Evidence God Exists: Part II

[AngelThMan]

You're making fun of my text, and implying I lack education, and made the quip that my high school wants my diplomat back. And yet you don't know what the word exclusive means, which I bolded so that people didn't miss it. All the examples you give above are of species that use elements of nature, but not exclusively. Meaning no other species uses that same element of nature.

Uh, yeah, I do know what "exclusive" means.

And yet you gave examples of bats using caves, and bugs living under rocks. Neither caves nor rocks are exclusively used by those or any species. Had I made an equivalent error, atheists would have been all over me. But all you got was praise. Tavachildish applauded you for supposedly "dismantling" my text.

And, as I pointed out, man does not EXCLUSIVELY use fire. There are certain plants that need fire to reproduce. Or did you not read that in my earlier post?

I sure did. But this is reaching. Certain plants thrive in situations where there is fire. But these are fires started by man or nature. There are no plants or animals that can start or cultivate fire at will.

So "God" gave us water?

[quote='Thor']So you believe that your loving deity gave us water. Then answer this... did your "loving" deity also give us plague, malaria, influenza, smallpox, diptheria, tuberculosis, internal parasites, ticks, mosquitos, lice and poisonous snakes?

Neither God, nor the bible, nor any theologian has ever claimed that the world God created for us here is perfect. The claim is that heaven is perfect. Our world is not heaven.

It's funny how atheists can use the examples you just gave as signs there's no God, and yet I'm not afforded the same consideration when I use equivalent examples that point towards intelligent design.

Have you ever seen anyone try to put out a burning oil well with water? IT DOESN'T WORK!

Oil and grease fires happen as a result of man-made situations. The elements of oil and grease are added by humans. So of course the rules are modified, and other means need to be employed to extinguish these fires. That's like saying apples taste good, and someone else saying, "Have you ever eaten an apple with vinegar on it? It doesn't taste so good."

Fire, in its basic form, which is how God provided it to us, is best controlled by water. And with such fire, smoke is a built-in warning system. House and building fires involve man-made elements, starting with the house and the building.

What usually kills people in a fire? IT'S NOT THE FIRE! It is smoke inhalation!

You and others have been jumping thousands and even millions of years ahead and assuming I meant structural fires in civilized environments. My example is of fire in its basic form, as it was provided to us.

...or situations in which people have been trapped or foolishly remained indoors too long, etc.

"Foolishly remained indoors"? Like when they're SLEEPING?

I did include the words "trapped" and "etc." in my sentence. But of course to discredit me you need to make it sound like I meant that people only remain indoors foolishly. This is a very immature way of debating.

People do sometimes remain indoors foolishly. They've been known to hide in closets, under the bed, etc. In London, there was a restaurant fire, and though the establishment started filling up with smoke, everyone stayed in the restaurant because they were too embarrassed to stand up and leave. They all died of smoke inhalation. So you see, my statement was accurate. There are people who foolishly stay indoors during a fire.

[quote='Thor']And did these face masks drop out of the sky? What does this have to do with my point?

You described man-made scenarios (oil and grease fires), so I was adding masks and survival techniques, also man-made.

You also have to consider that not all the medicinal benefits of plants and herbs have been discovered.

...But why doesn't your loving deity simply tell us what plants will cure what diseases? Why do we have to take many years of research to develop something that he could point out to us in a second?...

Because we're not in heaven. Things are not perfect. People, including Christians, must experience trials and tribulations while in this world. Christ himself was poor and died violently. So the examples you've been using to try to invalidate God are meaningless.

But you're missing the point. There's no reason, for the survival of its species, for bananas to evolutionarily develop a powerful antioxidant in its skin which has health benefits and is curative to man.

There's no reason why shrimp should be so delicious when eaten by man. You think "God" made them specifically for us to eat?

Not a good analogy, and here's why: If a believer used the taste of shrimp as a sign of intelligent design, atheists would immediately counter it by saying our palate was develop through years of evolution.

But, as you know, it has taken plants and animals millions of years to evolve into what they are today. Which means the banana started developing an antioxidant which helps prevent and treat certain diseases that didn't even exist way back then (eg. cancer). As an evolutionary mechanism, why did the banana develop this antioxidant?

...That's the problem with atheists. They want to know everything right now, despite the fact we've been told and it has been written that certain mysteries will be revealed to us later.

Oh, gee.... you mean I'll find out after I'm dead?

You just might. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one.)

[Thor]

And yet you gave examples of bats using caves, and bugs living under rocks. Neither caves nor rocks are exclusively used by those or any species.

