The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

I think the following: the Pharisees had heard Jesus speak on forgiveness. They wanted to get Jesus to forgive her so they could jump all over Him for doing only what could do.

That is fair enough. I disagree, but at least you aren't adding loads to the story like JC is.

To me it makes absolutely no sense that these men would just walk away because Jesus points out that they have in their life sinned. Of course they have sinned, everyone sinned. They would have to be pretty stupid not to realise they had in the past sinned. It is stretching credibility that these men would not know they have sinned in the past, since under Jewish tradition everyone is a sinner. Jesus has never preached that all sinners should be forgiven. Quite the opposite in fact. As JC himself pointed out one has to repent to be forgiven, and this woman had not repented. Neither does Jesus say the old laws are wrong or are in error. Again quite the opposite. It is also stretching credibility that these men would have cared either way, since the Jewish law was not dependent complete lack of sin before someone can be judge and never had been.

These men didn't follow Jesus. They didn't respect him as a judge and they certainly did not think he was the Messiah. They also couldn't have cared less about the woman.

Your position might have a point if they did care about the punishment of the woman, that their motivation to punish her was lost when they realised that they all had done things they regret in the past, and that they should not judge others and instead focus on themselves. But the kicker is that they weren't motivated to punish this woman at all, she was simply a pawn. They were motivated by desire to get Jesus. That didn't change. They didn't suddenly lose their desire to punish this woman, because they never had a strong desire to do this in the first place. It was simply a means to an end.

Therefore the idea that they lost the main motivation to punish this woman once they saw their own sins doesn't hold up, since that wasn't their main motivation. There motivation was to get Jesus. When did they loss that motivation?

As I explained to JC, the story makes very little sense, even as a fable, when told in its tradition interpretation. Its a very nice idea, but the simple fact is that the arguments simply don't hold. The argument that these men left because they lost their motivation to punish the woman doesn't hold since that wasn't their motivation in the first place. The argument that they were trying to trap Jesus into having to order her stoning doesn't hold since he would not have had to do that. The argument that Jesus's words convinced them to some kind of light doesn't hold, because they didn't respect or follow Jesus to being with, and he told them nothing they weren't fully aware of already. I'm sure some will argue that Jesus simply speaking can convince his worst enemy to lay down before him, but if that were true he probably wouldn't have died on the cross. The argument that this woman was forgiven while others aren't because she repented doesn't hold. There is no mention of her repenting at all in the story. She doesn't speak until after all the men have left.

The only interpretation of this story that makes any sense is that the woman was innocent. Then suddenly everything makes sense. Jesus wasn't judging or angry with this woman at all because she was innocent. The men lost there motivation to stone her because they knew she was not guilty and they could not stone her. Their "sin" was not simply the sins of the past (who knows if these were even that bad) but it was bring an innocent woman in front of Jesus. Jesus knew she was innocent from the start.

BrianCalgary wrote:

Jesus turned the tables and said go ahead, if you haven't sinned, stone her.

How is that turning the tables on them?

That happened ALL THE TIME in the Middle East. Since everyone is a sinner no one has ever been stoned to death by someone who wasn't a sinner. That idea totally contradicts the Old Testament laws. That alone would have been enough for the men to string up Jesus.

The problem is this story is viewed through modern western eyes, after a few thousand years of englightnment. To us it is horrific the idea of someone being stoned, and we find capital punishment to be a ridiculous punishment for adultery. So we find it easy to think that these men would simply abandon their law and custom on a whim when Jesus points out that they are all sinners, because we feel they must have known that the law was wrong to being with. But that doesn't hold for the history of the time, where these was all the norm and taken quite seriously.

Imagine if someone stole your car and smashed it into a wall, and you went to the police and said "this bloke down the road stole my car and drove it into a wall" and the police said to you "well we aren't going to punish him and really you need to look at the bad things you have done in your life before you bring complaints about others!"

Do you think you would lose your desire that the car thief be punished. I doubt it. Stealing a car is a crime, a serious one, and the law if quite clear on that. I seriously doubt you would walk away, and you are probably more forgiving and tolerent of the sins of others that most. Your average bloke in the street certainly would not have walked away to thing about the time he cheated on his girlfriend or stole his neighbours milk. He would be demanding that the car thief be punished.

The classic (incorrect) interpretation of the story hinges on the modern western idea that this woman had not actually commited a serious crime and did not deserve punishment. It is our conscience shaping the story the way we want it. Adultry is not a crime worth killing someone over, so of course Jesus let her go and of course these men were ok with that, they knew it was wrong to start with!

But that is viewing the story through our eyes. Its is the Amnesty International friendly version. That would not have been the view of those who wrote this story, and it certainly would not have been the view of the men in the story. To everyone alive back then this woman had commited a crime, a serious one, and deserved punishment. God said so himself. And these men would be as likely to just walk away from it as men today would be to walk away from a car thief or a bank robber.

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

Therefore the idea that they lost the main motivation to punish this woman once they saw their own sins doesn't hold up, since that wasn't their main motivation. There motivation was to get Jesus. When did they loss that motivation?.

They probably lost it when they realized that their own hidden sin may cost them their standing in the community. As it would with the elder when challenged to pluck the plank out of his own eye.

Wicknight wrote:

As I explained to JC, the story makes very little sense, even as a fable, when told in its tradition interpretation. Its a very nice idea, but the simple fact is that the arguments simply don't hold. The argument that these men left because they lost their motivation to punish the woman doesn't hold since that wasn't their motivation in the first place.?.

They did paint themselves into a corner by bringing her in front of a crowd and accusing her of adultery and then wanting her stoned. Dual motivation?

Wicknight wrote:

The argument that they were trying to trap Jesus into having to order her stoning doesn't hold since he would not have had to do that..?.

This does hold as the pharisees made several attempts to trap Jesus into giving an answer which would condemn Himself. This is what they were up to here in asking the question. Order a stoning and go against His own teaching, or forgive her and make Himself equal with God, and therefore worthy of death Himself. Jesus by responding the way He did turned the tables on the pharisees and showed them for the sinners they were.
I would argue that in other parts of the NT Jesus chatises the phariasees for making themselves out to be holy and righteous and hypocrites, here Jesus proves it.

Wicknight wrote:

The argument that Jesus's words convinced them to some kind of light doesn't hold, because they didn't respect or follow Jesus to being with, and he told them nothing they weren't fully aware of already. I'm sure some will argue that Jesus simply speaking can convince his worst enemy to lay down before him, but if that were true he probably wouldn't have died on the cross...?.

I agree with the argument that His words can cause His enemies to lay down their swords, p[robably happened here. As for the cross, Jesus could have gotten Himself out of it, but didn't because He was interested in offering us all salvation.

Wicknight wrote:

Imagine if someone stole your car and smashed it into a wall, and you went to the police and said "this bloke down the road stole my car and drove it into a wall" and the police said to you "well we aren't going to punish him and really you need to look at the bad things you have done in your life before you bring complaints about others!"

Do you think you would lose your desire that the car thief be punished. I doubt it. Stealing a car is a crime, a serious one, and the law if quite clear on that. I seriously doubt you would walk away, and you are probably more forgiving and tolerent of the sins of others that most. Your average bloke in the street certainly would not have walked away to thing about the time he cheated on his girlfriend or stole his neighbours milk. He would be demanding that the car thief be punished. .

Absolutely, unless I in turn had done the same to someone else and going through the process of punishing the thief would expose my crime and therefore I would be punished, then maybe I'm not too excited about proceeding with the charges.

Scofflaw

BrianCalgary wrote:

Absolutely, unless I in turn had done the same to someone else and going through the process of punishing the thief would expose my crime and therefore I would be punished, then maybe I'm not too excited about proceeding with the charges.

Surely that's not a valid analogy? The woman being stoned could hardly result in the sins of her stoners being revealed - and as Wicknight says, sin would be irrelevant as long as they had broken no law. Christ could have said "let he who is without crime amongst you throw the first stone", but didn't.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BrianCalgary

Scofflaw wrote:

Surely that's not a valid analogy? The woman being stoned could hardly result in the sins of her stoners being revealed

That is what they thought, until Christ brought up the topic, then none of them were in a position to toss a rock.

Scofflaw wrote:

- and as Wicknight says, sin would be irrelevant as long as they had broken no law. Christ could have said "let he who is without crime amongst you throw the first stone", but didn't.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sin = Crime, as sin is crime against God. So Jesus did say, let he who is without sin (crime) throw the first stone.

Scofflaw

BrianCalgary wrote:

The woman being stoned could hardly result in the sins of her stoners being revealed

That is what they thought, until Christ brought up the topic, then none of them were in a position to toss a rock.

Hmm. No, I still can't see that. Throwing a rock does not reveal sin - I'd have to go with the "examined their hearts and considered that they should not judge" version.

BrianCalgary wrote:

Sin = Crime, as sin is crime against God. So Jesus did say, let he who is without sin (crime) throw the first stone.

Point.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BrianCalgary

Scofflaw wrote:

Hmm. No, I still can't see that. Throwing a rock does not reveal sin - I'd have to go with the "examined their hearts and considered that they should not judge" version.


cordially,
Scofflaw

I'm tired today scofflaw, I think we are saying the same things I'm just not doing a great job of it.

Throwing the stone would have meant that one was without sin. Not throwing a stone would confirm you're point stated. about examining hearts and not judging, and I think that is the point that Christ was making.

