Existence of God [Archive I] - Page 2

October 14, 2003, 10:29 PM

Originally posted by 2human
I have not followed the thread, it is on a too high level for me to grasp :)

But I have read Michael Shermer's book "How we Believe".

He had view on God that is surprisingly reductionistic but I like it.

God actually exists within the head of the beleiver but projected out on the beyond our natural world as the Creator.

This is no more complicated then our relation to the Sun.

Before we knew that the Sun is very big and very far away. It takes 8 minutes for the light to reach us. Nearest star is 4 lightyears away. But we thought that the stars was holes in a firmament. That teh Sun was travelling up in the sky. nly some miles away. Now we know how it is in reality. We still love the sun when its cold and the Sun comes up and make life a bit better until the sun get so hot taht we look for shadow.

We still say The Sun goes up and down. It is not true but that si how it appears to us.

Now God is similar. It appears to the believer taht God is out there but present as a Spirit and they get possessed by that spirit.

In reality God is i ntheir brain and the possession is more like music. We are focused on it while it last or want to get our or get it shut down. It all depends on how we relate to it.

Those who long for somebody to rely on see God as truth itself.
We see God as the most deceptive social construct ever conned.

so it al lahs to do with how we beleive. God reall ydo exist but only as a concept within human brains, but that is also why God has such a hivh social power. The believer who has a literalsitic faith i nGod has almost no hesitation to willingly do what God want's him or her to do.

So such a "smal or wimpy" God actually has a great power socially as long as it is hidden to the believer how reality is. That is why they are soo aggressive towards science cause it will be able to brainscan and show that God actually exists within them as a social virus.

Meme is a controversial word but habits acted out get streng by repetition and true believers practise and act on their relation to God at least one hour a week so it is a real fact that within their brain will be built an almost permanent place for God. xians seem to be able to stop them from falling back into the faith but there are relapses.

It feels good to have a true faith. I had one for two monthes and it felt incredibly good. But my conscience made me feel bad about keeping a false faith so I am back as a naturalist.

So there is nothing that support a God out there but the God within really do exist in brain tissue. Not only as an abstract idea.

A kind of incarnation or embodiment. An actualization or realizing of an idea. Not as an idol. Elvis exist too within the fans of him. They actually here him sing within their heads without being multiple personality disorder sick. They have control over what happens to them most of the time. Could be like hypnosis, you leave decisin over to the hypnotist and pace or mirror him or her.

They let Jesus take over their life they say. Why we goes on trying to talk them out of this faith in supernatrual thing while it all is purely natrual is beyond me. The extraordinary claim that God is beyond this life is only a rhetorical trick to hide the real truth. While we go on year after year to deny the God out there then they convert more atheists than we deconvert them back.

It is futile to go on doing it. We should address this inner God instead. Expose it as the real God. Cause if it really exists in there it wil lbe detectable with modern brain images. NMR is too slow now but in a few year maybe god cold be views on a computerscreen. :)
God is 2human to be true as a supernatural myth

The only way you could know all this is if you were omniscient. And the stuff about memes sounds like that famous atheist and paragon of virtue, Josef Stalin and how he sent Christians to be "re-educated" in the Gulags and brain "surgeries".
:rolleyes:

October 14, 2003, 10:39 PM

Originally posted by Weltall
[
Originally posted by Ed
The historical evidence for God's existence is the Big Bang. See my post about Genesis anticipating the BB theory and some of the dietary laws and laws concerning not touching the dead anticipating the existence of disease borne microbes.

welt: That's your proof!? What do you want to bet that a hundred years ago people weren't making that argument?

They may have tried to make the argument 100 years ago but they didnt have any scientific support because most cosmologists at the time believed that the universe did not have a beginning and was eternal. But in the 1960's and 70's evidence started coming in showing that the universe had a definite beginning, just as Genesis teaches.

These are after the fact attempts to find some biblical basis for things that don't conform to the christian worldview. If that counts as evidence that the bible has made accurate scientific predictions, then please do me one favor. In the light of all that is known about physics, chemistry and biology... explain the Flood.

The flood was primarily a supernatural event, but there is some indirect evidence, ie the Ice Ages.

October 14, 2003, 10:58 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
[b]
lp: Freedom to practice whatever religion one wants

jtb: Plainly implied in the NT, Christ and the disciples never coerced anyone to convert. And treated unbelievers with respect.

jtb: Specifically forbidden in the Old Testament. Unbelievers are to be killed.

The only unbelievers to be killed were the ones preventing the jews from getting the land God promised to them. But anyway this was only allowed for the ancient hebrew theocracy. After the coming of Christ it was forbidden.

Ed: No, death in all its forms only came to humans AFTER we had freely rebelled against Him. He originally created the viruses harmless to humans but our sin had a negative impact for humans on the created order.

lp: LOL.

So we were originally invulnerable? Meaning that we could easily survive

Drowning
Choking
Vacuum
Asphyxiation in general
Fire
Being crushed
Being bitten or clawed or stung or otherwise attacked
Being poisoned

So it would be possible to survive being submerged in a vat full of concentrated sulfuric acid? (that's the acid in lead-acid batteries; check out its hazards)

Ed: No, we only had eternal life as long as we ate from the Tree of Life, that is why after God threw out Adam and Eve, they eventually died.

jtb: It's amazing how often "Christians" abandon the Bible here.

God threw A&E out of Eden to PREVENT them eating from the Tree of Life: to stop them BECOMING immortal. He did this because he was AFRAID of them becoming too powerful.

The only tree that they were not allowed to eat from was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so this plainly implies that they were already eating the TofLife.

Philosoft

October 14, 2003, 11:06 PM

Originally posted by Ed
But in the 1960's and 70's evidence started coming in showing that the universe had a definite beginning, just as Genesis teaches.
However, the same evidence also showed the universe has been expanding since its "definite beginning," which Genesis does not teach.
The flood was primarily a supernatural event, but there is some indirect evidence, ie the Ice Ages.
By "supernatural event," presumably you mean God made the water appear from nowhere, destroy all non-arked living things, then go back to nowhere? And God also made the evidence disappear except for the ice ages? And God created evidence, like fossil sorting and sediment layering, that falsifies a global flood?

You have outdone yourself, sir.

October 14, 2003, 11:18 PM

Originally posted by Weltall

Originally posted by Ed
"There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament."- Dr. F.F. Bruce. (respected non-fundamentalist biblical scholar)

welt: Methinks that you missed my point. Provide proof, not that someone else thinks your myth is accurate. Many people don't share the view that there is such great attestation, and refering us to someone who does isn't helpful.

I cannot provide proof, but there is evidence. There are 5366 copies of the NT including fragments and many are within 50 to 225 years from the originals. While Caesar's Gallic Wars has only 10 copies and the oldest is still 1000 years after they were originally composed.

welt: By the way, skimming some of his views, he appears to assume God exists in order to argue for the historical validity of the bible. Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Oh, and he decides that the gospels were in fact written a lot earlier than is now currently held to be the case. Got anything else substantial, or just more appeal to authority?

Evidence that he assumed God's existence in order to argue for historical validity? He is not the only one that thinks they should be dated earlier, ever hear of Dr. John A. T. Robinson and his book "Redating the New Testament"?

Weltall

October 15, 2003, 08:17 AM

Originally posted by Ed
Evidence that he assumed God's existence in order to argue for historical validity? He is not the only one that thinks they should be dated earlier, ever hear of Dr. John A. T. Robinson and his book "Redating the New Testament"? [/B]

The language with which he wrote strongly suggests that he didn't begin his research attempting any sort of impartiality. He also sounds like he discards science whenever it inconveniently disagrees with his theology, especially regarding 'miracles'. I wasn't able to find an online copy of the other source you mentioned, nor am I interested in paying money just to refute your argument. I'm willing to bet that his works will fall flat when examined critically though, given the lack of evidence for his position. Speaking of which, would you mind providing some, rather than just quoting what other people think? It would help your position you know.

PS. Your 'evidence' for the Flood story wasn't very convincing.

GunnerJ

October 15, 2003, 09:06 AM

The only unbelievers to be killed were the ones preventing the jews from getting the land God promised to them.

Gee, how dare they try to defend their nation and culture from a bunch of invading zealots.

Jack the Bodiless

October 15, 2003, 10:57 AM

Ed: No, death in all its forms only came to humans AFTER we had freely rebelled against Him. He originally created the viruses harmless to humans but our sin had a negative impact for humans on the created order...

...Ed: No, we only had eternal life as long as we ate from the Tree of Life, that is why after God threw out Adam and Eve, they eventually died.

jtb: It's amazing how often "Christians" abandon the Bible here.

God threw A&E out of Eden to PREVENT them eating from the Tree of Life: to stop them BECOMING immortal. He did this because he was AFRAID of them becoming too powerful.

The only tree that they were not allowed to eat from was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so this plainly implies that they were already eating the TofLife.
This is apparently a Biblical goof. These magical trees have permanent effects on those who eat from them just once, as plainly happened with the Tree of Knowledge. So it seems that the author forgot to mention that the Tree of Life was also out of bounds, then put this in as an afterthought. Genesis describes the gaining of immortality from the ToL as something A&E were about to take, and they were thrown out to stop them taking it.

More importantly, however: you have changed your story regarding why we die. First, it was "our sin had a negative impact for humans on the created order": the Christian theological (and non-Biblical) notion that death is due to our "corruption". Now you've switched to the more Biblical notion of immortality as something being actively denied to us by God: in your interpretation, something taken away from us by God.

You believe in a God who has deliberately murdered every man, woman and child who has ever died of "natural causes" since time began, as punishment for the crimes of two people who are themselves long dead.

And you worship this being?

Jack the Bodiless

October 15, 2003, 11:26 AM

Oops, almost missed this.
jtb: There have been MANY threads here on the subject of Hitler's Christianity.

Hitler was certainly a Christian originally: he was raised as a Catholic. And he was apparently still a Christian at the time he wrote Mein Kamf. He then became increasingly interested in the occult and in Nordic myth, and appears to have cast aside Catholicism, and then possibly Christianity itself in the last few years of his life.

You are close to being correct but not exactly. He had already rejected orthodox Christianity long before Mein Kampf. Mein Kampf is plainly propaganda for the ordinary German who considered himself christian, even though most germans by this time (1920's) had also already abandoned biblical christianity. Almost all churches in Germany at the time were theologically liberal and had rejected anything jewish in the bible and most of the supernatural in it. You are right he did become increasingly interested in the occult and so did many of the other Nazis. Again I highly recommend Ian Kershaw's excellent bio. The evidence points to him being an evolutionary pantheist.
Hitler wasn't an "evolutionary pantheist", he was a creationist.

Hitler on the fixity of species (from Min Kampf):

"Even the most superficial observation shows that Nature's restricted form of propagation and increase is an almost rigid basic law of all the innumerable forms of expression of her vital urge. Every animal mates only with a member of the same species. The titmouse seeks the titmouse, the finch the finch, the stork the stork, the field mouse the field mouse, the dormouse the dormouse, the wolf the she-wolf, etc...

...The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens. But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice."

However the Nazi leadership was extremely ANTI-Christian and many were involved in the occult and many were atheists like Martin Bormann.
The Nazi leadership was anti-JEW, in case you hadn't heard. Why do you think the Roman Catholic Church has refused to excommunicate Nazis? (compare this with the Pope's excommunication of ALL Communists in 1949).

Martin Bormann was the ONLY prominent Nazi known to have been an atheist (and he was the source of much of the material implicating Hitler as an atheist). You can't deduce much from a sample size of one: "Many Christians are cannibals, like Jeffrey Dahlmer".

lpetrich

October 15, 2003, 07:12 PM

Ed:
They may have tried to make the argument 100 years ago but they didnt have any scientific support because most cosmologists at the time believed that the universe did not have a beginning and was eternal. But in the 1960's and 70's evidence started coming in showing that the universe had a definite beginning, just as Genesis teaches.

I wonder where Ed gets his idea of the onetime belief in the eternity of the Universe.

Ed:
The flood was primarily a supernatural event, but there is some indirect evidence, ie the Ice Ages.

Absolute hooey. Ice Ages have no connection with alleged planetwide floods.

jtb:
Specifically forbidden in the Old Testament. Unbelievers are to be killed.

Ed:
The only unbelievers to be killed were the ones preventing the jews from getting the land God promised to them. But anyway this was only allowed for the ancient hebrew theocracy. After the coming of Christ it was forbidden.

Something like Stalin's comment that "the undesirable classes never liquidate themselves". That's a very convenient pretext for genocide, for some "Final Solution of the Canaanite Question". And the Bible certainly doesn't say "no more genocide; no more Final Solutions".

Ed:
I cannot provide proof, but there is evidence. There are 5366 copies of the NT including fragments and many are within 50 to 225 years from the originals. While Caesar's Gallic Wars has only 10 copies and the oldest is still 1000 years after they were originally composed.

The number of copies made is NOT the same thing as the reliability of its contents. The Koran has been very well-copied, but does that demonstrate that it is Absolute Truth?

October 15, 2003, 11:38 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Me earlier:
Ed thus believes in a crude form of metaphysical quasi-materialism; by comparison, I'm willing to accept the continued existence of that replaced-part table and rivers and waves as they acquire different "stuff".

Ed:
[b]How is it the same table? Rivers may travel in the same channel but technically at the level of molecular chemistry they are not the same river over time. Waves are energy, not the medium thru which they travel so their energy is never almost totally exchanged like our cells. It only dissipates, so your analogies fail.

lp: It's the same table from structural continuity. And the same for rivers and waves.

Huh? The only structural continuity is that it is still a table. So I am still waiting for your explanation of how it is the same table and the same river. And waves are not analogous to the human body, see above.

lp: And human personality works in exactly the same way -- we are not exactly the same people we were at previous times.

Ed: I never said we are EXACTLY the same people, but nevertheless at the deeper levels we are same people.

lp: So there is some sort of personality-stuff? I wonder if anyone has constructed a "personality meter" for detecting it.

We can detect it with our own personality. I am detecting yours right now.

lp: I'm sure that Ed can shows us where in the Bible the Constitution had been copied from. Where the Bible talks about :

Leaders elected to 2 or 4 or 6 year terms
Legislative assemblies

Leaders elected: Acts 6:3.

lp: Selecting people for some task is NOT the same thing as holding elections or convening legislative bodies.

Huh? Holding elections IS selecting someone for some task, ie making laws and leading.

lp: And Ed still has not explained why the Senate has such an unbiblical name.

I never claimed that EVERYTHING about our government is judeo-christian, they also took few things from Rome and Greece.

Freedom of speech and of writing.[/i]

Ed: Plainly implied in the NT, Christ and the disciples never coerced anyone to convert. And treated unbelievers with respect.

lp: Which is not very apparent when one considers JC's fulminations against the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida for being unwilling to listen to him. And from the suppressions of other religions in the Bible.

No, they were BELIEVERS. Christ is most harsh with believers not unbelievers. There is no suppresion of other religions in the NT.

The right to possess weapons.

Ed: Implied in the commandment "You shall not steal." I.e. right to own property.

lp: Which might be interpreted as saying that idolatry is OK if one owns an idol. Try again.

After the coming of Christ. you do have the right to own a idol and practice idolatry, but that does not make it ok. Just like smoking a cigarette, you have the right to smoke but in the long run it will lead to your downfall.

Ed:Also, Jesus told the disciples to buy some swords.

lp: He did not state an absolute right of possessing them, however.

Depends on what you mean by absolute right.

Rejection of extorted confessions.

Ed: Covered in the Golden Rule.

lp: Which, if interpreted in this manner, would forbid all punishment.

Not, if understood in context of all of Christ's moral teachings.

Freedom to practice whatever religion one wants.

Ed: Plainly implied in the NT, Christ and the disciples never coerced anyone to convert. And treated unbelievers with respect.

lp: Which is not apparent from all the vilification and suppression of "idolatry" in the Bible. Because practicing whatever religion one wants includes practicing what the Bible calls "idolatry".

See above about idolatry.

No official state religion.

Ed: Mark 12:17

lp: That's a bit of a stretch, since that's contrary to what was done in the ancient Kingdom of Israel.

But after Christ, the ancient kingdom of Israel became invalid.

lp: And we all know that doctors don't say any pagan "Hippocratic Oath", but instead a "Christic Oath", where they pledge to keep their skills up in laying on of hands, magical spit therapy, and exorcism. Just like you-know-who.

Ed: Christ was not performing medicine, He was perfoming miracles to confirm who he was.

lp: Bull feces.

Curing someone is practicing medicine.

No, curing someone using natural processes is practicing medicine. Curing someone using supernatural processes is practicing miracles.

lp: Actually, it could be a whole community of entities who like to create Universes just for the Hades of it.

Ed: Possibly, but there is no evidence for them.

lp: What makes you so sure? The Earth's biota has LOTS of features that suggest multiple designers.

But more features suggest one designer, otherwise Darwin would have never come up with his single ancestor theory.

Ed: The universe theoretically could be self existent, but all the evidence says otherwise.

lp: WHAT "evidence"?

Ed: The Big Bang.

lp: I don't see how this is counter to the Universe being self-existence.

Something that is self existent does not have a beginning. However the universe does.

End of part I of my response.

lpetrich

October 16, 2003, 04:35 AM

Ed:
Huh? The only structural continuity is that it is still a table. So I am still waiting for your explanation of how it is the same table and the same river. And waves are not analogous to the human body, see above.

Ed seems to believe in "stuffism", that an entity's identity is due to what stuff it is composed of. Thus, he believes that there is a table-material stuff, but not a table stuff.

The continuity of tables, rivers, waves, and living things is a structural sort of continuity, not continuity due to some special stuff.

"Personality meter"?
We can detect it with our own personality. I am detecting yours right now.

Ed, I didn't know that you have ESP.

(Bible's selection as support for elections...)
Huh? Holding elections IS selecting someone for some task, ie making laws and leading.

You've got the subset relation reversed. And the rest of the Bible is essentially devoid of elected leaders and legislative bodies. Was there ever an Old Testament Knesset?

(the Senate's unbiblical name...)
I never claimed that EVERYTHING about our government is judeo-christian, they also took few things from Rome and Greece.

A LOT of things. And it seems that anything that Ed happens to like is automatically "Judeo-Christian", even if it is grossly unbiblical.

(JC's fulminations against Chorazin and Bethsaida...)
No, they were BELIEVERS. Christ is most harsh with believers not unbelievers. There is no suppresion of other religions in the NT.

Solely from not being in a position to do so.

After the coming of Christ. you do have the right to own a idol and practice idolatry, but that does not make it ok. Just like smoking a cigarette, you have the right to smoke but in the long run it will lead to your downfall.

Allowing something to happen and then complaining about it is not very mature. From beginning to end, the Bible's writers consider idolatry an Evil Thing to Do.

(The Golden Rule forbidding extorted confessions?)
(The Golden Rule forbidding all punishment?)
Not, if understood in context of all of Christ's moral teachings.

Jesus Christ never worked out the Golden Rule in detail, explaining how it would apply to this or that circumstance. Which is disappointing.

Furthermore, he had not practiced what he preached. Consider the fig-tree incident. Would he have liked it if he was a food vendor and one of his customers got furious that he did not have some fruit that was out of season?

And despite forbidding name-calling, he was more than willing to do just that. Would he have liked to be at the business end of name-calling?

But after Christ, the ancient kingdom of Israel became invalid.

Except that the Bible doesn't say so.

(Jesus Christ's therapies and why doctors say a "Hippocratic Oath" instead of a "Christic Oath"...)
No, curing someone using natural processes is practicing medicine. Curing someone using supernatural processes is practicing miracles.

No, it's still medicine, even if it's miraculous medicine.

(The Earth's biota has LOTS of features that suggest multiple designers.)
But more features suggest one designer, otherwise Darwin would have never come up with his single ancestor theory.

Ed seems to imagine that a designer must design an organism from scratch, and not work from the work of other designers. However, human designers universally utilize the work of other designers in their designs. So the Earth's biota, if at least partially designed, would be the work of designers that would work from their predecessors' work.

Furthermore, the presence of multiple designers easily explains predator-prey and parasite-host relationships. Consider:

Grass
Deer
Wolves
Fleas
Wolbachia bacteria
Bacteriophages

Each one is adapted for subsisting on the one just above, and each one is adapted for avoiding the one just below.

Grass has phytoliths that grind down teeth.
Deer have big molars for chewing grass.

Deer have sort-of sideways eyes and ears to watch for oncoming wolves, which can come from any direction relative to them.
Wolves have forward eyes and ears because that's the direction in which they approach deer.

Wolves scratch themselves to get rid of fleas.
Fleas are adapted for sucking wolves' blood.

Fleas have an immune system, even if a primitive one by jawed-vertebrate standards.
Wolbachia bacteria hide out inside of fleas' cells.

Bacteria have enzymes for snipping up stray nucleic-acid strands, like those from bacteriophages.
Bacteriophages commandeer bacteria, making them produce more of those viruses.

Notice that there must be at least six designers here, one for grass, one for deer, one for wolves, one for fleas, one for Wolbachia bacteria, and one for bacteriophages.

Something that is self existent does not have a beginning. However the universe does.

However, if time itself had a beginning, then having a beginning can coexist with self-existence.

End of part I of my response.

A common ending for Ed, though he never calls any of his postings a later part.

Wyz_sub10

October 16, 2003, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by Ed
But more features suggest one designer, otherwise Darwin would have never come up with his single ancestor theory.

It does not suggest a designer at all. It suggests a common ancestor, nothing more.

Weltall

October 16, 2003, 01:51 PM

Originally posted by Ed
But more features suggest one designer, otherwise Darwin would have never come up with his single ancestor theory.

BZZZZZT! So, if one creator did everything then why do birds and insects have different wing structures? Shouldn't they use the same design? Same goes for the differences between whales and fish, and I could go on here. BTW, Darwin didn't go for the whole 'designer' thing. If you actually read his works you'd notice little things like that.:p

lpetrich

October 16, 2003, 03:51 PM

More specifically, birds have one wing structure, bats have another, pterosaurs had another, and insects have still another. So why this distribution of wing structures? Why not mix them all up?

And why do fish always have vertical tail fins and cetaceans horizontal ones? Why not some horizontal-tail-fin fish and some vertical-tail-fin cetaceans?

October 16, 2003, 11:52 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich

Ed: No, death in all its forms only came to humans AFTER we had freely rebelled against Him. He originally created the viruses harmless to humans but our sin had a negative impact for humans on the created order.

LOL.

So we were originally invulnerable? Meaning that we could easily survive

Drowning
Choking
Vacuum
Asphyxiation in general
Fire
Being crushed
Being bitten or clawed or stung or otherwise attacked
Being poisoned

So it would be possible to survive being submerged in a vat full of concentrated sulfuric acid? (that's the acid in lead-acid batteries)

Ed: No, we only had eternal life as long as we ate from the Tree of Life, that is why after God threw out Adam and Eve, they eventually died.

lp: But whenever we had it, were we invulnerable to the hazards I've listed?

I don't know for certain but probably not, that may be why He put us in a garden.

(JTB on Ed's celebration of early scientists and the US's Founding Fathers...)
Would these same people have done the exact same things had they believed in a different deity? Who can say.

Ed: I think we can say that they would not have done these things if they had not been Christians. For example, for science, only Christianity taught that you could learn about God by studying his orderly and rational creation. And that there is an objective reality.

lp: Demonstrably false. Simply consider ancient Greece and Rome. Does Ed think that the words "democracy" and "republic" come from the Bible? And I wonder if Ed thinks that Euclid or Aristotle or Archimedes or Hipparchus or Ptolemy or Aristarchus of Samos had believed in Jesus Christ.

In order for science to flourish, a society must be convinced that nature is of great value and worthy of study. The ancient Greeks lacked this conviction. They often equated the material world with evil and disorder, hence they denigrated anything to do with material things. Manual labor was relegated to slaves, while philosophers sought a world of leisure in order to pursue the "higher things". Many historians believe this is one reason why the Greeks did not develop emprical science, which requires practical hands on experimentation.

(someone else):
And here, a whole page later with no reply we come back to my point. Prove that Jesus's existence was a historical event, don't assume it for the sake of your argument.

Ed: "There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament."- Dr. F.F. Bruce. (respected non-fundamentalist biblical scholar)

lp: If one judges by copies made in the Middle Ages, yes. But the NT's paper trail before Constantine is VERY scanty, and the Gospels are usually considered to have been written some decades after JC had lived.

See my post to weltall above.

lp: And I wonder if the Koran's similar attestation has made Ed want to convert to Islam.

No, the Koran's oldest copies were written much longer after the biblical events that it claims to have recorded.

Ed: A being that can create persons would easily be able to create material objects.

GunnerJ:
One exception disproves a rule, I'm afraid. So much for your law of sufficeint cause. If the immaterial can produce the material, then I find it plausible for the inorganic to produce the organic, the amoral to produce morality, and the impersonal to produce the personal.

Ed: No, because we know a great deal about the inorganic, the amoral, and the impersonal, but we don't know as much about the immaterial so the analogy fails.

lp: Except that Urey-Miller experiments easily produce the organic from the inorganic -- under a wide variety of conditions.

I am not sure what gunner was referring to but I was referring to the nonliving producing the living.

egg cells, embryos, fetuses, babies, Alzheimer's-disease patients...

Ed: The first four are persons in development (and therefore have not developed linguistic capacities) and the last is an abnormal person who has lost their linguistic capacities.

lp: How has that been determined that for a fertilized egg cell? Has some personality-stuff been isolated in a test tube?

Ed: No, just wait about 3 or 4 years and the fertilized egg cell will acquire linguistic capacities.

lp: I don't see how that follows; a fertilized egg cell has properties much like those of body cells.

Yes, that is what makes fertilized egg cells so amazing, they are very similar to body cells and yet in 3 or 4 years they have acquired linguistic capabilities!

lp: And a child could acquire "personality" when it becomes able to speak.

No, the scientific evidence points to the ability to speak being inborn and inherent in the human brain.

Ed: No, death in all its forms only came to humans AFTER we had freely rebelled against Him. He originally created the viruses harmless to humans but our sin had a negative impact for humans on the created order.

jtb:
In fact, Genesis says the opposite: that God PREVENTED Adam and Eve from BECOMING immortal by throwing them out of Eden.

Ed: And he threw them out of the garden because they rebelled against him, how is that the opposite? And outside the garden was where the dangerous viruses were.

lp: And how did Ed figure that out? Was he there in the Garden of Eden with a medical lab, performing lots of tests?

No, it is just a possibility or it could be that the fruit from the Tree of Life protected us from viruses.

jtb:
Yet the Bible's moral code is a mixed bag. Good, bad, and odd all stirred together. There's the bable of Mosaic and Levitican laws that I would mostly put in the odd category.

Ed: The core of God's moral law is the ten commandments and Christ's teachings. Most of those laws are ceremonial and purification laws related to the ancient hebrew theocracy which Christ ended with his coming.

lp: There is nothing in the Bible which explicitly states where the moral laws end and the ceremonial laws begin. Those who make such distinctions do not tell us why they view Leviticus on homosexuality as a moral instead of a ceremonial law, and why they act as if the 10C's mandated Sabbath observance is a ceremonial instead of a moral law.

It is rather obvious if you study the context which are ceremonial and which are moral. Sabbath observance is an area of slight disagreement among Christians, probably because of some of the comments Jesus made specifically about it. But I believe that in principle it is a moral law but that we should not be too legalistic about the specifics of its observance. In other words, God wants all humans to rest one day week but the specific day he leaves up to our religious conscience.

jm:
The good stuff is also contained in most other belief systems on the planet.

Ed: How do you know what is the "good stuff"? But yes there are similarities in some areas with other religions, this is because we are all created in the image of the Christian God and therefore all humans have similar moral consciences.

lp: However, we are allegedly evil sinners who can never do anything right, which is contrary to this divine-lookalike hypothesis. Furthermore, many other belief systems differ strongly with the Bible on various issues, like worshipping different deities or none at all, practicing what the Bible calls "idolatry", not recognizing the Sabbath, considering homosexuality legitimate, etc.

No, we can do things right but never with the right motivation without God. And I am not saying that all religions have everything right, but that there are some things that each religion have right because we are all created in the image of God. I also notice that neither you nor jm answered my question.

lp: So if idolatry, for example, is such a terrible sin, why have large numbers of people practiced it with an apparently clear conscience? And without believing that they are rebelling against the Ruler of the Universe when doing so? Even some Christian sects feature practices which are difficult to distinguish from idolatry.

The more you practice a sin the less and less your conscience is bothered so that eventually it feels like the right thing to do.

jm:
There are glaring absences within the laws. Few Christians I know keep the sabbath holy.

Ed: Just because some don't keep his laws does not invalidate them.

lp: But this means that they cannot be considered exemplars of superior virtue.

But as a general rule practicing Christians are more law abiding than the non-religious. And I mentioned the sociological studies about this in my old EvC thread.

jm:
And, if your deity is truly moral, he displays "wrath" quite a bit... indiscriminately at that.

Ed: Since all humans have been and are in rebellion against him and therefore deserve to die, He has in fact been very gracious in letting so many of us live lives of years. And his "wrath" has not been indiscriminate at all.

lp: Ed concedes jm's point -- and could rebels really be carbon copies of the Almighty?

How is that conceding his point. We made ourselves into rebels by our moral choices, we were not originally created as rebels.

jm:
His earthly incarnation shows that same angry streak at inanimate objects.

Ed: If you are referring to the cursing of the fig tree, it is called a morality play, ie sometimes he acted out the lessons he was trying to teach. It does not mean he is actually angry at the tree.

lp: However, that stukk seems VERY immature.

Why do you consider morality plays immature?

jm:
The bad in this code has been touched upon variously throughout the BC&H forum.

Ed: How did you determine it was "bad"? What is "bad" to you and why? And all the so-called refutations can be easily answered when studied in the grammatico-historical context.

lp: Which means that the Bible itself is effectively out-of-context.

Not if it is a communication from a God that is outside of time thru beings that are time bound.

lpetrich

October 17, 2003, 12:35 AM

I'm amazed that I'm still able to keep going against Ed. BTW, my erectus-sapiens challenge still stands.

Ed:
In order for science to flourish, a society must be convinced that nature is of great value and worthy of study. The ancient Greeks lacked this conviction. They often equated the material world with evil and disorder, hence they denigrated anything to do with material things. Manual labor was relegated to slaves, while philosophers sought a world of leisure in order to pursue the "higher things". Many historians believe this is one reason why the Greeks did not develop emprical science, which requires practical hands on experimentation.

I don't know where Ed gets his ideas from, because ancient Greek proto-scientists had done a LOT of studying of the world around them. Consider Aristotle.

And if anything, medieval saints had often been very ascetic, trying to separate themselves from the evil, fallen world around us.

Yes, that is what makes fertilized egg cells so amazing, they are very similar to body cells and yet in 3 or 4 years they have acquired linguistic capabilities!

That's not quite a detection of personality-stuff in fertilized egg cells. If it's possible to take a body cell and make it act like a fertilized egg cell, where would the personality come from? Would that egg cell produce a personality-less zombie?

It is rather obvious if you study the context which are ceremonial and which are moral.

Except that the Bible itself makes no such distinction. This seems like a convenient pretext for cafeteria theology: any laws one likes are "moral" laws, while any laws one dislikes are "ceremonial" laws.

Sabbath observance is an area of slight disagreement among Christians, probably because of some of the comments Jesus made specifically about it.

Except that the disagreements are MUCH bigger than Ed is willing to accept. A century ago, it was widely considered a great sin to play card games on Sundays.

But I believe that in principle it is a moral law but that we should not be too legalistic about the specifics of its observance.

"Legalism" is yet another pretext for cafeteria theology. If one does not like a law, then it would be "legalism" to follow it.

In other words, God wants all humans to rest one day week but the specific day he leaves up to our religious conscience.

Very ingenious (sarcasm). Especially when most other religions do NOT feature sabbath days.

No, we can do things right but never with the right motivation without God. And I am not saying that all religions have everything right, but that there are some things that each religion have right because we are all created in the image of God.

A wonderfully self-contradictory position. We cannot be both (1) carbon copies of a sinless being and (2) totally incapable of doing anything right on our initiative.

(on idolatry being practiced with a clear conscience...)
The more you practice a sin the less and less your conscience is bothered so that eventually it feels like the right thing to do.

So that means that conscience is not quite an incorruptible divine implant.

But as a general rule practicing Christians are more law abiding than the non-religious. And I mentioned the sociological studies about this in my old EvC thread.

Demonstrably false, if the religious affiliations of prisoners are any guide. Or is a "true Christian" only someone that Ed likes?

We made ourselves into rebels by our moral choices, we were not originally created as rebels.

Except that such a choice requires a capability to make such a choice. And that ability is defective for that reason. If you had a car that keeps breaking down, would you consider it a perfect copy of a perfectly running car?

(the cursing of a fig tree as a morality play...)
Why do you consider morality plays immature?

It's the action of cursing that fig tree that's immature.

... And all the so-called refutations can be easily answered when studied in the grammatico-historical context.

LP:
Which means that the Bible itself is effectively out-of-context.

Not if it is a communication from a God that is outside of time thru beings that are time bound.

But if one needs an enormous amount of studying in order to come to correct conclusions about it, then it was not very well-written. Consider an instruction manual. You should not need an enormous amount of outside study to understand a typical instruction manual.

Weltall

October 17, 2003, 08:14 AM

Originally posted by Ed
No, it is just a possibility or it could be that the fruit from the Tree of Life protected us from viruses.

May I direct you to a post Jack made earlier on this page concerning said tree?

GunnerJ

October 17, 2003, 09:24 AM

I just noticed this:

See my post about how replacing parts of table changes it into a different table but after replacement of most of our cells we are still us.

Tell me, would you be willing to extend this "logic" to brain cells? Why or why not?

Well human persons interact with the physical world by using the most complex thing known, ie the human brain. So while that does not PROVE that persons are the most complex thing known, it certainly is evidence that they may be.

Oh, ok. Persons are the most complex things known, because they incorporate the most complex thing known! You're just begging the question. Further, I am waiting to see your definition of what "the personal" is. Also, some explanation as to why it's even relevent that "persons" are the "most complex things known."

October 17, 2003, 10:22 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ

Ed: No, because we know a great deal about the inorganic, the amoral, and the impersonal, but we don't know as much about the immaterial so the analogy fails.

gj: It's not an analogy, it's the logical conclusion of your claim that the material can arise from the immaterial.

