The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

AtomicHorror

Nope, the questions were posed by J C on the very first page of this thread, the fifth post: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=3527599&postcount=5

A post in which he also called the Discovery Institute a "break-away evolutionist group". Years later, he seems to have shifted his stance somewhat and now uses arguments about irreducible complexity.

The Mad Hatter

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Nope, the questions were posed by J C on the very first page of this thread, the fifth post: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=3527599&postcount=5

A post in which also called the Discovery Institute a "break-away evolutionist group". Years later, he seems to have shifted his stance somewhat and now uses arguments about irreducible complexity.

Oh, wow, that's a fossil. And, somewhat relatedly, seems to provide evidence of J C's evolving post-style. Just look - no smilies! Fewer exclamation marks! No endless streams of full stops! No huge blocks of green text!

I'm sure first occurrences of all these mutations could be found if any forum-paleontologist would care to dig around.

2Scoops

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Oh, wow, that's a fossil. And, somewhat relatedly, seems to provide evidence of J C's evolving post-style. Just look - no smilies! Fewer exclamation marks! No endless streams of full stops! No huge blocks of green text!

I'm sure first occurrences of all these mutations could be found if any forum-paleontologist would care to dig around.

I think he's slowly gone insane from the constant stream of questions he can't answer. That's why the green smilie with the maniacal grin is his fave -> . Either that, or the pressure of hiding all the creation science secrets and the not letting anyone get the creation scientist NOC list...

Pahu

kiffer wrote: »

This sir, I would maintain, is poppycock.
I challenge you to provide me with a such fossil from the Cambrian... or retract the statement.
I think you are a little confused... there are samples of pretty much all modern phyla found in the Cambrian but not all classes/subclasses and so on...
For example in the Cambrian we find members of the phylum Chordata... but not any members of the class synapsids/theropsids, (a subset of Chordata, they don't show up till the carboniferous) mammals are a subclass of this and don't show up in the record until the Triassic... there are no mammal fossils in Cambrian deposits... there are no members of the Superorder Dinosauria found in the Cambrian deposits...
You don't even find land plants (embryophytes) in the Cambrian, what would your crypo-dinos eat? Manna from heaven?

Nearly all animal phyla made their first appearance in the fossil record at essentially the same time, at what is called the "Cambrian Explosion."

Scientists have found that these early fossils exhibit more anatomical body designs than exist today, and that early animals, the trilobites, had eyes as fully developed as their counterparts today.

Many of the Cambrian fauna, still survive today, all looking much like they did before the “explosion.” The prominent British evolutionist, Richard Dawkins, comments, "... [W]e find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history."

Two places in the world have an abundance of early (Cambrian) fossils; the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies and the Chengjiang site in China.

In Stephen J. Gould's popular book, Wonderful Life, he points out that the Burgess Shale Cambrian fossils include "a range of disparity in anatomical design never again equaled, and not matched today by all the creatures in the world's oceans."

Further, these fossils contain some twenty to thirty kinds of arthropods that cannot be placed in any modern group. The modern arthropods, consisting of almost a million species, can all fit into four major groups. But "one quarry in British Columbia, representing the first explosion of multicellular life, reveals more than twenty additional arthropod designs." Today there are about 38 phyla in existence, but the Canadian, Chinese and other Cambrian sites reveal over fifty phyla.

There has been a decrease in diversity (probably due to global catastrophes). This is the reverse of what evolutionary theory predicts.

Besides diversity, the Burgess Shale shows exquisite detail, right down to "the last filament of a trilobite's gill," or the last meal in a worm's gut.

The Chengjiang site has even greater detail, and is earlier. According to Paul Chien, the chairman of the biology department at the University of San Francisco, said the preservation is such that internal organs, nerves, and even the water ducts of jellyfish are observable.

Researchers found striking similarities between the compound eyes of the Cambrian trilobites and those of modern insects. According to Riccardo Levi-Setti, "Trilobites could see in their immediate environment with amazingly sophisticated optical devices in the form of large composite eyes. ... The number of individual optical elements in the compound eye could vary from approximately one hundred to more than fifteen thousand in a single eye, a range not very different from that found in modern insects."

