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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)
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Some scientists are creationists, that is not in dispute. However, there is no such thing as a 'creation scientist' - not even you can provide a single example of one! :pac:
.....perhaps you will accept what Sir Francis Crick (1916–2004) Co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, Nobel laureate 1962, Professor at the Salk Institute had to say about the IMPOSSIBILTY of Spontaneous Evolution....which he call MIRACULOUS:-:pac::):D:eek:
To produce this miracle of molecular construction all the cell need do is to string together the amino acids (which make up the polypeptide chain) in the correct order. This is a complicated biochemical process, a molecular assembly line, using instructions in the form of a nucleic acid tape (the so-called messenger RNA) which will be described in outline in Chapter 5. Here we need only ask, how many possible proteins are there? If a particular amino acid sequence was selected by chance, how rare of an event would that be?
This is an easy exercise in combinatorials. Suppose the chain is about two hundred amino acids long; this is, if anything, rather less than the average length of proteins of all types. Since we have just twenty possibilities at each place, the number of possibilities is twenty multiplied by itself some two hundred times. This is conveniently written 20^200 and is approximately equal to 10^260, that is a one followed by 260 zeros!
This number is quite beyond our everyday comprehension. For comparison, consider the number of fundamental particles (atoms, speaking loosely) in the entire visible universe, not just in our own galaxy with its 10^11 stars, but in all the billions of galaxies, out to the limits of observable space. This number, which is estimated to be 10^80, is quite paltry by comparison to 10^260. Moreover, we have only considered a polypeptide chain of a rather modest length. Had we considered longer ones as well, the figure would have been even more immense. Life Itself (1981) p. 51-52.
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. Life Itself (1981) p.880 -
Will you please stop pasting massive blocks of text into this thread? It is adding nothing and is a nuisance.0
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.....so you don't accept that I am a Creation Scientist......even though I am a Scientist and a Creationist......who is using Science to scientifically evaluate the physical evidence of Creation.....
Really? What scientific investigations into creationism have you performed recently? Actual science? Where?0 -
AtomicHorror wrote: »Will you please stop pasting massive blocks of text into this thread? It is adding nothing and is a nuisance.
.......please read the writings of these great scientists.......and before you make up your mind......OPEN IT!!!!!:eek::):p
.......Sir Francis Crick has even more thought-provoking ideas about the IMPOSSIBILTY of life emerging spontaneously.....and just how UNIMPORTANT Evolutionary Theory is within biological research!!!!
Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I determine I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts. Life Itself (1981) p.153
Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case. It is difficult enough to study what is happening now. To figure out exactly what happened in evolution is even more difficult. Thus evolutionary achievements can be used as hints to suggest possible lines of research, but it is highly dangerous to trust them too much. What Mad Pursuit (1988) pp.138-1390 -
Really? What scientific investigations into creationism have you performed recently? Actual science? Where?
This sketch is most imperfect; but in so short a space I cannot make it better. Your imagination must fill up many wide blanks. Without some reflexion it will appear all rubbish; perhaps it will appear so after reflexion. Letter to Asa Gray September 5, 1857
For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done. Introduction to Origin of Species (1859)
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. Origin of Species (1859) p.186 see also: Dispute
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. Origin of Species (1859) p.1890 -
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Originally Posted by J C
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!!!!
AtomicHorror
Got any science (or scripture) to back up your first statement? The second I take no issue with.
Ge 3:12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 ¶ And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 ¶ Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 ¶ And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Self-healing wasn't required before the Fall because Mankind was perfect and immortal.....the trauma of the Fall is amply illustrated above.......and so the need for self-healing arose....and self healing was probably spontaneously switched on in response to the trauma surrounding the Fall....
.....just like our skin healing/repair mechanisms are automatically switched when our skin is damaged by physical trauma!!!!0 -
AtomicHorror wrote: »Opinions are not science. The opinions of scientists are not science. Please provide some science.
But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. Origin of Species (1859) p.280
By the theory of natural selection all living species have been connected with the parent-species of each genus, by differences not greater than we see between the varieties of the same species at the present day; and these parent-species, now generally extinct, have in their turn been similarly connected with more ancient species; and so on backwards, always converging to the common ancestor of each great class. So that the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory be true, such have lived upon this earth. Origin of Species (1859) pp.281-282
......do you know what........the 'Origin of Species' was ACTUALLY a great Creation Science book!!!!!:pac::):D:eek:0 -
AtomicHorror wrote: »While you're at it, how about a reply to this:
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.