I'm unimpressed by your special pleading/argument from ignorance that we "don't know much" about "the immaterial." I fail to see how knowledge of the inorganic, the amoral, and the impersonal implies that the organic, the moral, and the personal can't come from the afformentioned negative properties.

Also, I personally know a lot about "the immaterial;" for example, I understand the idea of abstract concepts that have no material existence but are nontheless real (such as love, nationalism, and calculus.) Since I am knowledgable about the immaterial, can I conclude that it cannot produce the material, just as you have concluded that the inorganic cannot produce the organic, the impersonal cannot produce the personal, and so on, based on your putative knowledge of them?

We may know some about immaterial impersonal abstract concepts but we know very little about immaterial personal beings. And abstract concepts and ideas can cause tremendous impacts to history and societies. So my point is that you cannot make dogmatic statements about what something that we know very little about is able to do given that other immaterial things can produce major effects.

October 17, 2003, 10:36 PM

Originally posted by Spenser
Ed,

I think you are missing the point. The bible suggesting a beginning (It never specified �the universe�)

The hebrew term "heavens and earth" means all that exists, ie the universe. So it is specifying the universe.

spenser: and the Big Bang having a starting point are not some rare coincidence. It�s not like me and my friend saying �Holy Shit! I can�t believe we both picked the number 1,256,487 out of 9,434,998 at the same time. Now that would be a coincidence! Plus, the universe by definition really means �all there is�. I�m willing to bet �most scientists� (as you like to generalize) still believe that the universe still always existed; even if in a differing form. So really, who turned out to be correct? Your statement�s intention carries very little truth value compared to the ideologies that were actually being posited.

In the last 100 years or so it is a rare coincidence among the scientific elite because they thought that the universe always existed. The ones that still do believe that the universe is eternal in some are generally believing so because of ideological reasons, ie atheism, rather than scienctific reasons. Because if you reverse the BB back far enough you come to a point with no dimensions, therefore plainly showing that at one point there was no space, time, or energy or anything.

spense: You act as if it is rare that any one would think that something may have had a beginning. You may be right to question any beliefs that lead to infinite regress but BOTH ideologies face this problem. Let�s not just fill this mystery with the God of Gaps�

See above.

October 17, 2003, 10:46 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Almost all theologians prior to 1927 believed that the bible taught there was a definite beginning to the universe. Which is what the BB theory tells us. Meanwhile most scientists thought that the universe was eternal and always existed. Guess who turned out to be correct?

philo: Correct, huh? How many of these pre-1927 theologians believed the universe expanded rapidly from an infinitely dense point? How many believed the universe was expanding at all?

I am not saying that the bible gives a detailed description of the BB.

Ed: Huh? You can die from eating tainted anything! And also the other animals that they were to avoid such as pork. And the agricultural practice of leaving the land fallow every 7 years.
And then the laws regarding lifestyle, ie moderation in alcohol and etc.

philo: All of which were easily derivable from experience prior to their being codified in the Bible. Come on, now. Where's your evidence that these ideas were so advanced as to be impossible for humans of the time to conceive?[/B]

The surrounding nations didn't know about these ideas, ie they ate pork and other animals that were more susceptible to parasites and disease carriers. Why was it just the hebrews that knew these things?

October 17, 2003, 11:01 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

God had intended humans to be ignorant and mortal. But they gained knowledge, and were about to gain immortality too. THAT was why they were thrown out.

No, he wanted us to gain knowledge but not autonomously. That is what Adam and Eve were trying to do. He wanted us learn things with His guidance. And that is why he didnt want them to gain immorality because we would have been sinners that lived forever wreaking far more havoc than we have as mortal sinners.

jtb: ...Incidentally, many pathogens cannot survive for long outside their hosts. So they couldn't all have been waiting "outside the garden".

I don't mean that they were just lying on the ground. The tree of life may have protected us from them while they were living in animals or they may have microevolved to attack humans after originally been just for animals.

Philosoft

October 17, 2003, 11:02 PM

Originally posted by Ed
I am not saying that the bible gives a detailed description of the BB.
Yeah, the expansion of the universe is just a minor detail. Wouldn't want to include that in a putatively accurate description of creation.
The surrounding nations didn't know about these ideas, ie they ate pork and other animals that were more susceptible to parasites and disease carriers. Why was it just the hebrews that knew these things?
Jebus, do you hear yourself? Why was Pythagoras the first to come up with that theorem?

October 17, 2003, 11:15 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ

Ed: Almost all theologians prior to 1927 believed that the bible taught there was a definite beginning to the universe. Which is what the BB theory tells us. Meanwhile most scientists thought that the universe was eternal and always existed. Guess who turned out to be correct?

gj: This sort of slippery thinking reminds me of a Catholic apologetics piece about Gallileo, where it was claimed that both the church and Gallileo were half right, in that G. thought the Earth moved and the sun was stationary, and the church thought that the sun moved and the Earth was stationary, when the truth is that they both move. They gloss over the fact that the Church though that the sun moved around the Earth, which is COMPLETELY wrong.

I don't see any similarity to my comment at all.:confused:

gj: Similarly, Ed glosses over the fact that while these theologians may have thought the Universe had a definite beginning, they thought this definite beginning occured 6000-10000 years ago through the spoken command of a Hebrew god, and was shortly followed by the spoken command for the Earth and all living things on it to exist, which the facts of the Big Bang do not bear up.

Just because they had the date wrong does not change the fact that they had the finiteness of it correct which is the key point because it meant that the universe required a transcendent Cause, thereby confiming the existence of God. The bible does not really say WHEN God spoke the command and also it does not say WHEN that command was fulfilled or how long it took for it to be fulfilled, so how does that not fit the facts of the BB?

lpetrich

October 18, 2003, 01:24 AM

Ed:
The hebrew term "heavens and earth" means all that exists, ie the universe. So it is specifying the universe.

At least in Eddian Hebrew, which always means whatever is convenient for Ed's theological purposes.

In the last 100 years or so it is a rare coincidence among the scientific elite because they thought that the universe always existed.

Like who had allegedly believed that?

The ones that still do believe that the universe is eternal in some are generally believing so because of ideological reasons, ie atheism, rather than scienctific reasons.

Like who is allegedly doing that?

Because if you reverse the BB back far enough you come to a point with no dimensions, therefore plainly showing that at one point there was no space, time, or energy or anything.

Actually, one runs into quantum gravity, which is still not very well-understood.

I am not saying that the bible gives a detailed description of the BB.

Good evasion.

The surrounding nations didn't know about these ideas, ie they ate pork and other animals that were more susceptible to parasites and disease carriers. Why was it just the hebrews that knew these things?

I've yet to see any evidence that pork is much more infested with parasitic worms than beef. Also, thorough cooking tends to kill parasitic worms and other tiny troublemakers; so why not recommend that?

And I can't wait until Ed becomes convinced of (macro)evolution. Then he'll be claiming that Darwin wrote the Origin of Species for the glory of God and dismissing creationism as the invention of God-haters and theological liberals.

October 18, 2003, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by Conchobar

Ed: Hello Kruzkal. I will take your bait. BTW, nice self portrait on your website. I am a Christian theist. The existence of God is based on a basic law of logic, ie the Law of Causality and its corollary the Law of Sufficient Cause.

conch: Can those laws be proven or are they just your opinion?

The laws of logic cannot be proven but they are hardly my opinion. They are the way we think and learn anything. And were first formally defined by Aristotle.

Ed: The law of causality states that all effects require a cause.

conch: Have you ruled out all possible things without a known cause? This is an assumption not a Law.

There are possible things that have no cause, but I am not referring to to all things, I am referring to all EFFECTS. It is more than an assumption it is a law of logic.

Ed: Almost all the evidence points to the universe being an effect,

conch: What proves the universe to be an effect? We only know that it changed from a singularity to an expanding space time of matter and energy. Do you know what the sinularity was? You are assuming that the singularity was not just a phase of the universe. That is an unproven assumption.

It has the characteristics of an effect, ie a beginning and it is changing. It is unlikely to be just a phase of the universe, because if run the BB backwards in time far enough you come to a point with no dimensions, ie nothing, so there is no universe.

Because all effects need a cause according to logic.

[quote]Ed: Also that cause must be sufficient to produce the effect. And part of the effect is that personal beings exist in it, therefore whatever caused the effect must be sufficient to produce the personal.

conch: You blew it here. There is no law that requries personality (conscious awarenes and cognition) to exist in the force that created the universe just because personal beings evolved. We know that consciousness and cognition evolved as survival mechanisms in animals for 1. finding mates, 2. finding food, and 3. evading predators. We can trace the evolution of cognition in the evolutionary record and the gene mutations accounting for it. It is the result of the natural selection at work on the central nervous system over millions of year of trial and error. The various layers of human brain were added in stages by mutational and regulatory genes like the FOXP2 for speech. Brain nodule to medulla, to medulla-pons, to medulla-pons-cerebellum, to mesencephalon and full brainstem-cerebellum (amphibians), to brainstem, diencephalon, hypothalamus and limbic Palaeocortex of repitiles to that and the Archaeocortex of primitive mammals to the neocortex of advanced mammals to the complex large frontal lobe networks of primate especially humans. That does not imply design or a personal creator but genetic mutational rates, adaptation, and trial and error.

I am not saying that there is a law that requires that the cause be personal, only that it is a rational assumption given the Law of Sufficient Cause.

Ed: And we know from human experience that only persons can produce the personal therefore the Cause most likely has a personal aspect to it just like the Christian God.

conch: Logic says that in our experience only animals have conscious cognition = personality. Therefore hypothetical gods may or may not have personality based on human and other animals having personality. And as I postulated, a creator need not have personality based on not needing it.

No, animals do not have true personality, though some do have some aspects of personality. See above about your postulation.

Ed: And there are other characteristics of the universe that point to the Christian God benig the cause.

conch: The disorder of the real universe points to natural forces not an intelligent design.

What disorder?

Ed: Therefore now you know that Christianity's foundation, ie the existence of a personal God, IS rational contrary to yours and other atheists assumptions.

conch: And if there is no reason to ASSUME God is a personal being, then the argument falls flat. Atheist don't assume anything. We just note that personality exists only as a survival trait in evolving animals. There is no logical justification to applying an animal trait to a cosmic creator.

Conchobar

See above how my assumption IS rational. No, many atheists DO assume that belief in God is irrational.

Weltall

October 18, 2003, 11:57 PM

Nope, not seeing your point here Ed.

lpetrich

October 19, 2003, 02:52 AM

Ed:
(the Universe...)
It has the characteristics of an effect, ie a beginning and it is changing.

How are those "characteristics of an effect"?

It is unlikely to be just a phase of the universe, because if run the BB backwards in time far enough you come to a point with no dimensions, ie nothing, so there is no universe.

Ed does not seem to have heard of quantum gravity.

(that "personal" entities can only be caused by other "personal" entities...)
I am not saying that there is a law that requires that the cause be personal, only that it is a rational assumption given the Law of Sufficient Cause.

Which does NOT tell us whether or not X is capable of causing Y.

It seems that the real argument is a fallacious Law of Resemblance, that effects must resemble their causes. There are numerous counterexamples, and this "law" is easy to satirize.

See above how my assumption IS rational. No, many atheists DO assume that belief in God is irrational.

The same way that Ed believes that atheism is irrational?

October 19, 2003, 11:04 PM

Originally posted by Conchobar
Human design flaws

1. Female pelvis too small for the human baby's head making birth difficult and risky to perinatal injuries for the baby.

No, this is not the original design, this is probably partially the result of Man's sin, see Genesis, and microevolution.

2. Retinal arteries/veins lying on and in front of the retina of the eyes. Many causes of blindness come from this defective design.

What causes? Probably these causes did not exist in our original environment, ie the Garden of Eden.

3. Wisdom teeth (already noted) with secondary abscesses, occasionally dissecting up into the cranium -> brain abscess, meningitis, epidural empyema.

Wisdom teeth are the result of our jaws being reduced in size by microevolution, not design.

4. Larynx too highly placed, leading to common choking deaths.

Evidence that the choking is the result of the larynx and not some other cause, ie not chewing food properly and etc?

5. A bony projection, called the Odontoid Process, an extension of the C2 vertebral body like a long finger, up to the end of the brainstem. It can easily fracture, especially in rheumatoid arthritis. That leads to death or paralysis of all extremities and inability to breathe without a mechanical ventilator. A simpler rotatory ball-socket joint would be better and safer.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a result of the Fall, the vertebrae were not designed to ever encounter it.

6. Semi-soft disc material between vertebrae and just anterior to the spinal cord, were suited well to quadrupeds. But in humans the upper body weight compresses these and can cause herniations with mild to moderate trauma. There are 6 of these (none at C1-2) in the neck, 12 in the thoracic spine, 5 (rarely 6) in the Lumbar spine. That is 23 flaws or accidents waiting to happen.

Evidence that these herniations are not the result of some other cause, ie sports, attempting things the body was not designed for or etc?

7. Hip joints perfectly suited to support human weight if there were four of them or 4 supporting limbs. In a biped, the stress causes extremely common hip degeneration, femoral neck fractures in women and older people. How often do you hear of that in a dog or horse?

Evidence?

8. Knees similarly are not strong enough with the tibial cartilage in two legs for human weight, jumping down, and running. If we had 4 legs it would not be so bad. How often do you see cats with knee problems?

Evidence that it was not caused by misuse, ie overuse in sports?

9. Foot and ankle bones are badly designed. Most quadrupeds walk on their toes or the balls of the feet. This puts more weight on flexible tendons, ligaments and several bending joints spreading the stress. In the human food, we are walking on essentially our leg "wrists" and balls of the foot with an arch that is traumatised by walking and standing. When it falls it has an additional problem of severe foot pain. (See 10).

Evidence that it is "traumatized" by walking and standing? Fallen arches are the result of aging, which originally we did not do.

10. In those fallen arches, the plantar nerves are badly placed. Instead of weaving between or over top of bones to their skin sensory receptors, these course "under" the ankle bones, under the arch to the metatarsal joints. When the arch slowly gives way it stretches those nerves and eventually compresses them. This never happens in dogs or cats.

See above about aging.

11. Human wrist must extend to provide maximum finger flexion; a major human task is to hold things in our hands. So the wrist flexes a thousand times a day. Problem is that the median nerve runs through a bony trough covered by tough ligaments, the Carpal Tunnel. With every wrist flexion the median nerve is pulled in and out of that canal. The canal is easily narrowed by minor injuries or repetitive use. The nerve is injured causing pain, finger numbness, and weakness in thumb opposition.

CTS is the result of EXTREME repetitive use, our hands were not designed for this.

12. The Elbow flexes and extends, but an important nerve, the Ulnar Nerve mostly motor to the muscles of the forearm and hand. It unfortunately does not go in front of the elbow in the safer soft tissue. It courses behind the elbow which is fine in horses, but human flex the arm at the elbow that pulls and stretches the ulnar nerve in a long course behind the elbow in an "ulnar groove" and additionally a human sitting often rest elbows on a table, and that compresses the ulnar nerve. Dogs and cats don't do that.

Evidence?

13. The Brachial Plexus is a cluster of the nerves to the arm that travels through a triangle with the first rib being the bottom, the collar bone in front, and the scalene muscles behind. Also in the triangle is the brachial artery to supply blood to the arm. Poor posture, hanging by exercise bars from the hands, or throwing balls, cause the triangle to compress either or both structures. This is Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, the Neuronal form when the plexus is injured and vascular form when the brachial circulation is impaired.

The body was not designed for these behaviors.

14. Female urinary opening (urethra), vagina, and rectum all located in a close row so that rectal infection of the urethra/bladder/kidneys, or the vagina is risky. The old joke is why is the recreational park located at the sewage outflow pipes?

Originally our immune system was much stronger prior to the Fall and therefore such infections would not have occurred.

15. Appendix is a seemingly useless relic of evolution that often gets infected and ruptures in a life threatening peritonitis unless removed quickly. A few postulate that it might have bacterial that make certain vitamins. That is unproven.

No, there is evidence that the appendix has an immune system function.

16. Large veins in the legs, progressively dilating from standing, walking, run the risk of blood clotting when the human sits for a period of time. These veins send those clots north to the heart's right ventricle and directly into the lungs causing pulmonary emboli (clots and lung infarction) that is often fatal.) Quadruped animals rarely die of this. Many humans do.

Evidence that it is not some other cause?

17. Venous Cavernous Sinuses at the skull base on left and right are large draining veins from the brain. But inside of the vein there is the carotid artery taking blood into the brain, and several important nerves: III, IV, VI that control all eye movements, pupillary diameter, and lens focusing, and V-1, V-2, and V-3 that supply sensation to the eye and face. This venous structure packed with these important structures is infected by sinus infection or pustules in or on the nose. Infection causes the blood to clot (thrombosis) that injures the nerves, makes the eye bulge and swell, and can cause spreading thrombosis into the brain which can be rapidly fatal.

See above how we were originally not susceptible to infections.

18. Other cranial sinuses such as the transverse are located next to the middle ear that frequently gets infected in kids. The infection spread to the venous sinus and causes thrombophlebitis, the major effect is increased fluid pressure in the brain, venous strokes, and seizures. If all of those venous drainage pipes were internally situated, there would not be such a risk. (17 and 18).

See above about infections.

19. Congenital birth defects caused by structures found only in primitive animals (but still in our genes): gills occur by genetic regulation in our embryonic stage later to be recycled by other HOX genes as middle ear bones. Some gill tissue may be left over at birth. That baby may have a partial gill (technically called a branchial cleft cyst.) These can cause pain as the person grows, or develop into abscesses. Another archaic relic of evolution is the notochord, a precursor of bony spines in proto-vertebrates. It normally recycles as the bony spine forms. Left over notochord tissue is a chordoma. This is a tumour composed of notochord tissue only otherwise found in ancient animals like Pikaea and Amphioxus. This embryonic notochordal rest cell tumour grows in the clivus at the base of the brain. In that location it compresses the brainstem.

Actually these are not gills. Genetic defects are the result of the fall, originally there was no "leftover notochord".

20. Our abdomen. It houses our stomach, our liver, our spleen, great vessels (aorta) small bowel, and colon. In quadripeds it is underneath. Ribs hold the contents inside. An attacker cannot easily get to it. The predator has to attack the tougher back and spine. But in the human the belly is sticking out there for some clawed or toothed predator or knife wielding human criminal to take a swipe and eviscerate us. Upright posture causes the viscera to push downward into the pelvis, leading to hernias of several kinds.

Our original environment, ie Eden, did not have predators.

So either Evolution just produced what worked enought to survive with flaws. If it was designed by an intelligent designer, that designer flunked Engineering 101.

Conchobar

Fraid not, see above for simple explanations for why we are the way we are.

Prof

October 20, 2003, 12:35 AM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. Female urinary opening (urethra), vagina, and rectum all located in a close row so that rectal infection of the urethra/bladder/kidneys, or the vagina is risky. The old joke is why is the recreational park located at the sewage outflow pipes?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ed replied: Originally our immune system was much stronger prior to the Fall and therefore such infections would not have occurred.

Prof: My goodness. Ed at some level even you must sense how ludicrous your argument is becoming. You don't know any of the answers to these specific questions (the Bible does not provide them) - you are making them up as you go along.

This is why arguing with theists tend to be futile. The Atheist is constrained to argue from facts and reason, whereas the Theist argues from the blank cheque of Faith: "Well, even though I can't offer proof for these things I know them to be true." Thus the Theist allows himself to speculate wildly to fill in whatever logical gap he may encounter, with no proof whatsoever offered for such speculations. (This business about immune systems before "the fall" being a perfect example).

Thus we have the spectacle of Ed continually demanding evidence for atheist arguments, while offering none at all to back his biblically-derived speculations. He doesn't *have to* offer proof because as we all should know God isn't going to show up and prove any of this to our petty little minds. And besides..it's all in his book, right? Well, kind of...it looks like I'm going to wait for the Ed's annotated version of the Bible because somehow I missed all the information
he has so miraculously drawn from it's pages. :rolleyes:

(Sorry, this one was just getting too silly to hold back).

Prof.

Abolish

October 20, 2003, 11:33 AM

Kruzkal:

I'm new to the forum. This is my first contribution.

My answer to your question, without taking into account anything else posted on this thread (sorry) is found at:

http://www.philosophical-apologetic.com

So put your thinking cap on and don't take it off or you'll lose it!

Good question. It needs a serious answer but if you cross examine theists, you won't find one that can answer it, not at least to the extent that I've attempted to answer it. The best I can manage is my "Causal Argument for the Existence of a Supreme Being" in answer to Immanuel Kant's Challenge, an alternative title to the e-text found above. The argument may undergo further editing, but the argument is basically complete, and is not likely to undergo radical modifications. If you'll also note, the empirical validation is simply the empirical validation (of which the big bang theory plays part), but the argument would stand even without the empirical validation. The argument I claim, is also universally, objectively valid. This does not mean that it is true. But it's as rational and as logical a solution to your question as you're likely to ever find. This by the way, comes to you from a self-professed theist who claims not simply to have a faith in the notion that there is a God, but who claims to 'know' there is a God, based upon the above work. Now it's up to you to try and grasp the understanding of this work, and then, only once you've grasped it, turn it into a pile of rubbish, that is if the argument leaves you dissatisfied in some way.

I will post this same challenge to others by way of a separate thread, but at the same time, this does qualify as my serious response to your serious question.

lpetrich

October 20, 2003, 01:49 PM

Notice how Ed explains essentially every Bad Thing as a result of "the Fall" or some sort of misuse. I wonder what he thinks was our originally-intended method of reproduction. Were we to give birth in C-section fashion? That is, forward instead of downward through the pelvic girdle.

That "design" is OK for laying lots of small eggs, as fish and frogs do. However, it's not so great for giving birth to a relatively big baby. Which suggests a certain lack of foresight.

Weltall

October 20, 2003, 04:42 PM

Ed, do please tell us exactly what Homo Sapiens originally looked like and how we somehow managed to change into our current state without any evidence to show for your beliefs. You might also want to put some thought into the tail that developing human embryos possesses. Did we have tails in Eden? I'm also interested in evidence (which I have conveniently put in italics so you notice it) that humans in Eden lacked a notochord and that the gills found during the embryonic stage actually serve some different purpose than what they appear to be doing.

October 20, 2003, 11:30 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

Ed: Verse 1 goes from the BB to the primordial earth from a cosmological perspective.

jtb: The Bible says "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".

There's no mention of the BB in there. So you're hallucinating again.

But there is a plainly implied definite beginning to the universe (heavens and earth) ex nihlo, which is what the BB also plainly implies.

Ed: Then in verse 2 the perspective changes to from the surface of the earth, ie dark, covered with water, and unfit for life. The earth's primordial atmosphere and the solar system's interplanetary debris prevent the light of the sun, moon and stars from reaching the surface of the earth's ocean. Verse 3 refers to the clearing of the interplanetary debris and partial transformation of the atmosphere so that light now penetrates to the surface of the earth's ocean.

jtb: Nope, these "perspective shifts" aren't in the Bible. They were inented by Christian theologians, uncomfortable with the fact that Genesis is wrong.

No, in the hebrew it is rather obvious. It says and "the Spirit hovered over the surface of the deep". This is plainly going from a cosmological perspective in verse 1 to a perspective from the surface of the earth.

jtb:According to the Bible, the sun and moon appeared when God created them. Not "when the atmosphere cleared".

No, it is a rational assumption given the above info about the perspective plus what we know about God's other book, ie nature.

jtb: You think we haven't seen this baloney before? And despite all their efforts, the apologists still couldn't get the sequence right (dry land should come before oceans, birds after land animals, plants after animals).

No, the oceans do not form until the second day. The deep and
"waters" mentioned in verse 2 probably mean the gas cloud that coalesced to form the earth because the deep in hebrew can also mean an unfathomable cloud. Hebrew is much broader in meaning and the day-ages can overlap. The term for birds just means flying creatures so this can refer to flying fish and flying insects which existed before fully terrestrial animals did. So this is an amzing fit. Plants occur in day/age 3 which is BEFORE animals, how is that out of order?

jtb: There is nothing in the Bible which indicates supernatural knowledge that wouldn't otherwise be available to those who wrote it.

Ed: Evidence?

jtb: You're the one who needs to provide "evidence".

I did.

Ed: Whales and chimps can string words together to provide some relatively simple communication. However, true language is more than stringing words together to let someone know your desires, it also has grammar and syntax. So far, it appears chimps and whales do not use grammar or syntax.

jtb: You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. The songs of humpbacked whales are VERY complex and last for hours.

Complex songs are a far cry from true language as I described above.

jtb: Even YOU have been forced to admit that various animals have "aspects of personhood", hence there is no uncrossable barrier between "persons" and "non-persons".

Ed: Even just having aspects of personhood is far beyond the impersonal.

jtb:...Except that it isn't.

Ed, you have NO IDEA what "the personal" means.

As a personal being I know quite well what personal means.

jtb: That isn't how "macroevolution" is defined. Speciation is an example of macroevolution that has been empirically observed, therefore "macroevolution has never been empirically observed" is a lie.

Ed: No, see Stephen Jay Gould's definition of macroevolution in my EvC thread.

jtb: ...Yeah, right.

See where you're wrong. I'm sure it's on a thread somewhere.

Fraid not, see A View of Life by Gould pages 773-774.

jtb: You failed to provide a rational and objective basis for WHY God should have an "objective moral character".

Ed: God has an objective moral character because all persons have a moral character. And since he is not human, his character is objective to us.

jtb: Meaningless, evasive, circular waffle.

WHY do "all persons have a moral character"?

According to you, "because God does".

Why?

"Because he's a person".

...And so on. You are totally incapable of answering the question.

Persons have a moral character so that they can make moral decisions.

jtb: As previously noted, macroevolution HAS been directly observed.

...Whereas macrocreation (or even microcreation) has not...

Ed: No, see above.

jtb: We're still waiting for that empirical evidence of microcreation, Ed..

And I am still waiting for an example as I stated above, of an empirical example of one genus changing into another.

Philosoft

October 20, 2003, 11:42 PM

Originally posted by Ed
But there is a plainly implied definite beginning to the universe (heavens and earth) ex nihlo, which is what the BB also plainly implies.
And plainly omits the whole part about expansion. Are you ever going to address this?
No, it is a rational assumption given the above info about the perspective plus what we know about God's other book, ie nature.
You cannot make "rational assumption[s]" about supernatural events. It is impossible in principle.
Complex songs are a far cry from true language as I described above.
Find a definition of "language" that requires grammar and syntax or retract this.
And I am still waiting for an example as I stated above, of an empirical example of one genus changing into another.
What are you after here? I imagine the fossil record won't be good enough for you, so what do you want? A lab report of genus-level evolution?

Wyz_sub10

October 21, 2003, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by Ed
No, this is not the original design, this is probably partially the result of Man's sin, see Genesis, and microevolution.

This is so ridiculous that it'd be comical, save for the fact that some people actually believe it.

Do you think this is "probably" the result of man's sin? Because everything problematic is, right? What do you suppose was the original design?

Let me guess - Adam and Eve were coneheads?

Wisdom teeth are the result of our jaws being reduced in size by microevolution, not design.

Blasphemy! Actually, I'm glad you chalk this up to evolution. Why teeth get a more scientific outlook then the head, I'm not quite sure.

Fraid not, see above for simple explanations for why we are the way we are.

There are no explanations, Ed. Just speculative, goddidit nonsense.

lpetrich

October 21, 2003, 06:34 AM

Ed:
But there is a plainly implied definite beginning to the universe (heavens and earth) ex nihlo, which is what the BB also plainly implies.

The Bible does NOT claim that the Universe had been created "out of nothing", and the Big Bang need not have originated "from nothing".

jtb:
According to the Bible, the sun and moon appeared when God created them. Not "when the atmosphere cleared".

No, it is a rational assumption given the above info about the perspective plus what we know about God's other book, ie nature.

Ed misrepresents his own sacred book here. And what makes him so sure that the early Earth had been permanently clouded over? Had he been there in a time machine?

Ed has stated elsewhere that the G1 "days" are overlapping eras. With this much wiggle room, it's easy to make a fit to G1. He also makes lots of totally-unsupported -- and convenient -- claims about Hebrew.

The term for birds just means flying creatures so this can refer to flying fish and flying insects which existed before fully terrestrial animals did. So this is an amzing fit.

Ed misrepresents his own sacred book again. It treats "flying creatures" as a big group; it doesn't say "some before land animals, some aside land animals". Also, the first land arthropods are:

Trigonotarbids (early arachnids; spiderlike though not true spiders)
Mites
Centipedes
Millipedes
Collembolans

with true insects appearing later.

Plants occur in day/age 3 which is BEFORE animals, how is that out of order?

They include fruit trees, which are all angiosperms (flowering plants), and these did not become abundant until the end of the Jurassic.

And I am still waiting for an example as I stated above, of an empirical example of one genus changing into another.

Ed has changed his mind about what constitutes a "created kind"; he has earlier claimed it to be a Linnaean family. And how he claims it's a Linnaean genus.

I wonder what evidence would be acceptable to Ed. Going back in time in a time machine?

If Ed evaluates solar eclipses like he evaluates evolution, he'd claim that there is no empirical evidence for the "macroshadow" theory of solar eclipses, since the only shadows produced in familiar conditions are "microshadows" and not "macroshadows".

Jack the Bodiless

October 21, 2003, 09:22 AM

jtb: Nope, these "perspective shifts" aren't in the Bible. They were invented by Christian theologians, uncomfortable with the fact that Genesis is wrong.

No, in the hebrew it is rather obvious. It says and "the Spirit hovered over the surface of the deep". This is plainly going from a cosmological perspective in verse 1 to a perspective from the surface of the earth.
Well, at least you're not arguing that "Let there be light" was the Big Bang: a mistake that many Christians make. But you know very well that the ONLY reason this massive burst of radiant energy is NOT equated with "Let there be light" is BECAUSE it appears OUT OF SEQUENCE.

You cannot then pretend that the sequence is miraculously correct.
No, it is a rational assumption given the above info about the perspective plus what we know about God's other book, ie nature.
There is no "info about the perspective". Merely a fantasy from the Book of Ed.
jtb: You think we haven't seen this baloney before? And despite all their efforts, the apologists still couldn't get the sequence right (dry land should come before oceans, birds after land animals, plants after animals).

No, the oceans do not form until the second day.
The Bible says you're wrong.
The deep and "waters" mentioned in verse 2 probably mean the gas cloud that coalesced to form the earth because the deep in hebrew can also mean an unfathomable cloud.
Nope, God parted the waters to reveal dry land.
Hebrew is much broader in meaning and the day-ages can overlap.
...Thereby negating the whole notion of a "correct sequence" of events.
The term for birds just means flying creatures so this can refer to flying fish and flying insects which existed before fully terrestrial animals did. So this is an amzing fit.
Wrong, as already noted.
Plants occur in day/age 3 which is BEFORE animals, how is that out of order?
For two reasons:

1. Animals actually appeared long before the specific plants listed.

2. The first "plants" (photosynthetic bacteria) came AFTER non-photosynthetic bacteria.
jtb: There is nothing in the Bible which indicates supernatural knowledge that wouldn't otherwise be available to those who wrote it.

Ed: Evidence?

jtb: You're the one who needs to provide "evidence".

I did.
No, you didn't. The Genesis creation sequence is wrong, so we're still waiting.

jtb: You failed to provide a rational and objective basis for WHY God should have an "objective moral character".

Ed: God has an objective moral character because all persons have a moral character. And since he is not human, his character is objective to us.

jtb: Meaningless, evasive, circular waffle.

WHY do "all persons have a moral character"?

According to you, "because God does".

Why?

"Because he's a person".

...And so on. You are totally incapable of answering the question.

Persons have a moral character so that they can make moral decisions.
MORE meaningless, evasive, circular waffle!

You KNOW that you are failing to answer the question!

Here it is again: Provide a rational and objective basis for WHY God should have an "objective moral character".

BTW, I'd be fascinated to see an explanation of why the shape of the female pelvic girdle fits into the Magic Fruit Theory. God created women with too-narrow hips, but a diet of "Fruit of Life" causes hips to widen? Or maybe it causes heads to shrink?

Looks like God was incompetent when he designed us in the first place, but then he created magic fruits as an upgrade mechanism.

October 21, 2003, 10:15 PM

Originally posted by Weltall
I do believe a trip to a Natural History Museum is in your future Ed. In case you can't get to one you might want to peruse this link: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
And this one: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx.html.

Those links do not show any undisputed transitions between genera or families.

Weltall

October 21, 2003, 10:28 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Those links do not show any undisputed transitions between genera or families.
:banghead: :banghead: In case you utterly forgot why I originally posted those links, you claimed there weren't any transitional fossils. You're now claiming that I posted useless links because you've conceded to yourself that you've lost the original argument and need to try a different (and equally invalid) one. You are, by the way, dead wrong.

October 21, 2003, 10:38 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
The bible does not give a detailed description of the BB, but it does give the two key features of the BB, ie that the universe was created ex nihlo and that there is a definite beginning to space and time.

lp: The Big Bang does NOT imply "creation ex nihilo". In fact, the Bible does not directly support it either. God clearly needs pre-existing matter in the second Genesis creation story, and that is a weaker, though reasonable conclusion for the first Genesis 1. Also, Genesis 1:1 could be translated "When God was starting to create the heaven and the earth"; that translation flows more easily into Genesis 1:2.

Fraid so, if you reverse the BB (beyond even quantum gravity) then you come to a point with no dimensions, ie nothing. Both your translation of Gen 1:1 and the more scholarly translation DO imply ex nihilo, because it just says that God created the heavens and the earth, which in hebrew means all matter, space and time. It does not refer to any preexisting matter, and verse 2 plainly states that only after that initial creating does the earth exist. There is no second creation story, Gen. 2 is just a telescoping into day 6, ie another change of perspective.

lp: Also, the Big Bang was essentially a giant explosion -- by far the largest explosion there ever was in the observable Universe. Why omit that feature of it?

Because Gen. 1 is not meant to be scientific treatise on the physics of the origin of the universe.

Ed: No, the incidence of contact and pathogen buildup is especially high in animals with a well developed interest in excreta such as swine, members of the dog family and bottom dwelling shellfish.

lp: And where does the Bible explicitly state that? And why is aversion to dogs, pigs, and shellfish so uncommon outside of the Bible?

The bible does not state that, this is only known because of modern science. So 3500 years ago the hebrews were unknowingly following modern science, because they were following the omniscient God. The canaanites did not have God guiding them.

