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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)
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....the blurb presents the context of the video....
....the film itself presents the VIEWS of BOTH Materialists and ID Proponents ... and the viewer can make up their minds as to the truth.
The blurb reads as a balanced expression of the current controversies surrounding Materialistic Evolutionism, ID and Creationism.
I could equally, (and incorrectly) whinge that the video didn't address 6 Day Creationism by reading into the blurb, that because it mentioned Young Earth Creationism, that Creation Scientists should have been interviewed for the film.
What you are trying to do is to 'tie the hands' of the makers of the video to doing what YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE DONE as as result of the facts presented in the blurb.
I would have liked Ben Stein to have interviewed Young Earth Creation Scientists in his film ... but I recognise that he had (and should have had) the editorial freedom to not do so if he didn't wish to do so!!!!
This is nonsense J C, and you know that....and the weakness in such an approach is that IF GOD DID DO IT ... then any Materialistic explanation IS ONLY A FAIRY TALE...and thus science (as you define it) could be completely discredited!!!!
Please. If God exists and is interventionist, then we should be able to observe and explain that. A God immune to science is a non-interventionist God who leaves no marks on the world.Science MUST protect itself from such possible ridicule by always evaluating the OBSERVABLE EVIDENCE for God ACTUALLY doing it!!!!
Hardly. Science once considered that possibility, but as God fled further and further from the universe, science abandoned His existence as being an irrational starting assumption.It's a bit like a forensic scientist who attends possible crime scenes and who ALWAYS rules out the action of intelligence ... and ONLY looks for natural/ materialistic explantions for all evidence at the crime scene!!
Your analogies always suck terribly. The existence of intelligence capable of performing crimes is not in question....resulting in the follwing conclusions:-
...knife stuck in head ... must have spontaneously fallen down on her from the ceiling, of it's own accord!!!
....strangulation marks on body....must have choked himsel!!!
....poison in bloodstream....must have been in the tap water that he drank!!!!
....throat cut.....must be a haemophiliac!!!!
....smoking gun beside body....victim mudst be a smoker!!!!
Round of applause for the worst analogy you've pulled off to date. The existence of humans is not in doubt. The existence of God is.Obviously a competent Forensic Scientist considers the possibility of BOTH Natural AND Intelligent causation for the evidence at a crime scene...
Again, because it is well-known that intelligent influence is a significant possibility. Ask that forensic scientist if there is reason to assume that life required an intelligent origin.....Ben Stein is a Liberal Jew .... certainly NOT a 'conservative religious type' .... and he doesn't think much of the evidence for Evolution!!!!!
Is this part of your stand-up act? What liberal writes speeches for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford? What liberal writes a column for The American Spectator. Conservative presidents, conservative publication and a bias in favour of creationism. Liberal? Just how many delusions can a single person hold in their head at the same time?...I don't bow to any dogma nor any authority other than Jesus Christ...
Yeah, that's what I was talking about. You can't figure out how people can survive without it, can you? Instead of trying to figure it out, you decide to make a lie of it. But here we are, surviving and happy. When you understand how, it'll either destroy you or free you.the dogmatists and the authoritarians within science, seem to be the guys who want to sack anybody even suggesting an intelligent origin for life!!!!
Would you expect a biologist to retain his employ as a lecturer if he consistently asserted that Thor created life? Will the Discovery Institute give me a job if I tell them I believe that abiogenesis is plausible? Get off your high horse please.0 -
Fanny Cradock wrote: »Poor JC! You cant expect him to have all the answers for creationism.
He seems to be the only person willing to venture any. Wolfsbane presents science on an authority basis (as long as it agrees with his views), and let's not talk about Captain Copypaste.
We don't expect all the answers, but it would be nice if the ones we did get made sense and/or didn't contradict each other.0 -
Hyenas don't live in the jungle. Plus they are one of the most social and least selfish animals out there.
*never listens to a word AH says ever again*
:P
It's the metaphorical Jungle of the World! I'll have to take your word on the hyenas, but I'm sure J C will find some other species that he can use to justify whatever morality he fancies. Hopefully he'll do that after he addresses posts #14769, #14748 and #14707.0 -
Has anyone else noticed that Gryphonboy has made precisely one post?
And that his post, though it supported evolution, helped get J C out of the bind that AtomicHorror's questions had put him in?
