Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[Ashendant]

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? :/

I'am tired of that but somehow this is hilarious

[Darwinian]

I agree with Richard Dawkins who says that as soon as you start debating creationists you give them an equal platform as if somehow they have a valid argument that demands to be heard on equal footing with evolution and geology etc. when clearly the whole notion of creationism is nonsense.

This is the reason why I have given this particular thread a pretty wide berth as the more you debate them the more they come back at you with even more preposterous pseudo science and given that the vast majority of the Christian world now fully accepts evolution I think it's a subject that is to be vigorously and actively ignored wherever possible.

[Statler Waldorf]

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I agree with Richard Dawkins who says that as soon as you start debating creationists you give them an equal platform as if somehow they have a valid argument that demands to be heard on equal footing with evolution and geology etc. when clearly the whole notion of creationism is nonsense.

This is the reason why I have given this particular thread a pretty wide berth as the more you debate them the more they come back at you with even more preposterous pseudo science and given that the vast majority of the Christian world now fully accepts evolution I think it's a subject that is to be vigorously and actively ignored wherever possible.

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Yeah Dawkins is well aware of the fact that if he gives creationists an equal platform he is no match for the amazing consistency and overall validity of their position. I don’t blame him one bit for avoiding a debate he'd surely lose, hence why I avoid wrestling grizzly bears. I just wish he’d be more honest about his reasons; after all he seems to have no issue giving televangelists an equal platform with himself on his BBC television series. Although I kind of lump Dawkins in with the televangelists when it comes to intellectual fortitude so maybe he should stick to debating them.

[Ashendant]

Yeah Dawkins is well aware of the fact that if he gives creationists an equal platform he is no match for the amazing consistency and overall validity of their position. I don’t blame him one bit for avoiding a debate he'd surely lose, hence why I avoid wrestling grizzly bears. I just wish he’d be more honest about his reasons; after all he seems to have no issue giving televangelists an equal platform with himself on his BBC television series. Although I kind of lump Dawkins in with the televangelists when it comes to intellectual fortitude so maybe he should stick to debating them.

Dawkins almost never(if not never) lost, whatever argument you would lose, it would easily destroyed by him

[Of_Tomato]

Yeah Dawkins is well aware of the fact that if he gives creationists an equal platform he is no match for the amazing consistency and overall validity of their position. I don’t blame him one bit for avoiding a debate he'd surely lose, hence why I avoid wrestling grizzly bears. I just wish he’d be more honest about his reasons; after all he seems to have no issue giving televangelists an equal platform with himself on his BBC television series. Although I kind of lump Dawkins in with the televangelists when it comes to intellectual fortitude so maybe he should stick to debating them.

Just the fact that Dawkins would piss on you makes you an even bigger laughingstock.

[Darwinian]

Yeah Dawkins is well aware of the fact that if he gives creationists an equal platform he is no match for the amazing consistency and overall validity of their position. I don’t blame him one bit for avoiding a debate he'd surely lose, hence why I avoid wrestling grizzly bears. I just wish he’d be more honest about his reasons; after all he seems to have no issue giving televangelists an equal platform with himself on his BBC television series. Although I kind of lump Dawkins in with the televangelists when it comes to intellectual fortitude so maybe he should stick to debating them.

Debating televangelists is one thing but stooping so low as to destroy in argument those with a deluded psychological condition is quite another and quite rightly, the likes of Mr. Dawkins are far better than that. After all, that would be a bit like ferociously debating a class of 5 year olds about the existence of Santa Claus.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

This is my answer to debating creationists:

[Justtristo]

I agree with Richard Dawkins who says that as soon as you start debating creationists you give them an equal platform as if somehow they have a valid argument that demands to be heard on equal footing with evolution and geology etc. when clearly the whole notion of creationism is nonsense.

I agree with you fully on why debating Creationists seriously is a waste of time, as opposed to just ridiculing them. As youtube user ThetaOmega said debating creationists is like playing chess with a pigeon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VVqL9etvU0

[Statler Waldorf]

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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.