Ed: Given their primitive methods of cooking there would have always been a chance of undercooking and also their diet was a symbol of their being set apart from the pagan nations.

lp: All one has to do is cook the meat so it's no longer pink.

You cannot always see the pink until you are already cutting and eating it. And in ancient times you often had to eat in a hurry.

Ed: There already are videorocks, they are called the Fossil Record. It shows different genera "popping" into existence without precursors.

lp: Except that the fossil record's time resolution is very coarse by ordinary standards. And that species have never been observed to get "poofed" into existence. I mean by that:

*POOF!* and the first members of a new species appear

But on a larger scale, there are plenty of interemediates, like all the species between Hyracotherium and Equus.

The horse sequence was discredited years ago.

October 21, 2003, 11:16 PM

Originally posted by markfiend

Originally posted by Ed
Yes, but the bible is the most historically accurate of the ancient religious documents.

mf: You're serious? Let's see, an exodus from Egypt including the drowning in the Red Sea of Pharaoh and his army that the Egyptians themselves conveniently forgot to mention in their historic records; Noah's worldwide flood, which quite simply did not happen; I could go on...

Most governments both modern and ancient do not publish very embarassing events in their official historical records. How do you know that it did not happen? Something that lasted only a year and occured 2 mya is unlikely to have much evidence left.

Ed: Also, there is more documentary evidence for Christ than there is for Caesar's Gallic Wars and other ancient events.

mf: Now I know you're kidding. Paul's letters don't attest to a historical Christ.

Fraid so, read I Corinthians 2:2, I Tim. 3:16, I Corinth. 15:1-8.

mf: You've got Mark's gospel, which looks like it was constructed as a parody of Greek hero-stories.

Evidence?

mf: You've got the other three gospels which all plagiarise Mark. Then what? The Josephus references? Don't make me laugh.

No, there are only 10 copies of the Gallic Wars and there is a 1000 year time gap between the documents and the event. With the NT, there are over 5000 copies and some are within 50 to 100 years of the events.

Ed: And most all scholars know that the Quran borrowed a great deal from the bible and Mohammad and his followers changed the parts they didn't like.

mf: False dichotomy. "The Quran is false" does not imply "the Bible is true".

Umm I was responding to a comment that the Koran is just as accurate as the bible and I was explaining why that is false. You jumped in without using your brain and reading what I was responding to.

Ed: Because a crucifixion would have been considered a failure in ancient times. Actually this is evidence that the NT is not manmade. In manmade stories and myths the hero would unlikely to be stripped naked and crucified and humiliated in such a way as Jesus was. So the writer would have said it was someone else.

Except that in the archetypal hero-epic, the hero dies a failure at the end. Compare with Odysseus, Achilles, etc. etc.

Evidence?

Philosoft

October 21, 2003, 11:26 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Those links do not show any undisputed transitions between genera or families.
"Undisputed transitions"?? You are the kung-fu master of weasel-speak, sir.

Let me get this straight, old bean. Kent Hovind, or whatever unreasonable-facsimile-of-a-human currently exists in his body, will undoubtedly dispute any evidential claim made in favor of speciation (or better) so long as his lungs can fill with enough air to generate a lie. Is this the kind of "dispute" that invalidates in your mind the evidences given in those links?

lpetrich

October 22, 2003, 01:37 AM

Ed:
Fraid so, if you reverse the BB (beyond even quantum gravity) then you come to a point with no dimensions, ie nothing.

I wonder what makes Ed so sure of that. Does learning how to become a wildlife biologist involve taking advanced courses in quantum cosmology?

There is no second creation story, Gen. 2 is just a telescoping into day 6, ie another change of perspective.

Except that the order of events is just plain wrong. And the style of story doesn't match. Etc. It seems to me that if God Almighty was to reveal to Ed that G1 and G2 are two separate stories, he'd refuse to believe it.

Because Gen. 1 is not meant to be scientific treatise on the physics of the origin of the universe.

Ed wants to have it both ways here, just like the Rush Limbaugh apologists who claim that he is only an entertainer.

(the Bible on dogs, pigs, and shellfish having lots of nasty bugs...)
The bible does not state that, this is only known because of modern science. ...

Ed has still not shown that pork has many more parasites than beef.

You cannot always see the pink until you are already cutting and eating it.

I wonder if Ed has ever heard of cooking meat until it is "well done".

And in ancient times you often had to eat in a hurry.

Evidence offered: {}

The horse sequence was discredited years ago.

A giant pile of horse dung. Especially as Ed has not revealed to us what he thinks the real story is.

(the Exodus events going unrecorded...)
Most governments both modern and ancient do not publish very embarassing events in their official historical records.

No, when such events are big enough, they do, but they give such events a Baghdad-Bob spin.

How do you know that it did not happen? Something that lasted only a year and occured 2 mya is unlikely to have much evidence left.

Except that all the Earth's flora and fauna, both terrestrial and aquatic, went through that alleged flood as if nothing had happen. Simply check the fossil record.

(Jesus Christ as having an earthly existence...)
Fraid so, read I Corinthians 2:2, I Tim. 3:16, I Corinth. 15:1-8.

Either interpolations or some heavenly existence.

No, there are only 10 copies of the Gallic Wars and there is a 1000 year time gap between the documents and the event. With the NT, there are over 5000 copies and some are within 50 to 100 years of the events.

Those are all MEDIEVAL copies, and it's not surprising that medieval monks found the NT more worth copying than the Gallic Wars.

Also, the contemporary evidence for Julius Caesar's existence is MUCH better than that for Jesus Christ's existence.

jtb:
Except that in the archetypal hero-epic, the hero dies a failure at the end. Compare with Odysseus, Achilles, etc. etc.

Ed:
Evidence?

I wonder how Ed thinks Odysseus and Achilles ended up.

Jack the Bodiless

October 22, 2003, 03:49 AM

No, there are only 10 copies of the Gallic Wars and there is a 1000 year time gap between the documents and the event. With the NT, there are over 5000 copies and some are within 50 to 100 years of the events.
Absolute rubbish.

All we have "within 50 years of the event" is a single small FRAGMENT of what became the "Gospel of John".

From other texts, we know that the modern tradition of four canonical Gospels began about 100 years after the event, but the earliest complete gospel that we actually have dates from several centuries later IIRC.

The notion that 5000 copies date from the second century is pure baloney.

October 22, 2003, 11:26 PM

Originally posted by Conchobar
Assumption 1. "The universe is an effect." We don't know that. It is an unproven assumption. Therefore it is illogical to assume it has a cause if you can't prove that it is an effect.

We may not know it with absolute certainty, but all the evidence points to it being an effect, ie it has a beginning, it is in motion and etc.

con: Assumption 2. "The characterists of the effect, you can learn about the cause." This assumption is problematic as well. We already dismissed the assumption that the universe is an effect. But what about the characterists tells anything about a cause? If the cause was some explosion of a singularity, or matter pouring through a hole from another dimension, or if a creator did it, there is nothing in the universe that describes anything about the nature of the hypothetical creator, physical forces of the creation, or a hypothetical burst through a dimensional hole.

Huh? If this assumption is problematic then so is all science! Scientists and law enforcement people do this everyday. They study an effect to determine its cause.

con: Assumption 3. "The Characteristics of the universe point to the christian god." That is the biggest leap you have made so far. The Christian God is a human invented composite reflecting human personality, vices, rare virtues, consciousness, and cognition. The Christian God is on the same par as Dagda, Odin, Brahma, Allah, JHWH, and Ahura Mazda. They are all human alter-egos, and as such are equally implausible and improbable.

Actually the evidence points to the Christian God not being invented by humans. For one thing His moral standards are too high. If God was manmade, his moral laws would let us have sex with anyone we wanted to rather than just our husbands and wives. Also, good lying would be a virtue.

con: Everything we find about the universe, astronomy, astrophysics, physics, chemistry, biology/evolution, and neurocognition being brain based can be explained by science.

Okay, explain how that assumption can be proven using science.

con: None of it implies any design. Complexity comes from simplicity all of the time by natural properties of matter. Corrosive Sodium metal does very little. Toxic Chlorine does little but kill biological life. But Na+ readily binds to Cl- without any coaxing to form NaCl. NaCl is not corrosive or toxic. It is required for all biological life to survive. Solutions in water when evapourated form complex and beautiful fractals (crystals). The Fractal is not designed, it is the product of the ionic properties of the salt, and applying Mendelbrots Equation. No gods needed.

No, fractals and crystals are the result of the underlying structure of the molecules which is complex so the complexity comes from the built in complexity of the molecules so it is not coming from simplicity.

con: Why does a hypothetical god need to be Christian or Brahmin?

The hindu god is eliminated as the cause of the universe because the universe is a diversity within a unity while the hindu god is a pure unity. Also according to hinduism all is one, ie individualism does not really exist, but this goes against all the evidence. All the evidence and common sense tells us that our individuality is real rather than an illusion.

con: Let us assume that the universe was created by an entity that we call God. I am an agnostic, but lets have us all, theists and atheists agree on this rhetorical premise. God is our designation for the creator of the cosmos.

Is God conscious?

Everything that we know for its reality directly that is conscious is an animal. It has a nervous system of neurons, axons, synapses to dendrites, and complex pathways from various locations of the brain to the other. Consciousness in all cases is dependent on a brain stem scattered nucleus of neurons called the Ascending Reticular Activating System (ARAS), which activates higher diencephalic centers, septal and pre-optic nuclei, which then activate acetylcholine receptor dendrites in the cerebral cortex.

Do we know of anything without those structures that is conscious? The answer is no. Plants and minerals do not have these and show no evidence of consciousness.

Actually there is evidence that consciousness is not totally dependent on the physical, see my post to lpetrich about the table.

con: Consciousness appears to be a physiological function in animals for survival and adaptation. It along with some instinct or cognitive skill, is necessary to 1. find food, 2. avoid predators, and 3. find a mate if sexual reproduction is necessary. God is spirit and immortal by definition. Therefore, it is a given that he does not require food. He should not fear a predator as a immortal spirit. An immortal God needs no reproduction. The heavens would become crowded with omnipotent, immortal gods. What a Bedlam that would be! In short, God does not need consciousness or cognition.

No, there are many animals that can do all those things without consciousness.

con: God is defined by some as spiritual (i.e. not matter, not energy, not wave forms.) That is why God cannot be studied, observed, measured, or tested in any way.

Now we are assuming God to be the Creator. That means we must choose what definition of God best fits the description of a cosmic creator.

A. God is a conscious cognitive being who created the universe for no obvious reason. It was presumably a conscious decision. Who knows why? Our culture further defines god has having personality or three personalities. He has human traits of emotions, cognition, rage attacks, vindictiveness, narcissism, jealousy, insecurity, virtues, and vices as outlined in the Bible. He is the Anthropomorphic God of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. He is a poor candidate for a cosmic creator. He doesn't even appear to be sane.

No, he does not have your traits 3-7. The gods of Islam and Judaism can be eliminated as the creator of the universe because they are pure unities while the universe is diversity within a unity which is what the Triune Christian God is.

con: B. God is conscious but of a type totally non-human. He may be a summary of physical laws, and make matter and energy universes by unknown mechanisms.

C. God may be a non-conscious and completely non-cognitive force of some unknown composition. It has an essence that is not matter, energy, or wave form. We cannot see it, hear it, feel it, or measure it. It's function may be to push matter from other dimensions through black holes or bubbles in the fabric of tbe cosmos, or mechanisms unknown. It does this because it is its property to do so. It is not a conscious decision. It is activated by something in the current state of the cosmos at the time. Perhaps there is a quantum mechanism.

So which is it? I reject the Abrahamic anthropomorphic God. If the Bible is the definition, then that god does not deserve to be worshipped. He is evil and cruel. He has temper rages, vindictiveness, injustice, and lack of mercy (creating Hell.) He is an alter ego of the Hebrew tribal shamans who created the various gods that Moses merged into one. That one god, JHWY, is a cosmic human with all of humanity's worst vices and few virtues. He is so unlikely that believing in him is not an option for me. I can understand one believing in this God only through abject, terrifying fear.

How about the Conscious non-human god? He is of course more plausible than the anthropomorphic god. We cannot see him, hear him, or measure him in any way. So he remains hypothetical. He has noting to rule him out, either. One problem is whether consciousness and cognition are even needed. The other issue is that astrophysics, geophysics, and evolution show no evidence of intelligent design.

The final one is the inanimate, non-conscious, non-cognitive force that's function is to deform the fabric of the cosmos which perhaps just inadvertently results in the formation of a universe in a Big Bang. Whether that is interdimensional or something else we have no way to tell.

I think the non-conscious, non-cognitive God/creator makes the most rational sense. Unlike God no. 2, I see no need for that entity to possess consciousness. Most things do not have what they do not need. God doesn't need to be a conscious thinker. The creator is just as likely a mechanism rather than a being.
Thinking consciousness is an adaptation for survival in animals that evolved for feeding, escaping predation, and mating. Only animals need this property.

Conchobar

No, all those gods can be eliminated because they are not sufficient to produce an effect, ie the universe, that contains the personal. See above about consciousness in animals.

Philosoft

October 22, 2003, 11:32 PM

Originally posted by Ed
No, fractals and crystals are the result of the underlying structure of the molecules which is complex so the complexity comes from the built in complexity of the molecules so it is not coming from simplicity.
Occasionally, in the middle of Ed's semi-lucid one-liners, something appears which, amazingly, gives me further pause. Something that makes me want to doubt Ed's sincerity or his sanity. Something that makes me wonder if there's not a semi-sophisticated AI on the other end of Ed's computer.

This is one of those times.

rlogan

October 23, 2003, 12:29 AM

God, at this point, is but a proposition Ed.

All that you have said works equally for a "husband and wife" God. A plethora of Gods.

How can you by deduction establish that it is one God, even if we were to allow existence of Godly powers for purposes of argument?

I say this because even if an ENORMOUS concession is made, almost the point in its entirety, you still don't end up with what you want by deduction.

(This is a long post and I skimmed. If this was addressed I beg your pardon).

rlogan

October 23, 2003, 12:54 AM

The proof of one God, the Christian God alone, rests upon these proofs by Ed:

"No other gods fit the bill"

and...

"The gods of Islam and Judaism can be eliminated as the creator of the universe because they are pure unities while the universe is diversity within a unity which is what the Triune Christian God is"

OK. Just can't argue with that. Logically, anyway...

lpetrich

October 23, 2003, 02:28 AM

Ed:
We may not know it with absolute certainty, but all the evidence points to it being an effect, ie it has a beginning, it is in motion and etc.

Notice that Ed has NOT demonstrated how that indicates that something has to be an effect.

Actually the evidence points to the Christian God not being invented by humans. For one thing His moral standards are too high. If God was manmade, his moral laws would let us have sex with anyone we wanted to rather than just our husbands and wives. Also, good lying would be a virtue.

The Bible does NOT forbid ALL non-marital sex. And the Bible does not absolutely forbid "good lying".

Also, consider Hindu ascetics, whom Alexander the Great's chroniclers had called "gymnosphists". According to Ed, the only thing that we can do on our initiative is swinish self-indulgence. Thus, Hindu ascetics imply the reality of Hindu deities.

No, fractals and crystals are the result of the underlying structure of the molecules which is complex so the complexity comes from the built in complexity of the molecules so it is not coming from simplicity.

Crystals come about because a crystalline organization has the lowest possible energy -- it's the sphere packing problem of mathematics.

The hindu god is eliminated as the cause of the universe because the universe is a diversity within a unity while the hindu god is a pure unity. ... The gods of Islam and Judaism can be eliminated as the creator of the universe because they are pure unities while the universe is diversity within a unity which is what the Triune Christian God is.

Ed's fallacious law of resemblance again.

(lots of possible deities...)

No, all those gods can be eliminated because they are not sufficient to produce an effect, ie the universe, that contains the personal.

Something that Ed has yet to demonstrate, as opposed to assert.

rdalin

October 23, 2003, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by Ed
Actually the evidence points to the Christian God not being invented by humans. For one thing His moral standards are too high. If God was manmade, his moral laws would let us have sex with anyone we wanted to rather than just our husbands and wives. Also, good lying would be a virtue.

Given the behavior of your god in the old testament, the claim that he has high moral standards is risible.

I seem to recall a number of occasions where the Israelites, under your god's direction, slaughtered all the inhabitants of a town except for the virginal young women, whom they got to keep. Wait - I know - maybe they all got married. That would make it okay, right?

GunnerJ

October 23, 2003, 09:30 AM

Occasionally, in the middle of Ed's semi-lucid one-liners, something appears which, amazingly, gives me further pause. Something that makes me want to doubt Ed's sincerity or his sanity. Something that makes me wonder if there's not a semi-sophisticated AI on the other end of Ed's computer.

I have been a proponent of the hypothesis that Ed is, in fact, some graduate CS student's project, an attempt to make an AI that can carry out an argument on a certain subject with a set bias. I don't know enough about AI theory and design to be able to verify this idea, however.

Philosoft

October 23, 2003, 01:10 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ
I have been a proponent of the hypothesis that Ed is, in fact, some graduate CS student's project, an attempt to make an AI that can carry out an argument on a certain subject with a set bias. I don't know enough about AI theory and design to be able to verify this idea, however.
Hey, did you steal this idea from Rimstalker?

GunnerJ

October 23, 2003, 02:39 PM

I am Rimstalker. New name.

October 23, 2003, 10:37 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
You are close to being correct but not exactly. He had already rejected orthodox Christianity long before Mein Kampf.

lp: It's clear that only Ed's favorite people believe in what he calls "orthodox Christianity".

Christian anti-Semitism has had a long history, despite Ed's attempts to argue that it cannot exist. The idea is that Jews are evil because they had turned their back on Jesus Christ.

I never said that it cannot exist and I do not deny that there has been Christian anti-semitism over the years, but my point is it is unbiblical and not a teaching of orthodox Christianity.

Ed: Mein Kampf is plainly propaganda for the ordinary German who considered himself christian, even though most germans by this time (1920's) had also already abandoned biblical christianity.

Ed: Direct evidence, please?

About Mein Kampf, read "Hitler" by Ian Kershaw. About German churches read Twisted Cross by Doris Bergen.

Ed: Almost all churches in Germany at the time were theologically liberal and had rejected anything jewish in the bible and most of the supernatural in it.

lp: Direct evidence, please?

See above.

You are right he did become increasingly interested in the occult and so did many of the other Nazis.

lp: So what?

My point is that those involved in the occult were very anti-christian.

Ed: But the killing of heretics was a sin after the coming of Christ because Christ taught us to love our enemies.

lp: Which would not be apparent from his numerous vituperative comments.

Again, Jesus was most harsh to believers not heretics.

Ed:
Yes, but the bible is the most historically accurate of the ancient religious documents.

lp: Prove it. And prove that it's more accurate than Herodotus or Thucydides or Plutarch or Livy or other such historians.

See above how it is more accurate than the Koran and the Buddhist and Hindu documents do not even make any historical claims. I don't have enough knowledge about the accuracy of those historians but we DO have more copies of the NT at closer dates to their actual composition than Herodotus, Livy, and Thucydides. We only have 8 copies of Herodotus and our oldest copy is 1350 years after it was originally written. Thucydides 1300 years after and Livy 400 years after.

Ed: Also, there is more documentary evidence for Christ than there is for Caesar's Gallic Wars and other ancient events.

lp: I've yet to see any such "evidence". As Richard Carrier has pointed out, the evidence for Julius Caesar's career is MUCH better than that for Jesus Christ's.

See my post to Weltall above. And I am referring to documentary evidence not archaeological evidence. I am not denying that Caesar has more archaeological evidence.

Ed: And most all scholars know that the Quran borrowed a great deal from the bible and Mohammad and his followers changed the parts they didn't like.

lp: So what?

I was responding to someone who was claiming that the Koran was more accurate than the bible. Don't jump into discussions unless you know what you are talking about.

Ed: Because a crucifixion would have been considered a failure in ancient times. Actually this is evidence that the NT is not manmade.

lp: Ed has never heard of "pulling victory from the jaws of defeat", it must seem.

Those stories are the exception rather than the rule.

Ed: Also, the hindu god can be eliminated as the creator of the universe using logic

lp: How so?

Because it is a pure unity, while the universe is a diversity within a unity so therefore it is unlikely to be the cause.

Ed: and there is indirect evidence that it does not exist.

lp: What evidence?

Hinduism claims all is one and individuality is an illusion, but experience and common sense tell us that individuality is real.

October 23, 2003, 10:43 PM

Originally posted by Weltall

Originally posted by Ed
No, if the days are understood as ages that overlap and that the hebrew words for plants and animals are much broader than english, the order is amazingly accurate.

welt: And you've just been smacked by your own argument. Do explain how plants can survive without sunlight for these ages, seeing as they require it to photosynthesize. There's more that I could bring up but this should keep you busy..

Huh? The atmosphere was cleared so that sunlight could strike the earth by the time he created plants. This occured in Day/age 1.

October 23, 2003, 10:50 PM

Originally posted by Weltall

Originally posted by Ed
The only reason you say that is because you think that any conclusion other than the one YOU came to, ie atheism or agnosticism, is reasonable and objective. So maybe you all are the ones with preconceptions about the accuracy of the bible.

weltall: You missed the point. Just because you know people that believe the Bible is historically accurate doesn't mean that I do or that most people here do. I think that if you read some of the posts you'll notice that your book isn't nearly so well attested as you seem to think.

No, but the poster I was responding to said that NO ONE who is reasonable and objective would believe that the bible is historically accurate, so I was responding to HIS point. YOUR point was unknown and irrelevant at the time. And I think I was right about him, I think he thinks that only if you come to the conclusion that he did, are you rational and objective.

Philosoft

October 23, 2003, 10:51 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ
I am Rimstalker. New name.
I know. Sorry, lousy joke.

October 23, 2003, 10:52 PM

Originally posted by Weltall
Then how about my question concerning how your deity created things in the wrong order (and twice at that)?

See my post to Jack the bodiless above.

October 23, 2003, 10:55 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Maybe I should have said an effect is IDENTIFIED as something that has a beginning or changes. How's that?

ps: Pitiful.

Ed: So my argument still stands.

Dream on.. [/B]

Okay, how do YOU identify an effect?

lpetrich

October 23, 2003, 11:00 PM

Ed:
I never said that it cannot exist and I do not deny that there has been Christian anti-semitism over the years, but my point is it is unbiblical and not a teaching of orthodox Christianity.

Except that Christian anti-Semites would disagree. The label "Christ-killer" is easily justified from the Gospels; it's something like

"Oh my god! They killed Jesus!"

And does Ed think that theologian Martin Luther was not a "True Christian" on account of his book The Jews and their Lies?

(Nazis as allegedly rationalistic...)

Which does not explain their hostility to atheism and freethought. See this article (http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/paul_23_4.html) for more.

Again, Jesus was most harsh to believers not heretics.

That's because he ran into them more. Which is not surprising of someone who referred to Gentiles as "dogs".

(Ed on the Hindu god)
Because it is a pure unity, while the universe is a diversity within a unity so therefore it is unlikely to be the cause.

There he goes again, using his beloved Law of Resemblance.

Hinduism claims all is one and individuality is an illusion, but experience and common sense tell us that individuality is real.

To which a Hindu would respond by pointing out various illusory perceptions.

And I could point out that my experience and common sense provide no reason to conclude that the Christian God exists.

Philosoft

October 23, 2003, 11:04 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Okay, how do YOU identify an effect?
I wasn't aware I had to. You're the one making the claim that the universe is an effect, based on a flawed understanding.

October 23, 2003, 11:08 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft
You made some pretty specific claims, Ed. Let's see your case study data. How many Christians do you know whose "is usually superficial and does not stand up under pressure" and, of those, how many have you identified as having a parent-centric basis for their faith?

I have not conducted a scientific study but I would say about 85% of people who claim to be christians have a superficial faith while 85% of them are christians because that is how they were brought up by their parents.

Philosoft

October 23, 2003, 11:28 PM

Originally posted by Ed
I have not conducted a scientific study
That much is obvious.
but I would say about 85% of people who claim to be christians have a superficial faith while 85% of them are christians because that is how they were brought up by their parents.
But you then make a claim that requires scientific study! Do you have any idea how many people you would have to interview to have even a passably generalizable sample? And what's with the percentages? Do they represent the same group?

rlogan

October 24, 2003, 12:05 AM

The sample size depends on the degree of accuracy we wish to achieve (e.g. plus or minus 1% vs. plus or minus 5%). This is often referred to alternatively as the "confidence interval" about the "point estimate".

Now, the legitimacy of the entire procedure hinges upon the randomness of the sample if we are asserting something about the population at large.

We can get within 2% or less with almost any underlying distribution in a sample of a thousand or so people. (Just giving you a ballpark without the gory particulars).

You still have to be very, very careful in that simple correlation does not imply causality. Parents and children can both be "caused" by a third variable and the correlation between the parent and child is not causal.

A multivariate approach would be preferred. Now we're talking my kind of money...

premjan

October 24, 2003, 12:07 AM

The Hindu God is also a diversity within a unity.

Philosoft

October 24, 2003, 12:26 AM

Originally posted by rlogan
The sample size depends on the degree of accuracy we wish to achieve (e.g. plus or minus 1% vs. plus or minus 5%). This is often referred to alternatively as the "confidence interval" about the "point estimate".

Now, the legitimacy of the entire procedure hinges upon the randomness of the sample if we are asserting something about the population at large.

We can get within 2% or less with almost any underlying distribution in a sample of a thousand or so people. (Just giving you a ballpark without the gory particulars).

You still have to be very, very careful in that simple correlation does not imply causality. Parents and children can both be "caused" by a third variable and the correlation between the parent and child is not causal.

A multivariate approach would be preferred. Now we're talking my kind of money...
Uh, I think you're overdoing it. Ed has not done a sample and is not practicing anything resembling statistics.

Unless your entire post is tongue-in-cheek.

rlogan

October 24, 2003, 12:29 AM

Ed Sez-

"the universe is a diversity within a unity"

now I've seen you use this to "prove" that the "triumvate" God/Man/Spirit "God" must be the only God.

Now, that kind of thing goes over big under the big canvas tent.

Not here. What the hell is that first statement even supposed to mean? Lawdy! Every permutation of those words is equally meaningful:

"The unity is a diversity within the universe"

"The diversity is a unity within the universe"

"Is a universe the diversity within a Unity"?

Now I submit to you that a set of words that can be arranged in any permutation and have exactly the same merit, when it is a question and a statement in various forms of the permutation, that it is very unlikely to mean a f***ing thing.

Stuff is different in the universe? Lawdy! Must be a three-in-one sale for Gods!

;) ;) ;)

rlogan

October 24, 2003, 12:32 AM

tongue-in-cheek.

Emphasizing, though, the point that the bald-faced assertion is a far cry from science.

October 25, 2003, 11:43 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Well calling the cause of the universe our creator means he is personal because only persons can create

ph: Demonstrably false.

Instead of asserting it, why didnt you demonstrate it? Explain how something impersonal can create.

Ed: and it is unlikely to mean the deist god because He endowed us with rights.

ph: I say we don't have any creator-endowed rights. Now prove me wrong.

Are you even following our discussion? You comment does not follow what I posted. If the god mentioned in the DOI is the deist god then they would not have said that he endowed us with rights. So I am going to assume that since that you are now trying to change the subject, you are unable to refute my point. Now to address your new subject, since the Christian God is the only God that has endowed us with rights, all I have to do is to demonstrate the rationality of his existence. Which I did in almost all my posts above.

Ed: The deist god just produced the universe and then left it alone and never intervenes in the affairs of men. So these two characteristics plainly point to the Judeo-Christian God.

ph: Plainly laughable.

Again, assertion is meaningless without an argument to back it up.

Ed: Self-governance and republicanism are JC principles

ph: Really? So "Divine Right of Kings" was just, what? Misinterpretation?[/B]

Basically yes. The divine right of kings only existed in the ancient hebrew theocracy. With the coming of Christ believers were not to establish a theocracy or monarchy only to make disciples and establish the church.

Philosoft

October 26, 2003, 12:09 AM

Originally posted by Ed
Instead of asserting it, why didnt you demonstrate it? Explain how something impersonal can create.
Do you think God creates each snowflake individually?
Are you even following our discussion? You comment does not follow what I posted. If the god mentioned in the DOI is the deist god then they would not have said that he endowed us with rights.
How in the blue hell do you know what 200-year-old deists would or would not have said about their god?? You are trying to stuff a massive concept into a little tiny theological box, with no success.
So I am going to assume that since that you are now trying to change the subject, you are unable to refute my point. Now to address your new subject, since the Christian God is the only God that has endowed us with rights, all I have to do is to demonstrate the rationality of his existence. Which I did in almost all my posts above.
Yeah, I understand you are the foremost authority on which Gods are claimed to have endowed humans with rights. Whatever.
Again, assertion is meaningless without an argument to back it up.
Remove your hands from around your eyes and read the rest of my post.
Basically yes. The divine right of kings only existed in the ancient hebrew theocracy. With the coming of Christ believers were not to establish a theocracy or monarchy only to make disciples and establish the church.
Obviously, Biblical interpretations are like assholes. Out of curiosity, where has democracy been deduced from Scripture? Self-governance philosophy existed thousands of years prior to Christ, you know.

lpetrich

October 26, 2003, 12:51 AM

Ed:
Explain how something impersonal can create.

I see it happening all around me; how many examples would you want me to cite?

If the god mentioned in the DOI is the deist god then they would not have said that he endowed us with rights.

Ed fancies himself an expert on 18th-cy. Deism. Sheesh

since the Christian God is the only God that has endowed us with rights,

The Bible NOWHERE explicitly mentions the concept of legal rights.

The divine right of kings only existed in the ancient hebrew theocracy.

Tell that to King George III and all the other believers in the Divine Right of Kings.

With the coming of Christ believers were not to establish a theocracy or monarchy only to make disciples and establish the church.

Except that the Bible does NOT explicitly state that.

Gawdawful

October 26, 2003, 04:12 AM

Hmmm, 14 pages of nothing but a waste of bandwidth. Nothing resolved, no minds changed, no logic or reason imparted upon another. What is the point?

Warren

October 26, 2003, 10:50 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Well in the case of hospitals, only Judeo-Christians have a rational basis for the objective value of human beings and in the case of science, only Christianity at the time taught an objective reality governed by rational laws. This belief was necessary for experimental science to develop.

philo: Had I wanted you to merely repeat what you said, I would have written, "Ed, repeat what you just said." Rather, in light of your exclusivist statements ("only Judeo-Christians," "only Christianity"), I require proof that those are exclusively true. Show your work, Ed.

Well humanistic atheism only places value on human beings for subjective utilitarian purposes, ie whether they can live a "quality life." While theism provides an objective value in that we are created in the image of the creator. Therefore we have value connected to an outside objective source. Then regarding science, if the universe is just a cosmic accident then there is no reason for there to be rational regular natural laws.

Philosoft

October 26, 2003, 10:58 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Well humanistic atheism only places value on human beings for subjective utilitarian purposes, ie whether they can live a "quality life."
There are certainly self-described humanists around here who would not identify with your assertion. Thus, you are demonstrably wrong and called upon once again to cease using incorrect information.
While theism provides an objective value in that we are created in the image of the creator. Therefore we have value connected to an outside objective source.
If each human is valued by another human, is that not an "objective" source of value? We are stipulating that humans exist, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Then regarding science, if the universe is just a cosmic accident then there is no reason for there to be rational regular natural laws.
Pardon? Exactly what do you know about "cosmic accidents" and the types of laws that emerge therefrom?

October 26, 2003, 11:03 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
But in the 1960's and 70's evidence started coming in showing that the universe had a definite beginning, just as Genesis teaches.

philo: However, the same evidence also showed the universe has been expanding since its "definite beginning," which Genesis does not teach.

I never said it was astrophysics textbook.
From a theological perspective it is more important the universe had a beginning than that it is expanding.

Ed: The flood was primarily a supernatural event, but there is some indirect evidence, ie the Ice Ages.

ph: By "supernatural event," presumably you mean God made the water appear from nowhere, destroy all non-arked living things, then go back to nowhere? And God also made the evidence disappear except for the ice ages? And God created evidence, like fossil sorting and sediment layering, that falsifies a global flood?

You have outdone yourself, sir.. [/B]

Given that it occured probably 2 mya, how does fossil sorting and sediment layering falsify it? There would be very little evidence left most of it would have eroded away.

October 26, 2003, 11:18 PM

Originally posted by Weltall

Originally posted by Ed
Evidence that he assumed God's existence in order to argue for historical validity? He is not the only one that thinks they should be dated earlier, ever hear of Dr. John A. T. Robinson and his book "Redating the New Testament"?

Welt: The language with which he wrote strongly suggests that he didn't begin his research attempting any sort of impartiality. He also sounds like he discards science whenever it inconveniently disagrees with his theology, especially regarding 'miracles'.

Liberal theologians do not show much impartiality either. They assume anything supernatural is impossible.

welt: I wasn't able to find an online copy of the other source you mentioned, nor am I interested in paying money just to refute your argument. I'm willing to bet that his works will fall flat when examined critically though, given the lack of evidence for his position. Speaking of which, would you mind providing some, rather than just quoting what other people think? It would help your position you know.

Well one piece of evidence is that the writers do not seem to know about the fall of Jerusalem so that would place their date prior to AD 70.

welt: PS. Your 'evidence' for the Flood story wasn't very convincing.
[/B]

Actually I said there would not be much evidence because it took place 2 mya.

Philosoft

October 27, 2003, 12:04 AM

Originally posted by Ed
I never said it was astrophysics textbook.
From a theological perspective it is more important the universe had a beginning than that it is expanding.
Aside from the general question begging, you are asking us to believe that the writers of Genesis were divinely inspired, are you not? And in support of that assertion, you offer the parallels between creation and the Big Bang. I find, however, the notion that the universe had a beginning to be rather mundane, especially since most non-Abrahamic religions have creation myths that suppose a "time" when the universe did not exist.

So, from where I sit, you ought to be somewhat more concerned that the lack of cosmological corroboration in Genesis hardly serves to elevate it above other mythology.
Given that it occured probably 2 mya, how does fossil sorting and sediment layering falsify it? There would be very little evidence left most of it would have eroded away.
Uh, because the fossils and sediment layers date considerably further back that 2 million years?

lpetrich

October 27, 2003, 03:50 AM

Ed:
Well humanistic atheism only places value on human beings for subjective utilitarian purposes, ie whether they can live a "quality life."

And what makes Ed an expert on that?

