Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

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.

I didn't commit the no true scotsman fallacy because creation scientists aren't scientists.
The reason is this:

The United States National Academy of Sciences states that "creation science is in fact not science and should not be presented as such." and that "the claims of creation science lack empirical support and cannot be meaningfully tested." According to Skeptic, the "creation 'science' movement gains much of its strength through the use of distortion and scientifically unethical tactics" and "seriously misrepresents the theory of evolution."

For a theory to qualify as scientific it must be:

consistent (internally and externally)
parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations)
useful (describing and explaining observed phenomena)
empirically testable and falsifiable
based upon controlled, repeatable experiments
correctable and dynamic (changing to fit with newly discovered data)
progressive (achieving all that previous theories have and more)
tentative (admitting that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)

And here's another interesting quote from Wikipedia:

Christian Young Earth creationists adhere strongly to a concept of biblical inerrancy which declares the Bible to be divinely inspired and written as a plain, omniscient account of history and doctrine, and therefore scientifically infallible and non-correctable. This position is considered by devotees and critics alike to be incompatible with the principles of scientific objectivity. The Young Earth creationist organizations Answers in Genesis (AiG) and Institute for Creation Research (ICR) require all members to pledge support for biblical inerrancy.

As such, I am not committing the no true scotsman logical fallacy with my claim and I can back it with more sources if necessary, as many of them are linked to wikipedia or findable on Google.
As such, I'm sure it's very easy to refute, but like many of your claims, assuming they actually address a point I made and not a point you tell me that I made, is just something you said and not something that may actually be true.

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 didn't make the claim that Bacon wasn't a creationist. I made the claim, supported by evidence, that Bacon didn't come up with the scientific method. It wasn't his creation but a collaboration between many people through antiquity all the way to Aristotle.
I did ask you to prove that he was a creationist for no reason other than I wanted you to prove that he was a creationist as it would mean that you would actually have to support a claim you made instead of simply telling me something was true and expecting me to believe you because you said it.

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.

I never argued that creationists didn't make contributions to modern science. My claim is that their contributions were made irrelevant to their other beliefs. None of them made their contributions as a result of creation science, creationism, religion, or their religious beliefs, but through the use of all of modern or pre-modern methods of scientific research.
In fact, now that religion's influence on world politics is a fraction of what it was during any previous century, scientific progress is only accelerating at a faster and faster rate. The fact that there are fewer religious scientists may be an influence on this fact in addition the usual benefits of the results of the information age.

In any case, I'm not surprised that you didn't read further, as that is the very definition of quote-mining, which has allowed other posters on this forum to even attempt to use Stephan Hawking's quotes to prove similar crap as this, even though he's an ardent atheist and has actually spoken against anything like creationism.

Further, I am aware that people since Bacon would have refined the scientific method further, but what you seem to be ignoring is that because there were people before him doing the same thing, that makes bacon a notch on the route and not the origin. Particularly since some of the earliest contributors to the scientific method predate Christianity and possibily even written history and multilpe sources outside of wikipedia but including wikipedia state as much, having quoted them earlier.

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.

Having found at least one relevant source, we can actually discuss something. Note that they didn't say anything about comets even being less old than the earth, just that they disintegrate faster than they expected among other wierd phenomenons that neither flew in the face of the idea that there is a huge repository of comets outside of the Kuiper belt that extends halfway to the nearest solar system nor that comets are less than a few thousand years old.
Particluarly since comets and meteoriods are still understood to be older than the Earth and Solar System or otherwise anywhere from millions to billions of years old for younger comets.
Also note that the article doesn't dispute Oort cloud nor confirm the idea that the solar system is only a few thousand years old.

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.

