No trust in Creation...no trust in Genesis....no trust in Scriptures...

[superdave5221]

1. If you always beg the question, you will always eventually reach a point in which we do presuppose. Always, whether it comes to science, religion, or philosophy. How do we know that all the experiments we have ever performed were not the result of a computer program and we're all just coding inside a computer with only the perception of consciousness? But, if you want to specify the very "point" in which scientists do presuppose, please point it out. I'll gladly explain how throwing out that presupposition would also require us to throw out ALL science, not just the theory of evolution.

2. Epistemology is a broad philosophy with varying different branches. If you conclude, through epistemology, that knowledge can only be obtained from a creator, then you're merely accepting one particular branch. To act like epistemology only comes to a single conclusion is to reveal your own misunderstandings of the subject.



This statement would work if something I said actually simplified to this argument. But nothing I said does simplify to this argument. You're merely misrepresenting my position.



Actually, a basic understanding of both science and logical fallacies is the reason the evidence is seen as flawed. Creationist "proofs" aren't theories. They generally can't even be considered hypothesis!

Starting with first principles that are self evident is not "begging the question". To deny self evident first principles is to form an infinite regress in which nothing can be known. First principles are the basis for all the conclusions drawn in any area of knowledge, whether in science or philosophy.

All you have to do is look in the beginning of any biology book and you will see that all non-naturalistic theories are rejected beforehand. It should be known as a fact that evolutionary scientists have rejected supernaturalism as a matter of fact. It is also rejected by many historians. This is a presupposition, and if it is one that is false, than those conclusions which are drawn on it may be false as well.

I am not concluding that knowledge can only be obtained directly from a Creator, for He has given us a mind, reason and logic, and observational abilities to use in the pursuit of knowledge. But it stands to reason that those things that God has revealed to us directly, are in themselves self evident, and is therefore the best starting point for obtaining truth.

 

[jag1977]

So you're suggesting what?

That Noah took 3-30 million pairs of animals onto his ark?

If you argue that Noah took only certain "kinds" of animals and argue that they evolved through micro-evolution, then how many pairs of animals did he take on the ark with him? Then, explain to me how only 2 "wolf kind" evolved into about 36 species of "Canidae" in about what? 3 to 4 thousand years?

There's plenty of evidence for the evolution of numerous species. We do have intermediate species. But there will always be "gaps" in the same way you will always have gaps in photos of your father or mother. You might have a picture of you father as a baby, a picture of him when he was 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 80 years old. You can probably recognize him in these pictures as you view his progression through his life. But if someone argues "How do you know that picture of him when he was 30 is the same as when he was 50? To prove it, you need a pick of him when he was 31, 32, 33, 34, etc. etc. etc." And, even if you take a picture of someone every single year of their life, you can still find more gaps. This is an analogy of what you're demanding from scientists. We have fossils of species and we can figure out where they are within a specie's timeline. But you then want more intermediate fossils. We find them, then you say there are still gaps. There will literally always be gaps - but we can still use what we do have to draw a firmer conclusion.



Complexity doesn't necessarily equate to survivability. It's common for more complex organisms to find themselves in an environment where they can't thrive, while simpler organisms continue to thrive due to either an unchanging environment or an environment they adapt to. You clearly don't understand how evolution works. : |

Slow down there is a little more going on there than just PAIRS. God commanded Noah to take pairs, the Lord commanded Noah to take spirits 7 clean and unclean also.

 

[Elin]

Might the reason for your distrust of evolutionary theory be because you believed in the literal 6 day creation in the first place? It stands to reason that if you actively deny something the first time you're presented with it, regardless of evidence, it will never be viable for you. This is actually a well known defence mechanism.

Perhaps you think that if evolution is true then the bible is false and that scares you? The reality is, Tintin, that evolutionary theory and faith don't have to contradict one another. Many scientists who believe in evolution are Christian. Many would often cite the biblical verse
'a day is like an age to God' and that would explain the fact that scientific analysis of life on Earth shows it to be older than 6,000 years.

Except for that part in Ge about "evening and morning" every day for six days.

"Ages" are not described in this manner in the Scriptures.

The Biblical verse 'there is no God' can also be cited as an authority for the truth of anti-theism.

The above are not only misunderstandings of the verses in their contexts,
but also are misapplications of them.

 

[Timeline]

No. My factual , evidence based conclusion is that something's size (a dinosaur) does not mean it's more complex than something smaller. And if intermediary species aren't here to you now, it's because we have conscious viewing of current life. They won't be intermediary on a looking-back basis until humans see them a few million years from now when their ancestors are quite different. Every species is constantly intermediary, because everything changes eventually.