While theism provides an objective value in that we are created in the image of the creator.

Non sequitur. We could easily be produced just for the heck of it or to torment for amusement. And we would be UNLIKE any such alleged beings in many important respects.

Therefore we have value connected to an outside objective source.

God's opinion is nothing more than that: God's opinion.

Then regarding science, if the universe is just a cosmic accident then there is no reason for there to be rational regular natural laws.

And what makes Ed such a big expert on "cosmic accidents"?

(the Book of Genesis)
I never said it was astrophysics textbook.

But one then ought not to claim astrophysical vindication of it.

From a theological perspective it is more important the universe had a beginning than that it is expanding.

Very convenient evasion.

(Noah's Flood)
Given that it occured probably 2 mya, how does fossil sorting and sediment layering falsify it? There would be very little evidence left most of it would have eroded away.

Except that there are 2-million-year-old sediments which would contain evidence of that alleged flood -- if it happened.

Liberal theologians do not show much impartiality either. They assume anything supernatural is impossible.

And what makes Ed an expert on them?

October 27, 2003, 11:10 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

Ed: No, death in all its forms only came to humans AFTER we had freely rebelled against Him. He originally created the viruses harmless to humans but our sin had a negative impact for humans on the created order...

...Ed: No, we only had eternal life as long as we ate from the Tree of Life, that is why after God threw out Adam and Eve, they eventually died.

jtb: It's amazing how often "Christians" abandon the Bible here.

God threw A&E out of Eden to PREVENT them eating from the Tree of Life: to stop them BECOMING immortal. He did this because he was AFRAID of them becoming too powerful.

Ed: The only tree that they were not allowed to eat from was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so this plainly implies that they were already eating the TofLife.

jtb: This is apparently a Biblical goof. These magical trees have permanent effects on those who eat from them just once, as plainly happened with the Tree of Knowledge. So it seems that the author forgot to mention that the Tree of Life was also out of bounds, then put this in as an afterthought. Genesis describes the gaining of immortality from the ToL as something A&E were about to take, and they were thrown out to stop them taking it.

No, knowledge is permanent, nutrition is not, it has to be renewed. The Tree of Life was a super nutritious fruit tree that protected us from disease, mutations, and etc. So after it was metabolized we needed to eat some more in order to live forever.

jtb: More importantly, however: you have changed your story regarding why we die. First, it was "our sin had a negative impact for humans on the created order": the Christian theological (and non-Biblical) notion that death is due to our "corruption". Now you've switched to the more Biblical notion of immortality as something being actively denied to us by God: in your interpretation, something taken away from us by God.

It is all of the above.

jtb: You believe in a God who has deliberately murdered every man, woman and child who has ever died of "natural causes" since time began, as punishment for the crimes of two people who are themselves long dead.

And you worship this being?

No, we are punished for our own sins, Adam and Eve only passed on the desire to sin. Of course, unlike animals, humans have the ability not to act on all our desires.

October 27, 2003, 11:40 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Oops, almost missed this.
jtb: There have been MANY threads here on the subject of Hitler's Christianity.

Hitler was certainly a Christian originally: he was raised as a Catholic. And he was apparently still a Christian at the time he wrote Mein Kamf. He then became increasingly interested in the occult and in Nordic myth, and appears to have cast aside Catholicism, and then possibly Christianity itself in the last few years of his life.

Ed: You are close to being correct but not exactly. He had already rejected orthodox Christianity long before Mein Kampf. Mein Kampf is plainly propaganda for the ordinary German who considered himself christian, even though most germans by this time (1920's) had also already abandoned biblical christianity. Almost all churches in Germany at the time were theologically liberal and had rejected anything jewish in the bible and most of the supernatural in it. You are right he did become increasingly interested in the occult and so did many of the other Nazis. Again I highly recommend Ian Kershaw's excellent bio. The evidence points to him being an evolutionary pantheist.

jtb: Hitler wasn't an "evolutionary pantheist", he was a creationist.

Hitler on the fixity of species (from Min Kampf):

"Even the most superficial observation shows that Nature's restricted form of propagation and increase is an almost rigid basic law of all the innumerable forms of expression of her vital urge. Every animal mates only with a member of the same species. The titmouse seeks the titmouse, the finch the finch, the stork the stork, the field mouse the field mouse, the dormouse the dormouse, the wolf the she-wolf, etc...

...The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens. But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice."

Huh? You are kidding right? Any 18 year old freshman who has a western civ class knows that Hitler was an evolutionist. These quotes you provide are just analogies of real time observations. Not observations of geologic timescales, they were written to make a point in his propaganda. In fact almost all germans by this time were evolutionists, so if he had starting spouting creationism he would have been laughed off the political stage, just as you guys do here on your website to creationists. The famous anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith said in his book "Evolution and Ethics": "The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist, he has consciously sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution."

Ed: However the Nazi leadership was extremely ANTI-Christian and many were involved in the occult and many were atheists like Martin Bormann.

jbt: The Nazi leadership was anti-JEW, in case you hadn't heard. Why do you think the Roman Catholic Church has refused to excommunicate Nazis? (compare this with the Pope's excommunication of ALL Communists in 1949).

It was also anti-christian, read any good history of it like Ian Kershaw's bio of Hitler. Evidence for your comments about the RCC?

jtb: Martin Bormann was the ONLY prominent Nazi known to have been an atheist (and he was the source of much of the material implicating Hitler as an atheist). You can't deduce much from a sample size of one: "Many Christians are cannibals, like Jeffrey Dahlmer".

He may have been the only prominent one, but I am referring to all the leaders prominent or not. BTW, Jeffrey Dahmer repudiated his christian upbringing in a TV interview I saw.

lpetrich

October 28, 2003, 01:50 AM

First, I'm sure that Ed will enjoy reading this link about Hitler and Nazism (http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/paul_23_4.html). And also this collection of Hitler quotes (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_hitler.html).

Ed:
Huh? You are kidding right? Any 18 year old freshman who has a western civ class knows that Hitler was an evolutionist.

And how is that supposed to be so self-evident? Where does he discuss descent with modification? Where does he claim that non-Nordics have not gone as far from our simian ancestors as Nordics, and that Jews have gone the least far of all?

(Hitler on the invariable nature of each species...)
These quotes you provide are just analogies of real time observations.

Very ingenious.

The famous anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith said in his book "Evolution and Ethics": "The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist, he has consciously sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution."

Pure quote-mining. Here's the full paragraph:

The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution. He has failed, not because the theory of evolution is false, but because he has made three fatal blunders in its application. The first was in forcing the pace of evolution among his own people; he raised their warlike passions to such a heat that the only relief possible was that of aggressive war. His second mistake lay in his misconception of the evolutionary value of power. All that a sane evolutionist demands of power is that it should be sufficient to guarantee the security of a nation; more than that is an evolutionary abuse of power. When Hitler set out to conquer Europe, he had entered on that course which brought about the evolutionary destruction of Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes (see Chapter 34). His third and greatest mistake was his failure to realize that such a monopoly of power meant insecurity for Britain, Russia, and America. His three great antagonists, although they do not preach the doctrine of evolution, are very consistent exponents of its tenets.

Source: http://reactor-core.org/evolution-and-ethics.html

Keith seems to have in mind social evolution rather than biological evolution.

And Keith notes that Hitler says things like

"It is not for men," said the Fuhrer, "to discuss the question of why Providence created different races, but rather to recognize that it punishes those who disregard its work of creation."

Which Keith interpreted as belief in theistic evolutionism.

Finally, http://reactor-core.org also contains lots of other documents, many with a libertarian slant. But also some nice historical documents, like Hammurabi's law code (http://reactor-core.org/code-of-hammurabi.html) and Rome's Twelve Tables (http://reactor-core.org/twelve-tables.html). Reading those documents gives the lie to Ed's apparent belief that the Bible is the source of all law.

October 28, 2003, 11:26 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
They may have tried to make the argument 100 years ago but they didnt have any scientific support because most cosmologists at the time believed that the universe did not have a beginning and was eternal. But in the 1960's and 70's evidence started coming in showing that the universe had a definite beginning, just as Genesis teaches.

lp: I wonder where Ed gets his idea of the onetime belief in the eternity of the Universe.

Astronomers Sir Arthur Eddington, Herman Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle.

Ed:
The flood was primarily a supernatural event, but there is some indirect evidence, ie the Ice Ages.

lp: Absolute hooey. Ice Ages have no connection with alleged planetwide floods.

A global flood would very likely produce perturbations to the earth's motion there by producing the Ice Ages until it became stabilized.

jtb:
Specifically forbidden in the Old Testament. Unbelievers are to be killed.

Ed:
The only unbelievers to be killed were the ones preventing the jews from getting the land God promised to them. But anyway this was only allowed for the ancient hebrew theocracy. After the coming of Christ it was forbidden.

lp: Something like Stalin's comment that "the undesirable classes never liquidate themselves". That's a very convenient pretext for genocide, for some "Final Solution of the Canaanite Question". And the Bible certainly doesn't say "no more genocide; no more Final Solutions".

No, genocide is the "punishing" of groups of people because of who they are and the hateful feelings toward them by fabricating their crimes. While the Israelites were God's capital punishers of actual criminals.

Ed:
I cannot provide proof, but there is evidence. There are 5366 copies of the NT including fragments and many are within 50 to 225 years from the originals. While Caesar's Gallic Wars has only 10 copies and the oldest is still 1000 years after they were originally composed.

lp: The number of copies made is NOT the same thing as the reliability of its contents. The Koran has been very well-copied, but does that demonstrate that it is Absolute Truth?

Yes, but the closer the copies are to the time of the originals increases their reliabilty.

October 29, 2003, 12:18 AM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
Huh? The only structural continuity is that it is still a table. So I am still waiting for your explanation of how it is the same table and the same river. And waves are not analogous to the human body, see above.

lp: Ed seems to believe in "stuffism", that an entity's identity is due to what stuff it is composed of. Thus, he believes that there is a table-material stuff, but not a table stuff.

The continuity of tables, rivers, waves, and living things is a structural sort of continuity, not continuity due to some special stuff.

Just repeating what you said earlier does not refute my comments. Try again.

"Personality meter"?
Ed: We can detect it with our own personality. I am detecting yours right now.

lp: Ed, I didn't know that you have ESP.

With the magic of propositional communication you don't need ESP.

(Bible's selection as support for elections...)
Ed: Huh? Holding elections IS selecting someone for some task, ie making laws and leading.

lp: You've got the subset relation reversed. And the rest of the Bible is essentially devoid of elected leaders and legislative bodies. Was there ever an Old Testament Knesset?

What subset relation? Actually Exodus 18:21 was probably an election process given that Moses could not have known who all the able men were. they had to be chosen by the people themselves and then placed in that position by Moses.

(the Senate's unbiblical name...)
Ed: I never claimed that EVERYTHING about our government is judeo-christian, they also took few things from Rome and Greece.

lp: A LOT of things. And it seems that anything that Ed happens to like is automatically "Judeo-Christian", even if it is grossly unbiblical.

Evidence for this assertion?

(JC's fulminations against Chorazin and Bethsaida...)
Ed: No, they were BELIEVERS. Christ is most harsh with believers not unbelievers. There is no suppresion of other religions in the NT.

lp: Solely from not being in a position to do so.

No, they could have done like the jewish sicarii and asassinated anyone who rejected their message but they did not.

Ed: After the coming of Christ. you do have the right to own a idol and practice idolatry, but that does not make it ok. Just like smoking a cigarette, you have the right to smoke but in the long run it will lead to your downfall.

lp: Allowing something to happen and then complaining about it is not very mature. From beginning to end, the Bible's writers consider idolatry an Evil Thing to Do.

Huh? So when your mother allows you as a child to make a mistake to learn a lesson, makes your mother immature? Absurd.

(The Golden Rule forbidding extorted confessions?)
(The Golden Rule forbidding all punishment?)
Ed: Not, if understood in context of all of Christ's moral teachings.

lp: Jesus Christ never worked out the Golden Rule in detail, explaining how it would apply to this or that circumstance. Which is disappointing.

Yes, but he gave other principles that we could use to understand how and when it should be applied.

lp: Furthermore, he had not practiced what he preached. Consider the fig-tree incident. Would he have liked it if he was a food vendor and one of his customers got furious that he did not have some fruit that was out of season?

See my post about morality plays above.

lp: And despite forbidding name-calling, he was more than willing to do just that. Would he have liked to be at the business end of name-calling?

Only he is qualified to label us because he knows our true nature.

Ed: But after Christ, the ancient kingdom of Israel became invalid.

lp:Except that the Bible doesn't say so.

Yes, it does, just not explicitly.

(Jesus Christ's therapies and why doctors say a "Hippocratic Oath" instead of a "Christic Oath"...)
Ed: No, curing someone using natural processes is practicing medicine. Curing someone using supernatural processes is practicing miracles.

lp: No, it's still medicine, even if it's miraculous medicine.

I think most doctors would disagree with you.

(The Earth's biota has LOTS of features that suggest multiple designers.)
Ed: But more features suggest one designer, otherwise Darwin would have never come up with his single ancestor theory.

lp: Ed seems to imagine that a designer must design an organism from scratch, and not work from the work of other designers. However, human designers universally utilize the work of other designers in their designs. So the Earth's biota, if at least partially designed, would be the work of designers that would work from their predecessors' work.

Huh? Did Da Vinci use predecessor's work? Did Michaelangelo? Of course not. And single designers also modify their own designs for other purposes.

lp:Furthermore, the presence of multiple designers easily explains predator-prey and parasite-host relationships. Consider:

Grass
Deer
Wolves
Fleas
Wolbachia bacteria
Bacteriophages

Each one is adapted for subsisting on the one just above, and each one is adapted for avoiding the one just below.

Grass has phytoliths that grind down teeth.
Deer have big molars for chewing grass.

Deer have sort-of sideways eyes and ears to watch for oncoming wolves, which can come from any direction relative to them.
Wolves have forward eyes and ears because that's the direction in which they approach deer.

Wolves scratch themselves to get rid of fleas.
Fleas are adapted for sucking wolves' blood.

Fleas have an immune system, even if a primitive one by jawed-vertebrate standards.
Wolbachia bacteria hide out inside of fleas' cells.

Bacteria have enzymes for snipping up stray nucleic-acid strands, like those from bacteriophages.
Bacteriophages commandeer bacteria, making them produce more of those viruses.

Notice that there must be at least six designers here, one for grass, one for deer, one for wolves, one for fleas, one for Wolbachia bacteria, and one for bacteriophages.

Buy they all use cells and DNA, this shows a similar basic blueprint pointing to a single designer.

Ed: Something that is self existent does not have a beginning. However the universe does.

lp: However, if time itself had a beginning, then having a beginning can coexist with self-existence.

Agreed. A self existent being can coexist with an entity that has a beginning.

Ed: End of part I of my response.

lp: A common ending for Ed, though he never calls any of his postings a later part.

I forget, can you forgive me??:rolleyes:

lpetrich

October 29, 2003, 04:58 AM

LP:
I wonder where Ed gets his idea of the onetime belief in the eternity of the Universe.

Ed:
Astronomers Sir Arthur Eddington, Herman Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle.

I still don't see the connection.

Ice Ages have no connection with alleged planetwide floods.

A global flood would very likely produce perturbations to the earth's motion there by producing the Ice Ages until it became stabilized.

How so?

(Biblical genocide...)

No, genocide is the "punishing" of groups of people because of who they are and the hateful feelings toward them by fabricating their crimes. While the Israelites were God's capital punishers of actual criminals.

That's the sort of thing that every mass murderer says.

Christian anti-Semites: Oh my God! The Jews killed Jesus!
Inquisitors and Crusaders: Those heretics and infidels spit on the One True Faith.
Witch-burners: They make bad weather, poison livestock, deal with devils, etc.
Genghis Khan: They wouldn't surrender to me.
Adolf Hitler: Jews are the enemies of civilization.
Joseph Stalin: The wreckers and enemies of the people are everywhere.

(my personality...)
I am detecting yours right now.
Ed, I didn't know that you have ESP
With the magic of propositional communication you don't need ESP.

That's an inference, NOT a direct perception. If a computer could pass the Turing Test...

Allowing something to happen and then complaining about it is not very mature.

Huh? So when your mother allows you as a child to make a mistake to learn a lesson, makes your mother immature? Absurd.

Parents sometimes have to resort to such expedients because they are FAR from omnipotent; they are unable to imprint a tendency for correct behavior in their offspring. And that approach can be dangerous; which parents allow their kids to be hit by cars?

Curing someone using supernatural processes is practicing miracles.
No, it's still medicine, even if it's miraculous medicine
I think most doctors would disagree with you.

Curing disease is not practicing medicine?

Ed seems to imagine that a designer must design an organism from scratch, and not work from the work of other designers. However, human designers universally utilize the work of other designers in their designs. So the Earth's biota, if at least partially designed, would be the work of designers that would work from their predecessors' work

Huh? Did Da Vinci use predecessor's work? Did Michaelangelo? Of course not. And single designers also modify their own designs for other purposes.

Da Vinci and Michelangelo both used techniques invented and developed by others; neither gentleman had invented sculpting or painting.

Ed, let me tell you something. I have programmed computers for 22 years now. Which makes me an intelligent designer of sorts. And I know a lot about the history of science and stuff like that, which tells me a lot of how human designing is done.

Grass
Deer
Wolves
Fleas
Wolbachia bacteria
Bacteriophages

Buy they all use cells and DNA, this shows a similar basic blueprint pointing to a single designer.

Ed grasps at straws. A shared designer of certain features does NOT preclude multiple designers of other features.

October 29, 2003, 11:08 PM

Originally posted by Wyz_sub10

Originally posted by Ed
But more features suggest one designer, otherwise Darwin would have never come up with his single ancestor theory.

wyz: It does not suggest a designer at all. It suggests a common ancestor, nothing more.

The discussion was whether there was more than one designer. But there is evidence for a designer, there are many different interlocking systems that work together for a purpose, for example all the organs in the human body. Systems with purposes are only the products of designers. Also, the existence of complex language like code called DNA that acts as a blueprint for living things. Complex languagelike codes are only the product of a mind.

Weltall

October 29, 2003, 11:24 PM

So you acknowledge that Cetaceans have minds? That's about the only substantial point I could get out of your latest set of unsupported assertions.

October 29, 2003, 11:26 PM

Originally posted by Weltall

Originally posted by Ed
But more features suggest one designer, otherwise Darwin would have never come up with his single ancestor theory.

welt: BZZZZZT! So, if one creator did everything then why do birds and insects have different wing structures? Shouldn't they use the same design? Same goes for the differences between whales and fish, and I could go on here. BTW, Darwin didn't go for the whole 'designer' thing. If you actually read his works you'd notice little things like that.

Because he wanted us to know that the creator was the Triune Christian God, he created everything with the pattern of diversities within unities. There are many different kinds of birds that all have the same wing structure and there are many different kinds of insects with all the same basic wing structure. And then there are flying animals but they use many different wing structures. All of this reflects the nature of the unified and yet diverse Creator.

October 29, 2003, 11:28 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
More specifically, birds have one wing structure, bats have another, pterosaurs had another, and insects have still another. So why this distribution of wing structures? Why not mix them all up?

And why do fish always have vertical tail fins and cetaceans horizontal ones? Why not some horizontal-tail-fin fish and some vertical-tail-fin cetaceans?

See my post to Weltall above.

Jack the Bodiless

October 30, 2003, 06:11 AM

Because he wanted us to know that the creator was the Triune Christian God, he created everything with the pattern of diversities within unities. There are many different kinds of birds that all have the same wing structure and there are many different kinds of insects with all the same basic wing structure. And then there are flying animals but they use many different wing structures. All of this reflects the nature of the unified and yet diverse Creator.
Then there should be three of everything, yes?

Instead, we have a model of Hinduism: a set of nested diversities within a unity. Each Hindu deity has several avatars, each of which can have several avatars of themselves, and so on. There's a "Tree of Divinity" which resembles the evolutionary "Tree of Life" of common descent.

So Hinduism is the true religion?

Weltall

October 30, 2003, 11:19 AM

Originally posted by Ed
Because he wanted us to know that the creator was the Triune Christian God, he created everything with the pattern of diversities within unities. There are many different kinds of birds that all have the same wing structure and there are many different kinds of insects with all the same basic wing structure. And then there are flying animals but they use many different wing structures. All of this reflects the nature of the unified and yet diverse Creator.

Jobar, we need that Occam's Razor pic of yours! Ed, you do realize how utterly convoluted that explanation is, right? And contradictory to your earlier posts too.

lpetrich

October 30, 2003, 05:26 PM

First, Ed has neglected to explain why there is a hierarchy of features, why birds never have bat wings, why bats never have insect wings, etc.

Ed:
The discussion was whether there was more than one designer. But there is evidence for a designer, there are many different interlocking systems that work together for a purpose, for example all the organs in the human body. Systems with purposes are only the products of designers.

However, airplanes also have "are many different interlocking systems that work together for a purpose," does that mean that there is one designer who has been responsible for every airplane ever designed? And one who says, "Let there be airplanes", and then there are airplanes?

And the same can be said about many other technologies: cars, ships, computers, buildings, microscopes, telescopes, electric power stations, etc.

Also, the existence of complex language like code called DNA that acts as a blueprint for living things.

Complex languagelike codes are only the product of a mind.

And how does one come to that conclusion?

And if one was to extrapolate from experience with human designers, the designers of the Earth's biota are multiple, finite, and fallible. Yes, fallible.

Hedshaker

October 30, 2003, 05:50 PM

The automobile was not created. It started from the wheel and evolved from there. Also the wheel was not created. Round things are naturally wheel shaped.

Edit: just a thought, carry on...

October 30, 2003, 11:31 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
I'm amazed that I'm still able to keep going against Ed. BTW, my erectus-sapiens challenge still stands.

Yeah it is amazing considering you never answer any of my questions. What erectus-sapiens challenge?

Ed:
In order for science to flourish, a society must be convinced that nature is of great value and worthy of study. The ancient Greeks lacked this conviction. They often equated the material world with evil and disorder, hence they denigrated anything to do with material things. Manual labor was relegated to slaves, while philosophers sought a world of leisure in order to pursue the "higher things". Many historians believe this is one reason why the Greeks did not develop emprical science, which requires practical hands on experimentation.

lp: I don't know where Ed gets his ideas from, because ancient Greek proto-scientists had done a LOT of studying of the world around them. Consider Aristotle.

Okay, provide one example of where Aristotle conducted a hands on experiment.

lp: And if anything, medieval saints had often been very ascetic, trying to separate themselves from the evil, fallen world around us.

I am not referring to medieval saints, I am referring to medieval scientists.

Ed: Yes, that is what makes fertilized egg cells so amazing, they are very similar to body cells and yet in 3 or 4 years they have acquired linguistic capabilities!

lp: That's not quite a detection of personality-stuff in fertilized egg cells. If it's possible to take a body cell and make it act like a fertilized egg cell, where would the personality come from? Would that egg cell produce a personality-less zombie?

We don't know exactly where it comes from.

Ed: It is rather obvious if you study the context which are ceremonial and which are moral.

lp: Except that the Bible itself makes no such distinction. This seems like a convenient pretext for cafeteria theology: any laws one likes are "moral" laws, while any laws one dislikes are "ceremonial" laws.

No, it has nothing to do with likes or dislikes, it has to do with context.

Ed: Sabbath observance is an area of slight disagreement among Christians, probably because of some of the comments Jesus made specifically about it.

lp: Except that the disagreements are MUCH bigger than Ed is willing to accept. A century ago, it was widely considered a great sin to play card games on Sundays.

A century ago almost all christians agreed that it was a sin to play cards on Sundays. So where are the disagreements?

Ed: But I believe that in principle it is a moral law but that we should not be too legalistic about the specifics of its observance.

lp: "Legalism" is yet another pretext for cafeteria theology. If one does not like a law, then it would be "legalism" to follow it.

Sometimes that can be true but a careful textual study can usually determine if that is what the person is doing.

Ed: In other words, God wants all humans to rest one day week but the specific day he leaves up to our religious conscience.

lp: Very ingenious (sarcasm). Especially when most other religions do NOT feature sabbath days.

Other religions do not always reflect God's law, but studies have shown that not taking about one day a week off is bad for your health.

Ed: No, we can do things right but never with the right motivation without God. And I am not saying that all religions have everything right, but that there are some things that each religion have right because we are all created in the image of God.

lp: A wonderfully self-contradictory position. We cannot be both (1) carbon copies of a sinless being and (2) totally incapable of doing anything right on our initiative.

We are not carbon copies of a sinless being, the only thing we share with God is personhood.

(on idolatry being practiced with a clear conscience...)
Ed: The more you practice a sin the less and less your conscience is bothered so that eventually it feels like the right thing to do.

lp: So that means that conscience is not quite an incorruptible divine implant.

Correct.

Ed: But as a general rule practicing Christians are more law abiding than the non-religious. And I mentioned the sociological studies about this in my old EvC thread.

lp: Demonstrably false, if the religious affiliations of prisoners are any guide. Or is a "true Christian" only someone that Ed likes?

Just because you say you are a car doesn't make you one. A true Christian actually practices Christianity. The studies that I mentioned show that people that go to church regularly are more law abiding than those who do not, irregardless of what they call themselves.

Ed: We made ourselves into rebels by our moral choices, we were not originally created as rebels.

lp: Except that such a choice requires a capability to make such a choice. And that ability is defective for that reason. If you had a car that keeps breaking down, would you consider it a perfect copy of a perfectly running car?

And I thought liberals were pro-choice! A machine breaking down is hardly analogous to moral decisions being made by an autonomous and intelligent being.

(the cursing of a fig tree as a morality play...)
Ed: Why do you consider morality plays immature?

lp: It's the action of cursing that fig tree that's immature.

How?

Ed: ... And all the so-called refutations can be easily answered when studied in the grammatico-historical context.

LP:
Which means that the Bible itself is effectively out-of-context.

Ed: Not if it is a communication from a God that is outside of time thru beings that are time bound.

lp: But if one needs an enormous amount of studying in order to come to correct conclusions about it, then it was not very well-written. Consider an instruction manual. You should not need an enormous amount of outside study to understand a typical instruction manual.

The basics do not need an enormous amount of studying. But God does not want our brains to atrophy so he makes the deeper things more complex and requiring of research and study.

lpetrich

October 31, 2003, 03:04 AM

LP:
I'm amazed that I'm still able to keep going against Ed. BTW, my erectus-sapiens challenge still stands.

Ed:
Yeah it is amazing considering you never answer any of my questions. What erectus-sapiens challenge?

A formal debate on this proposition:

Whether Homo erectus is the same species as Homo sapiens (sapiens), the present-day human species.

I would argue against, and Ed would argue for.

Okay, provide one example of where Aristotle conducted a hands on experiment.

He may never have conducted "real" experiments, but he was a careful observer of marine-invertebrate anatomy and chicken embryonic development.

And if anything, medieval saints had often been very ascetic, trying to separate themselves from the evil, fallen world around us.

I am not referring to medieval saints, I am referring to medieval scientists.

Who did not go as far as their ancient Greek predecessors. Aristotle had believed in the eternity of the Universe; would any medieval scientist have been allowed to speculate on that subject? As it was, they got around controversies by claiming that their views were pure speculation. Copernicus himself had followed that fictionalist approach, but it was Galileo who first broke with fictionalism -- and got into trouble.

...any laws one likes are "moral" laws, while any laws one dislikes are "ceremonial" laws.

No, it has nothing to do with likes or dislikes, it has to do with context.

A "context' which is often invented to "demonstrate" that liked laws are moral and disliked laws are ceremonial?

A century ago almost all christians agreed that it was a sin to play cards on Sundays. So where are the disagreements?

Almost all? And consider the change in opinions over the last century -- one gets the impression that the Sabbath commandment is a de facto ceremonial law.

We made ourselves into rebels by our moral choices, we were not originally created as rebels.

Except that such a choice requires a capability to make such a choice. And that ability is defective for that reason. If you had a car that keeps breaking down, would you consider it a perfect copy of a perfectly running car?

And I thought liberals were pro-choice! A machine breaking down is hardly analogous to moral decisions being made by an autonomous and intelligent being.

Yes it is. Both are defective entities.

It's the action of cursing that fig tree that's immature.

How?

Let's say that you went to a videotape rental store and you could not find your favorite movies, simply because someone else is renting them. And you go into a violent rage, wrecking the place. Would your behavior be called mature?

(the difficulties of studying the Bible...)

The basics do not need an enormous amount of studying. But God does not want our brains to atrophy so he makes the deeper things more complex and requiring of research and study.

A brain capable of atrophying is a deficiently-designed brain. Or does God's brain also atrophy?

October 31, 2003, 11:08 PM

Originally posted by Weltall
May I direct you to a post Jack made earlier on this page concerning said tree?

I addressed it, see above.

October 31, 2003, 11:23 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ
I just noticed this:

Ed: See my post about how replacing parts of table changes it into a different table but after replacement of most of our cells we are still us.

gj: Tell me, would you be willing to extend this "logic" to brain cells? Why or why not?

Of course, because some of the brain cells are replaced and yet you are still you.

Ed: Well human persons interact with the physical world by using the most complex thing known, ie the human brain. So while that does not PROVE that persons are the most complex thing known, it certainly is evidence that they may be.

gj: Oh, ok. Persons are the most complex things known, because they incorporate the most complex thing known! You're just begging the question. Further, I am waiting to see your definition of what "the personal" is. Also, some explanation as to why it's even relevent that "persons" are the "most complex things known."

How is that begging the question? I could have said that minds are the most complex thing known. It is relevant because persons are part of the effect, so in order to determine the cause you need to study the effect. And since the effect contains something extremely complex then it is likely that the cause must be sufficient to produce something that complex.

GunnerJ

November 1, 2003, 11:54 AM

Of course, because some of the brain cells are replaced and yet you are still you.

This really doesn't need a response. Ed, I suggest you do a little studying up on neurology. Here's a starter for you:

Brain injury and effects on personality (http://www.crsrehab.gov.au/22i.pdf) (Requires Acrobat reader)

In fact, a quick google search on "damage to brain changes in personality" nets about 86000 results. Try it.

How is that begging the question?

Do you understand the meaning of the term? You tried to back up your claim that "persons" (however the hell that is to be defined) are the "most complex things known" by saying that they have brains, which are the most complex things known. You haven't answered my challenge, you've just made another unsubstantiated assertion that begs the question, "Why are brains the most complex things known?" Actually, I'm not even sure this line of inquiry is important. The argument you build from this base, even if granted for the sake of argument, is not impressive.

I could have said that minds are the most complex thing known. It is relevant because persons are part of the effect, so in order to determine the cause you need to study the effect. And since the effect contains something extremely complex then it is likely that the cause must be sufficient to produce something that complex.

Emphasis added

Please validate this "logic" of yours in the italicized portion.

GunnerJ

November 1, 2003, 11:59 AM

Just because they had the date wrong does not change the fact that they had the finiteness of it correct which is the key point

Nice try. You were trying to build a case for the superiority of religion over science by saying that Christianity somehow "had it right all along" with regards to the Big Bang and Genesis despite the HUGE discrepancies between the Genesis account and the actual BB event.

because it meant that the universe required a transcendent Cause, thereby confiming the existence of God.

*snort* Ed's a funny guy.

The bible does not really say WHEN God spoke the command and also it does not say WHEN that command was fulfilled or how long it took for it to be fulfilled, so how does that not fit the facts of the BB?

Handwaving. I'm not impressed.

GunnerJ

November 1, 2003, 12:09 PM

We may know some about immaterial impersonal abstract concepts but we know very little about immaterial personal beings. And abstract concepts and ideas can cause tremendous impacts to history and societies. So my point is that you cannot make dogmatic statements about what something that we know very little about is able to do given that other immaterial things can produce major effects.

You're missing the point. If immaterial things can produce material results, then your "law of sufficient cause" is bullshit, and it's possible that living things can arise from nonliving things, and personalities can arise from the impersonal. Therefore, the very logic you're using to try and etsablish the existence of god destroys your own argument: you're attempting to claim that an immaterial thing produced a material result, but your argument rests on the assumption that a quality cannot arise from its opposite, thus refuting yourself.

Weltall

November 1, 2003, 11:02 PM

Originally posted by Ed
I addressed it, see above.

No, you didn't. You're waving your arms around making assertions which A) Sound ludicrous. B) Have no logical backing. C) Go against what it says in your book.

November 1, 2003, 11:25 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
I am not saying that the bible gives a detailed description of the BB.

philo: Yeah, the expansion of the universe is just a minor detail. Wouldn't want to include that in a putatively accurate description of creation.

It is not a minor detail but it is irrelevant to one of the main points of the bible, which is that God exists and is the creator. And that is confirmed by the BB showing that there is a definite beginning to the universe, which is what Genesis teaches.

Ed: The surrounding nations didn't know about these ideas, ie they ate pork and other animals that were more susceptible to parasites and disease carriers. Why was it just the hebrews that knew these things?

philo: Jebus, do you hear yourself? Why was Pythagoras the first to come up with that theorem?[/B]

He was a genius, but the hebrews were not any more intelligent than the surrounding nations. Their advantage was Yahweh.

November 1, 2003, 11:43 PM

Philosoft

November 2, 2003, 01:45 AM

Originally posted by Ed
It is not a minor detail but it is irrelevant to one of the main points of the bible, which is that God exists and is the creator. And that is confirmed by the BB showing that there is a definite beginning to the universe, which is what Genesis teaches.
Ho hum. Lots of religions have universe-creation stories. I guess I shouldn't have expected the "true" religion to get it right.
He was a genius, but the hebrews were not any more intelligent than the surrounding nations. Their advantage was Yahweh.
Are you laughing right now? I hope so, because I'd hate to think you're serious about some of this junk.

Philosoft

November 2, 2003, 01:51 AM

Originally posted by Ed
Geoffrey Burbidge.
Looks to me like he's doing science, albeit with uncommon conclusions. Why should we believe your claims about him?
I am referring to reversing the BB beyond even quantum gravity.
And just how are you referring to something we have no mathematical models for, let alone conceptual ones?

lpetrich

November 2, 2003, 04:08 AM

Ed:
The hebrew term "heavens and earth" means all that exists, ie the universe. So it is specifying the universe.

lp:
At least in Eddian Hebrew, which always means whatever is convenient for Ed's theological purposes.

No, this is standard hebrew, ask any hebrew scholar, even an atheist one.

