The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

A self-existence Designer is the answer to that. God by definition is such.

Materialists can't have a self-existent designer, only self-existence matter. So they must either accept that matter can form itself into ever-increasingly ordered and complex forms - or abandon their materialism. That's why they desperately defend evolution.

No... we don't assume that matter is in any manner infinite or in itself an ultimate cause. That's not the standard model at all.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

A self-existence Designer is the answer to that. God by definition is such.

Only because we defined him as such. We have no idea if such an entity can actually exist.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Materialists can't have a self-existent designer, only self-existence matter.

Materialists can have anything, that is the point materialism. Anything is possible, you accept what the universe tells you, not how you think the universe should be.

Which is why we reject the nonsense of religious assertions that the universe must have been created, that the creator must have self-existence, must be intelligent etc etc.

It is in fact religious people who are limited to the circumstances that ensure their pleasing religion can exist. That is why they defend the dogma of their religion, even as more and more evidence mounts that it is nonsense.

Flamed Diving

wolfsbane wrote: »

A self-existence Designer is the answer to that. God by definition is such.

That explains absolutely nothing.

robindch

wolfsbane wrote: »

We've posted many scientific articles by real scientists - it's just that we can't get you to open your eyes and take your fingers out of your ears just long enough to objectively assess them.

I posted about this a while ago and I'm a bit mystified that you've forgotten so quickly. But it's late so I'll be brief.

Yes, I have assessed them and they're rubbish. Not even good rubbish or even amusing rubbish, just bad rubbish. Specifically:

• They are not publish in peer-reviewed publications, because they are not scientists and what they write is not science.
• The standard of written English that most of them use is embarrassingly lowbrow. Some of it is as dumb as the scientologists literature, and by golly, that's saying something
• Their grasp of logic is lousy. Simply because, for example, there is some doubt about the origin of some biological feature, one cannot safely conclude that a bearded man from first-Century Palestinian created the universe. Creationists do this all the time. Wow.
• When their logic and facts fail, they accuse their counterparts of contributing to genocide, mass hysteria, mass murder, gas chambers and so on. These accusations are as false as they are infantile, but then again, they know as well as I do that this is what their "truth"-market demands.
• They do no research, so they are intellectually sterile.
• They plunder the results of people who do research, then misquote, misrepresent, or just lie about it, knowing that you, nor the rest of the creationist consumer public won't ever check it, nor will you believe the calumnied researchers when they cry foul.
• They can't even get along themselves -- witness the hysterically funny spat that blew up between AiG and their former colleagues in Australia. There was precious little display of christian love in the courtroom when the two sides met and threatened each other. Perhaps you forgot this little episode? It included accusations of witchcraft, sex and if memory serves, necrophilia.
• They build up fake causes célèbres like Richard Sternberg, then slander people and institutions to make their "truth"-consuming public think what they want them to think because there's so much money in it.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point.

When one of your guys actually has an original idea, or does some original research, or gets published in a real journal, or lifts the standard of his game above the level of Barny-the-Dinosaur, by all means, do point me to it and I'll read it.

But in the meantime, don't bother linking to AiG's rubbish. I don't read it anymore and I doubt many others do either. We can use Google too.

marco_polo

wolfsbane wrote: »

From that article I see no contradiction to my post - they are arguing that radiation is the input that overcomes entropy to allow life to evolve on earth.

I said no such outcome would arise.

So you conceed that that sunlight increases the amount of available energy?

They are not "arguing" anything, they are stating the fact that the earth is not a closed system and as a result the second law of thermodynamics in no way shape or form applies. The reason for this is that there is an increase in the available thermal energy from an external source.

The second law of thermodynamics itself is could not be clearer on the matter.

They further muddy the waters by giving photosynthesis as an example of such a process.

Thats because it is an extremely good example of such a process. Only in creationworldland could facts muddy the waters :rolleyes:.

Surely they can't have forgotten the sunlight is empowering already existing designed systems?