Right now, humans mutate. We are developing, other species are developing. We group animals into certain groups because they are similar. The fact that species are all similar to one another doesn't disprove evolution on the grounds that they're too similar. We would expect similar species to evolve from similar species.

The fact that vastly differing life-forms exist doesn't disprove evolution either. We would expect original life-forms to exist as long as the conditions necessary for their existence continue. An amoeba splits, mutates, the mutated amoeba reproduces thus we have two slightly different amoeba. Bot continue to reproduce so we have thousands of 'units' of each type. Some of those mutate and reproduce so we now have thousands of three types. Eventually one gets an evolutionary advantage. Sometimes the mutations don't give evolutionary advantages so a type dies out.

Cancer is an evolutionary disadvantage in humans, just like the sickle cell illness. But the sickle cell gene, if passed on by one parent, has a 50% chance of making the child immune to malaria.

Cancer is an evolutionary disadvantageous mutation. Sickle cell is advantageous in reproduction.

Evolution happens.

And yet evolution itself claims that men came from apes. And apes are still here because they continued to mate with non-superior apes (paraphrase) and men are here because some of the apes mated with superior apes - and over time evolved into men "in groups". So where are the other stages? The apes survived, but not the intermediary stages between apes and men. There should be multiple stages of said groups that survived. And even if they died for some reason there would be huge numbers of fossils. Not only from ape to man, but all of those 3 millions species and their intermediary counterparts.

The evolution theory was based on the observation of similar characteristics between different species. But it neglects the fact that there are huge numbers of intermediary species and fossils that never existed.

 

[Esanta]

Except for that part in Ge about "evening and morning" every day for six days.

"Ages" are not described in this manner in the Scriptures.

The Biblical verse 'there is no God' can also be cited as an authority for the truth of anti-theism.

The above are not only misunderstandings of the verses in their contexts,
but also are misapplications of them.

Iff a day is like an age to God, then when is a day not like an age to God? When it's a day? Well, when is a day a day and not an age? What better time for a day to be like an age than during the creation of everything that exists?

By the way, how can a morning and evening exist when there is no sun, stars or moon until the 4th day?

 

[Tintin]

So you're suggesting what?

That Noah took 3-30 million pairs of animals onto his ark?

If you argue that Noah took only certain "kinds" of animals and argue that they evolved through micro-evolution, then how many pairs of animals did he take on the ark with him? Then, explain to me how only 2 "wolf kind" evolved into about 36 species of "Canidae" in about what? 3 to 4 thousand years?

There's plenty of evidence for the evolution of numerous species. We do have intermediate species. But there will always be "gaps" in the same way you will always have gaps in photos of your father or mother. You might have a picture of you father as a baby, a picture of him when he was 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 80 years old. You can probably recognize him in these pictures as you view his progression through his life. But if someone argues "How do you know that picture of him when he was 30 is the same as when he was 50? To prove it, you need a pick of him when he was 31, 32, 33, 34, etc. etc. etc." And, even if you take a picture of someone every single year of their life, you can still find more gaps. This is an analogy of what you're demanding from scientists. We have fossils of species and we can figure out where they are within a specie's timeline. But you then want more intermediate fossils. We find them, then you say there are still gaps. There will literally always be gaps - but we can still use what we do have to draw a firmer conclusion.



Complexity doesn't necessarily equate to survivability. It's common for more complex organisms to find themselves in an environment where they can't thrive, while simpler organisms continue to thrive due to either an unchanging environment or an environment they adapt to. You clearly don't understand how evolution works. : |

Yawn. All of these types of questions have been answered on biblical creation ministry websites. You just didn't bother looking. You present a straw-man to knock down. First of all, speciation is different to evolution. Secondly, speciation involves a loss of DNA information, never a gain in information. Thirdly, kinds are very different to species, so your estimation of the number of animals is widely inaccurate. There would need to be little more than 8,000 kinds (16,000 individual creatures) + the sacrificial animals. The ark was huge and the average size of any creature on board would've been smaller than a sheep, perhaps as big as a large rat. It's very doable.

You want to talk about gaps of knowledge? Let's talk about the ghost lineages of evolution. There's no evidence for evolutionary links, it's just clever storytelling on part of the scientists. It's all a farce. It's embarrassing that most of the world believes such things are true.

 

[jag1977]

And yet evolution itself claims that men came from apes. And apes are still here because they continued to mate with non-superior apes (paraphrase) and men are here because some of the apes mated with superior apes - and over time evolved into men "in groups". So where are the other stages? The apes survived, but not the intermediary stages between apes and men. There should be multiple stages of said groups that survived. And even if they died for some reason there would be huge numbers of fossils. Not only from ape to man, but all of those 3 millions species and their intermediary counterparts.

The evolution theory was based on the observation of similar characteristics between different species. But it neglects the fact that there are huge numbers of intermediary species and fossils that never existed.

