Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Your childish view of the infallibility of science is downright sad actually. The USNAS could come out with a statement saying blacks scientifically are not humans, and I am sorry but I would continue believing they were humans because the USNAS does not determine definitions for me despite what you may believe.

I don't believe that anything is infallible but I do follow work that can and has produced results. You see, the difference between work that the USNAS does and AIG does is that USNAS does research and the things they propose is based off of research that has proven itself to be viable. People don't follow the words of scientists because of their theories, they follow the results of what these theories can prove because good theories have predictive power that can produce results. In short, scientists make discoveries.
People like Dr. Lisle write papers that is counter to results-driven established theories that organizations like NASA depend on in order to be effective at what they do. Launching satillites to other places in the solar system require very complex mathmatics and precise telemetry even before launch, but NASA scientists need to give orders to their machines to make adjustments in their flight path for any number of reasons. If his paper represented an accurate view of reality and NASA depended their math on relativity (that light has the same speed in all directions to all observers) then light would get to the probes to insert new telemetry and new commands in twice the time, which would be noticable immediately since light would instantaneously return to earth. Few of these missions would have been successful for that reason and, more importantly, this glaringly obvious difference between what they expect and what happens would be more obvious than a mis-synchronized clock.
Not to mention that astronaughts on the moon landings would have noticed the time lag between earth and the moon and a lack of time lag in return, unless "relativity" also mis-synchronized the 'clocks' in astronaughts brains to force them to think there was a time lag in their response to earth.
Einstein and all scientists like him, like you erroneously depicted in your response, don't simply come out and say things and expect people to believe them. That's the perview of your faith.
Scientists do work that produce results and have empirical backing, which is why Evolution, big bang, and abiogenesis are sciences and six-day creation and noah's flood and all that are not, regardless of what definitions you use.

So first you say creationists are not scientists

I'm going to stop you right here. I did not say this. I explained, in detail, about this very thing, among numerous other details, over the last few posts.
Go back to those posts, read them, and come back and then give a response because I'm as tired of calling you on strawmen arguements as much, I'm sure, as you are of hearing them and explaining the what and why of it for you to repeat your strawman mistake again immediately thereafter.

I have done plenty to prove to you otherwise actually. I have listed dozens of great scientists who were creationists, I have demonstrated that the actual definition of science does include creationism and all you have done is say, “well my beloved National Academy of Science says they are not scientists so meh!” Rather disappointing actually.

You've certainly demonstrated a number of things, but "actual definition of science" and your interpretation of my response isn't among them.

It said science must be directly observable and repeatable; you let me know the next time we directly observe and can repeat the big bang, abiogenesis, and common descent. Until then, I guess these thing are unscientific according to your beloved USNAS that is of course.

Adorable. You posted the dictionary.com defition and you literally stated it just shortly thereafter as being something other than what it states it is.
Case and point:

systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

science must be directly observable and repeatable

Just as with certain bible quotes, you only seem to be able to get them to mean certain things if you contextualize them in a manner to which is counter to the context of the passages you're quoting from.

That said, I've already linked plenty of sources over the posts I've made over the months in regard to evolution and big bang that I've linked here that cite falsifiable observation-based evidence for the big bang and evolution has been directly observed - all of which were included in my litany of links in the previous (and earlier) posts from numerous sources, which didn't require my own interpretation of said links and quotes.

The fact that you have apparently decided to ignore all of it nonwithstanding, it's there and cannot be ignored, regardless of whatever fantastic view of history and life you have.

In regard to your claim that creationists can do science, I never claimed that people can't be creationists who also do science. I claimed that there can't be creation scientists because creationism isn't science. Just as long as their work produces results and isn't based on their religious bias, then it can clearly work - as Newton and Von Braun have proven, given that their religious views on reality had zero impact on their scientific findings.

Fact is not based on majority opinion, you should know this but I am not surprised you don’t. The majority of the government agencies in Nazi Germany believed Jews were an inferior race, somehow I think you’d be right in line with them considering how much clout you put into government agencies.

Three things:
First, Godwin Fallacy.
Second, fact wasn't elected as fact by majority opinion. It was established as fact through study, research, and peer review of that research.
Third, like people who promote one worldview over the facts, the Nazi government had a particular bias and an agenda to promote that bias, so whenever they could, they tainted whatever "research" they did (if they did research at all) in order to "evidence" their worldview and use it as propoganda despite reality. As such, what they did cannot be considered science by any stretch of the imagination.

You keep thinking that, I’ll keep thinking Isaac Newton and von Braun were both real scientists.

That's fine. I won't argue with you about them being real scientists since I've clearly established that christianity (the religion, the church, and all of its views) was completely irrelevant to their scientific work.

As to the literal interpretation, I already pointed out that you did not understand what biblical literalism is. I have no idea why you have continued to ignore that point.

I continue to ignore your point because your opinion is irrelevant.
Like I keep telling you, I care about what you can prove, not what you say.
Talk, as they say, is cheap. You can come here and say anything and you certainly have, but words are meaningless unless they have substance.
You've littered every post you've made on these topics with plenty of opinions and backhanded comments but you've proven very little of anything of substance.

