(February 25, 2014 at 6:17 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: 2. The King James Bible is not the first translation of the Bible into English.

Which reminds me, whatever happened to that Tyndale chap?

(February 25, 2014 at 8:58 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: Cool, do you have any original texts to present? Last I checked, the Q source was still missing from all current versions.

We do not need them; we can know what they said from the thousands upon thousands of copies we do have.

Quote:
Yes, and none of them directly translated from original source documents.

This is factually incorrect. Early English translations were primarily translated from the Textus Receptus which was derived from manuscripts written in the original language.

Quote: Translations of source material translated again, with problematic word translations, like "Virgin".

No, translations of ancient manuscripts written in the original language, that’s only one act of translation.

Quote: The Nag Hamadi scriptures date as early as 2 AD, and yet are not included in contemporary translations of the bible because they don't match the canon of current interpretations of the bible.

What does this have to do with the fact that you were wrong about us not having any New Testament manuscripts prior to the 4th Century?

They were actually dated to the 2nd Century, not 2 AD.

Quote: So are you saying that a wide variety of fragment sources of varying dates = Veracity?

No, I am saying it’s possible to know what the original text said by examining the textual variants in the thousands of manuscripts we do have. Tampering would have been impossible.

Quote: Speaking of Red Herrings, this has absolutely nothing to do with the veracity of the text.

I am not sure what you mean by “the veracity of the text”. It has everything to do with the accuracy of the current Bible in comparison to its original books. We know what the writers of the New Testament actually wrote with more confidence than any other ancient writers.

Quote: You have facts to present? Where are they? All I see is a bunch of righteous indignation and crying over an infographic.

Did you read the references yet? They do not agree with your graphic.

Quote: The only red herring here is "Well, a bunch of people back up the New Testament as being copied from earlier versions of the New Testament: So as you can clearly see, the New Testament is in fact the word of God!"

Straw-man argument. I’ve never made an argument even remotely close to that. Try harder.

(February 25, 2014 at 10:20 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Much of the NT isn't even the words of some two-bit phony named "Paul."

It never ceases to amaze me how sloppy you are. Your article even admits later that these letters very easily could be authentic and gives no evidence to support their inauthenticity…

“If one or more of these letters is authentically by Paul, then it must have been written in the mid 60's, during his imprisonment in Rome (cf. 2 Tim 1:16-17).”

Quote: But xtians don't care how much of their holy horseshit is fictitious. As long as they have something to believe they are as happy as fucking sheep.

Ah, poor baby.

(February 26, 2014 at 3:07 am)Esquilax Wrote: Because "could" is not the same as "will." Your view of this seems to be that if science can be wrong, then it automatically is wrong whenever it conflicts with something you want to believe/comes from a source that claims to never be wrong. That's so spurious, I shouldn't even have to point out why.

…so the fact that a person has lied hundreds of times in the past is not reason to think they will lie again in the future? You really think that our scientific understanding now will be identical to our scientific understanding a century from now? If not, then you are admitting that our understanding is wrong now. I’ll take the testimony of the person who has never changed their story.

Quote: It is logical, looking at the landscape around you, to conclude that the earth is flat. Our current understanding of science says otherwise; are you still going to stick to this "don't abandon logical sounding arguments in favor of evidence," schtick?

Early people and the authors of scripture were well aware of the actual shape of the Earth. It’s a complete myth (one that was dishonestly perpetuated by 19th Century Darwinists interestingly enough) to think they were all running around believing it was flat.

Quote: So when our radiometric dating suite concludes that parts of the earth are older than the young earthers say the planet is, it's merely bias that leads us to conclude that's what the radiometric evidence says?

Radiometric evidence doesn’t say anything, we can make inferences as to what it indicates based off of several unprovable assumptions. These assumptions are either anti-Biblical or Biblical in Nature and thus either way a person has to assume the very thing they are trying to prove.

Quote:The second child would only be contradicting himself if he insisted that no changes in his story had occurred. If he simply alters his story to fit additional information coming in, what he's doing is "correcting himself." Meanwhile, in keeping with our comparisons here, the first child's story is physically impossible according to everything we do know. You're saying to accept the first child sight unseen because we don't know everything, and at least his story is consistent(ly impossible) while ignoring the second child because he accepts where he is wrong and amends his story to fit the new record. How crazy is that?

I disagree, it is a contradiction to say, “The Universe had no beginning” and then later to say, “The Universe did have a beginning”. I see nothing in the first child’s story that is impossible, so you’ll have to be more specific.

Quote: If I'm relating directions to you, and a person next to me corrects me on the name of a single street, and I then change my directions to fit that and continue on, do you then conclude that the entirety of my directions are wrong because I've changed my answer?

Nope, but I know for sure that you are fallible at that moment. If another source is infallible and gives me a different set of directions I am going to take their word over yours no matter how much you protest. I feel you’d do the same if you were in my position.

