Communism Gaining Ground?

[TonyC]

Those of us who thirst for knowledge and disdain self-delusion are comfortable with evolution. It answers a lot more questions than the Bible does.

Oh really? There's one question that Evolutionism fails to even address. Where did the first matter come from? You know - - men came from apes... amphibians came from fish... fish came from protoplasm... protoplasm came from some primordial ooze.... everything came from something - - but where did the FIRST something come from? Where was the VERY beginning? Evolutionism has no answer. Creationism boldly answers the question - - God created it. Where did God come from, you ask? The Bible answers that, too. He has always been. Kinda boggles the human mind, doesn't it? Do you mean God has existed from infinity? Yepp. Bible says so. Hey, at least it provides an answer. Evolutionism dodges the question. Which takes the larger leap of faith?

Going back to my comments to TonyC: tell me, T.B., if evolution is a sham, why do Right whales initially form in the womb with both teeth and baleen, then lose the teeth as they gestate? If the Bible is accurate, then those whales should be perfectly formed from the moment of conception. The fact is that those fetal tooth-buds are a remnant from a creature farther down the evolutionary chain. The fossilized remains of those creatures (I don't recall the name, but I'll look it up) have been well documented by biologists.

AHH, yes. I almost forgot, since that's on the previous page of posts. I asked you to cite an example of one species giving rise to another. You gave me an example of two whales that live at the same time but have different characteristics. Sorry, but that is not proof of General Evolution. Give me an example that has been observed of one species giving rise to another species. You can't. It has never been observed. The fact that there are similarities and yet distinct differences between 2 types of whales can support the assertion that both were designed by the same creator.

Now, about this embryo thing. Obviously, you have been taught somewhere along the way the theory devised by German biologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, the devoted follower of Charles Darwin, who received most of his fame as a consequence of his popularization of the so-called "theory of embryonic recapitulation." This notion that successive stages of individual embryonic development repeat the evolutionary stages of one's animal ancestry is entirely specious. Harvard evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson wrote in 1957, "It is now firmly establisghed that ontogeny (development of the individual) does not repeat phylogeny (development of the race)."

Despite the fact that Haeckel was proved to be a fraud (he faked evidences, altered drawings, and printed the same embryo plate three times, labeling one a human, one a dog, and one a rabbit to "show their similarity") his works are still offered as "proof" of the accuracy of evolution - - for example, by Isaac Asimov in 1981.

Really, do you believe that YOU as an embryo were complete, and exactly like you are today? Why do you compel God to do that with whales?

But since it's not layed out in Genesis, you are required to ignore such evidence. In fact, you're probably going to tell me that those biologists manufactured all of this to discredit religion.

Go ahead and believe that if it makes you feel better.

I don't have to tell you - - Harvard evolutionists can tell you.

 

[TonyC]

If God is truly infallible, can he create a rock that he cannot lift? Careful how you answer...

There are two problems with your question.

The first is your association of fallibility with powerfulness. Fallibility is the ability to make a mistake. Omnipotence is the quality of having all power, including the powers of creation and lifting. You are correct, though, in associating God with the power to create.

The second fallacy of your question is the preposterous nature of the question. By definition, it is self-contradictory.

Consider this:

> There is an exception to every rule. (I'm sure you're heard that one, right?)

> OK, if there is an exception to every rule, then there must be an exception to THAT rule, that is, there must be a rule to which there is NO exception.

> But, if there's a rule to which there is no exception, then the rule "there's an exception to every rule" must be wrong.

By following the logical lines of reasoning, we have just contradicted ourselves in the statement of an apparently obvious truth. What's apparent to me is that we obviously don't know NEARLY as much as we give ourselves, as humankind, credit for.

Are you in search of truth, or are you trying to trick God?

 

[EOpilot]

On the contrary, we have fossilized footprints of dinosaurs and humans side by side. Amazing how little press they get.

It's gotten plenty of press! I saw that in the Weekly World News. It was right next to the story about the half-bat half-boy.