What reason is there to believe that, outside of Ed considering it as self-evidently true as Alexander Ross (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/ross/ross210.html) had considered spontaneous generation? I looked for some collections of Hebrew idioms, and I could not find "heaven and earth = Universe". Maybe we ought to drag in Heathen Dawn.

In the last 100 years or so it is a rare coincidence among the scientific elite because they thought that the universe always existed.

Like who had allegedly believed that?

Fred Hoyle and all the other steady state theorists.

Except that they hardly qualfy as "the scientific elite".

The ones that still do believe that the universe is eternal in some are generally believing so because of ideological reasons, ie atheism, rather than scienctific reasons.

Like who is allegedly doing that?

Geoffrey Burbidge.

Like why does he allegedly believe that?

And a supreme god can coexist with an eternal universe, as Aristotle, the Stoics, and many Hindus have believed. One has to marvel at Ed's ignorance of anything outside his favorite apologetic writings.

The Stoics and some Hindus had even converged on a doctrine of cosmic cycles, in which the Universe is periodically destroyed and re-created. And for all we know, the Big Bang could be one of those events, rather than an absolute beginning.

Because if you reverse the BB back far enough you come to a point with no dimensions, therefore plainly showing that at one point there was no space, time, or energy or anything.

Actually, one runs into quantum gravity, which is still not very well-understood.

I am referring to reversing the BB beyond even quantum gravity.

And what makes Ed such a big expert on quantum gravity? Has he mathematically shown that a Big-Bang solution always comes from a single point in any conceivable quantum-gravity theory? If so, then there is a trip to Stockholm reseved for him.

I am not saying that the bible gives a detailed description of the BB.

Good evasion.

What evasion?

The evasion is in claiming the description of the BB as a great triumph, and then denying that the Bible had described the BB in any detail.

See my post above about how pigs spend more time with excreta.

Which the Bible itself does not mention.

lpetrich

November 2, 2003, 03:23 PM

Ed often argues that this or that is self-evidently true, like his notions of the semantics of the Hebrew language.

He seems a bit like Alexander Ross, who had this response to Sir Thomas Browne's skepticism about whether mice are spontaneously generated by rotting material:
"So we may doubt whether in cheese and timbers worms are generated, or if beetles and wasps in cow-dung, or if butterflies, locusts, shell-fish, snail, eels, and such life be procreated of putrefied matter, which is to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense, and experience. If he doubts this, let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice begot of the mud of the Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants." (Arcana Microcosmi, Bk 2, Ch 10, pp 151-156, 1652, rewritten in more modern English)

Also, Ed's implicit Law of Resemblance has been used by others. Henry Morris in Many Infallible Proofs: Evidences for the Christian Faith states in it that, according to here (http://home.texoma.net/~linesden/cem/diss/diss4.htm),
The First Cause of limitless Space must be infinite in extent.
The First Cause of endless Time must be eternal in duration.
The First Cause of perpetual Motion must be omnipotent in power.
The First Cause of unbounded Variety must be omnipresent in phenomena.
The First Cause of infinite Complexity must be omniscient in intelligence.
The First Cause of Consciousness must be personal.
The First Cause of Feeling must be emotional.
The First Cause of Will must be volitional.
The First Cause of Ethical values must be moral.
The First Cause of Religious values must be spiritual.
The First Cause of Beauty must be aesthetic.
The First Cause of Righteousness must be holy.
The First Cause of Justice must be just.
The First Cause of Love must be loving.
The First Cause of Life must be living.
Which is almost too easy to satirize. Is the first cause of death either murderous or dead? Etc.

November 2, 2003, 11:33 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
(the Universe...)
It has the characteristics of an effect, ie a beginning and it is changing.

lp: How are those "characteristics of an effect"?

Those are some of the characteristics that have always been observed when something is caused.

(that "personal" entities can only be caused by other "personal" entities...)
Ed: I am not saying that there is a law that requires that the cause be personal, only that it is a rational assumption given the Law of Sufficient Cause.

lp: Which does NOT tell us whether or not X is capable of causing Y.

You are right that the law does not tell us that, but the empirical observations DO tell us that.

lp: It seems that the real argument is a fallacious Law of Resemblance, that effects must resemble their causes. There are numerous counterexamples, and this "law" is easy to satirize.

No, it is just what has been empirically observed and in this case the cause does resemble the effect. It is similar to finding out that extreme heat on dry wood produces a fire that also has extreme heat. Extreme heat needs to be part of the cause to produce the desired effect, ie fire. So also a universe that contains personal beings needs a cause that has a personal aspect to it.

Ed: See above how my assumption IS rational. No, many atheists DO assume that belief in God is irrational.

lp: The same way that Ed believes that atheism is irrational?

Yes, except my assumption is based on evidence while the atheistic assumption about Christian theism is not.

lpetrich

November 3, 2003, 01:36 AM

Ed:
(having a beginning and being changing)
Those are some of the characteristics that have always been observed when something is caused.

What familiar nontheological entities are causeless? That's vital for doing comparisons.

(me on how the Law of Sufficient Cause does NOT tell us whether or not X is capable of causing Y):
You are right that the law does not tell us that, but the empirical observations DO tell us that.

Then one ought not to mention that law as if it was the criterion that one uses to determine whether something is capable of causing something else.

LP:
It seems that the real argument is a fallacious Law of Resemblance, that effects must resemble their causes. There are numerous counterexamples, and this "law" is easy to satirize.

No, it is just what has been empirically observed and in this case the cause does resemble the effect. It is similar to finding out that extreme heat on dry wood produces a fire that also has extreme heat. ...

Except that there are numerous causes that do not resemble their effects. An electric coffeepot can melt ice and boil liquid water, while staying in the solid state the whole time. Gasoline powers a car, though it lacks the capability of moving across roads in coherent packages on its own. You control your car's motion, though you do not have any macroscopic wheels or axles. I say "macroscopic" to rule out ATPase complexes, which are probably rotary structures -- but EXTREMELY tiny ones. And you do not travel nearly as fast as a car travels.

And taking on Henry Morris's list, I find:

The First Cause of finite objects must be finite in extent.
The First Cause of limited-time objects must have a limited lifespan.
The First Cause of motion that stops must have limited powers.
The First Cause of limited variety must be absent from many phenomena.
The First Cause of limited complexity must have limited knowledge in intelligence.
The First Cause of unconsciousness must be impersonal.
The First Cause of emotionlessness must be unemotional.
The First Cause of lack of will must have no will.
The First Cause of immorality must be immoral.
The First Cause of being irreligious must be unspiritual.
The First Cause of ugliness must have bad esthetic taste.
The First Cause of unrighteousness must be unholy.
The First Cause of injustice must be unjust.
The First Cause of hate must be hateful.
The First Cause of death must be either murderous or dead.

November 3, 2003, 11:44 PM

Originally posted by Prof
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. Female urinary opening (urethra), vagina, and rectum all located in a close row so that rectal infection of the urethra/bladder/kidneys, or the vagina is risky. The old joke is why is the recreational park located at the sewage outflow pipes?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ed replied: Originally our immune system was much stronger prior to the Fall and therefore such infections would not have occurred.

Prof: My goodness. Ed at some level even you must sense how ludicrous your argument is becoming. You don't know any of the answers to these specific questions (the Bible does not provide them) - you are making them up as you go along.

I meant to say it was "probably stronger". But from the biblical evidence it is a rational assumption. It plainly implies that they were eating the tree of life while in the garden and so would have lived forever but once they were thrown out of the garden they began to die. This implies that they were protected from disease by the fruit of that tree.

prof: This is why arguing with theists tend to be futile. The Atheist is constrained to argue from facts and reason, whereas the Theist argues from the blank cheque of Faith: "Well, even though I can't offer proof for these things I know them to be true." Thus the Theist allows himself to speculate wildly to fill in whatever logical gap he may encounter, with no proof whatsoever offered for such speculations. (This business about immune systems before "the fall" being a perfect example).

Thus we have the spectacle of Ed continually demanding evidence for atheist arguments, while offering none at all to back his biblically-derived speculations. He doesn't *have to* offer proof because as we all should know God isn't going to show up and prove any of this to our petty little minds. And besides..it's all in his book, right? Well, kind of...it looks like I'm going to wait for the Ed's annotated version of the Bible because somehow I missed all the information
he has so miraculously drawn from it's pages. :rolleyes:

(Sorry, this one was just getting too silly to hold back).

Prof.

I have argued using facts and reason just as much if not more so than the atheists. And where have I "continually demanded evidence for atheist arguments"? I already know most of the atheist arguments. I have provided "proof" for the existence of the christian God all through this thread.

Weltall

November 4, 2003, 03:18 AM

I'm not sure whether or not to bother buying new irony meters, given the frequency with which they combust around here. Ed, you haven't proved anything regarding the 'Tree of Life' and haven't responded to the fact that in Genesis it's pretty clear that Man hadn't eaten that fruit. Hell, the tree of life isn't even mentioned until humanity is being expelled from the garden. Your other arguments similarly lack substance and I think I speak for everyone when I say that you haven't proved anything regarding the existance of your god. Please stop wasting our time with unsupported assertions.

November 4, 2003, 11:13 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Notice how Ed explains essentially every Bad Thing as a result of "the Fall" or some sort of misuse. I wonder what he thinks was our originally-intended method of reproduction. Were we to give birth in C-section fashion? That is, forward instead of downward through the pelvic girdle.

That "design" is OK for laying lots of small eggs, as fish and frogs do. However, it's not so great for giving birth to a relatively big baby. Which suggests a certain lack of foresight.

No, some like wisdom teeth are the result of microevolution. Originally women had larger pelvic girdles.

November 4, 2003, 11:34 PM

Originally posted by Weltall
Ed, do please tell us exactly what Homo Sapiens originally looked like and how we somehow managed to change into our current state without any evidence to show for your beliefs.

It appears from the fossil record that they looked like homo "erectus". So there is evidence for my "beliefs", ie the fossil record.

welt: You might also want to put some thought into the tail that developing human embryos possesses. Did we have tails in Eden? I'm also interested in evidence (which I have conveniently put in italics so you notice it) that humans in Eden lacked a notochord and that the gills found during the embryonic stage actually serve some different purpose than what they appear to be doing.

It is not a tail, it is the coccyx, which until the limbs fully develop it extends slightly beyond the rectum. I didn't say that humans did not have a notochord, I said they did not have LEFTOVER notochord, please reread the comments I was responding to and my comments. Human embryos do not have gills. Here is a quote from a major medical textbook, "Medical Embryology" edited by J. Langman, "Since the human embryo never has gills- branchia - the term pharyngeal arches and clefts has been adopted for this textbook."

November 4, 2003, 11:44 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

[quote]
Ed: No, it is a rational assumption given the above info about the perspective plus what we know about God's other book, ie nature.

philo: You cannot make "rational assumption[s]" about supernatural events. It is impossible in principle.

Why? The only way you could know this is if you were omniscient.

Ed: Complex songs are a far cry from true language as I described above.

philo: Find a definition of "language" that requires grammar and syntax or retract this.

Find a language that does NOT require grammar and syntax and I will retract it.

Ed: And I am still waiting for an example as I stated above, of an empirical example of one genus changing into another.

philo: What are you after here? I imagine the fossil record won't be good enough for you, so what do you want? A lab report of genus-level evolution?[/B]

Yes, you are right the fossil record does not show such an event so I guess there is no such thing.

lpetrich

November 5, 2003, 02:35 AM

LP:
... I wonder what he thinks was our originally-intended method of reproduction. Were we to give birth in C-section fashion? That is, forward instead of downward through the pelvic girdle.

Ed:
No, some like wisdom teeth are the result of microevolution. Originally women had larger pelvic girdles.

I wonder where Ed gets that idea.

Weltall:
Ed, do please tell us exactly what Homo Sapiens originally looked like. ...

It appears from the fossil record that they looked like homo "erectus". So there is evidence for my "beliefs", ie the fossil record.

I wonder what Ed thinks about creationists who think that H. erectus was really an ape, or that H. erectus specimens are a mixture of human and ape ones(!) Simply consider the table in this link (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html).

It is not a tail, it is the coccyx, which until the limbs fully develop it extends slightly beyond the rectum.

Let's see.

It develops exactly where a tail develops.
It has the exact same structure as a tail, aside from being scaled down.
When it first appears in the embryo, it looks exactly like the embryonic tail of a tailed animal.

So any sensible biologist would call it a tail.

I wonder where Ed went to school; I suppose that one can learn how to be a wildlife biologist without learning about embryonic development and comparative anatomy.

I didn't say that humans did not have a notochord, I said they did not have LEFTOVER notochord, please reread the comments I was responding to and my comments.

Actually, there is some leftover notochord: the disks between the vertebrae.

Human embryos do not have gills. Here is a quote from a major medical textbook, "Medical Embryology" edited by J. Langman, "Since the human embryo never has gills- branchia - the term pharyngeal arches and clefts has been adopted for this textbook."

Meaning that they are partially-developed gills; in fish, these structures become full-scale gills.

Pre-Darwinian creationists were much smarter about these structures than many post-Darwinian creationists -- they recognized their gill-like nature, though they believed that they were present for the sake of completeness or something like that.

Jack the Bodiless

November 5, 2003, 03:24 AM

Originally women had larger pelvic girdles.
Not in the fossil record.

So your evidence for this is... ?
Ed: Complex songs are a far cry from true language as I described above.

philo: Find a definition of "language" that requires grammar and syntax or retract this.

Find a language that does NOT require grammar and syntax and I will retract it.
Please demonstrate that whale song is NOT a complex language with grammar and syntax.

Human singers use grammar and syntax, so why can't whales?

Even purely instrumental music has structure and patterns similar to "grammar and syntax" (as recorded in musical notation).

Philosoft

November 5, 2003, 05:45 PM

Originally posted by Ed
It is not a tail, it is the coccyx, which until the limbs fully develop it extends slightly beyond the rectum.
That the bone can be called a "coccyx" does not prevent it from also being a tail. The presence of said embryonic tail is a universal characteristic of the members of Phylum Chordata.
I didn't say that humans did not have a notochord, I said they did not have LEFTOVER notochord, please reread the comments I was responding to and my comments.
In humans, the vertebral discs are remnants of the embryonic notochord.
Human embryos do not have gills. Here is a quote from a major medical textbook, "Medical Embryology" edited by J. Langman, "Since the human embryo never has gills- branchia - the term pharyngeal arches and clefts has been adopted for this textbook."
Human embryos have gill slits, yet another characteristic shared by all members of Phylum Chordata.

{edit: crosspost with Loren Petrich; you can ignore this if you want, Ed}

Philosoft

November 5, 2003, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Why? The only way you could know this is if you were omniscient.
Unless you have some verifiable means of supernatural knowing, any explanation that posits entities and/or forces undetectable by our senses is empirically as good as any other.
Find a language that does NOT require grammar and syntax and I will retract it.
No sir. Your claim was that "true language" requires grammar and syntax. That is a positive claim that requires positive support. You are still at bat, chief.
Yes, you are right the fossil record does not show such an event so I guess there is no such thing.
Well, the fossil record certainly does show evolution, just not "an empirical example of one genus changing into another." I don't even know what such an example would look like, and neither do you. I'm not going to correct your gross misrepresenation of evolution, because it's clear that you're doing it intentionally.

November 5, 2003, 11:06 PM

Originally posted by Wyz_sub10

Originally posted by Ed
No, this is not the original design, this is probably partially the result of Man's sin, see Genesis, and microevolution.

wyz:This is so ridiculous that it'd be comical, save for the fact that some people actually believe it.

Do you think this is "probably" the result of man's sin? Because everything problematic is, right? What do you suppose was the original design?

Let me guess - Adam and Eve were coneheads?

No, see my post to lp above.

Ed: Wisdom teeth are the result of our jaws being reduced in size by microevolution, not design.

Wyz: Blasphemy! Actually, I'm glad you chalk this up to evolution. Why teeth get a more scientific outlook then the head, I'm not quite sure.

Because the scriptures teach that childbirth would become more difficult after the fall.

Ed: Fraid not, see above for simple explanations for why we are the way we are.

wyz: There are no explanations, Ed. Just speculative, goddidit nonsense.

Evidence?

November 5, 2003, 11:38 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
But there is a plainly implied definite beginning to the universe (heavens and earth) ex nihlo, which is what the BB also plainly implies.

lp: The Bible does NOT claim that the Universe had been created "out of nothing", and the Big Bang need not have originated "from nothing".

Fraid so, it says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", there is no mention of any preexisting matter. See my earlier post about what happens when you rewind the BB.

jtb:
According to the Bible, the sun and moon appeared when God created them. Not "when the atmosphere cleared".

Ed: No, it is a rational assumption given the above info about the perspective plus what we know about God's other book, ie nature.

lp: Ed misrepresents his own sacred book here. And what makes him so sure that the early Earth had been permanently clouded over? Had he been there in a time machine?

Who said anything about permanently clouded? Most all cosmologists agree that the earth coalesced from dust clouds circling the sun so after the earth solidified there were still some clouds surrounding it blocking sun for a period but then as time passed it cleared allowing light to penetrate to the surface.

lp: Ed has stated elsewhere that the G1 "days" are overlapping eras. With this much wiggle room, it's easy to make a fit to G1. He also makes lots of totally-unsupported -- and convenient -- claims about Hebrew.

Evidence for your unsupported assertions?

Ed: The term for birds just means flying creatures so this can refer to flying fish and flying insects which existed before fully terrestrial animals did. So this is an amzing fit.

lp: Ed misrepresents his own sacred book again. It treats "flying creatures" as a big group; it doesn't say "some before land animals, some aside land animals". Also, the first land arthropods are:

Trigonotarbids (early arachnids; spiderlike though not true spiders)
Mites
Centipedes
Millipedes
Collembolans

with true insects appearing later.

It depends on when these arthropods appeared.

Ed: Plants occur in day/age 3 which is BEFORE animals, how is that out of order?

lp: They include fruit trees, which are all angiosperms (flowering plants), and these did not become abundant until the end of the Jurassic.

But the hebrew term for plants includes ALL plants and the first organisms were cyanobacteria which an ancient hebrew would probably have classified as a plant because of their color and sessile lifestyle. And in fact modern scientists have found that they do share some characteristics with plants. They existed LONG before animals.

Ed: And I am still waiting for an example as I stated above, of an empirical example of one genus changing into another.

Ed has changed his mind about what constitutes a "created kind"; he has earlier claimed it to be a Linnaean family. And how he claims it's a Linnaean genus.

I wonder what evidence would be acceptable to Ed. Going back in time in a time machine?

No, I said it could be either one. I just used genus this time to help you out! It shoud be easier to find an example of genus changing into another genus rather than a family changing into another family.

lp: If Ed evaluates solar eclipses like he evaluates evolution, he'd claim that there is no empirical evidence for the "macroshadow" theory of solar eclipses, since the only shadows produced in familiar conditions are "microshadows" and not "macroshadows".

Since I don't know what the macroshadow theory is I cannot make a comparison. But as a biologist I DO know what the theory of macroevolution is.

Philosoft

November 5, 2003, 11:53 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Fraid so, it says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", there is no mention of any preexisting matter. See my earlier post about what happens when you rewind the BB.
Wow. "The Bible does not say X, thus I am justified in assuming X."

Unbelievable. "Train wreck" no longer accurately describes this thread.

lpetrich

November 6, 2003, 12:22 AM

LP:
The Bible does NOT claim that the Universe had been created "out of nothing", and the Big Bang need not have originated "from nothing"

Ed:
Fraid so, it says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", there is no mention of any preexisting matter.

And there is no mention of its absence either. Furthermore, the word translated "create" could also mean "form" or "separate".

See my earlier post about what happens when you rewind the BB.

I wonder what makes Ed such a big expert on quantum gravity. Does he do a lot of reading in http://www.arxiv.org ?

(on the atmosphere clearing...) Ed misrepresents his own sacred book here. And what makes him so sure that the early Earth had been permanently clouded over? Had he been there in a time machine?

Who said anything about permanently clouded? Most all cosmologists agree that the earth coalesced from dust clouds circling the sun so after the earth solidified there were still some clouds surrounding it blocking sun for a period but then as time passed it cleared allowing light to penetrate to the surface.

I wonder what gives Ed that idea about the persistence of the solar-nebula dust? As the Earth approached its present size, the dust was largely gone, swept out by the solar wind. Furthermore, there is evidence that the Earth had had liquid water at about 4 billion years ago, meaning that this supposed persistent dust cloud had not lasted that long.

(on various nonflying arthropods appearing on the land before flying insects...)
It depends on when these arthropods appeared.

Which is well-established from stratigraphy.

(Plants before animals...)
They include fruit trees, which are all angiosperms (flowering plants), and these did not become abundant until the end of the Jurassic.

But the hebrew term for plants includes ALL plants and the first organisms were cyanobacteria which an ancient hebrew would probably have classified as a plant because of their color and sessile lifestyle. And in fact modern scientists have found that they do share some characteristics with plants. They existed LONG before animals.

G1 refers to FRUIT TREES, not pond scum and stromatolites and the like. Yes, FRUIT TREES. How many times will I have to repeat that?

Also, there would have to be unobstructed sunlight reaching the Earth's surface for cyanobacteria to survive. Which rules out the "unveiling" theory.

If Ed evaluates solar eclipses like he evaluates evolution, he'd claim that there is no empirical evidence for the "macroshadow" theory of solar eclipses, since the only shadows produced in familiar conditions are "microshadows" and not "macroshadows".

Since I don't know what the macroshadow theory is I cannot make a comparison. But as a biologist I DO know what the theory of macroevolution is.

The macroshadow theory of eclipses is that solar eclipses are being in the Moon's shadow and that lunar eclipses are the Moon being in the Earth's shadow. Microshadows are shadows made by everyday objects.

lpetrich

November 6, 2003, 02:54 AM

When I see blatant misrepresentations of the Bible's content by those who profess to believe in it, l feel forced to conclude that such actions are strong evidence against the existence of the Xtian God, because otherwise that entity would have struck the misrepresenters with lightning ("How dare you lie about my book!").

In particular, I have in mind Ed on Genesis 1; he seems to think that it refers only to plants in general, and not fruit trees. It also refers to seed-bearing plants, which excludes spore-making plants like ferns -- unless one wishes to count spores as honorary seeds. And seed-making and spore-making both exclude algae and cyanobacteria, which are aquatic.

And let's see if Ed knows about the remarkable relationship between cyanobacteria and chloroplasts (please don't give it away; let's see how much Ed is willing to learn on his own).

Jack the Bodiless

November 6, 2003, 04:15 AM

But the hebrew term for plants includes ALL plants and the first organisms were cyanobacteria which an ancient hebrew would probably have classified as a plant because of their color and sessile lifestyle. And in fact modern scientists have found that they do share some characteristics with plants. They existed LONG before animals.
Quite apart from the obvious lie about "the Hebrew term for plants", I'm curious as to how you can possibly justify calling cyanobacteria "plants" WITHOUT calling non-photosynthetic bacteria "animals".

Animals came before plants.

And, yes, the Hebrew verb used in Genesis 1:1 is more properly translated as "to separate by cutting". God apparently did not create the raw material of the Heavens and the Earth.

And we're still waiting for justification of the "originally women had larger pelvic girdles" lie.

November 6, 2003, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

jtb: Nope, these "perspective shifts" aren't in the Bible. They were invented by Christian theologians, uncomfortable with the fact that Genesis is wrong.

Ed: No, in the hebrew it is rather obvious. It says and "the Spirit hovered over the surface of the deep". This is plainly going from a cosmological perspective in verse 1 to a perspective from the surface of the earth.

jtb: Well, at least you're not arguing that "Let there be light" was the Big Bang: a mistake that many Christians make. But you know very well that the ONLY reason this massive burst of radiant energy is NOT equated with "Let there be light" is BECAUSE it appears OUT OF SEQUENCE.

You cannot then pretend that the sequence is miraculously correct.

No, the BB is in verse 1. And then the planetary debris surrounding the early earth clears and light hits the surface of the earth, this is when God said "Let there be light." So the sequence is correct.

Ed: No, it is a rational assumption given the above info about the perspective plus what we know about God's other book, ie nature.

jtb: There is no "info about the perspective". Merely a fantasy from the Book of Ed.

Just saying so doesnt make it so, see above.

jtb: You think we haven't seen this baloney before? And despite all their efforts, the apologists still couldn't get the sequence right (dry land should come before oceans, birds after land animals, plants after animals).

Ed: No, the oceans do not form until the second day.

jtb: The Bible says you're wrong.

I stand corrected. You are right the ocean appeared to be formed on the first day. There were waters on the earth from the time it became fully formed. Then on the third day/age it filled the basins formed by continental drift.

Ed: The deep and "waters" mentioned in verse 2 probably mean the gas cloud that coalesced to form the earth because the deep in hebrew can also mean an unfathomable cloud.

jtb: Nope, God parted the waters to reveal dry land.

That was not until the third day.

Ed: Hebrew is much broader in meaning and the day-ages can overlap.

jtb: ...Thereby negating the whole notion of a "correct sequence" of events.

How?

Ed: The term for birds just means flying creatures so this can refer to flying fish and flying insects which existed before fully terrestrial animals did. So this is an amzing fit.

jtb: Wrong, as already noted.

There are arthropods that can fly that using their webbing, also since flying creatures are much less likely to be fossilized, we may not have found them yet. I predict that we will eventually find flying creatures much earlier than fully terrestrial animals including fully terrestrial arthropods.

Ed: Plants occur in day/age 3 which is BEFORE animals, how is that out of order?

jtb: For two reasons:

1. Animals actually appeared long before the specific plants listed.

2. The first "plants" (photosynthetic bacteria) came AFTER non-photosynthetic bacteria.

Yes, but remember this is from the perspective of ancient human, bacteria would not be visible to the naked eye so God did not mention them but cyanobacteria would have been visible. So you DO admit that cyanobacteria are very similar to plants.

jtb: There is nothing in the Bible which indicates supernatural knowledge that wouldn't otherwise be available to those who wrote it.

Ed: Evidence?

jtb: You're the one who needs to provide "evidence".

Ed: I did.

jtb: No, you didn't. The Genesis creation sequence is wrong, so we're still waiting.

No, see above and also my comments about the type of foods they ate.

jtb: You failed to provide a rational and objective basis for WHY God should have an "objective moral character".

Ed: God has an objective moral character because all persons have a moral character. And since he is not human, his character is objective to us.

jtb: Meaningless, evasive, circular waffle.

WHY do "all persons have a moral character"?

According to you, "because God does".

Why?

"Because he's a person".

...And so on. You are totally incapable of answering the question.

Ed: Persons have a moral character so that they can make moral decisions.

jtb: MORE meaningless, evasive, circular waffle!

You KNOW that you are failing to answer the question!

Here it is again: Provide a rational and objective basis for WHY God should have an "objective moral character".

We don't know. Thats like asking why is matter made of atoms. Or asking an atheist why the universe can be understood using mathmatics.

jtb: BTW, I'd be fascinated to see an explanation of why the shape of the female pelvic girdle fits into the Magic Fruit Theory. God created women with too-narrow hips, but a diet of "Fruit of Life" causes hips to widen? Or maybe it causes heads to shrink?

Looks like God was incompetent when he designed us in the first place, but then he created magic fruits as an upgrade mechanism.

No, our rebellion brought about women to have pain in childbirth, ie narrowing of the pelvic girdles.

lpetrich

November 7, 2003, 01:37 AM

Ed:
No, the BB is in verse 1. And then the planetary debris surrounding the early earth clears and light hits the surface of the earth, this is when God said "Let there be light." So the sequence is correct.

Ed's knowledge of planetary formation is limited to what his favorite theologians have stated on that subject, it would seem.

According to here (http://www.cas.muohio.edu/~alexansg/research/planform.htm), the Solar System's formation is approximately

The Early or Gas Stage: Here, dust particles combine to form kilometer-sized planetesimals in approximately 100 to 10,000 years (this is probably the least well understood phase).
The Middle or Runaway Stage: In this stage, the gravity between the planetesimals dominates, and the planetesimals grow by accretion planetary embryos of roughly 1000 kilometer-size in a time ranging from 100,000 to 1,000,000 years.
The Late Stage: Here, the planetary embryos perturb each other into crossing orbits and combine by large impacts until the remaining bodies are graviationally isolated. This stage can last several 100 million years.

Most of the dust is gone in about 10,000 years or so, long before the Earth approaches its final size at about 100 million years later. Meaning that the Earth's surface had a clear view of the Sun.

Ed: Hebrew is much broader in meaning and the day-ages can overlap.

jtb: ...Thereby negating the whole notion of a "correct sequence" of events.

Ed: How?

Because that means that G1 can be made to fit any creation order whatsoever.

Ed: The term for birds just means flying creatures so this can refer to flying fish and flying insects which existed before fully terrestrial animals did. ...

There are arthropods that can fly that using their webbing,

Like which ones?

also since flying creatures are much less likely to be fossilized, we may not have found them yet.

Flying arthropods less likely to be fossilized than similar-sized nonflying ones? That's news to the whole profession of paleontology. If there were flying insects alongside the earliest nonflying land arthropods, we would see them. But we don't.

I predict that we will eventually find flying creatures much earlier than fully terrestrial animals including fully terrestrial arthropods.

Dream on.

...but remember this is from the perspective of ancient human, bacteria would not be visible to the naked eye so God did not mention them but cyanobacteria would have been visible. So you DO admit that cyanobacteria are very similar to plants.

Except that they aren't in some important ways. They don't have stems or leaves or roots, and they don't produce seeds or spores. Macroscopically, they look like greenish scum, as is apparent from the Cyanosite (http://www-cyanosite.bio.purdue.edu/)'s pictures.

No, our rebellion brought about women to have pain in childbirth, ie narrowing of the pelvic girdles.

WinAce (http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace) will enjoy learning about that, I'm sure.

Jack the Bodiless

November 7, 2003, 03:54 AM

Ed: The deep and "waters" mentioned in verse 2 probably mean the gas cloud that coalesced to form the earth because the deep in hebrew can also mean an unfathomable cloud.

jtb: Nope, God parted the waters to reveal dry land.

That was not until the third day.
Try to stay focused, Ed. The issue here is your invented baloney about "waters" probably meaning a gas cloud.

Yet, immediately above this, you said:
I stand corrected. You are right the ocean appeared to be formed on the first day. There were waters on the earth from the time it became fully formed. Then on the third day/age it filled the basins formed by continental drift.
...So now you're not talking about a gas cloud anymore, right?
I predict that we will eventually find flying creatures much earlier than fully terrestrial animals including fully terrestrial arthropods.
Again, you can't have it both ways. You cannot argue that Genesis "must be divinely inspired" because the sequence agrees with modern science, while simultanously admitting that it does not and "predicting" that new evidence will be found to fix this problem.
Yes, but remember this is from the perspective of ancient human, bacteria would not be visible to the naked eye so God did not mention them but cyanobacteria would have been visible. So you DO admit that cyanobacteria are very similar to plants.
At this time, even fruit trees (remember, those plants ACTUALLY AND SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE) would have been invisible to the human eye. On account of there being no "human eyes" in existence yet.

God is supposedly the only "person" seeing all this, and he's supposed to be omniscient (according to the later stories about him), so the whole notion of a "human perspective" is just a desperate fiction invented by apologists struggling (and STILL failing) to get the sequence to look right.
jtb: There is nothing in the Bible which indicates supernatural knowledge that wouldn't otherwise be available to those who wrote it.

Ed: Evidence?

jtb: You're the one who needs to provide "evidence".

Ed: I did.

jtb: No, you didn't. The Genesis creation sequence is wrong, so we're still waiting.

No, see above and also my comments about the type of foods they ate.
Nope.

Still waiting, Ed.
Here it is again: Provide a rational and objective basis for WHY God should have an "objective moral character".

We don't know.
...FINALLY!

This is the second time we've been through this. Now, will you try to REMEMBER in future that there is no rational basis for Christian morality?
Looks like God was incompetent when he designed us in the first place, but then he created magic fruits as an upgrade mechanism.

No, our rebellion brought about women to have pain in childbirth, ie narrowing of the pelvic girdles.
There are only two explanations for this bizarre "theory":

1. God altered the design of women to deliberately torture all child-bearing women, for the rest of time, for the crime of Eve. Hence, God is evil.

2. The act of rebelling causes the human pelvis to narrow via some strange physiological mechanism.

...If you don't want to believe that God is evil, then please explain how this narrowing works. Can you back it up with evidence that female "rebels" (criminals, radical politicians or whatever) suddenly find that their jeans fall off their hips?

November 7, 2003, 11:29 PM

Originally posted by Weltall
:banghead: :banghead: In case you utterly forgot why I originally posted those links, you claimed there weren't any transitional fossils. You're now claiming that I posted useless links because you've conceded to yourself that you've lost the original argument and need to try a different (and equally invalid) one. You are, by the way, dead wrong.

C'mon! I was just exaggerating a little! :D But even the disputed transitions are few and far between.

November 7, 2003, 11:32 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft
"Undisputed transitions"?? You are the kung-fu master of weasel-speak, sir.

Let me get this straight, old bean. Kent Hovind, or whatever unreasonable-facsimile-of-a-human currently exists in his body, will undoubtedly dispute any evidential claim made in favor of speciation (or better) so long as his lungs can fill with enough air to generate a lie. Is this the kind of "dispute" that invalidates in your mind the evidences given in those links?

No, I am referring to real scientists both creationists and evolutionists.

lpetrich

November 8, 2003, 07:24 AM

Ed, you will enjoy this thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67430). Especially enjoy the pictures of human, mouse, and parrot embryos at about when the hindlimb buds appear.

Weltall

November 8, 2003, 08:22 AM

Originally posted by Ed
C'mon! I was just exaggerating a little! :D But even the disputed transitions are few and far between.

I'm reading about an 8.7 on the bollock-o-meter here. Aside from the fact that you tried to shift the question with your initial reply, nothing has changed the fact that you're incorrect in your assertions. Go and read the link (and some scientific litterature) again.

November 8, 2003, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
Fraid so, if you reverse the BB (beyond even quantum gravity) then you come to a point with no dimensions, ie nothing.

lp: I wonder what makes Ed so sure of that. Does learning how to become a wildlife biologist involve taking advanced courses in quantum cosmology?

Its called self education.

Ed: There is no second creation story, Gen. 2 is just a telescoping into day 6, ie another change of perspective.

lp: Except that the order of events is just plain wrong. And the style of story doesn't match. Etc. It seems to me that if God Almighty was to reveal to Ed that G1 and G2 are two separate stories, he'd refuse to believe it.