So there is no other way of learning except for sight? We should be very thankful we have eyes otherwise we would know nothing.

 

[Esanta]

And yet evolution itself claims that men came from apes. And apes are still here because they continued to mate with non-superior apes (paraphrase) and men are here because some of the apes mated with superior apes - and over time evolved into men "in groups". So where are the other stages? The apes survived, but not the intermediary stages between apes and men. There should be multiple stages of said groups that survived. And even if they died for some reason there would be huge numbers of fossils. Not only from ape to man, but all of those 3 millions species and their intermediary counterparts.

The evolution theory was based on the observation of similar characteristics between different species. But it neglects the fact that there are huge numbers of intermediary species and fossils that never existed.

What are you talking about? WE are the group that survived, because we evolved big fat brains to be able to do stuff other animals couldn't. WE are the group that killed the rest of the intermediary ape to human species.

And their fossils do exist.

 

[Elin]

I've always known that from conscious thought and its effects is where every problem humanity face arises. Every person cognates uniquely, so, one Christian person will come to particular conclusions about the meaning within a piece of scripture where another may come to different conclusions. Which, by itself is not necessarily an issue. But the frequency of propagation that my spiritual conclusions are the only possible spiritual conclusions seems to directly correlate to frequency of controversy.

For instance, you said 'you believe God is never wrong' and I immediately thought it would have been more accurate if you'd said 'you believe your interpretation of the bible is never wrong'.

Which does not alter that he believes 'God is never wrong.'

And now I'm correcting your cognitive process. Ironic.

Food for thought.

Now you are interpreting his cognitive process to fit your cognitive process.

Insight for truth.

 

[Tintin]

What are you talking about? WE are the group that survived, because we evolved big fat brains to be able to do stuff other animals couldn't. WE are the group that killed the rest of the intermediary species.

And their fossils do exist.

Haha! Oh, boy. Evidence points to ancient man being more intelligent etc. than we are now, not the other way around. We're degrading as a human species. There are far more DNA mutations now than there were in the past and that's bringing our bodies to ruin.

 

[Esanta]

Which does not alter that he believes 'God is never wrong.'


Now you are interpreting his cognitive process to fit your cognitive process.

Insight for truth.

You clearly don't understand the point, but he did.

 

[Esanta]

Haha! Oh, boy. Evidence points to ancient man being more intelligent etc. than we are now, not the other way around. We're degrading as a human species. There are far more DNA mutations now than there were in the past and that's bringing our bodies to ruin.

That literally disproves nothing.

Why do you say 'they were more intelligent than us' as though it equates to 'they would have killed us if we existed together'. Intelligence isn't the ability to kill. Intelligence should be the ability to feel some shame and sadness because homo-sapiens are generally ruthless to this planet and we killed our ancestors.

But you laugh about it.

 

[Percepi]

That's simply not true. I just don't see what's so enticing about always searching and learning but never having any answers.

You're assuming we never have answers. We do have answers. And we're always open to the idea that our answers might be wrong, or partially wrong. We demand evidence though.

If truth really is relative, why pursue knowledge or anything?

Truth is only relative in the way in which the word is used. It may be absolute. It depends on what you refer to as truth. It's absolute truth that 2+2=4 because it follows the criteria of math in the same way it's truth that a Pawn can not jump pieces in chess. It's also true that I have never eaten a shoe, though I couldn't ever actually prove that truth (this truth only exists in an abstract form).

Evolution is true because it's been verified by evidence. And if it's ever proven that evolution isn't true (which would be nearly impossible at this point), then what we thought to be true was wrong. Our perception of the truth was incorrect.

So a better question to ask is, "If you can't ever know anything for sure, why bother knowing anything at all?" The answer is simple. Because the world isn't black and white. Some things are more right than others, without being entirely right. Other things may be more wrong than others without being entirely wrong. How wrong or right we have to be depends on the situation, but relative correctness works. And the more we use science, the more accurate we become.

The sooner Christians stop compromising and start believing the foundations of the Bible, being the book of Genesis and that it's literal history, the sooner non-Christians can see the Bible is consistent and that it can be trusted.

A literal interpretation of the Bible is less consistent with reality than a metaphorical interpretation. Trust me, Christians who begin to doubt the literal interpretation of the Bible are far more likely to accept a metaphorical interpretation than they are to lose their faith all together. If creationism became as solid a premise for being a Christian than accepting Jesus as the Lord and Savior, then you'll start losing even the metaphorical interpreters.

As for being consistent as a means of convincing non-believers creationism is true, that's unlikely. Those who are skeptical of religion won't find the Christian's universal literal interpretation to be any more convincing. In fact, it would make the idea of the Bible LESS convincing.

