One question for Christians

[Bad Writer]

A person doesn’t get published in the most prestigious scientific journal in the world at the age of 22 by merely being “good at writing articles”. He’s an excellent scientist.

So was Einstein, but he started out sucking pretty bad at math. All I'm saying is that I don't deny the insane smarts that your friend has, but what he says about religion, from what I can tell, is a huge offering of conjectures and what ifs. Those 'what ifs' certainly work as a model for how it could have been (even though I still take issue with it), but because the theory is built that way, it doesn't prove a thing except for the fact that his particular view works.

Take, for example, abiogenesis. We can't prove how exactly it worked on earth (and because of that we don't know for certain that it even happened in our planet's case), but we can still prove that it works. This is a good example of how I approach science. I won't proceed to tell anyone that the inhabitants of this earth came about because of abiogenesis, but I will certainly spread the fact that it's a proven theory.

I wonder...is this how you feel about the story of Noah's Ark?

A man built his house out of straw for stability, but the wind still blew it down. I could have a stable deck of cards, but a breath of air can topple it.

Not sure what your point is, the dimensions for the ark are consistent with an extremely stable vessel. This isn’t like the Gilgamesh story where the boat is a cube.

I'm just saying that saying something is built for stability doesn't make it invulnerable when certain factors are introduced. Say an Eskimo built the strongest Igloo ever. Unfortunately a heat wave hit Alaska all of a sudden. All the stability in the world couldn't save the poor man's Igloo from melting all around him.

Look, perhaps conditions could be met for Noah's giant wooden construct to last all that time. Is it really possible to tell that it happened just from reading lines out of a story book? Later, during the times of Babel, could the people really have built a structure all the way to heaven using the knowledge of architecture of the time? Why also is there no room for doubt?

As is asserting the story isn’t feasible, if you’re allowed to make conjectures about how much poop would have been aboard the ark then I am allowed to make conjectures about how a person could deal with the poop. Fair is fair.

Asserting that the story isn't feasible is all evidence-based. You can think that the evidence is being manipulated to my world view, and I can think the same about you. Just remember that my world view is based on facts and evidence while yours is based on faith. The point I'm trying to make is that in order to even talk about what's possible and not with the story of Noah's Ark is to make conjectures all across the board...I can concede that point.

We can infer from scripture that Noah had between 55 and 75 years to build the Ark depending upon how old his sons were when he began construction.

So during that entire time he was laughed at and ridiculed? No one else was righteous? What about Methuselah, his contemporary, or Enoch, or any of their followers? Did all the righteous up to the point of the first rains of the flood simply vanish, all innocent babies and children included?

And Sarfati has demonstrated the claim is not really that outrageous, the Ark account in Genesis is very feasible thanks to advancements in our understanding of plate tectonics and speciation through Natural Selection. The more we learn the more feasible the story becomes.

I think you need to reconsider what constitutes and outrageous claim and what doesn't? So if you think that the story of Noah's Ark being true isn't outrageous, then perhaps you'll find the stories of Alien Abductions pretty believable too. You'd be surprised at the level of detail that some of the supposed victims weave into their stories. These stories almost become...well...feasible.

What I'm trying to say is that calling a claim feasible isn't reducing the qualifier of outrageous. Saying that we all live in the Matrix has many different feasible models of possibility, but the claim remains outrageous.

What constitutes an outrageous claim for you?

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What I'm saying that he doesn't speculate about are the things that Isaak does believe in. As for wasting everyone's time, it all depends on what you consider a waste. I suppose if he got you to read his arguments, don't you think he probably thinks of that as a win, even if he didn't convince you?

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Why would he present arguments that were already refuted in the very book he is supposed to be countering? That’s just downright sloppy scholarship.

Just because the book gives you something feasible doesn't make the story any less fabricated. The Star Trek franchise presents some pretty convincing scenarios; however, we can't say that we can Time Travel just because the crew of the Enterprise figured out a way to turn the clock any which way by slingshotting around the sun.

The thing that makes science so relevant in today's world is that its theories are peer-reviewed and reproduced, leaving little margin for error based on the known evidence. That doesn't make science wrong, as you assume it does; instead, it gives us a close approximation of a theory. If your friend is, as you say, a scientist, then he should be able to explain this to you. If he instead tells you that science is wrong and can never be trusted, then why is he in the field that he is?

Asserting they went without meat is not a valid claim either, because you have no proof that that's what they did. What kept the animals higher up on the food chain from instinctually going after their natural prey?

What kept them from eating Noah's family?

