Going To The Source

Talk about anything under the sun or stars - but keep it civil. This is where we really get to know each other. Everyone is welcome, and invited!
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Going To The Source

Postby hive_king » Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:07 pm

Alright... I've been ignoring religion in most forms for past year and a half or so. Work, personal relationships, politics have all been keeping me busy. I slipped away to the local episcopal church once or twice, but I've been away from the topic for quite some time, overall. So, just to spur discussion, and to get back into the topic, and to try to get back on track of understanding, no matter where it leads.

Here is something I've always wondered. Let's assume for the moment that the bible is actually inspired by God. Many of the claims about God, such as his omnibenevolence, omnipotence, etc., as well as how things happened in Heaven before the Fall, all that is God claiming these things. How do we know God is being truthful about all these things? "Because He says so" doesn't seem like a very convincing argument to me.
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Postby lyons24000 » Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:56 pm

God cannot lie.-Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18

And this has to be true because you said that we are under the assumption that the Bible is actually inspired of God.

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Postby Syphon the Sun » Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:02 pm

He said we are under the assumption that the Bible is inspired by God, not that it is Truth. There is a line, lyons, a very clear and bright one.

"I cannot lie." If someone quotes me on that, it doesn't make the statement true. And you can't use the fact that I said it as evidence of its truth.

'Round we go on your logic carousel.
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Postby lyons24000 » Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:21 pm

That was more for H_K because he and I have had this conversation before. I should have mentioned that it was just for kicks. I knew that it wasn't enough to prove a point.

Sorry.
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Postby hive_king » Wed Nov 19, 2008 9:18 pm

God cannot lie.-Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18

And this has to be true because you said that we are under the assumption that the Bible is actually inspired of God.

Welcome back, H_K
Damn, Syphon beat me to my point, namely that just because God supposedly says something, doesn't automatically mean its true. All you're showing is that God claims he can not lie.
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Postby lyons24000 » Wed Nov 19, 2008 9:26 pm

Well, Nick, the simplest answer is that we cannot know for sure unless we truly believe everything the Bible says. That is why we have to have faith.

Faith is being sure of what of hope for and knowing that what you cannot see is actually real.
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Postby hive_king » Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:59 am

Well, Nick, the simplest answer is that we cannot know for sure unless we truly believe everything the Bible says. That is why we have to have faith.

Faith is being sure of what of hope for and knowing that what you cannot see is actually real.
And why should I just truly believe everything the bible says?
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Postby lyons24000 » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:47 pm

That was not your question. If you want to discuss the reliability of the Bible, start a new thread. Don't get off topic in this one. However, this thread seems pretty much finished. :P
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Postby hive_king » Tue Nov 25, 2008 10:39 am

That was not your question. If you want to discuss the reliability of the Bible, start a new thread. Don't get off topic in this one. However, this thread seems pretty much finished. :P
The reliability of the bible is what we're discussing here. Or am I missing something? I guess its over because no one's posting on it, but I haven't seen an answer past "because the bible says so".
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Postby jotabe » Wed Nov 26, 2008 3:43 am

When you doubt about the reliability of a certain source on its authoritative claims, first check the non-authoritative claims, for example, things we can measure-experience-research.
If those claims are erroneous, then we can safely doubt the truth of the authoritative statements.

Always assuming that the Bible is divinely inspired as in "dictated as God said".
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Postby Syphon the Sun » Wed Dec 03, 2008 1:59 pm

Like, say, countless contradictions to known history, science, et al?
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Postby jotabe » Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:35 pm

Like.
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Postby Azarel » Sun Dec 07, 2008 3:57 pm

The fun of 'known history' is that it was either written by the winners who decided to make themselves even better, or by revisionists who add and subtract faster than a calculator.

