The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Turtwig

Reality.:p

Re Point 1.
Nope we must eliminate all material causes first before we invoke supernatural ones. Invoking the supernatural first, is both illogical and impractical.

The Mad Hatter

J C wrote: »

The Equine, Rhinocerops and Camelid are valid Kinds ... the rest are 'urine extractions' on your part!!!:D:):eek:

Every item on that list was brought up by you as an example of a "kind," except for the fly/fishing fly kind, which was published in a famous creationist book.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

I still have a lot of respect for J C. The main disagreement I have with J C is that I don't believe that one has to disregard science in order to believe that God brought all things to existence from non-existence.

Actually you do, such as your repeated declaration that you can't imagine how morality could have evolved despite several people trying to explain to you how it happened and link you to scientists explaining how it happened. At times like this you revert to the same type of things creationists say, how it's just a theory and you see no reason to accept what the scientists say over philosophers. When it conflicts with your religious beliefs you will try to belittle science and make out that it has no more basis than a philosophical opinion, it's just that J C's beliefs require him to deny a lot more than you.

Jakkass wrote: »

1) All that exists is material.
2) There is no objective meaning to life.

J C and I are united in our disagreement on these two fronts.

Except that I never said anything of the sort. All I and most atheists say is that it's not enough to just declare that something exists beyond the material and that there is an objective meaning to life because it makes sense to you. You have to provide something to suggest that this is actually the case. I have not rejected either of those ideas, I am simply refraining from accepting them until some supporting evidence is provided. And showing me one of thousands of holy books doesn't cut it

Jakkass wrote: »

I think it's incredibly improbable that all 12 could have been equally deluded at the same time. I think it is more a desire that you have for the Scriptures not being true, rather than a serious investigation that they might be true. This is the view I have come to.

Sathya Sai Baba recently had a birthday party and a million people showed up. How likely is it do you think that a million people are equally deluded at the same time? Or should we all becomes Hindus because it's so unlikely for people to be wrong about a supposed miracle worker?

Sam Vimes

Malty_T wrote: »

Reality.:p

Re Point 1.
Nope we must eliminate all material causes first before we invoke supernatural ones. Invoking the supernatural first, is both illogical and impractical.

You've got that a bit wrong there Malty

It's not enough to just eliminate material clauses and then move onto supernatural ones because we don't know everything about the material world. The process of elimination isn't good enough in this case because we can't eliminate everything. You have to explicitly show that something is supernatural before you can confidently say that it is. Otherwise you're in "I don't know so it must be god" territory.

philologos

Malty_T wrote: »

Re Point 1.
Nope we must eliminate all material causes first before we invoke supernatural ones. Invoking the supernatural first, is both illogical and impractical.

Must we? I don't believe we are compelled to do this, but rather we are compelled to provide a reasonable solution. Irrespective of what view you hold concerning the science, God having brought forth all things is more reasonable by a long shot than the view that everything came into existence without a source.

Creation is a valid hypothesis until people successfully dismantle it. In reality the idea that God created the world is about as valid as it ever was. The question of how God created the world is what is the issue in this thread.

It's very easy to let this thread be a thread where the idea of a YEC is questioned, but there are questions to be asked of those atheists in the thread about how this all happened, and I believe that they need to justify their position effectively.

Why is it more reasonable that God didn't create this world than not given what we know of modern science?

J C - I'd mark my belief as being quite conservative.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

Must we? I don't believe we are compelled to do this, but rather we are compelled to provide a reasonable solution. Irrespective of what view you hold concerning the science, God having brought forth all things is more reasonable by a long shot than the view that everything came into existence without a source.

No one ever said there was no source, just that the source doesn't necessarily have to be a god.

And you're right, something just existing without a source is totally unreasonable. But that's what you think about your god.....

Jakkass wrote: »

Why is it more reasonable that God didn't create this world than not given what we know of modern science?

