The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

lugha

Malty_T wrote: »

.....Spontaneous Evolution (I finally understand your reason to use that word )

Do tell.

monosharp

J C wrote: »

...nothing except the flames of Hell!!!:eek:

Go to 'hell' or go to heaven worshipping a 'god' who tells me I can't eat shrimp or work on sunday but I can marry my sister/daughter ?

I'll take hell please.

Spontaneous Evolution is an unobserved and completely unfounded Scientific Conjecture ... while Gravity is an observable and well-founded Scientific Law!!!!:eek::D:)

Evolution -> Organisms change over time. This is a fact. This is the fact of Evolution. No one denies this. Observable.
Gravity -> Stuff falls. This is a fact. This is the fact of Gravity. No one denies this. Observable.

Theory of Evolution -> Why/How of evolution. Creationists deny some of this for religious reasons. There is no controversy in the Scientific community that the theory of evolution is the best scientific explanation. There is some controversy on the mechanisms involved. (Natural selection vs adaptation etc)
Theory of Relativity -> Why/How of gravity. There is controversy over many aspects of this but at the moment it is the best accepted explanation of gravity.

Spontaneous Evolution is Abiogenesis.

In the natural sciences, abiogenesis, or "chemical evolution", is the study of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter. It should not be confused with evolution, which is the study of how groups of living things change over time.

Are we discussing evolution or Abiogenesis ?

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

AtomicHorror wrote:

You quibble over the least important point I made and ignore everything else. Yet again. We're not here to discuss John Lennon's lyrics or his faith. Stop trying to change the subject. I say that you misunderstood or misrepresented the concept of Occam's Razor. I say that you are avoiding discussion of evidence in detail, implying it to be irrelevant whilst simultaneously suggesting that it supports you. That you react to my attempts at serious and in-depth discussion with mockery and evasion. What do you have to say?

....well boo ... hoo!!!:eek::D

....stop whinging and take it like a man!!!!!:pac::):D

That reply makes no sense as a response to my post.

J C wrote: »

...when Materialists whip out Occam's Razor in debates they invariably end up metaphorically cutting their metaphorical throats with it!!!! :pac::D

....and it has happened here as well!!!

All that has happened is that you've misunderstood the concept very seriously. You think that "God did it" is a simple explanation because the statement is brief. As I previously illustrated, brevity and simplicity are not synonymous. That hardly need be explained to anyone over the age of 6. And all you had to counter me was more mockery.

J C wrote: »

...because, by definition, an undirected process is a spontaneous process!!!

That is not what spontaneous means, either in the colloquial sense
nor in the sense that it is used in chemistry and biology. The term "spontaneous evolution" has no scientific meaning, and as a colloquial term implies a considerable number of features (lack of an external cause, rapidity) that misrepresent the consensus on evolution. By using the term "spontaneous evolution" you are simultaneously implying features which we do not argue for and create enough ambiguity about your meaning that you can move the goalposts of this debate whenever you find yourself in a corner. We've been over this before so many times that at this stage your continued usage of that term is nothing more than a display of knowing dishonesty.

You claim to have a scientific argument to back up your position, but ambiguity of meaning and inconsistent definitions are very much counter to this, as is a dismissive attitude towards detailed discussion. If your scientific argument is strong, you should be able to argue it with plain and precise language, which is open to demands for clarification of meaning to which you should be held. And most of all, if the argument is scientific, you ought to be able to make it with no references at all to scripture.

AtomicHorror

monosharp wrote: »

Are we discussing evolution or Abiogenesis ?

We've asked J C to be clear on this matter many times. He continues to conflate the concepts under the broad and misleading banner of "spontaneous evolution".

philologos

monosharp wrote: »

In the day you eat it you will surely die = a lie, they didn't die the same day.

Nowhere in Genesis chapter 3 does it say that they would die the same day. It merely says that they would die. Considering they did die, God was true to His word.

It's like when God tells Moses and Aaron that they would die before they entered the Holy Land because of their unwarranted anger towards His commandment at the rock (Numbers 20:12). They did not die straight away, but they did eventually die.

monosharp

Jakkass wrote: »

Nowhere in Genesis chapter 3 does it say that they would die the same day. It merely says that they would die. Considering they did die, God was true to His word.

Well I'll just quote JC on that.

Ge 2:16 ¶ And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
17 "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

in the day does not = that day ?

God also left out the small detail of eating the fruit opening their eyes.

philologos

Apologies, I accept that I am wrong. I'll have to look up a bit more on this.

Zombrex

monosharp wrote: »

in the day does not = that day ?

God also left out the small detail of eating the fruit opening their eyes.