As for science, well, if you ever wanted an example of "searching relentlessly for one thing so hard until you bend, twist, manipulate your findings to justify your ridiculously outrageous budget and original hairbrained idea" then science is the number one culprit. My favourite is how people used to think cutting holes into people's heads let the madness out and made then better.
Not to mention the 'missing link' frauds over the years and then fact radiation dating relies completely on the ASSUMPTION that we know exactly how much radiation there was when the world came into existence.

My tuppence worth is, have a real good READ of the Bible, go I dare you. Actually pick the bloody thing up and read it for yourself just like any other book and think about what you read. Don't just repeat humorous insults previously made by highly paid stand up comedians or make your own general sweeping statements, just read it and form your own INFORMED opinion and run with it.

Also, the Bible does NOT claim to be a high-school science textbook. Some portions need not be applied to life today and other portions are historical accounts. But let's look at one scientific example...

A certain clever culture once thought that the world was being held by a giant called ATLAS... agreed? Google it and find out.

However in Job chapter 26 or 27 there is a verse that states "you suspend the Earth on nothing".

Which is closer to the truth here? Academic Science or the Bible? Given that NASA wasn't around until many years later than Job was written and indeed before anyone managed to get far enough away from this planet of ours to turn around and see that oops! no giants around! Then how, just HOW 'on earth' was this knowledge/wisdom inspired?

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Postby lyons24000 » Sun Dec 07, 2008 6:20 pm

You are speaking of Job 26:7, Azarel.

Then there is a Scripture at Isaiah 40:22 that says that the earth is round, written in the 700's BC in a culture where everyone else knew that the earth was flat. In Ecclesiastes 1:7, the Bible describes in simple detail the water cycle, something that no one would have known back then.
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Postby Jebus » Mon Dec 08, 2008 3:56 am

I love the way someone will call a belief that the earth was being held up by a god a scientific one, just after accusing science of distorting and cherry-picking information to achieve it's goals.

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Postby jotabe » Mon Dec 08, 2008 8:18 am

As for science, well, if you ever wanted an example of "searching relentlessly for one thing so hard until you bend, twist, manipulate your findings to justify your ridiculously outrageous budget and original hairbrained idea" then science is the number one culprit. My favourite is how people used to think cutting holes into people's heads let the madness out and made then better.
Well, i am the first to say that the "publish-or-die" method is flawed... only that we haven't come up with any better one to determine who deserves a grant and who doesn't. Any system where money comes in breeds corruption, and what matters is that in the scientific field crooks are discovered faster than in any other field. Manipulating your data is a big risk, because it could end your reputation faster than you can say "fake". And they will catch you, more sooner than later. (what crackpots bet on is that by when they get caught, they will have made enough money as not to care about their scientific reputations)
Not to mention the 'missing link' frauds over the years and then fact radiation dating relies completely on the ASSUMPTION that we know exactly how much radiation there was when the world came into existence.
Again, missing link frauds were caught early on. Many of them were scientifically very controversial even when they were found.
And so far, all radiation methods seem to work very well, and they concur among each other, and with other dating methods (like tree-rings, study of the strata, geomagnetism, etc).
My tuppence worth is, have a real good READ of the Bible, go I dare you. Actually pick the bloody thing up and read it for yourself just like any other book and think about what you read. Don't just repeat humorous insults previously made by highly paid stand up comedians or make your own general sweeping statements, just read it and form your own INFORMED opinion and run with it.
I read the bible, thank you. And while it's an inspiring book (the New Testament is, in any case), it is too literary to be meant to read literally. Such a reading will lead you to mistakes, and to miss a lot of what the bible has to say. Furthermore, the parts that attempt to by historical are way too partial to be taken seriously (just as you said in the beginning of your post).
A certain clever culture once thought that the world was being held by a giant called ATLAS... agreed? Google it and find out.