The conclusion is that the eye, a complex visual system, was fully formed and functional extremely early in the fossil record. Obviously, this is not predicted by evolutionary theory.

Until recently, the phylum of vertebrates had been considered a later arrival in evolutionary history. But not now! Even the vertebrate phylum now extends into the Cambrian period, especially with the recent discovery of two fossil fish in China.
The two new fossils...from Chengjiang are the most convincing Early Cambrian vertebrates ever found. The insects and other land invertebrates are also a very important group, and these practically all seem to be living fossils.

These complex animals were present at the beginning of multicellular life and did not appear later as is predicted by evolutionary theory.

Evolution does not explain the abrupt appearance of complex forms of life early in the fossil record or these fossils' unequaled diversity. The implication of the Cambrian explosion of diverse, fully functional, and multicellular life is that evolutionary theory is falsified.

Life did not start out simple and evolve into more complex and diverse animals; it was complex and diverse right at the beginning. This contradiction between the fossil data and the predictions of evolutionary theory falsifies the theory.

"The facts of paleontology seem to support creation rather than evolution. All the major groups of invertebrates appear suddenly in the first fossiliferous strata. (Cambrian) of the earth with their distinct specializations, indicating that they were all created at almost the same time." - David Enock Associate Professor of Biology. BS Yeshiva College, MS Hunter College.

Even George Gaylord Simpson, Harvard high priest of evolution had to admit, “In spite of the examples, it remains true (as every paleontologist knows) that most new species, genera and families appear in the record suddenly, and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.”

2Scoops

Don't forget to cite your sources, Pahu!

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/explosion.htm

Pahu

Rapid Burial

Fossils all over the world show evidence of rapid burial. Many fossils, such as fossilized jellyfish (a), show by the details of their soft, fleshy portions (b) that they were buried rapidly, before they could decay. (Normally, dead animals and plants quickly decompose.) The presence of fossilized remains of many other animals, buried in mass graves and lying in twisted and contorted positions, suggests violent and rapid burials over large areas (c). These observations, together with the occurrence of compressed fossils and fossils that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock, are strong evidence that the sediments encasing these fossils were deposited rapidly—not over hundreds of millions of years. Furthermore, almost all sediments that formed today’s rocks were sorted by water. The worldwide fossil record is, therefore, evidence of rapid death and burial of animal and plant life by a worldwide, catastrophic flood. The fossil record is not evidence of slow change (d).

a. Thousands of jellyfish, many bigger than a dinner plate, are found in at least seven different horizons of coarse-grained, abrasive sandstone in Wisconsin. [See James W. Hagadorn et al., “Stranded on a Late Cambrian Shoreline: Medusae from Central Wisconsin,” Geology, Vol. 30, No. 2, February 2002, pp. 147–150.]

Coarse grains slowly covering a jellyfish would allow atmospheric oxygen to migrate in and produce rapid decay. Burial in clay or mud would better shield an organism from decay. If coarse-grain sand buried these jellyfish in a storm, turbulence and abrasion by the sand grains would tear and destroy the jellyfish.

Charles Darwin recognized the problem of finding fossilized soft-bodied organisms such as jellyfish. He wrote:

“No organism wholly soft can be preserved.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 330.

Once again, a prediction of evolution is seen to be wrong.

Preston Cloud and Martin F. Glaessner, “The Ediacarian Period and System: Metazoa Inherit the Earth,” Science, Vol. 217, 27 August 1982, pp. 783–792. [See also the cover of that issue.]

Martin F. Glaessner, “Pre-Cambrian Animals,” Scientific American, Vol. 204, March 1961, pp. 72–78.

b. Donald G. Mikulic et al., “A Silurian Soft-Bodied Biota,” Science, Vol. 228, 10 May 1985, pp. 715–717.