Well I guess I could just pull a page from your playbook here. Nearly all biblical scholars and major biblical organizations and universities disagree with you on this point. Now I know why you always take this approach! It is easy to do and requires very little effort.

Really? Exactly which parts of the bible are we talking about here?
And which churches? Which biblical scholars and universities?
The difference between when you and I make the claim of saying 'everyone believes...' - I back it up, just like I did in my preivous post in regard to the scientific establishment and understanding of evolution, abiogenesis, and the big bang over creationism.

But let's talk about churches, biblical universities, and biblical scholars and about what they believe in terms of the literal interpretation of the bible, which you consider to be ignoring the flat earth and promoting the six-day creation and nonexistance of evolution.

I'll start with the Episcopal Church, which hasn't taken an official position from my understanding, but I found this paper at their website which takes a 36-page point-by-point stance on the church's relationship with creationism, science, and intelligent design.

Has the Episcopal Church spoken on the creationists’ claims?

In 1982, General Convention passed a resolution (a) to “affirm its belief in the glorious
ability of God to create in any manner,” (b) “and in this affirmation reject the rigid
dogmatism of the ‘Creationist’ movement” and © further affirmed “our support of the
scientists, educators, and theologians in the search for truth in this creation that God has
given and entrusted to us.”

The above is a mere quote from a much longer paper, but I believe the above quote to be an accurate summation of the paper's overall stance on the topic at hand. They reject flat earth like you and I do, but unlike you and like me, they also reject the idea that the genesis account of creation for the same reason we both reject flat earth.

The paper is Prepared for Study in Congregations by The Committee on Science, Technology and Faith of The Executive Council of The Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

The Catholic Church has stated that evolution, big bang, and similar science is not incompatible with the Catholic faith, though they have not infallibly taken an official position on what their stance is on what actually happened.

The Catholic Position

What is the Catholic position concerning belief or unbelief in evolution? The question may never be finally settled, but there are definite parameters to what is acceptable Catholic belief.

Concerning cosmological evolution, the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing. Vatican I solemnly defined that everyone must "confess the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing" (Canons on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5).

The Church does not have an official position on whether the stars, nebulae, and planets we see today were created at that time or whether they developed over time (for example, in the aftermath of the Big Bang that modern cosmologists discuss). However, the Church would maintain that, if the stars and planets did develop over time, this still ultimately must be attributed to God and his plan, for Scripture records: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host [stars, nebulae, planets] by the breath of his mouth" (Ps. 33:6).

Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.

While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.

So it goes to show that the Catholic faith has interpreted the bible in such a manner as to allow for the biological evolution of humanity, as described by our sciences - leaving the matters of the soul and its development to whom they believe to be our creator. The article the above quote originates from goes into similar effects to the age of the earth and refuting the literalist point that the earth was created in six literal days.

Chronological Reading


According to the chronological reading, the six days of creation should be understood to have followed each other in strict chronological order. This view is often coupled with the claim that the six days were standard 24-hour days.

Some have denied that they were standard days on the basis that the Hebrew word used in this passage for day (yom) can sometimes mean a longer-than-24-hour period (as it does in Genesis 2:4). However, it seems clear that Genesis 1 presents the days to us as standard days. At the end of each one is a formula like, "And there was evening and there was morning, one day" (Gen. 1:5). Evening and morning are, of course, the transition points between day and night (this is the meaning of the Hebrew terms here), but periods of time longer than 24 hours are not composed of a day and a night. Genesis is presenting these days to us as 24-hour, solar days. If we are not meant to understand them as 24-hour days, it would most likely be because Genesis 1 is not meant to be understood as a literal chronological account.

That is a possibility. Pope Pius XII warned us, "What is the literal sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and writings of the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of our own time. For what they wished to express is not to be determined by the rules of grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the context; the interpreter must, as it were, go back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries of the East and with the aid of history, archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences, accurately determine what modes of writing, so to speak, the authors of that ancient period would be likely to use, and in fact did use. For the ancient peoples of the East, in order to express their ideas, did not always employ those forms or kinds of speech which we use today; but rather those used by the men of their times and countries. What those exactly were the commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a careful examination of the ancient literature of the East" (Divino Afflante Spiritu 35–36).

So using my first source, catholic.com, I have determined that the Catholic position on the literal interpretation of the bible is not the same as yours and they have publically opened themselves to evolution based on the overwhelming evidence presented by scientists on the matter, as well as other matters of science, such as the big bang.
Don't worry though, catholic.com isn't my only source.

Here, in a paper written by a man named Doug Linder in 2004 on the Vatican view of evolution, describes something along the lines of:

Pope John Paul II revisited the question of evolution in a 1996 a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Unlike Pius XII, John Paul is broadly read, and embraces science and reason. He won the respect of many scientists in 1993, when in April 1993 he formally acquitted Galileo, 360 years after his indictment, of heretical support for Copernicus’s heliocentrism. The pontiff began his statement with the hope that “we will all be able to profit from the fruitfulness of a trustful dialogue between the Church and science.” Evolution, he said, is “an essential subject which deeply interests the Church.” He recognized that science and Scripture sometimes have “apparent contradictions,” but said that when this is the case, a “solution” must be found because “truth cannot contradict truth.” The Pope pointed to the Church’s coming to terms with Galileo’s discoveries concerning the nature of the solar system as an example of how science might inspire the Church to seek a new and “correct interpretation of the inspired word.”

