The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Zombrex

J C wrote:

Natural Selection can only begin to select when you have a population of reproducing viable living organisms with significant extant genetic diversity in their genome and the ability to express it.

No, that is complete nonsense, and shows a lack of understanding of what NS is.

Natural selection will work with anything that self-replicates in a hostile or changing environment where mistakes can take place in that replication. The principle of natural selection doesn't even need to be applied to life on Earth, the principle is used in other areas. For example the concept of natural selection is used in computer programming.

J C wrote:

The Laws of Mathematical Probability and Big Numbers rule out ever getting to this stage in the first place, using undirected processes.
...
The odds of producing a specific useful amino acid sequence using undirected processes

Your right its does. Luckly evolution isn't undirected, it is "directed" by natural selection.

The first protien structures formed after millions of years of evolution from the first very simple self-replicating molecules. This evolution was "directed" by natural selection. BTWI don't like the word "directed" because it implies a plan. Natural selection has no over all plan. But hey, you picked it.

These first self replicating molecules (or ones like them) that have be recreated in labs.

No one on this thread, or others about evolution, or even any biologist I am aware off, has ever claimed that the first protien structures would have just formed randomly from molecules floating around in the seas on young Earth.

Except of course you. You seem to be only interested in presenting this very mis-informed and down right wrong theory over and over, just so you can debunk it again, over and over.

I seem to remember explain this to you before, about a billion times already :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

Equally, Natural Selection cannot ‘build up’ to a useful protein – it is either functional Rhodopsin or it isn’t any use at all.

Natural selection can build up to a useful protein. It just takes millions of years.

JC the Creationist logic behind the "mouse trap" argument (that these biological system cannot work with even just one part missing) has been debunked a large number of times.

For a start evolution doesn't work like a lego building. Whole new parts are not just suddenly added to the system.

Secondly there is no evidence, or even logical reason, to believe that the very early protein like structures were nearly as complex, or even similar to, modern day protiens.

J C wrote:

All chemical molecules are simple and indeed ‘self-replicating’ from their raw materials by using the Laws of Chemistry.

No, they are not.

J C wrote:

However the INFORMATION GAP between these simple bio-chemicals and life is enormous.

True, but then a billion years is an ENORMOUS amount of time.

J C wrote:

What Professor Barr has confirmed is that the argument that the days of Creation are ALLEGORICAL is not taken seriously by any professors of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university.

Not quite sure how he can confirm that since it is wrong. But even if it were true, it has very little relivence to this discussion. Or am I supposed to ignore science because Hebrew professors tell me the Bible is meant to be taken literally? When I start believing in the Bible I'll keep that in mind :rolleyes:

samb

Your great-grandmother was the common ancestor with unbroken lines of female descent to ONLY your sister and your cousin – and NOBODY ELSE in that generation!!!

The common female ancestor of ALL of Mankind (in this and every other generation) must logically be the first woman.

For the Human population to grow, she would have to produce children with the first man and therefore they would have to be contemporaneous.

All it is refering to is the MOST RECENT common ancestor. This individuals mother is also an acestor of all of mankind and her mother and her father and back millions of years. Millions of individuals who are the ancestors of all of mankind.
Why must ' 'The common female ancestor of ALL of Mankind must logically be the first woman''? please explain this logic. If everybody but my family died then my mother would be the most recent common female ancestor of all of mankind, wouldn't she?
Maybe this reveals your mistake. It is referring to all of mankind alive today, not of all that have ever lived.

If a metoer were to wipe out half of mankind then the most recent common ancestor of all mankind could suddenly have lived much more recently.

Zombrex

J C wrote:

The common female ancestor of ALL of Mankind must logically be the first woman and that is why ALL women CAN trace their Mitochondrial DNA back to HER and her ALONE.

No, there is nothing logical about that.

And it is very simple to show that is wrong, even using Creationism as a starting point.

Imagine adam and eve only had one daughter. Under your logic she would be the most recent common ancestor of ALL mankind, but she still wouldn't have been the first woman, her mother Eve would have been.

J C wrote:

Of course, there are an infinite variety of possible common and/or intermediate ancestors to PROPORTIONS of Mankind – and billions of broken lines between billions of other people!!!

You keep saying that, but that only works if these "proportions" were two completely seperate sets, that never mixed. There are no "proportions" in the human race, the genetic material is spread from one side of the globe to the other.

J C wrote:

However, if M-Eve’s next door female neighbour had a DAUGHTER and she mated with M-Eve’s SON to produce daughters then the proportion of women descendants of this union would trace their common ancestry to the next door female neighbour INSTEAD of M-Eve.

Correct, but then M-Eve wouldn't be M-Eve, since there would be at least one unbroken material line that didn't decend through her. You would have to go back further to where the unbroken lines all meet.

J C wrote:

The only way that ALL women can trace their descent from ONE woman is if that woman was the ONLY woman on Earth at the time that she began to reproduce

No, she only has to be the most recent woman with an unbroken material line. There were thousands of other women, but there lines of decent on the material side broke somewhere between then and now (a great-great-great-granddaughter had only a son, line broken. a great-granddaughter died with no children, line broken etc etc)

J C wrote:

M-Eve IS therefore proof that there WAS a First Woman on Earth and that ALL of Humanity is descended from her.

No, and I really don't get why you continue with that line of false logic. It been explained to you a number of times. What part are you not getting?

J C wrote:

many ‘rough and tough’ deeply sinful and violent people ARE saved because they believed on Jesus Christ and many NICE people AREN’T saved because they didn’t.

Doesn't believing in Jesus Christ not make you a nice guy by default? Or are there a lot of mean horrible, yet true, christians walk around the place?

J C wrote:

The common female ancestor of ALL of Mankind (in this and every other generation) must logically be the first woman.

Very simple way to prove that is wrong. Imagine there are 2 women alive instead of one.

One has a son, one has a daughter. The first woman instantly brakes her material line, bang its gone. Yet there were still two women alive at the same time, and the still lead to every woman on earth having an unbroken line to the second woman. This woman would be M-Eve

So as you can see, right there, the logic that M-Eve had to be the first and only woman alive at the time goes out the window. The theory still works if there are 2 women alive at the same time. It still works if there are 3, 100, 10,000 women alive at the same time.

J C wrote:

The bacteria and the people possess these amazing abilities because the genetic information that provides them with these powers was originally programmed into their genomes by an all powerful and intelligent God during Creation Week.

No, they occured through genetic mutations. How do I know this? Because you can actuall observe these genetic mutations taking place (I know you Creation Scientists like to observe things to accept them as true ... except everything in the Bible of course)

J C wrote:

Even though Nylon is an artificial petrochemical polymer, the systems needed to break it down would not have been new.

The "systems" used to break down Nylon are not "new" in that nothing in the laws of chemistry is "new" it was all decided in an instant at the big bang.

The mutations occuring the the Nylon bug might not have been new, they might first have happen a thousand years ago but had no effect because there was no Nylon to eat.

What is "new" is the genetic information, the genetic coding require to make the bug eat nylon, created by these mutations, information you say is impossible to create.

J C wrote:

The mutation of Retroviruses and the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria are examples of the distribution, reduction, or recombination of EXISTING genetic information and mutations – but NONE of these processes have ever been observed to INCREASE genetic information.

Yes actually they do

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

I seem to recall already explain this to you .... strange ...

J C wrote:

Antibiotic resistance is an example of DEVOLUTION in action i.e. a LOSS of genetic information – admittedly doing some short term good for the bacterium.

Just a point, but "loss of information" is still termed evolution

J C wrote:

All of these agents of disease-and death are the result of the ‘Fall of Man’ and Satan’s Rebellion – and they are not capable of generating life – only destroying it.

Not sure what you mean by that ... all diease is actually the creation of life, at the expense of other life.

J C wrote:

Could I also suggest that it would provide considerably more support for the Evolutionary case if the bacteria ‘LEARNED’ from their exposure to the antibiotic rather than what you have confirmed – that the mutations existed BEFORE the exposure to the antibiotic.

Why?

There is nothing in the theory of evoultion about life forms "learning" to adapt to an environment. In fact that goes against the idea of natural selection completely.

The fact that the mutation existed BEFORE the exposure to the antibiontic shows the mutations are simply random and not part of some gods plan to adapt creatures to new threats.

robindch

> Professor Barr is NOT a YEC (who could be accused of bias in the matter)

JC, that's wonderful. You've accepted Natural Selection and differential reproductive success, the basics of evolution. You've begun to think about the co-operation and now -- amazingly, but brilliantly perceptively -- you've begun to notice that creationists are biassed and can't be trusted!

Truly, the scales have fallen from your eyes!

> Indeed I have read it – but I don’t believe it.

Aha! But that's the beauty of facts -- they're still true, whether or not you believe them! Try again -- I know you can understand it if you try. You even said yourself yesterday that a ten-year old can manage it! So keep at it!

Assyrian

Direct Divine Creation ONLY lasted six days – so there is no practical time difference between ‘the beginning’ and ‘the end’ of Direct Divine Creation on a 7,000 years timeline.

So Mankind WAS created at the BEGINNING i.e .during the same WEEK that the rest of the Universe was created.

If creation only lasted six days, then the beginning was day one, at a stretch day two. The end was day six, again at a stretch, day five. To say an event on day six was at the 'beginning' of creation seems a very strange use of the word. The practical time difference between the beginning and the end is proportional to the length of the event. If a husband turned up for wife's birthday party four hours late, just as the guests were leaving, do you think he could get away with saying the party was only four hours long, there is no practical time difference between the beginning and the end?

No, it make much more sense to say the Jesus was talking about the beginning of creation of the human race, after all he was talking about how God made humans, not how he made the world.

Jesus and Peter confirm the REALTY of Noah and the Genesis Flood in Mt 24:37-39a and 1 Pet 3:20b.

Genesis 6:13 confirms that the Flood was WORLDWIDE
“So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth’ (NIV).

So to get a worldwide flood, you have to go back to Genesis, rather than anything Jesus said about the flood. But Genesis doesn't tell us the flood was wordwide either. The word translated 'earth' is more often translated land. The land Noah lived in was filled with violence, it was that land that God destroyed and everyone living in it.