Systems that can handle the radiation in a productive way, unlike any supposedly simple first self-replicating molecules.

In what way does the how available energy is used by organisms (in a open system) relate to the the laws of thermodynamics?. Firstly once the system is not closed, they do not apply. Secondly they have nothing to say about how the energy is used regardless of whether or not the system is open or closed.

2Scoops

wolfsbane wrote: »

Here's a few. The sites have many more.
Snake Hybridization: A Case for Intrabaraminic Diversity
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/research/ICC08_Snake_Hybrid.pdf

Some snakes can interbreed... therefore God exists. Didn't you read my last post on this??

wolfsbane wrote: »

Rapid Changes in Oxygen Isotope Content of Ice Cores Caused by Fractionation and Trajectory Dispersion near the Edge of an Ice Shelf
http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_lv_r02/

Wild speculation, inferior to the current best-fit model, does not explain anything... therefore God exists.

wolfsbane wrote: »

HELIUM DIFFUSION RATES SUPPORT ACCELERATED NUCLEAR DECAY
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/research/Helium_ICC_7-22-03.pdf

Comprehensively dismantled here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/original.html. Meaningless... therefore God exists.

Wolfsbane, I thought I'd cut you some slack. I'll read your papers with an open mind. Unfortunately each of these is either fundamentally flawed or completely irrelevant to creation. Hence, their wild conclusions cannot be supported by their actual data.

I'll even ignore the fact that they are not peer-reviewed since so-called creation scientists do not submit them to review. Who can blame them, after all? They clearly understand that what they do has little to do with science. I also note, with more than a little amusement, that the research is 'for sale' by these upstanding profiteering hucksters. Who says religion doesn't pay?? :pac:

robindch

2Scoops wrote: »

their wild conclusions cannot be supported by their actual data.

I just love this line from the ICR text "- "As before, the creation model starts with a brief burst of accelerated nuclear decay". In other words, it assumes its conclusion. Hardly any surprise that the world turns out to be -- ta, daa! -- 6,000 years old!

It's a bit like measuring something by taking a rubber band and stretching. Nice one!

2Scoops wrote: »

I also note, with more than a little amusement, that the research is 'for sale' by these upstanding profiteering hucksters. Who says religion doesn't pay?

Reminds me of that list of "ten questions to ask your biology teacher", which used to be copyrighted at one time (not sure any more). If you wanted to print it out, you had to ask permission from the clown that wrote it. Hardly much of an advertisement for creationism.

BTW, where's the "for sale" sign on this stuff?

AtomicHorror

At the risk of being a bit of a spammer, I'm going to repost this in the hopes of getting some sort of response. Or at least highlighting the fact that responses were made to everything on that page but this...

J C wrote: »

The self-repairing/healing aspect of this 'redundancy' was probably automatically switched on due to the trauma surrounding the Fall....
.....the process was probably something akin to, for example, how our skin healing/repair mechanisms are automatically switched when our skin is damaged by physical trauma!!!!:D

Got any science (or scripture) to back up your first statement? The second I take no issue with.

J C wrote: »

.........organic systems were irreducibly complex BOTH before and after the Fall......with massive levels of 'redundancy' built in at Creation to cope with all future 'shocks'......including the Fall.

In that case then, humans were created imperfect. They lacked some much-needed (in the future) redundancies at the moment of creation. The creator built redundancies into some systems and not into others but did so with no regard to their relative importance. The heart is as important as the lungs (and two hearts is no challenge to an omnipotent being). The clotting cascade is as important as the chemokine system (perhaps more so) yet one is multiply redundant and the other has several critical/non-redundant points just waiting for a mutation. And underlying all of this is a brittle, error-prone inheritance system (DNA) that according to you cannot confer any advantages but which allows critical systems to fail at random. Unless the creator did not have proper fore-knowledge of the conditions after the fall, the above points constitute serious design flaws.