I am sooo confused today, haven't had a good nights sleep for four days.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

No, Brian, I am sure I cannot be. Certainly the book wolfsbane uses appears not to have any relation to the Bible as read and understood by virtually all Christians (including, as far as I can see, yourself) - presumably, therefore, it cannot be the same book. Whether wolfsbane claims it is would be at his own discretion.

Yes, I can confirm it is actually the Bible - you can check the quotes I use on-line if you do not posses your own copy. Your dismissal of its theology as aberrant is understandable, for as you correctly point out, much of what professes to be Christianity no longer believes much of what the Bible teaches.

You appear confused. Spending the rent money on drink would be a voluntary act - which I certainly agree would not excuse me from paying it.

On the other hand, if I were born without legs, I would certainly expect to be excused the 100m hurdles. (I shall use this analogy for the rest of the post.)

Historically, those calling themselves Christian beleived what the Bible said about man - that we were born in sin, born evil, with Adam's fallen nature. So it is not a matter of morally neutral disabilities like absence of arms or legs, but absence of goodness, righteousness, holiness. It is not even that we become evil because we do not do righteousness, but rather that we do not do righteousness because we are evil. The evil does not result from our moral disabilities, our moral disabilities are just a description of our evil nature.

Being born without legs makes us guilty of what exactly? That's a new and interesting theory of responsibility - perhaps we should punish blind people for failing to read signs.

Being born without righteousness makes us guilty of being evil. The evil acts we will later do only add to that guilt.

"What! Out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain
Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!

What! From his helpless Creature be repaid
Pure Gold for what he lent us dross-allay'd -
Sue for a Debt we never did contract,
And cannot answer - Oh the sorry trade

Nay, but, for terror of his wrathful Face,
I swear I will not call Injustice Grace;
Not one Good Fellow of the Tavern but
Would kick so poor a Coward from the place

Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestin'd Evil round
Enmesh, and then imput my Fall to Sin?

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin the Face of wretched Man
Is black with - Man's Forgiveness give - and take!"

Excellently expressed rebellion against God's justice. May I ask the identity of the author? Paul more briefly allows man to address the same subject:
Romans 9:14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Why did God make the angelic host, if He knew their leader would rebel and end up as Satan? Why did God make man, if He knew he too would rebel? He doesn't say. What He does say is that He is perfectly good and just, and true Christians know that in their heart. What they can't understand, they trust Him for. To give us a demonstration of His goodness and justice, He sent His Son to bear the hell-fire that was due to sinners. Jesus took on Himself our human nature and suffered on the behalf of those who trust in Him. That's good enough for a sinner like me to believe that He knew what He was doing when He created the universe. Other sinners think they know better and continue to revile Him as unrighteous. Their time is running out:
Jude 14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, 15 to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

I do - and thus far he has minded his business, and I have minded mine. You are the one meddling.

Hmmm. I thought that you and I were both 'meddling' with Christian things on this forum: you with your objections to the God of the Bible, me with answering those and persuading you of the reality of the One whom you despise. The message of the filthy old book and the diseased ideas it presents is your only hope of escaping the wrath of God.

Scofflaw

BrianCalgary wrote:

I'm tired today scofflaw, I think we are saying the same things I'm just not doing a great job of it.

Throwing the stone would have meant that one was without sin. Not throwing a stone would confirm you're point stated. about examining hearts and not judging, and I think that is the point that Christ was making.

I am sooo confused today, haven't had a good nights sleep for four days.

I feel for you - we're in the middle of potty-training our two-year-old, and I'm just at the tail-end of the worst dose of flu I've had in 25 years (2 weeks!). It's equally likely, therefore, that you're putting it well, and I'm understanding badly!

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

Yes, I can confirm it is actually the Bible - you can check the quotes I use on-line if you do not posses your own copy. Your dismissal of its theology as aberrant is understandable, for as you correctly point out, much of what professes to be Christianity no longer believes much of what the Bible teaches.

Indeed, at no time has the majority of Christianity believed the things you believe - I am sure, therefore, that while your book may be written as the Bible, it is interpreted by you in such a way as to render the identification with the book normally so designated moot at best.

wolfsbane wrote:

Historically, those calling themselves Christian beleived what the Bible said about man - that we were born in sin, born evil, with Adam's fallen nature.

Hmm. No. The Orthodox Church does not. The early Christians do not appear to have believed it. Its intellectual dominance seems to have arisen as a result of the Augustinian triumph over Pelagianism in the sixth century. Judaism rejects it - which is interesting, given it's supposed to be OT canonical.

As so often, all of these are the arguments of men - and one chooses the side to one's liking.

wolfsbane wrote:

So it is not a matter of morally neutral disabilities like absence of arms or legs, but absence of goodness, righteousness, holiness. It is not even that we become evil because we do not do righteousness, but rather that we do not do righteousness because we are evil. The evil does not result from our moral disabilities, our moral disabilities are just a description of our evil nature.
Being born without righteousness makes us guilty of being evil. The evil acts we will later do only add to that guilt.

If we are evil as you describe, then we can never gain the urge to do righteousness except through the grace of God. If we cannot, then it is clear that God's grace descends on the evil man, since it must already have descended on the good. If God's grace descends on the evil man, then there is neither the capacity, nor any rational reason, for a man to seek righteousness until God's grace has descended on him.

Now, clearly, God's grace is not imparted through man, or automatically through some object, but through God, as His gift - and so all the preachings of man I have heard are not that grace, nor any reading in the Bible. And so, I remain, until such a time as God's grace might choose to descend upon me, evil through no fault of my own. If I die without God's grace ever having descended on me, then I die evil, and will go to Hell, having been born evil and God never having chosen to save me through grace.

Therefore, unless we assume that God's grace descends on us all at some point in our lives (and in the case of infant deaths, this seems unlikely and pointless), it is obviously guaranteed that a proportion of all people are fore-doomed to Hell. Depending on the view one takes, either they have been doomed since the moment of Creation, or they are doomed through God's free choice - or indeed both, in the more sophisticated view.

Those most likely to be so doomed are in fact those who we normally consider the most innocent - newborns. All those tombstones with "little angel, gathered unto Jesus" are sadly untrue - the correct inscription is "little sinner, gathered unto the fires to burn". Those who, at the end of a long life of preying on their fellow men, are "born again" in retirement through the grace of God - those souls are the ones that will be saved, while the infants burn for eternity.

Hmm. I do hope you are a little more encouraging if you're asked to comfort someone who has lost a child.

wolfsbane wrote:

Excellently expressed rebellion against God's justice. May I ask the identity of the author?

Omar Khayyam - the Rubiayat. Hard to see how God's "justice" is different from that of any other tyrant.

wolfsbane wrote:

Paul more briefly allows man to address the same subject:
Romans 9:14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Why did God make the angelic host, if He knew their leader would rebel and end up as Satan? Why did God make man, if He knew he too would rebel? He doesn't say. What He does say is that He is perfectly good and just, and true Christians know that in their heart. What they can't understand, they trust Him for. To give us a demonstration of His goodness and justice, He sent His Son to bear the hell-fire that was due to sinners. Jesus took on Himself our human nature and suffered on the behalf of those who trust in Him. That's good enough for a sinner like me to believe that He knew what He was doing when He created the universe. Other sinners think they know better and continue to revile Him as unrighteous. Their time is running out:
Jude 14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, 15 to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

That's not actually briefer - but I quibble. Paul and Augustine - sinners they certainly were - but such a pity to drag so many into their foolishness. A good summary of the opposite position is actually in Wikipedia:

"Judaism rejects the concept of the original sin altogether and stresses free will and men's responsibility of their actions rather than religious obedience or faith. Why, they ask, would God, who is, by dogma, universal unconditional Love, create sentient and sapient beings, then intentionally let them become corrupt - and then punish them from generation to generation with eternal torture for simply just being born in the world and for nothing else - and judge people not on their actions but by their faith or its lack - and then by whim save the beings from nothing else but from his very own wrath."

wolfsbane wrote:

Hmmm. I thought that you and I were both 'meddling' with Christian things on this forum: you with your objections to the God of the Bible, me with answering those and persuading you of the reality of the One whom you despise. The message of the filthy old book and the diseased ideas it presents is your only hope of escaping the wrath of God.

Indeed. If your God were shown to be real, I should be only mildly surprised. I have never assumed that He is somehow necessarily unreal - probably because I came to atheism without ever being a theist, so I don't feel the need to make that particular rejection.

I'm here to meddle with the scientific claims of Creationism, really, rather than the theological claims. I answer yours partly because I find them particularly odious, partly because you often use them in support of the Creationist position, but probably most frequently because they are expressed evangelistically (as you say, you try to persuade me of "the reality of the One whom you despise"). I do try to resist my urge to vilify your aberrant beliefs, but it's hard work, and we all stumble from time to time. The condemnation I express for them should not, of course, be taken to extend to you personally except as a holder of those beliefs (although I do, as you know, worry about the mental conditions that lead you to favour these beliefs over others - although mostly I ascribe it to an Ulster background).

I remain,
cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

Absolutely, unless I in turn had done the same to someone else and going through the process of punishing the thief would expose my crime and therefore I would be punished, then maybe I'm not too excited about proceeding with the charges.

But BC you are doing what JC does, inserting an event into the story that isn't there.

Where does Jesus expose the sins of the men? With the writing? He writes out the sins of all the men on the ground in a few moments? That is ridiculous.

Where does it say in the Bible that any of these men had ever committed sins equal to adultery?

The only conclusion without reading in stuff that isn't there is that the only sin Jesus exposes is the one the men were committing then and there, that being bringing an innocent woman in front of him in an effort to trick him.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

that we were born in sin, born evil, with Adam's fallen nature.

