Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[Thor]

People did directly observe Christ

Really? Who? Because no one mentions him in any contemporary text or document.

it's a pretty fringe position to believe that Jesus of Nazareth never existed.

Well, since there is no evidence that he ever existed....

As for God, He does not lack observable proof at all, creation is clear proof of a creator God,

Bullshit. Creation proves nothing more than things were created. It is certainly not proof that some invisible man in the sky did the creating.

and every person has knowledge of God, many just suppress it in their hearts (Romans 1).

Crappola. Did people living in the Americas prior to Columbus have "knowledge of god"? And what exactly does that mean anyway? I know there are people who believe in the existence of this god. I have no knowledge that he (or she, or it) is real.

[Statler Waldorf]

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I have not performed this fallacy because I have given reasons for what I have stated and backed them up. You, on the other hand, rarely back anything you say up but you've gotten a lovely penchant for telling me that I'm wrong without really doing anything to provide counter-evidence.
You've off-handedly stated things like, oh I don't know, "Creationists developed the scientific method!!!" despite this clearly not being the case.
You have yet to make any links or anything (other than simply telling me) involving your religion actually creating science - particularly when the only evidence that religion has actually instigated scientific progress was the Islamic nations during the dark ages - during which they invented things like Algebra literally because it was in their religious doctrine to do so before they up and decided that math and science were the devil and went into a slump to which they have yet to recover.
Christianity, to my knowledge, does not and has never had any such doctrine unless they, unlike you and others like you, have wholly abandoned the notion of literal creationism. Embracing creationism is the antithesis of performing science.

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I am well aware of what the fallacy is and the fact you have indeed committed it. You make statements like, “Well no real scientist can be a young earth creationist.” And then in the face of contrary evidence like the fact that Newton, Bacon, Kepler, The head of the Apollo Space Program, and countless other examples of young earth creationists who are greatly involved in modern science you just say either, “Well those guys are not actual young earth creationists!” or, “Well those guys are not true scientists!” It’s a classic example of the fallacy, and by all means keep committing it because it is easy to refute. That’s why most atheists worth their salt won’t try to take the “no real scientist” course because they realize it’s an illogical argument at best.

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You can say that christianity is the source of all science all you want, but history says otherwise since the scientific method predates christianity and instantly invalidates your attempts to convince anyone that this method is tied to your religion. To my knowledge, the exact origin of this method may even predate history but it's earliest roots are in humanity's earliest civilizations.

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Well actually, Francis Bacon (Young Earth Creationist) is credited with the Scientific Method as we know it today.

observation → induction → hypothesis → test hypothesis by experiment → proof/disproof → knowledge.

Since you seem to really love Wikipedia, I will even quote from that for you…

“Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.[2] His works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.”

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Further, no, not everyone ignores evidence that contradicts their worldview and even if they did, the scientific method and peer review weed out such details. Scientists with any credibility who desire a future in the scientific field must accept where the evidence points to the strongest.

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Those that do not ignore the evidence that contradicts their worldview find a way to re-interpret it and make it fit. Just look at all the work that has been done on comets; comets directly deny the old universe model and yet all sorts of ad hoc explanations have been developed to make them fit the model. A philosophically astute person will always find a way to invoke a rescue mechanism in order to save his/her worldview. This is why it is more of a debate on consistency of worldviews than it is on raw evidence, since both sides have the same evidence available.

Those that generally go against where the evidence leads eventually end up either loosing their career or they loose all credibility as a scientist.

Again, evidence doesn’t “lead” anywhere. It is interpreted using a person’s interpretive framework (worldview). This is a pretty basic concept.

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As such, I can conclusively prove not only that you are wrong on science's origin being tied to your christian faith or any faith period, you are also completely wrong on my performing the logical fallacy of "no true scotsman", and although you keep bringing up Newton and others as christian scientists, you have yet to make any connection between their science and their faith as two parts of the same distinct whole... other than your word that this is the case, particularly since Newton didn't create this theories as a result of any relationship he had with the church.
Therefore, with more than enough reason and backing to my claims, you are:

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To the contrary, Newton’s faith was directly responsible for his findings. As Dr. John Lennox (Oxford Mathematician) in his debate with Dawkins, Newton believed that God upheld His creation in a consistent and predictable manner because scripture told him so. He also believed that man was given dominion over the rest of creation and was encouraged to gain knowledge because scripture told him so. So Newton expected to find laws that describe how creation works, and he did. Once he found God’s mechanism, it only strengthened his faith in God. So not only was Newton a young earth creationist who believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, it was this belief that directly fueled his science, just like young earth creationists today. So it is actually the secular crowd that conducts science only because they hold presuppositions that are completely inconsistent with their worldviews.

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How ironic that you would call my post intellectual tripe and then post this.
1. Our senses can generally be trusted because they have been proven to be reliable throughout human history and as science has progressed, we've since learned the ins and outs of our senses to the extent that they can be measured. As such, this isn't a preconcieved notion so much as proven evidence both directly (because we all have senses) and indirectly (we can prove that other humans and other creatures have these and other senses we do not possess and the degree to which they work.

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I found this quite amusing actually. How do you prove your senses or someone else’s senses are reliable without using your senses? So you have to assume your senses are reliable in order to prove they are reliable. Hence why this is a presupposition that we must have before we can do any scientific inquiry.

2. Like our senses, our memory has proven reliable, not because we think it's reliable. Not a preconcieved notion.

Again, quite amusing. How do you know that you ever proved your memory was reliable? You would of course have to remember doing this, so you would have to use your memory in order to prove your memory is reliable. So again, this is a presupposition we must have before we can conduct any scientific inquiry.

3. There is expected uniformity in nature and this has been proven though the course of scientific progress. Things don't just happen for no reason and each day we find more nuances about natural phenomena in the natural world that we didn't quite understand before. As such, it's not a preconcieved notion that uniformity in nature and that the past will resemble the future, it has proven to be the case upon scruitiny.

Nope, saying that we know the future will resemble the past because that has always worked for us in the past is again assuming that because things in the past have worked they will continue to work in the future, which of course is assuming the future resembles the past. So this uniformity in nature has to be presupposed before we can conduct any scientific inquiry.

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4. As you so undoubtedly love to point out, not all scientists are atheists are purely naturalists. There are scientists of all stripes, colors, faiths, and origins. The main thing that bonds all scientists is a willingness to learn and the ability to think critically about the world we live in in their own manner. They study the world we live in and work within the world we all live in. The fact that there are only naturalistic explainations for occurances and events is because this is where the evidence from studying the natural world has brought us. As such, this claim is just outright wrong.

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Another circular argument. “There are only natural explanations for our natural universe because this is where the evidence has brought us.” “Well what about those scientists who believe the evidence is best explained by supernatural causes?” “Well they are not allowed to use supernatural explanations.” “Why not?” “Because we know that the natural world is all there is.” And round and round we go!!!

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5. I... suppose that's a preconcieved notion, but I find it hard to believe that the scientific credo is 'we must be logical' because hte idea just stinks of the kind of silliness you'd hear if I added a sixth number that said we must all follow the preconcieved notion of breathing to stay alive. Being logical is a necessity to function in society and is a natural function of the human mind (assuming said human mind is sane) to the point to where I find it hard-pressed to count it as a preconcieved notion so much as a sign of one's sanity.
But what the hey, I'll give that point to you anyway so that'll just make you 1 for 5.

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I see you are trying to make a logical argument as to why we should be logical. Being logical has nothing to do with being sane or surviving. I see people everyday who us illogical reasoning and I assure you they are quite sane and survive just fine. We should be logical because the laws of logic are the way God thinks and we are told we should try our best to think like God does. This is why the greatest work on the subject was written by the Christian Apologist Isaac Watts. Either way, the existence of laws of logic and our adherence to them is a necessary presupposition in order to conduct any scientific inquiry.

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Regardless, creationism is a preconcieved notion that is completely unlike the others. There is no evidence for it and all the science of it has been refuted succesfully even by someone like myself who argues about this essentially for my own entertainment. That said, the reason creationism isn't science is because scientists do actual science and they do not indulge in fantasy.

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What kind of argument is this? “Even though we all make presuppositions, creationists make a presupposition that I don’t like, therefore they are not legitimate.” They actually make a presupposition that provides a basis for all the other presuppositions that everyone else makes. They are the only ones who are truly consistent in their worldview and are therefore quite legitimate. As to the “Creationists are not scientists because scientists do science!” I am sure you can see the circular nature to that argument. I will just stick to my position that guys like Newton, Mendel, Carver, and the head of the Apollo Space Program were not only scientists but also some of the greatest scientists in the history of modern science. You can stick to your fallacious view that these men were not “true” scientists.