We've finally gotten to a point I've been building up to because yes, Newton conducted science as many modern ones do. His beliefs and religion had no part in any of his scientific understanding, evidence, mathmatics, or works. It was completely secondary and yet you continue to assert that somehow Newton's scientific inquiry (which during his time flew in the face of religion to the point to where he was persecuted by people who didn't think the flat, geocentric world cosmology was metaphor, as you did) had something to do with one or more of the following: young-earth creationism, the christian religion, one of the christian churches, or some other thing.
He indeed had many religious beliefs but the reason he's in all of the astronomy and physics textbooks is because of his secular pursuits and nothing whatsoever to do with his faith.
The same could be said for the other names you mentioned as well - Galileo, Bacon, Von Braun, and others.
Scientists indeed come from all stripes of life but as I pointed out earlier in this post and provided evidence of scientists moving their long-held ideas after facing the inevitable fact that they were wrong about something.
Although I accept that all humans are invariably and frustratingly human, people who typically do science for a living do, in fact, go where the evidence points unlike the people who attempt to "scientifically" prove their religious beliefs. That's why the Oort Cloud is in science textbooks and the "science" of noahs flood and six-day creation is pseudoscience at best.
This 'naturalistic view' is the result of centuries of scientific inquiry that, as you've even told me, is definately not the result of religion, religious texts, religious beliefs, or religion in general and in fact as science has advanced, religion has only retreated from the world.

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.

I love the fact that you said this considering the body of linked sources saying otherwise above.
Once again, it is a nice opinion you have regarding Newton which interestingly is completely unlike the quote of what you stated immediately above this one as you mentioned that Newton performed his science exactly as modern sciences do because it is, as you say, an 'operational science.' Now you're telling me he got it from scripture?
I call Bullshit on this.
At best, I've proven your point regarding religion being his motivation to do science, as you pointed out earlier which I did not dispute, but it wasn't the source of the scientific work he produced. If you're attempting to tell me that, then you certainly need to do more than tell me. You need to prove it.

I don't know who Lennox is or why you brought him and Dawkins up, but his heresay is irrelevant.

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.

No you don't have to assume your senses are reliable beforehand. If your senses were unreliable, there would be signs that your senses are unreliable. If your senses were reliable, there are tests that can be performed that can determine whether or not your senses are reliable.
The examples I gave were tests such as those - some of which do and some of which don't require the aid of another person. Some can be done by machines, such as those that detect light outside of the human range of vision (x-rays, gamma rays, infrared rays, and so forth).
Further, it's easy to provide evidence for reliability from two people because if one of their senses were unreliable, then one of them would sense things that the other wouldn't or vice-versa. If both were unreliable, then neither of them would sense the same things.
It's basic hypothosis-test science, so yes, the concept is quite elementary.
For example, I can test myself for color-blindness by going to an optrician and looking at color disks that test for this specific thing. Ergo, there are things you can do to empirically measure the reliabilitiy and overall ability of your senses.

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.

She didn't just rely on her friend's memories, but there were documents, video evidence, and other clear signs of how unreliable her memory is. Waking up on a sailing ship with someone she doesn't remember who says (with non-memory-based evidence) of a relationship is fairly compelling evidence. Ergo, it is not only possible to empirically prove the reliability or unreliability of memory, but like tests for the senses above, it's basic science that doesn't require a presupposition.

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.

You do realize that a presupposition's definition is that it is an assumption made before any kind of certainty?
So, by definition, the assumption that the future will be like the past is definatively not a presupposition.

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?

I invoke strawman because, for whatever reason, you've taken to informing me of some ridiculous arguement I never made and then responding to that instead of responding to my arguements as I've made them.
If you think my arguements are circular, then show me where my arguements are circular and don't give me some ridiculous thing I never said and then tell me that that is what my arguement is.
I accept naturalistic explainations because they come coupled with supporting evidence. I never accept supernatural explainations because the evidence is one or more of: nonexistant, contrary to other evidence, based on heresay, unreliable eyewitness testimony, and so forth.
It's not a circle, that's a line with two points.
[point 1: Evidence] -------- [point 2: naturalistic explaination]
This is how science is done. if point 1 ever led to a supernatural explaination and provided for the scientific process in the following quote:

For a theory to qualify as scientific it must be:

consistent (internally and externally)
parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations)
useful (describing and explaining observed phenomena)
empirically testable and falsifiable
based upon controlled, repeatable experiments
correctable and dynamic (changing to fit with newly discovered data)
progressive (achieving all that previous theories have and more)
tentative (admitting that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)

then supernaturalism would be science.