Quote:I think that says a lot about you, that a claim of infallibility means more to you than honest corrections.

It’s not merely a claim of infallibility. I value an infallible source over the testimony of a very fallible source; I do not see why you would do anything different.

Quote: By the way, how did you confirm that the bible is indeed infallible, especially when it actually, demonstrably isn't, on some respects? Isn't just one incorrect statement enough to disallow infallibility?

It’s not demonstrably fallible, that’s the whole point. As I have said in the past, it has to be exactly what it claims to be in order to make any knowledge possible. If we do not live in a Biblical Universe then we cannot prove anything at all.

Quote: Or is this just a matter of accepting claims that you want to believe, in spite of reality?

I do not understand why you think anyone just wants to believe the Bible is what it claims to be. It’d be so much easier to live life as an atheist where you are not accountable for any of your decisions and can do whatever you please without eternal repercussions. I believe the Bible because I know it has to be what it claims to be, not because it makes life easier in any way.

Quote: No Stat, you don't have a good reason: what you have is a claim of infallibility that you're preferencing for no good reason. Because the bible is not infallible:just off the top of my head, rabbits do not chew cud. I have a rabbit, so I can demonstrate this to be true. Therefore, the bible is not infallible, it just claims it is.

That depends on what scripture means by the phrase “chewing cud” now doesn’t it? Rabbits do not go through the process of rumination; however, Leviticus never said that they did. The Hebrew phrase translated as “chew the cud” simply means to chew again what has already been swallowed. Rabbits go through the process of refection, which means they do chew again what they have already swallowed. Upon closer examination, the infallibility of scripture still stands.

Quote: There. Now they're on equal footing again, only one source- the bible- is lying about being infallible, and the other has evidence for it.

Are you now saying science is infallible?

Quote:Oh? When did I ever say I didn't have axioms? I just don't feel the need to invent an imaginary layer of existence which has no justification at all in order to paradoxically support my axioms.

God’s existence is the ultimate axiom that justifies all of the axioms you are incapable of justifying otherwise. I make only one assumption while you make numerous assumptions.

Quote:Stat, just rushing in and claiming "first," on reality and epistemology doesn't mean that you actually own them.

I am not merely claiming “first”, I am claiming, “first and only”; this is a well-supported claim.

Quote:And what does that biblical conceptual scheme have you do with evidence for an old earth?

You’ll have to be more specific because I am not aware of any evidence that can only be used to support and “old” Earth.

(February 26, 2014 at 7:06 am)pocaracas Wrote: Come on, man!!!
Why me?!?!?!?!?!

Haha, I was hoping you’d catch that. You’re always welcome at my parties

Quote: As I read about it, they just keep the foxes which are more friendly to humans and release the others into the wild.
In time, it shouldn't be difficult to sequence the genome of wild fixes and compare it to the domesticated ones.

True, I’ve heard foxes domesticate very quickly which is interesting.

Quote: Faster rate? really?

Yes, according to Sanford’s work.

Quote: Stat, old boy... maybe that's how new species arise within the same genus.

I am not arguing against speciation; however every time it occurs we are witnessing a reduction in genetic information and functionality which means it is not viable over deep periods of time.

Quote: See? It's possible to have a seemingly deleterious mutation which, in fact, isn't deleterious.
It's deleterious in a given context, but not in another context. It may even be beneficial in the case of living your whole life in complete darkness, as no energy is wasted with a visual system and all the complexity it entails.

Yes I agree; however over long periods of time the genome just cannot withstand the huge number of these mutations that it would experience.

Quote: Aye... still... we are surrounded by such mutations.
Think about it.
Africans have curly hair for a purpose, it creates air pathways which help to prevent overheating of the brain.... in a hot environment.
Also, dark skin prevents melanoma.
Dark irises prevent glare in very bright scenarios.

Yes, I am not sure how this goes against anything I have been saying. Some mutations are beneficial in certain circumstances but it’s the overall reduction in genetic functionality that is not viable over periods of deep time.

Quote: Contrary to what some people would like, these mutated populations still belong to the same species that came out of Africa.

Yes, a single race of people with one single origin just as scripture affirms.

Quote: My point is... near-neutral deleterious mutations are not really deleterious, even if you compound several of them.

Several of them yes; we’re not talking about merely several mutations here. If the Human species is as old as you claim it is it would have died off tens of thousands of years ago.

Quote: I did say "compile enough of there mutations", didn't I?
Not just one.
We've seen that, in humans, it is quite common to have at least 3 mutations, but still remain in the same species.

How many mutations would be enough?

Quote: That happens when you get the final one which is indeed deleterious.
All others allowed the individual to survive and breed... that last one is the one that fails to provide this mechanism... hence it is not "near neutral" it is downright deleterious.

It’s more just the straw that broke the camel’s back, that one particular straw was no more deleterious than any other straw; they were all equally necessary in order to break the camel’s back.