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I love how your claims become more and more grandiose without any evidence of any kind.j
The Apollo program? Really?
I don't know what you think you know since you won't share any evidence of yours, but from my apparently limited knowledge, the National Areonautics and Space Administration built and launched the Apollo Missions, which is a government body of the United States of America.
Note that none of those things above are affiliated with any religion or any church, as guarenteed by the United States Constitution. No where in any account of Apollo or NASA involves religious representation or involvement. Creation science has done nothing for the modern world.

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Yes I guess you really do have limited knowledge. Wernher von Braun was the head of the Apollo Space Program at NASA, and yes he was a young earth creationist. He believed that the evidence points directly to a young earth and universe that God created only 6,000 years ago. So I guess your statement is only true if you don’t consider putting a man on the moon as a major achievement for modern science. I however do. Your beloved Wikipedia even states, “Braun would later be regarded as the preeminent rocket engineer of the 20th century in his role with the United States civilian space agency NASA.[” NASA certainly does not endorse any particular religion over another, but they also apparently didn’t buy into your “no true scientist” argument considering they made a YEC the head of their entire Apollo program.

Again - many grandiose claims, no evidence, no backing, and history disagrees with you.

As I pointed out above, the Baconian Method (a.k.a the Scientific Method) was formulated by a YEC. So I guess history disagrees with you.

It's not my fault that someone apparently so educated as to be an astrophysicist (as perported by AIG) wrote up a paper so full of holes that anyone bothering to read it can point out how inane it is upon a casual read-through.

Yeah I would expect someone who doesn’t understand units of measurement to have a problem with it. Those of us who actually understand units of measurement and synchrony conventions have no issues with it at all.

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I have no idea why this theory is believed to have any credibility with you or anyone considering it so plainly and obviously violates relativity given the very basic premise of special relativity and the conclusion reached by the linked paper on ASC, as I have and can continue to demonstrate. Especially considering that you have yet to demonstrate anything counter to my claims, except, once again, merely your erroneous attempts to swing the topic to something else to what I can only assume is to avoid actually addressing the response.
Sadly, all the measurement systems in the world isn't going to make light move any faster or slower than nearly 300,000 km/second in a vacuum. Let me know when someone somewhere demonstrates something from ASC. Until then, it is and will remain some two-bit paper written by a hack of an astronomer.

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Just because you lack a basic fundamental understanding of Synchrony Conventions (demonstrated by your attempt to argue against ASC by using ESC) does not make Dr. Lisle a hack. I love how you say it will never move any faster than 300,000 km/s, which of course is absolutely right, when using ESC. However, I hope you noticed Lisle is talking about ASC, and when using ASC light moves instantaneously towards an observer. So fail. I am really befuddled as to why you are having such a tough time grasping this concept, when I was teaching my freshman Physical Science students grasped synchrony conventions in less than an hour.

See, the problem is that "old Albert" and that paper reach two wholly seporate conclusions. One of them is and always has been testable and is currently the mainstay of modern physics and may very well likely be there for a long time yet to come.

Nope that’s like saying two men who measure the same board but one used inches and the other used metric units came to difference conclusions. It’s just fundamentally incorrect. If you are having such a tough time with this, maybe you should shoot Dr. Lisle an email, he’ll respond back.

However he does address your special relavtity questions in his papers, one such place is below…
“Relativity only requires that the two-way time averaged speed of light is constant for any observer. Although Einstein synchrony is normally used as the particular system in which the equations are expressed, it is not a requirement. By dropping this second axiom, we find that there are alternative definitions of simultaneity that are logically consistent for any given observer.”
- Dr. Jason Lisle

ASC can only be found at AIG and other related websites as well as skeptic and pseudoscience debunking sites.

So? Prior to 1916 you would have had a tough time finding any literature on Special Relativity. So your point is irrelevant.

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Yeah, 'cause you know how to best respond to someone poking holes in his research is to tell me about the person who wrote it and therefore I... must need to brush up on physics and astronomy... or something.
Anyway, whatever he was in the past, he clearly (thanks to several google searches on who he is and what he's been up to) only talks to creationists now and is employed by answers in genesis, which only tells me that whatever he does with his time, efforts, and education isn't accepted by the scientific community which essentially just tells me that his theories, papers, and lectures aren't taken seriously by the scientific community.
Which ultimately tells me that he's as credible in science as a tobacco PR guy is on the health risks of tobacco.

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Actually you can find videos of him on ‘youtube’ debating atheists, so he does not only talk to creationists. As to the whole “acceptance by the scientific community” canard, I thought that we had already established the fact that scientific fact is not established by consensus or acceptance by others. So that point doesn’t hold any water.

That said, you've once again demonstrated that you are either unwilling or unable to actually provide me with anything that would demonstrate that I am wrong about my points isofar as ASC is concerned.

Actually I have provided you with loads of evidence demonstrating you are in fact wrong, now whether I have persuaded you that you are wrong, that’s a different matter and is quite frankly irrelevant to the fact that you are indeed wrong.

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The Apollo 13 movie never intended to inform its viewers about the true shape of the earth either, being a story about a trip from the earth to the moon yet since the story mentions it and include a number of metaphors on the way, they manage to always get the shape right. I have no reason to believe that the bible does this any differently, aside from, unlike Apollo 13, being entirely fictional instead of merely embellished history.

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I don’t remember anyone in that movie even making a reference to the shape of the earth, so I am not sure where you are going with this. However, if someone in the movie had said something along the lines of, “The news of this tragedy has spread to the ends of the earth.” I would not therefore think that those who wrote the script or who said the original quote believed the earth was flat. Or if someone in the movie said, “This tragedy has shaken the very foundations of our planet!” I would not believe that the person thought the earth was built on physical foundations. Figures of speech and metaphors are fairly easy to spot.


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I'm sure you think you do but all I see is someone picking and choosing what is and is not a metaphor considering that you've apparently decided that the earth is young and most of science is wrong based on what's in the bible but when it says something that everyone and literally everyone knows and understands is wrong, you excuse it by saying it's a metaphor.

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No it’s just pretty apparent by the original Hebrew which parts of the Bible are metaphoric and which parts are written as literal history. Maybe you should learn Hebrew, sounds like a bit less confusing language for you.

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I'm not asking anything unreasonable. I'm asking you to back up your claims.
Simply telling me that the idiot who wrote up the anisotropic light thing is certainly an astrophysicist, but a Ph.D. isn't an instant ticket to unquestioning authority on a matter.
When Stephan Hawking says something about astrophysics on his personal blog, that's one thing, a scientifically peer-reviewed and published paper written by Stephan Hawking along with test data and results is a completely different matter and you have yet to demonstrate an understanding of this key point in a debate of science versus creationism.

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Wait, we are back on Dr. Lisle now? Well his work on ASC has been peer-reviewed, so I don’t see your point I guess. I just pointed out his accomplishments because you acted as if he had never heard of Special Relativity before, which of course is a ridiculous claim.

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The constant misdirections and strawmen arguements aren't helping you either.
I never said you have to prove something impossible but you have to do more than simply reassure me that I'm wrong because I've demonstrated otherwise.
For example, if I wanted to demonstrate that the raven doesn't literally have eyes of fire, I merely need to point out the other passages involving the raven and note the use of literary techniques, including the copious use of metaphor and simile, throughout the passage to find the deeper meaning within the works.
I could honestly say the same thing about the bible, but I'm not the one that chooses to interpret some parts literally and cherry pick the ones that are metaphor due to some inane worldview.

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Like I said, even if Poe had described the eyes as fiery throughout the poem I would still think it was a metaphor because of the intent. As I have done with the Bible, I think I have done quite appropriate exegesis on these matters.

It doesn't really mention any other way that Christ was shown all the kingdoms of the world, either. Otherwise, you're just inserting your own meaning into the passage to avoid the conclusion I used that passage for in a vain attempt to disqualify the passage as evidence of a flat earth.

Since you can’t see all the kingdoms in the world from one mountain top, I would conclude that they did not go up there to have a great view. Just like when I say, “I am going over to Brent’s house to watch the Superbowl.” You certainly wouldn’t say, “That’s impossible! You can’t see the Superbowl from his house!” I never said I was going over there because I could see the physical game from his house now did I?

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... apparently actually posting the definition of metaphor with examples hasn't swayed you.
I would agree with you if poe used the exact same metaphor in a smilar manner to describe the exact same thing but the bible lists few such passages in this manner and they're not consistent in that manner. Once again, you state something with no evidence to to the contrary of my backed assertions. So, in short, no I'm not making shit up considering I clearly bothered to read the stuff I researched and posted.

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Changing the rules again, why would Poe have to use the exact same metaphor to describe the exact same thing? If at some point in time he had said the Raven had eyes made of ice, I still would not believe he now actually believed the Raven’s eyes were made of ice.