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Sounds like a lot of whining to me. So if you indeed are not committing the ‘No True Scotsman” fallacy then you would have to agree that Creationists can and are indeed scientists since I have already given you a list of men who were both creationists and scientists. If you try and tango your way around that point, you will be no doubt committing the ‘Scotsman’ fallacy. So I guess that is a pretty solid refutation of your claim that creationists are not scientists. I would use the same approach if you made claims such as “Women cannot be senators.” I would then point to several examples of women who have been and are Senators. Like I said earlier, this is why most legitimate atheistic scholars will avoid the “creationists can’t be scientists argument” because it is very easy to refute.

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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:

... 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.

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More games I see. So first it was “Creationists didn’t come up with the scientific method because Bacon didn’t actually come up with it.” So then when I demonstrate to you using your own beloved source that he is considered the founder of the scientific method you start playing more games by saying, “well you can’t prove Bacon was a YEC!” So instead of just admitting you were proven wrong you just start playing a different game, so I will just prove you wrong again. Let’s look at two exerts from Bacon’s work Novum Organum shall we?

“There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error; first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power.”

- Francis Bacon

“The die is cast, the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity — I care not which; it may wait a century for a reader, as God has waited 6000 years for an observer.”

- Francis Bacon

The Bible should be used to prevent error and creation demonstrates God’s power, Sounds like a creationist to me. It’s pretty clear in the second quote that Bacon also believed in a ‘young’ earth. That was too easy, now the bigger question is, “Will you admit when you are wrong?” I doubt it.

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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:

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I didn’t really need to read any further, the top of the article refuted your claim that Bacon isn’t considered the father of the scientific method well enough. I am sure you are well aware that a method is something that is fine tuned through the years, so to say that other people did not contribute to it would be false. A lot of credit is also given to Galileo, who of course was also a YEC, so that does not help your case much. Though ScientificMethod.com states,

“Bacon is famous for explaining his method in Novum Organum, published in 1622. He is very widely mentioned in the literature for his contribution to the scientific method.”
Hmm, and I thought creationists didn’t make any contributions to modern science? I would think that contributing to the very method we use today in modern science would be a contribution; no doubt you will move the goalposts on this issue too though.

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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.

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*Yawns, correcting your mistakes all the time is becoming rather boring. You talk about empirical evidence, which of course is based on direct observation. So here is the actual empirical evidence, we have directly observed that comets disintegrate far to quickly to be any older than 10,000 years (This fact is well established by many creation journal articles and the article “Where have all the comets gone?” in Science Volume 296). That is all we have observed, so that is your empirical evidence.
Rather than realizing the fact that we see comets today is strong evidence that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, old earth astronomers invoke un-testable (therefore non-empirical) entities such as Oort Clouds to explain comets. So the actual empirical evidence supports my initial claim, thanks for playing.

As Wiki says, ” The Oort cloud is a hypothesized spherical cloud of comets which may lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year, from the Sun.[”

So since we have not directly observed this Oort cloud you cannot make the ridiculous claim that there is empirical evidence supporting its existence. Rather it is an invention by old earth scientists in order to save their paradigm. So it’s more of a “God did it” explanation to explain aware contrary evidence.

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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.

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Oh brother, Newton’s work lacked “the stink of fantasy” because he was dealing with operational sciences. Which I have pointed out time and time again is something Creationists and non-Creationists conduct identically. Saying that scientists somehow leave their biases and worldviews at the door is absurd. Naturalism is a worldview that is ascribed to by many secular scientists, so is empiricism. So your statement is just completely incorrect.

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Indeed, and if he abandoned that idiotic and limiting view of things, his contributions to the scientific communitiy could have been vastly greater

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Pure speculation at its finest means nothing.

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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.

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What are you even talking about? Everything Newton discovered was exactly what he expected to find because of what scripture told him about the world. As I already pointed out, Lennox who is both a mathematician and a scientific philosopher/historian pointed this out in his debate. He is a very solid source on the subject unlike you. I find it interesting that Dawkins himself, who is no creationist, didn’t argue with Lennox’s point and in fact conceded later in the debate that modern science did in fact rise from the Christian Reformation as I have stated time and time again. Newton made discoveries because of his biblical worldview, scientists today make discoveries in spite of their anti-biblical worldview. If the biblical worldview is not true, they could not make any scientific discoveries period.

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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?