I am assuming you are referring to Gen. 2:19. That verse's focus is on the NAMING of the animals not their order of creation. If you look at the word order it is quite obvious that it is the focus.

Ed: Because Gen. 1 is not meant to be scientific treatise on the physics of the origin of the universe.

lp: Ed wants to have it both ways here, just like the Rush Limbaugh apologists who claim that he is only an entertainer.

No, something can be generally scientifically accurate without the detail or purpose of a science textbook.

Ed: You cannot always see the pink until you are already cutting and eating it.

lp: I wonder if Ed has ever heard of cooking meat until it is "well done".

Ed: And in ancient times you often had to eat in a hurry.

lp: Evidence offered: {}

The hebrews were nomads at the time and often had to eat in a hurry.

Ed: The horse sequence was discredited years ago.

lp: A giant pile of horse dung. Especially as Ed has not revealed to us what he thinks the real story is.

Fraid not. According to Saiff and Macbeth in "Evolution" "The (famous horse) chart is so persuasive that most readers will be shocked to learn that it is an illusion. These seven stages do not represent ancestors and descendants. They are fossils that were taken from different times and places and were then strung together....."

(the Exodus events going unrecorded...)
Most governments both modern and ancient do not publish very embarassing events in their official historical records.

lp: No, when such events are big enough, they do, but they give such events a Baghdad-Bob spin.

That is only initially, later they strike them from the record.

Ed: How do you know that it did not happen? Something that lasted only a year and occured 2 mya is unlikely to have much evidence left.

lp: Except that all the Earth's flora and fauna, both terrestrial and aquatic, went through that alleged flood as if nothing had happen. Simply check the fossil record.

A one year event is unlikely to have an appreciable effect after 2 million years except there was an effect, ie the ice ages.

(Jesus Christ as having an earthly existence...)
Ed: Fraid so, read I Corinthians 2:2, I Tim. 3:16, I Corinth. 15:1-8.

lp: Either interpolations or some heavenly existence.

Evidence {}.

Ed: No, there are only 10 copies of the Gallic Wars and there is a 1000 year time gap between the documents and the event. With the NT, there are over 5000 copies and some are within 50 to 100 years of the events.

lp: Those are all MEDIEVAL copies, and it's not surprising that medieval monks found the NT more worth copying than the Gallic Wars.

Also, the contemporary evidence for Julius Caesar's existence is MUCH better than that for Jesus Christ's existence.

I was referring only to the documentary evidence for the Gallic Wars not the existence of Caesar himself.

jtb:
Except that in the archetypal hero-epic, the hero dies a failure at the end. Compare with Odysseus, Achilles, etc. etc.

Ed:
Evidence?

lp: I wonder how Ed thinks Odysseus and Achilles ended up.

Their stories are the exception rather than the rule.

lpetrich

November 9, 2003, 01:23 AM

Ed:
(the source of his claimed expertise on quantum cosmology)
Its called self education.

Including its mathematics?

Ed:
(on how the G1 and G2 events don't match)
I am assuming you are referring to Gen. 2:19. That verse's focus is on the NAMING of the animals not their order of creation. If you look at the word order it is quite obvious that it is the focus.

No, the whole stories.

Ed:
(the horse sequence)
Fraid not. According to Saiff and Macbeth in "Evolution" "The (famous horse) chart is so persuasive that most readers will be shocked to learn that it is an illusion. These seven stages do not represent ancestors and descendants. They are fossils that were taken from different times and places and were then strung together....."

I wonder which creationist quotebook Ed had gotten that from. He ought to read some real work on the horse family's history, like George Gaylord Simpson's Horses. Which ought to greatly interest a self-proclaimed wildlife biologist.

Yahzi

November 10, 2003, 12:10 AM

Originally posted by Ed
We don't know.
Ok.

So... what is your faith in God's moral nature based on?

Just hoping, eh?

Hey, good luck with that.

November 10, 2003, 11:11 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

Ed: No, there are only 10 copies of the Gallic Wars and there is a 1000 year time gap between the documents and the event. With the NT, there are over 5000 copies and some are within 50 to 100 years of the events.

jtb: Absolute rubbish.

All we have "within 50 years of the event" is a single small FRAGMENT of what became the "Gospel of John".

From other texts, we know that the modern tradition of four canonical Gospels began about 100 years after the event, but the earliest complete gospel that we actually have dates from several centuries later IIRC.

The notion that 5000 copies date from the second century is pure baloney.

That is not what I meant. I meant that within that 1000 year time gap there were 5000 copies.

November 10, 2003, 11:20 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
No, fractals and crystals are the result of the underlying structure of the molecules which is complex so the complexity comes from the built in complexity of the molecules so it is not coming from simplicity.

philo: Occasionally, in the middle of Ed's semi-lucid one-liners, something appears which, amazingly, gives me further pause. Something that makes me want to doubt Ed's sincerity or his sanity. Something that makes me wonder if there's not a semi-sophisticated AI on the other end of Ed's computer.

This is one of those times.

Nevertheless, after this little psychoanalysis, my statement still stands unrefuted.

lpetrich

November 11, 2003, 02:13 AM

Originally posted by Ed
That is not what I meant. I meant that within that 1000 year time gap there were 5000 copies. So Ed admits that nearly all of those 5000 copies were made after the second century. But lots of copies made in the Middle Ages is NOT equivalent to high-quality documentation.

Ed, imagine that this had happened to you. A tabloid newspaper like the National Enquirer publishes a story that you had married a chimpanzee. And that its publisher had printed something like 10 million copies of that issue. This is 2000 times more copies than those medieval NT manuscripts -- and much closer in time than any of the Gospels.

Do you conclude that you have indeed married a chimp?

Or do you conclude that the number of copies made does not affect reliability?

BTW, I think that this would be a fun topic for a formal debate.

lpetrich

November 11, 2003, 02:33 AM

Originally posted by Ed
No, fractals and crystals are the result of the underlying structure of the molecules which is complex so the complexity comes from the built in complexity of the molecules so it is not coming from simplicity. ...

.... my statement still stands unrefuted. Ed, a counterexample to your statement was recently proved, namely, Kepler's conjecture, or the sphere packing problem (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/KeplerConjecture.html). The face-centered-cubic and hexagonal-close-packed configurations were shown to be the most efficient packing configurations. And spheres do not have anything special built into their geometry to make them choose those configurations.

Ed, if you believe that hard-sphere packing is irrelevant to real atoms and molecules, then I challenge you to demonstrate that with molecular-dynamics calculations. Present-day desktop computers are powerful enough to easily do the simulation with a few dozen or a few hundred molecules and periodic boundary conditions. And if you can easily understand quantum gravity, such calculations ought to be no sweat for you.

Philosoft

November 11, 2003, 05:38 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Nevertheless, after this little psychoanalysis, my statement still stands unrefuted.
And totally incomprehensible. Why don't you try telling me about your mother instead?

November 12, 2003, 12:07 AM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
We may not know it with absolute certainty, but all the evidence points to it being an effect, ie it has a beginning, it is in motion and etc.

lp: Notice that Ed has NOT demonstrated how that indicates that something has to be an effect.

I am not saying that those characteristics absolutely makes it an effect but whenever we observe something acting on something else as a cause then the effect will almost always have one or more of those characteristics.

Ed: Actually the evidence points to the Christian God not being invented by humans. For one thing His moral standards are too high. If God was manmade, his moral laws would let us have sex with anyone we wanted to rather than just our husbands and wives. Also, good lying would be a virtue.

lp: The Bible does NOT forbid ALL non-marital sex. And the Bible does not absolutely forbid "good lying".

Fraid so.

lp: Also, consider Hindu ascetics, whom Alexander the Great's chroniclers had called "gymnosphists". According to Ed, the only thing that we can do on our initiative is swinish self-indulgence. Thus, Hindu ascetics imply the reality of Hindu deities.

But these were special supposedly more "spiritual" leaders or "monks". But the Christian God requires all people to meet these standards not just people that are at a higher "spiritual" plane.

Ed: No, fractals and crystals are the result of the underlying structure of the molecules which is complex so the complexity comes from the built in complexity of the molecules so it is not coming from simplicity.

lp: Crystals come about because a crystalline organization has the lowest possible energy -- it's the sphere packing problem of mathematics.

Yes, and the crystalline organization is the result of the underlying shape and structure of the molecules themselves.

Ed: The hindu god is eliminated as the cause of the universe because the universe is a diversity within a unity while the hindu god is a pure unity. ... The gods of Islam and Judaism can be eliminated as the creator of the universe because they are pure unities while the universe is diversity within a unity which is what the Triune Christian God is.

lp: Ed's fallacious law of resemblance again.

No, anytime an artist creates something aspects of the artist's nature and personality are transferred to their creation. This fact has been used by art experts to identify the artist's work for hundreds of years.

(lots of possible deities...)
Ed: No, all those gods can be eliminated because they are not sufficient to produce an effect, ie the universe, that contains the personal.

lp: Something that Ed has yet to demonstrate, as opposed to assert.

Fraid not, it has been demonstrated throughout all of human existence. And you have yet to demonstrate the reverse.

November 12, 2003, 12:14 AM

Originally posted by rdalin
Given the behavior of your god in the old testament, the claim that he has high moral standards is risible.

I seem to recall a number of occasions where the Israelites, under your god's direction, slaughtered all the inhabitants of a town except for the virginal young women, whom they got to keep. Wait - I know - maybe they all got married. That would make it okay, right?

No, this is called just punishment on the ones that were killed and for the young women they received greater blessings in the long run.

lpetrich

November 12, 2003, 02:15 AM

Ed:
(having a beginning, being in motion, etc.)
I am not saying that those characteristics absolutely makes it an effect but whenever we observe something acting on something else as a cause then the effect will almost always have one or more of those characteristics.

Correlation != causation

LP:
The Bible does NOT forbid ALL non-marital sex. And the Bible does not absolutely forbid "good lying".

Fraid so.

Ed has yet to prove his points.

Ed:
(Hindu ascetics "proving" the existence of Hindu deities by being non-selfish and non-greedy...)
But these were special supposedly more "spiritual" leaders or "monks". But the Christian God requires all people to meet these standards not just people that are at a higher "spiritual" plane.

Totally beside the point. And to use the old "would they die for a lie" argument, do you think that these gentlemen have mortified their flesh for the sake of a lie?

No, anytime an artist creates something aspects of the artist's nature and personality are transferred to their creation. This fact has been used by art experts to identify the artist's work for hundreds of years.

However, there are oodles of counterexamples to the Eddian Law of Resemblance. How many of them do I have to list in order to impress you, O Ed?

(lots of possible deities...)
No, all those gods can be eliminated because they are not sufficient to produce an effect, ie the universe, that contains the personal.

Fraid not, it has been demonstrated throughout all of human existence. And you have yet to demonstrate the reverse.

No, all the "demonstrations" I've ever seen from you are non sequiturs like the fallacious "Law" of Resemblance, and misstatements about the nature of deities of religions other than yours.

Jack the Bodiless

November 12, 2003, 03:33 AM

Given the behavior of your god in the old testament, the claim that he has high moral standards is risible.

I seem to recall a number of occasions where the Israelites, under your god's direction, slaughtered all the inhabitants of a town except for the virginal young women, whom they got to keep. Wait - I know - maybe they all got married. That would make it okay, right?

No, this is called just punishment on the ones that were killed...
Not by any sane speaker of the English language. The phrase "just punishment" ABSOLUTELY CANNOT be used to describe the murder of those who have done NOTHING WRONG.
...and for the young women they received greater blessings in the long run.
The rapist's argument. By using it, you have demonstrated (again) that you have no understanding of morality, or of women.

Get it through your head, Ed (preferably before you do something stupid and spend the rest of your life in prison): women DO NOT LIKE being raped by those who have murdered their parents, siblings, relatives and friends.

phoenixthoth

November 12, 2003, 06:54 AM

hello. i was forced to use the moniker phoenixthoth cuz someone already took phoenix. you can call me phoenix.

just wanted to plug the debate i invited you all to.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67789

sorry for the interuption, though it seems as thought the topic hasn't been about the existence of God in at least the last post...

rdalin

November 12, 2003, 07:45 AM

Originally posted by Ed
No, this is called just punishment on the ones that were killed and for the young women they received greater blessings in the long run.
Their husbands and children were killed and they were gang-raped. Spare me from such 'blessings.'

As far as punishment is concerned, their only 'crime' seemed to have been to resist the Israelites. So, your god deemed it appropriate to have all of them murdered. Tell me again about how moral your deity is.

How do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you persist in writing such tripe?

phoenixthoth

November 12, 2003, 08:20 AM

ah yes, God the great enforcer and punisher. i believe that God is portrayed as a punitive enforcer to the masses because whoever portrayed it that way assumed the masses would be too stupid to figure out what actions do or don't lead to the survival of the species with minimal suffering without having a hell to fear if you're naughty. kinda like a suped-up version of santa clause not giving you presents if you're bad except instead of not getting presents, you'll burn in enternal damnation. and on the other end of the spectrum, if you're good enough in the eyes of God, you get to go to heaven where all dogs go. speaking of dogs, this reward/punishment system reminds me of how you treat a dog: if it does tricks, you give it a treat (unlike kids at halloween) and if it's bad it goes in the doghouse. i don't need to think about heaven, hell, reward, or punishment to be able to use my intellect to figure out that the golden rule is the optimal way society should function (except that i guess masochism messes that up).

Wayne Delia

November 12, 2003, 08:40 AM

Originally posted by Ed
No, this is called just punishment on the ones that were killed and for the young women they received greater blessings in the long run. In 1 Samuel 15:1-3, God commands Samuel to tell King Saul to wipe out the Amalekite tribe, specifically targeting women, children, infants, and livestock, through no fault of their own, but rather because God was still pissed off at the already-punished offenses committed 350 to 400 years earlier by their long-dead ancestors.

Would you care to have a go at explaining why ordering genocide and targeting children and infants is in any way "just"? If you want to speculate that they were killed for some future sins that they might have committed had they been allowed to live, I'd be interested in your take on why Baby Hitler was allowed to live.

The "greater blessings" you're alluding to in Numbers 31 were that the young virgin women who were allowed to remain alive were taken as sex slaves by the Hebrew soldiers. That's a somewhat perverse interpretation of "greater blessings."

WMD

phoenixthoth

November 12, 2003, 08:42 AM

do you believe the bible? if not, why are you asking? let's suppose you don't believe in the bible. say it's like star wars. this is like asking why it was just of yoda to not tell luke that darth vader was his father. if star wars isn't really true, who fucking cares?

let's say for a moment that there is a real yoda. does the depiction of yoda in star wars as someone you don't like or as someone who is immoral or as someone who is unjust prove that yoda does not exist?

Wayne Delia

November 12, 2003, 08:50 AM

Originally posted by rdalin
Their husbands and children were killed and they were gang-raped.Technically, no. The 32,000 young women who were permitted to remain alive were specified as virgin, unmarried women. The part about the gang-rape is not necessarily true, although the consensus of sacred and secular scholars is that the young virgin women were taken as sex slaves by the Hebrew soldiers, which is plenty bad enough. It is also interesting to note that the Lord demanded a very small percentage of the spoils of war as a sacrifice, including (gasp!) the human sacrifice of 32 of those young virgin women. (Presumably the uglier ones?) As Dave Barry says, "I am not making this up." It's all in Numbers 31. As far as punishment is concerned, their only 'crime' seemed to have been to resist the Israelites. So, your god deemed it appropriate to have all of them murdered. Tell me again about how moral your deity is.Evidently, the Hebrews got it into their heads that their God had promised them the land which the Midianites, Canaanites, Amalekites, etc. were occupying, so they (the Hebrews) thought they had every right to waltz in and take over land belonging to someone else. Surprisingly (not), the other tribes seemed to have no idea what the invaders' God had in mind, and when they defended their homeland, it was seen to be a huge sin in the eyes of the Hebrews. It all makes perfect sense... well, actually, no, it doesn't.

WMD

rdalin

November 12, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by Wayne Delia
Technically, no. The 32,000 young women who were permitted to remain alive were specified as virgin, unmarried women. The part about the gang-rape is not necessarily true, although the consensus of sacred and secular scholars is that the young virgin women were taken as sex slaves by the Hebrew soldiers, which is plenty bad enough. It is also interesting to note that the Lord demanded a very small percentage of the spoils of war as a sacrifice, including (gasp!) the human sacrifice of 32 of those young virgin women. (Presumably the uglier ones?) As Dave Barry says, "I am not making this up." It's all in Numbers 31. Evidently, the Hebrews got it into their heads that their God had promised them the land which the Midianites, Canaanites, Amalekites, etc. were occupying, so they (the Hebrews) thought they had every right to waltz in and take over land belonging to someone else. Surprisingly (not), the other tribes seemed to have no idea what the invaders' God had in mind, and when they defended their homeland, it was seen to be a huge sin in the eyes of the Hebrews. It all makes perfect sense... well, actually, no, it doesn't.

WMD
Well, being a naturally cynical type, and having read enough history to know how soldiers often behave (even today - read the accounts of what the Russian army did after Germany fell), I'm dubious that the sex-slavery was completely monogamous. In any case, it's completely immoral regardless of what actually happened.

Since history is written by the winners, as the saying goes, the biblical account makes sense if you think of it as a biased historical document. Claiming that it demonstrates godly morality, however, is obviously ridiculous.

November 12, 2003, 09:57 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
I never said that it cannot exist and I do not deny that there has been Christian anti-semitism over the years, but my point is it is unbiblical and not a teaching of orthodox Christianity.

lp: Except that Christian anti-Semites would disagree. The label "Christ-killer" is easily justified from the Gospels; it's something like

"Oh my god! They killed Jesus!"

Only biblically illiterate christians, any person with half a brain would know that at the worst only 1st century jews were guilty of killing christ with full endorsement of the Romans.

lp: And does Ed think that theologian Martin Luther was not a "True Christian" on account of his book The Jews and their Lies?

No, even true Christians sometimes do bad things.

lp: (Nazis as allegedly rationalistic...)

Which does not explain their hostility to atheism and freethought. See this article (http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/paul_23_4.html) for more.

They could not have been that hostile to atheists given that Hitler's right hand man was an atheist, ie Martin Bormann. Of course they were against freethought, that is a Judeo-Christian principle!

Ed: Again, Jesus was most harsh to believers not heretics.

lp: That's because he ran into them more. Which is not surprising of someone who referred to Gentiles as "dogs".

Huh?

Ed: Hinduism claims all is one and individuality is an illusion, but experience and common sense tell us that individuality is real.

lp: To which a Hindu would respond by pointing out various illusory perceptions.

Exactly.

lp: And I could point out that my experience and common sense provide no reason to conclude that the Christian God exists.

But do you deny that your individuality is real?

November 12, 2003, 10:59 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Okay, how do YOU identify an effect?

philo: I wasn't aware I had to. You're the one making the claim that the universe is an effect, based on a flawed understanding.

I have a hunch you do it everyday using the very characteristics that I mentioned. But you seem to want to play dumb, thinking that will help your argument......but it isn't.

November 12, 2003, 11:10 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Ed: but I would say about 85% of people who claim to be christians have a superficial faith while 85% of them are christians because that is how they were brought up by their parents.

philo: But you then make a claim that requires scientific study! Do you have any idea how many people you would have to interview to have even a passably generalizable sample? And what's with the percentages? Do they represent the same group?[/B]

Well maybe someday someone will do a study. Yes, they represent the same group.

November 12, 2003, 11:16 PM

Originally posted by premjan
The Hindu God is also a diversity within a unity.

No, it is ultimately a unity, the diverse aspects are an illusion.

November 12, 2003, 11:29 PM

Originally posted by rlogan
Ed Sez-

"the universe is a diversity within a unity"

now I've seen you use this to "prove" that the "triumvate" God/Man/Spirit "God" must be the only God.

Now, that kind of thing goes over big under the big canvas tent.

Not here. What the hell is that first statement even supposed to mean? Lawdy! Every permutation of those words is equally meaningful:

"The unity is a diversity within the universe"

"The diversity is a unity within the universe"

"Is a universe the diversity within a Unity"?

Now I submit to you that a set of words that can be arranged in any permutation and have exactly the same merit, when it is a question and a statement in various forms of the permutation, that it is very unlikely to mean a f***ing thing.

Stuff is different in the universe? Lawdy! Must be a three-in-one sale for Gods!

;) ;) ;)

No, my statement actually means something. The first one of yours means something but is incorrect. The second one is meaningless. The third one seems taken out of a context so is unintelligible. I will give you an example of how my statement is a true statement about the universe. The universe is one thing (unity) made up of many things galaxies (diversity) and then they are all one thing, galaxies (unity) and yet there are many different types of galaxies (diversity). And this pattern goes down all the way to subatomic particles.

November 12, 2003, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Instead of asserting it, why didnt you demonstrate it? Explain how something impersonal can create.

philo: Do you think God creates each snowflake individually?

That is not creating, that is natural laws acting on water molecules. Of course, those natural laws had to be created given their complexity and what we know about the origins of laws.

Ed: Are you even following our discussion? You comment does not follow what I posted. If the god mentioned in the DOI is the deist god then they would not have said that he endowed us with rights.

ph: How in the blue hell do you know what 200-year-old deists would or would not have said about their god?? You are trying to stuff a massive concept into a little tiny theological box, with no success.

Well historically speaking that is how most deists viewed their god. Of course, there may have been a few deists that had odd ball views. Nevertheless, even if that was the view of the deists, they still needed the endorsement of the huge majority of christians that signed the DOI.

Ed: So I am going to assume that since that you are now trying to change the subject, you are unable to refute my point. Now to address your new subject, since the Christian God is the only God that has endowed us with rights, all I have to do is to demonstrate the rationality of his existence. Which I did in almost all my posts above.

ph: Yeah, I understand you are the foremost authority on which Gods are claimed to have endowed humans with rights. Whatever.

See above.

Ed: Again, assertion is meaningless without an argument to back it up.

ph: Remove your hands from around your eyes and read the rest of my post.

Huh?

Ed: Basically yes. The divine right of kings only existed in the ancient hebrew theocracy. With the coming of Christ believers were not to establish a theocracy or monarchy only to make disciples and establish the church.

ph: Obviously, Biblical interpretations are like assholes. Out of curiosity, where has democracy been deduced from Scripture? Self-governance philosophy existed thousands of years prior to Christ, you know.[/B]

No need for the crudities, that is a sign of a lack of a vocabulary or the inability to refute an argument. See my post about judeo-christian principles to lpetrich above.

Jack the Bodiless

November 13, 2003, 03:21 AM

Of course they were against freethought, that is a Judeo-Christian principle!
Then you should be able to find it spelled out in the Bible, right?

I await chapter and verse.

Good luck.
The Hindu God is also a diversity within a unity.

No, it is ultimately a unity, the diverse aspects are an illusion.
And according to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, there is ultimately only one God.

You're still not grasping the fact that the different Hindu gods are at least as distinct from each other as the elements of the Christian Trinity are. Probably more so. Which aspects of the Trinity represent diametrically opposed concepts and values?

It's time you learned about Hinduism.
Basically yes. The divine right of kings only existed in the ancient hebrew theocracy.
...And it's also time you learned about medieval Europe too.

lpetrich

November 13, 2003, 07:29 AM

LP:
(Xtian anti-Semitism)
"Oh my god! They killed Jesus!"

Ed:
Only biblically illiterate christians, any person with half a brain would know that at the worst only 1st century jews were guilty of killing christ with full endorsement of the Romans.

Except that the Gospels imply otherwise. Matthew even has a lynch mob implausibly holding itself to blame, when any self-respecting lynch mob would have said "Death to Jesus!".

(the Nazis...)
They could not have been that hostile to atheists given that Hitler's right hand man was an atheist, ie Martin Bormann.

That's the old "Some of my best friends are..." line. And MB was the only serious atheist among Nazi leaders. One can make at least as good a case that Adolf Hitler was a good Catholic, since the Pope never excommunited him and other Catholic Nazis, despite having excommunicated Communists.

Of course they were against freethought, that is a Judeo-Christian principle!

Ed, don't make me laugh. Considering what has happened to real freethinkers in all the history of Christianity, one would think otherwise.

Philo:
Do you think God creates each snowflake individually?

Ed:
That is not creating, that is natural laws acting on water molecules. ...

Thus creating snowflakes. Which have a LOT more order than water molecules in water vapor.

Ed, I've already reported one of your remarks to WinAce (http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/); shall I do it again?

Check under the Nov 2003 edition of "Fundies Say the Darnedest Things".

Philosoft

November 13, 2003, 04:37 PM

Originally posted by Ed
That is not creating, that is natural laws acting on water molecules.
Natural processes making snowflakes where there previously existed only snow certainly qualifies as creating.
Of course, those natural laws had to be created given their complexity and what we know about the origins of laws.
We don't know anything about the origins of natural laws.
Well historically speaking that is how most deists viewed their god. Of course, there may have been a few deists that had odd ball views.
Fantastic. Where can I get my own copy of Precise Theological Deconstructions of all 18th Century Deists?
Nevertheless, even if that was the view of the deists, they still needed the endorsement of the huge majority of christians that signed the DOI.
So what, did they trick all those Christians into believing the passages in the DoI were specifically referring to YHVH?
No need for the crudities, that is a sign of a lack of a vocabulary or the inability to refute an argument.
Like hell it is. Heh.
See my post about judeo-christian principles to lpetrich above.
Would that be the one wherein you merely assert that modern democratic governance is Biblical, whilst ignoring the history of said as recounted by actual historians and philosophers?

sophie

November 13, 2003, 04:41 PM

Philosoft : Natural processes making snowflakes where there previously existed only snow certainly qualifies as creating.Is this creating or only form management?

November 14, 2003, 11:18 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
Explain how something impersonal can create.

lp: I see it happening all around me; how many examples would you want me to cite?

I am not referring to causation, like snowflakes. Creation implies a creator with design and purpose.

lp: since the Christian God is the only God that has endowed us with rights,

lp: The Bible NOWHERE explicitly mentions the concept of legal rights.

Not explicitly, but they are plainly implied in things like the ten commandments.

Ed: The divine right of kings only existed in the ancient hebrew theocracy.

lp: Tell that to King George III and all the other believers in the Divine Right of Kings.

There probably were some Christians that did tell him, like George Washington, John Witherspoon and Samuel Adams.

Ed: With the coming of Christ believers were not to establish a theocracy or monarchy only to make disciples and establish the church.

lp: Except that the Bible does NOT explicitly state that.

Read Matthew 28:19-20.

November 14, 2003, 11:27 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Well humanistic atheism only places value on human beings for subjective utilitarian purposes, ie whether they can live a "quality life."

ph: There are certainly self-described humanists around here who would not identify with your assertion. Thus, you are demonstrably wrong and called upon once again to cease using incorrect information.

That is the view of most humanists I have encountered. Why don't you tell me why humans are valuable in your opinion?

Ed: While theism provides an objective value in that we are created in the image of the creator. Therefore we have value connected to an outside objective source.

ph: If each human is valued by another human, is that not an "objective" source of value? We are stipulating that humans exist, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

No, an objective source has to be outside Man. Otherwise it is not objective.

Ed: Then regarding science, if the universe is just a cosmic accident then there is no reason for there to be rational regular natural laws.

ph: Pardon? Exactly what do you know about "cosmic accidents" and the types of laws that emerge therefrom?[/B]

A random event such as the universe popping into existence is unlike regular natural laws.

Weltall

November 14, 2003, 11:28 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Not explicitly, but they are plainly implied in things like the ten commandments.

Or not. Which 'thou shalt not' implies the existance of legal rights?

There probably were some Christians that did tell him, like George Washington, John Witherspoon and Samuel Adams.

Adams and Washington were Deists.

lpetrich

November 15, 2003, 12:42 AM

Ed:
I am not referring to causation, like snowflakes. Creation implies a creator with design and purpose.

???

since the Christian God is the only God that has endowed us with rights,

LP:
The Bible NOWHERE explicitly mentions the concept of legal rights.

Not explicitly, but they are plainly implied in things like the ten commandments.

Bottom-of-the-barrel scraping. One could make such an implication from every other law code there ever was.

The divine right of kings only existed in the ancient hebrew theocracy.

Tell that to King George III and all the other believers in the Divine Right of Kings.

There probably were some Christians that did tell him, like George Washington, John Witherspoon and Samuel Adams.

Two of which might best be called Unitarians, and I wonder if Ed considers Unitarianism "true Christianity".

Furthermore, King George III and his predecessors and successors considered themselves Christians; they were heads of the Church of England after it was founded by King Henry VIII.

With the coming of Christ believers were not to establish a theocracy or monarchy only to make disciples and establish the church.

Read Matthew 28:19-20.

Which does not preclude establishing theocracies or monarchies. Does anyone else here find Ed's proof-texting to be totally inane?

Philosoft

November 15, 2003, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by Ed
That is the view of most humanists I have encountered. Why don't you tell me why humans are valuable in your opinion?
Well, some of them are really good cooks. And others make really good drinks. Still others make me laugh. Are you seeing the pattern here?
No, an objective source has to be outside Man. Otherwise it is not objective.
Stop trying to pretend you understand philosophy. You need to think one level up. A thing is objective if it exists independent of anyone's opinion of its existence. A person's value judgment is not an objective judgement. But, a subjective value judgment exists objectively.
A random event such as the universe popping into existence is unlike regular natural laws.
"Regular natural laws" are a product of the universe. "The universe popping into existence" is not. They are not directly comparable events.

November 15, 2003, 11:16 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
I never said it was astrophysics textbook.
From a theological perspective it is more important the universe had a beginning than that it is expanding.

ph: Aside from the general question begging, you are asking us to believe that the writers of Genesis were divinely inspired, are you not? And in support of that assertion, you offer the parallels between creation and the Big Bang. I find, however, the notion that the universe had a beginning to be rather mundane, especially since most non-Abrahamic religions have creation myths that suppose a "time" when the universe did not exist.

So, from where I sit, you ought to be somewhat more concerned that the lack of cosmological corroboration in Genesis hardly serves to elevate it above other mythology.

No, creation myths generally have a preexisting physical universe from which our universe is created. The biblical account is a creation ex nihlo, which is what the BB theory plainly implies. And there is no pre-existing space time continuum.

Ed: Given that it occured probably 2 mya, how does fossil sorting and sediment layering falsify it? There would be very little evidence left most of it would have eroded away.

ph: Uh, because the fossils and sediment layers date considerably further back that 2 million years?[/B]

I am not denying that there were animals dying and smaller floods occuring both after and prior to 2 mya.

November 15, 2003, 11:44 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
Well humanistic atheism only places value on human beings for subjective utilitarian purposes, ie whether they can live a "quality life."

lp: And what makes Ed an expert on that?

See my post to philosoft above.

Ed: While theism provides an objective value in that we are created in the image of the creator.

lp: Non sequitur. We could easily be produced just for the heck of it or to torment for amusement. And we would be UNLIKE any such alleged beings in many important respects.

I am referring to what theism teaches as compared to humanism.
Lp seems to be a broken record on some subjects and wants to change the subject to old worn out subjects covered in other threads.

Ed: Therefore we have value connected to an outside objective source.

lp: God's opinion is nothing more than that: God's opinion.

God's moral law is based on his objective moral character and the nature of the universe he created and designed so it is far more than an opinion.

Ed: Then regarding science, if the universe is just a cosmic accident then there is no reason for there to be rational regular natural laws.

lp: And what makes Ed such a big expert on "cosmic accidents"?

Good comeback, ....NOT.

Ed: From a theological perspective it is more important the universe had a beginning than that it is expanding.

lp: Very convenient evasion.

Non sequitor.

(Noah's Flood)
Ed: Given that it occured probably 2 mya, how does fossil sorting and sediment layering falsify it? There would be very little evidence left most of it would have eroded away.

lp: Except that there are 2-million-year-old sediments which would contain evidence of that alleged flood -- if it happened.

There are but they are very small because of the very short duration of the event, ie one year, so it is difficult to separate them out from other flood events.

Ed: Liberal theologians do not show much impartiality either. They assume anything supernatural is impossible.

lp: And what makes Ed an expert on them?

I have taken secular university religion courses.

GunnerJ

November 16, 2003, 10:46 AM

"lp: Very convenient evasion."

Non sequitor.

What non sequitor? He's calling your BS and showing how you try to skirt an important issue with evasive handwaving. How does this "not follow" from your general pattern in every fucking thread you've participated in of doing exactly this?

Weltall

November 16, 2003, 01:01 PM

Originally posted by Ed
I have taken secular university religion courses.
But clearly not secular university biology, chemistry, physics, history or astronomy courses.

lpetrich

November 16, 2003, 02:25 PM

Ed:
No, creation myths generally have a preexisting physical universe from which our universe is created.

How is that supposed to be the case? Have you studied any of them other than the Biblical ones?

LP:
Also, that interpretation can easily be imposed on the two Biblical ones.

The biblical account is a creation ex nihlo, which is what the BB theory plainly implies.

"From nothing" is NOT explicitly stated in the Bible.

And there is no pre-existing space time continuum.

How so? Did you work out the mathematics of quantum gravity to find this out? I'm sure that I can follow it, so get some webspace and post your derivation.

I am not denying that there were animals dying and smaller floods occuring both after and prior to 2 mya.

So what?

We could easily be produced just for the heck of it or to torment for amusement. And we would be UNLIKE any such alleged beings in many important respects.

I am referring to what theism teaches as compared to humanism.
Lp seems to be a broken record on some subjects and wants to change the subject to old worn out subjects covered in other threads.

I could list oodles of differences between us and some alleged deity. And it seems to be Ed who is the broken record, not me.

God's moral law is based on his objective moral character and the nature of the universe he created and designed so it is far more than an opinion.

What "objective moral character"? And how is some alleged deity supposed to have one?

And what makes Ed such a big expert on "cosmic accidents"?

Good comeback, ....NOT.

Ed has yet to reveal what makes him such an expert on this subject. Is that something they teach in wildlife-biology class?

lpetrich

November 16, 2003, 03:17 PM

Ed:
I have taken secular university religion courses.

Weltall:
But clearly not secular university biology, chemistry, physics, history or astronomy courses.

He must have taken at least some, because he is a wildlife biologist. He is involved in preparing environmental impact statements and stuff like that.

Weltall

November 16, 2003, 06:55 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
He must have taken at least some, because he is a wildlife biologist. He is involved in preparing environmental impact statements and stuff like that.
Really? Well, whatever he took clearly didn't cover evolutionary theory (or if it did he slept through it).