Neither Jesus nor Peter say anything about the flood being worldwide. I find it odd that YECs, who clearly read their bible, claim that Jesus and Peter support a global flood.

Yes indeed, the historical debate within mainstream Christianity was whether Creation was instantaneous or took six days – and NOT whether God used evolution.

Obviously when they didn't have any scientific evidence for evolution, but the point is, that long before geological timescale, long before evolution came on the scene, the prevailing interpretation of Genesis was that the days were figurative.

So, given Augustine's understanding that the days in Genesis were figurative, how do you think he would have reacted to modern YEC's rejection of plain scientific evidence of the age of the universe? Here is what he wrote in his Literal Interpretation of Genesis (yes he considered the figurative meaning of the days in Genesis its 'literal' meaning.)

Augustine wrote:

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Sound familiar?

Neither do I.

Calvin DIDN’T have any problem with the age of the universe – he believed it to be about 6,000 years old!!

John Calvin stated:-
“…albeit the duration of the world, now declining to its ultimate end, has not yet attained six thousand years ……. God’s work was completed not in a moment but in six days.”

Sure, Calvin believed in a six day creation. He was also a geocentrist. As he wrote in the days before Copernicus started causing trouble: A simple survey of the world should of itself suffice to attest a Divine Providence. The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric, and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion — no disturbance in the harmony of their motion. The sun, though varying its course every diurnal revolution, returns annually to the same point. The planets, in all their wanderings, maintain their respective positions. How could the earth hang suspended in the air were it not upheld by God’s hand? By what means could it maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it? (From his commentary on Psalm 93:1 he hath also established the world, it shall not be moved.)

We don't know how Calvin would have reacted to the scientific information we have today about the age of the earth. However we do know how Calvinists reacted to the scientific evidence for heliocentrism, Calvin was open minded about the Copernican system, and later as the scientific evidence backed Copernicus it was Calvin's teaching on Genesis, that "Moses, by a homely and uncultivated style, accommodates what he delivers to the capacity of the people" which Calvinists used to reconcile scientific evidence for geocentrism with their reading of scripture.

How can a plain reading of God’s Word in Genesis be described as ‘a kind of paganism’?

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=674042006

Brother Consolmagno... described creationism, whose supporters want it taught in schools alongside evolution, as a "kind of paganism" because it harked back to the days of "nature gods" who were responsible for natural events.

Brother Consolmagno argued that the Christian God was a supernatural one, a belief that had led the clergy in the past to become involved in science to seek natural reasons for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, which had been previously attributed to vengeful gods. "Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That's why science and religion need to talk to each other," he said.

"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."

Assyrian

Assyrian

Equally, the following article points out that Galileo WAS a Creation Scientist who correctly questioned the ‘mainstream’ philosophical view of his time – just like Creation Scientists today also question the prevailing (evolutionary) view of our time.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/crea...i4/galileo.asp

You mean the man who got into trouble for suggesting the Catholic church change their interpretation of scripture? "The bible tells us how to go to heaven not how the heavens go"? Here was a man who rejected the prevailing interpretation of scripture because of scientific evidence. Unlike Creation 'Scientists' he based his view on the the evidence saw, he did not look for evidence to support his view of scripture.

It would indeed be odd if it were true.

There are many top scientists BOTH pre and post-Darwin who were/are Creationists.

Here is a list of SOME of them

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/default.asp

Interesting list. The pre Darwin list include loads of world famous scientists. Where are the great names, the world famous scientists in the modern list? The pre and post Darwin section is crammed with famous scientists labelled 'old earth compromisers', scientists who wouldn't have touched YEC with a barge pole. As we have seen, scientists they don't list as 'old earth compromisers' actually did believe in an old earth.

But while AiG give a more complete if inaccurate list, the normal YEC claims of creationist scientist are like your, scientists from centuries before Darwin and a few old earthers and evolutionists from Darwin's time.

Louis Pasteur believed in Direct Creation – and actually DISPROVED the idea that simple life could arise spontaneously – and proposed the Law of Biogenesis which denies even the possibility of undirected Darwinian Evolution.

Again you mistake the origin of life for its evolution. All Pasteur showed was that complex life forms like mice and maggots do not appear spontaneously overnight from dirt. He said nothing about whether simple replicating molecules could form from amino acids and these develop into simple organisms over millions of years. His experiments did nothing to show that this could not happen. But as for evolution, he said:

Virulence appears in a new light which cannot but be alarming to humanity; unless nature, in her evolution down the ages (an evolution which, as we now know, has been going on for millions, nay, hundreds of millions of years), has finally exhausted all the possibilities of producing virulent or contagious diseases -- which does not seem very likely.

So apparently, Pasteur, whom YECs quote as a creationist, believe in evolution and that the earth was hundred of millions of years old. In the early church, Basil believed a literal interpretation of Genesis taught spontaneous generation when God said let the earth produce living creatures. So it was actually a literalist interpretation of Genesis that Pasteur knocked on the head.

James Clerk Maxwell was a Creationist Physicist and Mathematician. He WASN’T a Biologist and he therefore didn’t express any scientific views Evolution.

How about: In the case of living beings, however, the generation of individuals is always going on, each individual differing more or less from its parent. Each individual during its whole life is undergoing modification, and it either survives and propagates its species, or dies early, accordingly as it is more or less adapted to the circumstances of its environment. Hence, it has been found possible to frame a theory of the distribution of organisms into species by means of generation, variation, and discriminative destruction.
http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/MaxwellMoleculesAndEvolution.html

Linnaeus discovered, and as a result Creation Science has always accepted, that species below the level of Created Kind do indeed vary over time, using pre-existing genetic information.

Before Linnaeus creationists believed in fixity of species. They believed it was a biblical doctrine, grounded in Genesis, though in fact it came from Aristotle. It was scientific evidence that led Linnaeus to question this supposed biblical doctrine and reject it. Today creationists hold a modified form of Aristotle's doctrine, fixity of kinds rather than species, but they still believe their modified Aristotleanism is biblical.

Evolutionists like to split the supposed evolutionary continuum between muck and man into two stages of ‘Abiogenesis’ and ‘Evolution Proper’. This artificial split is in part an attempt to distance Evolution from the fact that Abiogenesis is in contradiction of the Biological LAW of Biogenesis.

Neither concept has been observed and so BOTH remain within the realm of scientific speculation.
Equally, the point where Abiogenesis begins and ends is (even theoretically) unknown.

The fact that Evolutionists cannot explain or demonstrate how dead chemicals could come alive spontaneously may have something to do with the fact that it is mathematically impossible to produce specific useful protein sequences using undirected processes.

It ISN’T in the least devastating to science – but it IS devastating to Evolution.

It has been explained to you again and again. Evolution, that is random mutation and natural selection, work on systems that replicate and reproduce. Abiogenesis is a separate process that looks at how replicating systems could arise in the first place, before natural selection and random mutation began to operate on them. Your ad hom view of why 'Evolutionists' divide the two, is just silly. Evolutionary biologist aren't looking over their shoulder in fear of YEC police coming to remind them of 'the Biological LAW of Biogenesis'. It's not some dodgy alibi "It wasn't me guv, I just did the evolution." Scientists divide evolution from abiogenesis because they are two very different processes. You like to confuse the two, because it makes a good soundbite, but it shows you don't want to understand or don't want to understand the real science.

Evolutionary biologists do no need to show how life originated. Apart for the simple fact that it isn't their field of science, the evidence in cladistics and genetics and the fossil record, tell us all the organisms on earth are descended from a common ancestor. Where the earliest common ancestor came from doesn't change the evidence that there was one. Evolution describes the progress from that common ancestor whether that original organism formed naturally, was planted by God, aliens, time travellers or came by comet.

Your argument about the mathematically impossible of producing specific useful protein sequences, is totally irrelevant, because abiognesis never had to produce a 'specific' protein, any self replicating molecule would do. It certainly has nothing to do with the reason scientists see evolutionary biology and abiogenesis as two separate sciences.

Whether technical linguistics or the type of text is the most important aspect is really a moot point.

What Professor Barr has confirmed is that the argument that the days of Creation are ALLEGORICAL is not taken seriously by any professors of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university.

The fact that Professor Barr is NOT a YEC (who could be accused of bias in the matter) makes his comments even more devastating to the allegorical case.

Why should it be when his analysis is based on a view of scripture that neither of us accept, the Genesis was an ANE creation myth. He doesn't accept Genesis as literal history either. Why isn't that just as devastating to YECs?

Why should the opinion of world class professors of Hebrew (or actually what Barr thinks they might say) concern either of us when they base their analysis not on technical aspects of linguistics or grammar in the text itself, but on their view of how the text originated. The only ones that Barr supports are people who say Genesis is an ANE creation myth.

Assyrian

wolfsbane

Assyrian said:

Thought you might appreciate this.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5...00/noach.1.jpg

Yes, indeed. It does encapsulate a strong argument for a world-wide flood. Even stronger when we realise it was not 40 days and nights, but about 1 year they were in the ark.

wolfsbane

robindch said:

No. Why on earth should it? Why would I want to murder somebody else? Wouldn't that mean that somebody else is going to try to murder me later on in revenge? Doesn't that mean I'm going to have to waste a lot of resources making sure that somebody's not out to kill me, or my kids? Wouldn't this longterm cost outweigh any short-term gain from bopping somebody over the head and stealing his woolly-mammoth sandwich?

There are always pros and cons, and society is often composed of both types of behaviour. But it indisputable that conquest has been the driving force in the world's history: empires rise and fall, the weak are exploited, the strong rule. Even the strong know that it is necessary to co-operate with those they are not strong enough to overcome, and that too much oppression of the weak may lead them to unite in opposition - but that is far from the 'love your neighbour' principle of compassion. The latter requires a reason beyond what human chemistry provides.