In case you were wondering, that paper originated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. It is an essay on the topic concerning the ongoing debate between creationism and evolution in terms of the constitutional conflicts between the two in American history.

The Catholic News Agency also states that evolutionary theory is not incompatible with evolution based according to the Vatican, represented by Archbishop Ravasi.

“Evolutionary theory is not incompatible a priori with the teaching of the Catholic Church, with the message of the Bible and theology, and in actual fact it was never condemned,” Archbishop Ravasi said.

Of course, Pope John Paul II made a famous speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in this regard.
Pope Benedict agrees with this sentiment as their predecessor, Pope Pious.

So, the Catholic faith has stated numerous times on numerous occasions that the biblical teaching of genesis must be interpreted in light of scientific evidence and that evolution is not in conflict with the catholic faith, citing that god's domain in the creation of humanity in their present state involves the creation of our souls and not our bodies given the scientific evidence that shows that humans evolved from lesser creatures according to the scientific community - though there's some disagreement with a number of details in this regard, it doesn't detract from the fact that the Vatican's position on the origin of humanitiy allows for that interpretation because of the science behind evolution, big bang, and others.

The United Methodist Church has outright said little that I could find, but apparently, the Church is passing "evolution-friendly" petitions in regard to church documents. According to that article within that UMC website by a UMC contributor, the church's petitions mentioned in that article were apparently passed, highlighting the church's acceptance of the science of Evolution and regarding the conflicting portions of the bible (like genesis) as metaphor.

Historically Methodism has sidestepped honest dialogue about the interface between religion and science, especially about evolution (at least until very recently, in 2008). This appears to have been done out of fear that accepting the findings of science—for instance, that evolution is an established scientific cornerstone, especially in biological fields—might incur the wrath of creationists within Methodism.

The resulting effect had been an implication that The National Academies of Science and hundreds of scientists worldwide over the last century and a half are wrong.

The large voting percentage in passing the three evolution petitions is evidence that the leadership of the United Methodist Church recognizes the need to change this situation. So Methodism is joining many other denominations around the world that find no conflict between religion and science.

Keep in mind that they're talking about that 'origins science' you constantly refer to of human evolution. They also made reference to a 'clergy letter project' about 'evolution weekend' but that whole thing appears to be limited to Wisconsin congregations but I know very little about the project.
But their primary website makes few official claims on the matter but the actions of the church seem to indicate a principally science-leaning and evolution-tolerant methodology.
Although I'm not as certain of the church's official position, their actions and their passing of those petitions seem to indicate that the church has taken a similar position to evolution and other scientific concepts as the catholic church, which is to say that they are compatible and not in conflict with one another.

The main reason I bring them up, however, in addition to those petitions is also their continued battle against teaching creationism in public classrooms. Wherever I've searched online, I've been finding methodist-church led opposition to anti-evolution bills in various states around the US and many contributors and church officials stating that evolution is not in conflict with their faith in their official church websites.

Their petitions (80839-C1-R9999 and C1102-R9999-A) passed roughly 5 votes to every 3.
This petition states that

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the General Conference of the United Methodist Church go on record as opposing the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools.

Keep in mind that this is representative of the church's stance on issues and determines how the church acts accordingly.

More than 10,000 Christian leaders have signed the letter since 2004. Through the years, other religious leaders and established religious organizations have expressed their opposition to creationism.

So, I can conclude that the United Methodist Church also supports evolution and opposes the creationist views you hold.

At the Greek Orthodox website,

3) Man's creation
Among the visible things that God created is the crown of His creation, man. In Genesis we read the story of God's creation. We cannot interpret this story to the letter; however, its message is loud and clear: God is the creator of everything that exists; there is order in God's creation, and a development (even "evolution") from lower forms to higher forms of life; God created everything good; man, created in God's image and likeness, has a very special place in God's creation, called to be God's proxy toward His creation.

The Orthodox Church in America also has no issue with evolution.

Orthodoxy firmly believes that God is the Creator of all things and that human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, are unique among all created beings. At the same time Orthodoxy is not literalist in its understanding of the accounts of creation in Genesis, and I have encountered writings by Orthodox Christians which attempt to balance the creation accounts with a certain ongoing -- evolutionary, if you will -- process which, on the one hand, affirms that while humans may have evolved physically under the direction and guidance and plan of the Creator, their souls could not have evolved any more than the powers of reasoning, speaking, or the ability to act creatively could have simply evolved. In such a scenario the Creator intervened by breathing His Spirit into man and giving him life, as stated in Genesis.

So this gem comes directly from their website on a Q&A on the topic to affirm the religion's position on this matter.

I've also found numerous Jewish positions on the matter, virtually all of which accept the evolutionary side of things, thought hey reject the notion that god had no influence on evolution, they don't deny that evolution was the manner to which god had guided man into being, in a manner of speaking.

Still, like the others, it is evident that the Jewish understanding of their sacred texts don't appear to believe that it interferes with their religion.