So I rob a bank but my son is guilty ... just because?

Who decided that sin should be inherited like that? If it was applied to eartly guilty then it is a concept that most in the west find immoral and unfair. But surely it was God who decided when he created the universe (also knowing full well that Adam would sin when he first created him, and that that sin would transfer to all humans since that is the way God designed the rules).

So really how can we be at blame when we haven't done anything yet (as new borns) and when it is God that made us this way? How can God say he is disappointed in us, or call us evil, when we are only a product of how his rules made us. God is not bound to make the rules a certain way, he decided that Adams sin would infect those generations who had yet to do anything. God decided that sin can be inherited down the generations. He could have decided that it wouldn't be. That would have been the fair thing to do, just as people in the west decided long ago that inherited guilty or debt was immoral. But God gave us our sin when he made the rules, sin we didn't do anything to deserve.

Sorry but that is a bit f**ked up. If what you are saying was suggested for an Earthly legal system it would be rejected out of hand as being immoral, unfair and ridiculous. But when God does it, that is some how not immoral or unfair. Why, because he is God?

Do you need to ask further why someone would say God is immoral and choose not to worship (assuming he exists)?

wolfsbane wrote:

Being born without righteousness makes us guilty of being evil. The evil acts we will later do only add to that guilt.

You have a funny definition of the term "guilt". So under Christian tradition one can be guilty of something without having done anything.

wolfsbane wrote:

The message of the filthy old book and the diseased ideas it presents is your only hope of escaping the wrath of God.

Personally I would rather face the wrath of an unjust immoral God than bow down before him to escape that wrath. But that is just me

“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”
Plato

"There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you."
Hazlitt

J C

Originally Posted by J C
……..and HOW did it EVER develop into anything even remotely resembling a supposed ‘proto-cell’
Wicknight
Through the natural selection of replication errors, over a billion or so years with trillions of these molecules replicating every second.

ERRORS and time – so you believe yourself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES?!!!:D

Do Evolutionists ever think about the logical IMPOSSIBILITY of what they say, occurring?!!!

You are also saying that biogenesis occurred via ‘evolutionary’ processes involving the Natural Selection of molecules – what happened? Did a Lion eat the ‘less fit’ molecules or something?

Oh, I almost forgot there were no Lions then, not even protozoa!!!

………..and Scofflaw said that ‘Abiogenesis’ WASN’T an Evolutionary Process – Scofflaw talk to Wicknight – and Wicknight talk to Scofflaw!!!:eek:


Originally Posted by J C
The ‘gap’ between any putative ‘self-replicating molecule’ and the inordinate levels of densely specified information and irreducible complexity observed in the simplest ‘simple cell’ is so enormous as to be ‘unbridgeable’ by non-intelligent forces!!!

Wicknight
No actually it isn't.

I do appreciate that you can't understand how it could happen,

I made a statement of FACT - that the ‘gap’ was unbridgeable.

It has nothing to do with my understanding – although, as a qualified scientist I always retain an open mind about all possibilities – even those which are patently impossible – so if you have any EVIDENCE for how the first cells supposedly formed, I am waiting with bated breath – along with my Rothweiller!!!:D


Originally Posted by J C
There you have it in plain English – which part of the “PHARISEES BROUGHT A WOMAN WHO HAD BEEN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY do you not understand?

Wicknight
John 8:6 "They were using this question as a trap"

What part of they were lying do you not understand?

As part of the NARRATIVE of the story, John 8:3 is the critical verse in determining the woman’s guilt – and this verse confirms that woman “had been caught in adultery”.
It is stated NOT as an opinion, but as a FACT. There can be no argument over what the Bible unambiguously says in this verse.

You could argue that John, as the writer of this Gospel, got his facts wrong – but that would be a totally separate argument - and as a Christian I wouldn’t entertain such an argument.

You see the Pharisees were Lawyers and they were attempting to trap Jesus WITH the Law – so they couldn’t do so by BREAKING the Law (i.e. the Ninth Commandment) themselves.

They wanted to TEST Jesus Christ’s perceived ‘softness’ on sinners as well as His duty to uphold the Law by bringing in a real Sinner/Law Breaker to Him – and asking Him to judge her and sentence her to death as the Law demanded.

With witnesses all lined up, they were ready to prove their case against her. If Jesus then let her go unpunished He would be breaking the Jewish Law Himself – and if He sentenced her to death He would be acting ultra vires under the Roman Law - as well as condemning a repentant sinner.

However, Jesus ‘stopped them in their tracks’ and began to write up THEIR sins against THEM – and the case legally collapsed when they lost will to proceed with the case – fearing that their OWN covert sins might ALSO be tried by Jesus if they proceeded with the case.:cool:


Scofflaw
There are a lot of animals who are more information dense and vastly more anatomically structured that humans JC. Your measurements are meaningless

No one else uses your rather ridiculous way of measuring "value" based on the size of a genome (if they did humans would not be the most valuable species on Earth,

As Humans are the pinnacle of Creation, there are NO creatures who possess the same volume of quality information as Humans.

Evolutionists haven’t even begun to measure the quality of genetic information – and Intelligent Design research is making considerable progress in measuring complex specified information and irreducible complexity levels - which are the REAL MEASURES of ‘information densities’ within and between genomes.:cool:


Originally Posted by J C
As this is a Theological question, I will answer it theologically – by confirming that we are made in the IMAGE AND LIKENESS of God – and therefore we DO design like God!

Wicknight
Firstly, I would point out that that is quite a blasphemous comment JC
You are beginning to sound like a Pharisee, Wicknight, with your unfounded accusation of Blasphemy against me!!:D
There is nothing blasphemous about my statement – we ARE indeed made in the image and likeness of God – and our intellects therefore DO operate in a SIMILAR (but imperfect and much less powerful) way to God!!!:cool:

Wicknight
Secondly, why does god need arms, or legs, or chest hair, or nipples JC? The fact is he doesn't, the "image and likeness" of God referrers to spiritual likeness, not physical.

You are forgetting that God actually became Man (complete with full anatomy) – not because He NEEDED to – but because He WANTED to!!!

Christians are intellectually like God the Father, physically like Jesus Christ – and actually indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
We are NOT God – but we have a very close relationship with Him and we CAN think and design like Him – but obviously not on the same scale or with the same quality!!!:cool:


Scofflaw
The straightforward measure of complexity for the Jumbo and the wheelbarrow would be the blueprints necessary to build them from scratch. For living beings, this is the DNA of their genome. All DNA consists of the same 4 base pairs, so it is not really possible for one strand of DNA to "magically" be more information-dense than the next.

But the Human genome didn’t arise by ‘magic’ as Evolutionists would have us believe – it was CREATED by God as the pinnacle of ALL of the Creation in the Universe.

The fact that Evolutionists are unable to measure the obvious information differences between Men and Trees doesn’t mean that these differences don’t exist – it just means that Intelligent Design Advocates have ‘stolen a march’ on Evolutionists in actually devising measurement techniques for these differences.


Scofflaw
We have smaller genomes than club mosses - so it apparently takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss.

Do you REALLY think it takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss Scofflaw???

Stop making Evolution look even sillier than it already is!!!


Scofflaw
I will accept a couple of those points if you can actually give me a workable definition of "specified information levels" and "irreducible complexity levels".

Complex Specified Information or CSI is a non-random pattern of functional information.
The topic is discussed in more detail here:-
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/designer.asp
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=546

Irreducibly complex systems are systems, which cannot function without ALL of their current constituent parts.
The topic is discussed in more detail here:-
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter10.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i2/admissions.asp


Wicknight
Imagine if someone stole your car and smashed it into a wall, and you went to the police and said "this bloke down the road stole my car and drove it into a wall" and the police said to you "well we aren't going to punish him and really you need to look at the bad things you have done in your life before you bring complaints about others!"

Do you think you would lose your desire that the car thief be punished. I doubt it. …………….
……….. Your average bloke in the street certainly would not have walked away to think about the time he cheated on his girlfriend or stole his neighbours milk. He would be demanding that the car thief be punished.

You are correct that he would be DEMANDING that the thief be punished – just like the Pharisees were!!!

However, let’s say that he had covert sin that might come into the equation – if he pressed charges – then what would he do?
If, for example, his car was stolen from outside the local brothel, and he had told his girlfriend that he was in the Golf Club at the time – and if the policeman told him that this fact would come out in open court, if he pressed charges – what do you think he would do then?

You know very well that he would drop all charges like a ‘hot potato’ and ask the policeman to ‘forget about it’ – just like the Pharisees did!!!

I will make one more suggestion – that Jesus MAY have been writing down the names of the Pharisees that had slept with the woman – and THOSE were the covert sins that caused such a hasty retreat on their parts!!!
You will note that the woman’s adulterous partner(s) weren’t stated to be present in Court – but perhaps they WERE there????:D

I appreciate the fact that we can speculate endlessly about what Jesus wrote without reaching any definitive conclusion - but it does appear to be the defining moment of this incident. He may have merely written the question - who were ALL of this woman's partners? - and faced with the case expanding to engulf many of the the Pharisees themselves, they dropped the case. It could also be that Jesus convicted some or all of those present, of their sins, - He has a way of doing that!!!! ......we find Nicodemus (who was one of the Pharisees) coming to Him by night, convicted of his sins, for example!!:D

You see that, by asking Jesus to judge the case, they also lost control of the case - the significance of which only began to emerge during the case!!!!