Quote: Indeed, sometimes the evolutionary branch ends... sometimes they just cause the emergence of a new species.

That’s my point though, according to the empirically measured rate of entropy our branch should have ended a long time ago if Humans have really been around for as long as Darwinists claim they have been.

Quote: So... if Jerusalem exists, then Jesus and the apostles and the miracles and the ark and Abraham existed, too?
Is that how it works?

Yes. If Christianity were not true it’d be impossible for a person to know that Jerusalem exists.

Quote: But I digress... It is possible to contrive a consistent view of reality and have a part of it being true without the entire thing being true: Newtonian physics.

In deduction if something is logically internally consistent then if one conclusion is true then the entire thing must be true.

Quote: Just because it's consistent?
My dear boy... The Lord of the Rings is internally consistent. At the end, the elves go to valinor, the wizards are no longer required and fade into myth, hobbits mingle with humans, orcs and trolls die out. Humans are the sole remaining intelligent species on (Middle) Earth... I look around me and that looks about right!
Does that make it true?
Why not?

Unlike scripture, The Lord of the Rings does not justify any of our epistemological assumptions about reality. It’s actually a rather poor analogy to draw because even its author said that it takes place in a “stage of imagination” and actually contains dozens upon dozens of logical inconsistencies.

Quote: Because we know it to be a work of fiction? What if we didn't have that information?
What if it had been presented as an accurate account of antiquity?

Unlike scripture, it cannot be used to justify any of the preconditions for intelligibility.

(November 13, 2013 at 12:12 am)Sleepy Wrote: You're asking exactly the wrong questions. Why is Islam the religion of God? Because it is the most logical. I don't know what type of answer you're looking for but I can tell you it's the wrong answer as it is not unjustified to say there is one God because God is the Most Supreme Being in the Universe and there are none like Him.

Thanks for finding this. I think it’s a slightly different approach. The Christian’s point is that logic itself can be justified by the fact that we live in a Biblical Universe created by a rational creator. A Muslim cannot justify logic because Allah is supposed to transcend logic itself and therefore is not required to behave or create logically. The Muslim is going to run into the same epistemological pitfall here that the atheist does; he cannot justify his belief in the existence of universal, immutable, and immaterial laws of logic.

(February 26, 2014 at 9:25 am)DeistPaladin Wrote: These are interesting, if abstract, philosophical questions. Why do we like pleasure over pain, health over sickness, life over death? Of course, they're red herrings to distract from the point that science works and faith doesn't. The reasoning is quite clear and, as far as I can see, not circular as you maintain:

It’s not a red herring at all to point out that your personal desires have no ontological bearing on reality. Whether or not science produces the results that you want is utterly irrelevant in regards to how you know science “works”. If believing that Yahweh exists produces the results I want does this mean that Yahweh exists?

Quote: 1. Approach A yields results X
2. Approach B yields results Y
3. X is preferred over Y
4. Approach A gets us the results we like
5. Approach A is preferred

I never asked which approach you preferred, I asked how you knew that our scientific understanding was actually improving in relation to reality. You have yet to answer that question.

Quote: To reduce this to "it works because it works" is a distortion.

Unfortunately your argument was even more absurd than that, you claimed, “It works because I like it.”

Quote:This is a significant alteration of an extraordinary event which, if in fact recorded by a reliable eye-witness, should have gotten it right the first time. This is just one example.

What are you talking about? The addition was added much later on than the rest of Mark. It has no effect on the original text because we have manuscripts of Mark that predate the addition.

Quote:Again, you fail to understand what circularity is.

You can use some sources of evidence to prove other independent sources of evidence. It's kind of like how you might write a book and footnote another book. It's not "circularity" to use a book to prove the assertions of your book.

I am sorry but that is not going to fly. When I ask how you know your current understanding of the evidence is correct your appeal to your current understanding of the evidence is indeed begging the question.

I will ask again and see if you can answer the question without invoking circularity. How do you know that your current understanding of the scientific evidence is in fact correct?

Quote:Show me that "scientific evidence" and I'll certainly consider it.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to appeal to yet another hostile witness…

“That the most partially formed human embryo is both human and alive has now been confirmed, in an especially vivid sense, by the new debate over stem-cell research and the bioethics of cloning. If an ailing or elderly person can be granted a new lease on life by a transfusion of this cellular material, then it is obviously not random organic matter. The original embryonic “blastocyst” may be a clump of 64 to 200 cells that is only five days old. But all of us began our important careers in that form, and every needful encoding for life is already present in the apparently inchoate. We are the first generation to have to confront this as a certain knowledge."- Christopher Hitchens

Quote: Reality doesn't care about your preference. It doesn't matter what you believe. It only matters what you can prove.

That’s funny considering the fact that your only reason for believing that science actually works is because you like (prefer) the results. Science still doesn’t deal with proof by the way.