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.

There isn't a smily in the world that could describe how amused I am that you think that.
I'm sorry, but the laws of logic predate Christianity by some millenia.
It may even be biologically human to be logical, meaning it wasn't invented by christianity.
More to the point, I've determined that logic isn't a presupposition precisely because logic is, itself, the very opposite of a presupposition.
A pressupposition is an assuption. Laws of logic at its most fundemental level is all about non-contradiction which a presupposition flies in the face of. You can't make a logical arguement or a logical statement until you have everything you need in order to have a logical conclusion.
Ergo, logic itself isn't a presupposition.
But hey, you can keep that point I gave you for effort.

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 didn't say that you said 'everyone great in history'. I said it in reference to your erroneous claims about Newton and others being some great Christian scientist when nothing he actually did had anything to do with christianity. You have yet to make any such connection other than it being a motivating factor for him.

In any case, I invoked the strawman again because once again you've decided to tell me what my arguement was despite it not being what my arguement actually was. If you can't handle the that distinction, then stop responding to arguements when clearly you seem to be interpreting my arguements in a manner not befitting the actual arguements I've typed - because I certainly never typed this crap:

“Even though we all make presuppositions, creationists make a presupposition that I don’t like, therefore they are not legitimate.”

Ergo, Strawman. I also never made the claim that Newton, Von Braun, and Christians aren't and/or can't be scientists.

What I stated originally was exactly this:

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.

If you remember all of my points regarding what science is, then you'll understand why I said exactly what I said. Frankly I could have worded it a bit clearer, but the meaning is where I want it to be.
When scientists do actual science, they undergo the scientific method by starting with evidence, forming a hypothosis, and testing that hypothosis. What makes creationism a not-science is because it precludes evidence in favor of a presupposition that their religious texts acurrately describe the universe. Nowhere is this presupposition in Newton's scientific work. It's in his opinions and motivations, but you don't need the scripture at all to understand his laws of motion or gravitation, which are both still used in physics today. The same could be said for the scientific contributations of every other scientist you're rushing to state has influenced the modern world.
Therefore, scientists do not indulge in this particular fantasy (creationism) when doing actual science because it isn't actual science.

You did strawman my arguement because I made my arguement a particular way for a particular reason. I don't always word my statements as carefully as I should, but you have yet to disprove any of my major claims.

“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.”

You haven't quoted anything I didn't already know.
He was a christian, though there is no evidence that I've seen that he was a young-earth creationist. He believed that god created man certainly, but there is no indication that he didn't, for example, believe in the kind of intelligent design that god spirred the the universe exactly as scientists have discosvered it - big bang, abiogenesis, evolution, and all or a Y-E creationist who decided that some parts of the bible needed to be interpreted literally and not the parts that indicate a flat earth (which would be important for someone working at NASA).

So, your 'evidence' of him being a 'creation scientist' are not satisfactory.
He has done no work related to creationism and therefore is not what a 'creation scientist' actually is.

Further, I'm not wrong because I didn't make a positive claim to be wrong on. I didn't say that Von Braun was or wasn't a christian or creationist or anything.

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.

Uh... I don't care about what your friend thinks or what degrees you say he has.
In any case, since you're apparently capable of providing evidence for your claims instead of merely saying them, perhaps it would do your arguement justice to how, apparently, his biblical worldview in any way contributed to his ability to build rockets for the Apollo Program.
Preferably with links or bibliography.
Because I'm pretty sure that Math and Science did all of those things with no input or throughput from any of their religious faiths, doctrines, or scripture and until you do provide evidence of any kind that such an intergal component of the Apollo Program from NASA was literally directly a result of biblical influence in the body of work the man produced, then well, this is all nonsense.

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.

Yes, I understand what the term 'average' means. I also understand that the speed of light has been measured in numerous ways in every direction using all sorts of instraments. Relativity also affects things other than light, like matter - which can never surpass the speed of light, but can reach nearly the speed of light, which is measured as exactly 299,792,458 m/s in any direction.