You see where I'm going with this?0 -
The Mad Hatter wrote: »Has anyone else noticed that Gryphonboy has made precisely one post?
And that his post, though it supported evolution, helped get J C out of the bind that AtomicHorror's questions had put him in?
You see where I'm going with this?0 -
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The Mad Hatter wrote: »But you're still running with the idea that if evolution led to this sort of behaviour then it would be false, which is patently absurd.
Does this really need to be explained to you?
The only thing falsified if evolution is true is objective morality.0 -
AtomicHorror said:Wolfsbane claims that the western atheist holds these values only because of the prevailing influence of Christian religion. Strange then that cultures that reject Christianity or have limited contact or familiarity with it still seem to have very similar core values. Family units, companionship, altruism, human life, human happiness...
Of course all other cultures have many similar core values. They all come from our first parents and then from Noah and his family. We are all one blood. We all have a God-given conscience that to some degree rebukes our wickedness.
Had the western atheist been cushioned from Christian values, he to would still have that conscience. Being exposed, he has greater light, and therefore a greater responsibility to choose to affirm what the morality and conscience inform him are 'right'.0 -
There is absolutely NO evidence that these radiohalos are solely related to polonium decay (the central conceit of this investigation). Hence, it does not support YE creationism. It does not even pass the 1st hurdle. But please look for more like this - where they actually did something.
It does look very science-y though, doesn't it? Lots of big words. Incidentally, is this one of the papers you understand or one of the ones you don't?0 -
....yes....you're becoming totally paranoid!!!!:pac::):D
Well, the idea that you may be a troll is not a new one. I'm just throwing this bit of evidence into the ring. I haven't made up my mind either way, though.
That said, it's a bit hypocritical of you to be calling people paranoid, isn't it? What with all that nonsense about guidestones and all that...0 -
This has been explained countless times at this stage. You're just teasing me, I know it. But once more, with feeling: an invest9gation will involve a hypothesis being tested by way of some kind of experiment or data collection. The data being the key. The investigation being the key. Essays are just words - there are no data. DATA. SCIENCE.
An investigation into creation will be just that: an investigation that tests a creation-related hypothesis.
Ok, read carefully: evidence that supports a young earth is exactly what we want to see. REALLY IMPORTANT: just because something doesn't directly contradict YEC, doesn't mean that it supports it. E.g. the fact that airplanes exist does not contradict YEC. The fact that airplanes exists does not support YEC. Get it? Got it? Good.
Yes, I agree that the fact that airplanes exists does not support YEC.
But I thought you claimed that fact did support evolution. As I recall, you raved on about washing machines, cars, medicine, etc. all being impossible without evolution being true.
Seems you have come to my conclusion - that the science involved in all those items stands whether or not evolution or creationism are correct.0 -
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AtomicHorror said:
I was speaking about the western atheist. He has been informed by western influences, notably Christian morality.
Yes... I said "western atheist".Of course all other cultures have many similar core values. They all come from our first parents and then from Noah and his family. We are all one blood. We all have a God-given conscience that to some degree rebukes our wickedness.
Yes, but they're not influenced strongly by Christian morality, are they? Because even by your reckoning, they've be morally independent since before the time of Christ. They have Christian-like morality and we don't credit Christ. So in the absence of evidence, why assume the Western Atheist cannot maintain a similar morality without Christ?Had the western atheist been cushioned from Christian values, he to would still have that conscience. Being exposed, he has greater light, and therefore a greater responsibility to choose to affirm what the morality and conscience inform him are 'right'.
Evidence?0 -
But I thought you claimed that fact did support evolution. As I recall, you raved on about washing machines, cars, medicine, etc. all being impossible without evolution being true.Seems you have come to my conclusion - that the science involved in all those items stands whether or not evolution or creationism are correct.
I'm waiting for the data from you that may suggest otherwise...0 -
AtomicHorror said:
I was speaking about the western atheist. He has been informed by western influences, notably Christian morality.
Of course all other cultures have many similar core values. They all come from our first parents and then from Noah and his family. We are all one blood. We all have a God-given conscience that to some degree rebukes our wickedness.
Had the western atheist been cushioned from Christian values, he to would still have that conscience. Being exposed, he has greater light, and therefore a greater responsibility to choose to affirm what the morality and conscience inform him are 'right'.