Quote:My point is that you are quick to slap the label "axiom" on a bare assertion to hide the fact that it's a bare assertion.

An axiom is an assertion that is used to reason from. I think it is amusing you actually believe you do not possess any.

Quote:Even if the exterior world is not knowable, such as the hypothesis that we are just brains in a vat and all our surroundings are just a programmed illusion, this world is still all we experience and all we can study. The unknowable world may exist but can't be studied in any way and so pursuit of that study would be fruitless.

The study of a world that is ultimately illusory is also fruitless. You’re traveling down rabbit holes now; the point is that you possess the axiom, “the exterior world is knowable” and yet you cannot justify this belief.

Quote: By contrast, the bare assertion "the Bible is True" is not a valuable axiom because it neither helps us understand the world outside the Bible nor is it necessary because there is a world outside the Bible that can be studied.

You could not be more wrong. Belief in the veracity of scripture justifies all other beliefs. Without believing that we live in a Biblical universe you have no reason to believe that your senses accurately depict reality, that logic discerns truth, that future uniformity will exist in Nature, that our memories are generally reliable and so on. Without the Bible you are philosophically hopeless. Only the Christian has a reason to believe in any of these things.

Quote: To try to defend your bare assertions as "axioms" by saying "you have axioms too" is the Tu Quoque defense with a heavy does [sic] of false comparison.

No, I’d only be committing Tu quoque if your objections were valid and I was trying to raise that same objection against you; however your objection is invalid since in logic it is perfectly valid for a person to adhere to propositions axiomatically. On the other hand, trying to argue that I am not allowed to adhere to Biblical veracity as an axiom all the time while possessing many times more axioms yourself is the fallacy of special pleading. Nice try though.

Quote:Again, you try to create the false comparison between basil [sic] assumptions in science with the sweeping bare assertions of Biblical truth.

For someone who seems to hate bare assertions you sure are fond of making them. The basal assumptions actually presuppose the veracity of scripture.

Quote: The basis assumptions of science are essential for any study at all. We must begin with the assumption "reality is real and not just an illusion" or else there's no point in studying anything at all. The justification for the basis assumptions comes in the validation from gaining the desired results (see the first point above). If you wish to indulge in post modern solipsism, feel free from the comfort of your living room, but don't expect to find the cure for cancer by this means.

I do not have to engage in solipsism because I know we live in a Biblical universe. Ironically enough you’re actually presupposing that Yahweh exists by making the basal assumptions.

Quote: By contrast, to begin with your assumptions of the desired conclusion followed by the search for any supporting data will surely contaminate your research by the process of cherry picking, confirmation bias and other logical pitfalls.

That’s funny considering that fact that you need my ultimate axiom to be true in order to even do the science you claim to love so much. Funny old world isn’t it?

Quote:I'm still fuzzy on where my "worldview" is problematic. I believe I have provided justifications on why I believe reality is real or the world is knowable as well as why I believe that science is preferable as an approach to knowing things than faith.

No you have not; you merely said you liked the results. What you like and dislike in no way justifies anything. You’ll have to do better and actually justify why you believe what you believe.

Quote: The Christian, or more specifically, the presuppositional justification for their assumptions usually are variations on the themes of "God-Verb-It". These three word flippant assertions are neither elucidating nor are they needed to justify anything.

Another bare assertion from the bare assertion hater.

Quote:If does when you say, "if you do X then you're OK."

Where did God say anything like that?

Quote:Because Abraham is considered the prophet that started Judaism and its branch faiths, Christianity and Islam. Hence "Abrahamic religions".

God’s redemptive purposes started with Adam, you should start there so you’re not cherry picking the data, since I know you hate doing that.

Quote:"Sin" is defined as acting contrary to the will of Yahweh. If David always did the will of Yahweh, he never sinned. Yahweh certainly never saw fit to tell what is arguably the biggest icon of the Jewish faith to knock off his polygamy.

The verse doesn’t say David never violated God’s will.

Quote:The NT is after the OT.

So? You’re debating with a Christian; you’re going to have to debate the entire Bible and Jesus says, “in the beginning”.

Quote:Your social evaluation is not applicable. We're talking about rules here, not social perceptions. Here's a hypothetical example that relates to my point:

Q. "Is preaching allowed on atheism forums?"
A. "No, it's never allowed."
Q. "Is preaching allowed on atheism forums?"
A. "Only in the 'religions' sections." *

This is a contradiction analogous to the rules on divorce in Mark and Matthew respectively.