"Differential reproductive success" means that some variations in a species will inevitably produce more offspring than others, so there'll be more of them than the less successfully reproducing variations. Nothing magical about that, you'll agree? And if being nice to your neighbours increases your chances of reproduction, then being nice to your neighbours will spread as a reproductive strategy over long periods of time. So, what do you reckon -- does being nice to folks increase your chances of reproducing yourself?

No problem with that. Just that exterminating/re-educating your neighbours has been historically just as effective, and more often used.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

The latter requires a reason beyond what human chemistry provides.

Not really. Compassion is an in build human emotion. There are a lot reasons for it, and a lot of layers to it (ie the reasons and nature of the compassion you might have for a puppy sitting on your lap is different than the compassion you might have for a man dying in your arms).

You can believe that God places compassion, and the other emotions, into humans. Thats fine.

But you should also realise that these emotions still exist in people who don't believe that God placed them in humans, or who don't believe in God in the first place.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

This is an assumption that "everyone is a Christian really but some people don't admit it". While it is completely understandable that that would be your point of view, it is not rational or rationally defensible.

That's not my view at all. I'm saying that everyone has an awareness of being accountable to God, of what is right and wrong; this we call conscience. That does not make them Christians.

In other words, you can say nothing either, even if these people are professed Christians, except that they are not Christians, but "phonies". Circular, I fear - it makes being a Christian dependent on living up to certain moral ideals. If we define such a thing as a "moral atheist", then we can simply say that those who do not live up to the ideal are not "moral atheists" even if they claim to be. Actually, we can just use "Humanist" there, since there's a perfectly well worked-out morality involved.

I've no problem with that, if I understand you correctly. If a man professes to be an Humanist or a Buddhist or whatever and lives contrary to those ideals, he is a phoney.

This contradicts all your previous statements. On the other hand, I suspect it is what you actually think - in other words, you are Christian (of the particular sect) because that sect's morality agrees with yours. Your morality is not God-given, but a God-enforced version of your own morality.

No, I had to change my morality when I became a Christian. What I said does not contradict my previous statements, for what is moral has been defined by God - all I'm saying is that He cannot do evil. Yes, it may sound circular to say what He defines as good is good and that He cannot say evil is good. But that is how He defines Himself: e.g., Titus 1:1 Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, [emphasis mine]. There are things God cannot do - anything that is contrary to His holy nature.

Actually, the ability to feel the suffering of others is the root of all compassion. Without it, the "Christian" becomes a Pharisee, following the letter of the law blindly, unable to understand the spirit.

I agree.

For some people, this is sufficient - that you can feel the pain of the other means that they are made in your own image, and deserving of the same respect you are yourself.

Indeed - but if they are atheists, they must admit their compassion is no more valid than another's hatred or contempt. The individual becomes the only reference point for morality, and each one's is a valid as the next's. For the theist, that is not so - their God/gods set the standard.

No. You have kept yourself from them, as I have kept myself from them. You have chosen to ascribe it to God, I have not.

That is logical for you to believe. The christian has quite another insight into human nature.

Compassion.

That's a feeling, a feeling that may motivate. But it is not a reason why everyone ought to feel the same - which is what a moral standard demands. Compassion is only what you feel; it does not prescribe what anyone else should feel.

Overall, your entire position rests on your belief that your God is the only true God. This is a perfectly sensible position for a believer, but I can show you how it looks to a non-believer - I have highlighted word swaps:
...
In other words, to an atheist, your entire argument is a "special claim" - that your religion, and only your religion, has "true morality", because it is "the Word of God", and an atheist can only counter-propose a "human morality" without divine sanction, which is clearly a lesser choice.

Exactly so.

To me, your religion is one of a very large number of religions made up by people as an explanation of the cosmos and enforcer of public morality. It has no more grounding than any other system of morality, and it is a matter of personal choice (influenced by upbringing) which you opt for.

Yes, that is a good description of it from an atheistic perspective. It proves my point though, that the atheistic perspective cannot rationally insist on a morality. Everyone makes up their own. The thief and the philanthropist; the oppressor and the liberator; and none can say the other is immoral in real terms.

The crunch comes if one of the religions is true, and there is a God to Whom we must give account. Then we all are in deep trouble, unless we do what He says. I contend, have found for myself, that the God revealed in the Bible is indeed the one true God, and His command to all of us is to repent and believe on His Son:
Acts 17:30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
1 John 3:23 And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

Compassion - the recognition of kinship between all things. You, on the one hand, take a step of faith to believe in the Christian God, and therefore follow the appropriate morality (and I'll come back to that). I, on the other hand, feel compassion, and take the step of faith that everything else is worthy of respect in the same way that I am. Is your step of faith more "rational" or "logical" or "necessary" than mine? How could it be?

Your understanding of what faith is for the Christian is not correct: it is not a leap in the dark' sort of thing, a 'this seems likely' conviction. It is embracing the truth one has come to know in one's heart. And that is logical for the Christian to believe. Your step of faith is based on a feeling, even conviction, that compassion is right. You have reached the right conclusion, of course. It is just that your first premise, that we are all no more than chemicals and their reactions, makes any such convictions of no more value than those who are motivated by hedonism.

Compassion. Other people are real. It is certainly possible to follow logically through from that starting premise to a system of morality, and the required step of faith is far less baroque than yours.

But that is not your starting premise: materialism is.

Except that there is so little agreement, even between Christians, about the "God revealed in the Bible". How many Christian sects are there? How many adherents in each sect? Who is right, and who doomed?

Indeed, even genuine Christians do not know all the truth. But they all know enough about God and His way of salvation. Those who call themselves Christian and do not believe these essential truths are indeed not Christians and so are still heading for destruction. That is the reality set out in the Bible:
John 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

As to the morality of the Bible - there are many laws given in the OT, and very few in the NT. There are references in the NT that appear to abridge or remove some of the OT laws, although it is not clear which ones. Overall, there is no clear statement of morality in the NT at all, which has allowed many divergent interpretations to flourish - to simply state that all are wrong except one is merely to make it clear which sect you adhere to.

There are indeed many less laws given in the NT, for the whole ceremonial/judicial system for the nation of Israel has been abrogated. But the Moral Law remains: many specific commandments are given, but the principle also:
Romans13:8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

The clue is in the word GOD - you believe, and I do not - to me, your morality is as "man-made" as mine. Not only that, but it cannot apply to a believer in any other God, or to a non-believer. How would you persuade me out of crime, if you could not convince me to believe what you believe?

It is either true or it is not. If it is not, then it applies to no one, not even me. If it is true, it applies to everyone, whether they believe it or not.

If I could not convince you of the truth about God, then I would not expect you to change your behaviour. But that is the nature of the gospel - it converts the soul in some; it causes others to fear and perhaps restrain their behaviour; others it just hardens in their ways.

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

That's not my view at all. I'm saying that everyone has an awareness of being accountable to God, of what is right and wrong; this we call conscience. That does not make them Christians.

My apologies - I wasn't clear...that should not necessarily have been taken to mean "professed Christians", rather that your assumption is that your God is the right and only God - which, as I said, is obviously a necessary presumption on your part!

wolfsbane wrote:

No, I had to change my morality when I became a Christian...there are things God cannot do - anything that is contrary to His holy nature.

I can understand your point, but the effect is circular.

wolfsbane wrote:

Indeed - but if they are atheists, they must admit their compassion is no more valid than another's hatred or contempt. The individual becomes the only reference point for morality, and each one's is a valid as the next's. For the theist, that is not so - their God/gods set the standard.

Not at all. Hatred and contempt are not useful or good, and they go against the built-in human sense of morality. They are recognised by pretty much every religious and irreligious system as negative emotions.

The individual is never the reference point for morality, because an individual has no requirement for morality per se. It may be that one person's morality is as formally valid from the point of philosophical debate as the next, but all systems are not equally valid from a social point of view, which you seem to be ignoring as a "control" on morality.

One theistic system of morality may similarly be as valid as the next (its believers are as sincere, and clearly neither set of believers can be considered unbiased in their assessment of the other), but those religions that are considered socially unacceptable will not find their morality publicly acceptable whatever their god may say.

wolfsbane wrote:

That is logical for you to believe. The christian has quite another insight into human nature.

...and vice-versa!

wolfsbane wrote:

That's a feeling, a feeling that may motivate. But it is not a reason why everyone ought to feel the same - which is what a moral standard demands. Compassion is only what you feel; it does not prescribe what anyone else should feel.

Again, you miss out the reason why morality is necessary - which is living socially. Compassion is an excellent foundation for something that is a requirement in any case. The reason why the "next person" has to have a morality that is compatible with mine is a shared society.

wolfsbane wrote:

Yes, that is a good description of it from an atheistic perspective. It proves my point though, that the atheistic perspective cannot rationally insist on a morality. Everyone makes up their own. The thief and the philanthropist; the oppressor and the liberator; and none can say the other is immoral in real terms.

Not the case, as explained above.

wolfsbane wrote:

The crunch comes if one of the religions is true, and there is a God to Whom we must give account. Then we all are in deep trouble, unless we do what He says. I contend, have found for myself, that the God revealed in the Bible is indeed the one true God, and His command to all of us is to repent and believe on His Son.

Yes, and I contend that this is not so, as would the majority of people!

wolfsbane wrote:

Your understanding of what faith is for the Christian is not correct: it is not a leap in the dark' sort of thing, a 'this seems likely' conviction. It is embracing the truth one has come to know in one's heart. And that is logical for the Christian to believe.

And that is still a step of faith - I didn't mean an "I believe I'll win the Lotto" kind of faith, but the recognition of a meaningful truth in both cases.

wolfsbane wrote:

Your step of faith is based on a feeling, even conviction, that compassion is right. You have reached the right conclusion, of course. It is just that your first premise, that we are all no more than chemicals and their reactions, makes any such convictions of no more value than those who are motivated by hedonism.

On a personal level that is true. However, as I've said, morality is a social necessity - at an individual level, the next person is entitled to be a hedonist. I may feel that they are wasting their life, but you're correct that I cannot argue as long as their morality does not impact mine or that of my community. If they were in a leaky rowing boat with me, I would have different requirements - they could bail or swim!

wolfsbane wrote:

But that is not your starting premise: materialism is.

