any possible flaws or lack of data in an specific theory."

Untrue with your application. Science cannot deal, nor produce, a correct theory when the supernatural is involved. why? Its not the right tool for the job.

Then you have just declared that creationism cannot be a correct. Creationism proposes a scientific theory of how the supernatural created.  It proposes a specific age of the universe, a specific sequence of the appearance of objects in the universe, and a specific relationship between biological organisms.

What methodologica materialism can't do is tell you whether the material causes of science are the only causes.  That is, it can't tell you whether or not deity sustains the universe. Or, as Gould put it: "science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists."

Now, science can tell you whether the material causes are sufficient as material causes.  Thus, science can tell you that God didn't have to manufacture each species separately.  Instead, evolution by natural selection is quite sufficient to produce species.  But is God necessary in order for evolution by natural selection to work?  Science can't address that.


"Take the rotational energy and transfer that to the motion of the molecules that make up the earth. You end up with motions of the molecules that correspond to a couple of thousand degrees centigrade."

You're assuming tons of other factors remained constant. 

And what is your evidence that they weren't constant?  At the equator, the rotational speed of the earth is 1000 miles per hour or 16.67 miles per minute. Translate that speed to random motion of molecules and calculate the heat involved. 

"Covering up that consequence (hiding God's action) is actually covering up the miracle by another one so that it appears that God did not act. That is deception."

Science would say the cancer just wasn't there before or something to that effect.

In this instance, science says "we don't know".  What happened to the cancer?  We don't know.  There are a lot of hypotheses.  You listed one: it was never there. Another one is that deity zapped the cancer away. Still another is that the immune system was able to deal with the cancer after chemotherapy.  Science has insufficient data to tell which hypothesis is correct.

What you are doing is god-of-the-gaps.  Don't have a scientific answer? Well, then, insert God!  Of course, what happens when later data fills the gap? What happens to God?  Which is why you are faced with rejecting the data.  But the fault is not science's, but your theology.

Instead of proposing that God created by your literal interpretation of Genesis, propose instead that God created the universe by the BB, galaxies, stars, and planets by gravity, life by chemistry, and the diversity of life by evolution.  Now you have all the scientific data you could possibly want in support of God.  Of course, it is also possible that the processes happen by themselves, but here methodological materialism won't show that God is absent, either.

"My language is telling it like it is. "

No, you're actually using loaded language.

Its not a moral issue and I find it pretty funny that you're trying to turn it into one being that you're an evolutionist yourself.

Science isn't a moral issue.  There I agree. However, creationism isn't good theology, either.  Creationism isn't the "for God" position it is often portrayed as being.  Rather, creationism is the most dangerous idea facing Christianity, with the ability to destroy Christianity by falsely making Christianity falsifiable and falsified by science.

Originally posted by fieldsofwind
You've got to be kidding right? 

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Not at all.  In 1844 a pamphlet entitled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, espousing an evolutionary viewpoint, was published.  In response Philip Gosse, a minister in the Fundamentalist group called the Plymouth Brethren, wrote Oomphalos, published in 1857.  In it Gosse made the first written argument that creation only LOOKS old.  In it, Gosse even argued that Adam and Eve had navels because that is what one would expect in God-created creatures.
  Gosse expected Oomphalos to be attacked by scientists.  What he should have expected, but didn't, was the denunciation by the religious community.  Asked to write a review of Oomphalos, his friend Charles Kinglsey, a minister and author of Westward Ho! refused and wrote the following letter to Gosse.
"You have given the 'vestiges of creation theory' [the pamphlet discussed above] the best shove forward which it has ever had. I have a special dislike for that book; but, honestly, I felt my heart melting towards it as I read Oomphalos.  Shall I tell you the truth?  It is best.  Your book is the first that ever made me doubt the doctrine of absolute creation, and I fear it will make hundreds do so.  Your book tends to prove this - that if we accept the fact of absolute creation, God becomes God-the-Sometime-Deceiver.  I do not mean merely in the case of fossils which pretend to be the bones of dead animals; but in ...your newly created Adam's navel, you make God tell a lie.  It is not my reason, but my conscience which revolts here ... I cannot ...believe that God has written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie for all mankind.  To this painful dilemma you have brought me, and will, I fear, bring hundreds.  It will not make me throw away my Bible.  I trust and hope. I know in whom I have believed, and can trust Him to bring my faith safe through this puzzle, as He has through others; but for the young I do fear.  I would not for a thousand pounds put your book into my children's hands."  Garret Hardin, ""Scientific Creationism'" - Marketing Deception as Truth" in Science and Creationism edited by Ashley Montagu, 1982.

