The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Excelsior

"Real Christians" are those that agree with you when you claim that Christ came to declare Darwin a fraud. That is reasoning I can't get on board with.

The reason I won't debate with you on this forum is that one sentence replies or regurgitated incorrect maths is not worth my time. When I discuss things with the agnostics, pluralists and buddhists who visit here they always give me a fair hearing and seek to engage my points. They seem interested in finding out the truth and not just in getting people to agree with them.

This is not the impression you have left on this thread.

robindch

> Just to show how woefully misinformed you are, here are five
> examples selected alphabetically from a list of creationist scientists:

As it may not have been clear, I wasn't talking about the claimed 450 or so qualified people who abandoned their education and took up with creationists.

I was talking about the simpler fact that the creationist industry's cheerleaders are -- almost to a man -- the proud owners of qualifications either purchased from diploma mills for a pittance and dwarf-sized thesis, or more easily, just handed to them gratis by any of their mates who run the diploma mills concerned. See this here and here for some details.

> If I'm wasting my time debating here, doesn't that mean you are doing
> the same?

No, no, not at all! As I said to one creationist a few weeks back, I'm interested in understanding the thought processes of creationists, finding out if there are any limits to the self-deception practiced by them, seeing if I can trace the origins of these beliefs, or if there's any posting style which is seen to be more persuasive than any other. And the last year or so has shown quite clearly that any attempt (peaceful, rational, repetitive, bombastic etc) to present information -- even the simplest kinds -- to creationists simply doesn't work. Which is obviously a bit of a pity for the people concerned, living as they are in a strange world of their own creation, but it's quite an interesting result for me and one which I think is worth the time. That, of course, and the intellectual entertainment to be had from attempting to twist and reduce one's mind into such a shape that it can understand the creationist worldview, how this worldview sustains and propagates itself, and the enjoyment of learning more about evolution, testing ideas, and the sheer fun of writing.

robindch

Excelsior -

> I say that Christians generally do not hold this disregard for truth. The
> pursuit of truth in all its forms is a primary preoccupation of anyone
> who claims to follow the God who defines himself in part as truth.

Indeed, and this claimed reverence for truth was one of the reasons why I stayed with christianity for far longer than I should have. The problem I noticed, though, was exactly what we see on this thread now: that many christians' search for the "god of truth" ends with the lonely conviction that they, and their like alone, speak for god.

Asiaprod

Yes, I'm familiar with Patrick. A fine Brit.:)

Shush...dont say that, you will get hung here:)

I know of myths concerning him and snakes and floods, but as far as I recall from reading his writings, nothing of that is from him.

Just somehing I learned in very biased school 30 years ago. Just as well its not true then, I can`t swim anyway

Scofflaw

The thought of just missing the sinking of Ireland on the Holyhead ferry, and the idea that all the good Guinness in the world was under the water, used to bother me a lot. But that was before they brought in the coldflow. I'm not so pushed now.



cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

No, no, not at all! As I said to one creationist a few weeks back, I'm interested in understanding the thought processes of creationists, finding out if there are any limits to the self-deception practiced by them, seeing if I can trace the origins of these beliefs, or if there's any posting style which is seen to be more persuasive than any other. And the last year or so has shown quite clearly that any attempt (peaceful, rational, repetitive, bombastic etc) to present information -- even the simplest kinds -- to creationists simply doesn't work. Which is obviously a bit of a pity for the people concerned, living as they are in a strange world of their own creation, but it's quite an interesting result for me and one which I think is worth the time. That, of course, and the intellectual entertainment to be had from attempting to twist and reduce one's mind into such a shape that it can understand the creationist worldview, how this worldview sustains and propagates itself, and the enjoyment of learning more about evolution, testing ideas, and the sheer fun of writing.

It's particularly interesting as an example of a self-referential worldview, because it doesn't seek to cloak itself (as would, say, Holocaust denial), so you can get right up against the bizarre logical twists and marvellously faulty reasoning (like JC's probability subtractions).

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

By the way, again to deal with JC's repeated assertion that all biologically useful molecules have entirely different sequences, and that adding or changing an amino acid will not yield a useful molecule:

this report from medicalnewstoday.com

covers the substitution of one amino acid in an existing c.259-acid heart muscle protein (in other words, already biologically useful), which improves its functionality (increases its biological usefulness).