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What? You test for all of these things by using the person’s other senses or someone else’s senses. So again, you have to assume senses are reliable beforehand. I am shocked even this point is tough for you grasp, it is quite elementary.

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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.

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I have seen the movie, but your reason for bringing it up escapes me. Of course Drew could not conduct any meaningful science because her memory was not reliable. How did she know her memory was not reliable? She cross checked it with her friend’s and family’s memories. So again, you are just using memory to justify the reliability of memory. So once again, assuming we can trust our memories is a presupposition that must be made before we can conduct science.

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

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Yes it is. Just saying, “well it has worked every time we have tried it so it will continue to work in the future” assumes that the future will continue to resemble the past. So this of course is a presupposition all scientists make, even though only the biblical creationists have a rational basis for this.

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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?

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I am starting to think you just invoke the straw-man anytime you don’t know how to actually respond to an argument. You clearly stated that naturalism was supported by the evidence, but we both know that you only allow naturalistic interpretations and explanations, so exactly how is this not circular?

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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.

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Well not surprised you are moving on. My worldview is the only one that has a basis for the laws of logic and our adherence to them. Even though all scientists agree to adhere to logic (or at least try), they really don’t have a reason to do so.

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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?

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Another argument you don’t’ really know how to respond to, so you just invoke the straw-man again. Typical.

Notice I did not say “everyone great in history” I said “some of the greatest”, so it is you who are setting up straw men now. I could go into great detail why these men were great, but I think it’s pretty widely accepted that they were some of the great minds of science. If you need proof of that go and look up their achievements for yourself.

As to the fields of science statement, I actually have no idea what you are talking about. Creationists have no problem working in every field of science. They are not the only ones who make the distinction between operational sciences and origins sciences, so maybe you should just study up on that distinction. If you can observe it and test it in the present it is part of the operational sciences (Physics, parts of Biology, Chemistry), if you cannot observe it because it is a theory about what has happened in the past it is origins/historical sciences (Creation Science, Evolutionary Biology, Archeology, Paleontology, parts of Astronomy, most of Geology). This does not prevent creationists from doing operational sciences such as Newton, just like it does not prevent evolutions from conducting operational sciences.
I think I just caught you off guard and this side tracked argument was all you could muster.

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

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Piece of cake, although I am not sure why I’ll go through the trouble, it’s not like you will ever admit you are wrong. You will just come up with some silly argument like, “Well even though he thought the earth was young and God created it this was not what led to his discoveries.” This of course is not what we were debating in the first place.

“The ability of Earth to sustain intelligent life, which in turn was capable of creating machines designed to explore the Moon and the planets was clear evidence to von Braun that man and his universe were the creation of God.”

- The Space Review

Well that clearly by definition makes him a Creationist. Not only was he a creationist but in his own words (in a letter to a board of education) he wanted creation science taught in classrooms.
““For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.”
Will you admit you are wrong yet again? I doubt it. You will probably just say that using Braun’s own words is a straw man lol.

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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

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Oh this ridiculous argument again! I even told one of my friends about this (who has a doctorate) and he said, “Huh? What does that have to do with anything? Sounds like moving the goal posts to me” lol. Anyways, Braun worked in the operational sciences much like Newton, so his biblical worldview gave him a foundation to conduct science just like it does every other creationist who works in the operational sciences. Just a side note, since the scientific method involves observation it did not bring us evolution and the big bang since these theories are based off of non-observable and non-testable events in the past- so nice try on that one. It’s too bad you don’t apply these same silly standards to the theories you ascribe too, can you name one physicist whose discoveries were a direct result of his atheism or of his belief in evolution? It’s an absurd game to play. The fact is, von Braun was a creationist, and he made huge contributions to modern science, period. It’s quite obvious that a belief in evolution or an old earth were not necessary to get man to the moon considering the head of the program didn’t even hold to these things. So your argument is just plain silly.

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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.

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Well actually if you had read the paper you would know that if light really does do this, its round-trip would be exactly what we measure it as, which is really all special relativity requires since we cannot directly measure the one way speed of light itself. So you say you read the paper but then you say silly things like, “this violates special relativity!”

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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.