Don't get them started on what a "day" means :pac::pac:

The word "death" and "die" also has various interpretations, normally based around whether the person actually physically died or not (he didn't then it was spiritual death they were talking about, he did then it was physical death)

Aren't words fun

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

JC,

You're knowledge of the bible is clearly impressive, and I could only wish that I knew a fraction of what you do:o

What I do know though is that naturally occurring spontaneous process happen all the time...so anything is possible including Spontaneous Evolution (I finally understand your reason to use that word )

...spontaneous processes DO occur in nature but they ALWAYS produce unspecified (often complex) results. Living systems are observed to be BOTH complex and specified ... and spontaneous processes have NEVER been observed to produce such phenomena ... and they are mathematically incapable of producing such phenomena!!!

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

...spontaneous processes DO occur in nature but they ALWAYS produce unspecified (often complex) results. Living systems are observed to be BOTH complex and specified ... and spontaneous processes have NEVER been observed to produce such phenomena ... and they are mathematically incapable of producing such phenomena!!!

What do you mean by living systems being 'specified'??

robindch

Malty_T wrote: »

What do you mean by living systems being 'specified'?

JC means that they were designed by a deity.

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

What do you mean by living systems being 'specified'??

...all information is complex and specified. To give you an example qwbbdshhsakkl is complex ... BUT it isn't specified and therefore isn't useful information.

All intelligible writing is BOTH complex and specified - and that is why it is meaningful functional information.

Similarly the genetic information found in living organisms is BOTH complex and specific .... and any change degrades the information - sometimes with dramatic consequences -as with mutations, for example.

Zombrex

robindch wrote: »

JC means that they were designed by a deity.

Yeah nice bit of circular logic there by the Creationist camp.

"Specified" means that, according to a Creationist, it looks intelligently ordered. They can then use this to "prove" that the thing was intelligently designed. :rolleyes:

Dembski himself states that it is entirely subjective

"Specification depends on the knowledge of subjects. Is specification therefore subjective? Yes."

And later defines it as being intelligently ordered. He then goes on to use CSI in support of the idea that things he classifies as CSI are the product of intelligence.

Master class in circular reasoning, which we all should tip our hats.

Zombrex

J C wrote: »

...all information is complex and specified. To give you an example qwbbdshhsakkl is complex ... BUT it isn't specified and therefore isn't useful information.

All intelligible writing is BOTH complex and specified - and that is why it is meaningful functional information.

Similarly the genetic information found in living organisms is BOTH complex and specific .... and any change degrades the information - sometimes with dramatic consequences -as with mutations, for example.

Let me ask the question you just ignored again

What do you mean by living systems being 'specified'??

Or do put it another way, define what you mean by "specified", how does one determine that something is or is not specified information?

J C

monosharp wrote: »

And if you were born in Pakistan you'd be Muslim, if you were born in Thailand you'd be Buddhist.

So you'd worship the only One True God (Allah) or none at all (Buddhism).

Aren't you lucky your born in a good old Christian country and not one of those satan worshipping ones ?

....Saved Christians are a tiny minority in EVERY country.

monosharp wrote: »

I'm God, I created the Heaven and Earth, and it was good.

As Ricky Gervais said, "Theres pride in your work but come on!"

...and why wouldn't God take pride in the magnificence of His PERFECT Creation?

monosharp wrote: »

In the day you eat it you will surely die = a lie, they didn't die the same day.

...the passage confirms the certainty of their death from the moment they partook of Luciferian Gnosticism. Their Spiritual death was instantaneous, at the moment they accepted Satan's offer ... and their physical death took some time longer - but was equally as certain as their spiritual death....one automatically followed the other.

monosharp wrote: »

4 Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.
5 "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And ... thats exactly what happened isn't it ? They ate the fruit and came to know good and evil.

In the first statement, Satan was wrong/lying ... and Adam and Eve DID surely die!!!!
The second statement ignored the fact that Adam and Eve already knew all there was to know about goodness ... as they personally knew God ... so the only new thing that they could get to know about was evil ... from the incaration of evil, Satan himself.
Satan 'sugar coated' his 'poison pill' by creating the impression that he could provide some additional knowledge of good (which is the strict preserve of God) when all he could provide was the knwledge of evil ... and Adam and Eve believed his lie ... and the rest is history!!!

monosharp wrote: »

Good argument for abortion. If I and my wife give life to a baby then its within our power to take it away.

...the point is that you didn't CREATE the baby...and it is a Human Being, just like you ... so you therefore have no authority to take it's life no more than you have the authority to take the life of any of your children after they are born!!!!!

monosharp wrote: »

So we're Gods little toys and if he throws a fit and wants to break us he can ? :pac::D

God doesn't throw fits ... that Satan's department!!!

