God: Misinterpreted as an extraterrestrial?

[lucent]

Your entire post consisted of "science cannot explain this", or "the current theory does not fit our observations", now, laying aside the fact that I don't actually trust for one minute that anything even approaching a factual assessment of our knowledge or theories on these matters is actually being offered......at what point would science being wrong about this or that automatically default to your god? When you're asked to show evidence for your claims of gods existence, or of the the bibles innerrancy, provide evidence of god's existence, or the bible's innerrancy. Don't waste a single keystroke providing evidence for why this or that piece of scientific evidence is wrong. We can't both be right, but we can both be wrong. You have to make your own case. It cannot be made by criticizing the theory of another. If any given comet, just to take one example from your linktrash, is not billions of years old, how, exactly, is that proof of anything that is written in the bible? There's a quick answer, it isn't. I'm going to have to side with Chuck here, you have absolutely no idea what science is, or how it is done.

This is why I want you to adhere to a standard of evidence, because you're a dishonest debator. You said Genesis couldn't be true just by the reason of the "mountains of evidence" against it. So, I showed you some evidence which disputes the accounts of evolutionary astronomy. Now you critisize me for that, saying that poking holes in scientific theories doesn't prove anything. But actually it does prove something, that your statement about Genesis being proven conclusively untrue is false. So, you just critisized me for providing the evidence that you asked for. This is intellectually dishonest, and before we continue I want you to tell me what exactly your standard of evidence is, so that when I meet it you can't say it wasn't good enough, or continually shift the goal posts like you're doing here.

Also, science is science. If you want to say creationist scientists are biased then so are evolutionists and everything they say is automatic trash too. If you want to dispute a conclusion, prove its wrong.

And you don't understand what explanatory power means. I don't have to prove God to say the idea of God has explanatory power. Again, the hypothesis explains the cause of the Universe, consciousness, objective morality, origins, and every epistimological, metaphysical and ethical discipline. The existence of God is not in question here, it is only whether the theory fits the facts.

So, in short, "Nu uh" is not an argument. I think it is you who understands little about science; for instance, do you know that science doesn't actually prove anythiing is true? Do you understand that science is founded upon a series of unprovable philosophical assumptions called brute givens that cannot be tested or observed by science? Science does not work without these assumptions, so it relies on that which cannot be empirically proven. Yet, you wave your arms and shout that this is the definitive proof. Your scientism is a religion on its own, and evolution is the metaphysics which justifies it. You have quite a bit of faith for a non-believer.

.

[Epimethean]

One thing science does is prove things wrong, and so far, it shows atheists ahead of theists at every turn.

[Minimalist]

So you insist on talking snakes and world covering floods and then wonder why we think you're a flaming asshole.

[The Grand Nudger]

There was evidence there that suggested that Genesis was an factually accurate description of material creation? Somehow I, and the rest of the thinking world, missed it. Let's just go through Genesis line by line, you go ahead and offer up the evidence you feel supports the narrative, and I'll respond with what we actually do know, and exactly how this conflicts with Genesis. The density of Mercury is not an issue that speaks, in any way, for a literal translation of Genesis as material creation. That you have somehow convinced yourself that it does is astonishing to me. The density of Mercury was a point of data that required an explanation, given our conclusions (mostly from the Hubble, and not to do with Mercury) regarding the formation of planets. An explanation has been offered. It is unsatisfactory to you, but it fits our observations. Now, we may in the future have to modify this explanation. There is no claim of infallibility within the realm of scientific discovery. This will be the last time I explain this to you. That science may be unable to account for, or explain every detail of our universe, in every possible situation, in no way leaves science unable to weigh in on your claim. Genesis is not a factually accurate description of material creation, the origins of life on this planet, or the early history of our species. These statements can and have been demonstrated. Many, many times. What has never been demonstrated, is the claim to the contrary. That's what you need to demonstrate. That's what you need to provide evidence for. That's the only sort of post I'm going to put any effort into responding to going forward.

Notice the long list of references at the bottom of that page? Your gripe is with them, not me. Have at it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_a...of_planets

You misunderstand me, I don't think that creation scientists have a bias. I don't think that they are scientists. To be a scientist, you have to actually engage in a little thing called "the scientific method" which they clearly have not done. If they had, their theories would be in actual scientific journals. They would be contributing to the overall pool of human knowledge. They are not, and they do not. What they do, is invoke a skyhook to compensate for the lack of actual evidence for their theories. Notice that I do not require them to be correct, only to participate. We learn by being shown to be wrong as well (or, at least some of us do). These people have removed themselves from consideration. I had nothing to do with that decision.

"Explanatory power is the ability of a theory to effectively explain the subject matter it pertains to." God, as a theory, has no such ability. I understand that you believe that it does. Unfortunately, it does not. What dimension are you typing from, where the existence of god is not in question? Perhaps you would like to ignore any inconvenience that does not fit with your "well crafted argument, rife with explanatory power", but I'm not interested in capitulating to you, or any other god hawker. You have a burden to meet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_power

Science works. Magic does not. That's what we like to call evidence. You don't have to take my word for this, of course. Feel free to devise your own experiment, or replicate the experiments of others. Check your conclusions against their own. I could direct you to an organization offering a substantial sum of money that would more than compensate you for any experiment you're likely to engage in, were you able to provide evidence for the "supernatural".

