The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Galvasean

PDN wrote: »

So who gets to define whether a claim is extraordinary or not?

If the vast majority of the human race think something is self-evident, but a small minority want to argue otherwise, then who decides who is making the extraordinary claim?

Fair enough question;
Generally speaking when a claim appears out of the ordinary and/or unlikely it is what I would call extraordinary.
Evolution was an extraordinary claim back in the day, and still to some extent is. However much evidence, some of it extraordinary, has been discovered to back it up.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

So who gets to define whether a claim is extraordinary or not?

I would imagine than an extraordinary claim is defined by how out of the ordinary it is.

Bus coming everyone morning - ordinary.

Man resurrecting himself from the dead - extra-ordinary.

HouseHippo

Love thy Neighbour as you love yourself: Except if he's gay,Muslim,Buddhist or Hindu,has sex before marriage and doesn't belive in me

J C

Wicknight wrote: »

I would imagine than an extraordinary claim is defined by how out of the ordinary it is.

Bus coming everyone morning - ordinary.

Man resurrecting himself from the dead - extra-ordinary.

...Man arising spontaneously from goo via the zoo - impossible!!!:eek:

......and for all the rest there is Mastercard!!!!:pac::):D

J C

HouseHippo wrote: »

Love thy Neighbour as you love yourself: Except if he's gay,Muslim,Buddhist or Hindu,has sex before marriage and doesn't belive in me

....Christians are ALL fallen sinners undeserving of Salvation THEMSELVES...so they have no reason to 'look down on' anybody else!!!:)
...and the command to love our neighbour as ourselves INCLUDES gays, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, people who have sex before marriage and Atheists.:)


Indeed it is not only 'nice friendly neighbours' in all of the above categories that Christians are commanded to love.....we are ALSO commanded to love our ENEMIES....people like murderers, drug pushers and guys who cut in before you on the road...and generally totally annoy and appall you!!!!

Mt 5:43 ¶ "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
44 "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
45 "that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
47 "And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?


God Himself is entirely sovereign in these matters and it is His Word that confirms that we must be Saved...and He is the ONLY judge of who is ACTUALLY saved.

The Mad Hatter

J C wrote: »

spontaneously...via...

Learn English.

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

...Man arising spontaneously from goo via the zoo - impossible!!!:eek:

That's an absolute. Prove it with calculations or stop spoofing.

AtomicHorror

PDN wrote: »

So who gets to define whether a claim is extraordinary or not?

If the vast majority of the human race think something is self-evident, but a small minority want to argue otherwise, then who decides who is making the extraordinary claim?

In this case the creationists are making various scientific claims, or at least what they maintain are scientific. So scientists get to define what is extra-ordinary. The creationist claims fly in the face of scientific knowledge going back hundreds of years in some cases. They are also calling into question the interpretation of pretty much every field in modern science. Whilst science is a self-revising system which must constantly adapt to new information, resistance to major change in the absence of compelling evidence is appropriate. There was resistance to Einstein and Darwin, but similarly there has been appropriate resistance to the quacks. The quacks are much greater in number than the Einsteins.

wolfsbane

AtomicHorror wrote: »

I don't believe I have stated the existence of the ark impossible. I consider it improbable based on the available information. Hence the need for strong and convincing evidence. I'm not sure how many more ways I can rephrase this for you.

But have you information that would lead you to think the construction of an Ark was improbable? I'd be glad to hear it. Thanks.

P.S. Narrow the search to an Ark of the dimensions given in the Bible. So a vessel that would merely float, holding a full cargo of animals and feed. No need to spectulate on how many species/kinds in the world - just on what would happily be held on this Ark.

wolfsbane

robindch wrote: »

Why, thank you -- it's not often that you compliment the efforts or the integrity of people who disagree with your religious views :)Well, looks to me like there's a fair degree of consensus on the crappiness of COTW and AIG's stuff.

The reason really being quite straightforward -- that COTW and AIG both say that anything that they disagree with is automatically false. With such an attitude, it should not surprise you that they're viewed with little respect.

Ah, right. It's not the scientific argument they find crappy, it's just they never get to examine it because they baulk at the creationist organisation's theological precepts. A pity they can't examine the scientific case, which does not include the theological assumptions, and pass a verdict on that.

But I'm asking too much. They frequently dismiss their fellow-evolutionist's work as crap compared with their own, so crappy in secular science circles means anything not in argeement with one's own understanding.