“... preconditions for the preservation of soft-bodied faunas: rapid burial of fossils in undisturbed sediment; deposition in an environment free from the usual agents of immediate destruction—primarily oxygen and other promoters of decay, and the full range of organisms, from bacteria to large scavengers, that quickly reduce most carcasses to oblivion in nearly all earthly environments; and minimal disruption by the later ravages of heat, pressure, fracturing, and erosion....But the very conditions that promote preservation also decree that few organisms, if any, make their natural homes in such places.” Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1989), pp. 61–62.

c. Presse Grayloise, “Very Like a Whale,” The Illustrated London News, 1856, p. 116.

Sunderland, pp. 111–114.

David Starr Jordan, “A Miocene Catastrophe,” Natural History, Vol. 20, January–February 1920, pp. 18–22.

Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1858), pp. 221–225.

d. Harold G. Coffin, Origin By Design (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1983), pp. 30–40.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes21.html#wp1012558

AtomicHorror

Rather than posting vast essays and then disappearing for a week, why not engage in the debate a little?

As it is, all you're doing is pasting blocks of text verbatim from websites. That is spamming and we will not reply to spam, especially if you show no interest in replying to us with your own words.

Zombrex

Pahu wrote: »

Fossils all over the world show evidence of rapid burial.

That is because a lot of fossilsed animals died and were rapidly buried

Geologists have never had any problem with the idea that some fossils would result from rapid burial of an animal, for example in a mud slide or a swamp. That has never been an issue of contention.

The problem for Creationist isn't the mud encasing the fossil. The problem is the 1 mile of solid rock above the mud encasing the fossil. :rolleyes:

Fossils can certainly end up being created due to shifting material. The idea though that the fossil and the meters upon meters of rock above the fossil were laid down by a single flood is, to put it mildly, one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard of, particularly when you can see in the rocks themselves that there is a uniformity of the deposits that would be impossible to explain in a single event

robindch

Pahu wrote: »

Rapid Burial

Great cut and paste job! Here's a response I came across a while ago:

http://www.foobar.org/robin/reply-to-creationism.html

AtomicHorror

Interesting:

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t667504-science-disproves-evolution.html

Pahu gets around.

Reported for spamming.

Pahu

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Rather than posting vast essays and then disappearing for a week, why not engage in the debate a little?

As it is, all you're doing is pasting blocks of text verbatim from websites. That is spamming and we will not reply to spam, especially if you show no interest in replying to us with your own words.

I am happy to debate if you give me something worth debating. Basically, I am sharing information from scientists who have found facts that disprove evolution. Your argument is with them, not me.

darjeeling

Pahu wrote: »

I am happy to debate if you give me something worth debating.

All you have done so far is paste great tracts of creoweb - as indeed you have done all over the internet. This is called spamming.

Pahu wrote: »

Basically, I am sharing information from scientists who have found facts that disprove evolution. Your argument is with them, not me.

And this is not even true. A number of people took issue when you posted/pasted this, claiming terrestrial vertebrate fossils in the Cambrian:

Pahu wrote: »

The Cambrian layer has virtually every species known to man. Yes, dinosaurs, birds, reptiles, and enormous varieties of each all coexist in this layer.

And where did you get this from? Here:

learnthebible.org wrote:

(link)
The Cambrian layer has virtually every phyla [sic] known to man. Yes, all major body plans and enormous varieties of each all coexist in this layer.

So no scientists support your claim - you just made these fossils up! And the people who called you on it weren't arguing with scientists - they were arguing with you.

AtomicHorror

Pahu wrote: »

I am happy to debate if you give me something worth debating.

Well, as it happens I have just the thing. You can ignore the stuff directed a J C.

1. Provide a genetic test for Created Kinds. According to you, the taxa is both real and fundamental, so it should be innately more testable than any element of Linnean taxonomy, which is merely a labelling system.

2. Define "Created Pair" in biological and genetic terms. As with 1, this should be easy. Please refrain from scripture-based definitions.

3. Specifically for J C or whoever originally quoted Dr. Gee: Explain whether you intentionally or unintentionally quoted Dr. Gee out of context by suggesting that he was talking about a topic (the theory of evolution) that he was not actually addressing. Justify whichever choice you made in terms of your morals.

4. Please name some scientists currently engaged in creation research. Preferably provide examples of research papers (not reviews or essays) published in the last two years. We will accept scientists engaged in primary research at any institution, whether their briefs specify creation science or not, if their work can be shown to be directly connected with creation science.