You did suggest previously that redundancy was lost in some cases due to The Fall, but now you seem to have realised that this is in fact equivalent to admitting that any example of "irreducible complexity" may simply be a previously-redundant system that lost its redundancy by some means. You might also suggest that redundancy might be gained post Fall, but of course this would contravene your claims that mutation can give "no new information".

So you must admit to a fallible Designer, abandon irreducible complexity as evidence of Design, or admit that mutation may confer function.

My, you are in a bind.

oeb

AtomicHorror wrote: »

My, you are in a bind.

He has not been around for a couple of days. I would also like to see him address this post where he pretty much stated that evolution happened.

AtomicHorror

oeb wrote: »

He has not been around for a couple of days.

I know, but he was very much around when I posted that and he had something to say about pretty much every post around it. I'm a pain in the arse really.

Galvasean

Nice to see that we can ad Wicknight to the list of eminent researchers to have been quoted out of context by the creationism movement.
He now joins the likes of Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Stephen J Gould and Atomic Horror (who boasts a more unusual name than the rest) among many others.

Zombrex

Galvasean wrote: »

Nice to see that we can ad Wicknight to the list of eminent researchers to have been quoted out of context by the creationism movement.
He now joins the likes of Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Stephen J Gould and Atomic Horror (who boasts a more unusual name than the rest) among many others.

i would like to thank my mother, my brother, my 3rd class teacher, my dog ... and of course Satan, this is all for you oh lord.

AtomicHorror

Galvasean wrote: »

Nice to see that we can ad Wicknight to the list of eminent researchers to have been quoted out of context by the creationism movement.
He now joins the likes of Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Stephen J Gould and Atomic Horror (who boasts a more unusual name than the rest) among many others.

That sorta suggests I could be formally called Mr. Horror. Such revered company we keep now. I understand though, that Wicknight recently underwent a beneficial mutation and is now properly called "Wicknit". Please note that this mutation introduced no new information, but did add a quantifiable amount of lulz.

2Scoops

robindch wrote: »

BTW, where's the "for sale" sign on this stuff?

Well, these 3 papers are open access; I was referring to the greater body of 'research' from these authors which is offered in exchange for hard cash on Amazon and elsewhere (except for the snake sex guys).

AtomicHorror

oeb wrote: »

I would also like to see him address this post where he pretty much stated that evolution happened.

Ah yes, but J C does believe that variation can occur "within created kinds". He also contends that such variation constitutes no "new functional information". Neither "created kinds" nor "functional information" is defined in a testable manner, of course.

Galvasean

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Ah yes, but J C does believe that variation can occur "within created kinds". He also contends that such variation constitutes no "new functional information". Neither "created kinds" nor "functional information" is defined in a testable manner, of course.

Don't forget 'sorts'. They have yet to be defined either but from my understanding 'sorts' are a bit like phyla and 'kinds' are more like genera. A bit more open-ended on both counts mind.

The Mad Hatter

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Ah yes, but J C does believe that variation can occur "within created kinds". He also contends that such variation constitutes no "new functional information". Neither "created kinds" nor "functional information" is defined in a testable manner, of course.

Oh, you've just reminded me! I forgot to add the 'no-leg-land-creatures' kind to my list. Snakes and worms. There you go.

wolfsbane

AtomicHorror said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
A self-existence Designer is the answer to that. God by definition is such.

Materialists can't have a self-existent designer, only self-existence matter. So they must either accept that matter can form itself into ever-increasingly ordered and complex forms - or abandon their materialism. That's why they desperately defend evolution.
No... we don't assume that matter is in any manner infinite or in itself an ultimate cause. That's not the standard model at all.

OK, pardon my ignorance. So you assume either that matter is eternal, or that it came from absolutely nothing. Either option, you accept that matter can form itself into ever-increasingly ordered and complex forms. Such faith!

wolfsbane

2Scoops wrote: »

Some snakes can interbreed... therefore God exists. Didn't you read my last post on this??