.......perhaps the following quote from the 'great CD' (AKA Charlie Darwin) will help 'straighten you out' .....and will improve your critical thinking.....when it comes to Evolution:-
Nature may almost be said to have guarded against the frequent discovery of her transitional or linking forms. Origin of Species (1859) p.292
He who rejects this view of the imperfection of the geological record, will rightly reject the whole theory. For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional links which must formerly have connected the closely allied or representative species found in the successive stages of the same great formation?” The Origin of Species (1859) p.342
That many and grave objections may be advanced against the theory of descent with modification through natural selection, I do not deny. The Origin of Species
When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed (i.e. we cannot prove that a single species has changed): nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory. Nor can we explain why some species have changed and others have not. Letter to G. Bentham May 22, 18630 -
Ge 3:12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 ¶ And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 ¶ Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 ¶ And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Self-healing wasn't required before the Fall because Mankind was perfect and immortal.....the trauma of the Fall is amply illustrated above.......and so the need for self-healing arose....and self healing was probably spontaneously switched on in response to the trauma surrounding the Fall....
.....just like our skin healing/repair mechanisms are automatically switched when our skin is damaged by physical trauma!!!!
The quote does not state anything about the emergence of redundancy, irreducible complexity, healing. It mentions injury, in a manner that is clearly meant to be a metaphor, but that's about it. So, what about the science? And what about the three-way dilemma (trilemma) I have set you? Any comments?0 -
AtomicHorror:
n 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.
.....if I could only work out what your contorted, convoluted question is asking.....I might be able to answer it........but unfortunately, it fall into the category of 'mind bending' mumbo jumbo to me!!!!:D
It wasn't a question. It was a statement that you either can refute or cannot refute. The latter seems to be the case.0 -
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AtomicHorror wrote: »And what about the three-way dilemma (trilemma) I have set you? Any comments?
Originally Posted by J C
.....if I could only work out what your contorted, convoluted question is asking.....I might be able to answer it........but unfortunately, it fall into the category of 'mind bending' mumbo jumbo to me!!!!
.....and you have the 'Road Runner' J C who pops in .....and just when the 'Coyote' Evolutionists think they are are about to deliver a knockout blow.....the tables are turned on them and their own words 'blow up' in their faces!!!!
.....the issues and the approaches of the 'Coyote' Evolutionists may vary .......but the result is ALWAYS the same.....a throughly defeated 'Coyote' Evolutionist........left flailing around in the dust of a departing victorious 'Road Runner' J C!!!!!
.....and the best part, is that the Evolutionists never 'see it coming'....and they are so dazed that they don't even realise their arguments have been metaphorically annihilated .....they sometimes even come back again to expose their already defeated arguments to further annihilation !!!!!
......beep........beep!!!!!:pac::):D
..........or should that be mbeep........mbeep!!!!!:pac::):D
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.........once again you have the apparently wiley old 'Coyote' Evolutionists....who carefully craft complicated three-way dilemma (trilemma) logical traps .......and end up falling into them themselves!!!!
.....and you have the 'Road Runner' J C who pops in .....and just when the 'Coyote' Evolutionists think they are are about to deliver a knockout blow.....the tables are turned on them and their own words 'blow up' in their faces!!!!
.....the issues and the approaches of the 'Coyote' Evolutionists may vary .......but the result is ALWAYS the same.....a throughly defeated 'Coyote' Evolutionist........left flailing around in the dust of a departing victorious 'Road Runner' J C!!!!!
.....and the best part, is that the Evolutionists never 'see it coming'....and they are so dazed that they don't even realise their arguments have been metaphorically annihilated .....they sometimes even come back again to expose their already defeated arguments to further annihilation !!!!!
......beep........beep!!!!!:pac::):D
..........or should that be mbeep........mbeep!!!!!:pac::):D
.
But you didn't actually respond to my statement except to say you didn't understand it. What are you talking about?0 -
AtomicHorror wrote: »It wasn't a question. It was a statement that you either can refute or cannot refute.
......to quote the great Professor Richard Dawkins "methinks it is like a weasel"!!!!!:D
MBEEP........MBEEP!!!:)0 -
AtomicHorror wrote: »It wasn't a question. It was a statement that you either can refute or cannot refute.0
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......I would refute it ..........if I could work out what you were actually saying!!!:pac::):D:eek:
......to quote the great Professor Richard Dawkins "methinks it is like a weasel"!!!!!:D
MBEEP........MBEEP!!!:)......whatever!!!:pac::):D:eek:
So you've got nothing basically. Excellent. A clear and unambiguous point for the "evolutionists". Cheers J C.0 -
.....anyway, the bad news is that I shall be away on a sabbatical for the next week......