With such an attitude, it should not surprise you that they're viewed with little respect by myself.

The Mad Hatter

wolfsbane wrote: »

Ah, right. It's not the scientific argument they find crappy, it's just they never get to examine it because they baulk at the creationist organisation's theological precepts. A pity they can't examine the scientific case, which does not include the theological assumptions, and pass a verdict on that.

No, hang on. Theologically, they can believe whatever they like. But using that theology as the beginning of a scientific argument, which then sets out to prove that that theology is true, is unscientific or, to use the new technical term, crappy.

wolfsbane

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

No, hang on. Theologically, they can believe whatever they like. But using that theology as the beginning of a scientific argument, which then sets out to prove that that theology is true, is unscientific or, to use the new technical term, crappy.

Their theology as a starting point is no different from abiogenesis for the evolutionist - not necessary for the theory to stand as a theory, but logically necessary for it to exist. I gathered you evolutionists were keen to have the theory stand alone. Creationists should have the same right.

wolfsbane

Something for your consideration:

FROM DARWIN TO HITLER:

EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, EUGENICS, AND RACISM IN GERMANYby

Richard Weikart, professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus.
http://www.csustan.edu/History/Faculty/Weikart/FromDarwintoHitler.htm

One of the reviews:
"The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed. Every parent ought to know this story, which Weikart persuasively explains." --Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance

HouseHippo

J C wrote: »

....Christians are ALL fallen sinners undeserving of Salvation THEMSELVES...so they have no reason to 'look down on' anybody else!!!:)
...and the command to love our neighbour as ourselves INCLUDES gays, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, people who have sex before marriage and Atheists.:)


Indeed it is not only 'nice friendly neighbours' in all of the above categories that Christians are commanded to love.....we are ALSO commanded to love our ENEMIES....people like murderers, drug pushers and guys who cut in before you on the road...and generally totally annoy and appall you!!!!

Mt 5:43 ¶ "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
44 "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
45 "that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
47 "And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?


God Himself is entirely sovereign in these matters and it is His Word that confirms that we must be Saved...and He is the ONLY judge of who is ACTUALLY saved.

Never read the other bits of the bible have you.ya can't just pick and choose ya know

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

Their theology as a starting point is no different from abiogenesis for the evolutionist - not necessary for the theory to stand as a theory, but logically necessary for it to exist. I gathered you evolutionists were keen to have the theory stand alone. Creationists should have the same right.

You've hit the nail on the head. Creationism as an idea requires the assumption that Christian theology is correct for it to logically exist. Without the theology, creationism makes no sense at all, simply because nothing in the data suggests it. The theology prompts the idea. However, you are completely off the mark with evolution. Evolution does not require abiogenesis. It just requires that a self-replicating and mutating cell came into existence somehow. It is a theory that was founded on no other assumption. That it has trampled all over the creationist theology is inadvertent.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Something for your consideration:

FROM DARWIN TO HITLER:

EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, EUGENICS, AND RACISM IN GERMANYby

Richard Weikart, professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus.
http://www.csustan.edu/History/Faculty/Weikart/FromDarwintoHitler.htm

One of the reviews:
"The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed. Every parent ought to know this story, which Weikart persuasively explains." --Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance

Oh for goodness sake, not this argument again. That is nasty, hate-filled propaganda.

Evolution is not a moral philosophy. It is not a social theory. That some horrible people would choose to abuse it is no reflection whatsoever on its veracity. Hitler was no more a "true" evolutionist than he was a "true" Christian. He used whatever he ideas wanted, be they scientific, philosophical or religious, to push his agenda. Even if it could be shown that evolutionary theory leads to immoral behavior that would still mean nothing about it's scientific truth. Shall we curse Newton's name whenever someone is pushed from a building top to their death?

And I find it funny that you state the following:
Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of California, Berkeley
Richard Weikart, professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus

But for some reason you fail to mention that both men just happen to be fellows of the Discovery Institute. In other words, Intelligent Design men. Got any non-creationist or non-ID sources on this position?