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There you go saying silly things again. The paper does not say the speed of light is anything other than what we have measured it to be. As I have pointed out, we have only measured the speed of light in a round trip, and in ASC the speed of light would move exactly the same as we measure it to in a round-trip. So what you are saying is completely false. As to the “real scientist” thing, I am sure you are aware (because it says it in the paper and you claim to have read the paper) that Einstein himself was originally going to go with an ASC because in it light is position-dependent rather than velocity-dependent when it came to the observer. So maybe while he was considering this option he was not a real scientist?

ASC is a convention, which by definition is something that is completely legitimate as long as it is understood what the convention is. If the narrative of creation in Genesis was using this convention then it is obvious that the Universe really is only 6,000 years. Besides, you should be excited, because the ASC would help solve the ‘Horizon Problem’ that the Big Bang has.

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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.

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To think you accuse me of missing the point. The only difference between the two conventions is that one is says light’s speed changes in relation to an observer’s velocity (ESC) the other says light’s speed changes in relation to an observer’s position (ASC). If ASC was not a legitimate convention then why did Einstein himself give such strong consideration to using it? He realized that it does have several strong advantages. I will use your car analogy since you seem to like that one, using ESC if a bank robbery occurred and person A was standing on the side walk, and person B was sitting in a car driving by person A on the side walk the two people would observe the bank robbery to happen at different times because ESC is velocity dependent. However, if we were using ASC we could say that the two people observed the event to happen at the same time because it is not velocity dependent but rather position dependent. It was this position dependence that was the biggest reason Einstein gave it so much consideration. Of course I am sure you knew all of this already because you said you read the article.

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The ASC paper has existed for some years now and still only exists in creationist circles, except where I've seen it thoroughly debunked.

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Yeah and accept when Einstein himself was considering using it, but what did he know right?

You keep saying the model has been refuted, but according to Dr. Lisle,

“So far, no one has published in a peer-reviewed journal any criticism of this model. Of course, there have been some evolutionists who simply mocked the paper since it goes against their strongly held beliefs. But that is hardly a rational response. So far, no rebuttals have been submitted for publication in the ARJ, which would be the scholarly way to point out problems with a published model. This gives us increased confidence in the ASC model.”

So if it is such an easy model to rebut, why don’t you conduct some work and get it published in ARJ or even a Secular journal?

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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.

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As I have already pointed out, Lisle’s work on ASC has been peer-reviewed. I am sorry, scientific fact will never be established by consensus, after all the consensus opinion in 1915 did not favor Special Relativity.

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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.

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Unlinked quotes? I have always provided the source of the quote (as in the person who said it), so I don’t get why this would even be an issue for you. Just ignoring evidence I guess.

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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.

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The Bible never tries to inform its readers about the shape of the earth because this was a fact well known to the people of the day (“Inventing the Flat Earth” by J.B. Russell).

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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.

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It’s pretty basic literary analysis.

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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.

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The original work was published in the Answers Research Journal, which of course is scientifically peer-reviewed. He has a new article coming out in Answers magazine, which of course is a scientific magazine. He’s not twisting anything; maybe Einstein was twisting his own theory around when he considered adopting ASC? Lol.

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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:

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I am sure you realize that when you claim someone has committed a straw man you are obligated to show how they did. You have not done this here or there. Why would you just arbitrarily pick other frames of reference than the earth? I could just as easily arbitrarily choose the earth as my reference and say, “The verse is completely accurate, the earth can never move in relation to itself.” So your argument holds no water because it is arbitrary. Now if the verse has said, “the earth shall never be moved in relation to the sun” then maybe we’d have a problem. Or maybe, “the earth shall never be moved in relation to the galaxy.” However, the verse does not specify what the motion is relative to, so you cannot say the verse is inaccurate because it is really in relation to the earth the verse is accurate. Next please!

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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.

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You obviously didn’t even read your own definition. It is clear in the definition that the frame of reference is something you use to describe the motion of an object in relation to. So if the earth is my frame of reference I can only describe the motion of objects in relation to the earth. So the stars would actually move in relation to the earth and the sun moves in relation to the earth. So if the bible really is using the earth as its frame of reference then the verse is completely accurate.

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[quote 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. [/quote]

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I just showed you how the sentence you used really is constructed just like a simile but missing the “like”. Funny how you don’t actually address that fact. “The air is like thick syrup” = Simile. “The air is thick syrup” = metaphor.