Originally posted by Ultimo Dragon
God can do anything right? Could he make a rock so big, he couldn't even lift it?

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This is the logical puzzle that is an argument against omnipotence.

However, that leads to another question: how powerful (or knowing, or present) does an entity have to be in order to qualify as deity?

Originally posted by Truth Hunter
Hey guys, mind if I jump in? 
God cannot do anything. There are a number of things God cannot do. He cannot lie

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Ezekiel 20:25

Originally posted by Outspoken
"I would describe it as God LIMITING himself. Example: God being not all knowing. Christ limited himself to the knowledge he had when on earth. Did he know nuclear physics? Nope. Could he have? Yes.

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Thanks, Outspoken. You have just removed one of the major theological objections creationists have to evolution: Jesus thinking there was a literal Adam. As you say, he was limited to the knowledge of the time, which was that there was a literal Adam.

"Jesus thinking there was a literal Adam."

Not at all, for there are several things that make the nonliteral adam hypothesis fall apart immediatly..geneologies for one thing.

Originally posted by Outspoken
"Jesus thinking there was a literal Adam."

Not at all, for there are several things that make the nonliteral adam hypothesis fall apart immediatly..geneologies for one thing.

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You still removed one problem: that Jesus said there was  literal Adam.  Thank you

Now, as to geneologies, the ancient world made geneologies for lots of people back to gods or mythical people.  The Roman emperors were traced back to Romulus and Remus, for instance.  There is also the fact the Yeshu has two different geneologies in different gospels. That's a big hint that the geneologies aren't literal.

Ezekiel 20:25 "I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by." Was this the right verse, Lucaspa? Maybe I'm missing the point.

I'd like to hear problems with this idea that God cannot do everything (everything meaning the large sense of the word, including every action possible outside of this world). He still has complete control over His creation and can do everything within it, but doesn't God have limits (which are not imposed on God by lack of power, but by his nature)?

"You still removed one problem: that Jesus said there was literal Adam. Thank you"

LOL not at all. I'm guessing you've never actually read the bible before. I did no such thing, though you can stick your head in the sand and keep claiming I did though.

"Romulus and Remus, for instance. "

Nooooo...this was a myth, not a direct geneology..try again

tacoman528 said:

I challenge anyone who thinks that science disproves the bible.

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Science is at odds with herself as well.

Such as when she taught & demonstrated geocentrism; then changed her mind and taught & demonstrated heliocentrism, leaving the blame to the churches in existence at the time for not switching over.

Or when she taught & demonstrated Phlogiston theory; then changed her mind and taught & demonstrated Combustion theory.

It's not even Lent yet, Easter is still a couple months away. It's far too early in the year to be raising threads from the dead.

-CryptoLutheran

AV1611VET said:

Science is at odds with herself as well.

Such as when she taught & demonstrated geocentrism; then changed her mind and taught & demonstrated heliocentrism, leaving the blame to the churches in existence at the time for not switching over.

Or when she taught & demonstrated Phlogiston theory; then changed her mind and taught & demonstrated Combustion theory.

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So?

New evidence leads to new theories. Not sure what your issue is.

AV1611VET said:

Science is at odds with herself as well.

Such as when she taught & demonstrated geocentrism; then changed her mind and taught & demonstrated heliocentrism, leaving the blame to the churches in existence at the time for not switching over.

Or when she taught & demonstrated Phlogiston theory; then changed her mind and taught & demonstrated Combustion theory.

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When scientists disagree, methodologies are applied, and corrections are made.

When religionists disagree, there is only opinion. They declare the other wrong, and form a new religion/denomination/sect/etc.

Tell me, how many religion/denomination/sects are there?

florida2 said:

Not sure what your issue is.

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Why should I embrace evolution?

I'll just wait until Evolution theory is replaced by Creation theory.

(And since Creation theory is a contradiction in terms, I'll be waiting until the Rapture.)