The best way to explain that nowadays is through psychology, that our brains are prone to hyperactive agency detection for example. It explains what makes us believe in gods and explains why this belief can be so comforting and seem so real to us. There doesn't have to have been a source for the universe but if there was, it most certainly doesn't have to have been a god but more and more every day modern psychology and biology is explaining what makes us overlook this and jump straight from the actually unsupported idea that nothing can come from nothing (except god of course) to believing in one specific holy book. I suppose it can be summed up in the quote from Charles de Secondat (apparently): "If triangles had a god, he would have three sides."

This is probably the third time I've linked you to this video but it remains very interesting and explanatory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg

The Mad Hatter

J C wrote: »

...modern (matreialist-dominated) science denies that God even exists ... and rules out any scientific investigation of a hypothesis involving/involking God ... and if you doubt me ... try including the words 'intelligent design' in your next paper submitted to peer-review ... and watch what happens.

Same thing as would happen to any other paper submitted for peer review: it'd be peer reviewed. Because ID has no evidential basis, it'd be laughed out, though.

Modern (Materialist-dominated) science has nothing to say about how God created the heavens, and the earth and all the life that we have in it ... other than an a priori affirmation, that neither God (nor, by extension, His works) exist!!!:eek:

Show me a single scientific paper that says that.

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

The "CSI" in evolutionary algorithms is not intelligently designed, that's the whole point, that's what makes it an evolutionary algorithm. Many simple units randomly vary and evaluate a fitness function until the solution is found. No intelligent guidance is necessary. Yet again you have shown the breathtaking ignorance that shows you don't have the grand qualifications you claim to

...like I have said, to properly simulate Materialistic Evolution, these programmes would need to have no pre-conceived results or pre-limited options ... and under these circumstances, the algorithm would continue to churn out 'gobbledy gook' ad infinitum!!!!

...please provide an example of your so-called 'non-intelligently designed' algorithm??

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Oh and pseudomathematics about imaginary concepts such as "CSI" don't count as evidence, partly because it's entirely based on the demonstrably nonsense idea of irreducible complexity and partly because it's just ill-defined wishy washy crap designed to confuse and look impressive. Also you have shown that you don't even understand properly what is being claimed by this ill-defined wishy washy crap by getting the maths so badly wrong a few weeks ago, for example claiming that two figures were just different ways of representing the same thing even though operations performed on the two figures produced vastly different results

...this was dealt with comprehensively and repeatedly by me at the time ... and many pages were written by me trying to expain basic mathematics to you guys (that the ONLY way to add the numbers measuring CSI is to first convert their Logs into ordinary numbers, which can then be added ... and this result can then be converted back into Log nomenclature to provide the CSI bit measure of the final result.

Here is but one posting of many where I have dealt comprehensively with this issue:-
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=63349613&postcount=19195

Turtwig

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Same thing as would happen to any other paper submitted for peer review: it'd be peer reviewed. Because ID has no evidential basis, it'd be laughed out, though.

Laurence Krauss and Kenneth Miller challenged the ID theorists to show that they have more papers rejected than either Miller or Krauss individually. (Miller and Krauss were hoping to discuss the reviews and comments of the paper). The ID theorists were unable to do so.
The Fact is that creationists haven't even had as many papers rejected as your average publishing scientist. Yet they cry "unfairness" more than anyone else??

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

What it shows Jakkass is just how far people are willing to go if they really really really want to believe something. They can deny any evidence if it conflicts with what they want to be true. Think about that and then think about, for example, the apostles and ask yourself: is it so difficult to imagine that they could have believed Jesus performed miracles even if he hadn't? Could Jesus' wonderful message for humanity and promise of salvation have caused them to overlook certain inconsistencies that never made it into the bible? It's happening to this day

...hypocracy and/or delusion is ALWAYS a possibility...and there are many examples...
...the pseudo-liberal who is completely intolerant of anybody who questions her cherished ideas...
...the 'Christian' who loves the sin ... and condems the sinner...
...the 'materialist' who holds to the idea that there is nothing except matter, despite being surrounded by virtual information and more CSI than he could 'shake a stick at'!!!!
When it comes to Jesus Christ, His miracles and His writings prove Him to be God ... and the works of Creation (especially, the effectively infinite quantity and quality of CSI in living organisms) prove the existence of God ... and by extension Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Turtwig

Sam Vimes wrote: »

You've got that a bit wrong there Malty

It's not enough to just eliminate material clauses and then move onto supernatural ones because we don't know everything about the material world. The process of elimination isn't good enough in this case because we can't eliminate everything. You have to explicitly show that something is supernatural before you can confidently say that it is. Otherwise you're in "I don't know so it must be god" territory.