 

[jag1977]

There is no biological evolution without the spirit evolving first and calling for the genetic change. All other mutation is disease.

 

[Tintin]

That literally disproves nothing.

Either does your railing against the Bible. God's Word still stands, unharmed.

 

[Timeline]

So you're suggesting what?

That Noah took 3-30 million pairs of animals onto his ark?

If you argue that Noah took only certain "kinds" of animals and argue that they evolved through micro-evolution, then how many pairs of animals did he take on the ark with him? Then, explain to me how only 2 "wolf kind" evolved into about 36 species of "Canidae" in about what? 3 to 4 thousand years?

There's plenty of evidence for the evolution of numerous species. We do have intermediate species. But there will always be "gaps" in the same way you will always have gaps in photos of your father or mother. You might have a picture of you father as a baby, a picture of him when he was 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 80 years old. You can probably recognize him in these pictures as you view his progression through his life. But if someone argues "How do you know that picture of him when he was 30 is the same as when he was 50? To prove it, you need a pick of him when he was 31, 32, 33, 34, etc. etc. etc." And, even if you take a picture of someone every single year of their life, you can still find more gaps. This is an analogy of what you're demanding from scientists. We have fossils of species and we can figure out where they are within a specie's timeline. But you then want more intermediate fossils. We find them, then you say there are still gaps. There will literally always be gaps - but we can still use what we do have to draw a firmer conclusion.



Complexity doesn't necessarily equate to survivability. It's common for more complex organisms to find themselves in an environment where they can't thrive, while simpler organisms continue to thrive due to either an unchanging environment or an environment they adapt to. You clearly don't understand how evolution works. : |

Well, science itself also claims that animals that are similar enough can mate creating a new species that can reproduce. We have never denied this. But animals that are not close enough will not conceive. Mules come from breeding horses with donkeys (I've been told that two mules can't reproduce - I don't know if that's true). I have also heard that the Liger cannot reproduce either. And the bible does not tell us how many animals were on the ark. But we do know that it was huge. Besides you have heard of miracles, right - like feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish.

As far as your picture analogy. These are not pictures, but trillions of "missing" fossils. You have a bigger problem than I do, because I believe in an all powerful God.

 

[Bowman]

The sooner Christians stop compromising and start believing the foundations of the Bible, being the book of Genesis and that it's literal history, the sooner non-Christians can see the Bible is consistent and that it can be trusted. Also, they can see that it does have the answers to their objections and that the Christian faith can be well-reasoned and biblically-sound. The old earth understanding can't be supported by the Bible.

As a better understanding of the record of nature continues to march forward, and even more Biblical exegesis is performed, then the YEC roadblock will go the way of the flat-earth society.

 

[Percepi]

Haha! Oh, boy. Evidence points to ancient man being more intelligent etc. than we are now, not the other way around. We're degrading as a human species. There are far more DNA mutations now than there were in the past and that's bringing our bodies to ruin.

1. First of all, you clearly don't understand what a mutation is. Technically, our DNA is 100% mutated. Whether we call something a mutation or not depends on our point of reference. For example, a monkey might give birth to offspring in which it's DNA is mutated and it has a faster metabolism. However, the DNA of it's parents is the result of mutations from its ancestors somewhere down the line.

2. Ancient man was not more intelligent than we are today.

 

[Esanta]

Well, science itself also claims that animals that are similar enough can mate creating a new species that can reproduce. We have never denied this. But animals that are not close enough will not conceive. Mules come from breeding horses with donkeys (I've been told that two mules can't reproduce - I don't know if that's true). I have also heard that the Liger cannot reproduce either. And the bible does not tell us how many animals were on the ark. But we do know that it was huge. Besides you have heard of miracles, right - like feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish.

As far as your picture analogy. These are not pictures, but trillions of "missing" fossils. You have a bigger problem than I do, because I believe in an all powerful God.

Do you know how difficult it is to find those 'trillions' of fossils? Understand the fact that the whole Earth's surface sits on tectonics, has climate, goes through atmospheric changes, temperature changes, landslides, changes in continental drift, not to mention soil moves around, deposits, volcanoes erupt, we build things on so much of the planet and destroy habitats, the Earth's surface is 71 % water, too.

We've found plenty, but we'll never find those 'trillions' because it's not possible.

 

[Timeline]

Do you know how difficult it is to find those 'trillions' of fossils? Understand the fact that the whole Earth's surface sits on tectonics, has climate, goes through atmospheric changes, temperature changes, landslides, changes in continental drift, not to mention soil moves around, deposits, volcanoes erupt, we build things on so much of the planet and destroy habitats, the Earth's surface is 71 % water, too.

We've found plenty, but we'll never find those 'trillions' because it's not possible.

And yet, we keep on finding dinosaur fossils!!!!!