Why are you making an arbitrary distinction between rules and social evaluation? I bet you are a blast to be around…
A: “I just got back from the concert and a great time was had by all.”
DP: “All?”
A: “Yes, everyone who was at the concert had a great time!”
DP: “You just contradicted yourself….liar!”
A: “Huh? No I didn’t”
DP: “Yes you did, you first said that everyone on Earth had a great time and then you said that just everyone who was at the concert had a great time.”
A: “Where did I say that everyone on Earth had a great time?”
DP: “You said that a great time was had by all, all means all.”
A: “Obviously I meant only those at the concert.”
DP: “That’s not what you said…”
A: “I did not think I had to spell it out for you, it was implied by the context of my statement.”
DP: “Context!? You sound like a Christian now!”
A: “Umm….ok”

Quote:Probably because most Isrealites would only have one wife, despite the practice of polygamy. After all, there are only so many women to go around and in such societies, one only married as many women as you could financially support. Polygamy is for the rich and powerful, in such societies.

Evidence?

Quote:Not with Abraham, David, Solomon, to think of three off the top of my head.

Are you serious? Abraham had to exile his second wife and first born son out into the wilderness because of the problems it was causing. David’s sons from different wives began killing one another and lying to David. Solomon was led into idolatry by his numerous wives.

---

(February 26, 2014 at 6:30 pm)Cato Wrote: Which reminds me, whatever happened to that Tyndale chap?

A true hero of the faith.

Hey everyone!
Stat's back and he's necroposting.... well... almost!

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

(February 26, 2014 at 7:06 am)pocaracas Wrote: Come on, man!!!
Why me?!?!?!?!?!

Haha, I was hoping you’d catch that. You’re always welcome at my parties

Thank you!
You are too, as long as you refrain from preaching and praying before you eat anything! :p

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: As I read about it, they just keep the foxes which are more friendly to humans and release the others into the wild.
In time, it shouldn't be difficult to sequence the genome of wild fixes and compare it to the domesticated ones.

True, I’ve heard foxes domesticate very quickly which is interesting.

It's evolution in action and within a human's lifetime!
Praise Darwin!!

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: Stat, old boy... maybe that's how new species arise within the same genus.

I am not arguing against speciation; however every time it occurs we are witnessing a reduction in genetic information and functionality which means it is not viable over deep periods of time.

Reduction?
As australopithecus climbed down from the trees to stand on two feet, it lost the nimbleness to move swiftly between tree branches, yes... but gained the ability to walk up-right... which led to other traits, one of the most interesting being speech.

Where you seem to see only reduction and "bad" stuff, I see redirection of resources. Some traits fall in favor of others which show more promise of survival and reproducibility.

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: See? It's possible to have a seemingly deleterious mutation which, in fact, isn't deleterious.
It's deleterious in a given context, but not in another context. It may even be beneficial in the case of living your whole life in complete darkness, as no energy is wasted with a visual system and all the complexity it entails.

Yes I agree; however over long periods of time the genome just cannot withstand the huge number of these mutations that it would experience.

We are here... clearly, there's something wrong with that reasoning.

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: Aye... still... we are surrounded by such mutations.
Think about it.
Africans have curly hair for a purpose, it creates air pathways which help to prevent overheating of the brain.... in a hot environment.
Also, dark skin prevents melanoma.
Dark irises prevent glare in very bright scenarios.

Yes, I am not sure how this goes against anything I have been saying. Some mutations are beneficial in certain circumstances but it’s the overall reduction in genetic functionality that is not viable over periods of deep time.

But it's not a reduction in functionality.
It's usually an increase, actually, with the subtle appearance of new traits and abilities.

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: Contrary to what some people would like, these mutated populations still belong to the same species that came out of Africa.

Yes, a single race of people with one single origin just as scripture affirms.

you just had to take that bait!
Just because some of it is sort of right, doesn't mean it's all correct.

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: My point is... near-neutral deleterious mutations are not really deleterious, even if you compound several of them.

Several of them yes; we’re not talking about merely several mutations here. If the Human species is as old as you claim it is it would have died off tens of thousands of years ago.

I think you're compounding two effects... mixing them up and throwing the result out there...
On the one side, we have the genetic material. It is subject to errors, even during the life of an individual.
Much of the genetic material for a given species is actually not representative of any physical trait... it's just some left over, some comes from viruses... I remember something ludicrous like some 90% of our genetic code is useless and so, any mutation on that part would yield zero results.
This brings us to the phenotype, the physical implementation of the genetic code, resulting in arms, legs, wings, mouth, eyes, etc, etc, etc.
Here is where you may find the result of deleterious and non-deleterious mutations.
So, to sum up, the human species (and many others, if not all) can accumulate infinite mutations on some parts of the genes and zero mutations on others.... and remain human.

If you accumulate sufficient mutations and the population manages to survive with them in place, you may get a new species... that's what happened to humans, all those years ago.
Present day humans are... what... 100 thousand years old, or so... before that, the population had a different name, perhaps we nowadays could breed with them... perhaps not... we can't know, they became integrated into the current population.

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: I did say "compile enough of there mutations", didn't I?
Not just one.
We've seen that, in humans, it is quite common to have at least 3 mutations, but still remain in the same species.

How many mutations would be enough?