Zombrex

J C wrote:

ERRORS and time – so you believe yourself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES?!!!:D

Yes I do. And seemingly so do you :rolleyes:, since Creationists specialisation relies on replication errors in the genome to produce the thousands of species we have today from just a handful of "kinds". If there were no replication errors these species would be exactly the same as they were back then.

J C wrote:

Do Evolutionists ever think about the logical IMPOSSIBILITY of what they say, ever occurring?!!!

Not really, since it isn't a "logical impossibility"

J C wrote:

You are also saying that biogenesis occurred via ‘evolutionary’ processes involving the Natural Selection of molecules

Yes

J C wrote:

Oh, I almost forgot there were no Lions then, not even protozoa!!!

No, there wasn't

Do Creationists think Lions roamed the Earth 3.9 billion years ago? TBH I wouldn't be surprised if they did :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

………..and Scofflaw said that ‘Abiogenesis’ WASN’T an Evolutionary Process

No he didn't.

He said the theory of the evolution of life is not dependent on any specific abiogenesis for its basis. At all. He is correct, it isn't. The theory of abiogenesis I describe has an evolutionary process at its core to create life in the first place. These two evolutionary systems, while similar, are not dependent on each other. One does not require that the other has taken place to function. If God made the very first cells 3 billion years ago the evolution of these cells would carry on as normal, as described by neo-darwin biological evolution, the "evolution" you are discussing with Scofflaw.

How life originated is a black box as far as the theory of neo-Darwin biological evolution is concerned. It doesn't matter if it was natural abiogenesis, or little green aliens, the theory is not dependent on how life first came about.

J C wrote:

I made a statement of FACT - that the ‘gap’ was unbridgeable.

You didn't make a statement of FACT, you made a statement of ignorance. And as I said luckly for the rest of humanity, science is not constrained by your ignorance or lack of understanding.

J C wrote:

It has nothing to do with my understanding

It has everything to do with your understand JC. You don't understand this (despite many attempts to explain it to you), so you declare it as impossible. The truth is you probably wouldn't even know how to tell it was impossible even if it was.

J C wrote:

as a qualified scientist

You are still flogging that dead horse. No offence JC, but I don't think anyone around here still believes you when you say you are a "qualified scientist"

J C wrote:

As Humans are the pinnacle of Creation, there are NO creatures who possess the same volume of quality information as Humans.

First you have to define "quality information" JC. Because your last attempt of defining it as the genome size didn't turn out too well for that argument :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

The fact is that Evolutionists haven’t even begun to measure the quality of genetic information

How does one measure the "quality" of genetic information JC :rolleyes: Do we get the man from Del'Monte in. Or maybe Captain Birdseye?

Such nonsense.

J C wrote:

You are beginning to sound like a Pharisee, Wicknight, with your unfounded accusation of Blasphemy against me!!
There is nothing blasphemous about my statement – that we ARE made in the image and likeness of God

That isn't what you said JC, you said we think the same way God thinks. That, I'm afraid for you, is blasphemous. 500 years ago you would probably be being burnt alive right about now.

J C wrote:

You are forgetting that God actually became Man (complete with full anatomy) – not because He NEEDED to – but because He WANTED to!!!

I'm not forgetting that at all. But you still haven't explained why God would have arm pits, nipples, back hair, sexual organs, bad breath, food digesting bacteria ... i could go on ...

J C wrote:

But the Human genome didn’t arise by ‘magic’ as Evolutionists would have us believe – it was CREATED by God as the pinnacle of ALL of the Creation in the Universe.

Funny then that nature would require much bigger blue prints to make much simpler animals isn't it ... almost hints at a natural process at work doesn't it :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

The fact that Evolutionists are unable to measure the obvious information differences between Men and Trees doesn’t mean that these differences don’t exist – it just means that Intelligent Design Advocates have ‘stolen a march’ on Evolutionists in actually devising measurement techniques for these differences.

I assume you are now going to link to the scientific paper that measures the "obvious information differences" between humans and trees .... hell JC, why don't you just explain it yourself, since it is so obvious :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
We have smaller genomes than club mosses - so it apparently takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss.

Do you REALLY think so Scofflaw???

Stop making Evolution look even sillier than it already is!!!

What Scofflaw says is a simple fact JC (I know how you like your facts). So how do you explain God needed to produce a much large information set to make club moss, that his most prized creation, the human? Is God just not very good a making life?

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
……..and HOW did it EVER develop into anything even remotely resembling a supposed ‘proto-cell’
Wicknight
Through the natural selection of replication errors, over a billion or so years with trillions of these molecules replicating every second.

ERRORS and time – so you believe yourself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES?!!!:D

Do Evolutionists ever think about the logical IMPOSSIBILITY of what they say, occurring?!!!

What's logically impossible about it? If you made a series of mistakes, you would still have an outcome.

J C wrote:

You are also saying that biogenesis occurred via ‘evolutionary’ processes involving the Natural Selection of molecules – what happened? Did a Lion eat the ‘less fit’ molecules or something?

Oh, I almost forgot there were no Lions then, not even protozoa!!!

………..and Scofflaw said that ‘Abiogenesis’ WASN’T an Evolutionary Process – Scofflaw talk to Wicknight – and Wicknight talk to Scofflaw!!!:eek:

Sigh. you are retarding again. If you look, I said that abiogenesis is not part of evolution. A couple of theories of abiogenesis do suggest that early proto-biotic molecules were subject to natural selection - but this is irrelevant to the theory of evolution.

As to the lions - probably the lack of frozen salted carrion would have done them in anyway.

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
The ‘gap’ between any putative ‘self-replicating molecule’ and the inordinate levels of densely specified information and irreducible complexity observed in the simplest ‘simple cell’ is so enormous as to be ‘unbridgeable’ by non-intelligent forces!!!

Wicknight
No actually it isn't.

I do appreciate that you can't understand how it could happen,

I made a statement of FACT - that the ‘gap’ was unbridgeable.

No, that's an assertion, unless you can prove it.

J C wrote:

It has nothing to do with my understanding – although, as a qualified scientist I always retain an open mind about all possibilities – even those which are patently impossible – so if you have any EVIDENCE for how the first cells supposedly formed, I am waiting with bated breath – along with my Rothweiller!!!:D

Now - I've warned you about this before. Since you won't reveal your field of specialisation, or your level of qualification, and your understanding of science would leave you under-qualified to be a village idiot, I am forced to deride you and your supposed "scientific qualifications".

J C wrote:

Scofflaw (sic)
There are a lot of animals who are more information dense and vastly more anatomically structured that humans JC. Your measurements are meaningless

No one else uses your rather ridiculous way of measuring "value" based on the size of a genome (if they did humans would not be the most valuable species on Earth,

As Humans are the pinnacle of Creation, there are NO creatures who possess the same volume of quality information as Humans.

This argument is circular.

J C wrote:

Evolutionists haven’t even begun to measure the quality of genetic information – and Intelligent Design research is making considerable progress in measuring complex specified information and irreducible complexity levels - which are the REAL MEASURES of ‘information densities’ within and between genomes.:cool:

Please define these measurement techniques, then. If you can't, it's clear that they're meaningless pseudo-science mumbo-jumbo, which you simply chant to reinforce your idea of being "the pinnacle of Creation".

By the way, what is this "pinnacle of Creation" thing? Why do you need so badly to pretend there's some "scientific justification" for us being "better" than dogs, or pond slime? Do you not naturally feel glad to be a human being? Have you low self-esteem? So low the only way you can tell the difference between yourself and pond slime is to pretend that we have more "quality information" in our DNA?

It's worse than sad, JC, it's ridiculous.

J C wrote:

We are NOT God – but we have a very close relationship with Him and we CAN think and design like Him – but obviously not on the same scale or with the same quality!!!:cool:

So you're basically saying that God designs things the same way as a human? Interesting.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
The straightforward measure of complexity for the Jumbo and the wheelbarrow would be the blueprints necessary to build them from scratch. For living beings, this is the DNA of their genome. All DNA consists of the same 4 base pairs, so it is not really possible for one strand of DNA to "magically" be more information-dense than the next.

But the Human genome didn’t arise by ‘magic’ as Evolutionists would have us believe – it was CREATED by God as the pinnacle of ALL of the Creation in the Universe.

The fact that Evolutionists are unable to measure the obvious information differences between Men and Trees doesn’t mean that these differences don’t exist – it just means that Intelligent Design Advocates have ‘stolen a march’ on Evolutionists in actually devising measurement techniques for these differences.

Except that you seem to be unable to tell us what these measurement techniques are.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
We have smaller genomes than club mosses - so it apparently takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss.

Do you REALLY think it takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss Scofflaw???

Er, obviously, the answer is yes, if there's no better measure. I know you keep saying there are better measures, but you can't actually tell us how these work, so I don't believe you.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
I will accept a couple of those points if you can actually give me a workable definition of "specified information levels" and "irreducible complexity levels".

Complex Specified Information or CSI is a non-random pattern of functional information.

OK, that's a start. Doesn't really work in your favour, though. To take you back to the Jumbo Jet and the Wheelbarrow - I would certainly accept that when we specify that we want a Jumbo Jet, we will need a lot more complex specified information than we would for a wheelbarrow.

However, that complex specified information takes the form of a blue print in both cases. The blueprint for the Jumbo will be much bigger than that for the wheelbarrow in terms of information, because it takes a lot more information to specify a Jumbo from scratch.

If we write out the specification in words, for example, we would need tens or hundreds of thousands of words for the jumbo, and maybe a few thousand or so for the wheelbarrow. The Jumbo blueprint, expressed in English, will always be larger than the wheelbarrow blueprint, expressed in English.