Cheers, as always.:)

Jakkass wrote: »

everything came into existence without a source.

Yet God can't?

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

You kinda jumbled our point here.
The point is that "nothing" is necessary to keep evolution going. Evolution runs all by itself.:)

...so evolution is the 'perptual motion machine' of Biology then !!!:eek::):D

...and with just about as much scientific validity!!!:)

Sam Vimes

J C wrote: »

...like I have said, to properly simulate Materialistic Evolution, these programmes would need to have no pre-conceived results or pre-limited options

LOL

They have no pre-conceived results or pre-limited options, that's the whole point. These algorithms solve problems with no known solution that even our most "intelligently designed" methods can't solve.

J C wrote: »

... and under these circumstances, the algorithm would continue to churn out 'gobbledy gook' ad infinitum!!!!

Reality begs to differ. You really should look into evolutionary algorithms, genetic algorithms etc before you continue to embarrass yourself

J C wrote: »

...this was dealt with comprehensively and repeatedly by me at the time ... and many pages were written trying to expain basic mathematics (that the ONLY way to add the numbers measuring CSI is to first convert their Logs into ordinary numbers, which can then be added ... and this result can then be converted back into Log nomenclature to provide the CSI bit measure of the final result.

Nonsense. That's not even what Dembski did, you just left the log part out of the equation because it suited you, inverted values without explaining what you were doing or why and added them in a way that probabilities are not meant to be added. And in doing so you showed that by generating the individual components separately and then making them work together the probability of it happening increases drastically, kindly showing one of the main mechanisms of evolution.

Tell me J C, what is the unit of CSI?

J C

Jakkass wrote: »

I still have a lot of respect for J C. The main disagreement I have with J C is that I don't believe that one has to disregard science in order to believe that God brought all things to existence from non-existence.

... I'm certainly not disregarding science on how everything came to exist ... but I am seriously questioning (and with devsatating effect) the Materialistic 'Fables' that have passed for a 'scientific' account of how Mankind and the Universe came to be!!!

Jakkass wrote: »

We both still believe that God created all things, and we both still believe that God has given us meaning in our lives.

...the point you appear to fail to understand is that 'Modern (matrialistic-dominated) science accepts NONE of these things NEITHER the fact that God Created life nor gives any meaning to our lives ... because modern science demands that we accept that God doesn't exist (or if He does exist, He is completely irelevant).

Jakkass wrote: »

I have a lot of respect for you too believe it or not (when our arguments don't get tedious, and when we actually have a decent discussion rather than descending into pedantry). I disagree with you far more than I'll ever disagree with J C. The disagreement lies in two main assumptions, some go for three, but I don't think you do:
1) All that exists is material.
2) There is no objective meaning to life.

J C and I are united in our disagreement on these two fronts.

I think it's incredibly improbable that all 12 could have been equally deluded at the same time. I think it is more a desire that you have for the Scriptures not being true, rather than a serious investigation that they might be true. This is the view I have come to.

...as Christians, we accept that Jesus was the Christ on faith ALONE ... but it is a well-founded faith based upon the validity of Scripture ... which in turn, is supported by our observation of the PHYSICAL universe and all life therin ... which is the SCIENTIFIC domain!!!

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

...so it's the 'perptual motion machine' of Biology then !!!:eek::):D

How is the non random selection of random variations anything other than a perpetual process?

Btw, JC, in science perptual motion machines are entirely possible as long as you cannot get any excess work out of the machine. Without doing external work, the machine can keep going ad infinitum.

J C

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Every item on that list was brought up by you as an example of a "kind," except for the fly/fishing fly kind, which was published in a famous creationist book.