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[/quote] This is the funniest thing you've said yet. Clearly I need to let you know what a frame of reference actually is:

1: an arbitrary set of axes with reference to which the position or motion of something is described or physical laws are formulated
2: a set of ideas, conditions, or assumptions that determine how something will be approached, perceived, or understood <a Marxian frame of reference>

So if the frame of reference is the earth itself, I can percieve it as moving from the frame of reference of the earth by watching it move through space with a telescope, the exact same way that a car is percieved to be moving from the frame of reference of the car by watching things move past it and viewing the way the car interacts with the road.
and speaking of making things up as we go along, nothing in the passage noted anything that ignores everything but what was being referenced. [/quote]

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It’s clear you don’t understand the relativistic nature of motion. If I am in an elevator, I will never move in relation to the elevator (if I am standing still), even if the elevator itself is moving in relation to the building and earth. So no matter how hard you try, you can never move the earth in relation to the earth. That’s what I meant by frame of reference. Thanks for trying though!

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You mean this one?

I'll give you an exmaple.
If a book I was reading had a sentence that stated
"The air in the room was thick, a slow moving syrup"
I would know that this is a metaphor because it is phrased exactly like a simile without the word 'like'.
"The air is a thick syrup." is not a metaphor. It is a statement.
If you can't tell the difference, then don't tell me what is and is not a metaphor.

I've also given other examples you've summerily ignored since the post in which this originated, but in this quote I said that I would know that this word in the example above is a metaphor because it is like a simile without the word 'like'.
Of course, it had no context within a larger body of work, but that's neither here nor there for a moment but I demonstrated a difference between a metaphor and a statement of fact to which you were either unable or unwilling to provide a demonstration or evidence that I was wrong.

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Yeah that was the B.S. I was talking about. You say you know the second sentence is not a metaphor because it is not constructed like a simile just minus the “like”. This of course is wrong because you could very well say “The air is like a thick syrup”. Of course it IS constructed like a simile just minus the “like”. So you can just admit you were pulling all of that out of your butt now.

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Go ahead and find someone and mention that the air is a slow moving syrup. I can't imagine someone taking it as a metaphor, unlike the actual metaphor before it. As such, I have not given a 'rule' that wasn't given to me by the actual definition of the term - both literally stated and given through example. I've given three such definitions, if I recall correctly.

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I assure you that if I went around saying, “The air is a thick syrup”, most people excluding you I guess would realize I was speaking metaphorically.

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Wow. I don't even know where to begin to address this fail-train to dumbsville.
For starters, yes, not only is this possible to do, but it's something doctors, geneticists, biologists, and so on have been doing for years. If your ancestor had the genes that would have given him thick and long-lasting telomeres, then not only can we tell from his genetics that he would have lived a longer time than the average human (assuming disease, murder, or some enviornmental factor didn't end his or her life abruptly). It's the same we can tell if someone will develop a genetic disease, had one, carries one, or anything else.
Further, geneticists are not only capable of measuring the differences and changes in a particular set of DNA, but they are capable of determining which changes, where, and when. It's the reason why resurrecting ancient dead animals from the creatures they've evolved into is now a possibility.

I could also say quite a bit about genetics and evolution considering they go hand-in-hand with one another. Yet, there is too much information out there for me to research and sum up here for you to summerily ignore, say I'm wrong, and then assume that telling me I was wrong in a point in your favor, so I'll let my links speak for me because there isn't enough time in the day for me to show how evolution works and we can tell and accurately measure changes through genetics.

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Oh man!! What a disappointment! I was all excited to see how I could find out how long of telomeres my ancestors had 160 generations ago! Sadly not a single one of these articles says you can do that, in fact not a single one of the articles I searched even had the term “telomeres” in it! What a waste of my freaking time.

I put the passages up, it's not my fault you didn't repost them. Mark 16:16 for example but there were four others in addition to that one that refuted your point that people do not choose their own salvation. Clearly, however, the bible evidences that people can be saved through any number of methods.

This ought to be fun; I always wanted to get in a soteriological debate with an atheist. As you will notice, Mark 16:16 says that whoever believes will be saved and whoever does not will be condemned. However, it does not say that we freely choose to believe, in fact that Bible is clear that without regeneration by the Holy Spirit not only will man not believe but he is unable to do so. So Christ’s sheep believe because they are his sheep, they do not become his sheep because they choose to believe.

A person’s faith follows God’s choosing of them…

“ 48And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and(A) glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”
- Acts 13:48
“One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”
- Acts 16:14
Man is unable to choose Christ without God’s choosing of man, all who God chooses will trust in Christ and all who trust in Christ will be saved.
“44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me(A) draws him. And(B) I will raise him up on the last day.”
- John 6:44
“65And he said, "This is why I told you(A) that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."
John 6:65
God has the right to do with His creation as he pleases, saving some, passing judgment on others, all to bring glory to Himself.
“14What shall we say then?(W) Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses,(X) "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion,[b] but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh,(Y) "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For(Z) who can resist his will?" 20But who are you, O man,(AA) to answer back to God?(AB) Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21(AC) Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump(AD) one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience(AE) vessels of wrath(AF) prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known(AG) the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he(AH) has prepared beforehand for glory— “
- Romans 9:14-22

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Yes, clearly Noah's flood was a metaphor for how much god loves us and clearly not a genocide of everyone for sin, which was something god purposefully put in the garden of eden and clearly designed the first humans in such a manner that they would have given into temptation and then put the thing they were to never touch amongst them. Being omnicient, he would have known the result of all of this the instant he decided to create everything and despite that, he punished us for the inherant sin left in all of us since this event.

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Even if this was a completely accurate statement which it is not, so what?

I'll keep your statement in mind about god being good no matter what he does the next time I have the inkling to release a strain of genetically modified ebola virus into the general population or use a nuclear weapon to set fire to a continent since that's clearly a strive for the perfection of god.

Oh I didn’t realize you were God. Judgment is His prerogative, not yours.

I never tried to. I wouldn't touch 'christian morality' with a 10ft pole.
I'll have to remember this the next time a pasteur says something about the repeal of DADT (don't ask don't tell) instigating the fall of humankind or whatever natural disaster of the month kills thousands as a result of being nice to gay people.

So apparently you still think you determine right and wrong for everyone since you dodged the issue.

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I didn't answer because the question was so silly that I wasn't even sure if I should take it seriously or not. I also have the question the necessity
Babies aren't a cosmic accident because they happen whenever a consenting couple choose to concieve a child or at least consent to the act of concieving a child.
The process is neither cosmic nor an accident.

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Sure it is! Humans are just a result of billions of years of purposeless evolution that arose from the “accident” of abiogenesis that arose from non-living matter that was created by the “accident” of the Big Bang. So our offspring really have no more value than bacteria, rocks, and electrons because there really is no reason as to why we are here. Sounds kind of depressing actually, I am glad I hold a worldview that goes give human life value and has a basis for absolute morality.

I value human life because I am a human being myself and I have value in my own life and the life of others to varying degrees. I value the lives of others because I am a social being and I need other people to function and grow as a human being as much as I need everything else a human values as much as they need me.

Sounds pretty arbitrary to me. So when someone like Jeffery Dahmer decides that he does not need other humans and does not value human life because the theory of evolution tells us we are all just animals and it is survival of the fittest you really can’t say he did anything wrong as he was eating the bodies of his victims? Can’t say I like your worldview much. It’s no wonder that Dahmer had to convert to Christianity before he could see why his actions were truly wrong.

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The difference between myself and theists is that I value humans not out of being told to, forced into doing so (via the threat of eternal damnation), nor do I feel the need to dehumanize my neighbors by believing that the only reason I have morality is because some supernatural entity had to instill it within me. My morality is entirely my own and it required neither coersion nor direction by something else.
That is to say that I value human life because I choose to.

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So the value of human life is completely arbitrary. That is scary. Since apparently morals are relative then you really can’t get on anyone else for hating homosexuals or any of that other stuff you seemed to think was wrong since they just might choose different morals than you.

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Another strawman, another response from Statler Waldorf...
No. I said that murder is what happens when someone kills a human being. There is no definition that I can find that says murder happens when a human kills another human both by law and by the literal definition of the term, which I evidenced in my previous post to which you have yet to properly respond to. Which means that you were wrong to attempt to define it as such.

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Again you are just making all of this up. So since apparently murder only applies to killing humans and not humans killing humans can you bring bacteria to trial when someone dies of infection? What about a car when the brakes go out? How about this one! You should bring the earthquake in Haiti to trial for murder!!! You are being ridiculous, murder is when humans kill other humans without proper justification just like the Bible tells us; hence why I will never see HIV sitting in the defendant’s chair.

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I'll keep that in mind the next time muslims want to build a community center near the world trade center memorial, another abortionist doctor becomes a target for assassination, a largely christian country in africa puts into law a death sentence for being gay, or blames the deaths of thousands in the latest natural disaster on progressive views of homosexuality.