AtomicHorror

HouseHippo wrote: »

Never read the other bits of the bible have you.ya can't just pick and choose ya know

I may be off the mark but as far as I know, J C and Wolfsbane are of Christian sects that believe the old testament to have been "fulfilled" and thus no longer relevant in terms of the law and social rules it lays down. However they also happen to take the entire thing as literal truth.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

Something for your consideration:

FROM DARWIN TO HITLER:

EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, EUGENICS, AND RACISM IN GERMANYby

Richard Weikart, professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus.
http://www.csustan.edu/History/Faculty/Weikart/FromDarwintoHitler.htm

One of the reviews:
"The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed. Every parent ought to know this story, which Weikart persuasively explains." --Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance

I always fine this line of thinking rather silly

Atomic theory lead to the atomic bomb, the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Japan and the near destruction of the world in the Cuban missile crisis

But no one would go on that we should all just pretend that atomic theory is therefore some how wrong.

The idea that Darwinian evolution can be used in seriously questionable moral decisions is no more a reason to think it is wrong than the idea that the atomic bomb is a reason to think our theories of the atom are wrong.

As Atomic says Darwinianism is simply a process. The Nazi's, including Hitler got it wrong (Hitler's idea of "fitness" was defined by someone who didn't understand biology very well) but that is actually irrelevant. The theory has little do to with how people may or may not apply it (correctly or incorrect) to moral decisions. Just because you can split an atom and just because doing so releases huge amount of energy and just because that energy kills humans is not a reason to say science says split the atom over a city populated with hundreds of thousands of humans

Galvasean

Didn't we all sign a pact decreeing that:
Atheists would not claim religion leads to the Crusades
and
Theists would not claim atheism leads to Hitler

AtomicHorror

Galvasean wrote: »

Didn't we all sign a pact decreeing that:
Atheists would not claim religion leads to the Crusades
and
Theists would not claim atheism leads to Hitler

Wolfsbane is taking a cue from J C on this one. If his scientific arguments get rebutted enough times, he'll switch to claiming evolution is amoral and such. Notice he's suddenly not talking about dating the oceans using salt levels and so forth. The next logical steps are a semantics argument, some weak analogies and a giant straw man.

AtomicHorror

I almost missed this one.

wolfsbane wrote: »

But have you information that would lead you to think the construction of an Ark was improbable? I'd be glad to hear it. Thanks.

Yes, there is no record of a vessel of that magnitude being built until about 2000 years after the latest possible date of a global flood. What we know about the technology of the time suggests it is unlikely they could have built such a thing.

Given that, very strong evidence for the existence of the ark is needed for sceptics to accept it's probability.

robindch

wolfsbane wrote: »

Something for your consideration:

It's something which you have brought up many times before, and it's a deeply unconvincing argument.

As wicknight and David Hume have pointed out, just because something "is", does not mean that something "ought" to be. It's referred to as the "is-ought fallacy" -- the wiki page has more on it -- and it's something that worries religious people greatly.

One can see the falsity of it quite easily by noting, for example, that the Theory of Gravity says that people do fall down. Using Johnson's faulty logic, a religious person will be led to believe that all people who think that the Theory of Gravity is an accurate description of reality, will think that people ought to fall down. Of course, nobody thinks that.

The problem is with Johnson's lousy logic.

robindch

wolfsbane wrote: »

Ah, right. It's not the scientific argument they find crappy, it's just they never get to examine it because they baulk at the creationist organisation's theological precepts. A pity they can't examine the scientific case, which does not include the theological assumptions, and pass a verdict on that.

It's been five days since I said that what they write is junk (see here). Having point out that it is crap, I then went on to say why it is crap.

And to re-iterate (again...), they're crap because they're full of holes, they contains howling errors of fact and logic, they ignore vast fields of work, and outside the WTC and UFO conspiracists, they are possibly the dumbest class of widespread nonsense that I've ever read.

It's frankly embarrassing that people who are otherwise mature and functioning human beings who drive cars, fly planes, write music and heavens, even walk upright and chew gum at the same time, can read this stuff and fail to spot that it is crap.

AtomicHorror

robindch wrote: »

It's frankly embarrassing that people who are otherwise mature and functioning human beings who drive cars, fly planes, write music and heavens, even walk upright and chew gum at the same time, can read this stuff and fail to spot that it is crap.

It's also partially the fault of mainstream scientists for being a bunch of aloof and arrogant wannabe elitists who are reluctant to engage meaningfully with non-scientists. This just feeds the Dr. Frankenstein cliché that the media love so well. It also means that media reporting on science is abysmally inaccurate. There's a gulf between us and if we aren't willing to help bridge it, then we are partially to blame.

pH

robindch wrote: »

The problem is with Johnson's lousy logic.