...they are a caricature by you of what I have said ... and so they are a 'urine exrtaction' ... on your part!!:D

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

You've got that a bit wrong there Malty

It's not enough to just eliminate material clauses and then move onto supernatural ones because we don't know everything about the material world. The process of elimination isn't good enough in this case because we can't eliminate everything. You have to explicitly show that something is supernatural before you can confidently say that it is. Otherwise you're in "I don't know so it must be god" territory.

...either way, the discovery of the vast levels of CSI within living organisms proves that an equally vast intelligence was responsible ... so Creation Science HAS explicitly shown ... and mathematically proven that an omnipotent and omniscient intelligence of 'God-like' proportions Created life!!!:D:)

...so your test has been applied ... and the answer is in the affirmative!!!:eek:

J C

Jakkass wrote: »

Must we? I don't believe we are compelled to do this, but rather we are compelled to provide a reasonable solution. Irrespective of what view you hold concerning the science, God having brought forth all things is more reasonable by a long shot than the view that everything came into existence without a source.

Creation is a valid hypothesis until people successfully dismantle it. In reality the idea that God created the world is about as valid as it ever was. The question of how God created the world is what is the issue in this thread.

It's very easy to let this thread be a thread where the idea of a YEC is questioned, but there are questions to be asked of those atheists in the thread about how this all happened, and I believe that they need to justify their position effectively.

Why is it more reasonable that God didn't create this world than not given what we know of modern science?

... good points

Jakkass wrote: »

J C - I'd mark my belief as being quite conservative.

...the key questions are :-

1. Are you Saved.
2. Are you a Bible-believing Christian?

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

1. Were you Saved.

Yep.

2. Are you a Bible-believing Christian?

Nope.

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

Yep. Good!!!


Nope....so what do you believe in about God (and the life and works of Jesus Christ on Earth) ... and how do you reach your conclusions?

Militant Agnosticism : " I don't know and you don't either!" ... a case of the blind leading the blind, no doubt!!! ...and for a guy that claims not to know anything ... you can be quite opinionated at times!!!:eek::D

.

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

.so what do you believe in about God (and the life and works of Jesus Christ on Earth) ... and how do you reach your conclusions?

Jesus Christs was a great guy. He transformed a particularly ugly philosophy (namely that of the OT) into something more appreciable and moral.
He was probably nothing more than a great philosopher like Socrates or the Buddha.
I don't think He was a God, certainly not the God of the OT anyway!

Sam Vimes

J C wrote: »

...either way, the discovery of the vast levels of CSI within living organisms proves that an equally vast intelligence was responsible ... so Creation Science HAS explicitly shown ... and mathematically proven that an omnipotent and omniscient intelligence of 'God-like' proportions Created life!!!:D:)

...so your test has been applied ... and the answer is in the affirmative!!!:eek:

It would be so much easier to live in a world where things became true simply because you repeated them over and over but unfortunately we do not live in such a world. Even if CSI was valid, all it would do is disprove evolution and contrary to popular denialist opinion, "god did it" does not win by default. Also contrary to popular denialist opinion, evolution is not the "foundation" of atheism. Atheists existed long before the theory of evolution.

Atheism and science do not necessarily go hand in hand, you don't have to have ever heard of science to be an atheist but even if that were not the case, after you had disproved evolution you would then have to tackle all the other people whose scientific disciplines contradict denialism such as geologists, astronomers, anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, chemists, physicists and lets not forget bishops, archbishops, cardinals and the pope who all say you're wrong.

J C

wrote:

Originally Posted by J C
Modern (Materialist-dominated) science has nothing to say about how God created the heavens, and the earth and all the life that we have in it ... other than an a priori affirmation, that neither God (nor, by extension, His works) exist!!!

The Mad Hatter
Show me a single scientific paper that says that.

...this is the current official position of Materialistic Science ... unless something has changed, and mainstream science has ended its denial of God ... and now accepts Hypotheses that include the 'G-word' ... or even the 'ID-word' !!!!:eek::D

Turtwig

If either the two of the above post were true, then JC you should have no problem in referencing to us situations that show that more scientists are fired for expresssing creationist beliefs (many are still employed in their respective disciplines by universities iirc) than normal scientists or that more creationist papers have been submitted for peer review than Laurence Krauss or <insert reknowned scientist here> has had rejected.

philologos

Sam Vimes: What does a member of American Atheists know about how I believe that I don't? He's pretty much speaking to the converted.