Thanks to things like radio, bouncing light off of reflectors (which my links mentioned as being the antiquated way in which light was measured) was only one way, but a better way was our ability to talk to astronauts on the moon and our ability to communicate with satilites in orbit around the earth, in orbit around the other planets and moons, and the ones currently hurtling out of the solar system.

Whether we're communicating with visible-spectrum lasers, radio, microwave, or whatever the speed is always the same, no matter the position or speed of the obsever - exactly 299,792,458 meters per second.

That means that when Voyager 1 transmits (meaning voyager 1 is the source of the radio signal and not the earth), it takes 16 hours for that signal to reach the earth.
That is a one-directional measurement and not the average of two measurements.

Further, ever since the speed of light was established as the universe's ultimte speed limit that nothing could pass, there is further evidence of this at the particle accelerators CERN, the LHC, and so forth as particiles are regularly accelerated to close to the speed of light, which is close to the speed of 299,792,458 meters per second and not half that speed or instantaneous or both.

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.

And I am telling you that we have measured it to be such that one year of light travel is equal to 9,460,730,472,580.8 kilometers going in one direction and not the result of it being averaged between two.
If you have any evidence of light moving at two speeds in two different directions, then please, by all means, let it be known because there is such an enormous dirth of evidence of everything I stated above, that I wouldn't even know where to begin posting it.

Here's some evidence, courtesy of NASA:

As of September 1, 2008, at the speed of light, it took about 14 hours and 52 minutes for a signal from Voyager 1, which was about 107 AU away from the Sun, to reach one of the giant antennas of the DSN, and about 11 hours and 58 minutes for Voyager 2, which was nearly 87 AU away from the Sun

So, let's do some simple math: 107 AU equals 1.6006986 × 10^13 meters or about 16,006,986,000,000 meters. So if we divide that number by that silly little number: 299,792,458 meters per second, then we come up with 53393.55801939487083427562410526 seconds, which I'll round to 53393.56 seconds, or 14.831543894276353009521006695906 hours, or about 14 hours and 49 minutes and 53.56 seconds. Then again, the distance I have is an approximation so there is a slight difference between my estimation and theirs, but the speed of light is undeniably about 300,000 km/second considering that it takes that long for voyager to transmit messages to earth (and not, say, an average figure between the distance there and back as that is twice as long a wait)

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.

And not only did you miss the point, you apparently don't know relativity.

1.The speed of light is the same for all observers, no matter what their relative speeds.
2.The laws of physics are the same in any inertial (that is, non-accelerated) frame of reference. This means that the laws of physics observed by a hypothetical observer traveling with a relativistic particle must be the same as those observed by an observer who is stationary in the laboratory.
Given these two statements, Einstein showed how definitions of momentum and energy must be refined and how quantities such as length and time must change from one observer to another in order to get consistent results for physical quantities such as particle half-life. To decide whether his postulates are a correct theory of nature, physicists test whether the predictions of Einstein's theory match observations. Indeed many such tests have been made -- and the answers Einstein gave are right every time!

So there you have it. C is the same for all observers in any frame of reference at any speed.
the ASC postulates that C is different depending upon the location, speed, and frame of reference of all observers because it speeds away from the earth at .5c and returns infinately fast from the point of view of the earth and all observers on the earth.
Ergo, it violates special relativity.

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?

A few points:
1) I don't know whether or not Einstein considered it or not. I don't care, but even if he did, then it's clear now that he decided against it and, as I said a moment ago, for good reason.
2) What "Dr." Lisle says about his model does nothing to prove any point concerning its validity as a scientific paper.
3) People don't post rebuttals of unpublished and unreviewed scientific papers for scientific review. That's not how that works. You have it backwards. If Lisle thinks he did science, then he can test it, show the relevant data on paper, and then submit it for publication. Since it has none of those things done with it like 'research', 'tests', or 'data' then it can be rejected on those grounds in a secular journal.
So unless he can do one of those things, then just like time cube, it will have all the scientific validity of so many untested, non-evidenced, and frequently ridiculously wrong and occasionally idiotic pseudoscience.

Lisle’s work on ASC has been peer-reviewed.