Even materialists have to live in society, and society requires morality. Compassion is a good starting point for that morality, because it is common to nearly all of humanity - those without it are recognised as abnormal.

wolfsbane wrote:

There are indeed many less laws given in the NT, for the whole ceremonial/judicial system for the nation of Israel has been abrogated. But the Moral Law remains: many specific commandments are given, but the principle also:
Romans13:8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Which is to say compassion!

wolfsbane wrote:

It is either true or it is not. If it is not, then it applies to no one, not even me. If it is true, it applies to everyone, whether they believe it or not.

If I could not convince you of the truth about God, then I would not expect you to change your behaviour. But that is the nature of the gospel - it converts the soul in some; it causes others to fear and perhaps restrain their behaviour; others it just hardens in their ways.

True. It has not convinced me, I'm sorry to say, at least partly because of the silliness of things like YEC, and partly because I simply cannot see how it differs from all the other religions that claim to be the sole truth.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Asiaprod

Wicknight wrote:

But you should also realise that these emotions still exist in people who don't believe that God placed them in humans, or who don't believe in God in the first place.

You missed out those people who have never even heard of God. Like the island tribes living in isolation around Sumatra, or the forest peoples of the Amazon.

Scofflaw

Asiaprod wrote:

You missed out those people who have never even heard of God. Like the island tribes living in isolation around Sumatra, or the forest peoples of the Amazon.

None of these are particularly relevant to the case. If God made humanity, and implanted in them a conscience, then whether they have "heard of God" or not is irrelevant - you are confusing religion (and the Bible) with God.

Of course, the question then becomes "why has God not revealed to these people what is revealed in the Bible, if the Bible is the only path to salvation?".

In a more general sense, we have to ask - "why are we not all born with a direct and obvious relationship with God?" After all, I don't relate to my daughter by leaving a book of instructions on how to reach me lying around amidst the other books and occasionally wiping out all her teddy bears.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Asiaprod

Scofflaw wrote:

None of these are particularly relevant to the case. If God made humanity, and implanted in them a conscience, then whether they have "heard of God" or not is irrelevant - you are confusing religion (and the Bible) with God.

Oops, sorry. I will plead a lower level of understanding of all this high brow stuff and just continue lurking.

wolfsbane

bluewolf said:

If quoting scripture to me isn't going to convince me, and I have no reason or intention of going around harming anyone, how do you know it's going to work on anyone else?It's dubious at best.

I don't know how any particular person will respond to it. But I do know it will change some. Acts 17:32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” Acts 13:48 Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

Incidentally, I will nitpick here: you believe that it's truth. I doubt you "know" it.

That is understandable, given your unbelief. But I assure you that God gives certainty to those He savingly calls. They may lose that from time to time, but with the apostle John they can usually say And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:20.

Ah, so finally you admit humans have a conscience, I was starting to wonder

We are made in God's image. We have an awareness of His reality, even though we suppress it. When we act contrary to his will, that part of us reminds us of the reality we like to deny.

About the same as you can, if not more.
If they think the risks of hell are worth the prize, then you're in the same boat as I am. And since there are people who seem to think so... well that's that

We were talking about those who did not believe in an after-life. That is the factor enabling them to be so free in their evil. Most people are restrained by a belief - or even a suspicion - that there is a Judgement to come.

And yet they claim to be christians just like you.
I think I'll defer to Scofflaw's reply here.

Their claims are tested by their lives, and found wanting.

My objection, and curiosity, lies with wondering if you would blindly follow your god regardless of his commandments, or if you have any independent personal moral judgement that happens to agree with your god's.

No, I happily follow Him where ever He leads. I know Him as the Holy God, and all that He does must be good.

Can you reconcile this with your earlier answer? :-

Quote:
me: I mean with your version, if god didn't have a problem with it (hypothetically, so don't protest otherwise!) then you'd be happy with that?

You: Correct. God reveals right and wrong, it's not something we know without His work in our conscience.

No problem: God is holy, so He can only do what is just and good. For example, He cannot lie.

Bingo. Without the "god's image". He is undeserving of your wrath, and worthy of respect simply by his existing.

You have to explain why that is so - why can we kill and eat a plant, but must not do so with a man? They are both living things. Why should an atheist value a new born child above an adult pig? You may well do so - but you cannot give a moral reason for so doing.

What else is your faith?
If you are convinced your faith is right and good, it's a reason.
Ditto for my reasoning.

Not at all. The rationality of my faith depends on its basic premise: that God exists and we ought to obey Him. Your faith (that men ought to be kind to one another) rests on nothing. Your basic premise is that there is no God, that we evolved from non-life and are just different collections of chemicals and their reactions. That premise demands no moral standard.

God has not kept me from anything that god has not kept these people from.
Nice and comforting as it might be to think there is a safety net there, it is simply their actions alone and ours that differ. Personal responsibility.

People are responsible for their sins, true. But that does not mean they are free not to sin. The sinful nature we carry with us means we all sin in various ways. You may think it is your intrinsic goodness that keeps you from murder or paedophilia, but you are greatly mistaken. It is God's mercy and grace restraining you from being the worst person imaginable.

Simple compassion. Not proscribed enforced compassion, just compassion.

A feeling, an act of the will even. But not a reason you can give to everyone why they should behave as you.

And if there is no awareness stirred? If it is just a bunch of pretty words to him?

He will do as he pleases.

Why?
You seem to be implying you love because you have someone to answer to. What kind of love could that ever be?

Not just because I fear God, but because He first loved me, I want to love Him and do what He commands - which is to love my neighbour as myself.

...

Well, not all atheists believe in no existence beyond the grave anyway.

Hmmm. Please explain.

J C

bmoferrall
For what it's worth, I'm satisfied that it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt that the earth is considerably older than the 6-10000 yrs inferred from a plain literal reading of genesis. This would obviously mean treating as allegory (or metaphorical history) parts of genesis previously read as plainly literal

Is the Earth ACTUALLY older than 7,000 years?

All indirect dating methods have deficiencies and inaccuracies.

Radiocarbon dating is only capable of accurately dating organic materials that are thousands of years old – and it is incapable of even theoretically measuring the ‘millions of years’ time-frame hypotheses of Evolution. Because Radiocarbon dating is necessarily confined to Carbon compounds it cannot be used to ‘age’ rocks or fossils.

Other radiometric dating methods are used to date rocks. However, these methods are based upon unproven assumptions about the radioactive content of the rock when it was formed, the belief that no radioactivity was added/subtracted externally throughout the period that that rock has existed and the assumption that the rate of change in the radioactive decay has remained constant. These unproven assumptions prevent any reliable dating conclusions being drawn – and there are many examples of known recently formed rocks being dated at millions of years old.
For example, rock samples taken from submarine lava flows from Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, which are known to have occurred in the 1950’s, have been radiometrically ‘dated’ at 4 million years old.
One of the reasons why nuclear decay rates in rocks can be ‘apparently altered’ dramatically is because the radioactive component being measured in the rock is differentially water soluble. For example, the leaching of water soluble Potassium salts within a rock can confound the Potassium/Argon test.

Equally, Dendrochronology can only definitively age individual trees – any apparent overlap in the ring pattern between timber samples from different trees may be due to a coincidence of localised conditions in the growth patterns at two separate times rather than proof of similar age.
The oldest tree to be aged using Dendrochronology was a Bristlecone Pine aged 4,867 years when it was cut down in 1963 – thereby giving a germination date of 2,904 BC. This is currently the maximum age established by Dendrology. However, even this age comes with a ‘health warning’ because multiple growth rings have been observed within the one year in some Pine species and this Bristlecone Pine is likely to be therefore somewhat younger than it’s number of rings suggests.
The age of this tree is also interesting in that it coincides with the approximate aftermath of Noah’s Flood, i.e 2,500 +/- 300 years BC.

Creation Science has found that varve micro-layers can be laid down very rapidly during the formation of sedimentary rocks. Thousands of micro layers were observed to be laid down in a matter of hours during the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980. These micro-layers were produced by the action of the waters in Spirit Lake on the ash deposited by the volcanic explosion.
This invalidates the geological theory, which postulated that every micro layer in a sedimentary rock deposit represents an annual cycle of silt deposition or varve – thereby attributing great ages to the deep sedimentary rock layers in, for example, the Grand Canyon.

Equally, polystrate tree fossils are observed ‘standing up through’ sedimentary rock layers that Evolutionists claim took millions of years to lay down – the logical conclusion is that that these layers were laid down rapidly and not over millions of years. It is ridiculous to postulate that a dead tree stood upright for millions of years while slow deposition of sediment gradually buried it. The fact that the ‘bottom’ of the fossilised tree is observed to be as well preserved as the ‘top’ is also a ‘bit of a giveaway’ that very rapid burial took place. The deep sedimentary rock layers that are found worldwide therefore DO NOT indicate ‘long ages’ – only a catastrophic water-based disaster of worldwide proportions!!!!


bmoferrall
I believe any evaluation of macro-evolution should be undertaken from the perspective of an old earth.

That was what I used to believe – when I was an Evolutionist. However, there are a number of salient facts that cast serious doubt on the merits of the above conclusion.

1 The mathematical calculation of the odds of generating the Amino Acid sequence for a useful protein DOES require a billion billion billion million years – which is much older than the ‘oldest Earth’ postulated by Evolutionists.
In reality, this proves that the emergence of life via undirected processes (even with the assistance of Natural Selection) is an impossibility.

2 The Human population could reach 6,000 million people starting with only two people and assuming a generation length of 33 years and a very conservative average of 2.5 children per couple in only 3,234 years – which is considerably less than the approximately 5,000 years that have passed since Noah’s Flood. There is therefore plenty of ‘room’ within these figures to accommodate ‘negative growth’ due to localised famines, wars and pestilences – and still reach 6 billion people by the year 2000 AD.

3 All written history seems to ‘disappear into the sands’ about 5,000 years ago. If Mankind is indeed here for hundreds of thousands or indeed millions of years – this very abrupt recent start to recorded history is indeed surprising.
The ‘interruption’ caused by Noah’s Flood is the reason why all History Books refer to the time before c. 5,000 years ago as “pre-historic”.
“Ante-diluvian” would be technically better – but I’m not quibbling!!!!


bmoferrall
I believe science will establish the truth about all this in due course, and that it will still be in harmony with the bible text.