All genomes are expressed in DNA. DNA has four letters, and that's all there is to it. So, you need more letters to express more information - so, more DNA. The more information you have to specify, the more DNA you need.

So if a club moss needs more DNA than a human, it is common sense that it is expressing, or capable of expressing, more genetic information than a human. If it is a design, it clearly takes more information to specify it. How else can you possibly interpret it?

You keep talking about how the human genome is somehow "superior" in terms of the "specified complexity" of the information it contains. As far as I can see, though, the only measure for comparing information content, if we compare like with like (DNA with DNA) is size.

You haven't told me how you measure CSI in a genome, but you claim that it has been done. Either it has been done, in which case tell me how it is measured, or it hasn't, in which case the claim is untrue.

Keep wriggling.

J C wrote:

Irreducibly complex systems are systems, which cannot function without ALL of their current constituent parts.
The topic is discussed in more detail here:-
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter10.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i2/admissions.asp

And has been discussed on this thread. It is easy to make an "irreducibly complex system" through a sequence of alterations - it certainly does not prove design.

A hundred repairs to a machine can leave you with a piece of string that cannot be removed, even though it has nothing to do with the original design.

JC, this is all just bletherskite to claim that humans are the best thing ever. I can't see why you need to do all the hocus-pocus and fancy pseudo-science claims though. I, too, think humans are the best thing ever, because I'm a human. Pond slime might think the same about pond slime, but I don't really care, because I'm not pond slime - you seem to lack the self-confidence to simply make this assertion without pretending it's a "scientific claim".

utterly deriding your patently ridiculous claims to be a scientist,
Scofflaw

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

But BC you are doing what JC does, inserting an event into the story that isn't there..

No

Wicknight wrote:

Where does Jesus expose the sins of the men? With the writing? He writes out the sins of all the men on the ground in a few moments? That is ridiculous..

He exposes them by having them examine their own hearts when He says, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'

Wicknight wrote:

Where does it say in the Bible that any of these men had ever committed sins equal to adultery?.

It doesn't say which sins they committed. By their reaction you know that they have sinned. Man is the one who gauges how bad any sin is verses another, that way we can be a little bit better than the other guy, however to God any sin is as bad as the other.

Wicknight wrote:

The only conclusion without reading in stuff that isn't there is that the only sin Jesus exposes is the one the men were committing then and there, that being bringing an innocent woman in front of him in an effort to trick him.

No, the other sin that is exposed are the ones that the men find in their own hearts. They need not be publicized to all, but they are acknowledged by the reaction. And maybe one of their sins is false accusation.

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

He exposes them by having them examine their own hearts when He says, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'

But you have never needed to be without sin to cast the first stone. Why would that force the men to examine their own hearts for anything, particularly the responsibilty to punish those who have sinned against God following Gods own laws?

The previous sins of these men, assuming they had hidious sins to keep secret, were not exposed to anyone. The men themselves of course knew they had done these sins.

They knew they had done them before they went to speak to Jesus. Jesus didn't expose anything to these men that they didn't already know they had done. It didn't stop them all the other times they would have followed the laws and punished the guilty, it wouldn't stop them after Jesus spoke to them.

You are working on the assumption that Jesus saw the sins of these men (which is fair enough, so am I) but also that the men knew Jesus had sin their past sins, and that these men would some how upon reflection abandon their tradition and law. No offense, that is nonsense. Why would they? As I said they did not respect or follow Jesus.

The law (both back then, and today) applies even if everyone else is guilty too. The argument used by every school boy across the land that "Timmy also did it" won't get anyone off the hook.

As I've said a number of times the men were not judging this woman, the law was judging her. In the end it wasn't up to the men to decide if she was deserving of punishment or not. If she was an adulterous she was guilty. The sins of the other men for other crimes has no barring on that fact.

A defendant today could not stand up to a judge and say you should set me free because I know you drunk drove your car. That would be a reason to dismiss the judge, but it is no reflection on the guilt of the bank robber.

If this woman was guilty she was guilty. Any reflection in the mens hearts about their own sins doesn't change that fact. Even if the men did reflect on their own sins, and ALL OF THEM, had done something much worse than adultry (doubtful) that would not produce any guilt in them with regard to punishing this woman with stoning. There was nothing wrong with stoning this woman, if she was guilty.

As I said, if someone sleeps with their best friends wife that is not going to stop them pressing charges against someone who steal their car. Stealing a car is wrong, it doesn't matter if you steal a car from someone who is shagging their mates wife. And that fact would certainly not stop the police or the law from punishing the car thieft.

The only logical explination is that what produced the guilt in the men towards going ahead with the stoning is if the woman her self did not deserve to be stoned.

The law, the law of God remember, said that if she was an adulterous, then she is deserving of being stoned. What he men had done in the past doesn't change that. So what would make the men turn away from that law, God's law? Was she in fact innocent? Yes!

If she was innocent of the charges made against her then the men could not in good conscience punish her along the lines of God's law, and as such they could not go through with the stoning.

J C

Originally Posted by J C
so you believe yourself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES?!

Wicknight
Yes I do.

Are you sure that you don’t have a problem with low self esteem???


Wicknight
Creationists specialisation relies on replication errors in the genome to produce the thousands of species we have today from just a handful of "kinds".

Unlike Evolutionists, Creationists understand that speciation DOESN’T rely on replication errors – it proceeds via tightly specified frame shifts, sexual differentiation and hybridisation – using pre-programmed genetic information.
...........and speciation doesn't occur in some species, like Human Beings, at all. :eek:


Wicknight
How life originated (Abiogenesis) is a BLACK BOX as far as the theory of neo-Darwin biological evolution is concerned.

…….and Dr Michael Behe conclusively proved Evolution itself to be in “Darwin’s BLACK BOX”.

…….so we have Abiogenesis in one ‘Black Box’ according to Wicknight and Evolution in another ‘Black Box’ according to Behe.

The whole thing is a 'Black Box' !!!:D

Wicknight
No offence JC, but I don't think anyone around here still believes you when you say you are a "qualified scientist"
Scofflaw
We have smaller genomes than club mosses - so it apparently takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss.
Wicknight
Yes I do (believe myself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES).

No offence Wicknight, but the Evolutionists on this thread are in such denial, that denying my scientific training is to be EXPECTED!!!:rolleyes:


Wicknight
That isn't what you said JC, you said we think the same way God thinks. That, I'm afraid for you, is blasphemous. 500 years ago you would probably be being burnt alive right about now.

God confirmed in Genesis that we are made in His image and likeness – and therefore we DO think the same way that God thinks - but obviously more imperfectly and less powerfully than God!!!

Equally, God confirms that we are fearfully and wonderfully made – the ‘fearfully’ bit comes from our intellects which can be used for great good – or enormous harm!!!

Indeed, it has been the fate of many Christians to be burned alive for their faith – but one hopes that we now live in more enlightened times!!!


Wicknight
you still haven't explained why God would have arm pits, nipples, back hair, sexual organs, bad breath, food digesting bacteria ... i could go on ...

I wouldn’t include bad breath in my description…………..
…….but God so loved the World that he HUMBLED HIMSELF to become a Man so that He could conquer death and make the perfect sacrificial atonement for all sin!!!

That was WHY He took on OUR physical image and likeness!!!

………and that is why EVERYONE who rejects His offer of salvation will be without excuse when He comes to judge them!!!


Wicknight
Funny then that nature would require much bigger blue prints to make much simpler animals isn't it ... almost hints at a natural process at work doesn't it

No, it is just an Evolutionist confusing himself on the difference between quantity and quality!!!!:D


Scofflaw
We have smaller genomes than club mosses - so it apparently takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss.
Wicknight
What Scofflaw says is a simple fact JC.
…... So how do you explain God needed to produce a much large information set to make club moss, that his most prized creation, the human?

God did it so that unsaved Evolutionists would destroy their own credibility by making the preposterous claim that a Club Moss had superior genetic information to a Human!!!!:eek:

Stop making Evolution look even sillier than it already is!!!

……..although it probably doesn’t matter at this stage – as Evolution has ‘maxed out’ in the ‘Unbelievability Stakes’ already!!!:D


Originally Posted by J C
so you believe yourself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES?!

Do Evolutionists ever think about the logical IMPOSSIBILITY of what they say, occurring?!!!

Scofflaw
What's logically impossible about it? If you made a series of mistakes, you would still have an outcome.

You would have an OUTCOME alright, from a series of mistakes…………..
…….in plain language it would be called a DISASTER!!!!:D


Scofflaw
All genomes are expressed in DNA. DNA has four letters, and that's all there is to it. So, you need more letters to express more information - so, more DNA. The more information you have to specify, the more DNA you need.
In a word NO!!

Evolutionists continue to confuse quantity with quality. To use an example I could have two DVDs, - one blank and one with a computer programme on it.
There is NO PHYSICAL difference in SIZE between the two discs – yet one contains vast quantities of Complex Specified Information or CSI – and the other is BLANK!!!

The other aspect to the ‘Club Moss / Human Genome Issue’ is that MOST of the CSI in the Human Genome resides in the complex INTERACTIONS between the primary CSI in the Human Genome AS WELL AS with the secondary and tertiary CSI – whereas the information in the Club Moss Genome is largely contained in the primary CSI.:cool:


Scofflaw
So if a club moss needs more DNA than a human, it is common sense that it is expressing, or capable of expressing, more genetic information than a human.