---

There you go appealing to absolute morality again, which of course you have already said doesn’t exist. So according to you, if the assassin does not choose to value human life then he can kill all the abortion doctors he wants, if the Christian country in Africa (no idea which one you are talking about) chooses not to value the lives of homosexuals then you can’t tell them they are doing anything wrong. You are just completely inconsistent in your worldview.

Which would make the bible a great artifact of history if any of what you just said were true.
The one thing you directly stated was a result of religion was the introduction of the scientific method despite having no real basis for that assertion and the fact that the scientific method actually predates christianity by the entire length of human history with aristotle's records being among the earliest documented historical sources of its use.
In short, another point made with zero evidence and assertions with zero backing.

The scientific method predates Christianity? Wow, it says here that Francis Bacon died in the 17th century, that dude must have been old if he came up with the method before Christ! Maybe people really did have extended life spans! You completely dodged the point that you could not conduct any science if the biblical world was not accurate. I don’t really blame you though, there really is not a rebuttal to that claim.

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Yeah, this bullshit is easily refuted here http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD013.html

Ha ha.

I've been reading Richard Dawkin's book on evolution. In it, he refers to Creationists as "a baying pack of ignoramuses". For some reason, I thought of you!

Yeah I am not surprised you read that guy’s “work”. You make a lot of the same errors in reasoning and logic he does.

I use the same reasoning and logic as Richard Dawkins? Why, thank you for the compliment.

I personally wouldn’t really put much stock in a man who believes his purpose in life is to show others that there is no purpose in life.

And where did Dawkins ever express this?

---

I am only going to respond to this point, because it is obvious my other points were all lost on you. It was not refuted at all, if you had actually read the article you would know this. It pretty much just says they don’t use K-Ar dating anymore because it was so unreliable, which of course was proven by creationists because nobody else cared to cross check the method with rocks of known ages. So know I guess the burden of proof is on you, can you give any radiometric method that can actually date rocks of known ages correctly? I want actual peer-reviewed work, not just some guy from talkorigins blowing smoke saying “yeah the methods are reliable despite the fact I give no examples.” Thanks!

[Ashendant]

[ quote='Ashendant' pid='114837' dateline='1295494301']
What about god he clearly lacks observable proof, so does everything in the bible lacks observable proof, how do you know that Jesus existed you only have a book that tells you that he did how observable is that?

Well I am not a complete empiricist. I believe that a lot of truth claims need to be observed, like the conclusions we are talking about here (the age of strata). Other truth claims do not need to be directly observed. People did directly observe Christ, it's a pretty fringe position to believe that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. As for God, He does not lack observable proof at all, creation is clear proof of a creator God, and every person has knowledge of God, many just suppress it in their hearts (Romans 1).

[/quote]
To me that's hypocrisy, and creation is not clear proof of a divine creator, the universe itself can only ultimately prove that it exists, and if you're not told about god you don't know about god, also the heart can only supress and release blood, the heart has nothing to do with emotion.

[Statler Waldorf]

Really? Who? Because no one mentions him in any contemporary text or document.

The historian and physician Luke tells us of numerous people observing Christ before and after his ressurection.

Bullshit. Creation proves nothing more than things were created. It is certainly not proof that some invisible man in the sky did the creating.

It's a good thing I didn't say it was proof of some invisible man in the sky then! It's proof of the Creator God.

Crappola. Did people living in the Americas prior to Columbus have "knowledge of god"?

Of course they did, they were just as much human as anyone else, despite what Darwin thought.

And what exactly does that mean anyway? I know there are people who believe in the existence of this god. I have no knowledge that he (or she, or it) is real.

Yes you do, you just surppress it in your heart.

"For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."

Romans 1:20-23

---

---

[ quote='Ashendant' pid='114837' dateline='1295494301']
What about god he clearly lacks observable proof, so does everything in the bible lacks observable proof, how do you know that Jesus existed you only have a book that tells you that he did how observable is that?

Well I am not a complete empiricist. I believe that a lot of truth claims need to be observed, like the conclusions we are talking about here (the age of strata). Other truth claims do not need to be directly observed. People did directly observe Christ, it's a pretty fringe position to believe that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. As for God, He does not lack observable proof at all, creation is clear proof of a creator God, and every person has knowledge of God, many just suppress it in their hearts (Romans 1).

To me that's hypocrisy, and creation is not clear proof of a divine creator, the universe itself can only ultimately prove that it exists, and if you're not told about god you don't know about god, also the heart can only supress and release blood, the heart has nothing to do with emotion.

[/quote]

---

Of course it is not hypocrisy, empiricism is a self refuting worldview, hence why I am not a complete empiricist. Some truth claims can be found without direct observation. Those not told about God are still aware of Him because his creation makes him apparent, so man is without excuse. As to the heart thing, it's a figure of speech there buddy, hence why every love song ever written talks about the heart.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

I am well aware of what the fallacy is and the fact you have indeed committed it. You make statements like, “Well no real scientist can be a young earth creationist.” And then in the face of contrary evidence like the fact that Newton, Bacon, Kepler, The head of the Apollo Space Program, and countless other examples of young earth creationists who are greatly involved in modern science you just say either, “Well those guys are not actual young earth creationists!” or, “Well those guys are not true scientists!” It’s a classic example of the fallacy, and by all means keep committing it because it is easy to refute. That’s why most atheists worth their salt won’t try to take the “no real scientist” course because they realize it’s an illogical argument at best.

One... two... three... four... five... five violations of the strawman fallacy.
I think that's a record but I haven't really been keeping track, so who knows, really.

Thank you for your opinions. I never actually said any of those things and your conclusions don't appear to be based on anything that I can discern so I see no point of reposting my previous post since you clearly couldn't be bothered to refute it.

If you're not going to have a discussion or you keep misrepresenting my arguements, then stop bothering to come here. I can't tell if these responses are based off of ignorance, laziness, an inability to actually refute my arguements, a desire to move the discussion in a direction you're more capable of handling, or whatever, but the above point clearly isn't based off of anything I said or posted.
I'm not the one making anything up. I do research and I post all the research on every post I've made in this discussion and I can only guess that you're either ignoring them or purposefully avoiding them by deflecting the discussion to myself instead of my arguements.

Either way, this is ... what? the third post since I've been able to respond regularly at the forums and you've yet to actually refute any point on the following topics based on anything that I can plainly see as something other than your opinion.

I don't give a damn about what you think about me or my responses.
I give a damn about what you can prove about the refutations of the points you make and so far you've quite literally done almost nothing.

I've proven that I haven't committed the no true scotsman fallacy and I provided evidence and reasons for it. I've proven and provided all the sources I need to evidence that science isn't the birthchild of creationism or christianity. I've proven that Apollo wasn't started by, funded by, run by, or a result of christian theology, which is what you implied with your previous statement. Von Braun was certainly a christian but let me know when you can connect young-earth creationism to the invention of the rocket.... or even young-earth creationism to Von Braun, Kepler, Newton, or Bacon's scientific contributions - which you have yet to do other than citing them as christians during the day and age to which they lived.

I have yet to see an empirically-based direct refutation against any of the above points.

Well actually, Francis Bacon (Young Earth Creationist) is credited with the Scientific Method as we know it today.

Yeah, I can't really find any evidence of Bacon being a young-earth creationist or even particularly religious. You might have to... oh I don't know, back up that baseless assertion beyond your statement.
By the by, if you actually read my links, you would have gotten this list:

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Karl Gauss
David Hume
John Locke
Ernst Mach
John Dewey
Humphry Davy
Isaac Newton
Robert Boyle
Abraham Wolf
Morris Cohen
Karl Pearson
William James Gregor Mendel
John Herschel
Immanuel Kant
William Wells
Charles Darwin
Claude Bernard
William Jevons
Charles Pierce
William Jevons
William Harvey
Michael Faraday
William Whewell Johannes Kepler
Albert Einstein
Henry Armstrong
John Stuart Mill
Joseph Priestley
Bertrand Russell
Benjamin Franklin
Antoine Lavoisier
Joseph Gay-Lussac
Ernest Rutherford
James Clerk Maxwell
Albert North Whitehead

---

... of people who contributed to the modern scientific method, among others mentioned in more detail in the wikipedia entry and others I linked that didn't put Bacon as the sole sire of the modern scientific method. Particularly since there is more than one acutal method and his is merely one of many.

“Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.[2] His works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.”

Indeed. Unfortunate that I bothered to read the rest of the article also, which doesn't put him as the father of modern empirical scientific inquiry and particularly since the article even states things like this:

The development of the scientific method is inseparable from the history of science itself. Ancient Egyptian documents describe empirical methods in astronomy,[82] mathematics,[83] and medicine.[84] The ancient Greek philosopher Thales in the 6th century BC refused to accept supernatural, religious or mythological explanations for natural phenomena, proclaiming that every event had a natural cause. The development of deductive reasoning by Plato was an important step towards the scientific method. Empiricism seems to have been formalized by Aristotle, who believed that universal truths could be reached via induction.