Dec 27, 2005 -- In light of the ongoing public controversy about Evolution, Creationism and Intelligent Design, the RCA notes that significant Jewish authorities have maintained that evolutionary theory, properly understood, is not incompatible with belief in a Divine Creator, nor with the first 2 chapters of Genesis.

The Church of Nazarene also produced a public statement about the matter. It was very brief, but very poignant.

The Church of the Nazarene believes in the biblical account of creation (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . .”—Genesis 1:1).We oppose any godless interpretation of the origin of the universe and of humankind.
However, the church accepts as valid all scientifically verifiable discoveries in geology and other natural phenomena, for we firmly believe that God is the Creator. (Articles I. 1., V. 5.1, VII.) (2005)

This was reaffirmed by the School of Theology and Christian Ministry and the Department of Biology jointly in relation to the Olivet Nazarene University.

So anyway, what, you may ask, does all this have to do with anything?
Well, it's definative proof that these churches and their subsidiary organizations (which include numerous congregations, prestigious univerisities and schools, and so on) have taken the position in favor of the scientific view of evolution. I only focused my search on evolution, but I have little doubt that these religions hold the same point for big bang and other scientific ideas.

So what this all comes down to is this:

You are absolutely wrong. This time about "Nearly all biblical scholars and major biblical organizations and universities disagree with you on this point." to the extent that I actually did research and of all the religions I've searched, my list also included the Mormon Church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), the Watchtower (Jehovah's Witness Faith), and Southern Baptists. Those three officially hold the creationist positions or at least argue against evolution being anything important.
Be that as it may, it still proves you wrong on the matters of many, many christians who have claims in regards to the 'exegesis' of the bible equal to or better than yours.

You've given me a great deal of grief about my 'bad exegesis' as being evidence that I had no idea what I was talking about in terms of my literalist interpretation of 'flat earth' of the bible. There are those christians who still even ascribe to this entirely because the bible states it, but what I have proven here is that many christian denominations with no small amount of influence either outright reject your literalist interpretation for the same reason you've rejected flat earth or, at the very least, have made no offical positions on the matter but often state officially or by prominant members that their faiths have no conflict with these scientific concepts for the very reason that these bible passages are not meant to be interpreted literally, or at least aren't necessary.

Oh so they have not actually observed the Oort cloud? I didn’t think so. Can you prove to me that it is really an Oort cloud out there and not the Flying Spaghetti Monster or a Giant Teapot causing those comets to behave like that? I love it when atheists use the very same reasoning they bash on theists for using.

That's cool. I love it when creationists think they addressed a point I made but completely avoid it with a red herring laced with ignorance-laded sarcasm in order to avoid addressing the fact that the Oort Cloud has evidence for its existance based on observational evidence on comets in the Solar System.

Ahh, so you believe Bacon ascribed to a form of hermeneutics that post-dates him by about 200 years? Yeah good luck with that. Liberal Hermeneutics in the protestant church did not arise until the 19th century. Reformed Christians such as Bacon and Newton in the 17th and 18th centuries were biblical literalists.

and yet you have no evidence of that and you continue to point this out despite the fact that you can't have haven't proven any such thing.
There's also that book I linked that pointed out that biblical literalism was only prominant beginning in the 17th century (or so) in opposition to Geological findings, so that's a great deal fewer 'creationists' in the literal biblical sense that you can legitimately claim as such.

You are right, but you do need a biblical world.

Hah! Based on what? "The bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it?"
Yeah right.

Its existence is irrelevant to your acceptance or denial of its truth. It is obvious that Newton, von Braun and Kepler also did not need to believe the earth was billions of years old or that the universe arose by the big bang because they did not believe these things and still conducted their science fine. So your point is rather silly.

Apparently not given that evidence for those things didn't exist during their time, so clearly the science behind the age of the earth or the universe is largely irrelevant to studying the planetary gravity and motions through the solar system from the Earth.
But my point in regard Kepler, Newton, and Von Braun's religion is that the entirety of the christian faith isn't necessary for science to be done at all and therefore their relationship to the church is secondary and not necessary for their discoveries.
Which is to say that I'm not the one claiming that christianity is the father of all science and that these individuals were christian scientists when in fact that none of these things are at all true.

I did quote several of the numerous historians who do believe that modern science owes everything to the Christian reformation. If you want to deny this historical fact, be my guest. I have also demonstrated that science is only possible in a biblical world, you can deny this, but it does not change the truth of the statement.
I do find it interesting that you lump atheism in with the “other faiths”, I hope nobody else saw you do that on here or we may have an atheistic brawl on our hands.

I do dispute these people's opinions as historical fact and I have already demonstrated why in previous links as to the historical relationship between science and religion.
My lumping of Atheism with "other faiths" is contextually similar to saying 'Any noun and the other nouns...' -like the First Austin Powers movie and the Who all go to the market. Just because I lumped atheism with the other religions doesn't imply that they are equivelent or alike in any sense of the term. I'm sorry I had to waste time to specify that.

Wrong. Creationism is necessary for the field of creation science just like evolution is necessary for the field of evolutionary biology. As for your claim that geology and astronomy require an old universe and earth… there are young earth creationists who are geologists and astronomers so I guess it really is not a necessity. After all Kepler and Galileo both believed in a young universe and they are two of the greatest astronomers in history.