Science has indeed ALREADY established that we were recently directly created – and this scientific conclusion is obviously in harmony with the Bible text.
Please re-read this thread again for proof that this is true

In this regard, I remember that during the 1960’s all scientists, but especially Evolutionists, were saying that science was progressing to the point where it would be capable of proving or disproving the existence of God. The Evolutionists were particularly looking forward to this eventuality with bated breath.

However, when Science did eventually progress to the point of PROVING the existence of God (which Intelligent Design Science has actually done) the Evolutionists went into complete denial.
Not only are they in denial of the conclusions of Intelligent Design – they are even in denial of the scientific qualifications of the eminently (and conventionally) qualified scientists involved.

The Scientific Jury is now in – and the resounding verdict is that God exists – and Directly Created all life.

J C

Wicknight
Natural selection will work with anything that self-replicates in a hostile or changing environment where mistakes can take place in that replication. The principle of natural selection doesn't even need to be applied to life on Earth, the principle is used in other areas. For example the concept of natural selection is used in computer programming.

Robin
So to repeat again -- the current theory of evolution says *nothing* about anything which doesn't produce offspring.

Sounds like Robin believes you need at least a living reproducing cell for NS (Evolution) to act on.

Wicknight go talk to Robin about what exactly Evolution / Natural Selection IS – and when you have decided come back to me!!!


Wicknight
No one on this thread, or others about evolution, or even any biologist I am aware off, has ever claimed that the first protein structures would have just formed randomly from molecules floating around in the seas on young Earth.

You are indeed correct that interdependent tightly specified protein structures that we observe in living systems could NEVER form using undirected processes and without a massive input of intelligence.
This fact does present an overwhelming problem for Evolution but is fully consistent with Direct Creation.

Wicknight
The first protien structures formed after millions of years of evolution from the first very simple self-replicating molecules. This evolution was "directed" by natural selection.

This is IMPOSSIBLE.

Molecular Biology confirms that the gradual Evolution of useful biological structures is an impossibility.
There is no simple stepped advantage between a postulated self-replicating molecule and a useful peptide or between a useful Peptide and a useful protein – so undirected processes cannot follow some ‘yellow brick road’ of increasing utility to reach the next biologically useful Peptide and then go on to a useful protein. The possible number of intermediates are literally ‘astronomical’ and because the intermediates are ALL equally USELESS, they can offer no signal of progress or 'advantage' towards the next useful Polypeptide for Natural Selection to ‘follow’ or select.
It is analogous to a useful Peptide bobbing about in an ocean of useless Polypeptides, trying to blindly locate another useful Peptide on the far side of the ocean.

It is also like trying to blindly 'crack' open a Safe – you have to try every possible combination. You could be within one digit of the right combination and would never 'know' it or you might have none of the digits. Either way, the result is phenotypically identical (i.e. biologically useless) – and so Natural Selection CANNOT help, when faced with quadrillions of equally useless intermediaries with NONE of them conferring any advantage.


Wicknight
JC the Creationist logic behind the "mouse trap" argument (that these biological system cannot work with even just one part missing) has been debunked a large number of times.

For a start evolution doesn't work like a lego building. Whole new parts are not just suddenly added to the system.

Secondly there is no evidence, or even logical reason, to believe that the very early protein like structures were nearly as complex, or even similar to, modern day proteins.

The ‘mousetrap’ that we are dealing with in even single celled life is some gizmo indeed!!

The idea that so-called early proteins may have been simpler structures doesn't have any practical benefit – because the useless Amino Acid combinatorial space that they would have to cross to get to today’s proteins is a mathematical impossibility, even using every electron in the known Universe.

The numbers simply don’t stack up.

Mathematics is the hardest of 'hard science' – and the mathematics on this issue is clear and devastating for undirected Natural Selection. The numbers indicate that it could SELECT until it was ‘blue in the face’ and never come up with a useful protein – even a useful primitive protein.

I agree that Evolution doesn’t postulate the addition of whole new parts to the system – but this limitation actually makes the task even more difficult.

To eventually achieve a useful 100 Amino Acid Protein demands that functioning intermediaries must exist along the entire spectrum from ONE Amino Acid right through to the useful 100 Amino Acid chain - otherwise NS would eliminate them thereby stalling the entire process. These functioning intermediaries must also be for the same function – it would obviously be completely useless if a protein in your foot cell developed into Rhodopsin (which is critical to the biochemistry of sight).

Indeed, if by some miracle, the SEQUENCE for the protein Rhodopsin were to be produced using undirected processes within some putative primitive eye – this will have NO EFFECT on the odds of spontaneously producing the SEQUENCE for the equally important Thansducin protein – to say nothing about actually producing these proteins exactly where they are needed and coherently harnessing them to produce the desired biochemical effects that result in sight.
Equally, Natural Selection cannot ‘build up’ to a useful protein – it is either functional Rhodopsin or it isn’t any use at all.


Wicknight
am I supposed to ignore science because Hebrew professors tell me the Bible is meant to be taken literally

The question that I was answering by quoting Professor Barr WASN’T a Science question – it was a THEOLOGICAL question originally raised by bmoferrall.


Samb
'The common female ancestor of ALL of Mankind must logically be the first woman''? please explain this logic. If everybody but my family died then my mother would be the most recent common female ancestor of all of mankind, wouldn't she?

True.

But everybody DIDN’T die according the Evolution – it is Creationists who postulate that Noah’s Flood was worldwide and wiped out all of Humanity except eight people.


Wicknight
Imagine adam and eve only had one daughter. Under your logic she would be the most recent common ancestor of ALL mankind, but she still wouldn't have been the first woman, her mother Eve would have been.

You are correct IF you assume that Eve had only ONE daughter. If she had more that one daughter who gave rise to separate lines of descent, then Eve WOULD be still be the most recent common ancestor of ALL of Humanity.

BTW both logic and the Bible indicates that Eve had MANY daughters.


Originally Posted by J C
However, if M-Eve’s next door female neighbour had a DAUGHTER and she mated with M-Eve’s SON to produce daughters then the proportion of women who are descended from this union would trace their common ancestry to the next door female neighbour INSTEAD of M-Eve
Wicknight
Correct, but then M-Eve wouldn't be M-Eve, since there would be at least one unbroken material line that didn't decend through her. You would have to go back further to where the unbroken lines all meet.

This is precisely my point, that the common ancestor of all of Mankind is logically the person where all the unbroken lines meet.
If M-Eve wasn’t alone, then as you have confirmed above, M-Eve wouldn’t be M-Eve because there would be other unbroken maternal lines that didn’t descend through her. As you have confirmed, you have to go back “to where the unbroken lines all meet.”
The point where all unbroken lines meet IS M-Eve and she therefore had to be the first woman.


Wicknight
No, she only has to be the most recent woman with an unbroken material line. There were thousands of other women, but there lines of decent on the material side broke somewhere between then and now (a great-great-great-granddaughter had only a son, line broken. a great-granddaughter died with no children, line broken etc etc)

The only women that can theoretically be the most recent common ancestor to ALL of mankind are:-

A. The First Woman Eve.

B. Eve’s daughter (provided Eve had only one daughter).

C. Some other woman who was the SOLE female survivor of a worldwide catastrophe.

We know that option A is claimed to be true in the Bible (although Evolution denies that such a person existed).

As Evolution rejects Eve it also logically rejects Eve’s daughter. Equally the Bible in Gen 5:4 confirms this fact “After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters”(NIV). The logical assumption based on this verse is that Eve had MANY daughters – thereby ruling out option B from both a Creationist and an Evolutionary perspective.

Neither the Bible or Evolution claims that ONLY one woman survived a worldwide catastrophe that killed ALL other women. Admittedly, Noah’s Flood did drown every woman except four women – but four women AREN’T obviously one woman. Option C is therefore also ruled out from both a Creationist and an Evolutionary perspective.

The ONLY option still valid is therefore Option A.
M-Eve proves that the Biblical Eve existed and she WAS the first and only common mother of all Humanity exactly as confirmed in Gen 3:20 “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living” (NIV).

J C

Wicknight
Doesn't believing in Jesus Christ not make you a nice guy by default? Or are there a lot of mean horrible, yet true, christians walk around the place?
It SHOULD (make you a nice guy, that loves your neighbour as yourself).
The point I made, however remains valid, that while being nice may be a RESULT of being saved – it is not the MEANS of being saved.


Wicknight
Very simple way to prove that is wrong. Imagine there are 2 women alive instead of one.

One has a son, one has a daughter. The first woman instantly brakes her material line, bang its gone. Yet there were still two women alive at the same time, and the still lead to every woman on earth having an unbroken line to the second woman. This woman would be M-Eve

So as you can see, right there, the logic that M-Eve had to be the first and only woman alive at the time goes out the window. The theory still works if there are 2 women alive at the same time. It still works if there are 3, 100, 10,000 women alive at the same time.

You are correct that M-Eve doesn’t ABSOLUTELY prove that she was the ONLY woman present on Earth at the time that she existed – but it does provide strong evidence that she was the only woman at the time.

Your assumption that a second possible woman wouldn’t start a second maternal line is somewhat plausible – but the idea that 10,000 contemporaneous women with M-Eve could be so unlucky is completely implausible. If they DID exist and they produced offspring the chance of ALL of their lineal descendants ‘dying out’ would be minimal indeed.

Equally, IF M-Eve wasn’t alone then, as you have already confirmed M-Eve wouldn’t be M-Eve since there would be other unbroken maternal lines that didn’t descend through her. As you have already confirmed, we have to go back to the point “where the unbroken lines all meet.”

All unbroken lines meet with M-Eve and she therefore had to be the first woman.


Wicknight
The "systems" used to break down Nylon are not "new" in that nothing in the laws of chemistry is "new" it was all decided in an instant at the big bang.