I know for a fact that several of those people predate christianity and Bacon, considering all of them are purely a Common Era phenomenon.

Those that do not ignore the evidence that contradicts their worldview find a way to re-interpret it and make it fit. Just look at all the work that has been done on comets; comets directly deny the old universe model and yet all sorts of ad hoc explanations have been developed to make them fit the model. A philosophically astute person will always find a way to invoke a rescue mechanism in order to save his/her worldview. This is why it is more of a debate on consistency of worldviews than it is on raw evidence, since both sides have the same evidence available.

How comically inaccurate. So let me know when you stop making things up and stating things you don't readily evidence that you know anything about.
As wikipedia always puts for unknown sources of information, [citation needed] on all counts of comets being apparently evidence of young earth creationism because I'm reasonably sure that the astronomy organisations that say that these things are older than 6,000 years by a fair margin know what they're talking about and can provide empirically-based evience for it.
So yeah... I call bullshit on all this until you can provide evience of any kind to your assertions.

As to your point on worldview, people certainly have them, which is why the scientific process weeds the bias out of it by the very nature of its process, which is why it's so hilarious when creationists and theists such as yourself go through all the trouble of latching on Newton and others for being on team Christianity despite the fact that their contributions, independant of their creators, lack the stink of fantasy on them because they have gone through this process over the years, well past their deaths.

To the contrary, Newton’s faith was directly responsible for his findings. As Dr. John Lennox (Oxford Mathematician) in his debate with Dawkins, Newton believed that God upheld His creation in a consistent and predictable manner because scripture told him so. He also believed that man was given dominion over the rest of creation and was encouraged to gain knowledge because scripture told him so. So Newton expected to find laws that describe how creation works, and he did. Once he found God’s mechanism, it only strengthened his faith in God. So not only was Newton a young earth creationist who believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, it was this belief that directly fueled his science, just like young earth creationists today. So it is actually the secular crowd that conducts science only because they hold presuppositions that are completely inconsistent with their worldviews.

Indeed, and if he abandoned that idiotic and limiting view of things, his contributions to the scientific communitiy could have been vastly greater, just as his predecessor of a bygone era, Claudius Ptolemaeus, who invented geocentrism but ultimately his views on the perfection of creation didn't allow him to be up to making further contributions that would undermine what they felt was God's perfection.
Still, century by century more of that crass limitations are peeling away.

But anyway, that is a nice opinion you have. Let me know when you have some proof of Newton arriving to his conclusions because of his belief in creationism. So far, all you've told me is that it motivated him into scientific inquiry and nothing about it being an actual part of this inquiry. Which is to say that the Bible had no direct involvement in the process to which Newton made any of his scientific discoveries in the way that math, observation, and so forth had.

Fact of the matter is that evidence of the Church's resistance (on biblical grounds) is much more readily available. So unless Dr. Lennox has evidence of this, I don't realy care about what he has said or done.

I found this quite amusing actually. How do you prove your senses or someone else’s senses are reliable without using your senses? So you have to assume your senses are reliable in order to prove they are reliable. Hence why this is a presupposition that we must have before we can do any scientific inquiry.

Really? No, really? I suppose things like this shouldn't surprise me anymore... sigh... okay...
You know how you can test for color blindness? Visual Acuity? Numbness? Hearing loss? Whether or not you can taste or smell certain things? Paralysis?

Again, quite amusing. How do you know that you ever proved your memory was reliable? You would of course have to remember doing this, so you would have to use your memory in order to prove your memory is reliable. So again, this is a presupposition we must have before we can conduct any scientific inquiry.

Have you ever seen the Adam Sandler movie fifty first dates? Drew Barrymore's condition in that film is an actual medical condition brought about by physical brain trauma. If you haven't seen that movie or are unaware of that medical condition, the character in the film was in a car accident and doesn't remember things beyond 24 hours since her accident because her brain is unable to forge new long-term memories. Clearly her memory isn't reliable. There is also other neurological conditions that can impair memory brought about by age, genetics, and environmental factors.
What Ms. Barrymore did in the movie that allowed her to realize her condition was the realization that the memories she could reliably recall before hte accident and realizing the current date was years off-track. With the help of her friends and family a way was devised of a way to help her keep current. Others who have even less reliable memory don't really have the abililty to function, such as alzheimer's patients when their disease is in full effect.
It'd be like measuring the reliability of your sanity when your grasp of reality is essentially nil.

Nope, saying that we know the future will resemble the past because that has always worked for us in the past is again assuming that because things in the past have worked they will continue to work in the future, which of course is assuming the future resembles the past. So this uniformity in nature has to be presupposed before we can conduct any scientific inquiry.

It's not an assumption if the past provides evidence for the future.

Another circular argument. “There are only natural explanations for our natural universe because this is where the evidence has brought us.” “Well what about those scientists who believe the evidence is best explained by supernatural causes?” “Well they are not allowed to use supernatural explanations.” “Why not?” “Because we know that the natural world is all there is.” And round and round we go!!!

Another strawman, another response from one Statler Waldorf.
I'm entertained that you've invented a circular arguement I've never followed but please try to make it at least resemble an actual arguement I've made next time, okay?

I see you are trying to make a logical argument as to why we should be logical. Being logical has nothing to do with being sane or surviving. I see people everyday who us illogical reasoning and I assure you they are quite sane and survive just fine. We should be logical because the laws of logic are the way God thinks and we are told we should try our best to think like God does. This is why the greatest work on the subject was written by the Christian Apologist Isaac Watts. Either way, the existence of laws of logic and our adherence to them is a necessary presupposition in order to conduct any scientific inquiry.

I still neither see how 'being logical' is a presupposition and you've not provided a reason for this but between that and your usual inanity regarding your worldview, I really don't care, so I'm moving on.

What kind of argument is this? “Even though we all make presuppositions, creationists make a presupposition that I don’t like, therefore they are not legitimate.” They actually make a presupposition that provides a basis for all the other presuppositions that everyone else makes. They are the only ones who are truly consistent in their worldview and are therefore quite legitimate. As to the “Creationists are not scientists because scientists do science!” I am sure you can see the circular nature to that argument. I will just stick to my position that guys like Newton, Mendel, Carver, and the head of the Apollo Space Program were not only scientists but also some of the greatest scientists in the history of modern science. You can stick to your fallacious view that these men were not “true” scientists.

Ah, another strawman, another response from Statler Waldorf.
I'm suddenly reminded of all those "I invented the internet" jokes about Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign with all your "everyone great in history was a christian" claptrap.
So aside from your usual grandiose claims with no evidential backing and your attempts to tell me what my own arguements are (clearly different from the ones I've actually been making), where is the creationism in modern science? You've already had to edit out several fields of science into a catagory only creationists use called "origins science" to dismiss several fields of scientific inquiry that those very people you love to huddle into your camp created?

Yes I guess you really do have limited knowledge. Wernher von Braun was the head of the Apollo Space Program at NASA, and yes he was a young earth creationist. He believed that the evidence points directly to a young earth and universe that God created only 6,000 years ago. So I guess your statement is only true if you don’t consider putting a man on the moon as a major achievement for modern science. I however do. Your beloved Wikipedia even states, “Braun would later be regarded as the preeminent rocket engineer of the 20th century in his role with the United States civilian space agency NASA.[” NASA certainly does not endorse any particular religion over another, but they also apparently didn’t buy into your “no true scientist” argument considering they made a YEC the head of their entire Apollo program.

Your claim was that Von Braun was a creation scientist. Prove it.

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Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism, which attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology and biological evolution.[1][2] Its most vocal proponents are fundamentalist Christians in the United States who seek to prove Biblical inerrancy and nullify the scientific evidence for evolution.[3] The main ideas in creation science are: the belief in "creation ex nihilo"; the conviction that the Earth was created within the last ten thousand years; the belief that mankind and other life on Earth were created as distinct fixed "baraminological" kinds; and the idea that fossils found in geological strata were deposited during a cataclysmic flood which completely covered the entire Earth.[4] As a result, creation science also challenges the geologic and astrophysical evidence for the age and origins of Earth and Universe, which creation scientists acknowledge are irreconcilable to the account in the Book of Genesis.[3] Creation science proponents often refer to the theory of evolution as "Darwinism" or as "Darwinian evolution". Proponents of creation science claim that it is a genuine scientific challenge to historical geology, the antiquity of the universe, and the theory of evolution.