I'm sure creationism is necessary for the field of creation science, but neither of those things are science or scientific fields for the reasons I've already highlighted.
I'm sure there are creationists with the degrees necessary for those fields, but you will find almost none of them actually working in any such scientific fields -given the obvious conflicts that those fields have with their religious faith. I've already linked several studies about religion among scientists and the number of creationists in fields conflicted with creationism (like astronomy and biology) is almost zero.
As far as Kepler and Galileo, unless you have some evidence that they were biblical literalists in the same sense as you are, then I call bullshit on that given a complete lack of evidence.

His worldview drove his science.

Interesting baseless opinion.

Forgive me for demanding more from my operational sciences than you do. No comet has ever been observed to be capable of lasting over 10,000 years. We see comets today. This leads away from an old universe model, so invoke the ad hoc and viola we have an Oort cloud. Many astronomers are actually moving away from the Oort cloud hypothesis today, I assure you they will come up with some other ad hoc though; I just hope it is the FSM!

I'm entertained at how many baseless positive claims you have here in regard to scientists, comets, and their movements in the scientific field and their reasonings behind moving toward the Oort Cloud theory... with ZERO evidence and despite my evidence otherwise from my previous post...

I've had to say this so often that it's getting repetative. Clearly you've skimmed but haven't read my previous post and have given me what I assume are AIG/Creation Institute talking points on the matter with nothing to actually back up any claim you've made thus far.

This is actually the fallacy of pretended neutrality. There is no neutral ground in the creationism vs. non-creation debate so nobody is objective.

Given that, in order for your arguement to be valid, this needs to be true, it's no surprise that you've stated it as such. It just shows that you have no real arguement here so you have to frame the arguement with the assumption that the two sides are, in any way, equal in this respect despite neither reason nor evidence to suggest that the scientific understanding has been achieved with anything but the greatest extent of human objectivity possible.

I love it! “Statler, your historians from such prestigious universities as Cambridge don’t matter to me, but my sources such as Wikipedia are infallible.” Well I will stick to the historians you can stick to wiki.

I love it too, given that this response, like so many others, apparently had to resort to a strawman of my statement. I don't believe you'll find me saying or doing anything like "my sources like wikipedia is infallible." Classic.

You cannot know the result is false without testing it some way, this test of course requires the use of your senses. I can’t believe even this simple point goes over your head.

... and I just argued that not only is such a thing possible, but a regular everyday occurance. Go ahead and ask an optometrist about how you could tell whether or not if your eyesight is going bad or reliable. I'm pretty sure it's his entire job to determine that. (Certain specialities of Psychiatry as well)
Someone deluded to reality - memory or senses or both, such as through hallucinations can percieve things that aren't there or they percieve things to be completely different as to what they are through one method or another.
Someone who imagines the carpet/hardwood change between two rooms as being a very steep cliff is obviously seeing something that isn't really there. This hypothetical person is deluded to reality and he or she may honestly believe what he or she is seeing.
If this person were to fall off that 'cliff' and drop to the floor, the result will still be something other than falling off a cliff whether that person realized it or not.
The ultimate result was still that that person did not achieve a positive result from what his brain interpreted from his senses (because, let's say, this person took a hallucinagen, so his brain is the problem and not his or her senses). This is to say that this person fell to the floor but not to the bottom of a hallucinated cliff. This also applies to things necessary to survival - like not falling off an actual cliff because you saw ground that wasn't there or finding food that you imagined that was actually a rock or something inedible.
Therefore *postive results* proves the reliability of senses and memory. If your eyesight and hearing accurately reflect your surroundings, you can make decisions based off that information to produce positive results - successfully finding edible food, surviving, and reporducing - all of which require that your senses work reliably.
As such, it is not a presupposition that these things work a certain way.

This arguement is exactly the same for memory, so I won't repeat myself in those passages.

No I am sorry, I will not allow you to be so intellectually lazy. How do you know that the bed you fall asleep on tonight will still be a bed tomorrow?

Oh please. Don't lecture me on intellectual laziness considering that the creationist position on the answers to life, love, and liberty is "god did everything" based on zero evidence and zero reason for that conclusion. All on the reasoning and empirical evidence of "nuh uh". To answer your question: because my bed has been a bed ever since I bought it and it shows no signs of becoming anything else.

So you actually believe that the only things that are real are those made up of energy and matter like naturalists do? I would advise you to be cautious in how you answer this.

Two things:
1) I didn't make any points about my beliefs.
2) Even if I did, what I believe is irrelevant.

What a disappointment. The laws of logic are not the way people think, but rather the way people ought to think. If they are just the way people thought then there would be no such thing as logical fallacies because many (I’d even argue a majority of) people think in a manner that is logically fallacious. So I am sorry, it is quite obvious that the laws of logic are not determined by the way people think, but rather they are an outside standard that people ought to adhere to which is more accurate with the biblical view on the matter.

As to your failure to deliver my request, disappointing but not surprising. I knew you could not do it.