Don't know...
It seems it would take only 3% to turn a human into a chimp... but, as I said earlier, these 3% would have to be very accurately placed... which doesn't seem to happen very often...

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: That happens when you get the final one which is indeed deleterious.
All others allowed the individual to survive and breed... that last one is the one that fails to provide this mechanism... hence it is not "near neutral" it is downright deleterious.

It’s more just the straw that broke the camel’s back, that one particular straw was no more deleterious than any other straw; they were all equally necessary in order to break the camel’s back.

Faulty analogy, man...
If the population survives, then whatever mutations it has accumulated have served it right.
If a new mutation arises in an individual which is manifestly deleterious, then that individual doesn't survive to breed... the population remains without that particular mutation.
What works, remains in place... what doesn't, gets filtered out at the individual level, generally...
If we deal with some natural catastrophe, then it's a whole different ballgame.

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: Indeed, sometimes the evolutionary branch ends... sometimes they just cause the emergence of a new species.

That’s my point though, according to the empirically measured rate of entropy our branch should have ended a long time ago if Humans have really been around for as long as Darwinists claim they have been.

And yet, here we are...
Maybe that measurement of entropy gain was somehow erroneous. I'd be more comfortable if the term entropy was used to refer to what it actually means... "genetic entropy" is probably a misnomer... what does it actually refer to? the degree of disorder of the genetic material? Do genes just shuffle around at random?

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: So... if Jerusalem exists, then Jesus and the apostles and the miracles and the ark and Abraham existed, too?
Is that how it works?

Yes. If Christianity were not true it’d be impossible for a person to know that Jerusalem exists.

What?!
I.... it...what?!!
That conclusion doesn't follow from the conditional statement... if it does, there's some twisted path to get there... care to elaborate?

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: But I digress... It is possible to contrive a consistent view of reality and have a part of it being true without the entire thing being true: Newtonian physics.

In deduction if something is logically internally consistent then if one conclusion is true then the entire thing must be true.

Again, it doesn't follow...
Bear in mind that perfect logic can yield wrong results.
Internal consistency is no guarantee of truthfulness.

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: Just because it's consistent?
My dear boy... The Lord of the Rings is internally consistent. At the end, the elves go to valinor, the wizards are no longer required and fade into myth, hobbits mingle with humans, orcs and trolls die out. Humans are the sole remaining intelligent species on (Middle) Earth... I look around me and that looks about right!
Does that make it true?
Why not?

Unlike scripture, The Lord of the Rings does not justify any of our epistemological assumptions about reality. It’s actually a rather poor analogy to draw because even its author said that it takes place in a “stage of imagination” and actually contains dozens upon dozens of logical inconsistencies.

Would it help, if I throw in the Silmarillion?

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: Because we know it to be a work of fiction? What if we didn't have that information?
What if it had been presented as an accurate account of antiquity?

Unlike scripture, it cannot be used to justify any of the preconditions for intelligibility.

Oh, I'm sure that a few centuries of apologetics could get there!

(March 20, 2014 at 4:48 pm)pocaracas Wrote:

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Yes I agree; however over long periods of time the genome just cannot withstand the huge number of these mutations that it would experience.

We are here... clearly, there's something wrong with that reasoning.

Stat would argue that the branch he's sawing off is nowhere near the one he's sitting on - right the way to shaking hands with the ground.

(March 20, 2014 at 2:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: It’s not a red herring at all to point out that your personal desires have no ontological bearing on reality. Whether or not science produces the results that you want is utterly irrelevant in regards to how you know science “works”.

Oh dear. My point couldn't have flown higher over your head, it seems.
Let me try again, a little more slowly this time. Let's try to use an analogy:

Let's pretend for a moment that both of us try to enter a room but use different methods. My method is to use the door, open it, and walk in (metaphor for science) while your method is to close your eyes, imagine the wall that separates you from the room doesn't really exist, and try to walk through with all the faith you can muster (analogy for faith). I am able to successfully enter the room while you look silly continually bonking into the wall.

After the exercise, we discuss which approach was better. I argue that mine was because I was able to achieve the desired results while you were not. You retort that this is circular reasoning, saying that walking through a doorway "works because it works" and, after all, how could I really be certain I was in the room since I can't know anything if I don't subscribe to Walkthroughwallism.

You see, it's not just that science gives us what we want (our desires), it's that science CAN be used to produce results (practical application or perhaps you would say "ontological bearing on reality"). Because the scientific approach has practical application and predictive capabilities, it clearly gives us a superior method to understand reality than religious faith.

Quote:If believing that Yahweh exists produces the results I want does this mean that Yahweh exists?

I'd like to see that application of your beliefs in Yahweh. Can you lay on hands and heal the sick? Can you speak in foreign languages and be understood by a non-English speaker? Can you bring back the dead? Can you perform any of the miracles that people of faith in the Bible performed? Many Christians believe that prayer is a powerful force. The effects of prayer have been studied and proven as ineffective as talking to yourself. I would sincerely be interested in reviewing any evidence that you can offer that your faith produces anything but hot air and philosobabble.