---

If you can find out how Von Braun contributed to anything scientific from the bible, like what is described in the above quote from wikipedia, and not purely the scientific methods that in addition to bringing us rockets and medicine but also evolution and big bang theory, then let me know. Otherwise, you're just spewing more baseless assertions.
Otherwise, Von Braun is just another scientist who went to NASA to build some damn rockets to go to the moon. He was a great man who also happened to be a christian, but until you can provide evidence that his work in science and the results it brought is a direct result of creation science (as described above), then I have no reason to believe that his religious beliefs are anything but entirely incidental. (Which seems entirely supported by his online biographies.)

As I pointed out above, the Baconian Method (a.k.a the Scientific Method) was formulated by a YEC. So I guess history disagrees with you.

What history? You've certainly claimed Baconian method is the father of all modern science, but you've provided zero evidence that he was anything more than someone who contributed to it, despite the fact that the very source you quoted from actually doesn't put Bacon as the sole creator of the scientific method, with people in other times, places, and backgrounds also using the kind of logical methodology used by scientists today.

Yeah I would expect someone who doesn’t understand units of measurement to have a problem with it. Those of us who actually understand units of measurement and synchrony conventions have no issues with it at all.

Indeed, but it's a shame that measuring things differently doesn't really make the speed of light go away from you at half light speed and return instantaneously. Clearly one of us actually read the paper and it wasn't you.

Just because you lack a basic fundamental understanding of Synchrony Conventions (demonstrated by your attempt to argue against ASC by using ESC) does not make Dr. Lisle a hack. I love how you say it will never move any faster than 300,000 km/s, which of course is absolutely right, when using ESC. However, I hope you noticed Lisle is talking about ASC, and when using ASC light moves instantaneously towards an observer. So fail. I am really befuddled as to why you are having such a tough time grasping this concept, when I was teaching my freshman Physical Science students grasped synchrony conventions in less than an hour.

Oh no. You don't understand what I said. I understand the theory, what I don't understand why anyone still runs with it despite it so easily being debunked by people who actually do science.
Particularly considering that the paper itself actually states that the speed of light is somethign other than what the speed of light has been measured as.
Let me know when there is empirical evidence proving anything like ASC and then we'll talk about it's validity other than the word of one Statler Waldorf that it's really really how things work.

Nope that’s like saying two men who measure the same board but one used inches and the other used metric units came to difference conclusions. It’s just fundamentally incorrect. If you are having such a tough time with this, maybe you should shoot Dr. Lisle an email, he’ll respond back.

However he does address your special relavtity questions in his papers, one such place is below…
“Relativity only requires that the two-way time averaged speed of light is constant for any observer. Although Einstein synchrony is normally used as the particular system in which the equations are expressed, it is not a requirement. By dropping this second axiom, we find that there are alternative definitions of simultaneity that are logically consistent for any given observer.”
- Dr. Jason Lisle

I love how you keep calling out my ignorance but you keep missing the point.
ASC posits that the speed of light has two speeds that depend on the relative position of the observer. Relativity correctly and empirically posits that the speed of the light is the same in all directions to all observers. You're right that I favor that interpretation but mostly because it's been proven to be true beyond any shadow of a doubt. The burdon of evidence to prove otherwise is on Lisle, which he has clearly failed to do repeatedly.
Your analogy you keep attempting to push on me is completely inaccurate. It's more like Einstein says that cars go 50 mph on a road in any road regardless of who is where in respect to the car. Lisle says that cars go 25 mph away from you and instantaneously back in your direction and my quotes both from Special Relativitiy and Lisle's ASC paper properly reflect this and therefore my assertions are valid whether you choose to believe it or not.

So? Prior to 1916 you would have had a tough time finding any literature on Special Relativity. So your point is irrelevant.

Indeed! Relativity wasn't even realized until Einsten wrote his famous papers. Of course, prior to then it had the excuse of it not existing and being prior to the internet and large-scale use of telephones and television.
The ASC paper has existed for some years now and still only exists in creationist circles, except where I've seen it thoroughly debunked.

Actually you can find videos of him on ‘youtube’ debating atheists, so he does not only talk to creationists. As to the whole “acceptance by the scientific community” canard, I thought that we had already established the fact that scientific fact is not established by consensus or acceptance by others. So that point doesn’t hold any water.

As I recall, I may have agreed prior to my brief but temporary leaves from this conversation that scientific consensus isn't established by a democratic majority, which isn't the same as that thing you just said. Acceptance by the scientific community is usually done by performing scientific study - the kind that specifically can and will yield results and is repeatable and testable by peer review and you've done nothing to establish that Lisle is willing, able, or doing that at this time nor have you done the same for ASC in any manner whatsoever.

Actually I have provided you with loads of evidence demonstrating you are in fact wrong, now whether I have persuaded you that you are wrong, that’s a different matter and is quite frankly irrelevant to the fact that you are indeed wrong.

Where? Other than reassuring me and posting a few unlinked quotes here and there, you've done nothing to actually counter any point I've made, but feel free to correct me on this.

I don’t remember anyone in that movie even making a reference to the shape of the earth, so I am not sure where you are going with this. However, if someone in the movie had said something along the lines of, “The news of this tragedy has spread to the ends of the earth.” I would not therefore think that those who wrote the script or who said the original quote believed the earth was flat.

Neither would I, but there are also clear points in which things like the orbital paths of the Apollo Rocket and whatnot around the earth and moon as well, so unlike the bible, not only is the metaphor use (if there were any such as what you described above and immediately below) not only would this be in the proper context of its use as a mere figure of speech but there are other clear signs in the movie that the earth isn't flat, unlike the bible.

Or if someone in the movie said, “This tragedy has shaken the very foundations of our planet!” I would not believe that the person thought the earth was built on physical foundations. Figures of speech and metaphors are fairly easy to spot.

Indeed they are.

No it’s just pretty apparent by the original Hebrew which parts of the Bible are metaphoric and which parts are written as literal history. Maybe you should learn Hebrew, sounds like a bit less confusing language for you.

I really don't have any reason to believe that I am confused about any point I've made. You've certainly said and done zip to evidence this being the case. At this point, at least, I'm fairly convinced that you have no real way of defending the bible's inaccurate representation of the earth, at least in the english translation.

... other than telling me I'm wrong, certainly, but unless you can demonstrate this in some manner or another, then I find that simply telling me I'm wrong time and time again to be rather pointless and unconductive to the arguement you are presenting to me.

Wait, we are back on Dr. Lisle now? Well his work on ASC has been peer-reviewed, so I don’t see your point I guess. I just pointed out his accomplishments because you acted as if he had never heard of Special Relativity before, which of course is a ridiculous claim.

By whom? When? Has it appeared in a scientific journal? A magazine? Are physicists giving lectures at prestigious physics colleges?
I'm sure he's heard of relativity. You have to be knowledgable of something so you can twist it around to attempt to explain a biblical universe.

Like I said, even if Poe had described the eyes as fiery throughout the poem I would still think it was a metaphor because of the intent. As I have done with the Bible, I think I have done quite appropriate exegesis on these matters.

Indeed, so all you have to do is demonstrate this intent for the bible for all of the passages I mentioned in the manner that actually represents what a metaphor actually is and then we're golden. I'm reasonably sure you won't be able to and even if you were to somehow be able to do that despite your "knowledge" of how metaphor works, I'm also reasonably certain I can use the exact same method to shoot down the Genesis account of creation.
As I've said, all you're doing is cherry picking which parts and are and which parts aren't literal and metaphorical. This is clearly a necessary component of being a Y-E creationist because it requires certain interpretations to be literal.
This is why Y-E creationism is an absolute joke. Even people who don't necessarily buy into evolution don't buy into Y-E creationism.

Since you can’t see all the kingdoms in the world from one mountain top, I would conclude that they did not go up there to have a great view. Just like when I say, “I am going over to Brent’s house to watch the Superbowl.” You certainly wouldn’t say, “That’s impossible! You can’t see the Superbowl from his house!” I never said I was going over there because I could see the physical game from his house now did I?

The bible never says that it's impossible to view all the kingdoms of the earth from a mountaintop, yet it does say that Jesus was lead up to a mountaintop and shown all of the kingdoms of the earth.
I'm not the one injecting any additional meaning into that passage - you are.

Changing the rules again, why would Poe have to use the exact same metaphor to describe the exact same thing? If at some point in time he had said the Raven had eyes made of ice, I still would not believe he now actually believed the Raven’s eyes were made of ice.

Metaphors have purpose and are used in the way they are used to express a particular thing and for a particular reason. No, I'm not making up rules so much as reading the definitions I've linked here. The strawmen fallacy here also doesn't help since you're obfuscating the points I've been making in terms of metaphors.

It’s clear you don’t understand the relativistic nature of motion. If I am in an elevator, I will never move in relation to the elevator (if I am standing still), even if the elevator itself is moving in relation to the building and earth. So no matter how hard you try, you can never move the earth in relation to the earth. That’s what I meant by frame of reference. Thanks for trying though!