Also it's worth pointing out that so called "social Darwinism" (or whatever Hitler is being accused of subscribing to) has absolutely nothing to do with Darwin or natural selection.

The idea of breeding and artificial selection had been known about for centuries, it didn't take Darwin to explain to anyone that if you kill people they won't have any children, or if you "breed" from selective stock you can over time select for specific traits you want (pigeons/cows/racehorses etc.).

Darwin's insight was "natural selection". If you want someone to blame for giving Hitler a "scientific basis" for the fact that if he killed all the Jews in Europe, then there would be none left then you're barking up the wrong tree if you think that this had anything to do with Charles Darwin.

robindch

AtomicHorror wrote: »

It's also partially the fault of mainstream scientists for being a bunch of aloof and arrogant wannabe elitists who are reluctant to engage meaningfully with non-scientists.

Yes, you're right there.

I have a vague memory of a proposal from a few years ago in the UK (or the US? can't remember...) in which researchers who receive central funding must spend 10% of their time writing man-on-the-street level explanations for what they were doing? Seemed like a good idea to me, but I don't know if it ever happened. If it did, they certainly need to do a bit more...

Galvasean

pH wrote: »

The idea of breeding and artificial selection had been known about for centuries, it didn't take Darwin to explain to anyone that if you kill people they won't have any children, or if you "breed" from selective stock you can over time select for specific traits you want (pigeons/cows/racehorses etc.).

Indeed. Just look at pedigree dog breeding or pig farming.

Here's a wiki on selective breeding (which predates Darwin).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding

edit: I mean selective breeding predates Darwin, not the wiki.

sdep

AtomicHorror wrote: »

It's also partially the fault of mainstream scientists for being a bunch of aloof and arrogant wannabe elitists who are reluctant to engage meaningfully with non-scientists. This just feeds the Dr. Frankenstein cliché that the media love so well. It also means that media reporting on science is abysmally inaccurate. There's a gulf between us and if we aren't willing to help bridge it, then we are partially to blame.

I'm afraid I don't really go along with this. The internet is full of scientists' blogs, there are regular science TV & radio series, and there is good quality science journalism in the newspapers and other media that take science seriously. I think scientists are generally happy to explain their work to the media when they are offered the chance - for example, you can see physicists currently falling over themselves to talk to the press about 'Big Bang Day'.

The 'elitism' charge is one often made by creationists, and frankly says more about them than the scientists they are maligning.

robindch

pH wrote: »

If you want someone to blame for giving Hitler a "scientific basis" for the fact that if he killed all the Jews in Europe, then there would be none left then you're barking up the wrong tree if you think that this had anything to do with Charles Darwin.

I agree. However, from the creationists' point of view, it's useful to have Darwin and a bunch of ivory-towered researchers as their perennial punchbags. I mean, who's going to win a battle of hearts -- a chap (or chapette) in corduroys, wellies with a clipboard and skewways glasses, or a thundering preacher with choir, lights and organ who can spray bilious spittle over the first eight rows of his audience?

It's been a few months since I mentioned it, but it's also worth remembering that Luther, the guy who gave birth to Protestantism and ultimately, the majority of modern-day creationists, was a rabid antisemite who directly called for the execution of jews. See his 60k word rant On the Jews and Their Lies. It hardly needs to be said also, but 1930's Germany was over 90% christian.

There's more than a fair share of embarrassment at these rather pointed facts -- at least, amongst the protestants who are aware of it -- so these attempts to pin the blame on somebody else should really be expected.

robindch

sdep wrote: »

The 'elitism' charge is one often made by creationists

It's one of the few things that creationists are not that far off the mark on. Scientific journals are not easy things to read and a bit of public intercourse would be useful, perhaps even enjoyable, for all.

I mean, just down the street from where I work, the Science Gallery in Trinity college had people queuing down the street earlier in the year for the Lightwave exhibition.

Surely it's not beyond expectations for the same to be done with biology?

Galvasean

Robin, down 'below' the hard to read jounals are magazines such as National Geographic and Scientific american which act as reader's digests. Much easier to read for the layman.
You can't expect scientists to 'tone it down' just because some people can't understand it when such alternative sources exist.