How much clearer does this need to be?


regards,
Scofflaw

J C

bmoferrall wrote:

Probably best to let the scientists beaver away in their labs for a couple more years and see if some white smoke emerges.

BM The 'beavering' is DONE and the 'white smoke' is emerging in such profuse quantities as to cause 'Global Warming' single-handedly.

See my previous three Posts
at #795 page 40, 819 page 41 and 835 page 42.

bmoferrall

J C wrote:

BM The 'beavering' is DONE and the 'white smoke' is emerging in such profuse quantities as to cause 'Global Warming' single-handedly.

See my previous three Posts
at #795 page 40, 819 page 41 and 835 page 42.

I'm fully sympathetic with your thinking on this JC.
I guess I was looking to an improbable future scenario where there is consensus between scientists on both sides of this divide.
Given the amount of intellectual investment in all this, surely quantum leaps in our understanding cannot be too far away?

robindch

> It's particularly interesting as an example of a self-referential worldview,
> because it doesn't seek to cloak itself

While I agree that it's a delightfully self-referential worldview, I do believe that a lot of its effort goes -- just like in any political system [ie, a system used by one section of the population to control the thoughts and motives of another section] -- towards cloaking itself, or pretending to be what it so clearly isn't.

So we get to see page after page of "scientific" description (which is nothing of the kind), claims to advanced learning on the part of the creationist movements' leaders, and a general usage of the superficial form of science (long words, pages of numbers), but without any of the intellectual content. Many people who've observed creationists for any length of time would see, I think, a lot of similarities between creationism and the primitive cargo cults (see Feynman's essay on scientific cargo cultism, or the Wikipedia article).

> so you can get right up against the bizarre logical twists and marvellously faulty reasoning

Yeah, that's right: while most of the logical twists and sleights of hand are primitive, a small few are subtle and worth staying around to see! I'm reminded of this bit from Mark Twain's essay "The Literary Offences of Fenimore Cooper" (FC is remembered now mostly as the author of "Last of the Mohicans"):

Cooper's gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was his broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one.

The whole essay is here and worth reading for anybody with a taste for irony (make sure to read it slowly, and in a texas drawl)

robindch

bmof -

> I guess I was looking to an improbable future scenario where there
> is consensus between scientists on both sides of this divide.

Er, you may have missed the ten or fifteen posts above which point out that there already is a consensus of 99.90% to 0.1% in favour of evolution on the part of relevantly qualified scientists.

And that the "divide" is less a divide, and more of a muddy trench into which creationists cheerfully leap at the request of their cheerleaders, there to sing and dance together, take potshots at biologists, and raise loud hosannahs to their god(s).

.

Morbert

J C wrote:

BM The 'beavering' is DONE and the 'white smoke' is emerging in such profuse quantities as to cause 'Global Warming' single-handedly.

See my previous three Posts
at #795 page 40, 819 page 41 and 835 page 42.

Care to respond to my post to you then? Because all I've seen you do is misapply concepts of probability to the evolution and formation of molecules. Your conclusions bear no insight into the understanding of biochemistry and amount to nothing more than word games and artificial constructs.

The scientific community, on the other hand, does understand the complexity of biochemistry and all the intricate laws that go with it, and because of that they have come to the conclusion that spontaneous generation of life is neither plausible nor necessary in a theory of abiogenesis, and although more research is needed for a complete picture, we certainly know that the straw men you keep constructing are irrelevant.

I've quite clearly told you that large complex molecules do not randomly form, so your probability "calculations" do not apply. You are incapable, or at least unwilling, to learn about and understand the issues of abiogenesis. As a result I am not going to try to convince you. However, what I will do is expose your mistakes and reveal the hollowness of your rhetoric so that those who have not made up their minds and who read this thread will understand the shallow nature of creationism.

I must say you have been quite predictable up to this point. Failures to define terms, misapplcation of information theory, lack of predictive frameworks, construction of straw men etc (Though you haven't started posting articles from AiG or the ICR websites yet, which is usually what hapens) And when you, like all the others I have "chased" run out of arguments regarding evolution, you retreat to abiogenesis to repeat the same mistakes.