What about the hydrothermal vents? (I notice you conveniently ignored this example of mine). There are certain creatures that live in the vicinity of deep sea hydrothermal vents. Areas that are toxic to other life forms. Did some "intelligent designer" provide hydrothermal vents for these creatures? Or did these creatures evolve and adapt to live near hydrothermal vents?

And, as I pointed out, man does not EXCLUSIVELY use fire. There are certain plants that need fire to reproduce. Or did you not read that in my earlier post?

I sure did. But this is reaching. Certain plants thrive in situations where there is fire. But these are fires started by man or nature. There are no plants or animals that can start or cultivate fire at will.

So it matters HOW the fire got started? Seems to me that you are the one who is reaching. Some plants use fire to reproduce. This shoots down your contention that man is the only species that uses fire.

So you believe that your loving deity gave us water. Then answer this... did your "loving" deity also give us plague, malaria, influenza, smallpox, diptheria, tuberculosis, internal parasites, ticks, mosquitos, lice and poisonous snakes?

Neither God, nor the bible, nor any theologian has ever claimed that the world God created for us here is perfect. The claim is that heaven is perfect. Our world is not heaven.

Where did I say that the world should be perfect? (Although, you would think a perfect being would create a perfect world for his creations...) This is a copout used by creationists to rationalize away realities like killer microbes and poisonous plants. YOU claim that some intelligent being provided water so that we could control fire (never mind that we need the stuff to live...). I pointed out numerous things that make our lives miserable, harm us and kill us. Why would a being that loves us unleash such horrors among us? Would you put your child into a room full of poisonous snakes?

It's funny how atheists can use the examples you just gave as signs there's no God, and yet I'm not afforded the same consideration when I use equivalent examples that point towards intelligent design.

You can use whatever examples you want. We will then laugh at them and present counter-examples which demonstrate the "intelligent design" concept to be a crock. Such as the things I listed above.

Have you ever seen anyone try to put out a burning oil well with water? IT DOESN'T WORK!

Oil and grease fires happen as a result of man-made situations. The elements of oil and grease are added by humans.

So there has NEVER been an underground oil seepage that has been ignited by lightning?

So of course the rules are modified, and other means need to be employed to extinguish these fires.

So your deity has "different rules" depending on how the fire came about?

HONK! HONK! HONK!

There goes my rationalization meter again...

That's like saying apples taste good, and someone else saying, "Have you ever eaten an apple with vinegar on it? It doesn't taste so good."

This makes no sense whatsoever...

Fire, in its basic form, which is how God provided it to us,

I say that fire was provided to us by the Keebler elves so we can bake yummy cookies. And I have just as much evidence for that claim as you have for yours.

is best controlled by water.

No, fire is BEST controlled by denying it oxygen. That puts it out immediately and with the least amount of damage. If your house was on fire, which would you rather have the fire department do? Pump thousands of gallons of water on and in your house? Or immediately shut off the fire's oxygen supply?

And with such fire, smoke is a built-in warning system.

Still insisting that your retarded deity gave us a "warning system" that kills thousands of people every year, huh?

House and building fires involve man-made elements, starting with the house and the building.

And what does this have to do with anything?

What usually kills people in a fire? IT'S NOT THE FIRE! It is smoke inhalation!

You and others have been jumping thousands and even millions of years ahead and assuming I meant structural fires in civilized environments. My example is of fire in its basic form, as it was provided to us.

So this "warning system" worked great thousands of years ago, but not so much in a modern environment? Then why didn't this genius of a "designer" change the properties of fire so that it would be less likely to kill us as civilization developed? I would think that by now we should have FIRE version 3.6 (or something similar).

...or situations in which people have been trapped or foolishly remained indoors too long, etc.

"Foolishly remained indoors"? Like when they're SLEEPING?

I did include the words "trapped" and "etc." in my sentence. But of course to discredit me you need to make it sound like I meant that people only remain indoors foolishly.

I don't need to twist your words to discredit you. The mere suggestion that smoke is a "warning system" given to us by some "intelligent designer" discredits you without any input from me. This most brilliant of beings couldn't come up with a better fire alarm than the emission of toxic gases?

People do sometimes remain indoors foolishly.

And this is obviously an offense that merits the death penalty....

They've been known to hide in closets, under the bed, etc. In London, there was a restaurant fire, and though the establishment started filling up with smoke, everyone stayed in the restaurant because they were too embarrassed to stand up and leave. They all died of smoke inhalation. So you see, my statement was accurate. There are people who foolishly stay indoors during a fire.

And yet, this does nothing to further your contention that fire was provided to us by some superintelligent being.

You described man-made scenarios (oil and grease fires), so I was adding masks and survival techniques, also man-made.