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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:

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Hmm, I just figured that when I said the biblical patriarchs lived longer because of longer telomeres and you said that was false because scientists could prove how long our ancestor’s telomeres were you would actually provide me with some articles dealing with ancestral telomere length. Maybe my expectations were too high though.

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[quote 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. [/quote]

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Uhh yeah, modern genetics helps us understand how aging happens (telomeres), as to how this relates to the biblical patriarchs I have no idea. Actually all of our knowledge of genetic disease and cancer just demonstrates the genome’s tendency towards entropy which of course destroys the idea of common descent.

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[quote 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. [/quote]

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Well I guess that really was easy for me. I was waiting for you to demonstrate that the bible really does teach man has free will when it comes to his salvation. Sadly you mentioned no verses to help your cause. I am guessing you just did a search and found that the term “free will” never appears once in the Bible pertaining to salvation. As to whether this makes God unjust or not, it of course does not. A person on death row has no ability to grant themselves a pardon, this of course does not make the governor unjust for not giving this person a pardon because they do deserve death. Adam most likely had a libertarian will, he chose to sin, he represented man. All of man is guilty and deserves death because of original sin.

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

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Why would this make God a hypocrite? When a parent tell their children they must be in bed by eight but the parent stays up to ten does that make the parent a hypocrite? Of course not, the rule was designed for the children not the parent. God is in no way obligated to follow the rules he has set forth for us. That would be silly. Besides, given your atheistic world-view why is being a hypocrite a bad thing? Who cares if a person says one thing and does another?

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

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Yet you fail to explain how your view could be any different. Typical.

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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)

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LOL, rather than addressing the overwhelming inconsistency of your world-view (the fact you believe what Dahmer did was wrong despite the fact he was just choosing his morals as you have done) you bring in the KKK. Christians in the past have committed atrocities because they were being inconsistent with their world-views (Christians are taught all man is made in God’s image and to love their neighbors and enemies) while the great atheists of the day (such as Stalin who became an atheist because of evolution) killed millions because they were being consistent with their world-view (morals are relative, there are no consequences if you don’t get caught). So this is an argument you cannot win. I suggest you go back and tell us why what Dahmer did was wrong in your world-view?

As to the “well Dahmer didn’t kill because of evolution” claim…

“Dahmer placed the blame for his murders on his atheistic beliefs and the theory of evolution. He said, ‘If it all happens naturalistically, what’s the need for a God? Can’t I set my own rules? Who owns me? I own myself.’”

- A&E Biography, “Jeffery Dalmer”

Well that was easy, it’s kind of sad that Dahmer was a more consistent atheist than say Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens since they claim there is no absolute morality but then make absolute claims about right and wrong, and that there is no purpose to life but then say their purpose is to make atheists out of believers. Contradictions!

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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.

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Well I am sure you are aware that the Klan of today is nothing like it used to be. They have not been linked to instances of violence in years- so pulling a quote from their current website is pretty irrelevant. That being said, I would love to see you explain how a biblical Christian who is supposed to believe that all men are made in God’s image and to love his neighbor could be consistent in what the Klan teaches. I could very easily see how an atheist who believes in survival of the fittest could be a very consistent Klansman, after all Darwin himself was a staunch racist.

There are very few atheists in the general population (less than 6 percent) so I am not surprised there are very few in prisons.

As to your morality, you yourself said you determine it for yourself, then how can you say anyone else does anything “evil”? This implies that there is an absolute standard that is not determined by the individual. Atheists always run from discussions of morality because they know their views on it don’t add up.

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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.

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Again, consistently inconsistent. You said you determine your morals, and you choose to give human life value. So how could you possibly in any consistent fashion then try and tell someone else what they should do in regards to others. If a person says, “well I just choose not to value the lives of gays” they are being just as arbitrary as you and you have no rational basis to say they are in any way acting morally wrong. If morals are indeed determined by the individual then they become as arbitrary as a person’s favorite color. You surly would not go up to someone and say, “I chose my favorite color to be blue, how dare you for picking red! Red is so wrong!” I am shocked you can’t see that. But please keep on borrowing from my world-view; at least it gives you a basis for morality.

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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.