So your evidence that logic isn't inherantly a human trait is because some people are illogical?
Some people are also blind too, but I would argue that people generally have the ability to see and that sight is definatively a trait that humans possess - as is love, lust, greed, charity, hearing, and so on.

With all the logic of "people aren't always logical, therefore god must be the origin of all logic." I'm sure that's a logical fallacy listed somewhere.

I also can't turn water into wine, which is equally disappointing but not surprising, but equally pointless and extraneous to this discussion.
... actually I could turn water into wine, but that would require a wine vinyard, plenty of water, and a lot of time. I just couldn't do it through magic.

Well you should be aware that creationists say that DNA is strong evidence for a creator. Since you said that creationists don’t produce any falsifiable evidence then I’d advise you not to try and falsify this claim so you don’t look ridiculous by contradicting yourself. The only problem is, if you don’t try and refute this claim, the claim stands un-refuted, so I guess you have really put yourself in an awkward lose-lose situation.

I'm sure they say that, but I find a litter box and tell you that it was evidence that my Cat is the one true creator of the universe and humanity, but just because I said it doesn't make it evidence of anything of the sort.

Not what I said, I said he could only do his science if the biblical world was accurate. A person who does not believe air exists needs air in order to live and make an argument against the existence of air, just as someone who does not believe in the biblical world needs a biblical world in order to conduct science and argue against the biblical world.

Fair enough, but regardless, it's a claim without basis in evidence isofar that reality is anything like your biblical intepretation of the bible given that it's wholly unnecessary and counter to any and every scientific field, so your claim has negative (less than zero) merit.

Why would you want evidence that his historical science views somehow drove his operational science views? The two are apples and oranges. You really do baffle me sometimes.

Becuase it would give merit to your claims of a working or necessary relationship of the literal interpretation of the bible as being somehow necessary as a part of science - which would be necessary for things like the statement above this one regarding this being a 'biblical world' or that christian beliefs fuel scientific resesarch.
You know - something or anything that would allow many of your arguements to have any merit whatsoever.

Well I guess this refutes your claim that creationists can’t be scientists.

Totally not what I said. Like several times now.

Huh? Again, you obviously do not know what a synchrony convention is. It is a way of synchronizing clocks! So they can do it, but they have to use the ESC which assumes that light travels at the same speed in all directions. They could just as easily synchronize the two clocks using the ASC, which would then have light moving in different directions at different speeds relative to the observer. So we are just talking past each other.

Indeed, but I ignored it because there was no mechanism as to how this happens. It appeared to just be an assumption that allows this inane hypothosis to somehow allow transmissions from earth to space probes to make sense given the time lag just happens to conform to standard relativistic expectations despite the fact that the scientists at NASA assume that light moves at a certain speed and thus have to make commands to direct and control these robots using precise mathmatical telemetry and directions that require, among other things, precise timing, which falls apart considering ASC's idea of how light moves across space and time.
Also, this arguement tends to fall apart if someone ever sent out a command that required an immediate response (and not one, say, dependant upon a probe's internal clock), which has been necessary numerous times to, say, command a probe to take photos as its passing by something interesting and immediately begin sending out information on collected data from its instraments.

Also, this sort of thing would have been immediately noticable in the late '60s and '70s given the time lag between transmissions from the apollo rockets had a time lag consistent with the 300,000 kps speed of light in all directions.

So... yeah... if you want to go into that direction about sychronized clocks, I have a litany of sources to evidence otherwise because this line of reasoning is even sillier than the two-speeds of light, which can be easily disproven using the Foucault method, but adding an extraneous additional mirror at equal length of the other mirrors and dividing the result by three rather than two.
If ASC were true, the result with either be 1/2 light divided by three or 1/2 light twice divided by three. I haven't done the experiment yet (I dont have the mirrors necessary but I have a laser pointer.) Though anyone else is also welcome to attempt.

If they had used the ASC to synchronize the clocks it certainly would have. They did not use it though; they used the ESC, so who knows what you are trying to prove here.

Simple. There were people on the moon and people on the earth and they communicated directly with one another with a delay of about 2.7 seconds each way.
Note that this is different than 5.4 second delay to astronaughts and zero response delay from the moon to the earth. There were no clocks involved at all to synchronize since anyone with a radio transciever could notice the delay regardless of the speed in which astronaughts actually responded.

When we are talking about relativity, we are almost always talking about velocities close to C since that is when it becomes relevant. I thought this would be clear.

Indeed, but time dilation doesn't occur until you approach C, typically over .4c, not some miniscule fraction of C that all human-made devices travel. Dialation occurs, but nowhere near the necessary dilation with the consistency needed to make reality work to fool us into believing that relativity conforms to something other than special relativity.

Actually according to the dictionary they are. It holds more weight than your personal opinion on the matter.

Hah! Perhaps in the manner to which you've misrepresented all of the above, sure, but that doesn't give your arugement any weight.

Well it can be done using a synchonry convention which of course is what the whole paper you never read is about.