I see... So your argument makes sense only in the scenario of an oil or grease fire....

...But why doesn't your loving deity simply tell us what plants will cure what diseases? Why do we have to take many years of research to develop something that he could point out to us in a second?...

Because we're not in heaven. Things are not perfect.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

People, including Christians, must experience trials and tribulations while in this world.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

Christ himself was poor and died violently.

There is no evidence that "Jesus" ever lived.

So the examples you've been using to try to invalidate God are meaningless.

To someone who has been thoroughly indoctrinated to this crap, nothing will "invalidate God". Just as, hundreds of years ago, nothing could convince people that witches didn't exist.

There's no reason why shrimp should be so delicious when eaten by man. You think "God" made them specifically for us to eat?

Not a good analogy, and here's why: If a believer used the taste of shrimp as a sign of intelligent design, atheists would immediately counter it by saying our palate was develop through years of evolution.

What? Our palate developed a taste for shrimp through EVOLUTION? That would indeed be a ridiculous argument.

But, as you know, it has taken plants and animals millions of years to evolve into what they are today.

The banana (and many other plants) has been selectively cultivated to appear as it does today in the space of just a few hundred years.

Which means the banana started developing an antioxidant which helps prevent and treat certain diseases that didn't even exist way back then (eg. cancer).

If the disease didn't exist "way back then", what would be the point in having a plant with the capacity to prevent or cure it?

As an evolutionary mechanism, why did the banana develop this antioxidant?

I have no idea. (And neither do you.) But I do know that it had nothing to do with an invisible man living in the sky.

...That's the problem with atheists. They want to know everything right now, despite the fact we've been told and it has been written that certain mysteries will be revealed to us later.

Oh, gee.... you mean I'll find out after I'm dead?

You just might. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one.)

But most likely I won't.

[AngelThMan]

...There are certain creatures that live in the vicinity of deep sea hydrothermal vents. Areas that are toxic to other life forms. Did some "intelligent designer" provide hydrothermal vents for these creatures? Or did these creatures evolve and adapt to live near hydrothermal vents?...

This is reaching, brought to you by Google/Wikepedia. Your argument is starting to sound like the kiddie arguments I got in my first thread, where my claim that man is the only sapient and sentient animal was countered with painting elephants and chimpanzees which have been in space. This is a very immature line of debate, and I won't continue. Here's an excerpt from what I was forced to write in that thread...

---

It has been very frustrating trying to get people here to talk about the real subject. When I make the claim that humans are the superior and most intelligent species, all I get is discussions about dolphins, fangs, and bacteria. I'm obviously dealing with very young people here, because their arguments remind me a little bit of kindergarten. Like when a teacher says something like, "Dogs like to eat bones." And a student raises their hand and says, "But my dog eats Alpo!" The teacher explains, "Yes, some of them like Alpo too, but as an instinct they gravitate towards bones." Another tiny student raises their hand and says, "But wait, my neighbor's dog loves to eat hot dogs." The teacher grabs their forehead and says, "Yikes!"

---

I sure did. But this is reaching. Certain plants thrive in situations where there is fire. But these are fires started by man or nature. There are no plants or animals that can start or cultivate fire at will.

So it matters HOW the fire got started? Seems to me that you are the one who is reaching. Some plants use fire to reproduce. This shoots down your contention that man is the only species that uses fire...

Of course it matters how the fire got started. A more mature debater would have understood that when I wrote that only man uses fire, the word 'uses' is an umbrella term for starting, manipulating, employing, etc. But your answer was semantics-based, and I won't entertain this line of immature debating from here on out.

So you believe that your loving deity gave us water. Then answer this... did your "loving" deity also give us plague, malaria, influenza, smallpox, diptheria, tuberculosis, internal parasites, ticks, mosquitos, lice and poisonous snakes?

Neither God, nor the bible, nor any theologian has ever claimed that the world God created for us here is perfect. The claim is that heaven is perfect. Our world is not heaven.

Where did I say that the world should be perfect?

You implied it by pointing to all these horrible things that exist to challenge the existence of God.

(Although, you would think a perfect being would create a perfect world for his creations...)

See what I mean?

Based on what you would do, or how you think, this world would be perfect if a perfect being created it. But this is very simple-minded atheist thinking, and God is much more complex than that.

...YOU claim that some intelligent being provided water so that we could control fire (never mind that we need the stuff to live...).

I never said that water was only provided to use to control fire. I even pointed out in one of my replies to you that water has many uses. Since I drink water every day, why would I think that the only purpose water serves is to control fire? Again, very immature arguing on your part.

What I said was that there's someone behind the rules by which fire, smoke and water relate to one another.

I pointed out numerous things that make our lives miserable, harm us and kill us. Why would a being that loves us unleash such horrors among us? Would you put your child into a room full of poisonous snakes?

There might be a reason why all those horrible things you mentioned exist. It has been said that all life on this earth serves a purpose. So who knows why all those things you mentioned were either created or allowed to develop in this world? The answer is too complicated to try to simplify it in atheist terms.

Have you ever seen anyone try to put out a burning oil well with water? IT DOESN'T WORK!

It has been very frustrating trying to get people here to talk about the real subject. When I make the claim that humans are the superior and most intelligent species, all I get is discussions about dolphins, fangs, and bacteria. I'm obviously dealing with very young people here, because their arguments remind me a little bit of kindergarten. Like when a teacher says something like, "Dogs like to eat bones." And a student raises their hand and says, "But my dog eats Alpo!" The teacher explains, "Yes, some of them like Alpo too, but as an instinct they gravitate towards bones." Another tiny student raises their hand and says, "But wait, my neighbor's dog loves to eat hot dogs." The teacher grabs their forehead and says, "Yikes!"[/hide]

So of course the rules are modified, and other means need to be employed to extinguish these fires.

So your deity has "different rules" depending on how the fire came about?

No. Oil and fire are two different elements. When man mixes them together, a different monster is created. I was trying to illustrate fire by itself, not fire as strengthened by oil. You can take any element and mix it with another, and something new is created.

That's like saying apples taste good, and someone else saying, "Have you ever eaten an apple with vinegar on it? It doesn't taste so good."

This makes no sense whatsoever...

Maybe you're not bright enough to understand what I meant. Apples are one element (as is fire), but when you add another element (vinegar representing oil or grease), then it becomes something else.

Fire, in its basic form, which is how God provided it to us, is best controlled by water.

No, fire is BEST controlled by denying it oxygen. That puts it out immediately and with the least amount of damage. If your house was on fire, which would you rather have the fire department do? Pump thousands of gallons of water on and in your house? Or immediately shut off the fire's oxygen supply?

Last I checked, they do pump thousands of gallons of water when a house in on fire. How are they going to deny an entire house of oxygen? By putting a giant cup over it, killing all the flames, and any survivors inside while they're at it?

What usually kills people in a fire? IT'S NOT THE FIRE! It is smoke inhalation!

You and others have been jumping thousands and even millions of years ahead and assuming I meant structural fires in civilized environments. My example is of fire in its basic form, as it was provided to us.

So this "warning system" worked great thousands of years ago, but not so much in a modern environment? Then why didn't this genius of a "designer" change the properties of fire so that it would be less likely to kill us as civilization developed? I would think that by now we should have FIRE version 3.6 (or something similar).

You're limited to thinking that fire is just what you see on your stove, and what you see in destructive modern-day fires. But fire is still used in its more primitive form all throughout the world, including civilized societies like ours. I know I have experienced many situations in the past, as I'm sure you have, where I detected that something was burning because of the smoke I smelled. That smell gave me time to act, and find out what the cause was, or escape to safety.

People do sometimes remain indoors foolishly.

And this is obviously an offense that merits the death penalty....

Is jumping off a bridge an offense that merits the death penalty? It's never a good thing to play with fire (pun intended).

Christ himself was poor and died violently.

There is no evidence that "Jesus" ever lived.

Here you missed the point entirely. My point was that even if you don't believe Jesus existed, you can't challenge a faith by pointing to terrible things, when the faith's main figure himself was described as suffering those terrible things as well. If the bible and the teachers of the faith painted Christ as a being that lived here with immune privileges, then your argument would make more sense. Whether Christ really lived or not is irrelevant to this argument.

...which means the banana started developing an antioxidant which helps prevent and treat certain diseases that didn't even exist way back then (eg. cancer).

If the disease didn't exist "way back then", what would be the point in having a plant with the capacity to prevent or cure it?

The point is that God knew back then that cancer, etc. would come to exist, and he designed for the banana to develop its powerful antioxidant.

[quote=Thor Wrote:I have no idea. (And neither do you.) But I do know that it had nothing to do with an invisible man living in the sky.

That's your answer? You have no idea? Your Wikepedia/Google button malfunctioned?

Then you admit it is a difficult thing to explain by evolution alone. Even if you don't believe in God, could it at least show a sign of intelligent design?

[downbeatplumb]

Whether Christ really lived or not is irrelevant.

At last some sense.

[Welsh cake]

Neither God, nor the bible, nor any theologian has ever claimed that the world God created for us here is perfect. The claim is that heaven is perfect. Our world is not heaven.

Are we talking about the same heaven where a whole war broke out? Where a third of the residents are fallen and lost forever? The one where Satan was once perfect but fell from grace? This doesn't sound like perfection, nope, but another iteration of the same tired-old-marred creation your incompetent bumbling god-concept is often reputed for.

You just might. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one.)

When you're dead, you're dead, so no, you'll never find anything out.

Please prove "god" while we're alive if that's not too much trouble.

[Regens Küchl]

Hi, Guys

Did you all know that this Troll, AngelThman started a similar thread over at atheistforums com, but was banned after a short while for his obviously trolling behavior ?

http://www.atheistforums.com/evidence-go...20059.html

AngelThman

Beware

Be very very ware

I am the feared Regens Küchl .

I am a Hunter of Internet Missionarys . You escaped me over there, cause of your fast banning but now I catched up to you.

I will not let you turn one single soul to Christianity . I will sabotage your work everwhere .

I fought the famous Angelo many times, and I studied the Geisterangelo closely, and even crossed swords recently with Parture . (Other Christian Trolls are they) .

Here in this thread at talkrational forum Parture is right now teaching his false beliefs on the Abrahamitic God
http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=28635&page=29

Parture is also this guy, Troy Brooks (Nr. 36 in the list of american loons)
http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2010/0...rooks.html

Check it out . He is like a second AngelThman .

[Paul the Human]

Ha! Now that was funny!

[Thor]

[quote='Thor']...There are certain creatures that live in the vicinity of deep sea hydrothermal vents. Areas that are toxic to other life forms. Did some "intelligent designer" provide hydrothermal vents for these creatures? Or did these creatures evolve and adapt to live near hydrothermal vents?...

This is reaching, brought to you by Google/Wikepedia.

Actually, I learned about these creatures from watching a nature program on television. But what difference does it make where I learned about this? Unless, of course, my information is faulty. But I notice you're not making that claim.

Your argument is starting to sound like the kiddie arguments I got in my first thread, where my claim that man is the only sapient and sentient animal was countered with painting elephants and chimpanzees which have been in space.

Yeah, your argument that we're the only "sapient" animal does nothing as far as supporting your "intelligent design" argument. And I noticed that you didn't answer my question concerning the hydrothermal vents....

This is a very immature line of debate, and I won't continue.

What the hell is "immature" here? YOU proclaimed that man is the only species that uses "an element of nature" (fire). I countered with the fact that every species uses some sort of element of nature. You then dismissed my point because you claimed that man is the only species that EXCLUSIVELY uses an element of nature. I then pointed out creatures that live in the deep sea and use hydrothermal vents to survive (a point which you don't bother to address). How is this "immature"?

I sure did. But this is reaching. Certain plants thrive in situations where there is fire. But these are fires started by man or nature. There are no plants or animals that can start or cultivate fire at will.

So it matters HOW the fire got started? Seems to me that you are the one who is reaching. Some plants use fire to reproduce. This shoots down your contention that man is the only species that uses fire...

Of course it matters how the fire got started. A more mature debater would have understood that when I wrote that only man uses fire, the word 'uses' is an umbrella term for starting, manipulating, employing, etc.

Isn't a plant that relies on fire to reproduce "using" fire? What about a caveman who cooked his food over a fire that was started by a lightning strike? By your definition, he isn't "using" fire because he didn't start it! Seems to me that you're trying to move the goalposts.

But your answer was semantics-based, and I won't entertain this line of immature debating from here on out.

My answer was based on the definition of "use". Use: "the act or practice of employing something". I guess you expect me to read your mind and determine what you REALLY mean. And, by the way, the terms, "starting" and "manipulating" do not appear anywhere in the dictionary's definition of the word "use".

Where did I say that the world should be perfect?

You implied it by pointing to all these horrible things that exist to challenge the existence of God.

I was not implying the world should be perfect. Far from it. The world makes perfect sense when you take the notion of a "loving, all powerful" deity out of the equation. Why would anything in nature be "perfect"? You obviously missed my point. I was trying to demonstrate that things like killer microbes, poisonous mushrooms and disease-spreading insects are inconsistent with the notion of a deity who is all powerful and loves us. But I see that is lost on you.

Based on what you would do, or how you think, this world would be perfect if a perfect being created it. But this is very simple-minded atheist thinking, and God is much more complex than that.

Gee... he's so "complex" as to allow horrors among us like elephantisis? Tumors that grow out of control and destroy people's faces? Spina bifida? Cerebral palsy? Severe allergic reactions? Worms that eat our insides? Babies being born with their heart outside their body? Diseases that destroy people's minds like Alzheimer's? I can go on and on.... If you believe in a "loving, all-powerful" deity who would allow things like this to afflict people that he supposedly loves, then you believe in a contradiction. THAT seems like "simple-minded thinking" to me.

What I said was that there's someone behind the rules by which fire, smoke and water relate to one another.

And what evidence do you have to support this absurd statement?

I pointed out numerous things that make our lives miserable, harm us and kill us. Why would a being that loves us unleash such horrors among us? Would you put your child into a room full of poisonous snakes?

There might be a reason why all those horrible things you mentioned exist.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

There goes my rationalization meter again!

It has been said that all life on this earth serves a purpose.

"It has been said"? By whom? Other creationists desperately looking for a way to explain their way out of a difficult conundrum? This is one of the creationist platitudes that really bug me. If this bullshit is true, please explain the "purpose" of Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein, and the parasite that causes river blindness.

So who knows why all those things you mentioned were either created or allowed to develop in this world?

I can tell you why all those things came about and were allowed to develop. Evolution and natural selection. What's your answer?

The answer is too complicated to try to simplify it in atheist terms.

Not at all. I just explained it to you. Perhaps the answer is too complicated to simplify it in terms a believer will understand.

So there has NEVER been an underground oil seepage that has been ignited by lightning?.

---

It has been very frustrating trying to get people here to talk about the real subject. When I make the claim that humans are the superior and most intelligent species, all I get is discussions about dolphins, fangs, and bacteria. I'm obviously dealing with very young people here, because their arguments remind me a little bit of kindergarten. Like when a teacher says something like, "Dogs like to eat bones." And a student raises their hand and says, "But my dog eats Alpo!" The teacher explains, "Yes, some of them like Alpo too, but as an instinct they gravitate towards bones." Another tiny student raises their hand and says, "But wait, my neighbor's dog loves to eat hot dogs." The teacher grabs their forehead and says, "Yikes!"

---

You say "oil and grease fires" are "manmade". I point out how this is not always true. Your response to this is a non sequitor.

That's like saying apples taste good, and someone else saying, "Have you ever eaten an apple with vinegar on it? It doesn't taste so good."

This makes no sense whatsoever...

Maybe you're not bright enough to understand what I meant. Apples are one element (as is fire), but when you add another element (vinegar representing oil or grease), then it becomes something else.

Maybe you're not bright enough to make a good analogy. Adding vinegar to an apple gives you a vinegar flavored apple. It does not become "something else". Now if you had said adding eggs to flour and then baking it gives you "something else" I would agree. Also, a fire is a fire. It doesn't matter what is burning. A fire is a rapid oxidation of material. The material that is burning doesn't change the simple fact that you have a fire. The only difference the material makes is that it determines the method you should use if you're trying to extinguish it.

Fire, in its basic form, which is how God provided it to us, is best controlled by water.

No, fire is BEST controlled by denying it oxygen. That puts it out immediately and with the least amount of damage. If your house was on fire, which would you rather have the fire department do? Pump thousands of gallons of water on and in your house? Or immediately shut off the fire's oxygen supply?

Last I checked, they do pump thousands of gallons of water when a house in on fire. How are they going to deny an entire how of oxygen?

I don't know. I figure your incredibly brilliant deity could have provided us with some method for doing this.

By putting a giant cup over it, killing all the flames, and any survivors inside while they're at it?

Again, your super-intelligent deity could have certainly figured out some way for us to do this. And anyone inside the structure wouldn't need to worry. The fire will be extinguished if it is denied oxygen for just a few seconds. People can last without oxygen much longer than that!

So this "warning system" worked great thousands of years ago, but not so much in a modern environment? Then why didn't this genius of a "designer" change the properties of fire so that it would be less likely to kill us as civilization developed? I would think that by now we should have FIRE version 3.6 (or something similar).

You're limited to thinking that fire is just what you see on your stove, and what you see in destructive modern-day fires. But fire is still used in its more primitive form all throughout the world, including civilized societies like ours.

And your deity couldn't change the properties of fire so that it works in the modern world and less developed areas without smoke killing people?

I know I have experienced many situations in the past, as I'm sure you have, where I detected that something was burning because of the smoke I smelled. That smell gave me time to act, and find out what the cause was, or escape to safety.

Great. You got away. Many thousands every year aren't as fortunate because they die of .... get ready for it.... SMOKE INHALATION! And this number includes many firefighters! Like I said, your briliiant deity couldn't create smoke without making it deadly?

AngelThMan Wrote:
People do sometimes remain indoors foolishly.

And this is obviously an offense that merits the death penalty....

Is jumping off a bridge an offense that merits the death penalty? It's never a good thing to play with fire (pun intended).

Wow. That is just such a horrible analogy that I don't think I even need to rip it apart.

Christ himself was poor and died violently.

There is no evidence that "Jesus" ever lived.

Here you missed the point entirely. My point was that even if you don't believe Jesus existed, you can't challenge a faith by pointing to terrible things, when the faith's main figure himself was described as suffering those terrible things as well. If the bible and the teachers of the faith painted Christ as a being that lived here with immune privileges, then your argument would make more sense. Whether Christ really lived or not is irrelevant to this argument.

It doesn't matter if "Jesus" really lived? I think it matters a WHOLE LOT! If Jesus never lived everything you've written here goes down the crapper.

The point is that God knew back then that cancer, etc. would come to exist, and he designed for the banana to develop its powerful antioxidant.

Then why didn't he just design a fruit that would cure cancer instantly when you ate it? Once again, you are simply making unsubstantiated claims.

I have no idea. (And neither do you.) But I do know that it had nothing to do with an invisible man living in the sky.

That's your answer? You have no idea? Your Wikepedia/Google button malfunctioned?

Yeah, I tried Googling "Why did the banana develop an antioxidant?" and came up empty. You see, unlike believers, atheists will say, "I don't know". We don't try to fill gaps in knowledge with "Goddidit!".

Then you admit it is a difficult thing to explain by evolution alone.

No, I just don't know why the banana developed this particular antioxidant. Just like I don't know why oak trees drop their seeds in acorns and not in some sort of fruit.

Even if you don't believe in God, could it at least show a sign of intelligent design?

If what you believe is true, then try explaining why many plants have compounds that are harmful and even deadly to us. Are the poisonous leaves of the oleander plant the result of "intelligent design"? If not, why not? You want to give "God" credit for the antioxidants in the skin of the banana. In that case, your deity must also be responsible for deadly things like hemlock, nightshade and moonseeds. After all, he's either responsible for all of it, or none of it. If he "intelligently designed" the banana to have some sort of antioxidant, then he also "intelligently designed" certain berries to be deadly if we consume them. But if these deadly plants were not "intelligently designed", then neither was the banana skin.

So which is it?

[ABierman1986]

Yay! I love these! *cracking fingers over keyboard* here we go again;

...I think the existence of the universe itself is evidence of the existence of God...

I’m not one of those Christians who think every single thing we see around us necessarily points towards the existence of God. However, there are certain things which definitely posses a quality of intelligent design. Besides what I’ve mentioned in my threads, here are some other examples…

Fire: Fire is crucial to man, and only man uses fire. It has been essential for the development of our species. I challenge anyone to name any other species that exclusively uses an element of nature.

The fact that water destroys fire is another clue. While fire is so destructive, it was so instrumental to man that we had no choice but to utilize it. But we needed a way to control it. Water is such a way. It is a gentle, everyday mineral, and yet it so easily extinguishes such a destructive force of nature. Can you think of any other ‘everyday’ mineral which can easily destroy or put out another force of nature? (I’m not talking about scientific inventions or discoveries, which are only accessible to those who created them. I’m talking about ‘everyday’ minerals ubiquitous on this earth, accessible to everyone).

Only man uses fire....well in what sense do you mean use? Forests and plant life use fire to replenish themselves and cleanse out older growth to make room for new. Do you mean humans are the only species to create fire and are creative in our purpose of it? This argument is no proof of anything other than human intelligence and innovation. What is an element of nature? "Fire, Earth, Air, Water"? The periodic table?

An everday mineral just as effective at snuffing fires.....earth? Ever buried a fire and had it come back? What about air, or lack of it, without oxygen have you ever seen a fire burn? So basically every ubiquitous "element" will kill fire as easily as water if applied appropriately. You seem quite smug for me to be able to write this in under 2 minutes.

Smoke: Again, fire has been a necessity for the survival of man, and yet it is so dangerous and destructive. Without smoke fire would creep up and destroy people and their resources. The fact that there is smoke, and the pungent smell of smoke, shows that we were intelligently provided with fire as a tool, though there’s a built in mechanism meant to be a warning system.

There's a mind behind the set of rules by which fire, smoke and water relate to one another.

Intelligently delivered smoke is a better explanation than carbon degradation to particle form that is then kicked up by air currents due to intense heat and combustion reactions between the carbon and oxygen? The pungent smell? Wouldn't evolution of olfactory sensory inputs to detect when smoke is in the air be an easier explanation? There is a relationship between how the elements work together, but man you seem to believe this is relevant to anything.

lalalalala, continuing on....

Medicinal Plants and Herbs: There is a plant or herb pretty much for every ailment out there. Some medicines today are still manufactured using plants or herbs, at least in part. Banana skins alone have a powerful antioxidant and strong healing benefits. Looking at this from an angle open to intelligent design, you can see how someone might be looking out for us.

Jet Stream: The jet stream is a complex maze in the ocean. Heat essential to life is distributed through this stream throughout the earth. The complexity and accuracy of the jet stream is indication of intelligent design.

Bananas: If you observe how apes and certain natives and people peel bananas, you will have a clearer understanding of the following. Bananas have a handle at one end, which is how most people peel bananas. However, peeling it this way can sometimes mush the banana at that end and can be awkward. But if you peel the banana by pressing on the opposite tip and peeling from that end, you’ll end up with a perfect banana. There’s no reason for the banana’s survival as a species to have developed such a tip. It looks like someone out there has provided a means to easily peel the world’s most popular fruit without mangling the inside.

Coconut: This fruit has a hard shell. But each coconut has three circular indentations, resembling the holes of a bowling ball, which have softer textures. Have we been provided a way to get to the juice of this fruit, which has a hard outer shell?

Guitar calluses: I play guitar, and I was thinking about the calluses one develops on the fingers after playing for a while. For those of you who are not musicians, when a person first plays guitar, the strings hurt the fingers. But after a few weeks, guitarists develop calluses on the tips of their fingers, which protect their fingers from the strings, and it no longer hurts to play. Calluses on feet hurt when you press or walk on them. And yet the calluses on your guitar fingers have just the opposite effect. Is someone out there enabling us to play an instrument?

Medicinal Plants and Herbs; Animals use plants in the same way humans do, evolution is a perfect explanation for why plants would have beneficial effects, or harmful, on humans. You glorify bananas, but have you ever eaten a poisonous mushroom? Pick and choose from this and that and WOW, you have a BS argument! congrats.

Jet Stream; Someone has never compared geological formations with heat distribution centers that occur based on sunlight interaction with the flow of currents. Certainly they are complex! But not impossible to understand, a recent article in Science did a wonderful discussion on new discoveries that explain some of our model discrepancies. Why pick the jetstream man, you could have confused a lot more people if you had said something like the clotting process or organic decomposition!

Bananas: Seriously? We have to do this? There's no argument here, you think the banana fits our capacity well so it must be designed that way.....what about all the stuff that doesn't? Green tea is a pain in the ass to make from scratch but its just as healthy. And to focus on the banana specifically, well have you seen the way the bunches form on the trees? It's elegant, layered, protected, available, fruit is how plants spread seeds a lot of the time so its logical to be appealing and beneficial.

Coconuts: Hard shell, three holes, liquid inside is an argument for design? Ever tried to break through those three holes by yourself? A tool is necessary, so its not that the coconut is designed for us, we designed tools for it.

Guitar Calluses: No one knows their biochemistry anymore! Calluses are the result of a combination of clotting, skin growth, and hormone delivery to prevent nerve growth. All of which make sense in our physiological feedback system. And calluses don't hurt when you walk on them, but they may make your feet not fit in your shoes as well. If your calluses hurt then you should see a doctor.

These are just a few examples. They are things that when I gave it some thought I said "Wow, there's someone behind this work."

Atheists love to point to things such as world starvation, and the death of the innocent, using these examples to demonstrate there’s no God. I’m employing the same principles in reverse, by pointing to things that have the quality of intelligent design.

Atheists that argue that the bad things in the world demonstrate no god first of all, don't speak for all of us, and second, may be directing their arguments at the concept of a loving God. These aren't principles, just educated vocabulary and a smug attitude to shut down the disagreement.

---

Also, just a taste of how animals also use fire, though they can't create it:

"In fact, as with plants, some take advantage of the flames. They actively hunt along their perimeter searching for snakes, insects, or larger creatures moving ahead of the flaming front. Some beetles possess infrared-seeking organs that help direct them to smoldering stumps and logs, where they will feed and nest.

In places for which fire is a major force, animals accommodate themselves to the kind of landscape that fire creates, and they may suffer if that habitat changes from fire's exclusion. Here, too, they can become active agents themselves in shaping those landscapes by their grazing, browsing, and hunting habits, each of which determines what kind of fuel is available for burning."

Full article: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fire/plants.html

[tavarish]

Jolly good pwning, lads.

I won't comment on much, just this:

"The point is that God knew back then that cancer, etc. would come to exist, and he designed for the banana to develop its powerful antioxidant."


That's equivalent to me designing a car that will, one day, have the very likely possibility to leak oil all over the driveway for no apparent reason. Knowing this, I put a 20% off coupon for motor oil in the glovebox.

Perfect design!