Philosoft

November 16, 2003, 09:02 PM

Originally posted by Ed
No, creation myths generally have a preexisting physical universe from which our universe is created.
No, they don't.
The biblical account is a creation ex nihlo, which is what the BB theory plainly implies.
The Big Bang Theory most certainly does not imply "creation ex nihilo." You must indicate that you understand this before I continue this line of argumentation. I will not attempt to refute self-refuting arguments.
And there is no pre-existing space time continuum.
Existing before what?
I am not denying that there were animals dying and smaller floods occuring both after and prior to 2 mya.
Glad to hear it.

November 16, 2003, 10:52 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich

Ed:
Huh? You are kidding right? Any 18 year old freshman who has a western civ class knows that Hitler was an evolutionist.

lp: And how is that supposed to be so self-evident? Where does he discuss descent with modification? Where does he claim that non-Nordics have not gone as far from our simian ancestors as Nordics, and that Jews have gone the least far of all?

See below.

lp: (Hitler on the invariable nature of each species...)

Ed: These quotes you provide are just analogies of real time observations.

lp: Very ingenious.

Nevertheless correct.

Ed: The famous anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith said in his book "Evolution and Ethics": "The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist, he has consciously sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution."

lp: Pure quote-mining. Here's the full paragraph:

The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution. He has failed, not because the theory of evolution is false, but because he has made three fatal blunders in its application. The first was in forcing the pace of evolution among his own people; he raised their warlike passions to such a heat that the only relief possible was that of aggressive war. His second mistake lay in his misconception of the evolutionary value of power. All that a sane evolutionist demands of power is that it should be sufficient to guarantee the security of a nation; more than that is an evolutionary abuse of power. When Hitler set out to conquer Europe, he had entered on that course which brought about the evolutionary destruction of Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes (see Chapter 34). His third and greatest mistake was his failure to realize that such a monopoly of power meant insecurity for Britain, Russia, and America. His three great antagonists, although they do not preach the doctrine of evolution, are very consistent exponents of its tenets.

Source: http://reactor-core.org/evolution-and-ethics.html

Keith seems to have in mind social evolution rather than biological evolution.

So what? It still makes my point.

lp: And Keith notes that Hitler says things like

"It is not for men," said the Fuhrer, "to discuss the question of why Providence created different races, but rather to recognize that it punishes those who disregard its work of creation."

Which Keith interpreted as belief in theistic evolutionism.

Notice he said "ITS work of creation." This is much closer to deism or pantheism, which is what most scholars think he was, ie a pantheistic evolutionist. Also read Robert E.D. Clark, "Darwin:Before and After". He says, "Adolf Hitler's mind was captivated by evolutionary thinking-probably since he was a boy. Evolutionary ideas lie at all that is worst in Mein Kampf."

lp: Finally, http://reactor-core.org also contains lots of other documents, many with a libertarian slant. But also some nice historical documents, like Hammurabi's law code (http://reactor-core.org/code-of-hammurabi.html) and Rome's Twelve Tables (http://reactor-core.org/twelve-tables.html). Reading those documents gives the lie to Ed's apparent belief that the Bible is the source of all law.

I never said that the bible is the source of all law, I said it is the source of much of Western civ's laws.

November 16, 2003, 11:29 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
LP:
I wonder where Ed gets his idea of the onetime belief in the eternity of the Universe.

Ed:
Astronomers Sir Arthur Eddington, Herman Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle.

lp: I still don't see the connection.

These men were all advocates of the steady state theory of the universe.

lp: Ice Ages have no connection with alleged planetwide floods.

Ed: A global flood would very likely produce perturbations to the earth's motion there by producing the Ice Ages until it became stabilized.

lp: How so?

The incredible weight of the water would produce the perturbations.

(Biblical genocide...)

Ed: No, genocide is the "punishing" of groups of people because of who they are and the hateful feelings toward them by fabricating their crimes. While the Israelites were God's capital punishers of actual criminals.

lp: That's the sort of thing that every mass murderer says.

Yes, but mass murderers are not omnscient.

lp: (my personality...)
Ed: I am detecting yours right now.
Ed, I didn't know that you have ESP
Ed: With the magic of propositional communication you don't need ESP.

lp: That's an inference, NOT a direct perception. If a computer could pass the Turing Test...

Nevertheless a rational inference.

Ed: Curing someone using supernatural processes is practicing miracles.
lp: No, it's still medicine, even if it's miraculous medicine
Ed: I think most doctors would disagree with you.

lp: Curing disease is not practicing medicine?

Simplistically, yes, technically no.

lp: Ed seems to imagine that a designer must design an organism from scratch, and not work from the work of other designers. However, human designers universally utilize the work of other designers in their designs. So the Earth's biota, if at least partially designed, would be the work of designers that would work from their predecessors' work

Ed: Huh? Did Da Vinci use predecessor's work? Did Michaelangelo? Of course not. And single designers also modify their own designs for other purposes.

lp: Da Vinci and Michelangelo both used techniques invented and developed by others; neither gentleman had invented sculpting or painting.

Ed, let me tell you something. I have programmed computers for 22 years now. Which makes me an intelligent designer of sorts. And I know a lot about the history of science and stuff like that, which tells me a lot of how human designing is done.

Of course they didn't invent sculpting and painting but their use of those media was unique. And Da Vinci's ideas about flying machines were not based on any other human designers ideas.

lp: Grass
Deer
Wolves
Fleas
Wolbachia bacteria
Bacteriophages

Ed: But they all use cells and DNA, this shows a similar basic blueprint pointing to a single designer.

lp: Ed grasps at straws. A shared designer of certain features does NOT preclude multiple designers of other features.

But the resemblances of DNA between totally morphologically distinct organisms strongly points to one designer.

lpetrich

November 17, 2003, 12:26 AM

Ed:
lp: And how is that supposed to be so self-evident? Where does he discuss descent with modification? Where does he claim that non-Nordics have not gone as far from our simian ancestors as Nordics, and that Jews have gone the least far of all?

See below.

It's significant that Ed has no explicit quotes along the lines I'd described. I think that if Hitler had been interested in evolutionary biology, he would have approvingly discusses Haeckel's version of it. He would have explained how our ancestors had struggled from being a protozoan on upward, and how we Nordics must continue the struggle for continued improvement of our race.

(Hitler on the invariable nature of each species...)
These quotes you provide are just analogies of real time observations.
Very ingenious.
Nevertheless correct.

Ed has just rejected a favorite creationist argument -- essentialism: an X's descendants will always be other X's.

(Stuff on Sir Arthur Keith and evolution...)

Ed ignores how he had praised the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union for allegedly practicing evolution during WWII -- and the US and Britain are supposed to be "good guys" and the SU a temporary "good guy".

Notice he said "ITS work of creation." This is much closer to deism or pantheism, which is what most scholars think he was, ie a pantheistic evolutionist.

That's a translation, and the translator was trying to use good English grammar.

Also read Robert E.D. Clark, "Darwin:Before and After". He says, "Adolf Hitler's mind was captivated by evolutionary thinking-probably since he was a boy. Evolutionary ideas lie at all that is worst in Mein Kampf."

And what makes him such an expert? That's a big misstatement of what evolution is all about.

I never said that the bible is the source of all law, I said it is the source of much of Western civ's laws.

Like English common law and Roman law? I wonder if Ed also believes that Rome's Twelve Tables were copied out of the Bible.

(Sir Arthur Eddington, Herman Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle)
These men were all advocates of the steady state theory of the universe.

Which had never made their views the consensus of the scientific community at any time.

Ed is a totally shameless proof-texter; I wonder if that's what he learned in wildlife-biology class.

(lots of other Eddian hair-splitting snipped)

But the resemblances of DNA between totally morphologically distinct organisms strongly points to one designer.

Of the DNA, perhaps, but not of other features. Despite Ed's attempts to conjure up counterexamples, human designers do work from the designs of other human designers.

Weltall

November 17, 2003, 02:19 PM

Hey Ed, I'm still waiting. Which of the 'thou shalt nots' are the foundation of western laws? Also, ever research Greek and Roman law and their relation to what we consider lawful today? Finally, a long way back on this thread you spouted off that complex language was the sign of a mind. I'm still waiting for you to admit that the members of Order Cetacea have minds, among other points you've ignored.

We seem to have shifted back to biology, so it seemed a fitting time to bring it back up.

lpetrich

November 17, 2003, 04:00 PM

Ed seems to be using what may be called an argumentum ex legibus from the 10C's -- a law code is good, therefore the deity that had allegedly inspired it must exist.

Here are Rome's Twelve Tables (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/12tables.html), or at least what has survived about their laws. About them,

Cicero, De Oratore, I.44: Though all the world exclaim against me, I will say what I think: that single little book of the Twelve Tables, if anyone look to the fountains and sources of laws, seems to me, assuredly, to surpass the libraries of all the philosophers, both in weight of authority, and in plenitude of utility.

Although some of them have a lot to be desired, like women always being in the legal guardianship of their male relatives, they are usually fairly reasonable. So are the Twelve Tables evidence for the existence of the deities of ancient Rome?

Weltall

November 17, 2003, 04:53 PM

My professor liked to call the Romans 'Jackbooted Thugs' who stole everything from the Greeks. Not strictly true, but the Greeks inspired a lot of things the Romans did, and the deities are a rather (ahem) obvious example. So I assume that Solon's law codes affirm the existance of Zeus and Co? Lemmie tell you, if Ed's correct in his argumentum ex legibus I'm going to start worshipping Athena. :D

lpetrich

November 17, 2003, 09:55 PM

Some history.

Rome's Twelve Tables were composed around 450 BCE, when Rome only ruled some of central Italy. Rome did not conquer Greece until 150 BCE or thereabouts, though Rome had run into Greek colonies in the process of conquering Italy a century earlier.

Solon lived approximately 638-559 BCE; he supposedly once tried to versify his laws, starting with

First let us pray to Lord Zeus, son of Kronos,
to give good fortune and glory to these laws.

But while his laws are described by various historians, I've found nothing else explicitly affirming the existence of the Olympians or otherwise discussing religion.

So by Ed's argumentum ex legibus, we ought to worship Mr. Z.

Also, he had stated these maxims:

I. Trust good character more than promises.
II. Do not speak falsely.
III. Do good things.
IV. Do not be hasty in making friends, but do not abandon them once made.
V. Learn to obey before you command.
VI. When giving advice, do not recommend what is most pleasing, but what is most useful.
VII. Make reason your supreme commander.
VIII. Do not associate with people who do bad things.
IX. Honor the gods.
X. Have regard for your parents.

From Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 1.60

He didn't say which gods, but he was addressing fellow worshippers of the Olympians.

November 17, 2003, 11:03 PM

Originally posted by Weltall
So you acknowledge that Cetaceans have minds? That's about the only substantial point I could get out of your latest set of unsupported assertions.

Yes, whales have minds though in a much more simple form than humans.

November 17, 2003, 11:23 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

Ed: Because he wanted us to know that the creator was the Triune Christian God, he created everything with the pattern of diversities within unities. There are many different kinds of birds that all have the same wing structure and there are many different kinds of insects with all the same basic wing structure. And then there are flying animals but they use many different wing structures. All of this reflects the nature of the unified and yet diverse Creator.

jtb: Then there should be three of everything, yes?

Instead, we have a model of Hinduism: a set of nested diversities within a unity. Each Hindu deity has several avatars, each of which can have several avatars of themselves, and so on. There's a "Tree of Divinity" which resembles the evolutionary "Tree of Life" of common descent.

So Hinduism is the true religion?

No, in Hinduism the diversities are an illusion, in actuality EVERYTHING is One.

November 17, 2003, 11:27 PM

Originally posted by Weltall

Originally posted by Ed
Because he wanted us to know that the creator was the Triune Christian God, he created everything with the pattern of diversities within unities. There are many different kinds of birds that all have the same wing structure and there are many different kinds of insects with all the same basic wing structure. And then there are flying animals but they use many different wing structures. All of this reflects the nature of the unified and yet diverse Creator.

welt: Jobar, we need that Occam's Razor pic of yours! Ed, you do realize how utterly convoluted that explanation is, right? And contradictory to your earlier posts too.

How is it convoluted and how is it contradictory to my earlier posts?

Weltall

November 17, 2003, 11:29 PM

I'd take Solon's ten over the biblical ones. While he probably intended the 9th to apply to specifically the Greek deities, it works well enough today as a plea for religious tolerance. I'd heard that the Romans studied the Greek laws while they were formulating their own. Is that correct?

November 17, 2003, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
First, Ed has neglected to explain why there is a hierarchy of features, why birds never have bat wings, why bats never have insect wings, etc.

Because then it would look like they were the result of random, chaotic, impersonal processes.

Ed:
The discussion was whether there was more than one designer. But there is evidence for a designer, there are many different interlocking systems that work together for a purpose, for example all the organs in the human body. Systems with purposes are only the products of designers.

lp: However, airplanes also have "are many different interlocking systems that work together for a purpose," does that mean that there is one designer who has been responsible for every airplane ever designed? And one who says, "Let there be airplanes", and then there are airplanes?

And the same can be said about many other technologies: cars, ships, computers, buildings, microscopes, telescopes, electric power stations, etc.

Yes, but they all use very different blueprints while living things use very similar blueprints, pointing to one designer.

Ed: Also, the existence of complex language like code called DNA that acts as a blueprint for living things.

Complex languagelike codes are only the product of a mind.

lp: And how does one come to that conclusion?

And if one was to extrapolate from experience with human designers, the designers of the Earth's biota are multiple, finite, and fallible. Yes, fallible.

Because throughout all of human experience only minds have produced complex codes. See above about why the designer of living things is not multiple. What makes you say finite? Given that God created the initial forms and then let random processes like natural selection work on them, there are of course some characteristics of organisms that do not appear optimal. I am assuming that is what you are referring to by the term fallible.

lpetrich

November 18, 2003, 12:24 AM

First, Ed's argumentum ex legibus applied to English common law reveals the existence of the Germanic pantheon: Odin, Thor, Freya, Loki, etc.

And I wonder what makes Ed such an expert on Hinduism. As Bertrand Russell had noted about Hegelianism, the Hindu view of reality may be understood as a distinction between real reality, which is one entity, and apparent reality, which is many entities.

And if the Earth's biota is set up to reveal that it was created by a trinity, then we'd be seeing a LOT more threes than we do see.

Why do starfish have five arms and not three arms? Or nine arms in groups of three?

Why do jellyfish have fourfold symmetry instead of threefold symmetry?

Of land animals, why do only insects have three pairs of legs? Other land arthropods don't (spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, pillbugs, land crabs).

Jawed fish don't have three pairs of side fins and land vertebrates don't have three pairs of limbs; they have two.

Though insects' bodies are indeed divided into three parts, and though an insect thorax has three segments, with a pair of legs on each, all but some very early insects (Paleodictyoptera) have wings only on their second and third thoracic segments. Insects also have 10 abdominal segments and 6 head segments, though the head ones are rather mashed together.

Other arthropods have different patterns of overall segmentation; spiders' bodies are divided into two parts.

Flowering plants are either monocots or dicots. Where are the tricots?

There are numerous other non-trinities in the Earth's biota; I'll stop here.

lpetrich

November 18, 2003, 12:39 AM

LP:
First, Ed has neglected to explain why there is a hierarchy of features, why birds never have bat wings, why bats never have insect wings, etc.

Ed:
Because then it would look like they were the result of random, chaotic, impersonal processes.

Except that impersonal processes are not necessarily "random" and "chaotic". I don't know what Ed learned in wildlife-biology class, but the nature of natural law does not seem to have been on the curriculum. A rhetorical turning of the tables this isn't.

Yes, but they all use very different blueprints while living things use very similar blueprints, pointing to one designer.

Then explain biodiversity. Why do starfish have fivefold symmetry while jellyfish have fourfold symmetry? And why the aforementioned differences between bird and bat wings? Etc.

Ed's DNA argument is like saying that all books have had only one author because they consist of text printed on paper that was subsequently bound.

Because throughout all of human experience only minds have produced complex codes.

And what's a "mind"? Is it some special mind-stuff?

Jack the Bodiless

November 18, 2003, 04:13 AM

So you acknowledge that Cetaceans have minds? That's about the only substantial point I could get out of your latest set of unsupported assertions.

Yes, whales have minds though in a much more simple form than humans.
...Evidence?

Strange that our "complex" human minds are still struggling to unravel the mysteries of whale song. In fact, if it wasn't for artificial aids like computers and tape recorders, we wouldn't yet have noticed that the humpbacked whale's capacity for perfectly memorizing enormous lengths of complex melody exceeds that of human musicians.

Jack the Bodiless

November 18, 2003, 04:17 AM

Instead, we have a model of Hinduism: a set of nested diversities within a unity. Each Hindu deity has several avatars, each of which can have several avatars of themselves, and so on. There's a "Tree of Divinity" which resembles the evolutionary "Tree of Life" of common descent.

So Hinduism is the true religion?

No, in Hinduism the diversities are an illusion, in actuality EVERYTHING is One.
And the same applies in biology. Biodiversity is an illusion, in actuality there is only one "kind". EVERYTHING is related: EVERYTHING evolved by common descent from a single ancestor.

Thank you for opening my eyes, Ed. I'm off to worship Vishnu rightaway.

November 18, 2003, 11:41 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
LP:
I'm amazed that I'm still able to keep going against Ed. BTW, my erectus-sapiens challenge still stands.

Ed:
Yeah it is amazing considering you never answer any of my questions. What erectus-sapiens challenge?

lp: A formal debate on this proposition:

Whether Homo erectus is the same species as Homo sapiens (sapiens), the present-day human species.

I would argue against, and Ed would argue for.

I think we covered that subject quite thoroughly in the Foramen Magnum thread.

Ed: Okay, provide one example of where Aristotle conducted a hands on experiment.

lp: He may never have conducted "real" experiments, but he was a careful observer of marine-invertebrate anatomy and chicken embryonic development.

Yes, the Greeks were good at making observations but they never developed modern systematic experimental science.

lp: And if anything, medieval saints had often been very ascetic, trying to separate themselves from the evil, fallen world around us.

Ed: I am not referring to medieval saints, I am referring to medieval scientists.

lp: Who did not go as far as their ancient Greek predecessors. Aristotle had believed in the eternity of the Universe; would any medieval scientist have been allowed to speculate on that subject? As it was, they got around controversies by claiming that their views were pure speculation. Copernicus himself had followed that fictionalist approach, but it was Galileo who first broke with fictionalism -- and got into trouble.

As I stated above they did go further than their greek predecessors because they conducted actual experiments. Science did not fully flower until the scriptures were widely diseminated after the Protestant Reformation.

lp: ...any laws one likes are "moral" laws, while any laws one dislikes are "ceremonial" laws.

Ed: No, it has nothing to do with likes or dislikes, it has to do with context.

lp: A "context' which is often invented to "demonstrate" that liked laws are moral and disliked laws are ceremonial?

Evidence?

Ed: A century ago almost all christians agreed that it was a sin to play cards on Sundays. So where are the disagreements?

lp: Almost all? And consider the change in opinions over the last century -- one gets the impression that the Sabbath commandment is a de facto ceremonial law.

Well it is the only commandment that Jesus said was made for man. So this has softened the absoluteness of it.

Ed: We made ourselves into rebels by our moral choices, we were not originally created as rebels.

lp: Except that such a choice requires a capability to make such a choice. And that ability is defective for that reason. If you had a car that keeps breaking down, would you consider it a perfect copy of a perfectly running car?

Ed: And I thought liberals were pro-choice! A machine breaking down is hardly analogous to moral decisions being made by an autonomous and intelligent being.

lp: Yes it is. Both are defective entities.

No, a car does not CHOOSE to break down. Why is having a moral free will defective? It only hurts the being if he makes the wrong choice. As long as he makes the right moral choices, his life is better.

lp: It's the action of cursing that fig tree that's immature.

Ed: How?

lp: Let's say that you went to a videotape rental store and you could not find your favorite movies, simply because someone else is renting them. And you go into a violent rage, wrecking the place. Would your behavior be called mature?

Your analogy is wrong. Jesus was "putting on an act" to make a point, see above about morality plays. Ancient jewish rabbis often acted out teachings to make the point memorable so that it would be passed on accurately. The ancient jews were very concerned with the accuracy of their sacred stories and books that is one of the reasons why the bible is so accurate.

lp: (the difficulties of studying the Bible...)

Ed: The basics do not need an enormous amount of studying. But God does not want our brains to atrophy so he makes the deeper things more complex and requiring of research and study.

lp: A brain capable of atrophying is a deficiently-designed brain. Or does God's brain also atrophy?

For a christian, not studying the scriptures is a sin so it is a moral decision. And as I stated above if you make the right moral decisions generally your life will be better including your brain will not atrophy. So it is not God's faulty design your brain atrophies, it is your fault for not making the right decision.

Weltall

November 18, 2003, 11:58 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Yes, the Greeks were good at making observations but they never developed modern systematic experimental science.
I take it that you've never heard of Socrates Plato and Aristotle? Their way of looking at the world forms the foundation of our scientific method. Heard of Pythagoras? Y'know, mathematician, you hopefully learned something about his famous Theorem during elementary geometry. There're lots more.

As I stated above they did go further than their greek predecessors because they conducted actual experiments. Science did not fully flower until the scriptures were widely diseminated after the Protestant Reformation.
So everything the Greeks found out about the world and that the Arabs discovered during the dark ages means nothing? Funny, that doesn't seem right. Refresh my memory, who destroyed the Alexandria Library? Who declared Galileo a heretic for thinking outside the box?

Your analogy is wrong. Jesus was "putting on an act" to make a point, see above about morality plays. Ancient jewish rabbis often acted out teachings to make the point memorable so that it would be passed on accurately.
He cursed a bloody fig tree because it wasn't bearing fruit Out. Of. Season. I utterly fail to see anything in that action besides small-mindedness. Jesus, if he existed, was a moron.

The ancient jews were very concerned with the accuracy of their sacred stories and books that is one of the reasons why the bible is so accurate.
BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Thanks, I needed that.

For a christian, not studying the scriptures is a sin so it is a moral decision. And as I stated above if you make the right moral decisions generally your life will be better including your brain will not atrophy. So it is not God's faulty design your brain atrophies, it is your fault for not making the right decision.
Bullshit.

lpetrich

November 19, 2003, 12:49 AM

Ed:
Science did not fully flower until the scriptures were widely diseminated after the Protestant Reformation.

I think that Ed is implying some sort of cause-and-effect here.

And where does the Bible describe doing experiments?

Why is having a moral free will defective?

Because the ability to commit sins indicates a fundamental defect.

(Jesus Christ's temper tantrums...)

Your analogy is wrong. Jesus was "putting on an act" to make a point, see above about morality plays. ...

Very ingenious excuse.

GunnerJ

November 19, 2003, 08:38 AM

lp: A "context' which is often invented to "demonstrate" that liked laws are moral and disliked laws are ceremonial.

Evidence?

Here ya go:

lp: Almost all? And consider the change in opinions over the last century -- one gets the impression that the Sabbath commandment is a de facto ceremonial law.

Well it is the only commandment that Jesus said was made for man. So this has softened the absoluteness of it.

:p

November 19, 2003, 11:06 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ

Ed: Of course, because some of the brain cells are replaced and yet you are still you.

gj: This really doesn't need a response. Ed, I suggest you do a little studying up on neurology. Here's a starter for you:

Brain injury and effects on personality (Requires Acrobat reader)

In fact, a quick google search on "damage to brain changes in personality" nets about 86000 results. Try it.

I was referring to the natural REPLACEMENT of brain cells, not the DESTRUCTION of cells.

Ed: How is that begging the question?

gj: Do you understand the meaning of the term? You tried to back up your claim that "persons" (however the hell that is to be defined) are the "most complex things known" by saying that they have brains, which are the most complex things known. You haven't answered my challenge, you've just made another unsubstantiated assertion that begs the question, "Why are brains the most complex things known?" Actually, I'm not even sure this line of inquiry is important. The argument you build from this base, even if granted for the sake of argument, is not impressive.

Because we have yet to put much of a dent in our understanding of it.

Ed: I could have said that minds are the most complex thing known. It is relevant because persons are part of the effect, so in order to determine the cause you need to study the effect. And since the effect contains something extremely complex then it is likely that the cause must be sufficient to produce something that complex.

gj: Please validate this "logic" of yours in the italicized portion.

An example is technology, technology is quite complex therefore we can assume that whatever created it is also complex, ie minds.

November 19, 2003, 11:21 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ

Ed: Just because they had the date wrong does not change the fact that they had the finiteness of it correct which is the key point

gj: Nice try. You were trying to build a case for the superiority of religion over science by saying that Christianity somehow "had it right all along" with regards to the Big Bang and Genesis despite the HUGE discrepancies between the Genesis account and the actual BB event.

I am not saying that religion is superior to science, actually good science, ie the study of God's creation, is a supplement to God's written word and helps us to interpret it. See above about how there are key points the author of Genesis is trying to make match up well with the BB theory, but I am not saying that Genesis is a astrophysics textbook on the BB.

Ed: because it meant that the universe required a transcendent Cause, thereby confiming the existence of God.

gj: *snort* Ed's a funny guy.

Good comeback.....NOT.

ED: The bible does not really say WHEN God spoke the command and also it does not say WHEN that command was fulfilled or how long it took for it to be fulfilled, so how does that not fit the facts of the BB?

gj: Handwaving. I'm not impressed.

Nevertheless my statement stands unrefuted.

November 19, 2003, 11:32 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ
You're missing the point. If immaterial things can produce material results, then your "law of sufficient cause" is bullshit, and it's possible that living things can arise from nonliving things, and personalities can arise from the impersonal. Therefore, the very logic you're using to try and etsablish the existence of god destroys your own argument: you're attempting to claim that an immaterial thing produced a material result, but your argument rests on the assumption that a quality cannot arise from its opposite, thus refuting yourself.

No, because there are different kinds of immaterial things. Some thngs like persons are living immaterial things but abstract concepts are not living. Living things have the capacity to do many more things than non-living things. My argument is not as simplistic as you make it out to be.

Philosoft

November 19, 2003, 11:51 PM

Originally posted by Ed
I was referring to the natural REPLACEMENT of brain cells, not the DESTRUCTION of cells.
You're not even bothering to understand. Briefly, except for certain nerve cells in the hippocampus, neurons are not replaced, are not repaired, are not regrown. At maturity, we have about 100 billion neurons, and that's about all we ever get.

GunnerJ

November 20, 2003, 09:22 AM

Originally posted by Philosoft
You're not even bothering to understand. Briefly, except for certain nerve cells in the hippocampus, neurons are not replaced, are not repaired, are not regrown. At maturity, we have about 100 billion neurons, and that's about all we ever get.

Thanks. I really, really didn't think Ed was so ignorant that he didn't know this. You saved me the trouble of correcting him. But now he's splurged out so much more to be corrected... it never ends.

GunnerJ

November 20, 2003, 09:33 AM

Because we have yet to put much of a dent in our understanding of it.

I've read through the original statement to which Ed is "responding" to here several time, and am stumped as to what the hell this statement refers to.

An example is technology, technology is quite complex therefore we can assume that whatever created it is also complex, ie minds.

Well, that's cute, but it doesn't actually prove your point. It's just one instance of when the standard applies.

I am not saying that religion is superior to science, actually good science, ie the study of God's creation, is a supplement to God's written word and helps us to interpret it. See above about how there are key points the author of Genesis is trying to make match up well with the BB theory, but I am not saying that Genesis is a astrophysics textbook on the BB.

Ed, don't your hands ever get tired of waving?

Nevertheless my statement stands unrefuted.

I have no need to demolish a building that was never constructed in the first place.

Yous eem to want to have your cake and eat it too: you want everyone to be impressed at how well the Bible conforms to science while having everyone ignore the points where it doesn't, or where it omits critical details. Sorry, but vague appeals to Genesis saying the Universe "had a beginning" is so trivial and unimportant that I can't take it seriously as a parallel.

No, because there are different kinds of immaterial things. Some thngs like persons are living immaterial things but abstract concepts are not living. Living things have the capacity to do many more things than non-living things. My argument is not as simplistic as you make it out to be.

I have to wonder if your "argument" has any real substance at this point. Answer me this: does the "Law of Sufficient Cause" state that a thing or quality cannot be caused by or arise from its absence?

November 20, 2003, 11:00 PM

Originally posted by Weltall

Originally posted by Ed
I addressed it, see above.

Welt: No, you didn't. You're waving your arms around making assertions which A) Sound ludicrous. B) Have no logical backing. C) Go against what it says in your book.

Well you have not provided any evidence for A, B, and C.

November 20, 2003, 11:08 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
It is not a minor detail but it is irrelevant to one of the main points of the bible, which is that God exists and is the creator. And that is confirmed by the BB showing that there is a definite beginning to the universe, which is what Genesis teaches.

philo: Ho hum. Lots of religions have universe-creation stories. I guess I shouldn't have expected the "true" religion to get it right.

It is not ho hum given that for 75 years science thought that the universe did not have a beginning and also that it is the only religion that teaches creation ex nihilo, which is what the BB implies.

Ed: He was a genius, but the hebrews were not any more intelligent than the surrounding nations. Their advantage was Yahweh.

ph: Are you laughing right now? I hope so, because I'd hate to think you're serious about some of this junk.[/B]

Nevertheless my "junk" stands unrefuted.

November 20, 2003, 11:19 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Geoffrey Burbidge.

ph: Looks to me like he's doing science, albeit with uncommon conclusions. Why should we believe your claims about him?

Because they are true?

Ed: I am referring to reversing the BB beyond even quantum gravity.

ph: And just how are you referring to something we have no mathematical models for, let alone conceptual ones?
[/B]

We have logical models for it, it is called the law of causality and its corollary the law of sufficient cause.

November 20, 2003, 11:55 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
The hebrew term "heavens and earth" means all that exists, ie the universe. So it is specifying the universe.

lp:
At least in Eddian Hebrew, which always means whatever is convenient for Ed's theological purposes.

Ed: No, this is standard hebrew, ask any hebrew scholar, even an atheist one.

lp: What reason is there to believe that, outside of Ed considering it as self-evidently true as Alexander Ross (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/ross/ross210.html) had considered spontaneous generation? I looked for some collections of Hebrew idioms, and I could not find "heaven and earth = Universe". Maybe we ought to drag in Heathen Dawn.

Strong's Exhaustive concordance says the word for heavens is "shameh" which means the sky where the clouds move and above that where the planetary bodies revolve. This is obviously outer space. And of course earth means earth.

Ed: In the last 100 years or so it is a rare coincidence among the scientific elite because they thought that the universe always existed.

lp: Like who had allegedly believed that?

Ed: Fred Hoyle and all the other steady state theorists.

lp: Except that they hardly qualfy as "the scientific elite".

If you can provide strong evidence that the SS theory was not the dominant theory prior to the BB theory I will stand corrected.

Ed: The ones that still do believe that the universe is eternal in some are generally believing so because of ideological reasons, ie atheism, rather than scienctific reasons.

lp: Like who is allegedly doing that?

ED: Geoffrey Burbidge.

lp: Like why does he allegedly believe that?

Probably for similar reasons that you are an atheist.

lp: And a supreme god can coexist with an eternal universe, as Aristotle, the Stoics, and many Hindus have believed. One has to marvel at Ed's ignorance of anything outside his favorite apologetic writings.

I have not denied that theoretically that could be true, but the scientific evidence is against it. Actually hindus think that universe is part of god or even god itself.

lp: The Stoics and some Hindus had even converged on a doctrine of cosmic cycles, in which the Universe is periodically destroyed and re-created. And for all we know, the Big Bang could be one of those events, rather than an absolute beginning.

No, so far not enough matter has been discovered that would provide the impetus to stop the universe from expanding and therefore cycle back to the beginning.

Ed: Because if you reverse the BB back far enough you come to a point with no dimensions, therefore plainly showing that at one point there was no space, time, or energy or anything.

Actually, one runs into quantum gravity, which is still not very well-understood.

Ed: I am referring to reversing the BB beyond even quantum gravity.

lp: And what makes Ed such a big expert on quantum gravity? Has he mathematically shown that a Big-Bang solution always comes from a single point in any conceivable quantum-gravity theory? If so, then there is a trip to Stockholm reseved for him.

Non sequitor.

Ed: See my post above about how pigs spend more time with excreta.

lp: Which the Bible itself does not mention.

Not necessary since the smell made it obvious. :rolleyes:

Philosoft

November 21, 2003, 12:51 AM

Originally posted by Ed
It is not ho hum given that for 75 years science thought that the universe did not have a beginning and also that it is the only religion that teaches creation ex nihilo, which is what the BB implies.
The Big Bang theory does not imply creation ex nihilo. Please don't say it again.
Nevertheless my "junk" stands unrefuted.
So what? It's mere assertion. I am under no obligation to refute crackpot notions about the source of Hebrew intelligence that no one else in the known universe believes.

Philosoft

November 21, 2003, 12:54 AM

Originally posted by Ed
Because they are true?
Are you asking me? I answer "no."
We have logical models for it, it is called the law of causality and its corollary the law of sufficient cause.
What the funk is a "logical model"? And what the hell do you think you're doing trying to apply classical casuality to quantum cosmology?

GunnerJ

November 21, 2003, 08:59 AM

...what the hell do you think you're doing trying to apply classical casuality to quantum cosmology?

Heh. Ed gets his shit ruined.

Philosoft

November 21, 2003, 06:46 PM

Originally posted by GunnerJ
Heh. Ed gets his shit ruined.
You know what? I know Ed's going to engage in furious handwaving or making-up-shit in response, but I have this perverse curiosity to see how he does it. I need help.

lpetrich

November 21, 2003, 11:50 PM

Ed:
It is not ho hum given that for 75 years science thought that the universe did not have a beginning

How had "science" thought that?

And quoting a few steady-staters does not prove anything.

and also that it is the only religion that teaches creation ex nihilo, which is what the BB implies.

Neither the Bible nor the Big Bang imply creation ex nihilo. In fact, our Universe could simply be a bubble with some phase change in some super-Universe. However, such speculations are very dependent on quantum-gravitational details that are not well-constrained by our present theoretical understanding.

Strong's Exhaustive concordance says the word for heavens is "shameh" which means the sky where the clouds move and above that where the planetary bodies revolve. This is obviously outer space. And of course earth means earth.

Here again, Ed applies his "Heads, I win. Tails, you lose." standard of Bible interpretation. Whenever it says something he likes, he gloats in triumph. Whenever it says something he doesn't like, he comes up with some convoluted argument to the effect that it really does say what he likes.