Stop making mistakes. Stop parroting arguments built on ignorance. You're not going to get anywhere.

Oh, and you still haven't provided the testable hypotheses of ID.

And wolfsbane. "Where is the evidence?" You still haven't presented any.

And it seems you also need to actually educate yourself on biblical as well as scientific matters.

bmoferrall wrote:

I'm fully sympathetic with your thinking on this JC.
I guess I was looking to an improbable future scenario where there is consensus between scientists on both sides of this divide.
Given the amount of intellectual investment in all this, surely quantum leaps in our understanding cannot be too far away?

I mean no disrespect but, have evolutionary biologists tackled the thickest part of the wood yet?

*dons flame-proof jacket and runs for cover*

What are you talking about?

Sapien

bmoferrall wrote:

Given the amount of intellectual investment in all this, surely quantum leaps in our understanding cannot be too far away?

How perversely apt. Have you any notion whatsoever what a quantum leap actually is?

bmoferrall

Sapien wrote:

How perversely apt. Have you any notion whatsoever what a quantum leap actually is?

A leap from point X to point Y, bypassing any points between X and Y?
I forgot that it's strictly a small gap (a common misconception amongst laypersons I think), so probably inappropriate (or not from your point of view).
Thanks for the correction anyway.

bmoferrall

Morbert wrote:

What are you talking about?

Nonsense. I've removed the last bit .

bus77

robindch wrote:

While I agree that it's a delightfully self-referential worldview, I do believe that a lot of its effort goes -- just like in any political system [ie, a system used by one section of the population to control the thoughts and motives of another section] -- towards cloaking itself, or pretending to be what it so clearly isn't.

Isnt that a bit like demons hiding in people?

bus77

J C wrote:

BM The 'beavering' is DONE and the 'white smoke' is emerging in such profuse quantities as to cause 'Global Warming' single-handedly.

See my previous three Posts
at #795 page 40, 819 page 41 and 835 page 42.

You hav'nt seen the smoke coming out of my ears :mad:

wolfsbane

robindch said:

I was talking about the simpler fact that the creationist industry's cheerleaders are -- almost to a man -- the proud owners of qualifications either purchased from diploma mills for a pittance and dwarf-sized thesis, or more easily, just handed to them gratis by any of their mates who run the diploma mills concerned. See this here and here for some details.

Some confusion here: the list you gave contained many scientifically qualified creationists. 'Almost to a man'? Certainly there are non-scientific presenters like Ken Ham - but Answers In Genesis is an evangelistic organisation, dedicated to promoting the gospel by removing the stumblingblock of evolution. It is not a soley scientific organization. But to characterise them as phoney scholars is deceptive. You can easily see the authentic credentials of the scientists listed.

That, of course, and the intellectual entertainment to be had from attempting to twist and reduce one's mind into such a shape that it can understand the creationist worldview, how this worldview sustains and propagates itself, and the enjoyment of learning more about evolution, testing ideas, and the sheer fun of writing.

I come at it just like that - from the other direction, of course. So why the accusation of time-wasting? Was that just for effect? A cheap shot to cover your distortion of the facts?

wolfsbane

Morbert said:

And wolfsbane. "Where is the evidence?" You still haven't presented any.

You want me to copy and paste Behe? I'm afraid I don't have the means. I've pointed you to where the evidence is; you will have to do the hard work yourself.

And it seems you also need to actually educate yourself on biblical as well as scientific matters.

Ah, now you are in my field. Perhaps you would enlighten us on my biblical ignorance? As far as I recall, I'm not the Christian who has refused to respond to the Biblical texts that falsify evolution.

BrianCalgary

robindch wrote:

As it may not have been clear, I wasn't talking about the claimed 450 or so qualified people who abandoned their education and took up with creationists..

Here-in lies the problem. You have discounted any research by any scientist who is creationist by your claim that they have 'abandoned their education.

I would then say that scientists who accept evolution are coming at it from a worldview that states that 'there is no God'. They then can not possibly review the evidence with an open mind as the 450 or so creation scientists have managed to do by bucking the science industries trend and become (if I can qoute the non-Christians on this board) open minded free thinkers.