By whom? When? Where is his data and information regarding how he arrived to his conclusions?
Otherwise I call BS.

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.

If you gave evidence for me to ignore, that would be wonderful, but you've rarely done even that.
You couldn't even bother to prove a distinction between metaphor and a statement, which I had to do, I linked multiple websites that explain exactly how those things worked, and you brushed them aside and told me I'm wrong with some backhanded explaination and no source.
I'm not even going to get into how you sidestepped the entire flat earth arguement for the reason that I can only assume involves you not wanting to make that arguement given that you've decided to pick and choose which parts of the bible are metaphor and which ones aren't. Flat earth w/ sky dome? Utterly crazy to believe is literal. All the parts that talk about magic, talking snakes, a magic man from the sky with severe murderous tendancies and an explosive violent temper and humans who descended from dirt? Apparently quite literal.

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).

As much as I tried, I couldn't find your book, but I did find this book by Christine Garwood.
On page 16-17 of that book, Garwood confirms exactly as i said the bible states what the shape of the Earth is but that one of the reasons that the spherical shape of the earth was even known at that time was becaus the church leaders didn't interpret the bible literally on page 23, which also goes onto say that there was a major problem in reconsiling the fact that people lived on the other side of the world with certain other biblical passages on the same page.
Even a number of interesting points on Newton on page 29 regarding the fact that they needed to remove any religious, alchemical, and astrological components of his works were removed, leaving on the points which has immortalized him to this day - as his secular works is what has won him his place in history, even though his other works are known but have had no impact on society whatsoever.
Better yet is page 30, where it mentions that medievel theologans didn't interpet genesis literally... until the 17th century when the science of geology was getting its startup.
The preview I linked only goes to page 31, but wow.
I think you pointed me to that book to show me that people didn't actually believe that the earth was flat, which totally wasn't what I was arguing because I was focusing on what the bible's interpretation of the Earth's shape is - but not only did this source agree with me on the shape of the earth, but it also stated that it was because they didn't interpret the bible literally until the 17th century when the scientific revolution was already well underway and in particular when geology was in its beginnings.

It’s pretty basic literary analysis.

It certainly is, which begs the question as to why you would dispute it since I linked multiple sources regarding the definition, use, and construction of metaphor that plainly disagree with you.

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.

I did but you clearly didn't pay attention to it when I posted it.
You've committed the Strawman Fallacy because I never made the arguement that you responded to.
I.E. I defined frame of reference to you and described how the motion of the world can be described based on that which is related to a quote from the bible relating to Psa 93:1 which states that the earth had been established and shall never be moved, which is clearly wrong as the earth does move.
Further,
1) a "Frame of Reference" doesn't involve ignoring everything outside of the frame of reference according to the definition of the terms
2) You stated that I argued that I made any kind of arguement relating to the earth moving in reference to the earth (the strawman)
3) the earth is clearly moving despite the bible word-for-word stating otherwise even from the earth's frame of reference

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.

That's not at all what the definition said. Neither of the two definitions mentioned anything like that.
Note that the above definition lacks anything like the following: "if the earth is my frame of reference I can only describe the motion of objects in relation to the earth"

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.

and I showed you how you were wrong with linked webpages all about the construction of metaphors depicting this very thing.
Your word does not trup the english definitions of these terms.

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.

Evolutionary geneticists, as my links show, do exactly that. They determine the genetic traits of population groups, including those of groups of people from evolutionary history.
Were anything like what you stated to be true, it would be known and shown somewhere because finding out your ancestors could live ten times or more longer than humans today would have been rather big news. So after not finding out that my searches for 'longer telomeres' in relation to genetic history proved fruitless despite the fact that I've found plenty of evidence for the ability of geneticists to actually do what I said they could do - look at the genetics of humans into and well prior to antiquity.
Yet, of all the case studies I looked at, 'historical humans lived ten times longer than modern humans was something that I never saw. Clearly, there is good reason for that and that reason is that 'longer telomeres lead to lives that last for centuries' is clearly 100% grade AA bullshit.
Which brings up an amusing point, because human lifespan qualifies as 'observational science' and therefore legitimate, according to what you've been telling me and human lifespan has been measured to be shorter than modern humans - which the bible handedly and clearly refutes.