I don't think that atheists have any better knowledge of how I can come to believe than I do. I think it's presumptuous that people who don't even claim to believe can make such claims in a reasonable fashion.

I will however watch the video when I get the time to.

J C: 1. I recognise that Jesus died for me, that and that He was the blameless Son of God, and that I have received new life in Him through the Resurrection.

2. Yes. The Genesis account tells me that God created the world, but it does not tell me how God created the world.

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

Jesus Christs was a great guy. He transformed a particularly ugly philosophy (namely that of the OT) into something more appreciable and moral.
He was probably nothing more than a great philosopher like Socrates or the Buddha.
I don't think He was a God, certainly not the God of the OT anyway!

....The Word of God says that the denial of the Divinity of Jesus Christ is Anti-Christ (1Jn 2:22) ... so I have bad news for you ... you AREN'T a Saved Christian (despite you earlier answer that you were 'saved')!!!

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

....The Word of God says that the denial of the Divinity of Jesus Christ is Anti-Christ (1Jn 2:22) ... so I have bad news for you ... you AREN'T a Saved Christian (despite you earlier answer that you were 'saved')!!!

Of course, definitely I'm not saved now. To be frankly honest if I could do it all over again, I'd rather be born into a religion that's states we are born perfect. Not one that say's I'm an sinner and deserve to be punished.

Ironically*, though, JC mate, I consider myself more saved now that I have ever been in my entire life.
Freethinker for life!:D


*Yeah, I probably used "ironically" wrong here.:o

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

It would be so much easier to live in a world where things became true simply because you repeated them over and over but unfortunately we do not live in such a world. Even if CSI was valid, all it would do is disprove evolution and contrary to popular denialist opinion, "god did it" does not win by default. Also contrary to popular denialist opinion, evolution is not the "foundation" of atheism. Atheists existed long before the theory of evolution.

...why do you think Prof Dawkins is so 'wedded' to BOTH Atheism and Evolution then???
...it is no accident ... and you know it!!!!

...BOTH Atheism and Evolutionism trace their 'roots' right back to Ancient Greece ... and probably right back as far as Babel!!!!

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Atheism and science do not necessarily go hand in hand, you don't have to have ever heard of science to be an atheist but even if that were not the case, after you had disproved evolution you would then have to tackle all the other people whose scientific disciplines contradict denialism such as geologists, astronomers, anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, chemists, physicists and lets not forget bishops, archbishops, cardinals and the pope who all say you're wrong.

...and do all of these interesting people support Atheism's 'crowning glory' ... Materialistic Evolution????

philologos

Malty_T wrote: »

Of course, definitely I'm not saved now, but to frankly honest if I could do it all over again. I'd rather be born into a religion that's states we are born perfect. Not one that say's I'm an sinner and deserve to be punished

The evidence suggests that humans are fallible beings. This is why I find Christianity more reasonable.

It appears that a lot of people don't want to realise this simple fact. It's just being honest and familiar with yourself to say that yes, I have made mistakes, and if I am just honest and confess them I can be forgiven.

We all deserve to be punished, yes, but it doesn't have to be that way.

I'd rather embrace my true nature which is that I have made mistakes, fallen short of God's standard rather than to pretend I'm perfect.

I can't find any good reason as to why a Creator cannot exist or indeed is improbable.

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

Of course, definitely I'm not saved now. To be frankly honest if I could do it all over again, I'd rather be born into a religion that's states we are born perfect. Not one that say's I'm an sinner and deserve to be punished.

Ironically*, though, JC mate, I consider myself more saved now that I have ever been in my entire life.
Freethinker for life!:D


*Yeah, I probably used "ironically" wrong here.:o

...the only one who will assure you that you are perfect is the 'Father of Lies' and his minnions ... while he keeps an account of your sins to use against you !!!

There are no 'degrees' of Salvation ... and only One by whom we may be Saved ... the Lord Jesus Christ.