 

[TonyC]

Or the whole thing is predicated on religious fervor. On misunderstanding.

Suppose your son tells you there's a yellow elephant in his closet because he really believes it's in there. Is he lying?

Suppose the appostle Paul had an epilectic seizure during which God appeared to speak with him, then he writes about it. Is he lying?

The answer is "no" to both questions.

Here's another example...you'll love this: three days after Christ's burial, his followers return to his tomb to find the cover removed and Christ's body gone. This suggested two possibilities:

(1) Somebody stole the body for some unknown purpose, or...
(2) Christ "rose from the dead."

Guess which one they went with.

Now the fact that they guessed wrong (for whatever reason) doesn't make them liars. They're not trying to pull one over on you when they tell their story.

Liars? No. Gullable...?

Let's look at this logically. You know, that thing y'all claim creationists can't appreciate?

In logic, there is a principle called the Law of the Excluded Middle. Simply stated, it is this: a thing must either be, or not be, the case. A line is either straight, or it is not. There is no middle position. This is not being inflexible, irrational, emotional, or stubborn. It is pure logic. Even Spock would appreciate it.

Apllied to the Bible, one can say, then: The Bible is either inspired of God, or it is not inspired of God.

Now, we ought to be able to agree that the Bible CLAIMS to be inspired of God. II Timothy 3:16-17 " All scripture is given by inspiration of God,..." II Peter 1:20-21 " Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. " and I Corinthians 2:12-13 " Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual." document the claim of inspiration.

If the claim is true, the Bible is the inspired word of God. If the claim is false, two options present themselves for consideration. First, it could be the case that the 40+ authors that wrote over a period of 1600 years in 3 languages were all deluded. They were sincere, but they were sincerely wrong.

Second, it might be that they were deceitful. In other words, they knew they were not inspired, and they lied, perpetrating the greatest hoax ever foisted on mankind.

Let's look to the Bible itself for evidence.

Isaiah said that God "sitteth upon the circle of the earth" (Job 40:22) - - Hebrew word for "circle" is khug - indicating a sphere that is round - -as opposed to flat, square, or rectangular. As I'm sure you know, mankind taught that the earth was flat until just a few centuries ago. Was Isaiah inspired, or just lucky?

Job spoke of the "way to the dwelling place of light" and a "place" of darkness. Hebrew derek for way literally means a travelled path or road. (Go back to Genesis 16:7 and 1:9;28:11 for more light/darkness discussion) Sir Isaac Newton first suggested the particle theory of light in the 17th century - - small particles that travel in a straight line. Olaus Roemer proposed the wave theory of light and measured its velocity. Up until then, it was believed that light was transmitted instantaneously. How did Job know that ligth travelled in a path or road? Lucky guess again?

The Psalmist noted that the sun goes forth "from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." For many years scientists taught that the sun was stationary in the universe, and the earth revolved around it. (Before that, they taught the earth was the center, and the sun revolved around the earth.) Then it was discovered that the sun is NOT stationary, but rather travels through space. In fact, it's estimated to be travelling at approximately 600,000 miles per hour, in an orbit that would take 200+ million years to complete. Considering the year, I'd say the psalmist was either an amazing astronomer, or inspired.

With the invention of each new telescope, we find more and more stars - - have they ever been counted? Shoot, you can purchase the right to name a star, and have your name entered in the star registry. We'll never run out of the blame things. Moses and Jeremiah knew (Genesis 15:5, Jeremiah 33:22) LONG before the invention of the telescope, that the stars are simply too many to be numbered. Lucky guess?

Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1:7 wrote that "All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place wither the rivers go, thither they go again." The Mississippi River dumps over 6 million gallons of water into the Gulf of Mexico every SECOND. Where does all that water go? And that's just one river, and not even the largest. Of course, we know that the answer lies in the hydrological cycle. Ecclesiates 11:3 states that "if the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth." Amos 9:6 notes, in speaking of God, that "He ... calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth." The idea of a complete water cycle was not fully understood or fully accepted until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. More than 2000 years earlier, though, the Scriptures clearly indicated a water cycle. Were the writers deluded? Deceitful? Lucky?