(It's cute to see you so quickly retreat into whatever fortress you feel philosophy provides for your absurd beliefs, whats wrong with the battlefield you chose? Grounds not quite what you thought they would be? Providing evidence for a claim is more difficult than arguing for your opinion, isn't it.)

[lucent]

The issue isn't evidence. You and I are both looking at exactly the same evidence. Same Universe, same planet Earth, same history, same archaeology, etc. The difference is how we are each interpreting that evidence. We each have a worldview that comes with certain presuppositions through which the evidence is interpreted. You presuppose naturalism, or perhaps empiricism, while my worldview is based on the bible. Our worldviews are both competing to claim the same evidence, and we have each have our own reasons as to why we think our case is better. So please keep that in mind as we delve into this.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

We could probably spend the entire time just on this verse alone, because it disputes the entire secular account of how the Universe came to be, the origin of life, and everything else that goes with it.

Let's start with the basics. The most widely accepted theory for cosmology is the big bang. The theory postulates that space, time and matter all had a beginning. Now, out of all the religions in the world, the Genesis account is the only one to say that time had a beginning at creation. Therefore, we can rule out every other religion at this point, because none of them matches this basic fact except Genesis. The bible clearly shows that God created the Universe independently of time.

Specifically: in the beginning (time) God created the Heavens (space) and the Earth (matter).

The hebrew words here literally refer to the entire physical cosmos of space time and matter.

Robert Wilson, one of the discoverers of the Cosmic Microwave Background raditation said about the Big Bang: "Certainly there was something that set it all off,,, I can't think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match Genesis"

Now, we know the Universe has a beginning, so that means it had a cause. We can know a few things about this cause.

First, the ultimate cause of the Universe is itself uncaused. This is because you cannot have an infinite regress of causes. There must be an uncaused first cause. This cause must also transcend space and time, because it created them, which means that this cause is immaterial by definition. This cause must be incredibly powerful, because it created all of physical reality, and that from no prior material.

Already you have an eternal, immaterial, all powerful, transcendent cause of the Universe, which is matching up very nicely to Gods attributes. I will take this further but I'll wait for you to respond.

[frankiej]

The difference is how we are each interpreting that evidence.

Yes. Your interpretation is wrong.

[Epimethean]

Well, he does have a sort of point: If I pick up a T-Rex arm bone and whack a paleontologist over the head from it, proclaiming it to be a club, I can be right, even if I have no idea what the bone originally did.

[The Grand Nudger]

I have to keep nothing in mind, I presuppose nothing. I could be convinced that there was something beyond the natural world if only evidence would materialize. My opinions stem from what we are able to demonstrate. Don't imagine for one moment that there is any equality between our worldviews, or how we arrived at them. You may start with the presupposition of god, I did not start with any such presupposition, for or against. I don't even have to encumber myself with the original axioms of scientific endeavour, because the past few hundred years has given me every reason to believe that their assumptions were correct. Science works. I'm not here to give your beliefs even an ounce of respect or deference, I'm here to see you support them with evidence (and only because you claimed that you could). That much should be clear by now.

Firstly, Genesis 1 refutes nothing unless you can provide evidence for it's accuracy. With such a wonderfully prosaic and vague verse you're going to have trouble doing that (short of proving the existence of god himself). Secondly, Christianity is absolutely not the only religion with a creator god, that is blatantly ignorant, just google creator gods and save yourself further embarrassment. I understand you'd love to focus only on this verse, and that's probably because the minute you go any further we drift into lala-land where the narrative has been absolutely destroyed by actual science.

You go from this verse straight to an un-caused cause, the unmoved mover, The Cosmological argument, followed immediately by the Kalam Cosmological Argument (and other variants of the same). Abandoned evidence in favor of arguments so quickly? Well, unfortunately both of these arguments are garbage. Each commits a rap sheet of logical fallacies that reads like a demons resume. As such, we don't have anything at all that matches up with whatever you believe gods attributes to be. The last bit of your post here was just word salad. The universe came from -we don't know-. Again, you're espousing your beliefs, but no evidence, and definitely not giving an accurate representation of "what we know".

"In the beginning" is a nice prologue, but let's see if the actual meat of the story lines up with our observations.

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...l_argument
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Kalam
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...used_cause

Is this going to be the template for our entire conversation btw? Make claims to evidence, provide none, and immediately offer apologetics and philosophy in it's stead? You do realize that I'm thoroughly uninterested right? I going to call massive bullshit if this is the case.

(lol, it is a club Epi, regardless of whatever else it may be)

[Minimalist]

Now, we know the Universe has a beginning, so that means it had a cause.