Quote:What are you talking about? The addition was added much later on than the rest of Mark. It has no effect on the original text because we have manuscripts of Mark that predate the addition.

Additions are still changes.

Quote:I am sorry but that is not going to fly. When I ask how you know your current understanding of the evidence is correct your appeal to your current understanding of the evidence is indeed begging the question.

Not if the evidence comes from different sources, hence my analogy of writing a book and footnoting another book. The reason using books to support the assertions in other books is not circular reasoning is the books have different sources.

You've mentioned in previous posts that you've seen the movie "A Beautiful Mind". In the movie, Nash experiences vivid hallucinations of people, including his best friend, his friend's niece and a general. To him, these imaginary people seem every bit as real as the people in the real world. So how does his discern which of his sensory inputs are true and which are not? The girl never grows up. This fact is completely outside the norm of his experiences everywhere else in life. He is able to discern hallucinations by this contradictory data.

He might also know who is real based on which characters could actually affect other parts of his perceived world. Let's say his wife could bring him a glass of water but his friend could not. Maybe his hallucinated friend would offer excuses but he could not pick up a glass of water and bring it to him. This is also a good analogy of science being able to affect our reality but faith having no effect and hence why science is much more trustworthy than faith.

Now let's apply this understanding to a hypothetical situation where you and I meet face-to-face. I see you (sight). I hear your voice as we greet one another (hearing). We shake hands (touch). These are three separate but mutually supporting information sources that tell me you're real. Now let's suppose I saw and heard you but when I reached out to shake your hand, my hand passed through you as if you were an apparition. Now I become confused and begin to doubt my senses because of the contradiction. Or let's say you bid me farewell and flapped your arms and flew away. Again, this is outside my understanding of how reality works and again I have cause to doubt my senses that you were really there.

It is the fact that my senses, memory and reason are internally consistent about the world around me and science and reason offer both prediction and application that we can conclude that science and reason are superior to religious faith and superstition. But even if reality weren't really real, if I were just a brain in a vat under a computer simulation, how would that matter? I would still be operating in the same world that operates by the same rules and your faith would be just as unable to either predict or affect how that world operates.

Quote:Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to appeal to yet another hostile witness…

I'm starting to worry about you. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. By now, you should be able to predict precisely how I'll respond because I've only tried to jackhammer this point into your skull.

It doesn't matter what names you drop, how many degrees they have or whether or not they agree with me on other things. It only matters what you or they can prove.

Do I really have to repost that scene from "A Few Good Men" one more time? I'm getting really tired of trying to drum this into your head.

Quote:“...But all of us began our important careers in that form, and every needful encoding for life is already present in the apparently inchoate..."- Christopher Hitchens

Summary of what he offers: the "hey c'mon it's potential life" canard. Gee, I never heard that argument before.

Quote:The study of a world that is ultimately illusory is also fruitless. You’re traveling down rabbit holes now; the point is that you possess the axiom, “the exterior world is knowable” and yet you cannot justify this belief.

Actually, yes I did. But you just go on believing that my beliefs that "reality is real" are somehow equal to your beliefs about Jesus and that you can call it a draw because "shucks, it looks like we both have our own faith".

Quote:You could not be more wrong. Belief in the veracity of scripture justifies all other beliefs. Without believing that we live in a Biblical universe you have no reason to believe that your senses accurately depict reality, that logic discerns truth, that future uniformity will exist in Nature, that our memories are generally reliable and so on. Without the Bible you are philosophically hopeless. Only the Christian has a reason to believe in any of these things.

Repeated assertions of this kind will not make them true.

Quote:On the other hand, trying to argue that I am not allowed to adhere to Biblical veracity as an axiom all the time while possessing many times more axioms yourself is the fallacy of special pleading. Nice try though.

Um, (1) I don't have "many times more axioms", (2) my axioms are justifiable, (3) your "axioms" offer neither prediction nor practical application and (4) your "axioms" are absurd on many levels.

Quote:The basal assumptions actually presuppose the veracity of scripture.

You keep asserting that but have yet to explain, never mind prove.

Quote:Ironically enough you’re actually presupposing that Yahweh exists by making the basal assumptions.

No, I'm not.

Quote:That’s funny considering that fact that you need my ultimate axiom to be true in order to even do the science you claim to love so much. Funny old world isn’t it?

Funny alternate world you live in. Explain and then prove.

StatlerWaldorf Wrote:

Deist Paladin Wrote:The Christian, or more specifically, the presuppositional justification for their assumptions usually are variations on the themes of "God-Verb-It". These three word flippant assertions are neither elucidating nor are they needed to justify anything.

Another bare assertion from the bare assertion hater.

Pssst. This is the part where you provide some kind of example where "God-Verb-It" is elucidating or necessary. Good luck.