God is a God of perfect love and perfect justice ... everyone can choose which aspect of God they wish to be on the receiving end of ... I have chosen to receive His love and mercy ... because I, quite frankly, wouldn't like to receive His justice ... in my sinful condition!!!:D

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

I have chosen to receive His love and mercy ... because I, quite franly, wouldn't like to receive His justice!!!

This is very telling,

someoneIcannotrecall wrote:

The tragedy of modern faith is that we are longer terrified [of God]

JC you really are an old breed:).

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
I have chosen to receive His love and mercy ... because I, quite franly, wouldn't like to receive His justice!!!

Malty_T
This is very telling,

Quote:
Originally Posted by someoneIcannotrecall
The tragedy of modern faith is that we are longer terrified [of God]

JC you really are an old breed.

....sorry to disappoint you ... but now that I'm Saved, I don't fear God in the slightest ... I love Him instead!!!!!:D

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

....sorry to disappoint you ... but now that I'm Saved, I don't fear God in the slightest ... I love Him instead!!!!!:D

But did you once fear him??

J C

Wicknight wrote: »

Let me ask the question you just ignored again

What do you mean by living systems being 'specified'??

Or do put it another way, define what you mean by "specified", how does one determine that something is or is not specified information?

....ALL functional information is specified information...
....functional information is specified according to the rules that make it functional information ... the rules of grammar in the case of language ... the rules of mathematics in the case of data and the rules of biochemistry in the case of living systems!!!:D

Morbert

J C wrote: »

....ALL functional information is specified information...
....functional information is specified according to the rules that make it functional information ... the rules of grammar in the case of language ... the rules of mathematics in the case of data and the rules of biochemistry in the case of living systems!!!:D

William Demski unsuccessfully attempted to apply specified complexity to biological systems. It is irrelevant to biology.

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

But did you once fear him??

...possibly in the inner recesses of my mind before I was Saved.

J C

Morbert wrote: »

William Demski unsuccessfully attempted to apply specified complexity to biological systems. It is irrelevant to biology.

...that is like saying that Newton unsuccessfully attempted to apply gravity to the planetary system in the Universe!!!!

Specified Complexity is an observable reality in biological systems!!!

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

...that is like saying that Newton unsuccessfully attempted to apply gravity to the planetary system in the Universe!!!!

Specified Complexity is an observable reality in biological systems!!!

Observable, how??

Ok Newton's law mean predictions,
What predictions does SC whatever make??

I don't believe in reality btw:p

Also your analogy is a stinker because:

Newton = Physicist -> Theorised Physics.
Demski = Mathematician -> Theorised Biology!?

monosharp

J C wrote: »

....Saved Christians are a tiny minority in EVERY country.

Thank God.:p:D:pac:

...and why wouldn't God take pride in the magnificence of His PERFECT Creation?

Because hes supposed to be a god. Pride would suit Apollo, Zeus etc but not some supreme all-powerful creator of all being.

And creation is NOT perfect. Very very far from it.

If creation was perfect there would be no handicapped children born, no disease, no hunger.

...the passage confirms the certainty of their death from the moment they partook of Luciferian Gnosticism. Their Spiritual death was instantaneous, at the moment they accepted Satan's offer ... and their physical death took some time longer - but was equally as certain as their spiritual death....one automatically followed the other.

So you chose to interpret a word in a very specific way which just so happens to agree with your 'ideas' about the world. 3 pages later you will interpret the same word completely differently to agree with your 'ideas'.

Yeah, some book that Bible.

In the first statement, Satan was wrong/lying ... and Adam and Eve DID surely die!!!!

Like they were going to die anyways ?

The second statement ignored the fact that Adam and Eve already knew all there was to know about goodness ... as they personally knew God ... so the only new thing that they could get to know about was evil ... from the incaration of evil, Satan himself.

Absolute tripe. You cannot know what good is unless you know evil the same way you cannot know what black is if you don't know white, what sound is unless you know silence.

...the point is that you didn't CREATE the baby...and it is a Human Being, just like you ... so you therefore have no authority to take it's life no more than you have the authority to take the life of any of your children after they are born!!!!!

Me and my wife did create the baby. Without us there would be no baby.

God doesn't throw fits ... that Satan's department!!!

The god of the old testament* throws fits all the time, hes like a spoiled child throwing his toys out of the pram.

*God of the old testament does not necessarily mean 'God'.

God is a God of perfect love and perfect justice

If I wear more then one type of cloth I should be killed ? Perfect justice ?

... everyone can choose which aspect of God they wish to be on the receiving end of ... I have chosen to receive His love and mercy ... because I, quite frankly, wouldn't like to receive His justice ... in my sinful condition!!!:D

If its the God in the OT your talking about I hope you haven't been eating shellfish, wearing more then 2 types of cloth or working on a sunday.

monosharp

J C wrote: »

...that is like saying that Newton unsuccessfully attempted to apply gravity to the planetary system in the Universe!!!!