J C

Quote Scofflaw
In case anyone is tempted to believe what appears to be a claim that no two peptides/proteins share the same amino acid sequence, I invite you to look at this page:

234 Vertebrate Amino Acid Sequences

These are tyrosine phosphatase proteins. Note the blocks of amino acid sequences. All of these proteins, despite being in different animals, share common sequences, and then diverge slightly from each other.

I looked at the sequences on the above link but found little or no evidence of overlap!!


Quote Scofflaw
A search of any protein sequence database will show the claim that all proteins have entirely unique sequences to be factually inaccurate.………..and later in the SAME posting ……………….
Quote Scofflaw
every protein has a unique amino acid sequence. This is certainly true,

Sounds like you are somewhat confused, Scofflaw.

Can I help by stating that overlap is sometimes observed between sequences – but unfortunately for evolution, such overlaps are often observed in ‘evolutionary distant’ species rather than in supposedly closely related ones. It is therefore either co-incidental or proof of a Creator re-using particular sequences.


Quote Scofflaw
this report from medicalnewstoday.com
covers the substitution of one amino acid in an existing c.259-acid heart muscle protein (in other words, already biologically useful), which improves its functionality (increases its biological usefulness).

I quote from the article “U-M scientists describe how they created a modified form of a heart muscle protein called troponin I and how it improved cardiac function in mice and in damaged human heart cells.”

This report confirms that the substitution of one amino acid RESTORED biological function to a DAMAGED 259 acid Human Heart Protein. The information for this protein is switched off peri-natally and so this information is NOT new – it is merely the extraordinary and deliberate use of this information by intelligent Human Beings that is innovative.

Reversing DAMAGE by the appliance of enormous Human effort and ingenuity is certainly NOT proof of UNDIRECTED Evolution.

The Medical Text Books are replete with such phenomena. For example, we all have about 3 billion base pairs in our genome and according to the head of the National Genome Research Institute (USA) a SINGLE misplaced ‘letter’ on the gene known as Lamin A or LMNA will cause Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS). The substitution of ONE Thiamine with ONE Cytosine in ONE gene out of 3 BILLION base pairs causes this terrible premature ageing syndrome – where unfortunate sufferers only live to an average age of 13 years old.

It would indeed appear that life is a complex “perfect” system running ‘down-hill’ and not a simple “imperfect” system running ‘up hill’ as evolution would have us believe.

Both the Heart Muscle and the HGPS examples above prove how TIGHTLY SPECIFIED biological systems really are – and it therefore proves that undirected processes could NEVER achieve functionality for any useful Protein – with 10E+130 permutations for the amino acid sequences of even a small 100 chain Protein, there are simply too many useless alternative permutations for UNDIRECTED processes to be able to ‘find’ useful ones.


Quote Scofflaw
How much clearer does this need to be?

Touché, Scofflaw!!!

See ABOVE!!!!


Quote Scofflaw
That useful peptides/proteins can share amino acid sequences, and that therefore adding one amino acid to a useful molecule therefore certainly does not mean that you somehow have to 'start over'. This in turn means that the chances of deriving one useful molecule from another by addition of a couple of acids or another peptide chain are in no way what JC claims them to be.
I accept that some proteins share some overlap sequences – but nevertheless there is no functionally increasing CONTINUUM that has ever been observed between these Proteins – and so ALL ‘exploration’ of sequences using undirected means gets NO assistance from Natural Selection – because there is no way of signalling to the outside World that any ‘progress’ is being made.

In order to ‘hit the jackpot’ permutations approaching 10E+130 must be made – and as you would run out of substrate long before you would run out of time trying to do this, the other useful protein sequences could never be ‘reached’ using undirected processes.