Common sense would actually suggest that, because the Club Moss is only EXPRESSING an infinitesimal fraction of the information that the Human Genome is expressing – that the Club Moss only CONTAINS an infinitesimal fraction of the information of the Human Genome!!!!


Scofflaw
As far as I can see, though, the only measure for comparing information content, if we compare like with like (DNA with DNA) is size.

Is this fixation with SIZE an ‘Evolutionist thing’ or a ‘Male thing’???

DNA is only a CARRIER of information. The QUALITY of the information on other information carriers, like DVD’s for example, ISN’T related to the size of the carriers – ditto for the genetic CSI in DNA.


Wicknight
But you have never needed to be without sin to cast the first stone. Why would that force the men to examine their own hearts for anything, particularly the responsibilty to punish those who have sinned against God following Gods own laws?

A good question.

So, WHY DID the Pharisees depart one by one after Jesus wrote something on the ground and told anybody without sin to throw the first stone?

……..and you are not allowed to ‘cop out’ by saying that the woman was innocent - because the NARRATIVE of the story in John 8:3, CONFIRMS the FACT that she “had been caught in adultery”.

BTW from a Christian perspective, the ‘easy’ story is ALSO that the woman was innocent but Jesus wasn’t fooled by the Pharisees and He issued a ‘yellow card’ to all present and they all went home and went to bed (with their own wives)!!!
However, this ‘easy’ story is unfortunately flatly contradicted by John 8:3 where the woman’s guilt is confirmed.


Wicknight

The law, the law of God remember, said that if she was an adulterous, then she is deserving of being stoned.

…….and that is PRECISELY the dilemma that the Pharisees wanted to place Jesus in – would He sentence a repentant sinner to death thereby upholding the Law? – or would He let her go free, thereby setting aside the Law?

If He condemned her, His claims to forgive repentant sinners would be proven to be a sham – and if He didn’t condemn her, He would have broken the Law.
As it turned out the case legally collapsed, so He didn’t break the Law and He forgave the woman her sins. A 'win win' so to speak for Jesus!!:D

The Pharisees had brought Jesus an 'open and shut' case of Adultery, to shut Him up, only to have it 'backfire' on THEMSELVES. At a Human level I can 'feel their pain' - but one cannot have sympathy for people who get caught in their own trap, or indeed who TEST God!!!!

The Pharisees were Lawyers, and Lawyers have an instinctive aversion to ‘surprises’ in Court – because cases can turn on such 'surprises'.

In the case of the woman caught in adultery, the Pharisees became aware (possibly from what Jesus wrote), that there could be a few ‘surprises’ in this case - that could have devastating consequences for themselves or their peers.
It was a ‘murky’ case to begin with – and now it was getting ‘murkier’ – and so the natural instinct of a wily lawyer would have been to seek an adjournment so that all of the implications could be fully considered.

The precipitous departure of the Pharisees was probably a ‘damage limitation’ tactical withdrawal – and Jesus humiliated them further by (correctly) suggesting that their departure was because they had covert sin that they didn’t want ventilated in Court.
This experience would have made the Pharisees even more determined to get rid of Jesus – and it was probably one of the key reasons why they subsequently decided that Jesus had to die!!

The Pharisees learned from their mistake – and the next time that they moved to use the Law against Jesus, they retained control over the judgement of the case, by accusing Jesus Himself, of the much ‘cleaner and safer’ charge of Blasphemy (from the Pharisees perspective)!!
By claiming to be The Messiah, Jesus was technically guilty of Blasphemy - IF He wasn’t The Messiah.
However, the Pharisees had a problem, because Jesus ‘fitted’ all of the prophesised descriptions of The Messiah – but He had this terrible habit (as far as the Pharisees were concerned) of associating with all kinds of ‘unclean’ people, while condemning the leadership of the Pharisees in the most withering type of language!!!!
His popularity was growing and when He began raising people from the dead – this proved to be a ‘real winner’ with the people – as well as proving that He was God!!!

So, they decided that Jesus had to be gotten rid of, sooner rather than later - and they decided to get Pilate do their ‘dirty work’ for them.
They knew that Pilate wouldn’t entertain a charge of Blasphemy – so they ‘trumped up’ a civil charge of ‘Treason Against the Roman Empire’ - which they hoped Pilate would ‘run with’!!!

There was absolutely no case to be answered on the Treason charge, and Pilate knew it!!

However. Pilate vacillated and ‘played for time’ by sending Jesus to Herod – and he then had Jesus flogged in the hope that this would placate the Mob - but the Pharisees were determined to ‘finish the job’ this time.
…..so Pilate ultimately caved in to ‘Mob Rule’ over ‘Roman Law’ and condemned Jesus for a crime of which He was innocent, in fulfilment of Messianic Prophesy!!!

……..and so Jesus died and rose again, so that all who trust in Him might live in eternity with Him

Scofflaw

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
so you believe yourself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES?!

Wicknight
Yes I do.

Are you sure that you don’t have a problem with low self esteem???

Imitation! The sincerest form of flattery. Still, I've never doubted your sincerity.

J C wrote:

Wicknight
Creationists specialisation relies on replication errors in the genome to produce the thousands of species we have today from just a handful of "kinds".

Unlike Evolutionists, Creationists understand that speciation DOESN’T rely on replication errors – it proceeds via tightly specified frame shifts, sexual differentiation and hybridisation – using pre-programmed genetic information.:eek:

Do they now? How interesting, when we consider that you hadn't heard of frame shifts before we introduced to the nylon-digestion mutation. How is a "frame shift" tightly specified? Someone says "OK - only one letter, then"? Who could that someone be?

And if the information is not in the genome before the frame shift (as per the nylon digestion mutation), and is afterwards, then this informaiton cannot be "pre-programmed", unless of course you are suggesting that the genome in question contained the information that dictated the nature of the frame shift. But wait! That would mean that mutations are non-random! Holy frame-shifting pre-programmed complex tightly specified information, Batman! It's a million-to-one shot (HTF) but it might just sound like it works....

J C wrote:

Wicknight
How life originated (Abiogenesis) is a BLACK BOX as far as the theory of neo-Darwin biological evolution is concerned.

…….and Dr Michael Behe conclusively proved Evolution itself to be in “Darwin’s BLACK BOX”.

…….so we have Abiogenesis in one ‘Black Box’ according to Wicknight and Evolution in another ‘Black Box’ according to Behe.

There's a subtle difference, though - Wicknight is quoting virtually known and tested science, while Behe is quoting the little voices in his head.

J C wrote:

The whole thing is a 'Black Box' !!!:D

To you, obviously it is. Still, that's not a very high standard to apply.

J C wrote:

Wicknight
No offence JC, but I don't think anyone around here still believes you when you say you are a "qualified scientist"
Scofflaw
We have smaller genomes than club mosses - so it apparently takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss.
Wicknight
Yes I do (believe myself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES).

No offence Wicknight, but the Evolutionists on this thread are in such denial, that denying my scientific training is to be EXPECTED!!!:rolleyes:

Oh aye - we're terrible deniers of the patently false, us (HTF). We've never denied it.

J C wrote:

Wicknight
That isn't what you said JC, you said we think the same way God thinks. That, I'm afraid for you, is blasphemous. 500 years ago you would probably be being burnt alive right about now.

God confirmed in Genesis that we are made in His image and likeness – and therefore we DO think the same way that God thinks - but obviously more imperfectly and less powerfully than God!!!

Equally, God confirms that we are fearfully and wonderfully made – the ‘fearfully’ bit comes from our intellects which can be used for great good – or enormous harm!!!

Indeed, it has been the fate of many Christians to be burned alive for their faith – but one hopes that we now live in more enlightened times!!!

Fear not, JC. No-one was ever burnt for sheer idiocy (HTF). You are safe as houses...or safer, even, at the moment.

J C wrote:

Wicknight
you still haven't explained why God would have arm pits, nipples, back hair, sexual organs, bad breath, food digesting bacteria ... i could go on ...

I wouldn’t include bad breath in my description…………..
…….but God so loved the World that he HUMBLED HIMSELF to become a Man so that He could conquer death and make the perfect sacrificial atonement for all sin!!!

That was WHY He took on OUR physical image and likeness!!!

………and that is why EVERYONE who rejects His offer of salvation will be without excuse when He comes to judge them!!!

So if someone dressed up as me, they'd get the right to condemn me to torment? Your theories of justice are nearly as weird as wolfsbane's, although your "logic" remains inimitably your own.

J C wrote:

Wicknight
Funny then that nature would require much bigger blue prints to make much simpler animals isn't it ... almost hints at a natural process at work doesn't it

No, it is just an Evolutionist confusing himself on the difference between quantity and quality!!!!:D

That would be because you refuse to tell us how to measure the "quality" of genomes. Come on, JC, don't keep us in the dark! We humbly await with interest your revelation of the appropriate measurement techniques.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
We have smaller genomes than club mosses - so it apparently takes less genetic information to specify a human being than it does to specify a club moss.
Wicknight
What Scofflaw says is a simple fact JC.
…... So how do you explain God needed to produce a much large information set to make club moss, that his most prized creation, the human?

God did it so that unsaved Evolutionists would destroy their own credibility by making the preposterous claim that a Club Moss had superior genetic information to a Human!!!!:eek:

Except of course we haven't - you have, you silly costermonger. All we've said is that it has more genetic information. You keep saying that human genetic information is "better quality", but you won't say how.

J C wrote:

Stop making Evolution look even sillier than it already is!!!