Horseshit. Where is your evidence for that statement? More specifically, where is your evidence for some all-encompassing "intelligence" which exists outside of space and time which decided 13.7 billion years ago "what the fuck....let's start a universe?"

[lucent]

I have to keep nothing in mind, I presuppose nothing. I could be convinced that there was something beyond the natural world if only evidence would materialize.

What I am trying to explain to you is that the evidence is there, it is the same evidence we are both looking at, it the way you're interpreting that evidence which prevents you from seeing it. It is your worldview that is the problem here, not a lack of evidence.

You may start with the presupposition of god, I did not start with any such presupposition, for or against.

You've started with the presupposition that my God does not exist, as you've stated earlier.

I don't even have to encumber myself with the original axioms of scientific endeavour, because the past few hundred years has given me every reason to believe that their assumptions were correct.
Science works.

Here is another presupposition of yours. I'm not arguing against science. I know science works. Just because it works doesn't mean it is infallable.

Firstly, Genesis 1 refutes nothing unless you can provide evidence for it's accuracy. With such a wonderfully prosaic and vague verse you're going to have trouble doing that (short of proving the existence of god himself).

Again, I don't know if you're new to debating, but that's what I am doing. One way we can demonstrate its accuracy is to see if it matches up to the basic facts of the big bang, which it does. Time space and matter are all finite and had a beginning. Genesis matches up to that perfectly.

Secondly, Christianity is absolutely not the only religion with a creator god, that is blatantly ignorant, just google creator gods and save yourself further embarrassment.

I never said there aren't any other creator gods. If you actually read what I said you'll find that I stated that Genesis is the only account which says God created independently of time. All other creation accounts say that God created within time. Thus it is the only one that matches up to the evidence.

I understand you'd love to focus only on this verse, and that's probably because the minute you go any further we drift into lala-land where the narrative has been absolutely destroyed by actual science.

It doesn't matter to me how long we spend on it, but from here we could go to basically every contention that we have.

You go from this verse straight to an un-caused cause, the unmoved mover, The Cosmological argument, followed immediately by the Kalam Cosmological Argument (and other variants of the same). Abandoned evidence in favor of arguments so quickly

Let's get this straight right now..are you saying that there is no such thing as logical truth?

Well, unfortunately both of these arguments are garbage. Each commits a rap sheet of logical fallacies that reads like a demons resume. As such, we don't have anything at all that matches up with whatever you believe gods attributes to be. The last bit of your post here was just word salad. The universe came from -we don't know-. Again, you're espousing your beliefs, but no evidence, and definitely not giving an accurate representation of "what we know".

Using the internet as your brain isn't going to cut it. Saying "you're wrong, and we don't know" isn't an argument. How about you give logical reasons as to why what I am saying isn't true? Are you saying the Universe doesn't have a cause? Are you saying that cause can't be as I described? Are you saying it isn't logically necessary for there to be a first cause? How about you state what your position actually is.

I have to keep nothing in mind, I presuppose nothing. I could be convinced that there was something beyond the natural world if only evidence would materialize. My opinions stem from what we are able to demonstrate. Don't imagine for one moment that there is any equality between our worldviews, or how we arrived at them. You may start with the presupposition of god, I did not start with any such presupposition, for or against. I don't even have to encumber myself with the original axioms of scientific endeavour, because the past few hundred years has given me every reason to believe that their assumptions were correct. Science works. I'm not here to give your beliefs even an ounce of respect or deference, I'm here to see you support them with evidence (and only because you claimed that you could). That much should be clear by now.

Firstly, Genesis 1 refutes nothing unless you can provide evidence for it's accuracy. With such a wonderfully prosaic and vague verse you're going to have trouble doing that (short of proving the existence of god himself). Secondly, Christianity is absolutely not the only religion with a creator god, that is blatantly ignorant, just google creator gods and save yourself further embarrassment. I understand you'd love to focus only on this verse, and that's probably because the minute you go any further we drift into lala-land where the narrative has been absolutely destroyed by actual science.

You go from this verse straight to an un-caused cause, the unmoved mover, The Cosmological argument, followed immediately by the Kalam Cosmological Argument (and other variants of the same). Abandoned evidence in favor of arguments so quickly? Well, unfortunately both of these arguments are garbage. Each commits a rap sheet of logical fallacies that reads like a demons resume. As such, we don't have anything at all that matches up with whatever you believe gods attributes to be. The last bit of your post here was just word salad. The universe came from -we don't know-. Again, you're espousing your beliefs, but no evidence, and definitely not giving an accurate representation of "what we know".

"In the beginning" is a nice prologue, but let's see if the actual meat of the story lines up with our observations.

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...l_argument
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Kalam
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...used_cause

Is this going to be the template for our entire conversation btw? Make claims to evidence, provide none, and immediately offer apologetics and philosophy in it's stead? You do realize that I'm thoroughly uninterested right? I going to call massive bullshit if this is the case.

(lol, it is a club Epi, regardless of whatever else it may be)