The mutations occuring the the Nylon bug might not have been new, they might first have happen a thousand years ago but had no effect because there was no Nylon to eat.

What is "new" is the genetic information, the genetic coding require to make the bug eat nylon, created by these mutations, information you say is impossible to create.

I agree that the genetic information used by the Nylon Bug to break down Nylon is not new – it was all provided by God during Creation Week (which has greater logical validity than your belief in the power of the big bang to provide this information).

Once the bug possesses this information – all it needs is Nylon substrate for it to commence breakdown!!!
It doesn’t need to be ‘trained’ to eat the Nylon – it merely uses PRE-EXISTING information to do so. BTW this bug obviously survived quite nicely on other substrate before Nylon was invented and indeed it could also survive today if the Nylon substrate was removed.

There is therefore nothing special about the Nylon Bug that proves anything other that the fact that God created it’s kind during Creation Week to perform useful organic matter recycling tasks - and it is obviously still happily performing these tasks.


Wicknight
Just a point, but "loss of information" is still termed evolution

A “loss of information” can indeed be termed Devolution..

In any event, such a process is certainly going in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION to the massive INCREASE in information required by ‘muck to man’ Evolution.


Wicknight
all disease is actually the creation of life, at the expense of other life.

Disease causing bacteria and viruses may indeed create life at the expense of other life.
However, these agents of disease-and death are not capable of generating new forms of life – only destroying life and/or replicating their nasty selves at the expense of their hosts.

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

No, "advanced" has no meaning in evolution. One species is not more evolved than the other.
Instead of saying "advanced" say "adapted". Evolution adapts a species to a certain environment. There are certainly degrees of adaption, some species are nearly prefectly adapted to the environment they live in (sharks for example).
And because every environment is different it is nearly impossible to compare species, or even compare different evolved states of the same line of species.

Ok, so that means you and I are not more advanced than the first self-replicating molecule evolution alleges developed in a pre-biotic soup?

If you are talking in the context of a time line, then yes we are "more" evolved simply because on a time line we are here and they aren't.
But if you are talking about "better" then that is hard to say.
It is not really possible to look at species, even speceis on the same evolutionary line, and say one is better than the other. It doesn't work like that.

So then those who argue that Negroes are a lesser species might have a point if they could show that Aryan man is better fitted for the modern world?

That doesn't make much sense. If they beleived his standards are good and true, why would they sin in the first place?

Because even Christians have the sinful nature they were born with, completing with the new nature God has given them.

You call it "misundertanding" they would call it the word of God. Religion is just as open to interpritation and adaption as human morality.

A thing is either true or false. I may misunderstand the truth and therefore reach a false conclusion. That does not mean there is no truth. But in the real world, the Christian will generally understand and follow God's way.

Exactly, they believe they are still acting within the morality of the religion. That is what makes this form of morality so dangerous and hypocritical. If you based your morality solely on your interpritation of something like the Bible, which is so vague and contradictory, you can pretty much justify anything and still stay on the side of "morality" with out having to justify or explain that morality beyond "God says so"

The Bible is not that opaque. For moral principles and commands, it is generally clear. It is only those who wish to sin who twist its plain meaning. Example, a woman who wants to be a pastor. She must right-off several specific prohibitions as 'cultural', even where they are referenced by the apostles to God-given creation ordinances.

No, its not. That implies humanity, in the abstance of God, as no emotions or empathy or compassion. Which isn't true.

It implies nothing of the sort. Clearly most people possess empathy and compassion - but those are not reasons one can give to insist everyone have them.

I don't beat up old people to steal their money not because I am scared I am going to get caught, but because I believe it is wrong to beat up old people, I would empathise with the hurt I would cause them, I feel compassion for the state I would leave them in with no money.
Therefore I feel it is immoral for anyone to beat up old people, not just me. I don't need God to tell me this.

For you, that's fine. For the person who does not feel this about the old lady, it is no reason for him not to oppress her.

Philosophy, logic, arguement and debate (see that rational for not beating up old people and stealing their money above). Something that is abstant from religion.

If there is no ultimate accounting, and I am very likely to get away with it, all the logic points to doing it.

Well if history has taught us anything it is that a Christian will agree with what they think God says is good. And often what a Christian thinks God says is good is also what they want God to say is good. I'm not saying that is any worse than an atheists coming up with his own moral system, just that it isn't really any better, and a lot harder to argue with.

The erring Christian is always faced with the actual teaching of the Bible. His failure to understand/practice it will be brought home to him. God may permit him to go through life in error of various theological points, but not moral ones. God chastises every Christian in this life. The ungodly He sometimes leaves alone in their sin, until the next life.

Compassion and empathy, leading on to logic and reason (eg I know, through empathy, that my sister or mother being raped would be horrific for them, the logical conclusion from that is that any woman being raped will feel horrific, therefore the act rape is bad and should be out lawed)

Bad for you and them. Good for the perpetrator.

Depends on what you mean by "society"? I think you mean those in society who are in power. Then the answer would be no.
For example, people always use slavery in this example when they say this. They say 100 years ago US "society" said slavery was ok, does that mean it was ok back then.
But did they really. Who in society? Did all of society say slavery was ok, or just a few who were in power to control society. I'm pretty sure the slaves, who were also a large proportion of that society, did not think slavery was "ok".
If you can find no one at all who has a problem with something, then yes it is by default ok. If you can't then you need to get into a proper debate the subject until society can fairly come up with an answer. That doesn't work if "society" is actually a handful of powerful people forcing their views on others.

Here's a clear example; the German people under Hitler. The majority of them thought it a good idea to oppress the Jews and other 'sub-humans'. Was that behaviour moral?

There is also a difference between collective morality and individual morality. Collective morality keeps individual morality in check. For example, I believe early term abortion is fine. A lot of people in this country don't. If supporters of abortion cannot convince these people that they are in fact right, then they need to reexamine their reasons for believing this in the first place. It is all about healthy debate and argument. Which is why I have such problems with people deriving morality from religion, because religion does not allow for healthy argument or debate.

Moral debate must not end up with no conclusions. The Bible gives us God's conclusions - how would man's be any better?

But collective morality may be wrong, and keep in check an indivual morality that is right. Nazi Germany, for example. So where then do we seek an ultimate standard? Not in the individual, not in the collective, but in the revealed will of God. Man's problem then is not his unawareness of God's standards, but his rebellion against God, which allows him to shut off conscience when it suits.

That is a bit of a cycilical definition. Who decided a god cannot makes mistakes? Did we, or the god in question?

God Himself.
__________________

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

No its not. Would you please stop telling atheists what they are supposed to believe when it is clear you don't have a clue what most actually do. You have already been told reasons why atheists can follow morality, and they are a lot better reasons that it-was-written-by-some-bloke-in-a-book-2000-years-ago

No reasons have been given, only personal perferences. Nothing binding on anyone else's conscience.

You did mention homosexuality, and sex before marriage, which you seem to believe is immoral. Can you explain the logic behind that, beyond "God says so"?

The ultimate logic is indeed God says so, but the path to that is the fact we are made in His image and that He ordained one man/one woman as the only expression of sexual bonding. Sex outside that bonding is dishonouring to His ordinance; homosexual sex is worse, being an unnatural perversion of His gift.

Religion, instead of strengthen the idea of absolute morality, infact removes it, because anything can be justified as moral once you have convinced yourself or others that God would approve of your actions. The morality of an action is removed from the action itself, and instead placed in the approval or disapproval of your god for that action. The act of killing innocent people is only immoral if God says it is, so if you can convince yourself or others that God says its ok then it becomes a moral and justified action. Which is exactly how people like Islamic terrorists think.

One can lie to oneself and practice things one's religion forbids, but that is hardly the norm for those serious about their religion. I think it likely the suicide bombers were not normally given to murder, but had to be sure it was an act of war. They were not acting against Islam's teaching, as far as I can gather. Likewise, the Americans bombing Iraq likely thought it was a just war they were fighting. So these are not the best examples to test the value of religion in morality. The same problems can be given for the actions of Communists, or Nationalists of all religions and none.

The clearer cases are where individual murders or oppression are involved. Does religion offer a stronger restraint here than atheism? Logically, and I believe historically, the answer is YES.
_________________

You can believe that God places compassion, and the other emotions, into humans. Thats fine.
But you should also realise that these emotions still exist in people who don't believe that God placed them in humans, or who don't believe in God in the first place.

If God placed them there, then they should be acted upon. If they are just the result of chemical reactions and/or social reinforcement, then they can be ignored or not as the individual pleases. If man has evolved from molecules, as he now reflects on his existence he can no longer be expected to just go with the chemical process that brough him here. He is able to intervene, to cut his own path in the world.

bus77

Are yous not supposed to be having a rest today?

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

If we both agree that there is such a thing as conscience, and that it is in-built to humanity, then we share the same basis for morality - our argument is the source of conscience, and that is a matter of faith.

Agreed.

So, while I would agree with you that atheism as a "religious position" does not specify or require any morality, I believe that being a human involves (usually - there are always outliers) being moral.

Agreed again. My point is that the man evolved from molecules can reflect on his existence and inbuilt morality - and rightly conclude there is no real morality, just the conditioning he has received in his genes and by society. Being a free-agent, there is no reason for him to accept these moral standards, beyond self-interest. With the right conditions, it may make sense that he rapes and pillages his way through life. Or that he ends it all in one great overdose of happy powder. What reason can be given him not to?

I can with certainty deny that in the absence of religion humans are necessarily either immoral or amoral.

Certainly.

The most bizarre distortions of human morality have, in fact, occurred in religious systems.

Yes, many religions are intrinsically immoral. They restrain certain wickedness, but promote others.

wolfsbane

robindch said:

I notice that you've not addressed the point I made a day or two back:

My apologies for the delay. I hope you picked it up further on. I'm afraid my committments have limited my time on the net and I will have to conclude most of my exchanges shortly. It has been very helpful to me in understanding what and how folks think, and I hope we will all have been enlightened.

bus77 said:

Are yous not supposed to be having a rest today?