How quaint.

You might want to read the theory of relativity and how Newtonian physics are wrong when it comes to planetary objects before you continue talking about anything scientific.

Specified Complexity is an observable reality in biological systems!!!

No JC, its not. Simply repeating something does not make it true.

gaynorvader

J C wrote: »

It is implied that they are immortal here:-
Ge 2:16 ¶ And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
17 "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

and the immortality of Man is also implied here:-
Ge 1:26 ¶ Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness
....because God Himself is immortal the statement that Man was created in God's "image and likeness" would include the likeness of God's immortality.

The repeated statements in Genesis 1 that everything was created 'good' also implies that death and disease weren't an issue after the Creation and before the Fall.

The actions of Adam and Eve are confirmed in 1Co 15:21 as the REASON WHY death entered the World thereby implying that Man would have been immortal but for the Fall
1Co 15:21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

Man was created doubly immortal ... both body and soul .... only the soul remains immortal ... but at the end of time, the physical body will be resurrected to immortality ... the unsaved to eternal damnation ... and the saved to eternal salvation.:)

...and BTW the soul is the personality of the person and its function is to animate the body, while the body is alive and to return to judgement by Jesus Christ when the body dies.

And yet is it not implied that man is not immortal in Genisis:
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Does this not imply that either;
a) Man needs to eat this fruit to sustain his immortality?
b) Man is mortal, but can become immortal by eating this fruit?

Mark Hamill

Sorry for the late reply to this, I was out of the country until yesterday.

wolfsbane wrote: »

As a Christian, I have a morality that demands me to do good. My problem is seeing how a materialist can have a morality that demands the same of him. You may choose to live a moral life for the benefits it brings to you and yours, but there is nothing to say you should not instead choose to exploit others as much as you can get away with.

We have already gone through this, a materialists morality has the benefit of having to be reasoned through, we know there is no absolute morality, so anything we define as moral or immoral must be explained as to why it is, this means that the thing that says we should or should not do is ourselves.

wolfsbane wrote: »

OK, what is the test as to whether homosexual behaviour is morally good is 1950s Britain?

Well, what are the exact circumstances? Timeline is largely irrelevent, its wether or not all parties are capable of making an informed decision on consent is what is important. If all parties can give informed consent and the act doesn't really effect anyone outside of the parties concerned, then I see no reason why it isn't moral.

wolfsbane wrote: »

So Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Robert Maxwell, Robert Mugabe, were either moral or stupid?

My apologies, I mean to say no intelligence can ever be truely amoral, as all intelligences would have an idea of the consequences of their actions.

wolfsbane wrote: »

A few samples, in alphabetical order:
Adultery
Bestiality
Child sacrifice
Homosexuality
Incest

Of course they were also guilty of idolatry, thefts, murder also - but the previous list is of several things that especially degraded their land.

All the children were guilty of this too? They couldn't be saved?

wolfsbane wrote: »

So societies that say homosexuality is wrong are immoral for so saying? But WHY should they embrace notions like informed consent and peoples right to live their life as free as is possible? Do these things belong to a higher morality than theirs? What is this higher morality than can condemn a whole society as immoral?

Societies that homosexuality is wrong are wrong because of why they say so. There is factually based reasoned logic behind it. Notions like informed consent and peoples rights are things that obviously should be considered when defining morality.

wolfsbane wrote: »

What are these foundations? Sounds suspiciously like an absolute morality to me.

Foundations like PEARL (Phyisical Evidence And Reasoned Logic), its quite like how science should be approached.

wolfsbane wrote: »

So you accept that materialism cannot be lived out consistently? That as a world-view, it sucks. That atheist materialists have to live as if there was meaning and good and evil in the world.

If you see that, my effort has not been in vain.

No, the atheist materialist lives knowing that the meaning they live is the meaning the choose and that the good and evil they recognise may not be what other poeple see.

Mark Hamill

wolfsbane wrote: »

No, you can only show how one example is better than another in your opinion. Others may or may not share that opinion.

Murder is not immoral in many people's opinions. How can you show it is immoral for all people?

I can show how one is better acording to the humanly defined idea of morality. I can leave behind irrationality and emotion and apply reason and logic and demonstarte the greater effectiveness of one is of idea morality then another.

robindch

Malty_T wrote: »

Newton = Physicist -> Theorised Physics.
Demski = Mathematician -> Theorised Biology!?

Well, while most physicists would probably agree that Newton was a truly great physicist, I think there are very few mathematicians who think that Demski is any good at maths.

Anyhow, he appears to have abandoned maths a few years back and he's now a "Research Professor in Philosophy" in a fundamentalist religious outlet in Texas.

philologos

Mark Hamill: You've been watching too much Thunderf00t on Youtube :pac: