One question for Christians

[Statler Waldorf]

Offense is taken, not given, though I will admit that I like to ruffle feathers a bit. If you feel like I'm compromising this guy's genius status, then maybe I am. Besides, all you've proven to me is that he's good at writing articles, and he is really damn good at chess. As far as subscribing to something that may or may not be true...that doesn't sound very smart to me.

A person doesn’t get published in the most prestigious scientific journal in the world at the age of 22 by merely being “good at writing articles”. He’s an excellent scientist.

And yes, he’s a beast on the chess board



I’ve actually emailed him a few articles to look at in the past and he’s always been really gracious and helpful in his replies.

A man built his house out of straw for stability, but the wind still blew it down. I could have a stable deck of cards, but a breath of air can topple it.

Not sure what your point is, the dimensions for the ark are consistent with an extremely stable vessel. This isn’t like the Gilgamesh story where the boat is a cube.

You don't have to like it, but the point I'm making is that it's all conjecture....so yes, it's a point.

As is asserting the story isn’t feasible, if you’re allowed to make conjectures about how much poop would have been aboard the ark then I am allowed to make conjectures about how a person could deal with the poop. Fair is fair.

So what's "more than enough time" mean? How many years are we talking about? Ballpark.

We can infer from scripture that Noah had between 55 and 75 years to build the Ark depending upon how old his sons were when he began construction.

Don't twist my words! Of course Isaak has to speculate on what the conditions had to be like for the flood to have occurred, but those aren't the reasons why he doesn't believe the flood. He's providing other ways of looking at things in order to think critically about an outrageous claim like saying the Noah's Ark story is true.

And Sarfati has demonstrated the claim is not really that outrageous, the Ark account in Genesis is very feasible thanks to advancements in our understanding of plate tectonics and speciation through Natural Selection. The more we learn the more feasible the story becomes.

What I'm saying that he doesn't speculate about are the things that Isaak does believe in. As for wasting everyone's time, it all depends on what you consider a waste. I suppose if he got you to read his arguments, don't you think he probably thinks of that as a win, even if he didn't convince you?

Why would he present arguments that were already refuted in the very book he is supposed to be countering? That’s just downright sloppy scholarship.

I never claimed to know. I'm definitely saying that we can't know this for a fact. We can't know any of this for a fact. We have to trust a 2000 year old text, and that's why I don't believe in it. Why don't we trust the "Epic of Gilgamesh"?

I do trust portions of the Epic of Gilgamesh; it’s obviously a corrupted account of a real event, namely the flood in Genesis. Cultures all around the world have stories of a great flood; the best explanation for this is that a great flood did occur at some point in time. Did you know that the Mandarin Chinese character for “Boat” is a compilation of three other symbols? These symbols are, “vessel”, “eight”, “people”. Eight people aboard a vessel sounds familiar.

Asserting they went without meat is not a valid claim either, because you have no proof that that's what they did. What kept the animals higher up on the food chain from instinctually going after their natural prey?

What kept them from eating Noah's family?

The same thing that made them come to the ark on their own. All creatures are subordinate to their creator.

Actually, they are. The definition clearly states that arguments are started for the purpose of persuading:

You’re confounding two different points, the purpose behind presenting arguments is to persuade, but arguments are not deemed sound or unsound based upon whether they persuade or not. Many people are persuaded by logically invalid arguments and many people are not persuaded by logically sound arguments. Given your logic you’d have to argue that Christianity is true because it’s the most persuasive religion in the world. I am saying that does not prove Christianity is true.

The idea of "families" in regards to the biblical "kinds" is an interesting premise. In science, families include both animals and plants. Noah took care of all the kinds/families of animals, but what about the plants that could not survive under water?

Noah was only instructed to bring animals aboard the ark that breathed through nostrils, so no plants or arthropods were taken aboard the ark. Plants that can’t survive under water would have perished, but these plants would have returned after the flood because their seeds would have survived the flood. Interesting question though.

How did the olive tree survive?

It didn’t, the leaf the dove brought back would have been from a new olive tree that had begun to grow after the flood waters had begun to recede. The flood waters began to recede at around 7 months, the dove returned with the leaf at nearly 12 months (11th month, 25th day).

Is there a clear definition given in the bible as to what "kind" is?

Just that all animals reproduce according to their kind, so two animals that cannot reproduce would be different Biblical kinds; which places it near what we would call “Families” today.

What did it look like inside the ark?

500ftx75ftx50ft (1,875,000 cubic feet) in dimensions. Three interior decks (Gen 6:16), stalls for the animals (Gen 6:14).

Maybe there's space for the animals, but what about all the space for the food? Could this food have lasted for a year give or take? If it did, how did they do it?

There would have been more than enough space in a vessel of those dimensions, that’s a huge structure. Most plants, dried meat, and grains can last over a year; I do not see that being an issue.

How did they condition the wood of the ark not to decay?

Scripture says the wood was treated with tar, and a common practice for ships of that time period was to bury the wood for a period of time to strengthen it.

By your calculations, the family had at best 3 hours of sleep per person each day for over a year. Is that correct?

I meant to say 15 animals per hour, good catch. I gave them 8 hours of sleep (which is probably more than is required for adults). 2,000 animals/8 people/16 hours a day = 15 animals per hour, but that’s only if all animals need daily attention, which many do not. It could easily be done with proper organization and planning.

How old was each family member?

We’re not told how old Noah’s daughters in law were but Noah was 600, and his sons were between 50 and 104. This does not mean they looked like one hundred year olds look today, people lived much longer then so their lifespans would have been proportionally similar to ours, Noah would have looked middle aged (he had his first son when he was 500), and his sons much younger.

What was the ratio of men to women?

Noah, Noah’s wife, Noah’s three sons, and Noah’s three daughters in law.

Did the animals breed?

We’re not told either way, obviously they would have had to once getting off of the ark, I would suspect the shorter lived animals such as mice and rats would have also bred while on the ark.

Did any die?

Yes, the female unicorn died. Well some of the clean animals were most likely brought on as food, but none of the paired animals who didn’t breed would have died while on the ark.

That's not what I asked. His actual existence aside, I asked why you can't believe that Hercules accomplished these labours of his? Why is it easier to believe in the Noah's Ark story?

I am not familiar enough with the labors of Hercules to answer that question.

This concept was conceived in the 18th century, and even modern geologists don't hold as strictly to it as they used to.

Yes, because it’s inconsistent, but without adhering to that principle you’d never arrive at an old age for the Earth; so they’ve held onto the conclusions but have tossed out the method that gave them those conclusions.

And that's why geologists dismiss it. They are forced to factor in meteors hitting the earth, global ice ages, etc.

Meteors hitting the earth and having a global ice age are not mutually exclusive with a global flood, creationists believe in an ice age.

Why does this conclude a global flood? There are sediments all over the globe, but there are reasonable explanations how they got there, and it didn't have to be at the same time.

You have two options, either millions of small local floods buried animals so suddenly that we find them even in the process of giving birth and eating other animals (and these animals couldn’t just avoid these local floods), or it was all a single cataclysmic event. The uniform nature of the sedimentary rock all over the Earth seems to indicate a single event at one point in time.

How can you be certain that these sediments settled merely 4000 years ago all at once? How do you know that it was sudden?

We know it was sudden because of the fossils we find in such layers, animals are often buried in the middle of an act, indicating they were buried alive. Bent but unbroken layers of strata also indicate that these layers were all laid down at once, and were morphed while they were still soft. Polystratic structures that span through thousands of layers of strata also indicate the layers were laid down suddenly. The evidence is totally consistent with evidence we find during catastrophic events such as the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption and subsequent flooding.

Assuming that they're right in the first place is fallacious. Why is this mode of thinking looked down upon? Do we not assume innocence until proven guilty?

That’s not what I am saying, I am saying that you are using these assumptions in order to interpret the evidence, and that’s begging the question because if the Bible were true those interpretations would be false; so they cannot be used to argue against the Bible.

No, you're proposing that I chase after a strawman. All I needed to do was describe gravity and its properties, not show you the engine it runs on. Why are you trying to bait me into chasing you down a rabbit hole?

Because I know that in a purely natural and material conceptual scheme you cannot explain such things. You cannot explain what causes anything to happen, and you cannot justify your assumption of future uniformity in Nature. These things make perfect sense if God exists, they make no sense if all that exists is matter.

I'm not at all suggesting that the venture was/is wrong; you did.

17th Century scientific understandings of the Universe were not wrong? I bet you’d have trouble finding a single one that is still accepted today.

By this bit of reasoning that you hold to science, how do you trust in the Bible then? Were the translations of the Bible in the past wrong since new translations are always coming out?