……..although it probably doesn’t matter at this stage – as Evolution has ‘maxed out’ in the ‘Unbelievability Stakes’ already!!!:D

Don't be so humble! You're leading us by streets. You personally are a mere vanishing dot on the horizons of planet unlikely.

J C wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
so you believe yourself to be the end result of several billion MISTAKES?!

Do Evolutionists ever think about the logical IMPOSSIBILITY of what they say, occurring?!!!

Scofflaw
What's logically impossible about it? If you made a series of mistakes, you would still have an outcome.

You would have an OUTCOME alright, from a series of mistakes…………..
…….in plain language it would be called a DISASTER!!!!:D

And that's why it isn't "logically impossible". QED.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
All genomes are expressed in DNA. DNA has four letters, and that's all there is to it. So, you need more letters to express more information - so, more DNA. The more information you have to specify, the more DNA you need.
In a word NO!!

Evolutionists continue to confuse quantity with quality. To use an example I could have two DVDs, - one blank and one with a computer programme on it.
There is NO PHYSICAL difference in SIZE between the two discs – yet one contains vast quantities of Complex Specified Information or CSI – and the other is BLANK!!!

And the information content of the blank DVD, measured in Gb of binary data, is zero - while the information content of the other, measured the same way, is more than zero.

Here - a little experiment you can try for yourself. Take the labels off the DVDs, so that you don't know which is which by looking at them. Insert them one after another into your computer. Now, without actually running them, which one has the program on it? Look in "My Computer", check the Properties. You can see that one has several Mb or Gb of data on it, the other doesn't. The one with data on it is the one with the program on it! Amazing!

Now, you tell me how we would have measured the "quality" difference instead.

J C wrote:

The other aspect to the ‘Club Moss / Human Genome Issue’ is that MOST of the CSI in the Human Genome resides in the complex INTERACTIONS between the primary CSI in the Human Genome AS WELL AS with the secondary and tertiary CSI – whereas the information in the Club Moss Genome is largely contained in the primary CSI.:cool:

Oh, JC. JC, JC, JC. Oh dear oh dear. I can't believe you could lower everyone's opinion of you like that - it really ought to be impossible at this stage, but you've done it again.

Suddenly there's a primary, secondary, and tertiary Complex Specified Information in a genome. We've never heard of this before, never seen it in any literature, it can't be found on Google - but here you are, trotting it out as if it was something we'd been discussing all along.

It doesn't even make sense - "the complexity of the human genome lies in the complexity of the interactions of the complex specified information of the human genome"? Do you think we would swallow such obvious flim-flam? Which bit is even which in this new invention of yours? What is "primary CSI" as opposed to "secondary CSI"? How is is determined? How does one find out which bit of the genome is "primary CSI", and which bit is "secondary CSI"?

Last but not least - how is it that you, who clearly know sweet fanny adams about club mosses, suddenly "know" that "the information in the Club Moss Genome is largely contained in the primary CSI"?

This is a very silly thing you've done JC. Not a trivially silly thing, either. You had better be able to back this one up.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
So if a club moss needs more DNA than a human, it is common sense that it is expressing, or capable of expressing, more genetic information than a human.

Common sense would actually suggest that, because the Club Moss is only EXPRESSING an infinitesimal fraction of the information that the Human Genome is expressing – that the Club Moss only CONTAINS an infinitesimal fraction of the information of the Human Genome!!!!

And we know this how? Have we built either of these from scratch ourselves? Do we actually know how much information it takes to specify a human or a club moss independently of their genome? No, we don't. So this claim is just drivel.

J C wrote:

Scofflaw
As far as I can see, though, the only measure for comparing information content, if we compare like with like (DNA with DNA) is size.

Is this fixation with SIZE an ‘Evolutionist thing’ or a ‘Male thing’???

DNA is only a CARRIER of information. The QUALITY of the information on other information carriers, like DVD’s for example, ISN’T related to the size of the carriers – ditto for the genetic CSI in DNA.

The maximum amount of interactions between units of the DNA in any genome is the square of the number of units. So even if interactions are the measure of quality, the club moss genome still contains far more potential for interaction than the human genome.

Again, how do we measure this quality? You must wriggle much more agilely than you have, if you hope to avoid this question!

regards,
Scofflaw

JC

JC wrote:

No offence Wicknight, but the Evolutionists on this thread are in such denial, that denying my scientific training is to be EXPECTED!!

The fact that we listed ours and you didn't doesn't help

Zombrex

J C wrote:

Are you sure that you don’t have a problem with low self esteem???

I'm not following? What has low self esteem got to do with biological evolution? Are you saying you have low self esteem because of evolution?

Or are you saying anything that evolution produces cannot have much value because it is, by definition, the result of errors (mutations) in a reproduction cycle?

That is a pretty stupid argument JC, even for you. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you posted in a hurry and not thinking clearly, possibly because of your self-esteem issues.

If you want to know how a naturally produced item can still have value take a natural diamond. It is valuable precisely because it is created naturally with errors. A perfect synthetic diamond, grown in a lab, is not as valuable as a natural one.

So don't feel bad JC, you are still a very special little boy, errors and all.

J C wrote:

Unlike Evolutionists, Creationists understand that speciation DOESN’T rely on replication errors – it proceeds via tightly specified frame shifts, sexual differentiation and hybridisation – using pre-programmed genetic information.

Which is a very long winded and over the top way of saying "replication errors" :rolleyes:

JC you long ago admitted that Creationism relies on mutation as a factor in your theory of specialisation. I remember this because you stated that mutation can only cause negative results and that is in line with the fall of man (mutation is some kind of punishment, a fall from grace of our original perfect form). Mutation is replication errors.

Hell for your theory to even work species have to lose entire chromosomes during reproduction. If a child offspring has lost an entire chromosome that there parents had I think one would classify that as a "replication error" Does the child chromosome mirror the parents? No! Then there has been an error in reproduction.

I understand you don't actually understand what you are posting, but could you at least keep your nonsense consistent :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

...........and speciation doesn't occur in some species, like Human Beings, at all. :eek:

Care to explain why? (I would imagine you don't)

J C wrote:

…….and Dr Michael Behe conclusively proved Evolution itself to be in “Darwin’s BLACK BOX”.

I have no idea what you mean by that sentence. Dr. Behe proved Evolution is in Darwin's Black Box? What is Darwin's Black Box, and how is evolution in it?

Do you understand what Scofflaw is talking about when he uses the term "black box"?

J C wrote:

…….so we have Abiogenesis in one ‘Black Box’ according to Wicknight and Evolution in another ‘Black Box’ according to Behe.

Do you actually understand what the term "black box" means? I would hazard a guess and say "clearly not"

Sigh .. OK JC, let me explain this to you, pay attention....

Being a black box (you don't put things in a black box, the thing is a black box), means that the only thing a person needs to know to do something is either the input or the output of the black box. How the black box works internally is not important to understanding the output, you only need to know that it does work.

The term is often used in computer science. If one is designing a software package and they need a component to handle say network operations often you will outsource that part, or simply buy a ready designed network component (or use the operation system itself).

From my point of view as a software developer this network component is a black box. I have no idea how it works and for copyright and intellectual property reasons I'm not allowed see the source code of the component. I get the component pre-compiles as a library, that is all. That doesn't mean no one knows how it works, obviously the people who made it know how it works. But from my point of view it is a black box.

So it is a black box as in I cannot see into the box to figure out how it is working, nor do I need to, nor do I want to. I've better things to be doing. I only need to know that it works. All I'm interested in is the information that needs to go into the box, and the information that comes out. What the box does internally is none of my concern.

This is what Scofflaw means when he says abiogenesis is a black box as far as evolutionary theory is concerned. Neo-Darwin Evolutionary theory does not need to worry about how abiogenesis produces the first building blocks of life, nor does it want to know. It is of no concern to the theory how this happens, how it happens is handled by other theories. This is just like how the network component manages data on the network is of no concern to me when I'm putting together my new software. I just need to know that it does

J C wrote:

No offence Wicknight, but the Evolutionists on this thread are in such denial, that denying my scientific training is to be EXPECTED!!!:rolleyes:

Well you got the last part right ...

J C wrote:

God confirmed in Genesis that we are made in His image and likeness – and therefore we DO think the same way that God thinks - but obviously more imperfectly and less powerfully than God!!!

Now actually the passage is

"Let us make man in our image"

I'll let you figure that one out yourself ...

J C wrote:

No, it is just an Evolutionist confusing himself on the difference between quantity and quality!!!!

Nice non-answer JC, you are certainly getting very good at completely avoiding the question.

Why did a perfect intelligent designer stuff a moss with vastly more genetic information that us, genetic information that you say is not of high "quality". What would possibly be the point of that. Was your perfect intelligent designer just a bit stupid?

J C wrote:

God did it so that unsaved Evolutionists would destroy their own credibility by making the preposterous claim that a Club Moss had superior genetic information to a Human!!!!:eek:

I will take that non-answer (again with the non-answers) as an admission on your part that you don't know and you cannot explain it

J C wrote:

Stop making Evolution look even sillier than it already is!!!

Evolution explains it perfectly. Once again evolutionary theory does fit the evidence.

You have no explanation at all, all you can do is give ridiculous non-answers. Once again Creationism doesn't fit the evidence.

So who looks silly JC?

J C wrote:

You would have an OUTCOME alright, from a series of mistakes…………..
…….in plain language it would be called a DISASTER!!!!:D

Do you actually understand what we mean when we say replication error or mistake? Once again, clearly not :rolleyes:

Sigh .. ok JC, let me explain this to you, pay attention....