Uh huh. Well, I suppose an experiment could be done, but usually scientific papers have already have tested and made or disproven predicted results based on hypothosis and tests. They usually get published to allow other scientists to repeat said tests to prove or disprove the science behidn it and the results it claims to have.
Given that this paper has none of that and holds predictions counter to well established sciences that predict different results (special relativity), then I would expect your answer to this papers lack of work in this regard to be a deflection with an insult rather than substantive evidence of any kind that this is even a legitimate paper.
I've already proposed a simple experiment as a modified foucault method, so if the speed of light is half when moving away from an observer and returns infinately fast, then adding another mirror at equal distance for light to make three trips instead of two would definatively prove this once and for all. I'll even add a set of clocks to the experiment - one at each mirror to see if 'relativity' changes them.

Where in the verse does it say that the earth does not move in relation to the sun? I believe it just says the earth does not move in relation to itself, which it does not of course. No issues with the verse.

It said:

The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

Right there.

Lol, look this up, because it doesn’t mean what you obviously think it means. Just because I used the word incredible does not mean I committed this fallacy.

I would think that if scripture was a fraud the people making it up would not have put in something apparently so incredible in it.

Right there. Arguement from Incredulity.

Arguments from incredulity take the form:

1.P is too incredible (or I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true); therefore P must be false.
2.It is obvious that P (or I cannot imagine how P could possibly be false) therefore P must be true.
These arguments are similar to arguments from ignorance in that they too ignore and do not properly eliminate the possibility that something can be both incredible and still be true, or appear to be obvious and yet still be false.

Your version appears to be specifically a variation of #2 or "I think that if it were a fraud, then they would not have written something so incredible in it (scripture).

Yeah I was just really hoping that when we were talking about telomeres that you would provide articles about telomeres and not chicken with teeth. Given your posts to date and tendency towards drifting way off topic though I guess I could not be very surprised.

Indeed, I only proved that geneticists had the power to discern our ancestors life-span, behavior, and other traits, which you assure me is completely unrelated to the life-span in which people lived a few thousand years ago. Then again, their looks into human DNA only go back a few hundred thousand years before 'human' means cro-magnon or whatever came before us.
But hey, you certainly assure me that ancient human age is unrelated to ancient human age, so clearly I must be wrong. ... because Statler Waldorf told me so... again.

Actually I never made the arguement from incredulity because I specifically stated that it was wrong because geneticists proved that our life span has only increased from history due to modern medicine and understanding of human anatomy and biology among other sciences.
So strawman on your part for accusing me of saying something I've never proposed.

Oh so you claim to know a thing or two about thermodynamics huh? Well then you should also know that even an open system tends towards entropy. Not only this but without mechanisms already in place to guide the energy, unharnessed raw energy only increases entropy.

You indeed put stalk in decent sources when it suits you unless they use definitions you don't, like the USNAS.
Be that as it may, I wasn't ragging on your for your knowledge of thermodynamics. Those laws are easy enough to find on the internet. I was ragging on you for your complete lack of understanding of how genetics works.
And yes, I put stalk in geneticists over your 'entropy made people live shorter lives!' idiocy isofar as their views in their primary field of work given that my links say things about genetics that contradict your erroneous claims.

Nah, I just realize that scripture is on completely solid logical ground here. Given your illogical viewpoint, it would be unjust to bomb a country that attacked you and declared war on you because not everyone in the country signed the decree of war (only their representatives did). That’s just absurd. I am just glad that God is not only a just God but a gracious one.

Strawman, as I don't hold that viewpoint.
My complaint would be more akin to a country (god) giving nukes to another country and then slaughtering every last human because one of them acquired a nuke and calling god just because we don't deserve to be alive because we recieved a nuke.
How many times do I have to put this exact same example up before you can at least stop strawman my statements?

Not if you explicitly state that murder is only a sin when the children commit it, as God has done in scripture. As I have already pointed out, humans deserve death, so God killing is justice not murder since murder is by definition the unjust killing of an innocent.

because nothing says "love your fellow man" like "everyone deserves to die and god loves us by murdering people".
Please. Holding yourself to a different standard than others is the very definition of a hypocrite.

Huh? Giving up one’s life for someone who did not deserve it is the greatest act of love and mercy I can think of. Read “The Death of Death” and maybe this will clear up for you, but probably not.

Yes. God punished him severely for something neither he himself nor humans in general had control over. God knew that humanity would 'fall' before he created existance and even though he expressly did not want humans to do this and knew before we existed that humans would violate his hypocritical rules before light even existed, he still set up reality in such a way for all of this to happen - knowing full well what the result would be - so who had free will during all of this? What did we do that deserved death according to your beliefs that wasn't a direct result of god's actions and foreknowledge (putting the tree of knowledge in the garden of eden and creating the talking snake that would tempt eve, for example.)
No matter how you justify this, there is no honor in Jesus's death. God punished him over something humans had zero control over for something he knew humanity would do but he instigated it anyway.
This doesn't make his actions against Jesus or humanity loving - it makes them satistic to an extreme beyond even the vilest image humans have of the devil.

So attending church and believing in Satan makes you a believing Christian?

No. Believing in god and the devil makes him not an atheist, which the video expressly indicated that he did.

I can’t think of any better evidence than the person’s own profession of atheism which I have given you.