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Where in the US Constitution does it say an animal or alien from outer-space could be tried for murder if they could be proven to legally understand the nature of their crimes? That’s a crock of poo-poo. I have never heard a bear-attack described as “bear murders man” or “AIDS murders woman in Africa.” That would be ridiculous.

The actual legal US definition for murder is…

”Murder- Intentional homicide (the taking of another person’s life), without legal justification or provocation. “ (Duhaime.org)

Kind of funny how the word “another” shows up in there huh? You would almost think that implies a person would have to commit murder. Does it bother you when I correct your mistakes or are you just used to it by now?

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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.

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Well I suppose if your morality is, “I can make up my own moral rules and choose to value human life but nobody else is allowed to make up their own morality and decide wither or not they want to choose to value human life as I have done!” Then you are right, you are being completely consistent with your moral code. However, I doubt this is really your moral code.

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[quote 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. [/quote]

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Yeah running from that point may be your only defense since it is irrefutable. When I was taught that proof I was told, “There is no rational response to this form of proof.” I have to say I didn’t really believe that at first, but now since I have seen you run from it twice, I am beginning to believe it.

Wow you have empirical and testable evidence that the earth is 4.5 billion years old? Holy goat nipples, that must take a long time to conduct that test considering you’d have to sit there and observe the age of the earth each time you did the test in order for it to be empirical (direct observation and repeatability).

How about you give me an example where radiometric dating has accurately (less than 1 percent error please) dated a rock of observed known age?

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

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Nope

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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.

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Incorrect, in a 6,000 year old universe we’d expect to observe roughly 125 stage 2 remnants, which we can observe around 200, pretty close prediction really. You are right, we would not expect to observe any stage 3 remnants in a 6,000 year old universe, it sure is a good thing we have not observed any huh?

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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.

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Epic fail. You falsely assume that collisions are a sign of imperfection. In order to say this you’d have to know the original intent of the creator. Since galaxies colliding really does not negatively affect us on earth and they are quite glorious to look at, I don’t see this as an error on God’s part at all. Besides, if molecules in the air did not collide with one another we’d not be able to survive on earth. Collisions are not a sign of imperfection at all, rather they are a means for God to achieve His purpose.

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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

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Actually many Native American tribes believed in a single creator, so they were very receptive to the gospel when they were preached it. Those who were not suppressed the truth in their hearts just as Romans 1 says.

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And you use a book without proof to prove your point

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There is no logical flaw in this method. It is just like using the dictionary to define what a dictionary is, the image of your eye in a mirror to get something out of your eye, and using the very hill you are defending in war. Christians use the Bible to defend the Bible, not a problem at all.

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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?

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Ahh, so when Tony Bennett first sang, “I left my heart in San Francisco” he actually believed he left his heart in SF? Of course not, it’s a figure of speech and a great way to describe our emotions. If he had said, “I left my brain in San Francisco” we’d have no way of knowing that he is really talking about love and not just going crazy.

Of course the universe proclaims God’s existence…

That which has a beginning has a cause
The Universe has a beginning
Thefefore the universe has a cause.

God has told us he is this cause, pretty simple. You actually were never a believer because once someone is a believer they will persevere until the end. Christ never loses his sheep. Maybe you will come back around my friend : - )

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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.

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I was hoping we’d get to play this game! I accept the account of one of the most reputable historians from the time (Luke) that people did see Jesus both after and before his resurrection. Of course we can’t interview these people today…because I hate to break it to you… they have been dead for awhile. So your little court case analogy is a bit silly. Many of these people who saw Jesus were then killed in some of the most vicious mean imaginable (Bartholomew was skinned alive) none of which recanted their beliefs that Christ was indeed real and the son of God. If I had just made him up, I think about the time they touched the knife to my skin I’d be quite willing to say, “I made him up! I made him up! He was a fake!” The historian Josephus also mentions Jesus’ brother James and his early church followers. As to your little “they were written centuries after” canard, that has been disproven already. We have pieces of a manuscript from Mark that dates back to 53 A.D.; it’s a copy of the original so the original could have very easily been written just a short while after Christ’s crucifixion.

So I guess, without using the words of historians who were around in the day, how can you prove that Nero was a real person? Good luck!

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

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Well logically it is actually.

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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?