Say you have a species of water organisms, like fish. Like most life on Earth they replicate using sexual replication. Everytime parents have a child organism their genetic material replicates using a biological process. If the process goes perfectly there are no replication errors, the new organism contains a replica of the DNA from the parents.

But being a natural process the replication does not happen with the efficiency of say a car factory robot. Environmental factors can cause the production of the new genetic material to not be quite like the original material it is copied from. This is commonly known as "mutation"

So back to the fish. Say during the copying of the genetic material, the genes that control how the fish organisms outer skin develops are copied incorrectly. You now have a fish with blueprints for their skin outer wall unlike their parents. This can produce no effect at all, the fishes skin develops just as their parents skin developed. The vast majority of mutations are like this, they do nothing and the child organism develops in the same way as the parent. The mutation could cause an non-beneficial change to take place. The new type of skin wall could become less resistant to salt water, causing the fish to be have a weaker skin, making it more likely to become ill or infected with disease. If this is the case natural selection makes it very unlikely that this fish, or its offspring line who also contain the mutation, will get very far in life, so within a generational time frame the mutation probably won't get very far. But the mutation could also cause something to happen in the fish's skin outer wall that, based on the current environment, does provide a benefit to the fish. For example the mutation of the genetic blueprint might cause a slightly stronger outer wall to form as the fish grows. The fish might now be able to survive and hunt for longer that the other fish in the species in certain temperatures of water. This provides the fish with a slight advantage over the other fish in the species. If this mutation is passed on down the line of descendants of this original fish then you build up a population of fish that have this advantage. With limited resources these fish that descend from the original mutated fish have a slight advantage will begin to replace the non-mutated fish. Slowly the mutation spreads throughout the entire population base, until all the fish contain this slightly thicker skin.

So that is a benefit that comes from the original replication mistake in the original fish. By random a mistake happens in the replication of genetic material, causing the copy of the genetic blueprint to be slightly different to the copy from the parents. This genetic blueprint causes the fish's wall to develop slightly different to the parent fish. Natural selection decides if this is a benefit to the organism or not. In this case it was.

So tell me JC, where in that is your DISASTER?

J C wrote:

Evolutionists continue to confuse quantity with quality. To use an example I could have two DVDs, - one blank and one with a computer programme on it.
There is NO PHYSICAL difference in SIZE between the two discs – yet one contains vast quantities of Complex Specified Information or CSI – and the other is BLANK!!!

Actually they both contain exactly the same amount of "information" JC. A "blank" single side DVD hold 4.3GB worth of bits. So does a completely full DVD.

... you might want to pick a better example

what is blank "DNA" by the way ... are you talking about junk DNA, because I know you Creationists hate that concept, since it is more support against the idea of intelligent design :rolleye:

Club moss DNA contains more information that human DNA. You can't get around that with your fancy Creationists mumbo jumbo like "Complex Specified Information", terms that don't actually mean anything. The club moss DNA is as complex and as specificed as human DNA.

The only difference is how the information is used by the organism.

If you want to claim that the information stored in human DNA is "better" than the information stored in club moss DNA JC, go ahead. There is no biological justification for saying that, but sure that has never stopped you before.

But you have to drop your original claim that it was the size of the human DNA, the amount of information contained in the human genomes, that was the important factor in human value. Because that was nonsense. All this rambling on about CSI and "quality not quantity" is just pathetic back tracking on your part because you realised you were talking crap before.

If you have a 600x400 PNG image stored on your DVD of your mother, and you have a 1000x800 PNG image on your DVD that is of a night sky, there is more "information" (bits and bytes) in the large image, than the image of your mother. You can claim that the image of your mother is of more value to you. You can claim that the image of your mother is of better QUALITY than the image of the night sky. You can calm that the picture of your mother contains more CSI (which doesn't mean anything anyway).

But those assessments are not scientific. That is just your opinion. Technically there is MORE INFORMATION in the large image than in the image of your mother. The value you place on the information is entirely up to you, but you have no scientific basis for that either way.

There is more information in the club moss DNA than in the human DNA. You can claim that the human DNA is of more value to you. You can claim that the human DNA is of better "quality" than the club moss DNA (though i doubt you could explain what you mean by that). You can do all these things but you are not talking scientifically, any more than you are talking scientifically about the picture of you mother.

You can certainly claim that human DNA, because it ends up making a human, is of more value than club moss DNA. But you have absolutely no way of scientifically measuring that value. From a biological point of view that position is irrelivent. From a biological point of view there is more information in club moss DNA than human DNA.

You position that human DNA is more valuable is a moral/ethical/philosphiocal assessment, not a scientific one. You cannot measure the value you are talking about within biology, so why are you trying to. It isn't science.

J C wrote:

Common sense would actually suggest that, because the Club Moss is only EXPRESSING an infinitesimal fraction of the information that the Human Genome is expressing – that the Club Moss only CONTAINS an infinitesimal fraction of the information of the Human Genome!!!!

Is it not then common sense too that it is ridiculous to state that either club moss or humans had an prefect intelligent designer then, since why would a perfect intelligence use vastly more genetic material in club moss to express vastly less information than the human genome?

Once again JC you have come back to showing that it is illogical to state that we had an intelligent designer. Unless that designer was particular stupid (less intelligence than your average human). Which rules out God.

Thanks JC, you have again shown God didn't design life on Earth. You really make this all too easy .....

J C wrote:

DNA is only a CARRIER of information. The QUALITY of the information on other information carriers

Please for the record define how one scientifically determines the QUALITY of information stored in DNA?

Or are you just back tracking from your original statements that it was the quantity that was important?

Scofflaw

To briefly summarise JC's argument, before he tries to squid away in a cloud of babble:

Problem: to prove that humans are better than club moss.

1. compare genome sizes.

2. club moss genome larger.

3. since humans are better than club moss, larger cannot be better.

4. there must be some other measure.

5. humans are better than club moss, so it stands to reason that their genome is also better.

6. better = higher quality.

7. humans have a higher quality genome than club moss.

8. therefore, humans are better than club moss, because they have a higher quality genome. QED.

round and round the mulberry bush,
the monkey chased the weasel,
Scofflaw

Maybe we really should just lock this, it's never going to go anywhere...

Scofflaw

bluewolf wrote:

Maybe we really should just lock this, it's never going to go anywhere...

What? We now have JC accepting speciation, mutation, intergenerational changes in the genome, natural selection.....a far cry from his earlier position.

In addition, his endless wriggling and mad flim-flammery is the best demonstration of the intellectual vacuity of the Creationist position I've ever seen.

Er, plus, although of course I could give this thread up anytime I like....

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote:

What? We now have JC accepting speciation, mutation, intergenerational changes in the genome, natural selection.....a far cry from his earlier position.

Assuming he's not trolling in the first place,
he's never going to admit that he accepts it
I think maybe he just dislikes the word evolution

In addition, his endless wriggling and mad flim-flammery is the best demonstration of the intellectual vacuity of the Creationist position I've ever seen.

Er, plus, although of course I could give this thread up anytime I like....

cordially,
Scofflaw

Addictive like a car wreck

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

To briefly summarise JC's argument, before he tries to squid away in a cloud of babble:

Problem: to prove that humans are better than club moss.

1. compare genome sizes.

2. club moss genome larger.

3. since humans are better than club moss, larger cannot be better.

4. there must be some other measure.

5. humans are better than club moss, so it stands to reason that their genome is also better.

6. better = higher quality.

7. humans have a higher quality genome than club moss.

8. therefore, humans are better than club moss, because they have a higher quality genome. QED.

round and round the mulberry bush,
the monkey chased the weasel,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw you aren't suggesting that a Creationists would start with the answer they want and then work backwards are you!! :eek: :eek:

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Scofflaw you aren't suggesting that a Creationists would start with the answer they want and then work backwards are you!! :eek: :eek:

Obviously not! That would be wrong! All that I have done is used a clearly observable fact (that humans are superior to club mosses) in order to support my argument that humans are superior to club mosses.

However, it should be obvious to the meanest intellect that one of these is an observed fact, while the other is a theory - and obviously one needs observed facts to support a theory. in this case, it is clear that the facts support the argument.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote:

Obviously not! That would be wrong! All that I have done is used a clearly observable fact (that humans are superior to club mosses) in order to support my argument that humans are superior to club mosses.

However, it should be obvious to the meanest intellect that one of these is an observed fact, while the other is a theory - and obviously one needs observed facts to support a theory. in this case, it is clear that the facts support the argument.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Now I'm confused.

Scofflaw

bluewolf wrote:

Now I'm confused.

Exactly!

Bear in mind that I object to JC's sophistry at least partly because it's terribly bad sophistry. It's cheap snake oil.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

Obviously not! That would be wrong! All that I have done is used a clearly observable fact (that humans are superior to club mosses) in order to support my argument that humans are superior to club mosses.

However, it should be obvious to the meanest intellect that one of these is an observed fact, while the other is a theory - and obviously one needs observed facts to support a theory. in this case, it is clear that the facts support the argument.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Oh right, now I get it. Suddenly it is so clear!

So the "observed fact" that I'm brilliant supports my original "theory" that I'm brilliant. QED as it were.

Suddenly science becomes so easy!

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Oh right, now I get it. Suddenly it is so clear!

So the "observed fact" that I'm brilliant supports my original "theory" that I'm brilliant. QED as it were.

Suddenly science becomes so easy!

Only as long as your brilliance is an obvious and clearly observable fact like the superiority of human over club moss. We would need, I suppose, to feel your brilliance "in our bones" as it were.

cordially,
Scofflaw