......but the good news is......I'll be back. God willing!!!!!!!:D0 -
Well I think you've more or less said all that you can. You've failed to refute a major logical dismantlement of Creationism/ID and now you're just pasting vast blocks of text in lieu of argument. I'm sure you'll be back, but I can hardly see the point.0
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Originally Posted by AtomicHorror
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.
Originally Posted by J C
......I would refute it ..........if I could work out what you were actually saying!!!
......to quote the great Professor Richard Dawkins "methinks it is like a weasel"!!!!!
AtomicHorror
So you've got nothing basically. Excellent. A clear and unambiguous point for the "evolutionists". Cheers J C.
....tell us what you are saying in plain English....and I will blow your argument out of the water!!!!!:D;)
MBEEP...........MBEEP!!!!:D0 -
......it certainly ISN'T clear and unambiguous......nor is it a 'point'.......just an example of an Evolutionist running around in ever decreasing circles......and confusing himself (and everyone else) with his own thoughts!!!!!!:pac::):D
....tell us what you are saying in plain English....and I will blow your argument out of the water!!!!!:D;)
I've already explained it perfectly well. If anyone else on the thread is having difficulty understanding the point I am making above I will certainly rephrase. Otherwise, I invite you to visit my blog, linked in my signature, where I have explained it in much greater detail.0 -
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AtomicHorror wrote: »I've already explained it perfectly well. If anyone else on the thread is having difficulty understanding the point I am making above I will certainly rephrase. Otherwise, I invite you to visit my blog, linked in my signature, where I have explained it in much greater detail.
.....and here are some further quotes from the man himself.....which you may like to put on your site:-
It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed. Letter to J.D. Hooker Febuary 1, 1871
But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? Letter to W. Graham July 3, 1881 see Exposition
But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1905) p.282
A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones. Autobiography of Charles Darwin (1958) p.94
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.......I see you like Charlie Darwin....and that's about it!!!!
.....and here are some further quotes from Charles Darwin.....which you may like to put on your site:-
It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed. Letter to J.D. Hooker Febuary 1, 1871
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage. The Descent of Man (1871) p.168-169
I'd post it, if it were even slightly relevant.0 -
If the long intro or general mention of Darwin tires you, I'd suggest you skip to the second heading "Scientism" which is the relevant part.0
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AtomicHorror wrote: »I'd post it, if it were even slightly relevant.0
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AtomicHorror wrote: »If the long intro or general mention of Darwin tires you, I'd suggest you skip to the second heading "Scientism" which is the relevant part.
.............sounds like old 'C D' was also a bit of a Eugenecist!!!!!:eek:
..........I see you have 'borrowed' my phrase 'Moronic Design' on your site........this raises the following intersting question.....
......if an ID Proponent is called an 'Intelligent Designer'......does this mean that an Evolutionist should be called a 'Moronic Designer'???:eek::D0 -
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.....yes indeed, Darwinism and Scientism do go hand in hand!!!!!:pac::):D
Why are you agreeing with me about something I neither wrote nor implied?.............sounds like old 'C D' was also a bit of a Eugenecist!!!!!:eek:
Where did you get that from? Quote me...........I see you have 'borrowed' my phrase 'Moronic Design' on your site.
Actually I nicked it from these guys:
http://www.moronicdesign.com
It's a pretty obvious phrase, to be fair. "Stupid design" doesn't have much of a ring to it.......if an ID Proponent is called an 'Intelligent Designer'......does this mean that an Evolutionist should be called a 'Moronic Designer'???:eek::D
No, that would imply they believed in an active designer. Design, full stop, is contradicted by evolution.
Now, how about you actually refute my post?0 -
AtomicHorror wrote: »Where did you get that from? Quote me.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FkRJrFLdbr0C&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=%22With+savages,+the+weak+in+body+or+mind+are+soon+eliminated%3B+and+those+that+survive+commonly+exhibit+a+vigorous+state+of+health.+We+civilised+men,+on+the+other+hand,+do+our+utmost+to+check+the+process%22&source=web&ots=fqQxWcTRys&sig=Tr_acb9GN-GUhT6rIrKHElF39ic&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result0 -
Ah, I thought you were responding to my post, not just plucking the same old accusations out of the creationist's stock batch of context-free quotes.
How's that rebuttal coming along?0 -
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