The newer translations are based upon earlier manuscripts, and no there is very little difference between the KJV and the ESV.

Me: You can't justify what you don't know. For all we can tell god created a giant firefly in the sky to light the world for that day.
SW: Sure, but that would still give us days without the Sun, so what’s your point?

Uh oh! I hope you’re not being dishonest here. In Post # 336 you did not bold “You can’t justify what you don’t know.” And it is still that way now, you can see for yourself I took a screen shot…

I'm going to lose my free will and be forced to worship him?

I never said you had free will. You’re not freely choosing not to worship Him now.

My hypothetical is a hypothetical. Hypotheticals create situations that may or may not ever be real. This particular hypothetical was definitely a bit of a no win situation. I really appreciate the fact that you are more moral than your god.

You lost me. More moral than God? That doesn’t make any sense.

Yes.

Why?

You're right. I should watch what I say or She bears might jump out from hiding in the woods and maul me.

Yup.

Can you leave out the special knowledge? I want to know why it's easier to defend monotheism than polytheism. How is it impossible to know anything in a polytheistic world? Why wouldn't the many gods make themselves or their plans known as the one Yahweh supposedly has?

Sure, because in a polytheistic Universe you’ve opened up the possibility of logical contradictions. If logical contradictions can exist we lose our ability to know anything at all. Not only this, but we’d lose the ability to do science because there is no longer a guarantee of future uniformity in scientific laws with multiple gods existing and capable of altering these laws.

Perhaps it's a perversion, but how do you know that? How do you know their claims to being the original Church of Christ are not true? For that matter, how do you know that Islam isn't true?

As I already pointed out, it’s no longer a logically cogent and consistent view of reality.

Speaking of eternal progression, they actually can explain where it came from: their prophet Joseph Smith revealed it to them. Was Joseph Smith a false prophet?

That’s not what I am asking, I am asking where the actual law of eternal progression came from, not who told them about it. You have a system of millions of gods, all of them have their own creation they govern over but why must they follow this one law? Who created that law? Another god? One who is supreme over all other gods? It’s a logically absurd system obviously created by a logically absurd human mind.

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Being an atheist means that one does not believe in a god, whether it's intentionally or ignorantly. A baby is the latter: they do not have any beliefs in a deity, so they are atheists, or non-theists, if you will.

That’s not the philosophically accepted definition of the term atheism.

“Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief”- Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

You can say babies are non-theistic, but they are also non-atheistic. Given your incorrect definition the dog turd I saw on the sidewalk today would be an atheist. It’s a philosophical position adopted by philosophical minds.

What does atheism being a fringe idea have anything to do with a belief in god being more or less valid?

You tell me, you’re the one who keeps on claiming that ordinary claims require less evidence. I am merely identifying the ordinary claim for you.

For the record, I do not claim "God does not exists". I simply do not believe in claims about deities. No claim, just rejection of claims.

Well you claim to be an atheist, and not merely a non-theist.

Irrelevant.

I thought it was relevant.

You don't make the rules, and neither do I. Wikipedia: Philosophic Burden of Proof

Neither does a user-generated website.

You can disbelieve all you want, but things that demonstrably exist, such as Buddhism, must be recognized as real (no belief or faith necessary). Atheism and agnosticism are real, and since they have no tenets, there is nothing to disbelieve, since they are merely statements of disbelief themselves.

No, atheism is the position affirming that there are no gods, so since I am the one who disbelieves that claim the burden is now on you to prove it. You see what a mess you’ve made?

SW, I've posed a ton of questions to you in this last post. I would greatly appreciate it if you answered them. I do my best to answer your questions, and I'm positive you can do the same for me. I do enjoy this debate; I hope you know that.

I think I answered them. I am sure I will hear about it if I missed something. I enjoy the debate as well my friend, I am glad you were more civil this time around. Kudos.

Affirming the consequent. You seem to be confused about horses and carts...and the order in which they should be described.

Really? I am interested now, what is my consequent? Without a logical syllogism I’d love to know how you claim to know what I am using as my antecedent and what I am using as my consequent.

P1 If secularists assume scripture is wrong in order to argue scripture is wrong, then they are begging the question.
P2 Secularists assume scripture is wrong in order to argue scripture is wrong
C1 Therefore, secularists are begging the question

That’s actually called “affirming the antecedent”, this lesson in logic was free Mr. Sailor.