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Depends on the tribe, some suppressed this knowledge in their hearts, but yes everyone has it.

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

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You don’t have to tell me that, I already knew it.

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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!

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Just proves He is a just God. Not sure why you posted this passage.

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

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It just says he was taken to the top of a mountain and was then shown the kingdoms. If I say, “I went up to the top of a mountain and listened to the game.” That does not mean I went up there because it was the only place I could listen to the game from, just means I went up there and listened to the game. Pretty simple.

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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.

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You just proved my point, if Christ was shown all the kingdoms of the world supernaturally by the Devil (yes this whole conversation between Christ and Satan is a supernatural event since they are both supernatural beings), then he would be seeing all the kingdoms of the world from the mountain top just like I would be actually seeing the game from Brent’s house. You guys are reading something into the passage that is not there.

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Dawkins almost never(if not never) lost, whatever argument you would lose, it would easily destroyed by him

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Actually DickDawk did almost lose a debate. In the mid 80’s he participated in a two on two debate against two young earth creationists and a fellow evolutionist was on his team. The evolution side won the debate by a couple votes despite the fact that the debate was held at Oxford University and many of DickDawk’s own students were in the crowd voting! Kind of fishy how ever since that debate he refuses to debate creationists because he knows that if it is on neutral ground he’d get destroyed. The crowd actually voted John Lennox the winner in the “God Delusion Debate”, so DickDawk has lost debates. He’s small time.

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Just the fact that Dawkins would piss on you makes you an even bigger laughingstock.

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Wait! I thought he didn’t debate creationists!? So how could you possibly know he’d win the debate? Most creationists and even some atheists (like Michael Ruse) actually think DickDawk is a bit of a laughingstock.

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Debating televangelists is one thing but stooping so low as to destroy in argument those with a deluded psychological condition is quite another and quite rightly, the likes of Mr. Dawkins are far better than that. After all, that would be a bit like ferociously debating a class of 5 year olds about the existence of Santa Claus.

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I am well aware of your man-crush on DickDawk, but he is hardly big time in the world of intellectualism. I am a bit shocked that those televangelists would give him an equal platform with them.

It’s actually more like a group of five year olds saying that they know Santa exists because science has proven it, and when someone offers to debate them on that point they just say, “Oh no, I don’t debate people who don’t believe in Santa because Science has already proven he exists and why would I give you the same platform as myself?” LOL

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This is my answer to debating creationists:

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That’s funny you’d post that, because it is obvious the cartoonist who drew it had about the same logical short-comings as yourself. Circular arguments are by definition not logically invalid because the conclusion does follow the premise. They just don’t’ in themselves move the discussion forward or prove anything. So rather than disbelieving a circular argument, a person should just re-arrange the argument so that it is no longer circular so it can then be evaluated for validity.

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I agree with you fully on why debating Creationists seriously is a waste of time, as opposed to just ridiculing them. As youtube user ThetaOmega said debating creationists is like playing chess with a pigeon.

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[sarcasm] Yeah why try and logically prove your position when you can just laugh at someone who actually can provide logical grounds for theirs? [/sarcasm] It’s no wonder you guys don’t debate creationists, because laughing at someone earns you no points in a formal debate, who wants to enter a debate they’d surely lose huh? You had better not respond to this post, because you say you don’t’ debate with creationists and I am a creationist. Easy way to have my points stand un-refuted I guess.

[Zen Badger]

Incorrect, in a 6,000 year old universe we’d expect to observe roughly 125 stage 2 remnants, which we can observe around 200, pretty close prediction really. You are right, we would not expect to observe any stage 3 remnants in a 6,000 year old universe, it sure is a good thing we have not observed any huh?

Why would we expect to see this? Since stellar evolution takes millions of years to get from a stable star to a supernova. If the universe is only 6000 years old NO star will have had time to get to supernova stage, or red giant stage, or any other of the stages that come from being billions of years old.

And anisotropic light propagation is still a load of unfounded bollocks perpertrated to support the cretinist myth of a young universe.

Einstein might have considered it(a big might, I've seen no evidence that he did) but ultimately he rejected it. In fact until you spewed it up here I'd never even heard of it.

And colliding galaxies as evidence of gods glory???? yeah, whateva.......