Quote:Where did God say anything like that?

God didn't say anything. Yahweh didn't say anything because he doesn't exist. Humans that wrote the Bible wrote:

The Wholly Babble Wrote:Deut 21:15-17 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.

If you're God, why regulate what you want to outlaw?

Quote:(Yahweh's) redemptive purposes started with Adam

Yahweh's religion started with Abraham and it's the religion and its laws that we're discussing.

Quote:The verse doesn’t say David never violated (Yahweh)’s will.

Actually, the verse says that David DID violate Yahweh's will in the matter of Uriah, but never any other time.

Quote:1Kings 15:5 Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

What part of that was unclear to you?

Quote:So? You’re debating with a Christian; you’re going to have to debate the entire Bible and Jesus says, “in the beginning”.

The religion had changed, adapting to Greco-Roman traditions. That's why we're discussing the OT. If the NT says otherwise, it means the big guy upstairs had a rethink... or it was written during a different era with different values. Either way, bringing up how things changed in the NT doesn't help you.

(March 20, 2014 at 7:48 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Let's pretend for a moment that both of us try to enter a room but use different methods. My method is to use the door, open it, and walk in (metaphor for science) while your method is to close your eyes, imagine the wall that separates you from the room doesn't really exist, and try to walk through with all the faith you can muster (analogy for faith). I am able to successfully enter the room while you look silly continually bonking into the wall.

After the exercise, we discuss which approach was better. I argue that mine was because I was able to achieve the desired results while you were not. You retort that this is circular reasoning, saying that walking through a doorway "works because it works" and, after all, how could I really be certain I was in the room since I can't know anything if I don't subscribe to Walkthroughwallism.

You see, it's not just that science gives us what we want (our desires), it's that science CAN be used to produce results (practical application or perhaps you would say "ontological bearing on reality"). Because the scientific approach has practical application and predictive capabilities, it clearly gives us a superior method to understand reality than religious faith.

I don't know, you seem to continue to subsribe to WordorkHasBrainSomewhereism eventhough each of the words you have spoken onto him down the years, no matter what trajectory it took in between, has always pass totally unimpeded in one of his ears and out the other.

(March 20, 2014 at 8:11 pm)Chuck Wrote: I don't know, you seem to continue to subsribe to WordorkHasBrainSomewhereism eventhough each of the words you have spoken onto him down the years, no matter what trajectory it took in between, has always pass totally unimpeded in one of his ears and out the other.

Ouch! Guilty as charged.

What's frightening is that he's one of the most lucid and rational apologists to ever visit this forum.

(March 20, 2014 at 8:47 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote:

(March 20, 2014 at 8:11 pm)Chuck Wrote: I don't know, you seem to continue to subsribe to WordorkHasBrainSomewhereism eventhough each of the words you have spoken onto him down the years, no matter what trajectory it took in between, has always pass totally unimpeded in one of his ears and out the other.

Ouch! Guilty as charged.

What's frightening is that he's one of the most lucid and rational apologists to ever visit this forum.

Oh, he has a brain, but I have a working theory that there's a tumor growing in it that's affecting his perceptions of reality to the point where he believes that he's a YEC.

(March 20, 2014 at 8:47 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote:

(March 20, 2014 at 8:11 pm)Chuck Wrote: I don't know, you seem to continue to subsribe to WordorkHasBrainSomewhereism eventhough each of the words you have spoken onto him down the years, no matter what trajectory it took in between, has always pass totally unimpeded in one of his ears and out the other.

Ouch! Guilty as charged.

What's frightening is that he's one of the most lucid and rational apologists to ever visit this forum.

I am not sure if claiming some local pretenses towards rationalism while pathologically absorbed in an globally overwhelmingly irrational framework can count as lucid or rational.

---

(March 20, 2014 at 9:07 pm)Bad Writer Wrote:

(March 20, 2014 at 8:47 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Ouch! Guilty as charged.

What's frightening is that he's one of the most lucid and rational apologists to ever visit this forum.

Oh, he has a brain, but I have a working theory that there's a tumor growing in it that's affecting his perceptions of reality to the point where he believes that he's a YEC.

The functioning of a brain is a combination of hardware, software and firmware. He may occasional exhibit the clock speed of an 8088, but he has shit for firmware. So occasional exhibition of only moderately embarrassing clock speed not withstanding, his ability to compute would still be severely embarrassing in a broken abacus.

So the overall ability of his brain for the purpose of undertaking brain-worthy activities relevant to this forum is maybe on par with the preserved brains of the mummified bog people dug up from the peat bogs of Scandinavia.

(March 21, 2014 at 9:35 am)Chuck Wrote: I am not sure if claiming some local pretenses towards rationalism while pathologically absorbed in an globally overwhelmingly irrational framework can count as lucid or rational.

I did state it in relative terms to the other apologists and remark how scary that is, as in this is the closest Christianity gets to being "rational".