Quote Scofflaw
Just like telephone numbers. Every telephone number is unique, but you certainly cannot claim that one number cannot be turned into another by changing or adding a digit

I accept that such organised phone number changes can be made by the purposeful appliance of Human Intelligence.
In fact, phone numbers are allocated in amounts that meet reasonably expected demand and the ‘combinatorial space’ is carefully chosen by telephone engineers to minimise ‘useless combinatorial space’.
For example, in the Dublin Area when phone line demand approached one million, it was decided to increase all numbers by one digit thereby bringing the total ‘combinatorial space’ to 10 million. Therefore, if there are currently 1 million active lines in Dublin, dialling any number at random will mean that some phone will ring at the far end within about 10 attempts.

Phones therefore have no relevance as analogues to living systems where the ‘combinatorial spaces’ are in excess of 10E+100 – rather than 10E+7 for phones.

The DNA code is a language and therefore the English Language, provides a good parallel for living system codes.
For example the sentence “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” occupies a ‘combinatorial space’ of 1.96E+77.

Your chance of randomly dialling a valid phone number is therefore quite high – but your chance of making sense by randomly striking your keyboard is ZERO – but by applying Human Intelligence to strike your keyboard, any amount of sensible sentences can be written!!!.

The real problem that evolution fails to explain is how to get from a meaningful sentence like “Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out a reason for its own existence” (which is analogous to the sequence for a useful protein) to any other meaningful sentence using gradual undirected means. An undirected process will rapidly DEGRADE the sentence (or the protein sequence) – but coming up with another meaningful sentence (or useful sequence) will elude it.


Quote Scofflaw
many christians' search for the "god of truth" ends with the lonely conviction that they, and their like alone, speak for god.

God is certainly well able to speak for Himself and He does so through the actions of The Holy Spirit, His written Word in the Bible and His spoken Word in all of Creation.

Having a personal friendship with Jesus Christ, is certainly NOT lonely – and I highly recommend it.

Son Goku

BrianCalgary wrote:

Here-in lies the problem.

No, the problem lies with the fact that a thousand criticisms of evolution do not amount to an iota of evidence for Creationism.
Evolution explains the evidence and more importantly it has predicted a lot of it.

Where is the theory of Creationism?

J C wrote:

In order to ‘hit the jackpot’ permutations approaching 10E+130 must be made

Right it's time to deal with this properly.
JC, organic molecules are condensed matter systems and involve QFT, with its implications of quasi-particles e.t.c. What you are talking about does not apply.

If you still think it does apply, then please tell me how using the condensed matter Lagrangian.

Your options are to stop using "10E+130" or reject QFT.

J C wrote:

The DNA code is a language and therefore the English Language, provides a good parallel for living system codes.

J C, information theory implies a significant difference between organic information and semantic information to the extent that one is not analogous to the other.

Again please show how they are analogous. I can easily demonstrate how they are not.

robindch

Wolfie -

> Answers In Genesis is [...] not a soley scientific organization.

That, I think, must be one of the finest quotes thread has produced so far!

> You can easily see the authentic credentials of the scientists listed.

Amazing. I could point out yet a third time that I wasn't denying that there are people who qualified from real universities at some stage during their career, but it's hardly worth repeating.

> So why the accusation of time-wasting? Was that just for effect?

No, it was a question which I've asked here before, but never received any answer to, so I'll ask it again:

Why are you guys spending so much time posting here? Why aren't you out doing what your religion says that you should be doing, which is being nice to people, helping them, or out propagating the religion. To my knowledge, you haven't "converted" anybody here and you're not likely to, so why waste your time here? It's all a bit puzzling.

> You want me to copy and paste Behe? I'm afraid I don't have the
> means. I've pointed you to where the evidence is; you will have to
> do the hard work yourself.

Hmm..., Let me remind you (again) of what Behe had to say when asked to produce evidence for creationism at the Dover trial. This quote is from page 88 of Judge Jones' Dover judgement:

On cross-examination, Professor Behe admitted that: "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred." Additionally, Professor Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting his claims that complex molecular systems, like the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade, and the immune system, were intelligently designed. In that regard, there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting Professor Behe's argument that certain complex molecular structures are "irreducibly complex." In addition to failing to produce papers in peer-reviewed journals, ID also features no scientific research or testing.

So, we can safely conclude that Behe produced no peer-reviewed evidence for creationism.

Now that you are aware that Behe himself knows this, why do you expect Morbert to find in Behe's work, what Behe himself cannot produce?

robindch

> You have discounted any research by any scientist who is creationist by
> your claim that they have 'abandoned their education'.

Please see my posting above -- Behe, the principal qualified biologist behind creationism at the moment has publicly admitted that there is no peer-reviewed evidence for creationism. This is worth repeating: one of creationism's few proper scientists has stated for court record and for the world to hear, that there is no peer-reviewed evidence whatsoever for his point of view. Research needs to exist before I can discount it!

> I would then say that scientists who accept evolution are coming at it
> from a worldview that states that 'there is no God'.

And who says that? I would like you to name names here, together with supporting quotes.

> They then can not possibly review the evidence with an open mind
> as the 450 or so creation scientists have managed to do

Just to repeat again, there is no peer-reviewed evidence for creationism -- this means that, just as it cannot be discounted because it does not exist, neither can it be reviewed, because it does not exist. When a creationist produces some evidence, then I'll review it for what it is, but until that time, I'm have to say that, for once, I am in complete agreement with a creationist -- there is no peer-reviewed evidence. Zilch.

Can we perhaps try to agree collectively on this?

wolfsbane

robindch said:

Why are you guys spending so much time posting here? Why aren't you out doing what your religion says that you should be doing, which is being nice to people, helping them, or out propagating the religion. To my knowledge, you haven't "converted" anybody here and you're not likely to, so why waste your time here? It's all a bit puzzling.

Our wintness here to the truth of God's word - the Bible - is propogating our religion. If the Bible cannot be relied on about everything it asserts, only a fool would stake his eternal destiny on it. So not only do we defend the integrity of the Bible, in the process we bring before the readers of the thread the truth about their need to be reconciled to God. We haven't heard of anyone being converted yet, but that is not in our hands. Salvation is of the Lord. We just bring His message and leave Him to do His will. That is the apostolic method: Paul spoke to the Areopagites; some believed, most did not. He spoke to the Jews; some believed, most did not. He spoke to all sorts of men and women; some believed, most did not.

Jesus put it this way: John 10:14"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ......24The Jews gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." 25Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, 26but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30I and the Father are one." [emphasis mine]

Who knows but one of you who vehemently oppose the gospel now will turn out to be one of His sheep?:) Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of the church, became the great apostle.

So, we can safely conclude that Behe produced no peer-reviewed evidence for creationism.
Now that you are aware that Behe himself knows this, why do you expect Morbert to find in Behe's work, what Behe himself cannot produce?

First of all, ID is not synonymous with creationism: the latter is much broader. So Behe was not talking about creationism, but about ID.

Having no peer-reviewed support begs the question. Since Behe has launched the ID assault on evolution, little work on it by others will have been done. That is one objection his opponents use when asked why he has not been refuted: 'not enough time has passed'. But here are three articles that should enlighten us further on the ID issue.
http://www.probe.org/content/view/1277/1/
http://www.probe.org/content/view/1284/1/
http://www.probe.org/content/view/124/67/

And note this bio. of the reviewer of the last article:
http://www.probe.org/content/view/1008/41/

robindch

> Our wintness here to the truth of God's word - the Bible - is propogating our religion.

As ever, you haven't understood what I am said, so I will try to make it more clear. You believe you are propagating your religion. I am saying that nobody who's followed your postings here seems to have been convinced by anything that you or the other creationists have said. So I wonder why it is that you believe that you are propagating your religion? In fact, as Excelsior has pointed out, you seem to be doing exactly the opposite -- painting yourselves to look like narrow-minded and deeply uninformed fundamentalists.

> If the Bible cannot be relied on about everything it asserts, only a fool would stake his eternal destiny on it.

What about looking at it this way: "If there is the slightest chance that the bible is a human creation, then only a fool would spend his entire life talking about it"?

> First of all, ID is not synonymous with creationism: the latter is much broader.

Well, let's summarise them:

• Creationism - A god created the universe and all the life in it for purposes unknown
• ID - An "intelligent designer" (who might be god) created the universe and all the life in it for purposes unknown

Do the definitions sounds similar to you?

> That is one objection his opponents use when asked why he has not been refuted: 'not enough time has passed'.