Not if you're a New Covenant Theology guy like me.

wolfsbane

Assyrian said:

Now death is not a human being with free will. How could death go beyond God's plan? If it was simply doing what God intended, it would be a servant of God not his enemy. If the Assyrians had kept to God's call, they would not have become his enemy and would not have been punished. How did death go from being the servant God created to being his enemy?

As I said previously, when it touched His redeemed people. Its proper function is to punish sinners.

He's not. He just answers your problem about having the earth populated by mortal men and immortal resurrected men.

Enoch was taken to Heaven, he did not continue to walk the earth. No mortal and immortals living together.

Why bring up his creation at all if mortality only came with the fall?

Because Adam's perfection ended when he sinned. Our new perfection will never end - flesh and blood compared to glorified flesh and blood.

It was Adam's natural mortality that would result in his physical death when he was cut off from the source of eternal life.

That's a contradiction: according to you, Adam would have died regardless of his sinning.

In the real world genealogies tell us who the biological parents were. If 'Adam son of God' is not literal biological genealogy, then you have to ask where the literal genealogy begins. Presumably it is when consecutive members are both literal human beings.

The genealogy is straight forward, for it can tell it no other way. Adam's origin was directly of God; Christ's was of God and Mary. All the others in between were soley biological.

So questioning how literal the genealogy was when it said 'Adam son of God' does not as you claimed 'question Jesus' conception'?

Questioning the biological descent of Jesus - which is what you did - is not warranted by the fact that Adam was not born in the same manner as Abraham or David.

Common sense tells one that the Jews also believed Heli was Jesus grandfather, and Matthat his great grandfather, and that the whole genealogy was actually Jesus' own genealogy. Are you suggesting Jesus really had two genealogies, one maternal and the other paternal? If you don't attach the 'supposed' to the whole genealogy, then you do throw out the virgin birth, you just have the miracle of his human lineage skipping a generation.

If the Jews believed Jesus' descent was from Abraham and David, then they were correct. But they were mistaken in supposing Joseph was His father.

Credible to who?

To the universities who gave them their PhDs - Harvard, London, Edinburgh were the first ones I caught in dipping in to:http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/bios/default.asp

A lot of people involved thought they were taking a plain reading of scripture. Christians really should approach this with a lot more humility. Before claiming evolution gives a basis for racism, we should remember the glass house we live in, and that many bearing the name of Christ did some pretty nasty things in his name and supposedly on the basis of his word.
You have to ask yourself, is it the plain reading of scripture that teaches you that racism is wrong, or is it the inspiration of the Holy Spirit teaching you to read God's word with the mind of Christ? Is it the heart that sees a message of love, or hate in the bible? Just because a racist can happily justify his racism from the Bible or the Origin of Species, that doesn't make either book racist.

The plain reading of Scripture teaches us racism is evil. Some things in Scripture are hard to understand, but racism is not one of them. To get a message of hate from the Bible requires a very selective use of texts, a refusal to compare Scripture with Scripture. I do agree that it is the Holy Spirit Who prevents us doing this.

Racism is not part of the logic of Scripture. But it fits well with the Origin of Species.

Adam didn't make you a sinner. You did.

That's hardly Christian theology. The Bible tells us we were born sinners. We sin because of what we are, not the other way around.

Is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep a metaphor? Does this mean the Jesus who called himself the good shepherd was a metaphor too? Does it mean laying down his life for us was a metaphor? What about the lion of Judah, was that a real lion? If it wasn't, when we call Jesus the lion of Judah, are we saying he wasn't real? Paul compared Jesus and Adam on an allegorical level, he said Adam was a figure of Christ (Rom 5:14). Just because Adam was figurative, it doesn't mean Jesus and hid sacrifice weren't real.

That's the point. Adam is both a figure and a real person. Not a myth. Jesus is the lamb of God; He is also a real person. With your denial of the real person, you prevent the metaphor having any meaning. When Paul spoke of Sarah and Hagar as types of believing and unbelieving Israel, he did not mean they were not real persons.

You believe Jesus died for us all don't you?

Well, all of the elect.

That doesn't mean lots of Jesuses had to died together to pay for all our sins, does it?

No, for Jesus is not of the same value as Adam. If He were only a perfect man, then His substitutionary atonement could only have paid for one person. But He is God also, of infinite worth.

BTW, for a summary of the objections to a local Flood, see:http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/flood.asp

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

The individual is never the reference point for morality, because an individual has no requirement for morality per se. It may be that one person's morality is as formally valid from the point of philosophical debate as the next, but all systems are not equally valid from a social point of view, which you seem to be ignoring as a "control" on morality.

I'm not ignoring the social pressure; I'm just saying that a pragmatic reason (I won't steal, lest I get jailed) is not an absolute standard. If I know I can get away with the theft, then the moral 'reason' society has given disappears.

One theistic system of morality may similarly be as valid as the next (its believers are as sincere, and clearly neither set of believers can be considered unbiased in their assessment of the other), but those religions that are considered socially unacceptable will not find their morality publicly acceptable whatever their god may say.

The point is a thing is either truly moral or not, regardless of what religion or society says. I can say that because God sets the standards. Without that, who can say a thing is morally wrong for all people in all times? There is only what one feels now, and we can give no explanation why anyone should conform to my standards, beyond the pragmatic.

Again, you miss out the reason why morality is necessary - which is living socially. Compassion is an excellent foundation for something that is a requirement in any case. The reason why the "next person" has to have a morality that is compatible with mine is a shared society.

What happens when a society decides to enrich itself by exterminating its neighbours? When the whiteman decided to take the American Indians' land? Was that moral because they had the greater numbers and most people thought it OK?

True. It has not convinced me, I'm sorry to say, at least partly because of the silliness of things like YEC, and partly because I simply cannot see how it differs from all the other religions that claim to be the sole truth.

Jesus said: No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. John 6:44,45. It takes God to open one's eyes to spiritual truth and to give one repentance and faith. We are hopelessly lost without that. My prayer for you and the other friends on this list is that the gospel they have heard will be used of God, in His time, to bring saving faith.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

Of course, the question then becomes "why has God not revealed to these people what is revealed in the Bible, if the Bible is the only path to salvation?".

Because He is under no obligation to save everyone. He would have been perfectly just had He saved no one, as we all were born enemies of God. But He set His love on a great number and sent His Son to bear the punishment for their sins.

In a more general sense, we have to ask - "why are we not all born with a direct and obvious relationship with God?" After all, I don't relate to my daughter by leaving a book of instructions on how to reach me lying around amidst the other books and occasionally wiping out all her teddy bears.

Because we are not in a relationship to God like we are to our daughters. We are born rebels against God. He has to intervene to change our hearts and make us His sons and daughters. He sends His word and His Spirit to guide us through this sinful world, to progressively make us like His Son.

Zombrex

J C wrote:

The point I made, however remains valid, that while being nice may be a RESULT of being saved – it is not the MEANS of being saved.

So it doesn't really matter if you lead a good life, if you are a good person, you just need to be "saved" on your death bed?

J C wrote:

but it does provide strong evidence that she was the only woman at the time.

No, as I said, it provides no evidence at all that she was the only woman alive at the time. And we know that these unbroken lines of decent can be traced on back passed M-Eve. M-Eve is simply the most recent.

So whether you believe in the Biblical Eve or not M-Eve is not, and could never be, her.

J C wrote:

but the idea that 10,000 contemporaneous women with M-Eve could be so unlucky is completely implausible.

They don't have to be unlucky. There lines of material decent could break by them directly only having sons, or the line could brake at any time from 150,000 years ago to modern time. A line of material decent could last all the way up to say the 15th Century and then break with a daughter having only sons, or even dying before she had any children.

J C wrote:

If they DID exist and they produced offspring the chance of ALL of their lineal descendants ‘dying out’ would be minimal indeed.

They didn't all die out. M-Eve is simply the most recent. Hundreds of other material lines of decent exist from women before M-Eve.

J C wrote:

Equally, IF M-Eve wasn’t alone then, as you have already confirmed M-Eve wouldn’t be M-Eve since there would be other unbroken maternal lines that didn’t descend through her.

There are, M-Eve is simply the most recent origin of these lines that reaches all of mankind (or womenkind to be exact)

J C wrote:

I agree that the genetic information used by the Nylon Bug to break down Nylon is not new – it was all provided by God during Creation Week (which has greater logical validity than your belief in the power of the big bang to provide this information).

No, if that were true then all these bugs could eat Nylon. They can't, only the ones with the mutation can.

The mutation creates an ability in the bateria that didn't exist before the mutation. That is "new" information, it is a new ability not present in none mutationed strains of the bateria.

J C wrote:

In any event, such a process is certainly going in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION to the massive INCREASE in information required by ‘muck to man’ Evolution.

Evolution doesn't care if "information" is lost or gained when adapting a creature to its environment. The better adaptation, the better chances of survival, is all evolution cares about.

J C wrote:

However, these agents of disease-and death are not capable of generating new forms of life – only destroying life and/or replicating their nasty selves at the expense of their hosts.

Their "nasty selves" ... are you sure you are a trained scientist? :rolleyes:

J C wrote:

Sounds like Robin believes you need at least a living reproducing cell for NS (Evolution) to act on.

You got "living reproducing cell" from "offspring?" ... how exactly?

Robin is quite correct, you need offspring for Natural Selection to work. Luckly (for all of humanity, nah all life on earth) self-replicating molecules, even the most simplest ones, produce offspring. Look closely, it's all in the name - self-replicating molecule ...

J C wrote:

You are indeed correct that interdependent tightly specified protein structures that we observe in living systems could NEVER form using undirected processes and without a massive input of intelligence.

.... or without evolution directed by natural selection. Which is what happened (based on the evidence)

J C wrote:

This is IMPOSSIBLE.

Says who? You? Excuse me if I don't throw my biology books out the window.

Just because you don't understand how something can happen doesn't actually mean its impossible JC

Simple self-replicating molecules evolving into more complex molecules like protiens isn't only possible, its probable based on the laws of chemistry.

J C wrote:

There is no simple stepped advantage between a postulated self-replicating molecule and a useful peptide or between a useful Peptide and a useful protein

That would hold if the first complex self replication molecules were modern day proteins. There is no reason to believe this (unless you are despireatly assuming things to disprove evolution).