Another Strawman fallacy, another post by Statler Waldorf....
The original passage that started this topic stated that the world shall never be moved when it is clear that the earth is constantly spinning and moving around the sun while it itself moves around the galaxy while the galaxy itself moves as well.
I stated this passage clearly wasn't true because the Earth isn't stationary and you retorted with:

Now that depends on your frame of reference now doesn’t it?

Which is clearly a silly response because we can and continue to prove that the earth moves despite us moving with it and on it and thus we can tell that the earth is moving from the 'frame of refence' of the earth.
Your reply to that was:

So you are suggesting you can indeed move the Earth from the relative perspective of the Earth? Wow, I think you should read a physics book.

Which totally had nothing to do with what I said, but that's been par for the course, so I reminded you of what a frame of refence actually is

1: an arbitrary set of axes with reference to which the position or motion of something is described or physical laws are formulated
2: a set of ideas, conditions, or assumptions that determine how something will be approached, perceived, or understood <a Marxian frame of reference>

and I then told you that we can tell the earth is moving from our frame of reference and not, for example, from the reference of mars.
Proving heliocentrism proved this.
Therefore, you have committed the strawman fallacy because the arguement was never focused on proving that I move in relation to the earth or the earth in relation to me. There is nothing like that in the passage that I orignally derived to start this conversation and I therefore have every reason that you simply don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Yeah that was the B.S. I was talking about. You say you know the second sentence is not a metaphor because it is not constructed like a simile just minus the “like”. This of course is wrong because you could very well say “The air is like a thick syrup”. Of course it IS constructed like a simile just minus the “like”. So you can just admit you were pulling all of that out of your butt now.

You do realize I linked the source of that definition right? More than once? All of which my interpretation adhered to? I didn't even make up the example - I pulled it directly from one of the links I actually linked up to the post you responded to.
...but apparently you haven't seen it.

Well, if you can't be bothered to check the links I give you and do at least a little bit of reading, then don't bother telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, this is just the misinformed words of one Statler Waldorf.

I assure you that if I went around saying, “The air is a thick syrup”, most people excluding you I guess would realize I was speaking metaphorically.

... if you say so.

Oh man!! What a disappointment! I was all excited to see how I could find out how long of telomeres my ancestors had 160 generations ago! Sadly not a single one of these articles says you can do that, in fact not a single one of the articles I searched even had the term “telomeres” in it! What a waste of my freaking time.

I wasn't aware that I had to specifically locate an article discussing a specific gene or set of gene sequences. The links I chose were about evolutoinary genetics in general, which does the exact thing to which I described in terms of determining things like aging.
Here's a quote from one of my links:

The application of molecular and genetic tools to evolutionary questions provides answers to some of the most fundamental questions in biology.

For example, phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyses illuminate the evolutionary history of life, population genetics provides insight into current processes of gene flow and natural selection, and studies that incorporate experimental evolution and functional genetics can give us a preview of future evolutionary trajectories.

The utility and power of modern genetic techniques can be applied to a diverse array of academic disciplines, including studies of aging, behavior, infectious disease, cancer, genomic evolution and the domestication of plants and animals.

So the process not only covers aging, but suceptibility to disease, cancer, and even behavior.
So I don't know what you actually read when you checked out those links (assuming you actually did check them out) but I have proven my case for exactly what I said.

This ought to be fun; I always wanted to get in a soteriological debate with an atheist. As you will notice, Mark 16:16 says that whoever believes will be saved and whoever does not will be condemned. However, it does not say that we freely choose to believe, in fact that Bible is clear that without regeneration by the Holy Spirit not only will man not believe but he is unable to do so. So Christ’s sheep believe because they are his sheep, they do not become his sheep because they choose to believe.

---

A person’s faith follows God’s choosing of them…

“ 48And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and(A) glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”
- Acts 13:48
“One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”
- Acts 16:14
Man is unable to choose Christ without God’s choosing of man, all who God chooses will trust in Christ and all who trust in Christ will be saved.
“44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me(A) draws him. And(B) I will raise him up on the last day.”
- John 6:44
“65And he said, "This is why I told you(A) that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."
John 6:65
God has the right to do with His creation as he pleases, saving some, passing judgment on others, all to bring glory to Himself.
“14What shall we say then?(W) Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15For he says to Moses,(X) "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh,(Y) "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
19You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For(Z) who can resist his will?" 20But who are you, O man,(AA) to answer back to God?(AB) Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21(AC) Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump(AD) one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience(AE) vessels of wrath(AF) prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known(AG) the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he(AH) has prepared beforehand for glory— “
- Romans 9:14-22

---

So in order to prove the contradition is valid, all I have to do is prove that humans have no free will according to the bible?
I would love to make the arguement for no free will. It not only makes god out to be the bad guy because he punishes humanity for something to which we have no control.
Of course, I've seen contradictions in the bible regarding whether that's true or not also (which would be very entertaining for you to argue in which god, similarly to your refutation of god's anger being temporary or eternal, argues that some people have choice and others don't, depending on who he's talking to. Lol.
But anyway, as to your claim, I think you just make an evidenced arguement that it doesn't really matter what we think. We don't seem to have any say in whether we get saved or not.
As to whether or not this means people can or can't choose whether or not they can be saved, well, I can just chalk that up to another self-contradiction within the bible.

Even if this was a completely accurate statement which it is not, so what?

Nothing. It just reminds me of a futurama episode in which one of the characters mentions a the first robotic President, one John Quincy Adding Machine, who won the Presidency of Earth by exactly one vote on the promise that he wouldn't go on a killing spree (which apparently ended up being a broken campaign promise).
God is the John Q. in that analogy.

Oh I didn’t realize you were God. Judgment is His prerogative, not yours.

Then he's a hypocrite who forces morality on us that he doesn't himself follow.

So apparently you still think you determine right and wrong for everyone since you dodged the issue.

How many strawman fallacies have you committed thus far?
Well, another one to add to the total, I guess because I have no idea what issue you think I dodged since, aside from mentioning a few anecodes of 'christian morality' I also mostly responded to your 'you don't determine right and wrong for me' with 'i never tried to.'

Sure it is! Humans are just a result of billions of years of purposeless evolution that arose from the “accident” of abiogenesis that arose from non-living matter that was created by the “accident” of the Big Bang. So our offspring really have no more value than bacteria, rocks, and electrons because there really is no reason as to why we are here. Sounds kind of depressing actually, I am glad I hold a worldview that goes give human life value and has a basis for absolute morality.

That's your caricature of evolution, big bang, life, and the value of human life. Not mine.

Sounds pretty arbitrary to me. So when someone like Jeffery Dahmer decides that he does not need other humans and does not value human life because the theory of evolution tells us we are all just animals and it is survival of the fittest you really can’t say he did anything wrong as he was eating the bodies of his victims? Can’t say I like your worldview much. It’s no wonder that Dahmer had to convert to Christianity before he could see why his actions were truly wrong.

Oh! Oh! Are we goin to now play the 'whose morality led to more mass-killings?' I love that game because when we start talking about the people who kill and have killed in the name of the christian god, a rain of no True Scotsman fallacies begin to shower upon all!
Although I can argue that Dahmer didn't kill because of his beliefs in evolution, but that's a seporate arguement that I can get into later. Either way, I'll take your Dahmer and raise you an entire Ku Klux Klan.
I have to give you props. I would have died happily never having gone anywhere near the kkk website, but I'd be damned if this wasn't entertaining enough to give it a shot.

Also, it has a fun quote right on the front page (saving me any need, thankfully, of investigating further)

America, Our Nation is Under Judgement from God!


"There is a race war against whites. But our people - my white brothers and sisters - will stay committed to a non-violent resolution. That resolution must consist of solidarity in white communities around the world. The hatred for our children and their future is growing and is being fueled every single day. Stay firm in your convictions. Keep loving your heritage and keep witnessing to others that there is a better way than a war torn, violent, wicked, socialist, new world order. That way is the Christian way - law and order - love of family - love of nation. These are the principles of western Christian civilization. There is a war to destroy these things. Pray that our people see the error of their ways and regain a sense of loyalty. Repent America! Be faithful my fellow believers. "

National Director of The Knights

Pastor Thomas Robb

I could also cite the report that there are extremely few atheists in prison compared to the general population, if you haven't seen it already but I shy away from using it since it's rather old (though not necessarily invalid.)
Either way, I find attempting to argue morality to be pointless since examples of peopele from everywhere of all stripes do horrific evils all the way to antiquity. Entertaining, but pointless.

As far as your consideration of my morality, I really don't care about what you think.

So the value of human life is completely arbitrary. That is scary. Since apparently morals are relative then you really can’t get on anyone else for hating homosexuals or any of that other stuff you seemed to think was wrong since they just might choose different morals than you.