5. Please provide an example of the "downward mixing" that should be visible in the fossil record if it is actually evidence of a turbulent flood. We will accept any organism that should only have emerged in the last 100 million years being found at any dated layer below 400 million years. This would be rather modest mixing in the top 10% of layers, but one irrefutable example will suffice.

6. Please clearly confirm that you have now accepted that either a) Your Designer is inept b) your Designer is disinterested in individual human survival c) irreducible complexity is not evidence of design but of mutation or d) redundancy (and thus new function) can arise by mutation. This is not an arbitrary four-way choice, the logic is explained here.

7. Please provide data confirming the rapid sedimentation/rock formation processes that you describe as occurring during the The Flood. The data may be from any primary source but must be based upon wet lab or field work data, rather than a mathematical model or simulation. Since you describe the process as having taken only a few years, this should be testable. The process must be naturally-occuring, fast enough and common enough to explain the build up of the entire fossil record within 10,000 years.

8. Please provide data demonstrating the mathematical, chemical or biological impossibility of the process of evolution. Some conditions: a) Whether the process did or did not occur is not relevant to the "possibility". b) Please confine your data to the process of evolution itself, that being the emergence of variation within life from a pre-formed common ancestor species. c) Abiogenesis is not a consideration. d) Data supporting Creation also does not impact on "possibility".

9. Following on from question 1, it has been asserted that kinds are defined not by genetics but by interbreeding capacity, producing fertile or infertile offspring. Please suggest a means by which we could test the difference between a genuine Created Kind and a false kind or pseudokind that has arisen by the emergence of a new species unable to breed with its former Kind due either to a chromosomal mutation, gene insertion mutation, extinction of an intermediate species or other means in the distant past.

10. Please explain by what mechanism a Created Kind such as the Motherfly Kind could have diversified to produce 148,000 known species (not counting extinct or unidentified species) within the 4,400 years since Noah's Flood. Please explain why such rapid speciation is no longer occurring.

11. Do you think it was morally wrong for an Answers In Genesis film crew to mislead Richard Dawkins into providing an interview for them?

12. J C, why, when attacking abiogenesis, do you do so on the basis of the random formation of peptides- a process not claimed to be a part of any of the conventional abiogenesis hypotheses?

13. J C, following your claim that the Creator is "probably" irreducibly complex, can you explain how this irreducibly complex being came into existence? As irreducible complexity cannot arise without intelligent intervention, what intelligence created the Creator?

Pahu wrote: »

Basically, I am sharing information from scientists who have found facts that disprove evolution. Your argument is with them, not me.

That's a total cop out. If they come here and present their arguments then my argument is with them. Otherwise it's with you. Defend yourself or go away.

And stop spamming please.

AtomicHorror

robindch wrote: »

Great cut and paste job! Here's a response I came across a while ago:

http://www.foobar.org/robin/reply-to-creationism.html

Concise and to the point.

AtomicHorror

http://wastelandofwonders.yuku.com/reply/75271/t/Re-Science-Disproves-Evolution.html#reply-75271

Identical posts to his posts here and on VelocityReviews.com

A quick search on Google for +"Pahu" and "creationism" or even bits and pieces of his posts shows that he's been on pretty much every creation/atheist/evolution forum posting the same stuff. For a couple of years.

Google Groups, Yahoo! Boards, beliefnet.com, AT&T.net... one determined spammer.

Asiaprod

Pahu wrote: »

Rapid Burial.....Burial blah blah blah.

Pahu, this is your one and only warning. You are spamming this board with cut and paste quotes. The idea here is to engage in debate. If you believe you really must post someone's work, embed a link and do not forget to cite your sources. Any more spam of this nature from you and your evolution on this thread will cease as abruptly at that of the dinosaurs - you will be permanently banned from the Christianity Forum.

@all, please report any continuation of this spamming. Thanks.