The same thing that made them come to the ark on their own. All creatures are subordinate to their creator.

I don't believe in a creator. I don't have evidence there is a God. I would need to assume these creatures have a creator before your statement that they are subordinate to it can be rationalized.

You’re confounding two different points, the purpose behind presenting arguments is to persuade, but arguments are not deemed sound or unsound based upon whether they persuade or not. Many people are persuaded by logically invalid arguments and many people are not persuaded by logically sound arguments.

This is as far as you need to go with this. The rest:

Given your logic you’d have to argue that Christianity is true because it’s the most persuasive religion in the world. I am saying that does not prove Christianity is true.

The rest is a red herring. Given by your statement just before this, an argument can be good, persuasive, but also false. It's ability to persuade is still measured though, and therein lies its merits. Arguing someone to the point of changing their mind do not make the points right. I think you know this, and I don't understand why you took it down this path. My only beef is that you seemed to forget that arguments needed to be persuasive to have merits. I believe you've conceded this point, so why can't you just say that? Is it because I'm an Atheist, and, to you, I have to be wrong all the time no matter what?

How did the olive tree survive?

It didn’t, the leaf the dove brought back would have been from a new olive tree that had begun to grow...

How long does it take an olive tree to grow branches big enough for a dove to carry?

Is there a clear definition given in the bible as to what "kind" is?

Just that all animals reproduce according to their kind, so two animals that cannot reproduce would be different Biblical kinds; which places it near what we would call “Families” today.

Animal Classification

"Family
In every order, there are different families of animals which all have very similar features. The Carnivora order breaks into families that include Felidae (Cats), Canidae (Dogs), Ursidae (Bears), and Mustelidae (Weasels)."

So can every Felidae interbreed? Every Carnivora? Can every different type of fly breed with another naturally out in the wild? How exactly are the biblical "Kinds" the same as "Families", when the definition you've provided gives the prerequisite of having to be able to breed with each other?

500ftx75ftx50ft (1,875,000 cubic feet) in dimensions. Three interior decks (Gen 6:16), stalls for the animals (Gen 6:14).

And specialized habitats? Differing climes by region of the boat? Heat lamps for the reptiles? Aquariums for the sea mammals?

Maybe there's space for the animals, but what about all the space for the food? Could this food have lasted for a year give or take? If it did, how did they do it?

There would have been more than enough space in a vessel of those dimensions, that’s a huge structure. Most plants, dried meat, and grains can last over a year; I do not see that being an issue.

You don't see it as an issue because of how you've described the Biblical "Kind", and because of this you've calculated 2000 animals to be on board the boat. So did Noah have a greenhouse to keeps the green foods fresh? Did he have some kind of advanced refrigeration system? Fresh water misters? How did the fresh water remain fresh?

How did they condition the wood of the ark not to decay?

Scripture says the wood was treated with tar, and a common practice for ships of that time period was to bury the wood for a period of time to strengthen it.

So then what's Gopher wood? It it Cypress?

What about ventilation? The Bible offers no explanation, and it only mentions a single door.

I gave them 8 hours of sleep (which is probably more than is required for adults). 2,000 animals/8 people/16 hours a day = 15 animals per hour, but that’s only if all animals need daily attention, which many do not. It could easily be done with proper organization and planning.

You call that easy?

We’re not told how old Noah’s daughters in law were but Noah was 600, and his sons were between 50 and 104. This does not mean they looked like one hundred year olds look today, people lived much longer then so their lifespans would have been proportionally similar to ours, Noah would have looked middle aged (he had his first son when he was 500), and his sons much younger.

Is there any explanation as to why men lived longer back then? Why doesn't anyone live that long today? Why is there no other evidence for this life-span than what is found in the Bible? How do you know how Noah looked?

You have two options, either millions of small local floods buried animals so suddenly that we find them even in the process of giving birth and eating other animals (and these animals couldn’t just avoid these local floods), or it was all a single cataclysmic event.

Right, and so you choose the latter because it lines up with your world view. I'm okay with thinking there might be those two choices, but with what I know of species, the fossil record, plant, animal and sea life, I think the former fits those ideas much better. I'm also willing to say that we could both be wrong, and that there are other, much different but still valid reasons.

That’s not what I am saying, I am saying that you are using these assumptions in order to interpret the evidence, and that’s begging the question because if the Bible were true those interpretations would be false; so they cannot be used to argue against the Bible.

So you don't assume the Bible to be true before looking at the evidence? If you knew nothing about God before searching the universe for answers, would they point to an omnipotent creator, or do you have to know what you're looking for before you find it?