Wild speculation, inferior to the current best-fit model, does not explain anything... therefore God exists.



Comprehensively dismantled here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/original.html. Meaningless... therefore God exists.

Wolfsbane, I thought I'd cut you some slack. I'll read your papers with an open mind. Unfortunately each of these is either fundamentally flawed or completely irrelevant to creation. Hence, their wild conclusions cannot be supported by their actual data.

I'll even ignore the fact that they are not peer-reviewed since so-called creation scientists do not submit them to review. Who can blame them, after all? They clearly understand that what they do has little to do with science. I also note, with more than a little amusement, that the research is 'for sale' by these upstanding profiteering hucksters. Who says religion doesn't pay?? :pac:

All of course in your unchallengable opinion. Inferior to the current best-fit model - in your opinion. Your Comprehensively dismantled assessment is just that.

Bottom line - scientists differ. Many also, childishly, denigrate any opposing theories/research (not just creationists get this treatment). But where a religious (atheist) motive is present, it can lead to hysterical levels of this, as witness by the treatment of Prof. Reiss by the Royal Society.

My ignorance knows no bounds - I never knew scientists gave their books for free. Can you point me to this treasure store?

2Scoops

wolfsbane wrote: »

Bottom line - scientists differ. Many also, childishly, denigrate any opposing theories/research (not just creationists get this treatment).

You're confused. How can drawing conclusions that are not supported by the data ever be correct?? Can you explain to me how snakes having sex proves God exists? Doesn't it just stretch credibility to breaking point? Can't some people simply be wrong, or does that only happen when they disagree with your precious Bible?

If you don't understand science, you can't tell me these people are not wrong in drawing their zany conclusions. :pac:

wolfsbane wrote: »

My ignorance knows no bounds - I never knew scientists gave their books for free. Can you point me to this treasure store?

Papers are freely available on internet databases like Pubmed, JSTOR and others. Books are for-profit sideshows that most scientists don't bother with. Money-hungry journalists, on the other hand, write many books.

wolfsbane

marco_polo wrote: »

So you conceed that that sunlight increases the amount of available energy?

They are not "arguing" anything, they are stating the fact that the earth is not a closed system and as a result the second law of thermodynamics in no way shape or form applies. The reason for this is that there is an increase in the available thermal energy from an external source.

The second law of thermodynamics itself is could not be clearer on the matter.




Thats because it is an extremely good example of such a process. Only in creationworldland could facts muddy the waters :rolleyes:.



In what way does the how available energy is used by organisms (in a open system) relate to the the laws of thermodynamics?. Firstly once the system is not closed, they do not apply. Secondly they have nothing to say about how the energy is used regardless of whether or not the system is open or closed.

For basic heat, the earth is an open system, the sun maintaining its energy.

But for an increase in order, the (supposed) first cell had what adding to its order? Sunlight has known properties when it works on organic material unable to process it - bleaching is a good example.

I suppose you think if enough animal bones were left long enough in the desert they would become more ordered and produce a new lifeform? :pac:

Increasing order and complexity must involve the 2nd Law if a material explanation of life is required. Creationists deny it was involved in the origin of life - but point to it clearly being involved in how life continues and dies.

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

For basic heat, the earth is an open system, the sun maintaining its energy.

But for an increase in order, the (supposed) first cell had what adding to its order? Sunlight has known properties when it works on organic material unable to process it - bleaching is a good example.

The first cells were likely submerged in water, possibly quite deep water. It's unlikely they'd have endured direct exposure to sunlight. The energy to which they had access was still derived from the sun, but indirectly through warming of the oceans. For simple self-replicating systems, cycles of varying heat are all that is required to form new chains. I do something similar in the lab pretty much every week, though the chains are replicated by a more efficient external enzyme.

Does this contravene the second law? Should I tell the physicists about a common experiment that biologists have been doing for decades?