J C

Asiaprod wrote: »

Pahu, this is your one and only warning. You are spamming this board with cut and paste quotes. The idea here is to engage in debate. If you believe you really must post someone's work, embed a link and do not forget to cite your sources. Any more spam of this nature from you and your evolution on this thread will cease as abruptly at that of the dinosaurs - you will be permanently banned from the Christianity Forum.

@all, please report any continuation of this spamming. Thanks.

...I don't think that using NEW quotes that are relevant to the topic is spamming!!!
Neither is the use of similar postings that are relevant on different threads!!!

However, now that you are in judgemental mode, could you please apply your spamming judgement to AH ... who has asked the SAME 13 questions repeatedly on this thread ... and received an answer from me repeatedly.

The fact he doesn't like my answer DOESN'T mean that he can ask the same questions repeatedly ... thereby 'clogging up' the debate!!!

Everyone on the thread can judge the quality of my answers ... and I am prepared to accept their judgement on this as on all other matters.:D

...move on AH ... get over it ... 'Mice to Man Evolution' is a load of 'cobblers' ... and by now you too know it!!!!:D

Asiaprod

J C wrote: »

However, now that you are in judgemental mode, could you please apply your spamming judgement...

After 962 odd pages JC...I don't think you want me to do this...do you...:eek::eek::eek:;):rolleyes::):p

J C

AtomicHorror wrote: »

-I posted some questions.
-After a very long time, you posted some replies.
-I immediately went through these one by one and explained fully why these were not satisfactory.
-We await your rebuttal.

-You posted some questions (I don't remember seeing them before so perhaps it has been a very long time- for all I know, I've already replied to them)
-After a very long time, someone posted some replies.
-You dismissed them all in a single sarcastic remark.
-We cannot offer a meaningful rebuttal to a sarcastic remark.

If this is the way that you will conduct yourself, then we are not obligated to answer your questions at all. The evidence suggests that you will dismiss our replies without explanation. That is not a debate, it is denial.

I have answered all of your questions ... and you are the one in denial!!!!:D
....and the 'single sarcastic remark' ... 'marking' all of the answers to my questions as a 'fail' ... was originally made by Gryphonboy.:):eek::D

J C

Asiaprod wrote: »

After 962 odd pages JC...I don't think you want me to do this...do you...:eek::eek::eek:;):rolleyes::):p

... don't mind ... I might even enjoy it ... at this stage!!!:D

BTW your signature may provide the solution for all of the Evolutionists who are in deep denial over the manifest evidence for Creation.
"The hardest part about gaining any new Idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it - once you can honestly say, "I don't know" - then it becomes possible to get at the truth."

...I like it!!!!:D:eek:

Asiaprod

J C wrote: »

...I like it!!!!:D:eek:

We aim to please:)

Zombrex

Pahu wrote: »

I am happy to debate if you give me something worth debating. Basically, I am sharing information from scientists who have found facts that disprove evolution. Your argument is with them, not me.

They aren't here, plus you are misrepresenting their positions and posting nonsense, so yes I'm afraid the argument is with you, not them.

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

I have answered all of your questions ... and you are the one in denial!!!!:D

Replies and answers are not always the same thing.

J C wrote: »

....and the 'single sarcastic remark' ... 'marking' all of the answers to my questions as a 'fail' ... was originally made by Gryphonboy.:):eek::D

Gryphonboy justified his remarks in each case. More briefly than I would do myself perhaps, but he did explain himself in each case. He was blunt, but your dismissal of him added nothing.

J C wrote: »

However, now that you are in judgemental mode, could you please apply your spamming judgement to AH ... who has asked the SAME 13 questions repeatedly on this thread ... and received an answer from me repeatedly.

Twice. And the first time as I recall, there were only 8 questions. And on both occasions your replies either did not address the question or were basically evasion. As I have said before when a question is "name a natural process..." and the reply is "concrete", the question just hasn't been answered.

I can understand why you don't like the questions being asked, but I honestly don't think it is unreasonable to continue asking a question until it is answered. Isn't that what a scientist is supposed to do?

J C wrote: »

The fact he doesn't like my answer DOESN'T mean that he can ask the same questions repeatedly ... thereby 'clogging up' the debate!!!

