‘Statler Waldorf’ Wrote:It actually does not violate any laws of Conservation. It's more of just a "rescue mechanism" which are used all the time in Science, see dark matter, dark energy, and oort clouds. So Creationists are not the only ones who use this tactic. The Big Bang has its own starlight issue, so it's a problem for everyone. That's why it comes more down to worldviews than the evidence.

So, all the starlight in the universe/galaxy was instantly created in situ but this does not violate the law of conservation of energy?

Also, the term ‘Rescue Mechanism’ is being misused here. You see them as something conjured up ad hoc to suit any gap in the evidence. What is actually happening is that theories are proposed based on current knowledge. These theories are not accepted as true, they are posed for further investigation and validation. In essence you misrepresented the process when you said;

‘Statler Waldorf’ Wrote:Like I said, secular scientists invoke their own form of the super-natural when they create un-observable entities such as dark matter, dark energy, and oort clouds. How are these any different than the "God did it" argument? "Let's see, Comets can't last longer than 10,000 years, we see comets today even though the Universe is much older than that, sooooo . . . there must be some magical place we have never seen that makes these comets and spits them out! We will call it an oort cloud and people will believe it exists!". I find it interesting you are not nearly as critical of these arguments on your side of the aisle.

There is no invocation of the ‘super natural’ here; new theories were proposed to suit the observations. These theories are abstract but are modelled on plausible natural ideas. They haven’t been accepted or popularised as true in any way. They are working theories nothing more.

Whereas the ‘God did it’ argument is invoked as an end to the investigation i.e. “We have no current idea how this phenomenon occurs therefore ‘God did it’”.

How do you know that I am not critical of the arguments you mentioned? We’ve never discussed them. All you’ve done is assume something about me and then criticise me for it. In actual fact Statler I am quite critical of these arguments, I don’t accept them as fact but I feel they are plausible. I’m content to allow them to be investigated and see where it leads.

‘Statler Waldorf’ Wrote:That's just it, there is no such thing as a "simple assumption". Just because your and my worldviews share these assumptions does not make them "simple" or something everyone assumes.

What I’m saying Statler is that these ‘simple assumptions’ have no bearing on the practice of science. They do not overly affect the interpretation of results.

‘Statler Waldorf’ Wrote:So you are saying that Science always leans towards the most plausible explaination? So let's take Abiogenesis, even with taking into account all the random interactions in the universe since the beginning, the chance of assembling life without intelligent direction is equivalent to guessing a 5000 digit pin number on your first try. Yet many Scientists believe in Abiogenesis. So it's obvious they do not always lean towards the most plausible explaination since this one is a statistically impossible one.

Tried and failed argument from implausibility. Just because something is implausible does not make it impossible. It may be implausible but it only had to happen once.

Furthermore, what is the more plausible alternative you’re suggesting? If it is ‘god’ then one would be begging the question; how is it that this ‘creator god’ came around without any intelligent direction and is much, much more complicated than the life forms generated by abiogenesis.

Statler Waldorf’]

I think you are looking at it all wrong. I will use your same analogy.

Lets say we have two possible ages. 6000 years and 4.5 billion years. We have an eye witness acount that says that the Earth is 6000 years old and that a worldwide flood occured. Since I value observation I will take this account into effect.

We can date the Earth dozens of different ways, if I assume this eye wittness account is incorrect and hold a uniformitarian view point none of these methods agree. I get everything from 6000-4.5 billion years. If I assume this flood account is true and I take it into consideration all the dating methods point to a 6000 year old Earth. So I make an inference to the best possible explaination, which is that a global flood did occur and the Earth is young. Simple and scientific. Where is this rule that Scripture cannot be used in science? It's used all the timein archeology. [/quote Wrote:‘An eyewitness account’? Is this the Bible?

You can’t summarily claim it as an eye witness account Statler. Its historical accuracy has been widely refuted and only your small (YEC) subdivision of Christianity interprets it the way you do. Others interpret it metaphorically and so on. The majority of Christians in fact do not believe in a Young Earth so your use of the bible is entirely subjective. Furthermore, you use the bible on its self-proclaimed correctness. In light of this claiming it as an eye witness account and basing your argument on it is absurd.

Oh, and we use different dating techniques for different types of material. So using them all arbitrarily would create foolish numbers. The techniques need to be applied in certain circumstances not ad hoc.
You make inference to the best possible solution? What about the fact that global geology shows no evidence of a flood. The fact that we can see structures which were supposedly being built in the time of the flood which were not annihilated by the raging torrents? And all the other evidence you have been shown since arriving here.

[quote=‘Statler Waldorf’]

I just find it interesting that you don't care whether those stories are true or not. If they are true I think it points to a lot of bad science on your side of the aisle. Thta is probably why you thumb your nose at these stories.

I don’t care because you have yet to prove the validity of them. They are just your stories, full stop. Even if they were true, they point to a limited number of exceptions to the general nature of secular science not a whole sale issue. If you wanted me to consider them you’d prove they are factual.

‘Statler Waldorf’ Wrote:Well I can just point you to the Discovery article I already did. Many reviewers are not concerned with the evidence, they are concerned more with the implications of the article. An article that rightfully destroyed Darwinian Evolution would NEVER get published in a secular journal and you know it. Darwin has become some kind of Science God and to question his findings or even originality of his work (since a Creationist published work on Natural Selection before Darwin even took his voyage) is very similiar to someone bashing the pope in front of a group of Catholics.

Again, one article. One Limited set of reviewers.Thats not enough for the sweeping generalisations your trying to force. You’re not proving anything except one possible case of overzealous reviewing which I read differently to you. You can’t just make claims like ‘an article that destroyed Darwinian Evolution would never get published’ I don’t know this and you don’t know this. Why? Because every experiment conducted into the subject thus far has confirmed it. Trying to argue against it in this way is foolish Statler.