I've given evidence that we can measure the evolutionary changes of a population group over time and what genes had changed from what and into what. I've provided evidence here and elsewhere that the human lifespan has been steadily improving over history, going all the way back to species which are similar to humans - neanderthals thousands of years ago - even before what would have been your literal biblical creation. I've even provided evidence for longer telomeres having a detrimental effect on humans.

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.

Because the links showed how evolutionary genetics can compare the genetics of population over time and area, which can result in the exact thing that I said it could in regards to determining which populations had which genes during which time in our evolutionary history.
I'm sorry but your knowledge of genetics, cancer, and disease doesn't trump that of the results of what evolutoinary geneticists do for a living, nor the respective works of experts in the fields relating to cancer and disease and they all disagree with you.
Nobody teaches anything like what you just said in any classroom with students who actually intend to work in these fields or use their results-driven research for the betterment of society.

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.

I merely mentioned that I would love to make that arguement because it seemed entirely counterintuitive to what I thoght to be your idea of a loving or just god.
As to god being just, your analogy fails because someone condemned to death chose to commit a crime and was condemned to death by a jury of his peers (according to US and/or state law in some states) and agreed to by every applicable appeals court.
The prisoner not only had the free will to commit or not commit the crime because that was the reason he was put there in the first place.
You seem to be arguing that God condemns us regardless of anything we say or do even before we are born and knowingly punishes us for it.
That's not just and it isn't good. That's just evil.

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?

Parents teach their children how to become functioning members of society and pass on their traits - beliefs, hopes, dreams, and so on upon them in order to make them the best people they can be and pass on their legacy.
God teaches us to have goodwill toward our fellow humans and he himself murders humans indiscriminantly and doesn't punish certain people despite their raping, murdering, incest, pillaging, and enslaving of other people. Moses and Job for example.
Jesus himself even despite apparently being God's son was himself tortured in the worst ways possible for something humans had absolutely no control over due to an inherant sin that God planted in the Garden of Eden that he knew before he planted would implant sin within all of us that he would then punish us for.
In short, god punished his own son over something that humans had no control over to begin with. He may as well have tortured his own son for being his son.

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

I didn't bother to explain because your statements are barely coherant with one another on top of being based off of wrong assumptions about the scientific statements you've made about the big bang, abiogenesis, and evolution, and the idea you have that evolution is itself a system of morality.
None of these things have anything to do with why I am or am not a moral person. Since your arguement addressed your own incipid version of what you think my morality is, I decided not to answer what seemed to be an attempt to troll me.

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”

You mean this A&E Biography of Jeffery Dahmer?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA-nB-5b1UY
I sat down and watched all five parts and here's a few interesting points I took from it:
1) He exuberated some of the traits of a sociopath.
2) He understood the difference between right and wrong, which went right out the window due to his drinking problem that he possessed since he was a teenager. The police officer even mentioned that he had a conscience and possessed a great deal of guilt over his actions until his obsessions came into full swing and he surrendered to them.
3) He possessed an insatiable desire to murder the men he had sex with as he raped them by strangling them and beating them to death while they were drugged or unconcious. Later to exersize his desires for necrophilia and dismembering his victims.
4) He had an obsession with power over his own life and the lives of others.
5) In part 4, Jeffrey himself stated that he was the devil and that he was evil and that he was so evil that he was equal to the devil. He was declared sane, so he clearly knew full well what he was saying when stating those things.
6) In the final (fifth) part, when his sentence was carried out, the movie states that he sought divine forgiveness and blamed his atheism and evolution for his crimes. This is a very interesting point because now that I"ve seen the quote in context both before and after he actually said those words - as before he stated that he was the devil, he attended church, and sought god's forgiveness. He certainly blamed these things like you do on atheism and evolution but he always blamed the devil for trying to take over his soul.
7) Further after he blamed his actions on atheism and evolution, he sought baptism.