I have never posted the questions more than once on a page, and typically less than once every three pages or so. A bit of an exaggeration to suggest that they clog up anything other than your head. And a touch hypocritical given your original responses to the questions, which was to fill pages full of quotes copied from websites. You are correct, I certainly don't like the replies you've given. Because they are not answers.

J C wrote: »

Everyone on the thread can judge the quality of my answers ... and I am prepared to accept their judgement on this as on all other matters.:D

Including mine, surely? I made my judgement and you ignored it. I'd like you to address my responses to your replies. That's a debate. And as the questions remain unanswered I intend to keep asking in the hopes that you, or more likely some more wiley creationist, can give me some answers.

J C wrote: »

...move on AH ... get over it ... 'Mice to Man Evolution' is a load of 'cobblers' ... and by now you too know it!!!!:D

You really would like me to just stop asking you uncomfortable questions and go away, wouldn't you? See, I think we've got you guys on the run. I think you're feeling doubts. I have no intention of stopping.

darjeeling

darjeeling wrote: »

So no scientists support your claim - you just made these fossils up! And the people who called you on it weren't arguing with scientists - they were arguing with you.

A mea culpa, sed non maxima. Internet time travel (aka the wayback machine) reveals that it wasn't Pahu who invented the Cambrian dinosaur etc fossils. No, it was the person who wrote the LTB article - only they pulled the claim in 2007, presumably after finally realising that it was nonsense.

The LTB 'Creation Science' section is the proud preserve of one Chris Wilhoit - Hovind follower and President of the East Tennessee Creation Science Association - and he seems to have written much of the content. In 2005, a discussion between Wilhoit and other Baptists highlighted the Cambrian fossil mistake, but it still took LTB over two years to put right. Their bad.

Still, Pahu, uncritically posting a singly-sourced, unreferenced claim retracted two years ago by the original lay author is not "sharing information from scientists who have found facts that disprove evolution"; it's posting junk - and expect to be called out for that.

2Scoops

J C wrote: »

Everyone on the thread can judge the quality of my answers ... and I am prepared to accept their judgement on this as on all other matters.:D

Eh, poor quality?

robindch

darjeeling wrote: »

Internet time travel reveals [...]

Great detective work.

Aren't fossils such awful trouble to creationists?

AtomicHorror

2Scoops wrote: »

Eh, poor quality?

Well that's two judgements. Though I'm sure one of the creationists will shortly weigh in to tell us that white is black.

wolfsbane

2Scoops wrote: »

Exactly. This is not a difficult concept. Perform an experiment. Document your results. Present the results. = science. Write an essay about creation with no evidence and that is not science.

Wolfsbane are you listening? First it was the atheist conspiracy to not publish creation science. No evidence of this could be found because no creation science was ever submitted to a journal. Then it was the science is there but you couldn't actually find any! You are out of excuses. The ONLY creation science science that exists is the stuff that J C (y'know, that guy/girl that we orbit?) did and he won't tell ANYONE what it is! He won't pick out a single creation scientist because he knows none will have a record of ever performing creation science. You freely point to people who you think are creation scientists (even though none perform creation research). Why do you think that he won't?! :pac:

Here's a couple for you, since all my previous referals were rejected as essays or reviews:
http://www.grisda.org/origins/52007.pdf

http://www.grisda.org/origins/54005.pdf
I take you you agree that rapid post-Flood diversification is a part of the creationist argument?

http://www.grisda.org/origins/60006.pdf

I take you you agree that rapid post-Flood diversification is a part of the creationist argument?

I take it you agree that Irreducible Complexity is a part of the creationist argument?

I'll post more from other disciplines later, DV.

wolfsbane

2Scoops wrote: »

What is dishonest?

Rubbishing other's work because you don't agree with it's conclusions, rather than disagreeing respectfully. It is dishonest propaganda, not scholarly criticism.

The Mad Hatter

wolfsbane wrote: »

Rubbishing other's work because you don't agree with it's conclusions, rather than disagreeing respectfully. It is dishonest propaganda, not scholarly criticism.

I think, generally, it's the methods that are sloppy (or in many cases non-existent) - not the conclusions.