‘Statler Waldorf’ Wrote:Darwin has become some kind of Science God and to question his findings or even originality of his work (since a Creationist published work on Natural Selection before Darwin even took his voyage) is very similiar to someone bashing the pope in front of a group of Catholics.

This is just an assertion you’ve dreamed up based on your own assumptions about secular scientists. Just another case of you sweeping a giant generalisation you have no proof of.

‘Statler Waldorf’ Wrote:So you mean to tell me that I could get a Creation research paper published in "Evolution" Journal? Please, you have got to be kidding me. They want articles that all support Darwinian Evolution and you know it. There is actually nothing wrong with this approach, if I want an article that supports Darwinian Evolution I can pick up Evolution Journal, if I want one that supports Creation I can pick up The Journal of Creation- as long as all the journals are available this is not censorship and is a very effective system. When groups say, "well there journals are not scientific because we have changed the definition of what we consider science" this then becomes censorship. Luckily, it is not my side that is doing this.

Please stop saying ‘and you know it’ Statler. Its fucking annoying beyond belief. I don’t know them Statler because they’re you’re assertions . . . don’t try and bolster them by making it seem I’m just shying away from them.

Again, you’re just asserting something about secular journals. I’ll ask you again; Go to their submission guidelines like I did with your ‘Answers’ journal and support your claim.

The reason you can’t publish creationism in secular journals is because the entire thing is based in one way or another on faith and the assumption that the bible is correct. As this is yet to receive any corroboratory evidence, in any field, it has no place in science.

The difference I’m trying to point out is that all secular journals allow any type of article as long as the science (inclusive of any assumptions) is sound and it is related to the scope of the journal. Whereas your creation journals wouldn’t even allow a YEC article which went against the theory of a global flood. It’s ridiculous and basically a method of disseminating propaganda specific to one niche belief.

‘Statler Waldorf’ Wrote:Actually it would be inappropriate for me or Dr. Lisle to argue against an illogical argument logically. So we must first point out the logical fallacies in these arguments. Once your side corrects these fallacies and presents a logically valid argument then we can began to address the issue on logical grounds.

So, you’ll just look for minor logical fallacies so that you can dodge the actual issue at hand. That is a poor style of debating which merely shield you from having to address the points being presented against you.

I bet you he won't reply. And if he does, he'll say "Go to the Balcony".

(November 2, 2010 at 10:34 am)chasm Wrote: I bet you he won't reply. And if he does, he'll say "Go to the Balcony".

Not so. The Balcony is now closed.

(November 2, 2010 at 2:17 pm)orogenicman Wrote:

(November 2, 2010 at 10:34 am)chasm Wrote: I bet you he won't reply. And if he does, he'll say "Go to the Balcony".

Not so. The Balcony is now closed.

It was a humanitarian gesture to prevent him from falling off.

I think he hasn't left us yet. He'll prob return with new and enlighting answers to all of our questions.

Although I cannot see how he will come up with evidence to back his assertion "we see events that violate natural laws quite often".

Right now he is probably just busy with all his church friends telling them how he has been doing battle against Satan® and his faith remains unscathed or some such self servient ego bolstering bullshit that makes him feel better about himself.

I see it being funny when we don't know something, therefore God did it. How many things have we "un-God did it"?

(November 7, 2010 at 1:00 pm)superstarr Wrote: I see it being funny when we don't know something, therefore God did it. How many things have we "un-God did it"?

That may be iron age mentality and may be funny. But when we know something, and still some says god did it, that's a monkey mentality with a vote and it isn't funny.

I'll reserve a spot here, now that I've mostly returned from my unforseen absence and I'll probably have something to say if this 'conversation' continues.

Quote:Premise 1: Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
Premise 2: The universe has a beginning.

Conclusion: The universe has a cause.

Premise 1: Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
Premise 2: God is eternal, he has no beginning.

Conclusion: God has no cause.

---

Quote:The Bible is not historically accurate?

No more so than a James Pattern novel can be considered to be historically accurate.

Quote:Then why did I just see a program on National Geographic where they were using scripture to find the cities of Sodom and Gomorra? They found the two cities exactly where Scripture said they were and they also found evidence of catastrophe in both cities. The Bible is used in Archeology more than any other holy book.

Just because the Bible references historical places and landmarks doesn't mean that all of the Bible is true. Catholics and Jews understand that the Bible is not always to be interpreted literally, and since they wrote the books contained in it, I'll go with that. The Bible says that slavery and bigomy is acceptable. Do you believe that is true?

Quote:Well yes certain dating methods are meant for different materials, like radio-carbon dating is meant for organic matter and radio-metric dating is used for igneous rocks. However, when we use just different radio-metric methods on the same igneous rock you get vastly different ages. Sometimes these ages vary by a billion years! What kind of accuracy is that? When we use these methods to date igneous rocks of known ages we get ages that are sometimes thousands of times in error. We never get the correct age. So why would we assume that a method that never gives the correct age on material that has known ages would give the correct age on material that has unknown ages? Sounds like blind-faith to me.

Well, not one word of that nonsense is true.

Quote:All structures that exist today post-date the global flood. The methods used to date these prior to the flood are shaky at best and use false assumptions.

The Earth is full of evidence for a global flood and I would encourage you to read some of the literature on the subject.

I find it rather convenient that you make such extraordinary claims and yet refuse to meet me for an afternoon of real field geology so you can be shown that such claims are nothing but lies. If you are so certain of your facts, what are you afraid of?