Job was asked of God (38:16), "Hast though entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast though walked in the recesses of the deep?" The Hebrew word for "recesses" (or "trenches") refers to that which is "hidden and known only by investigation." In previous centuries, man considered the seashore as nothing but a shallow, sandy extension moving gently from one continent to another. In 1873, scientists on a British ship found a "recess" over 5 miles deep in the Pacific Ocean. In 1960 (a good year, by the way) scientists located a trench 35,840 feet (over 6 miles) deep within the Pacific Ocean. How could the writer of the book of Job have known about these "recesses in the deep" when we did not discover them until millennia later? Just another lucky guess?

I can go on and on with evidences from the fields of physics and medicine and biology, but I think you might get my point by now.

It doesn't take the abandoning of logic and reason to accept the truth of the Bible, and the acceptance of creation as the origin of our being. On the contrary, logic forms a firm foundation of support.

 

[TonyC]

Maybe Typhoon can enlighten us as to the margin of error of carbon dating. In any case, you affirmed my original point for me...



Thanks again for making my point.



Well... almost. Science is a LOGICAL and mathematically PROVEN method to test and verify ideas. I can prove temperature lapse rate is 2 degrees per 1000 feet gain in altitude because I can measure it. Why don't you use science and math to describe creationism. Then maybe, just maybe I will agree that creationism is a theory.

SK

skyking,

Thank you for bringing this subject up again and allowing me to address it separately. You've stumbled upon a great truth, but I'm afraid you still can't identify it.

Yes, you CAN observe a temperature lapse rate. You can take a thermometer and attach it to a balloon and record the temperatures at various altitudes. You can attach the thermometer to an airplane, or a rocket ship. You can drop an instrument from an airplane and observe the temperatures as it falls. You can scale a mountain, or ride an elevator, or climb a tall ladder and make OBSERVATIONS. You can average numerous trials and announce your results. I can devise an experiment, that IF it produced contradictory results, would disprove your assertion. This is all part of the scientific method.

You canNOT, however, observe under any type of conditions, the decay of radioactive elements found in lifeforms over the course of millions or billions of years. No such observation has been, or COULD have been made. To submit as fact the assertion that we know how elements behave over eons of time in controlled conditions is disingenuous. To claim we can predict the results in UNCONTROLLED or UNKNOWN conditions is preposterous.

As I've pointed out in previous posts, Carbon-14 dating is fraught with error, and is not even widely held by scientists of today to be useful in establishing age. Oh, yes, it's still in elementary and high school textbooks. Of course, we all know how accurate THEY are.

 

[TonyC]

...and it won't make a bit of difference because you can always just say "well, God made it that way." That's the beauty of religion: there's no need to understand anything. God is the answer to all questions. Anything else, no matter how rational, is heresy.

I'll make a deal with you. I won't tell you what you can say, and you won't try to put words in my mouth. I think you've already seen that I'm quite capable of forming thoughts, opinions, and conveying the same through the written word. I'll give you that much credit if you can afford me the same courtesy.


Before I retire for the evening, allow me to pose the question again - - who said this?

"Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Originally written by ??????????

 

[Snakum]

Ya know ... when we get down to brass tacks the problem is still this ...

Since our primate brains began to develop to the point that worry and dread became possible, we've been trying to explain mother nature's random acts. "Why did my mate die" "Why did it not rain this year" and so on ... and when we couldn't, we started making up tales that made us more comfortable. Every time and culture had it's own little gods and godesses and special books and rituals and what-not. And every single one of them believed THEIR specific superstitions were THE ONE TRUE SILLY EXPLAINATION and were willing to kill and ide for it.

Nothing's changed. It's 2003 and we're still at it. Trying to explain away life's little bumps, as if they really needed explaining. Now we have a whole new crop nutcases from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism killing each other and everyone believes everyone elses special little book is wrong and theirs is right.