But that is just more God of the gaps nonsense. The first question I would ask is if our god given moral instinct rebukes our wickedness where does that come from? Isn't it all "God given"? Did someone else give us our instinct to be wicked?
We all have the same basic moral systems because we are all humans, and humans evolved these moral systems from our ancestors. It is literally in our genes, our genetic coding that goes to build our brains. So is it with other animals that share our lineage, which is why you find these human like basic moral systems in species closely related to us, such as Apes, and why you find some kind of moral systems in most animals with larger brains.
That fits evolutionary theory rather well, right down to where you can start messing around with morality in animals by altering this.
Or one could say that God gave humans some form of basic morality but for some unknown and unexplained reason decided not to do a very good job of that, or did do a good job at it but that some unknown and unexplained event known only as "The Fall" some how, in some unknown and unexplained way, altered the genetic make up of our DNA to cause our brains to develop differently thus giving us some different systems of morality than the unknown one we had encoded into our DNA before "The Fall" while some how, in an unknown and unexplained way, managed not to simply jumbling up our DNA altogether into a mess that would cause all humans to die (who "intelligently" re-designed our DNA during the Fall?). And for some unknown and unexplained reason this event also managed to rearrange the DNA of a host of other animals on Earth who also share remarkably similar moral instincts to us, or possibly God just gave them these instincts, again not doing a very good job of it, in the first place for some unknown and unexplained reason.
Yes, let me think for a minute. Which of these ideas explains our moral instincts. :rolleyes:0 -
tl;dr:o
But I've had a look at some of the posts here. Some good ones. If I might jump in I'd like to.
First if it's Darwin vs 4000 year old Earth, I opt out of that debate because only a loony would engage in it.
But, for the atheists/scientists here: The evidence I'd have for believing in some form of creation is that humans are observably different from other animals. And I don't mean DNA different etc. Just different. They have free will and guilt to name but two characteristics.
1. Do you think there's a substantial divide between humans and "all other species"?
2. If yes, do you think this can be explained by evolution (complex neuron networks or whatever mechanism)?
3. If so, on what grounds do you base this assumption?
4. Apart from cultural norrms, (and primitive evolved instincts), why would you distinguish between human beings and other life forms in your morality? Especially if you can profit as an individual from not treating humans with (post-)Christian moral standards?
I broke it down a bit becasues the paragraphs would have been tl;dr. I've no mission here, I'm just curious about the whole thing. I don't expect to change my view on creation but my faith doesn't depend on it and the science is interesting. (Anyway weren't there two days already before God even created the Earth to spin about its axis so it's obviously a funny timescale)0 -
postcynical wrote: »1. Do you think there's a substantial divide between humans and "all other species"?
2. If yes, do you think this can be explained by evolution (complex neuron networks or whatever mechanism)?
3. If so, on what grounds do you base this assumption?
4. Apart from cultural norrms, (and primitive evolved instincts), why would you distinguish between human beings and other life forms in your morality? Especially if you can profit as an individual from not treating humans with (post-)Christian moral standards?
1) We're increasingly finding that the traits we see in humans are seen in some form in other species. Trying to draw a divide between humans and all other species is as arbitrary as drawing a divide between giant pandas and all other species. So I guess that's a 'No'.
2) N/A
3) N/A
4) All people are the same species as us, and so we have a special relationship with them that we don't have with any other animals (try having a conversation with your dog). That's why we have evolved instincts and culture affecting the way we treat other people.0 -
postcynical wrote: »But, for the atheists/scientists here: The evidence I'd have for believing in some form of creation is that humans are observably different from other animals.postcynical wrote: »And I don't mean DNA different etc. Just different. They have free will and guilt to name but two characteristics.postcynical wrote: »1. Do you think there's a substantial divide between humans and "all other species"?
We are different from every other species, but then every species is different from every other species.
Picking arbitrary characteristics that humans have, such as big brain, and saying no other species has them doesn't really demonstrate that we are unusual in nature. You could pick a unique feature of the humming bird and say the same thing about it.postcynical wrote: »4. Apart from cultural norrms, (and primitive evolved instincts), why would you distinguish between human beings and other life forms in your morality?
From an ethical point of view we can, and do, consider ourselves special because we assign higher value to some of the characteristics we hold, such as our higher brain functions.
But that is not a "human" thing, it is based on the properties of those abilities. If it is determined that other animals, such as apes, also share these abilities, to enough of a degree that we consider that also valuable, then logically we should and must extend rights to those creatures as well. The same holds for theoretical artificial intelligence that we may or may not create some time in the distant future. From an ethical point of view it is not about being human but more about characteristics humans have.
A good analogy is cars. All models of cars, from Fords to Mercs, are cars. They are cars because they fit certain fundamental characteristics. Likewise all models of cars are different from each other. No model of car is more of a car than any other. A 400,000 euro Merc is a car, so is a 4,000 Ford. They aren't the same, but you can't single on out from the rest and say this car is different. They are all different, and they are all cars.
Now, from a human perspective we assign value to certain characteristics of a car. This has nothing to do with the physical reality of a car, and everything to do with what humans consider valuable, both in terms of monetary value and abstract value. So a 400,000 Merc is not just randomly 100 times more expensive, it is more expensive because it holds more value to a human, based on the characteristics that particular humans feel are important.
Despite the Merc being worth 100 times more money to a particular human than the Ford, it would be wrong to say that this makes the Merc more of a car. It is still a car. Another person from Mars might think that it has little value at all, and that the Ford is much better and more valuable car, and then according to the Martian the Ford has the valuable characteristics.
Hope that makes my position a bit clearer0 -
postcynical wrote: »
1. Do you think there's a substantial divide between humans and "all other species"?
2. If yes, do you think this can be explained by evolution (complex neuron networks or whatever mechanism)?
3. If so, on what grounds do you base this assumption?
4. Apart from cultural norrms, (and primitive evolved instincts), why would you distinguish between human beings and other life forms in your morality? Especially if you can profit as an individual from not treating humans with (post-)Christian moral standards?
2, No
3. I believe man was created elsewhere in the universe as a slave to fight wars for an extraterrestrial civilisation and when they were finished with man they dumped him on this planet .
4.Man was created as a slave to fight wars , and basically he is still fighting on earth and not realizing it is no longer necessary , he still creates the weapons he used long ago on other planets and does'nt recognize it's no longer necessary , because that was long ago and we are in a different situation here.
(i did not fully understand question 4)0 -
espinolman wrote: »1. Yes
2, No
3. I believe man was created elsewhere in the universe as a slave to fight wars for an extraterrestrial civilisation and when they were finished with man they dumped him on this planet .
4.Man was created as a slave to fight wars , and basically he is still fighting on earth and not realizing it is no longer necessary , he still creates the weapons he used long ago on other planets and does'nt recognize it's no longer necessary , because that was long ago and we are in a different situation here.
(i did not fully understand question 4)
Well that's refreshing! Er - welcome to the thread!0 -
postcynical wrote: »1. Do you think there's a substantial divide between humans and "all other species"?
Not really. More or less every characteristic we hold as unique to humans can be found in some other species. For example our capacity for problem solving is, as far as I can tell, unparalleled in extent. But it is found to lesser extents in many other primates and even in birds.
It's more the combination of certain characteristics and their extent that is unique to humans. But the same could be said for many other species.postcynical wrote: »2. If yes, do you think this can be explained by evolution (complex neuron networks or whatever mechanism)?
It's a "no", so obviously it's explicable purely through evolution.postcynical wrote: »3. If so, on what grounds do you base this assumption?
Same answer really.postcynical wrote: »4. Apart from cultural norrms, (and primitive evolved instincts), why would you distinguish between human beings and other life forms in your morality? Especially if you can profit as an individual from not treating humans with (post-)Christian moral standards?
Depends what direction you're coming from there. Your question implies that we treat animals a certain way and that classing humans as animals permits us to change how we treat humans. That seems to be J C's take on it too. I tend to look at the matter from the other side. How we treat humans is fixed, but how we treat other animals is open to review. We know that they share our capacities for self-awareness and suffering, although it appears to be to a lesser extent.
I don't know that we can really say that we can "profit" from ignoring our morals. Certainly, some people are only kept in line through social pressures, but in general our values seem remarkable well conserved across all cultures, so it seems likely that values are a product of evolution. Those values are enforced by our emotions, so we can defy them only at emotional cost. Most people will follow morals that rather closely resemble Christian morals simply because we're evolved to value human life and human happiness. We're very social animals and we benefited greatly from building large social networks.0 -
espinolman wrote: »3. I believe man was created elsewhere in the universe as a slave to fight wars for an extraterrestrial civilisation and when they were finished with man they dumped him on this planet .
4.Man was created as a slave to fight wars , and basically he is still fighting on earth and not realizing it is no longer necessary , he still creates the weapons he used long ago on other planets and does'nt recognize it's no longer necessary , because that was long ago and we are in a different situation here.
It's all so clear now. We've been so blind. :eek:0 -
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it WAS an accurate description of the ISSUES being covered by the video. Could I point out that the CONTENT of the video depended on the statements made by ALL sides during the course of filming for the documentary [...] I can't see how Stein could be any fairer than that.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=59080563&postcount=147690 -
Fanny Cradock wrote: »Poor JC! You cant expect him to have all the answers for creationism.
He was made to look like a fool in this post:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=59097465&postcount=14778
The least he could do is acknowledge it.0 -
Given that you still claim that Stein could not have been any fairer in his presentation of the evidence and of statements made by all sides, can you please let us know how you view Stein's treatment of Darwin's quote that I mentioned in this post from wednesday:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=59080563&postcount=14769
It's like talking to a politician. Few direct answers, contorted justifications or sometimes he'll just vanish until the question goes away. You've found the new 15 questions, robin.
Keep asking.0 -
Fanny Cradock wrote: »Poor JC! You cant expect him to have all the answers for creationism.
Knife... Gun fight!0 -
Wicknight said:But that is just more God of the gaps nonsense. The first question I would ask is if our god given moral instinct rebukes our wickedness where does that come from? Isn't it all "God given"? Did someone else give us our instinct to be wicked?We all have the same basic moral systems because we are all humans, and humans evolved these moral systems from our ancestors. It is literally in our genes, our genetic coding that goes to build our brains. So is it with other animals that share our lineage, which is why you find these human like basic moral systems in species closely related to us, such as Apes, and why you find some kind of moral systems in most animals with larger brains.
That fits evolutionary theory rather well, right down to where you can start messing around with morality in animals by altering this.Or one could say that God gave humans some form of basic morality but for some unknown and unexplained reason decided not to do a very good job of that, or did do a good job at it but that some unknown and unexplained event known only as "The Fall" some how, in some unknown and unexplained way, altered the genetic make up of our DNA to cause our brains to develop differently thus giving us some different systems of morality than the unknown one we had encoded into our DNA before "The Fall"while some how, in an unknown and unexplained way, managed not to simply jumbling up our DNA altogether into a mess that would cause all humans to die (who "intelligently" re-designed our DNA during the Fall?).And for some unknown and unexplained reason this event also managed to rearrange the DNA of a host of other animals on Earth who also share remarkably similar moral instincts to us, or possibly God just gave them these instincts, again not doing a very good job of it, in the first place for some unknown and unexplained reason.Yes, let me think for a minute. Which of these ideas explains our moral instincts.0 -
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2Scoops said:Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
But I thought you claimed that fact did support evolution. As I recall, you raved on about washing machines, cars, medicine, etc. all being impossible without evolution being true.
You have mistaken me with another poster.You each have unique and endearing qualities.
Maybe the real culprit will 'fess up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Seems you have come to my conclusion - that the science involved in all those items stands whether or not evolution or creationism are correct.
Science unrelated to creation/evolution stands whether or not either are true.Science related to creation/evolution hypotheses invariably points to creation being false.I'm waiting for the data from you that may suggest otherwise...0 -
All creatures have free will and there is a lot of evidence that a lot of other animals have emotions such as guilt.
If I may become slightly pedantic, no sentient being has free will in this world. We have the illusion of free will. Looking at any behaviour, movement, decision, etc, it can be inferred that there is a cause whether we look at our neurons firing or our overt interaction with the environment. Technically speaking, free will, in it's purest form, presupposes that we are outside the realm of causality, which we aren't because everything is caused by something.
I would, however, agree that the differences between humans and other species aren't as prevalent as one may be inclined to believe.0 -
Flamed Diving said:Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Our wickedness comes from our spiritual nature, not from our physical makeup. Our nature comes from Adam. His was perfect but free to choose to sin and did so. Then it became corrupt like ours.
A perfect man makes an imperfect decision.
lolz!0 -
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