17th Century scientific understandings of the Universe were not wrong? I bet you’d have trouble finding a single one that is still accepted today.

If I lived in the 17th century and was as skeptical as I am now, the evidence would probably turn me to Deism. It doesn't matter if the entire truth is there or not; the problem is assuming one thing to be absolutely true and then turning the evidence over to fit your world view, while discarding all else despite their merits. Is there anything in science besides the age of the earth that you dismiss despite what the scientific community says otherwise?

Me: You can't justify what you don't know. For all we can tell god created a giant firefly in the sky to light the world for that day.
SW: Sure, but that would still give us days without the Sun, so what’s your point?

Uh oh! I hope you’re not being dishonest here. In Post # 336 you did not bold “You can’t justify what you don’t know.” And it is still that way now, you can see for yourself I took a screen shot…

You're looking at the original text, but I bolded my point in my response to emphasize to you what exactly my point was. I never said that the bold was in the original post.

I never said you had free will. You’re not freely choosing not to worship Him now.

So you believe in predestination?

You lost me. More moral than God? That doesn’t make any sense.

You can't fathom being put in a situation, even by the being that gives you commandments from on high, in which you would have to kill another human being. The fact that you are avoiding answering my question is all the answer I need...unless I'm wrong and you would kill if he commanded you to, just like Moses did? Just like Abraham was going to?

To answer why I think God is immoral, I think killing people for not believing, for being homosexual (even though he supposedly made them that way), and for worshiping other gods is downright immoral, for he's getting rid of the competition, he's getting rid of people he doesn't like, and this is very much akin to what Hitler tried to do with the Jews during the Holocaust. Do you believe Adolf Hitler was moral?

...in a polytheistic Universe you’ve opened up the possibility of logical contradictions. If logical contradictions can exist we lose our ability to know anything at all. Not only this, but we’d lose the ability to do science because there is no longer a guarantee of future uniformity in scientific laws with multiple gods existing and capable of altering these laws.

You mean logical contradictions like how Yahweh is both Merciful and Just? Seems like we're still doing science just fine.

Speaking of eternal progression, they actually can explain where it came from: their prophet Joseph Smith revealed it to them. Was Joseph Smith a false prophet?

That’s not what I am asking, I am asking where the actual law of eternal progression came from, not who told them about it. You have a system of millions of gods, all of them have their own creation they govern over but why must they follow this one law? Who created that law? Another god? One who is supreme over all other gods? It’s a logically absurd system obviously created by a logically absurd human mind.

I don't know where the law originated, but they seem to think it didn't originate from anywhere. They believe that eternity is one eternal round, that there is no beginning and no end, that, yes, God had to prove himself to become the one God after walking the earth as a man, and so did his father before him, and his father.

You see...I found out during my time in Mormonism that the regular Joes of the Church don't get to be the kind of God that Yahweh is in Christianity. Elohim, the Mormon Heavenly Father, will always be number one, and that we will sing his praises forever. Later on, Jehovah (Christ) will be a Heavenly Father to his own numberless spirit children, and he will have an only begotten son...and so on.

But why is this idea so crazy? I mean, sure, I think it's all made up hoo ha, but why do you think it's crazy?

Being an atheist means that one does not believe in a god, whether it's intentionally or ignorantly. A baby is the latter: they do not have any beliefs in a deity, so they are atheists, or non-theists, if you will.

That’s not the philosophically accepted definition of the term atheism.

“Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief”- Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Why don't you look a little harder? Atheism is not the same all across the board. There is strong Atheism and weak Atheism. Weak Atheism is the easiest to defend because it doesn't go down the route of Strong Atheism by asserting anything. The definition you provided is for Strong Atheism, and they do have a burden of proof, as it is a positive assertion. Which Atheist position do you think I take?

You don't make the rules, and neither do I. Wikipedia: Philosophic Burden of Proof

Neither does a user-generated website.

Oh, so the external sources that link to the content is wrong too?

I am glad you were more civil this time around. Kudos.

Well, I have to give credit to my wife who told me to keep it civil. She actually did most of the research for the reply last time.

P1 If secularists assume scripture is wrong in order to argue scripture is wrong, then they are begging the question.

They would be kicking their own ass for assuming it's wrong in the first place. Assuming it's right is also stupid.

P2 Secularists assume scripture is wrong in order to argue scripture is wrong

You assume it's right to argue for it. I see no difference.

C1 Therefore, secularists are begging the question

It takes two to tango. There would be no need to argue if you did not first make a claim.