But so far, no one has yet been able to produce an angel or a repeatable miracle any more than they can catch a fart and paint it blue. I can write my own little book and start my own religion and if I mind-f@ck enough folks ... who knows, it might catch on. I won't have to actually have any proof that MY religion is the ONE TRUTH any more than a Greek 2500 years ago needed to actually see Apollo or Zeus, or you guys actually needed to see an old white-haired puppet-master in the sky.

I mean ... it's all kinda silly ain't it? You guys need to read Dr.Barbara Thiering and stop believing in fairy dust and gnomes.



Minh

 

[Timebuilder]

Since our primate brains began to develop to the point that worry and dread became possible, we've been trying to explain mother nature's random acts. "Why did my mate die" "Why did it not rain this year" and so on ... and when we couldn't, we started making up tales that made us more comfortable. Every time and culture had it's own little gods and godesses and special books and rituals and what-not. And every single one of them believed THEIR specific superstitions were THE ONE TRUE SILLY EXPLAINATION and were willing to kill and ide for it.

While people are prone to find explanations in random occurances, this fact does not preclude the existance of one correct explanation that does not come from the mind of humans.

Certainly, this makes it much more dificult for a typical human to pick through the "smorgas board" of religious beliefs. It was for me. For seven years, I hosted a New Age radio show. I've seen them all. After reviewing each one, I trusted Christ. Only His gospel rang true for me.

And apparently, it still rings true for millions.

 

[skyking1976]

There are two problems with your question.

The first is your association of fallibility with powerfulness. Fallibility is the ability to make a mistake. Omnipotence is the quality of having all power, including the powers of creation and lifting. You are correct, though, in associating God with the power to create.

The second fallacy of your question is the preposterous nature of the question. By definition, it is self-contradictory.

You canNOT, however, observe under any type of conditions, the decay of radioactive elements found in lifeforms over the course of millions or billions of years. No such observation has been, or COULD have been made. To submit as fact the assertion that we know how elements behave over eons of time in controlled conditions is disingenuous. To claim we can predict the results in UNCONTROLLED or UNKNOWN conditions is preposterous.

Are you in search of truth, or are you trying to trick God?

First off, yes, my question is loaded. The Bible describes God as both omnipotent and infallible, correct? The question is made to give you a choice. If you answer that yes he can create a rock too big for him to lift, then God is not omnipotent. If you say no, then he is not infallible. The question is 100% valid in my opinion. It is a philosophical arguement like: Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

Oh and here is a link about carbon and other radiometric dating than shows it is more accurate that you would like to admit. True, radioisotopes can't be tracked effectively through millions of years, but the accuracy totally destroys the Bible assumed timeline. By the Bible's standards isn't the earth supposed to be about 4000 years old?

Theory, as it applies to science (not a general definition from webster's, let's use the scientific definition) requires three things.

1) It must be supported by events, processes, or properties that can be observed

2) It must be useful in predicting the outcome of future natural phenomena or laboratory experiments

3) It must be capable of falsification. That is, it must be possible to conceive of some experiment, the failure of which would disprove the theory.

Holy Cr@p!!! We might BOTH be wrong!!!

My line of questioning is to find out the meaning behind your truth. Truth is only defined by perception and I'm just trying to understand yours.

P.S. Sorry to hear of the Fed-Ex accident.

 

[Timebuilder]

The question is made to give you a choice. If you answer that yes he can create a rock too big for him to lift, then God is not omnipotent. If you say no, then he is not infallible. The question is 100% valid in my opinion. It is a philosophical arguement like: Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

It is important to note two things: one, WHY the question was constructed (to attempt to invalidate belief in God), and two, the fact that Man is not sufficiently equipped with a mind that can understand fully why such a question has no answer. The fact that a mere human can ask such a question is in fact irrelevant, just as a human chosing an answer makes no difference to the omnipotence, infallibility, or any other aspect of God.