Another strawman, another response from one Statler Waldorf.
[sarcasm]You're right. The next time someone uses the bible for justifying the persecution of the gay community, I should just shut up because there is no god to direct my actions.[/sarcasm]
I love how you theists always confuse 'my morals don't come from god' with 'I don't have morals'. Quite absurd. What's scary about the morality of theists is when they think that their morals are out of their control (because god gives it to them) and god himself has passed judgement on someone or a group (gays, abortion doctors, etc) and decide that these people shouldn't be treated as good as good moral christians.

Again you are just making all of this up. So since apparently murder only applies to killing humans and not humans killing humans can you bring bacteria to trial when someone dies of infection? What about a car when the brakes go out? How about this one! You should bring the earthquake in Haiti to trial for murder!!! You are being ridiculous, murder is when humans kill other humans without proper justification just like the Bible tells us; hence why I will never see HIV sitting in the defendant’s chair.

Strawman.
I neither made up the definitions I linked and quoted, nor have I misrepresented those definitions. What's made up here is your statement that I made those up and that murder is defined as humans killing other humans.
Those examples you posted were accidental deaths and are defined as such. A bear mauling a human to death is murder but only humans can be brought to trial since a bear cannot legally understand the nature of his crime. An intelligent alien race that visits earth that understands as we understand can murder someone and stand trial for it, theoretically.
Regardless of how ridiculous you think it is, Murder is not defined as requiring the murderer to be human.
So if I got something wrong, feel free to show otherwise.

There you go appealing to absolute morality again, which of course you have already said doesn’t exist. So according to you, if the assassin does not choose to value human life then he can kill all the abortion doctors he wants, if the Christian country in Africa (no idea which one you are talking about) chooses not to value the lives of homosexuals then you can’t tell them they are doing anything wrong. You are just completely inconsistent in your worldview.

I'm amused that you think that, but I think I know my own morality better than you. You state I'm being inconsistent with my own morality, but you don't even know or understand what my moral compass is, let alone whether or not I am consistent with it between what I say and what I do.
I don't know what morality you think I'm being inconsistent with, but it seems to be more along the lines of what you think my morality is and not what it actually is.

The scientific method predates Christianity? Wow, it says here that Francis Bacon died in the 17th century, that dude must have been old if he came up with the method before Christ! Maybe people really did have extended life spans! You completely dodged the point that you could not conduct any science if the biblical world was not accurate. I don’t really blame you though, there really is not a rebuttal to that claim.

I did dodge it because the entire notion of the world being biblically accurate is bullshit, as was your attempt to put the scientific method solely in the hands of one scientist, with christian beliefs or otherwise. Unfortunately, like virtually every response I've seen you give, (not all of them - I'll give you that much credit, but most of them) have thus far been baseless, lacking in any empirical evidence that has stood up to scrutiny, ruthlessly debunked both here and elsewhere, and utterly without empirical and testable evidence for things like - 6 day creation, noah's flood, ASC, "origins science", as you call it, being seporate and disreputable from regular science, and so on and so forth.

[Zen Badger]

What are you talking about? God's purpose in creation is to bring glory to Himself, period. As to this misconception that supernova remnants point to an old universe, nothing could be farther from the truth. Let's take a look at the numbers

Expected number of observable supernova remnants if the universe were billions of years old:

Stage 1: 2
Stage 2: 2260
Stage 3: 5000

Expected number of observable supernova remnants if the universe were only thousands of years old:

Stage 1: 2
Stage 2: 125
Stage 3: 0

Actual observable supernova remnants to date:

Stage 1: 5
Stage 2: 200
Stage 3: 0


So you can see, the actual observable data are far more in line with a young universe than an old one. Thanks for bringing the topic up!

As far as movement of galaxies, many spiral galaxies actually wind up too quickly in order to be billions of years old, so that
is pretty good young universe evidence too. Thanks for that one too!

Is thisthe source for your "facts"?
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source...zwnX-Pe7Rg

Well i'm sure we'll take that seriously

The point being that stellar evolution in a 6000 thousand year old universe would not have advanced far enough for there to be any remnents at all.So his figures are pure fantasy.

As to the old cretinist saw about galactic formation... try this

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source...6035ea4uew

Read down to galaxy formation.

BTW your reponse has NOTHING to do with my original point about colliding galaxies.
God is obviously so incompetent that he creates a universe and positions some galaxies that are crashing into each other, very, very glorious.

Still a fail buddy, an EPIC, EPIC fail.

[Ashendant]

Crappola. Did people living in the Americas prior to Columbus have "knowledge of god"?

Of course they did, they were just as much human as anyone else, despite what Darwin thought.

Except they believed in other deities really expression of knowing about God, that's why the people in tribes that have little contact believe in malignant spirits and shamans

And what exactly does that mean anyway? I know there are people who believe in the existence of this god. I have no knowledge that he (or she, or it) is real.

Yes you do, you just surppress it in your heart.

"For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."

Romans 1:20-23

And you use a book without proof to prove your point

Of course it is not hypocrisy, empiricism is a self refuting worldview, hence why I am not a complete empiricist. Some truth claims can be found without direct observation. Those not told about God are still aware of Him because his creation makes him apparent, so man is without excuse. As to the heart thing, it's a figure of speech there buddy, hence why every love song ever written talks about the heart.

It's not a figure of speech, it's a common misconception that the organ that feels is the heart, because it "bumps" faster in "love" situations it's a reaction to the brain, and not a figure of speech, and no his "creation" does not make him apparent, since the universe ultimately only prove that the universe exists, i once believed but stopped believing due to god having no proof at all, also he's a wrathful, prideful and childish jerk, and those who aren't told of him aren't aware of him.

And why is empiricism a self refuting world-view?

[Watson]

Why do we continue to refute creationism when by this point it should be obvious it's a crock? Aren't we getting tired of whipping out the same old responses? :/

[Thor]

[quote='Thor' pid='114914' dateline='1295559618']
Really? Who? Because no one mentions him in any contemporary text or document.

The historian and physician Luke tells us of numerous people observing Christ before and after his ressurection.

Oh, so Luke tells us people saw Jesus before and after he was resurrected? Well, that settles that!

Are you kidding? You're offering hearsay? Who are these "numerous people"? Names? I could claim that numerous people told me they saw a leprechaun dancing in a tree before disappearing in a puff of smoke. How much weight would that carry? Would you believe it?

How about this.... You're a juror in a murder trial. A detective takes the stand and testifies that numerous people witnessed the murder. The detective also says that many of these people told him the defendant committed the murder.

That's it! This is all the evidence offered by the prosecution! None of these people who supposedly talked to the detective actually testify as to what they saw. The detective doesn't even have any of their names! Would you convict the defendant?

I just love it when believers try to prove that the Biblical Jesus was a real person. They always resort to
trotting out hearsay and/or historical accounts that were written decades (or even centuries) after Jesus supposedly lived.

Bullshit. Creation proves nothing more than things were created. It is certainly not proof that some invisible man in the sky did the creating.

It's a good thing I didn't say it was proof of some invisible man in the sky then! It's proof of the Creator God.

(Sigh) The mere existence of the universe is not proof that your deity created it. Is that more clear?

Crappola. Did people living in the Americas prior to Columbus have "knowledge of god"?

Of course they did, they were just as much human as anyone else, despite what Darwin thought.

So people living in the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus had direct knowledge of your particular deity? Is that what you're trying to sell here?

And what exactly does that mean anyway? I know there are people who believe in the existence of this god. I have no knowledge that he (or she, or it) is real.

Yes you do, you just surppress it in your heart.

Yeah, deep down I know your deity is real, I'm just suppressing it....

"For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."

Romans 1:20-23

Hey, I can quote the Bible, too!

And Moses spake to the children of Israel, that they should bring forth him that had cursed out of the camp, and stone him with stones. And the children of Israel did as the LORD commanded Moses. - Leviticus 24:23

Yeah, lovely god ya got there!

[Thor]

[quote='Statler Waldorf' pid='114929' dateline='1295573275']
[quote] It doesn't really mention any other way that Christ was shown all the kingdoms of the world, either. Otherwise, you're just inserting your own meaning into the passage to avoid the conclusion I used that passage for in a vain attempt to disqualify the passage as evidence of a flat earth. [/quote]

[quote]Since you can’t see all the kingdoms in the world from one mountain top, I would conclude that they did not go up there to have a great view. [/quote]

The passage specifically says that Jesus was shown all the kingdoms of the world from a mountaintop. How else can you interpret this?

[quote] Just like when I say, “I am going over to Brent’s house to watch the Superbowl.” You certainly wouldn’t say, “That’s impossible! You can’t see the Superbowl from his house!” I never said I was going over there because I could see the physical game from his house now did I? [/quote]


Actually, you CAN see the Superbowl from Brent's house. You can see it on the television! How this relates to the passage in question I can't fathom. As usual, your analogies fall flat.