So what I took from the video is as follows:
A) I seem to have caught you in the midst of quote-mining things that don't say exactly what you say they said.
B) Jeffery Dahmer was religious to whatever extent before, during, and after his murders and only in prison blamed it on atheism between blaming it on alcoholism, the devil, insanity and the devil again later around being baptized in a whirlpool.

In conclusion, not only was Dahmer not an atheist nor is there any legitimiate connection between his possible 'belief' in evolution, but the only individual to make that connection was Dahmer himself between his obviously religious and alcoholic tendancies and his attempting to put the blame on those as well. So, you are wrong about Jeffery Dahmer.

You have yet to evidence how an atheist's morals are any different from any other human being. You have made no attempt to prove that hitchens and dawkins are inconsistent with their own morality and not what you think their moality is.
I don't give a damn about what you think about me or anyone. What I care about is what you can prove. Flooding me with biased, ignorant claims about science and non-religious morality based off of your opinions and berating me for not dispensing exactly how utterly wrong you were about those claims does not allow for a conductive and reasoned discussion about my morals. I've already told you about where my morals come from and the fact that you think it's inconsistent with your incipid statements is wholly irrelevant to me and proving you wrong about those statements doesn't prove anything about my morality or where it comes from.
As such, I have no desire to entertain your attempt to troll me when it already appears that you've decided what my morals are and how I've contradicted those morals.

I was wondering how long it would take for you to bring up Stalin, which is amusing to me because atheism nor evolution have anything to do with government or how it's run or how it treats its citizens. Neither one explains how one should behave and nothing you've mentioned confirms any such theory.
Christianity is a way to live and treat others. Evolution does nothing of the sort and neither does science in general or atheism.
Stalin didn't commit his atrocities against humanity due to his atheism. Since you made that claim initially, I recommend that you perhaps bother to provide evidence that atheism or evolution is the direct cause of all of the human suffering during Stalin's reign.

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.

See below.

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.

The report I mentioned is that atheists are underreprestented in the prison system -which is to say that there are fewer atheists in prison compared to the general prison population compared to the general population at large.
In the report, atheists represent .209% of the prison population, which is even at your estimate of about 6% (which is rather conservative), is 1/30th of the general population of the united states.
In any case, the quote I pulled was apparently from a man named Thomas Robb, who is a creationist who adamantly rejects evolution as an attack on faith and runs his own church. Currently violent or not, it's still quite clearly promoting white supremacy and I have yet to find any evidence that their beliefs about god and white people have been any different over the past century.

What I don't see from you is a reason why his view of the bible is any less moral than yours. I am under no obligation to explain a position you should be building yourself in regard to how some christians aren't true scotsmen. All I see is someone attempting to move the discussion of morality away from the people who distort the view of the bible to do evil.

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 did say those things regarding my choice and ability to value human life. It's in human nature to do so because we empathize with others and don't want one another to suffer.
As such, it's very easy to tell people what they should or should not do because people don't want other people to suffer because we empathize with the plights and emotional highs of others.
So whenever you decide to stop with your constant strawman fallacies regarding my morality and the ideas of morality without needed a supernatural authority to rule on these issues, then you might actually see why my ability to value human life is different from my ability to choose to enjoy the color black over maroon but you seem to want an easy answer.

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?

Your own source cites the legal definition of murder being

"Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought."

That is the US Code, at Title 18, that defines murder in that fashion, just as the other links did from previous posts.
I used the expanded definition of the term and not the brief explaination which also goes on to cite common law and historical connotation of the term. Only Canada seems to definte murder in the manner you described.

The US constitution doesn't define murder. US law does.

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.

So you've proven my point in regard to the fact that you have no idea what my morality actually is, which I've already pointed out above, so there's no need to explain it again.

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?

Running from the point of view that the world being biblically accurate is bullshit? I have no reason to believe that to be necessary by a significant margin, given how weak your 'evidence' is in regard to this sort of thing.
All you've done is prove through my arguements with you that you're willing to dismiss passages that are proven wrong from a simple orbital photograph but not the ones that take a little more science to know or understand in terms of how tremendously wrong they are, like the science behind radiometric dating in disproving a young Earth.