If you can provide strong evidence that the SS theory was not the dominant theory prior to the BB theory I will stand corrected.

I don't have to. You are the one who is making that claim.

(Ed's claim that steady-stater Geoffrey Burbidge believes what he believes for ideological reasons...)

Probably for similar reasons that you are an atheist.

So you don't have any actual evidence, O Ed?

November 22, 2003, 11:02 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed often argues that this or that is self-evidently true, like his notions of the semantics of the Hebrew language.

He seems a bit like Alexander Ross, who had this response to Sir Thomas Browne's skepticism about whether mice are spontaneously generated by rotting material:

"So we may doubt whether in cheese and timbers worms are generated, or if beetles and wasps in cow-dung, or if butterflies, locusts, shell-fish, snail, eels, and such life be procreated of putrefied matter, which is to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense, and experience. If he doubts this, let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice begot of the mud of the Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants." (Arcana Microcosmi, Bk 2, Ch 10, pp 151-156, 1652, rewritten in more modern English)

Your analogy fails. My arguments are based on logic and empirical observations unlike Ross'.

lp: Also, Ed's implicit Law of Resemblance has been used by others. Henry Morris in Many Infallible Proofs: Evidences for the Christian Faith states in it that, according to here,

The First Cause of limitless Space must be infinite in extent.
The First Cause of endless Time must be eternal in duration.
The First Cause of perpetual Motion must be omnipotent in power.
The First Cause of unbounded Variety must be omnipresent in phenomena.
The First Cause of infinite Complexity must be omniscient in intelligence.
The First Cause of Consciousness must be personal.
The First Cause of Feeling must be emotional.
The First Cause of Will must be volitional.
The First Cause of Ethical values must be moral.
The First Cause of Religious values must be spiritual.
The First Cause of Beauty must be aesthetic.
The First Cause of Righteousness must be holy.
The First Cause of Justice must be just.
The First Cause of Love must be loving.
The First Cause of Life must be living.

Which is almost too easy to satirize. Is the first cause of death either murderous or dead? Etc.

While he has gone a little overboard on some and a imprecise logic on others, some of them could be defended fairly well as rational conclusions.

November 22, 2003, 11:24 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
(having a beginning and being changing)
[B]Those are some of the characteristics that have always been observed when something is caused.

lp: What familiar nontheological entities are causeless? That's vital for doing comparisons.

Some physicists think that quantum events are causeless, though I doubt it. Just because we have not yet empirically discovered any causeless entities does mean they do not exist given that logically they can exist.

lp: (me on how the Law of Sufficient Cause does NOT tell us whether or not X is capable of causing Y):
Ed: You are right that the law does not tell us that, but the empirical observations DO tell us that.

lp: Then one ought not to mention that law as if it was the criterion that one uses to determine whether something is capable of causing something else.

It should be used in conjunction with experimental and empirical observations and then applying them analogically.

LP:
It seems that the real argument is a fallacious Law of Resemblance, that effects must resemble their causes. There are numerous counterexamples, and this "law" is easy to satirize.

Ed: No, it is just what has been empirically observed and in this case the cause does resemble the effect. It is similar to finding out that extreme heat on dry wood produces a fire that also has extreme heat. ...

lp: Except that there are numerous causes that do not resemble their effects. An electric coffeepot can melt ice and boil liquid water, while staying in the solid state the whole time. Gasoline powers a car, though it lacks the capability of moving across roads in coherent packages on its own. You control your car's motion, though you do not have any macroscopic wheels or axles. I say "macroscopic" to rule out ATPase complexes, which are probably rotary structures -- but EXTREMELY tiny ones. And you do not travel nearly as fast as a car travels.

No, but an electric coffeepot transfers heat to melt ice and boil water so that then they have heat. And gasoline transfers the energy released by its combustion to the transaxel of your car to move it. And you control your car by moving the steering mechanism, ie you are transferring steering motion.

lpetrich

November 23, 2003, 11:44 AM

Ed:
(comparison of self-evidency argument with Alexander Ross's belief in the self-evidency of spontaneous generation)
Your analogy fails. My arguments are based on logic and empirical observations unlike Ross'.

I have often found it difficult to tell the difference, however.

(Henry Morris's use of Ed's fallacious Law of Resemblance...)
While he has gone a little overboard on some and a imprecise logic on others, some of them could be defended fairly well as rational conclusions.

So Ed concedes that his Law of Resemblance is unreliable?

(the "Law of Sufficient Cause" ...)
It should be used in conjunction with experimental and empirical observations and then applying them analogically.

Actually, it seems more like a distraction from other "reasoning" which may be fallacious. And given Ed's record, "reasoning" which often is.

(how an electric coffeepot heats coffee while staying in the solid state, how gasoline powers a car, and how one controls a car without possessing macroscopic wheels...)
No, but an electric coffeepot transfers heat to melt ice and boil water so that then they have heat. And gasoline transfers the energy released by its combustion to the transaxel of your car to move it. And you control your car by moving the steering mechanism, ie you are transferring steering motion.

But these, in turn, have causes with little resemblance to them.

rdalin

November 23, 2003, 05:00 PM

Originally posted by Ed
Some physicists think that quantum events are causeless, though I doubt it. Just because we have not yet empirically discovered any causeless entities does mean they do not exist given that logically they can exist.
I am certainly not an expert in this field, but from what I have read physicists believe that quantum theory indicates that these events are indeed causeless.

You can doubt it all you want. What actual reason do you have to disbelieve it (other than that you don't want to)?

The second sentence of the excerpt from your post contradicts the first. Are you arguing for causeless events (sentence 2) or against causeless events (sentence 1)?

November 23, 2003, 10:46 PM

Originally posted by Weltall
I'm not sure whether or not to bother buying new irony meters, given the frequency with which they combust around here. Ed, you haven't proved anything regarding the 'Tree of Life' and haven't responded to the fact that in Genesis it's pretty clear that Man hadn't eaten that fruit. Hell, the tree of life isn't even mentioned until humanity is being expelled from the garden.

No, it is a rational assumption given that God said that they could eat of ANY tree in the garden except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Welt: Your other arguments similarly lack substance and I think I speak for everyone when I say that you haven't proved anything regarding the existance of your god. Please stop wasting our time with unsupported assertions.

Just asserting that my EoG argument lacks substance doesn't mean that it actually does. :rolleyes:

November 23, 2003, 11:17 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
LP:
... I wonder what he thinks was our originally-intended method of reproduction. Were we to give birth in C-section fashion? That is, forward instead of downward through the pelvic girdle.

Ed:
No, some like wisdom teeth are the result of microevolution. Originally women had larger pelvic girdles.

lp: I wonder where Ed gets that idea.

It is implied in the scriptures.

Ed: It is not a tail, it is the coccyx, which until the limbs fully develop it extends slightly beyond the rectum.

lp: Let's see.

It develops exactly where a tail develops.
It has the exact same structure as a tail, aside from being scaled down.
When it first appears in the embryo, it looks exactly like the embryonic tail of a tailed animal.

So any sensible biologist would call it a tail.

I wonder where Ed went to school; I suppose that one can learn how to be a wildlife biologist without learning about embryonic development and comparative anatomy.

It does not have the exact same structure as a tail in that the musculature and function are quite different. Resemblance is not the same as BEING the same thing. For example, a radio tower resembles a small skyscraper in the early construction stages and yet it is not a skyscraper.

Ed: I didn't say that humans did not have a notochord, I said they did not have LEFTOVER notochord, please reread the comments I was responding to and my comments.

lp: Actually, there is some leftover notochord: the disks between the vertebrae.

In Chondrak's post I was responding to, he had asked why humans were created with leftover notochord that was tumorous and I said that they were not. It had nothing to do with vertebral disks.

Ed: Human embryos do not have gills. Here is a quote from a major medical textbook, "Medical Embryology" edited by J. Langman, "Since the human embryo never has gills- branchia - the term pharyngeal arches and clefts has been adopted for this textbook."

lp: Meaning that they are partially-developed gills; in fish, these structures become full-scale gills.

Pre-Darwinian creationists were much smarter about these structures than many post-Darwinian creationists -- they recognized their gill-like nature, though they believed that they were present for the sake of completeness or something like that.

I think I will go with the opinion of one of the major modern anatomists in the nation rather than some hyperskeptic on an atheist website or technologically limited early 19th century scientists.

Weltall

November 24, 2003, 02:40 AM

Originally posted by Ed
No, it is a rational assumption given that God said that they could eat of ANY tree in the garden except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Just how do you do it? How do you manage to read the posts on this board and miss all the parts where people (myself included) have told you that Genesis clearly implies that humanity hadn't eaten from the 'Life' tree before they were expelled? I don't think I've ever seen such an extreme form of compartmentalization. Do you just take each post individually and not bother to look at things as a whole? I will helpfully post the relevant passage for your perusal, no need to thank me. "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" Genesis 3:22 KJV The NIV is even more clear: "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever". How hard is this for you to grasp really?

Just asserting that my EoG argument lacks substance doesn't mean that it actually does. :rolleyes:
See previous answer. You want proof of your lack of substance, you've got it.

nosewon

November 24, 2003, 08:13 AM

I am a Christian Theist. It's not possible to prove or disprove the existence of god this does provide some ammunition for the agnostic side of the argument, but it also makes Christianity a matter of faith. The big F word. Faith. There are signs of faith in the secular community, not religious faith per se, but faith in your beliefs. But back to the point, Christianity is a religion based on faith. Of course, it's not just faith, but personal experience.

WARNING!!! some of what follows may be interpreted by some as 'preaching' If you are an intolerent bigot who doesn't listen to what others have to say don't read any further.

My experience as a Christian has not been anything flashy or amazingly exiting, but it has been special, and has changed my life, It's not as much a religious experience as a relationship.

I am not an extremist and I value people as people. I'm not Religious and I can take a joke.

I'll leave off with a bit of humor.

GOD
Arthur! Arthur ... King of the Britons ...

They all prostrate themselves even further

Oh, don't grovel ... do get up! If there's one thing I can't stand,
it's people grovelling!!

ARTHUR and COMPANY rise.

ARTHUR
Sorry ...

GOD
And don't apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it's
sorry this and forgive me that and I'm not worthy and ...
What are you doing now?

ARTHUR
I'm averting my eyes, Lord.

GOD
Well, don't.
It's like those miserable psalms. they're so depressing.
Now knock it of

ARTHUR
Yes, Lord.

lpetrich

November 24, 2003, 11:30 AM

Ed:
(on women having had broader pelvic girdles before the Fall...)
It is implied in the scriptures.

Ed, do you realize how ridiculous Eve would have looked in that case?

And if one read the Bible for the first time in one's life, how would one immediately deduce that increased pelvic-girdle size?

(the coccyx...)
It does not have the exact same structure as a tail in that the musculature and function are quite different. ...

Any serious comparative anatomist would laugh at you, O Ed. Even most pre-Darwinian ones. It grows in EXACTLY the same spot a tail would grow, and it has the structure of a very shrunken tail. I've seen early human and mouse embryos, and the human ones have a tail that looks almost identical to a mouse-embryo tail at that stage. In fact, at that stage, human and mouse embryos look VERY similar. Except that the human embryonic tail later shrinks to a coccyx and the mouse one doesn't.

For some pictures and their sources, see the thread Is the Tailbone Vestigial? (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67430) Yes, pictures. With ZERO dependence on Ernst Haeckel's drawings.

(on someone claiming that embryonic gill-like structures are not really gills...)
I think I will go with the opinion of one of the major modern anatomists in the nation rather than some hyperskeptic on an atheist website or technologically limited early 19th century scientists.

Ed, I suggest that you take that log of hyperskepticism out of your eye before you accuse others of being hyperskeptics. These structures are incomplete gills, having the cartilage, open spaces, and blood vessels of fish gills. And that "major modern anatomist" would very likely agree with that assessment.

Weltall

November 24, 2003, 06:18 PM

Originally posted by Ed
I think I will go with the opinion of one of the major modern anatomists in the nation rather than some hyperskeptic on an atheist website or technologically limited early 19th century scientists.

But you have no problem taking the word of even more technologically limited Bronze Age goat-herders when it comes to matters such as the origins of life. Time to get yet another irony meter.:banghead:

November 24, 2003, 11:29 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

Ed: Originally women had larger pelvic girdles.

jtb: Not in the fossil record.

So your evidence for this is... ?

See above.

Ed: Complex songs are a far cry from true language as I described above.

philo: Find a definition of "language" that requires grammar and syntax or retract this.

Ed: Find a language that does NOT require grammar and syntax and I will retract it.

jtb: Please demonstrate that whale song is NOT a complex language with grammar and syntax.

Most whale experts do not think it is a complex language but we cannot prove it yet.

jtb: Human singers use grammar and syntax, so why can't whales?

Because humans have lyrics in their songs which are words and therefore actual language.

jtb: Even purely instrumental music has structure and patterns similar to "grammar and syntax" (as recorded in musical notation).

Okay, provide the subjects, verbs and prepositions in Beethoven's Fifth.

November 24, 2003, 11:42 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Why? The only way you could know this is if you were omniscient.

ph: Unless you have some verifiable means of supernatural knowing, any explanation that posits entities and/or forces undetectable by our senses is empirically as good as any other.

So you deny the existence of other minds? Minds cannot be empirically detected by our senses.

Ed: Find a language that does NOT require grammar and syntax and I will retract it.

ph: No sir. Your claim was that "true language" requires grammar and syntax. That is a positive claim that requires positive support. You are still at bat, chief.

No, language by DEFINITION requires grammar and syntax. So your request would be like asking me to provide positive support that all bachelors are unmarried men. Bachelors are unmarried men by definition. So you are up to bat, chief.

Ed: Yes, you are right the fossil record does not show such an event so I guess there is no such thing.

ph: Well, the fossil record certainly does show evolution, just not "an empirical example of one genus changing into another." I don't even know what such an example would look like, and neither do you. I'm not going to correct your gross misrepresenation of evolution, because it's clear that you're doing it intentionally. [/B]

Huh? That is what macroevolution is! :confused:

Jack the Bodiless

November 25, 2003, 06:07 AM

Ed: Originally women had larger pelvic girdles.

jtb: Not in the fossil record.

So your evidence for this is... ?

See above.
As usual, there is no "above" in which you addressed this. :rolleyes:

There is ONLY the Genesis verse which says that women will henceforth suffer in childbirth. That is ALL.

There is NO indication that Adam and Eve didn't have smaller heads (or conical heads) instead. In fact, a smaller head would make sense if the "Tree of Knowledge" expanded brain size, yes?

And, of course, there is certainly no actual, real-world evidence for women originally having larger pelvic girdles!

Ed, you KNOW that you were just making stuff up. Furthermore, surely you realize that WE know that you're just making stuff up. So what's the point?
jtb: Please demonstrate that whale song is NOT a complex language with grammar and syntax.

Most whale experts do not think it is a complex language but we cannot prove it yet.
And just who are these "most whale experts"? How do they know that whale song is NOT a complex language, and how do you address the evidence that dolphins can convey detailed descriptions via a complex language?
jtb: Human singers use grammar and syntax, so why can't whales?

Because humans have lyrics in their songs which are words and therefore actual language.
You didn't answer the question.
jtb: Even purely instrumental music has structure and patterns similar to "grammar and syntax" (as recorded in musical notation).

Okay, provide the subjects, verbs and prepositions in Beethoven's Fifth.
See above.
ph: No sir. Your claim was that "true language" requires grammar and syntax. That is a positive claim that requires positive support. You are still at bat, chief.

No, language by DEFINITION requires grammar and syntax. So your request would be like asking me to provide positive support that all bachelors are unmarried men. Bachelors are unmarried men by definition. So you are up to bat, chief.
Wrong, as usual.

From www.mirriamwebster.com (emphasis mine):
Main Entry: lan�guage
Pronunciation: 'la[ng]-gwij, -wij
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from langue tongue, language, from Latin lingua -- more at TONGUE
Date: 14th century
1 a : the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community b (1) : audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs (2) : a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings (3) : the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings <language in their very gesture -- Shakespeare> (4) : the means by which animals communicate (5) : a formal system of signs and symbols (as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions (6) : MACHINE LANGUAGE 1
2 a : form or manner of verbal expression; specifically : STYLE b : the vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or a department of knowledge c : PROFANITY
3 : the study of language especially as a school subject
[language table]

November 25, 2003, 11:08 PM

Originally posted by Philosoft

Originally posted by Ed
Fraid so, it says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", there is no mention of any preexisting matter. See my earlier post about what happens when you rewind the BB.

ph: Wow. "The Bible does not say X, thus I am justified in assuming X."

Unbelievable. "Train wreck" no longer accurately describes this thread.

No, the formula for this situation would be "The Bible does not say X, thus I am justified in NOT assuming X."

November 25, 2003, 11:55 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich

LP:
The Bible does NOT claim that the Universe had been created "out of nothing", and the Big Bang need not have originated "from nothing"

Ed:
Fraid so, it says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", there is no mention of any preexisting matter.

lp: And there is no mention of its absence either. Furthermore, the word translated "create" could also mean "form" or "separate".

See the formula above. Most biblical scholars both christian and secular agree that the best translation is "create".

lp: (on the atmosphere clearing...) Ed misrepresents his own sacred book here. And what makes him so sure that the early Earth had been permanently clouded over? Had he been there in a time machine?

Ed: Who said anything about permanently clouded? Most all cosmologists agree that the earth coalesced from dust clouds circling the sun so after the earth solidified there were still some clouds surrounding it blocking sun for a period but then as time passed it cleared allowing light to penetrate to the surface.

lp: I wonder what gives Ed that idea about the persistence of the solar-nebula dust? As the Earth approached its present size, the dust was largely gone, swept out by the solar wind. Furthermore, there is evidence that the Earth had had liquid water at about 4 billion years ago, meaning that this supposed persistent dust cloud had not lasted that long.

The length of its existence is irrelevant, just the fact of that it was once dark and then there was light just as God spoke.

(on various nonflying arthropods appearing on the land before flying insects...)
Ed: It depends on when these arthropods appeared.

lp: Which is well-established from stratigraphy.

Flying animals are less likely to be fossilized as is well known about birds.

(Plants before animals...)
lp: They include fruit trees, which are all angiosperms (flowering plants), and these did not become abundant until the end of the Jurassic.

Ed: But the hebrew term for plants includes ALL plants and the first organisms were cyanobacteria which an ancient hebrew would probably have classified as a plant because of their color and sessile lifestyle. And in fact modern scientists have found that they do share some characteristics with plants. They existed LONG before animals.

lp: G1 refers to FRUIT TREES, not pond scum and stromatolites and the like. Yes, FRUIT TREES. How many times will I have to repeat that?

It also refers to "fresh growth and plants bearing seed", to an ancient hebrew this is just a way of saying all plants in general. So on the third day is when general plantlike organisms originated.

lp: Also, there would have to be unobstructed sunlight reaching the Earth's surface for cyanobacteria to survive. Which rules out the "unveiling" theory.

By the time they were created there was sunlight. Remember that occured on day/age 1 and plants were created on day/age 3.

lp: If Ed evaluates solar eclipses like he evaluates evolution, he'd claim that there is no empirical evidence for the "macroshadow" theory of solar eclipses, since the only shadows produced in familiar conditions are "microshadows" and not "macroshadows".

Ed: Since I don't know what the macroshadow theory is I cannot make a comparison. But as a biologist I DO know what the theory of macroevolution is.

lp: The macroshadow theory of eclipses is that solar eclipses are being in the Moon's shadow and that lunar eclipses are the Moon being in the Earth's shadow. Microshadows are shadows made by everyday objects.

Your analogy fails because those shadows can be empirically observed while macroevolution has not been.

I am going to be gone for week so you will have to wait with baited breath for my responses the other posts. :cool:

Philosoft

November 26, 2003, 12:02 AM

Originally posted by Ed
So you deny the existence of other minds? Minds cannot be empirically detected by our senses.
I could if I wanted to. Solipsism may be absurd, but it is not logically contradictory.
No, language by DEFINITION requires grammar and syntax. So your request would be like asking me to provide positive support that all bachelors are unmarried men. Bachelors are unmarried men by definition. So you are up to bat, chief.
Language is the communication of thoughts using arbitrary symbols. The only requirement is that the endpoints of communication agree on what the symbols mean.

I don't even remember what this sidetrack was supposed to be about.
Huh? That is what macroevolution is! :confused:
Why would you expect to see a single organism exhibit genus-level transitional features?

lpetrich

November 26, 2003, 01:27 AM

First, "spin" has noted in BC&H that the Genesis 1 creation story is very schematic:

Environments were created in Days 1-3.
Their inhabitants were created in Days 4-6.
Each environment's inhabitants were created three days after.

Environment - Inhabitant

Day 1 - 4
Day - Sun
Night - Moon
() - Stars (almost an afterthought)

Day 2 - 5
Sky - Birds
Sea - Fish / Sea Monsters

Day 3 - 6
Land - Land Animals / Humanity
Plants - "You may eat these"

Day 7, however, is the first Sabbath in the history of the Universe

Which explains such oddities as plants before the Sun, birds before land animals, and why plants are not viewed as fully alive.

Ed
(of "bara" in G1)
... Most biblical scholars both christian and secular agree that the best translation is "create".

However, according to some biblical scholars, the word is derived from a word for "cut". And separation is what Mr. G. does to darkness and light, and also of below-sky water and above-sky water.

(on the primordial dust cloud and its dissipation as the Earth was forming...)

The length of its existence is irrelevant, just the fact of that it was once dark and then there was light just as God spoke.

The typical residence time for interplanetary dust is about 10^5 to 10^6 years; the dust that went into forming the Solar System had a similar size range (~ 1 micron).

So after the dust congealed into rocks, the remaining dust got blown out by sunlight and the solar wind.

And when the Earth got close to its present size, all of the initial dust was gone.

References available on request.

(Nonflying animals appearing before flying ones...)
Flying animals are less likely to be fossilized as is well known about birds.

However, nonflying land arthropods are about the same size and overall shape as flying ones, and they have a similar degree of fragility. Compare a cockroach and a spider. This amateur taphonomy suggests that if flying arthropods were present and nonflying arthropods were fossilized, then flying ones ought to be fossilized.

It also refers to "fresh growth and plants bearing seed", to an ancient hebrew this is just a way of saying all plants in general. So on the third day is when general plantlike organisms originated.

Ed against continues to invent "Eddian Hebrew", a dialect that is very convenient for Ed's theological purposes. Note that there is no mention of plants without well-defined seeds, like algae and moss.

(advocate of the monster theory of eclipses claiming that the shadow theory of eclipses is a theory of "macroshadows", which are distinct from directly-observed "microshadows")

Your analogy fails because those shadows can be empirically observed while macroevolution has not been.

Ed, tell us why you think that eclipses are directly-observed shadows the way that familiar-object shadows are.

Weltall

December 3, 2003, 12:40 PM

Bump.

GunnerJ

December 3, 2003, 12:42 PM

Ed said he was going to be away for a week. I think he's being patched.

December 3, 2003, 10:57 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
When I see blatant misrepresentations of the Bible's content by those who profess to believe in it, l feel forced to conclude that such actions are strong evidence against the existence of the Xtian God, because otherwise that entity would have struck the misrepresenters with lightning ("How dare you lie about my book!").

Contrary to lp's belief the Christian God rarely ever strikes down those who misrepresent his word as shown by the continued existence of this website. God gives most people many second chances.

lp: In particular, I have in mind Ed on Genesis 1; he seems to think that it refers only to plants in general, and not fruit trees. It also refers to seed-bearing plants, which excludes spore-making plants like ferns -- unless one wishes to count spores as honorary seeds. And seed-making and spore-making both exclude algae and cyanobacteria, which are aquatic.

And let's see if Ed knows about the remarkable relationship between cyanobacteria and chloroplasts (please don't give it away; let's see how much Ed is willing to learn on his own).

Evolutionists think that chloroplasts are the result of cyanobacteria being absorbed and incorporated into plant cells. However there is no empirical evidence for this event.

December 3, 2003, 11:12 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

But the hebrew term for plants includes ALL plants and the first organisms were cyanobacteria which an ancient hebrew would probably have classified as a plant because of their color and sessile lifestyle. And in fact modern scientists have found that they do share some characteristics with plants. They existed LONG before animals.

jtb: Quite apart from the obvious lie about "the Hebrew term for plants", I'm curious as to how you can possibly justify calling cyanobacteria "plants" WITHOUT calling non-photosynthetic bacteria "animals".

Animals came before plants.

What lie? Conjunctive phrases are often used to make universal statements in hebrew. The statement of verse 11 says "vegetation, plants with seeds, and fruiting trees." Cyanobacteria would fall under the category of "vegetation" to ancient hypothetical observer. Non-photosynthetic bacteria would not have been visible to the ancient hypothetical observer from whose perspective Gen. 1 is written.

jtb: And, yes, the Hebrew verb used in Genesis 1:1 is more properly translated as "to separate by cutting". God apparently did not create the raw material of the Heavens and the Earth.

And we're still waiting for justification of the "originally women had larger pelvic girdles" lie.

See my posts to lp above.

Weltall

December 4, 2003, 12:30 AM

Originally posted by Ed
Contrary to lp's belief the Christian God rarely ever strikes down those who misrepresent his word
I take it that the last chapter of Revelations is bunk then?
as shown by the continued existence of this website.
Yes, this website continues to exist even though it clearly goes against God. Therefore God must exist and desire that this website continue to exist as well. Praise! :rolleyes:
God gives most people many second chances.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Evolutionists think that chloroplasts are the result of cyanobacteria being absorbed and incorporated into plant cells. However there is no empirical evidence for this event.
Oh goody, an easy one. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-research.html#ancient-introns. He's even kindly provided the peer-reviewed scientific papers so that you can look it up for yourself.

Jack the Bodiless

December 4, 2003, 03:53 AM

Contrary to lp's belief the Christian God rarely ever strikes down those who misrepresent his word as shown by the continued existence of this website. God gives most people many second chances.
And the evil wizard Voldemort must have a merciful side too, because he hasn't fireballed the printing presses producing the Harry Potter books even though they say nasty things about him.

Hint: fictional characters generally aren't very successful at influencing real-world events, Ed.
Evolutionists think that chloroplasts are the result of cyanobacteria being absorbed and incorporated into plant cells. However there is no empirical evidence for this event.
Another blatant lie. DNA is certainly "empirical evidence".
jtb: Quite apart from the obvious lie about "the Hebrew term for plants", I'm curious as to how you can possibly justify calling cyanobacteria "plants" WITHOUT calling non-photosynthetic bacteria "animals".

Animals came before plants.

What lie? Conjunctive phrases are often used to make universal statements in hebrew. The statement of verse 11 says "vegetation, plants with seeds, and fruiting trees."There were no FRUIT TREES before ANIMALS, Ed. Give it up, man! You cannot possibly continue to argue that Genesis is correct! Nor can you simply re-invent the Hebrew language to make it say what YOU want it to say!
Cyanobacteria would fall under the category of "vegetation" to ancient hypothetical observer. Non-photosynthetic bacteria would not have been visible to the ancient hypothetical observer from whose perspective Gen. 1 is written.
...WHAT "ancient hypothetical observer"?

No "ancient hypothetical observer" is mentioned anywhere in Genesis. The ONLY observer who supposedly existed at this time was GOD, therefore Genesis would HAVE to be an account delivered by God.

Who was apparently unaware of the existence of the bacteria he had created.
And we're still waiting for justification of the "originally women had larger pelvic girdles" lie.

See my posts to lp above.
Just checking...

...Nope. No relevant "posts to lp above" have magically appeared since the last time I pointed out that they don't exist.

lpetrich

December 4, 2003, 03:16 PM

Ed:
Contrary to lp's belief the Christian God rarely ever strikes down those who misrepresent his word as shown by the continued existence of this website.

But one's self-proclaimed followers would be especially annoying when they do that.

God gives most people many second chances.

By being reincarnated?

Evolutionists think that chloroplasts are the result of cyanobacteria being absorbed and incorporated into plant cells. However there is no empirical evidence for this event.

I think that the only thing that Ed would call "empirical evidence" of that is for him to go back in a time machine and watch it happen.

And he'd have to go back about 1.5 billion years and wear an oxygen mask as he does his explorations. And use a microscope very heavily, because plants' ancestors were one-celled when they acquired cyanobacteria.

Just the same, there is an enormous quantity of present-day evidence, like comparisons of the genomes of cyanobacteria and chloroplasts. There are also many plant nuclear genes with a cyanobacterial origin, and chloroplasts have strong similarities in appearance and metabolism to cyanobacteria.

Conjunctive phrases are often used to make universal statements in hebrew.

And what makes Ed such an expert on Hebrew grammar? I'd like to see him converse in Hebrew with (say) Heathen Dawn.

The statement of verse 11 says "vegetation, plants with seeds, and fruiting trees."

Ed leaves out the part about how the land is commanded to produce those plants; it fails to address the question of aquatic plants / algae. Most of these may be interpreted as growing from lake and ocean bottoms, but pond scum does not grow in that fashion.

Cyanobacteria would fall under the category of "vegetation" to ancient hypothetical observer.

Or more likely, "green stain" or "scum".

Conchobar

December 4, 2003, 03:44 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
Contrary to lp's belief the Christian God rarely ever strikes down those who misrepresent his word as shown by the continued existence of this website.

But one's self-proclaimed followers would be especially annoying when they do that.

There is no evidence that a god has ever struck down anyone.

God gives most people many second chances.

By being reincarnated?

There is no basis for saying that a hypothetical god gives any chances first or second. Human go on despite what they believe. Their only danger is from those who believe differently.

Evolutionists think that chloroplasts are the result of cyanobacteria being absorbed and incorporated into plant cells. However there is no empirical evidence for this event.

I think that the only thing that Ed would call "empirical evidence" of that is for him to go back in a time machine and watch it happen.

And he'd have to go back about 1.5 billion years and wear an oxygen mask as he does his explorations. And use a microscope very heavily, because plants' ancestors were one-celled when they acquired cyanobacteria.

Just the same, there is an enormous quantity of present-day evidence, like comparisons of the genomes of cyanobacteria and chloroplasts. There are also many plant nuclear genes with a cyanobacterial origin, and chloroplasts have strong similarities in appearance and metabolism to cyanobacteria.

The most primitive life is in cells called Eubacteria. They have no formed nucleus but a single strand of DNA or chromosome and are called prokaryotes. Archaea are also prokaryotes and exist to this day resembling mitochondria and chloroplasts. Then we find these similar structures in eukaryotes (animals, plants, fungi, protists). It is seen that cells can live symbiotically with other cells, i.e. Lichens. Intracellular symbionts like the prokaryotes likely adapted by some minor mutation to remain intracellular. As the cell divides the mitochrondria and chloroplasts and makes new ones. Symbionts become parts.

Conjunctive phrases are often used to make universal statements in hebrew.

And what makes Ed such an expert on Hebrew grammar? I'd like to see him converse in Hebrew with (say) Heathen Dawn.

I'll pass on this. I don't know Hebrew and think that scriptures are irrelevant.

The statement of verse 11 says "vegetation, plants with seeds, and fruiting trees."

Ed leaves out the part about how the land is commanded to produce those plants; it fails to address the question of aquatic plants / algae. Most of these may be interpreted as growing from lake and ocean bottoms, but pond scum does not grow in that fashion.

Scriptural superstition has no role in reality and science.

Cyanobacteria would fall under the category of "vegetation" to ancient hypothetical observer.

Or more likely, "green stain" or "scum".

Some archaea (prokaryotes) exist today in extreme environments and are not oxidizers of Oxygen. Some us Sulphur or Sulphur dioxide.

Conchobar

December 4, 2003, 11:38 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ed:
No, the BB is in verse 1. And then the planetary debris surrounding the early earth clears and light hits the surface of the earth, this is when God said "Let there be light." So the sequence is correct.

lp: Ed's knowledge of planetary formation is limited to what his favorite theologians have stated on that subject, it would seem.

According to here (http://www.cas.muohio.edu/~alexansg/research/planform.htm), the Solar System's formation is approximately

The Early or Gas Stage: Here, dust particles combine to form kilometer-sized planetesimals in approximately 100 to 10,000 years (this is probably the least well understood phase).
The Middle or Runaway Stage: In this stage, the gravity between the planetesimals dominates, and the planetesimals grow by accretion planetary embryos of roughly 1000 kilometer-size in a time ranging from 100,000 to 1,000,000 years.
The Late Stage: Here, the planetary embryos perturb each other into crossing orbits and combine by large impacts until the remaining bodies are graviationally isolated. This stage can last several 100 million years.

Most of the dust is gone in about 10,000 years or so, long before the Earth approaches its final size at about 100 million years later. Meaning that the Earth's surface had a clear view of the Sun.

Exactly, that is when God said "Let there be light."

Ed: Hebrew is much broader in meaning and the day-ages can overlap.

jtb: ...Thereby negating the whole notion of a "correct sequence" of events.

Ed: How?

lp: Because that means that G1 can be made to fit any creation order whatsoever.

No, if we had found that humans existed before land animals then Genesis would have been wrong.

Ed: The term for birds just means flying creatures so this can refer to flying fish and flying insects which existed before fully terrestrial animals did. ...

There are arthropods that can fly that using their webbing,

lp: Like which ones?

Some species of spiders.

Ed: also since flying creatures are much less likely to be fossilized, we may not have found them yet.

lp: Flying arthropods less likely to be fossilized than similar-sized nonflying ones? That's news to the whole profession of paleontology. If there were flying insects alongside the earliest nonflying land arthropods, we would see them. But we don't.

It is well known in paleontology that birds are much less likely to be fossilized and this applies to other flying creatures.

Ed: ...but remember this is from the perspective of ancient human, bacteria would not be visible to the naked eye so God did not mention them but cyanobacteria would have been visible. So you DO admit that cyanobacteria are very similar to plants.

lp: Except that they aren't in some important ways. They don't have stems or leaves or roots, and they don't produce seeds or spores. Macroscopically, they look like greenish scum, as is apparent from the Cyanosite (http://www-cyanosite.bio.purdue.edu/)'s pictures.

Yet to an ancient hebrew greenish scum would look like a plant or plant parts or remains.

Ed: No, our rebellion brought about women to have pain in childbirth, ie narrowing of the pelvic girdles.

lp:WinAce (http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace) will enjoy learning about that, I'm sure.

Glad to be of service.:D