I didn't just profess to be an atheist. I don't attend church or believe in god or believe in any deity or other faith and I've been consistently doing so for about 17 years now.
Dahmer blamed his problems on, among other things, the devil for years and even during the trial both before and after he made his 'profession.'
As such, I have no real reason to believe that he was actually an atheist and not just doing what you do and blaming bad morality on (and therefore his actions) on atheism.

This is all fine and dandy if Dawkins wants to look at molestation in this sick fashion, but then to turn around and say the Pope should be arrested on “crimes against humanity” for allegedly covering up what he earlier stated to be an “embarrassing but otherwise harmless experience” is downright absurd. Absurdness is what I have learned to expect from DickDawk though.

Aside from a few interesting interviews I've seen on television and youtube, I haven't looked into his work.
Assuming what you are saying is true in regard to what he has written in his book (which is a big assumption considering the fact that you've quoted things out of context before), you seem to have made the assumption that the Pope qualifies as, you say Dawkins wrote, "all pedophiles" in the sense that he states that it is unjust to visit upon all pedophiles with a degree of vengence appropriate to the minority who are also murderers. It seems to say that he's saying that you shouldn't visit upon all pedophiles with the same degree of anger and vitriol as not all cases of pedophilia is the same.
Which would make his response to the pope entirely consistent given that the catholic priest's actions are more reprehensible than others and he cites a particular action to take considering that.

It’s the fact that you say you “chose” to value human life which applies it is an arbitrary choice that someone can either choose or not and there is not an absolute right choice. So if this is indeed the case then you cannot consistently criticize someone else (like a murder) for making a different choice than you. Does that make any more sense? I commend you for valuing human life though.

And why couldn't I? I believe that others should be better people than I view them as being, why shouldn't I be able to convince others to act differently to others than they do? I don't see how this desire of mine is relevant to where my morals came from - whether I would believe they came from a creator or whether or not I believe that it was simply the way I was raised combined with how I figured out my own views for myself.
Especially when others share my view for their own reasons (religiously inspired or not) and a more objective source of conduct (US, State, and local laws) in which to convey this desire.

That’s the study you were talking about this whole time!?

So... the crime rates of religious nations versus the more secular nations along with the very few atheists in prison is all just coincidental, huh? ... if you say so.

I figured you could not prove the leader of the Klan was a YEC, so I guess your whole point was rather silly.

It's ... rather silly of you to assume that because he's not a YEC, it negates all of my points about him entirely considering he's apparently a pasteur of his own congregation and consistently professes his love of god and scripture at his website that I was unfortuante enough to visit.

You never answered my question, in an atheistic world, why is white supremacy morally wrong?

To answer your question, because it promotes gross inequality among humans and has led to immeasurable human suffering.
Your view of "If we're not god's children, then we must be worthless" is entirely irrelevant to Evolution. It doesn't tell you how to live your life or treat others. Evolutionary theory begins and ends with the speciation of life.
Evolution doesn't become a set of moral guidelines just because you feel that being related to all other life on the planet big and small has moral implications.

That’s what morality is!

What determines my morality is how I treat people, not how I tell other people to treat people.

Since God is not a human being, and since Homicide is a broader definition that encompasses murder, we can logically say that God does not murder.

... and I found several defintiions - including ones from your own sources, that disputed you quite evidently and I showed them to you. (technically, since murder is more generally defined as the act of murdering a person, it is the more general definition).
Regardless, there are other general descriptions - killer, for example.
Regardless, God fits the definition of at least one of these but definately several that involve his/her/its sadistics and murderous killer tendancies.

But if my country says it’s ok to kill anyone who is not a white straight male, then why would it be morally wrong? I thought there was no such thing as absolute morality.

It would be morally wrong because it would be the cause of enormous human suffering.
I never made the arguement for or against absolute morality. It would only be relevant if there were absolute enforcement of said absolute morality.
For example, I think Saddam Hussein's treatment of human beings was morally reprehensible and I view it was a good thing that he was apprehended by the US and brought to Justice and executed. I clearly have different standards of morality than Saddam Hussein which is ultimatey why I support his removal from power.

What are you talking about? None of the sources you cited gave any examples of where radiometric dating has successfully dated a rock of known age. So you have no control. The onus is on you to demonstrate that the method works. If you can’t prove it works by dating a rock of observed known age; then I am sorry, I have no scientific basis to believe the method works.

Here:

The oldest rocks on Earth, found in western Greenland, have been dated by four independent radiometric dating methods at 3.7-3.8 billion years. Rocks 3.4-3.6 billion years in age have been found in southern Africa, western Australia, and the Great Lakes region of North America. These oldest rocks are metamorphic rocks but they originated as lava flows and sedimentary rocks. The debris from which the sedimentary rocks formed must have come from even older crustal rocks. The oldest dated minerals (4.0-4.2 billion years) are tiny zircon crystals found in sedimentary rocks in western Australia.

Scientists determined the Earth's age using a technique called radiometric dating. Radiometric dating is based upon the fact that some forms of chemical elements are radioactive, which was discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel and his assistants, Marie and Pierre Curie. The discovery gave scientists a tool for dating rocks that contain radioactive elements.

So there you have it. The first two links cite examples of rocks successfully and consistently dated and included in those quotes was the citation of who discovered the process.