AtomicHorror

wolfsbane wrote: »

AtomicHorror said:

OK, pardon my ignorance. So you assume either that matter is eternal, or that it came from absolutely nothing. Either option, you accept that matter can form itself into ever-increasingly ordered and complex forms. Such faith!

No, we assume nothing we cannot observe. We don't know what caused matter to come into being (or at least I don't, perhaps a physicist can shed some light). Does that mean we can jump to the conclusion that the Sky Beetle did it? We have no faith, but faith that we can fill in the gaps one day. We're not asserting anything untestable.

marco_polo

wolfsbane wrote: »

For basic heat, the earth is an open system, the sun maintaining its energy.

But for an increase in order, the (supposed) first cell had what adding to its order? Sunlight has known properties when it works on organic material unable to process it - bleaching is a good example.

I suppose you think if enough animal bones were left long enough in the desert they would become more ordered and produce a new lifeform? :pac:

Increasing order and complexity must involve the 2nd Law if a material explanation of life is required. Creationists deny it was involved in the origin of life - but point to it clearly being involved in how life continues and dies.

Increasing order and complexity must involve the 2nd Law if there is a closed system, you have yet to demonstrate the existance of one.

marco_polo

wolfsbane wrote: »

AtomicHorror said:

OK, pardon my ignorance. So you assume either that matter is eternal, or that it came from absolutely nothing. Either option, you accept that matter can form itself into ever-increasingly ordered and complex forms. Such faith!

In case it has escaped your notice, matter can indeed form itself into ever increasing and complex forms, such as atoms, molecules, animals, stars, planets, etc, etc.

Chemically speaking second law of thermodynamics favors the formation of complex and ordered chemical compounds from simpler elements. Complex chemicals contain less energy than their constituent elements. The second law does not require a decrease of ordered structure it only requires a reduction of total energy when complex molecules are formed from simpler elements.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

OK, pardon my ignorance.

It is very hard to take such a request seriously when it is proceeded by two posts of increasingly ignorant nonsense.

so, while I can't speak for everyone else, pardon me if I don't excuse your ignorance

AtomicHorror

Wicknight wrote: »

It is very hard to take such a request seriously when it is proceeded by two posts of increasingly ignorant nonsense.

so, while I can't speak for everyone else, pardon me if I don't excuse your ignorance

Especially such determined ignorance. Why argue science if you refuse to learn the basics?

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

Increasing order and complexity must involve the 2nd Law if a material explanation of life is required. Creationists deny it was involved in the origin of life - but point to it clearly being involved in how life continues and dies.

Pour some oil into water. Slowly the oil will seperate from the water. This process decreases the entropy of the molecules in the class. The order increases, instead of being randomly mixed up the oil is all with the oil and the water are all with the water.

Well done, you have just broken the 2nd law of thermo-dynamics. The universe will now end in 5 seconds, please close all programs and exit the building in an orderly fashion!

except you haven't actually causes a paradox rip in the nature of the universe because the Creationist bargain basement "laws of thermo-dynamics" are actually not the real laws of thermo-dynamics. They are what someone who understands very little about physics might think they are.

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

Pour some oil into water. Slowly the oil will seperate from the water. This process decreases the entropy of the molecules in the class. The order increases, instead of being randomly mixed up the oil is all with the oil and the water are all with the water.

Well done, you have just broken the 2nd law of thermo-dynamics. The universe will now end in 5 seconds, please close all programs and exit the building in an orderly fashion!

except you haven't actually causes a paradox rip in the nature of the universe because the Creationist bargain basement "laws of thermo-dynamics" are actually not the real laws of thermo-dynamics. They are what someone who understands very little about physics might think they are.

Yes, such people as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_McIntosh_(professor)

Not up to your standards, obviously.

wolfsbane

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Especially such determined ignorance. Why argue science if you refuse to learn the basics?

I thought I explained my purpose before - not to win the scientific debate by my superior scientific skills (I don't have them), but to point to those who do. I also engage in a bit of dispute on the logical flaws in your arguments.