Well, IDr's have been at it since 1987, when creationists lost a case in the US Supreme Court and thereby were prevented from forcing kids to treat ancient religious doctrine as observable fact. So do you think that it would be reasonable to expect that somebody, somewhere could have produced something, given that they've had nineteen years to do it?

Assuming that the Discovery I]sic[/I Institute's list of 450 people have been working for one-third of that time on the problem, they'll have had almost three thousand man-years to produce *something*. Anything. And they haven't produced so much as a sausage, so what on earth are they doing all this time? Who's funding them if they produce nothing? How much "research time" do these titans need before *one* of them can produce *one* peer-reviewed paper? Five thousand man-years? Ten thousand?

John Doe

robindch wrote:

Why are you guys spending so much time posting here? Why aren't you out doing what your religion says that you should be doing, which is being nice to people, helping them, or out propagating the religion. To my knowledge, you haven't "converted" anybody here and you're not likely to, so why waste your time here? It's all a bit puzzling.

There are much worse things to be doing than discussing religion and spirituality here! It is, though, utterly pointless to do so without a completely open mind. Conversion shouldn't be the aim of anyone posting here, any more than being converted should be. It probably is though. And I'm sure some of these people who are involved in a religion spend plenty of time do-gooding.

Morbert

JC... my post (#793 and 794) has already dealt with your misapplied concepts of probability.

And regarding concepts of information... It has been addressed in post # 634 and 635.

It's a sad state of affairs when a discussion simply reduces to me correcting your repeated errors.



Wolfsbane... I have read "Darwin's black box"... have you? There is no theory of ID in that book. Or perhaps you haven't read the book and are hoping no one will notice your complete failure to present evidence for your assertions.

And you haven't presented any text which contradicts evolution. Please explicitly explain why such passages contradict evolution. let's see if this really is your field.

wolfsbane

robindch said:

I am saying that nobody who's followed your postings here seems to have been convinced by anything that you or the other creationists have said. So I wonder why it is that you believe that you are propagating your religion? In fact, as Excelsior has pointed out, you seem to be doing exactly the opposite -- painting yourselves to look like narrow-minded and deeply uninformed fundamentalists.

Ah, I'm in good company then - Paul, before the learned Greeks:
Acts 17:24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” 33 So Paul departed from among them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. [emphasis mine]

What about looking at it this way: "If there is the slightest chance that the bible is a human creation, then only a fool would spend his entire life talking about it"?

Absolutely correct! Which is exactly why it is important I show men that it is not the word of men but the word of God - infallible, inerrant.

Well, let's summarise them:

Creationism - A god created the universe and all the life in it for purposes unknown
ID - An "intelligent designer" (who might be god) created the universe and all the life in it for purposes unknown
Do the definitions sounds similar to you?

They sure do, being your definitions. As I understand it, ID argues on the basis of design alone. Creationism argues on all evidence of a recent creation, eg. the salinity of the oceans, the decay of earth's magnetic field, the expansion of the universe.

Well, IDr's have been at it since 1987, when creationists lost a case in the US Supreme Court and thereby were prevented from forcing kids to treat ancient religious doctrine as observable fact. So do you think that it would be reasonable to expect that somebody, somewhere could have produced something, given that they've had nineteen years to do it?

Do you mean other arguments in support of ID, or an argument refuting ID?

Assuming that the Discovery [sic] Institute's list of 450 people have been working for one-third of that time on the problem, they'll have had almost three thousand man-years to produce *something*. Anything. And they haven't produced so much as a sausage, so what on earth are they doing all this time? Who's funding them if they produce nothing? How much "research time" do these titans need before *one* of them can produce *one* peer-reviewed paper? Five thousand man-years? Ten thousand?

Oh, I see you were referring to the former, ignoring the failure of evolutionists to disprove Behe's argument. But this present quote is really addressed to creationism rather than just ID. So let me give you some of the arguments creationist scientists believe support their interpretation of the evidence:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/r_humphreys.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4005.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re1/chapter8.asp

Some sausages for you to chew on.;)

John Doe

Wow. I really can't understand how people believe in Creationism. I mean, why? It's not as if it being wrong would even undermine the Bible or anything: it's still a good allegory.