JC, I think we have been over this before :rolleyes:

Think of it like climbing Everest. Climbers don't just start at the bottom and walk to the top. That would be impossible, and if someone claimed otherwise you would be correct in calling them out on it.

What climbers actually do is take Everest in stages. They get a bit up, make a camp, and then go back down to base-cap. The next day they get a bit higher, then back to base camp. Eventually they reach the top. But if you just looked at the top, and looked at the bottom you could say "thats impossible", and you would be right.

There is no reason to believe that protein 3 billion years ago looked or functioned anything like protein today. There is no reason to believe that you cannot form a functioning molecule from some of the parts you have in a modern protein. It won't look or function like a modern day protein, but then who says it has to.

There is no reason to believe that modern day protiens could not have evolved from simpiler structures. "Parts" did not just appear suddenly. So therefore the idea that if you suddenly remove a part the protien stops function is completely irrelivent to evolution.

J C wrote:

The idea that so-called early proteins may have been simpler structures doesn't have any practical benefit

You have no reason to believe that.

Obviously they had benefit because they managed to replicate and we are here aren't we. As I said before, just because you cannot understand something JC doesn't mean it cannot have happened.

Zombrex

J C wrote:

Radiocarbon dating is only capable of accurately dating organic materials that are thousands of years old – and it is incapable of even theoretically measuring the ‘millions of years’ time-frame hypotheses of Evolution. Because Radiocarbon dating is necessarily confined to Carbon compounds it cannot be used to ‘age’ rocks or fossils.

Luck for us then that it isn't how we date the Earth isn't it :rolleyes: .

Since the 4.6 billion years date was estimated this date has since then been backed up by a large range of different radiometeric methods of dating.

If they are all wrong, why do they all give the same answer? ... since you like odds so much, please explain that odds that all mistakes in all methods of radiometeric dating would all give roughly the same incorrect answer?

By the way there are over 40 different radiometeric methods for dating. While some of these methods may be wrong some of the time, they aren't all wrong all of the time.

Just as mistakes in radiometeric dating have been shown by dating objects that's date can be independently verified, confirmations of the accuracy of radio-meteric dating can be confirmed in exactly the same way.

Radiometeric dating has been proved correct roughly 95% of the time (give or take a few percent).

So please explain how 95% of all the 40 different ways of dating are actually all wrong and the Bible is actually correct?

The Earth is older than 10,000 years. We are sure about that as much as we are sure about anything. In fact this is possibly one of the most "factual" facts in the history of science. Even if you don't accept the 4.6 billion years date, there is no arguing that the Earth is well well over 10,000 years old.

Unless of course God altered all the evidence just to confuse us ... but then that would be a bit silly wouldn't it.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

Ok, so that means you and I are not more advanced than the first self-replicating molecule evolution alleges developed in a pre-biotic soup?

"Advanced" in the context of what? Brain structure? Motor-nueron ability? Food consumption.

The first self-replicating molecules replicated in minutes. It takes us nine months. Who is more "advanced" within that context?

The first self-replicating molecules could break appart with a slight flucuation of heat. We can survive high levels of heat flucuation. Who is more "advanced" who is more advanced within that context?

The terms like "advanced" "higher" or "more" have no meaning without the context you are comparing.

Its like saying which is better, horses or cheese? You have to put that in some context or comparision before you can provide an intelligent answer.

If you are takling about complexity with relation to the number of working "parts" then we are far far far more advanced than the first self-replicating molecules, since we contain a hell of a lot more working atoms that are doing a hell of a lot more complex work.

wolfsbane wrote:

So then those who argue that Negroes are a lesser species might have a point if they could show that Aryan man is better fitted for the modern world?

A few points.

One, I can't really imagine any way of testing someone is better or worse adapted to the "modern world". I'm not even sure what that means? The modern world is made up of millions of seperate environments, each with thousands of different variables that effect life. Would you test them all? And if you did, how would you generalise that out to one defintion of the "modern world"?

Two, genetics has proven that all humans are equally different in their biological make up. Put simply there not enough difference or similarity in our genes to seperate us up into groups. You can find markers within the classical idea of race, you can tell for example that someone is from Asia, but that doesn't mean anything. Two people from Asia might be as genetically different as someone from Asia and Europe. Then were would that leave you with reguard to the test above?

Thirdly, even if you can show that some groups of humans are not suited to a certain environment, so? It is pretty obvious that an Eskimo has not evolved to live in a desert. Eskimos are "less" adapted to life in the desert than say an person from North Africa. That doesn't really mean anything, beyond Eskimos should take extra care in the desert.

wolfsbane wrote:

Because even Christians have the sinful nature they were born with, completing with the new nature God has given them.

Well the logic behind original sin came after the Bible, so it is arguable if it is correct or not. THough the logic does make a lot of sense (if you are a Christian of course)

wolfsbane wrote:

A thing is either true or false. I may misunderstand the truth and therefore reach a false conclusion. That does not mean there is no truth.

No, but it means that if you can convince others that it is the truth of God it is very hard to argue against that assumption. As I asked before, can you argue God is wrong?

Just because there is a "truth" doesn't mean you have actually found it, even if you believe you have.

wolfsbane wrote:

For moral principles and commands, it is generally clear.

No, actually its not. For all the hundred "you should not kill" passages there are another hundred "eye for an eye" passages. It may appear clear if you have choosen a particular interpritation of the Bible, but then that is just one of many possible interpritations.

wolfsbane wrote:

It implies nothing of the sort. Clearly most people possess empathy and compassion - but those are not reasons one can give to insist everyone have them.

I'm sure some people, through nurture or nature, do not possess empathy or compassion. Serial killers would be a group that springs to mind. But as you say, clearly most people do.

wolfsbane wrote:

For you, that's fine. For the person who does not feel this about the old lady, it is no reason for him not to oppress her.

Beyond the law, no there isn't. But then under a Christian moral system there would be no reason for this man not to oppress her either if he didn't follow Christian morals. So whats the difference? Either way this imaginary person (me maybe) is going to end up oppressing this woman unless he has the compassion not to.

wolfsbane wrote:

If there is no ultimate accounting, and I am very likely to get away with it, all the logic points to doing it.

Except you will probably feel very very bad about doing it, be you a Christian or an Atheist. I'm an atheist and I feel bad about picking up a lost €5 note of the ground (I gave it to charity in the end)

You yourself have said that the punishment of God is not the only reason Christians don't go around raping and murdering people. They don't do it because they also feel it is wrong, based on both their emotions and their logic.

That still works if you remove God from the equation.

wolfsbane wrote:

The erring Christian is always faced with the actual teaching of the Bible. His failure to understand/practice it will be brought home to him.

That maybe true, but at the time he will probably believe he is following the actual teachings of the Bible (as you do now) and saying that he will be punished in the after-life doesn't really help the people he is hurting in this life.

wolfsbane wrote:

Bad for you and them. Good for the perpetrator.

He might argue that, but the logic wouldn't stand up. Just like NAMBLA arguing that raping children is actually a good thing that argument doesn't hold up under examination.

wolfsbane wrote:

Here's a clear example; the German people under Hitler. The majority of them thought it a good idea to oppress the Jews and other 'sub-humans'. Was that behaviour moral?

No. Ask a Jew was it moral behaviour.

wolfsbane wrote:

Moral debate must not end up with no conclusions. The Bible gives us God's conclusions - how would man's be any better?

It isn't supposed to end up with a definiative conclusion. It is only supposed to try to continue to get better and better, on a infinate march of progress.

That is the problem with God's conclusions. They can't get any better, they are fixed as they are.

wolfsbane wrote:

But collective morality may be wrong

It might be, but then if no one is suffering then whats the harm? If someone, even just one person, is suffering then there is always an argument to be made that this morality is wrong.

wolfsbane wrote:

God Himself.

wolfsbane would you believe someone if he said he never lied? How do you know that wasn't a lie?

God says he cannot make mistakes. Maybe that was a mistake?

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote:

The ultimate logic is indeed God says so, but the path to that is the fact we are made in His image and that He ordained one man/one woman as the only expression of sexual bonding. Sex outside that bonding is dishonouring to His ordinance; homosexual sex is worse, being an unnatural perversion of His gift.

Thanks, that is actually the first time anyone has been able to explain that to me. The dishonouring part.

It does still seems strange though. How does it "dishonour" God? And why does God care? And why is that morality? Is there not a difference between "right and wrong" and making God happy? Is it possible to do the right thing that displeases God? Why does God decide what is right? If God decided something that made people on Earth suffer why is God automatically in the right with regard to this even though innocent people are suffering?

wolfsbane wrote:

The same problems can be given for the actions of Communists, or Nationalists of all religions and none.

Oh I agree, but the common thread is a belief in an "absolute" that isn't actually absolute at all, but based on an interpretation, an interpritation in which everyone believes their interpretation of the absolute is the correct one.

wolfsbane wrote:

Does religion offer a stronger restraint here than atheism? Logically, and I believe historically, the answer is YES.

Not if you believe your religion justifies what you want to do (as explained above). An atheists has nothing external to justify his actions, he has to justify them himself.

Saying "God wants me to" does not work with an Atheist. Using the example above, an atheist would have to use a hell of a lot more logic to try and show that homosexual sex is immoral, he couldn't just rely on "God doesn't like it, therefore its wrong" as an argument. And these arguments would have to stand up to external debate.

That I think is a very good thing.

wolfsbane wrote:

If God placed them there, then they should be acted upon. If they are just the result of chemical reactions and/or social reinforcement, then they can be ignored or not as the individual pleases.

They can still be ignored even if God placed them there. But ignoring them makes one feel bad (guilt, sadness, empathy etc). And who likes feeling bad all the time?

If someone is incapable of feeling these emotions (psychotics for example) explaining that God wants not do something isn't really going to make much of a difference is it?

wolfsbane wrote:

If man has evolved from molecules, as he now reflects on his existence he can no longer be expected to just go with the chemical process that brough him here.

Who expected him to?