However in Job chapter 26 or 27 there is a verse that states "you suspend the Earth on nothing".
First things first. Atlas didn't hold the world on his shoulders, but the sky dome. When the myth of Atlas was born, people thought the sky dome was an actual, solid dome, and it needed someone to hold it.
Seafaring people were the first to actually experience Earth's roundness (you didn't say about it, lyons did, but roundness implies it cannot be laying on anything, or suspended on anything; roundness and not being held go hand by hand). At biblic times we have 2 of them: Greeks and Phoenicians. People whose livelihood comes from the knowledge of the sea will learn about it before than anyone else. Roundness of earth was common knowledge amongst mariners and learned scholars. Scholars were more resilient to this paradigmatic change because before the rise of Greek phylosophy, the scholars came from Babylonian lands, an inland empire.
Non-sailors and unlearned people still believe that earth is flat even nowadays.

Giving credit where is due, Greeks were the first ones to calculate the earth's circumference. Also, just one century after Homer had compiled the Greek religion (which came from way before), learned Greeks had already given it up as a source of knowledge.

Btw, do you really think that the notion of a Giant holding the sky dome on his shoulders is laughable, and the notion that God took a bit of mud from the ground of the Garden of Edem, gave it form, breathed into it, and it became a human being, it's sound and coherent?
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Postby lyons24000 » Mon Dec 08, 2008 8:27 am

Jota, actually the Greeks were off in their circumference measurement by a few measly meters. I think the Americans got it right on. :P
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Postby jotabe » Mon Dec 08, 2008 9:25 am

hehehe poor devils, they thought they could solve any problem using a set square and a compass.
At least they were much spot on than when they tried to calculate the Earth-Moon and Earth-Sun distances! :shock:

(To be fair, they didn't have the correct solar system, and this is essential to calculate such distances).
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Postby Azarel » Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:39 pm

Jotabe, in order to reply to your last question to me, I'll post this quickly before addressing anything else, so don't read this like I have ignored your other points which are equally interesting...

I believe the often referred to as 'poetry' of Genesis and the creation of Adam, particularly the line of 'dust/mud from the earth' or however the various translations put it, to be God's way (through the hands of men and women writing the bible) of telling that we are carbon based life and the blue print used for all life is similar. As for the breath of life, I believe this to be true because I believe that in order for any of us to be here today viewing this forum, functioning as we do, there had to be an original progenitor born functioning as fully as we are. This reason I believe that in order to get a human, you need a male and female to procreate. Except if you begin a point where you have NO humans at all, then you need one of TWO possible miracles...

You either need ALL the cells necessary for a human to bond together at the exact same time (due to the cells needed to create a human being so dependant on each that if even one cell was missing, you'd get nothing because the other would cease to function properly or possibly at all)
OR

...you'd need all the cells need for a human to be formed by a designer capable of bringing that human to life with it's lungs, heart and other organs fully functioning complete with already circulating blood cells in order to CONTINUE living and also prevent severe brain damage.

Of course, in order to have more humans after this first one, you um, need one more otherwise... you're going to have wait for that first "all the cells together" miracle to happen and if it doesn't, well, newly formed Mr. Human is going to die before Mrs. Human ever gets on the scene.

This is why I believe that 2 humans were created by a creator in a way that I won't fully appreciate until I meet that same creator and ask a few relevant questions like 'how did you DO that?!'. I believe that these two humans then had children the way that two humans today would have children because 'Male and female he created them'. This thinking of mine extends to the "chicken and the egg" conundrum.

In the case of animals able to change sex, I believe they were created that way to ensure survival amongst predators or even accidental death and also perhaps due to having to travel large distances in order to encounter another of it's own species.

I believe that the reason various species have similar genomes is merely evidence of design, not evoluntionary-Bob-Ross-style-happy-accidents.

I believe that if you get a fossil of a fish with four legs, it's still a fish and possibly extinct but was a fish, not a new species. If you mate a horse with a donkey you get a sterile male MULE 100% of the time and a fertile female MULE no more than 10% of the time which can only mate with a horse or a donkey and therefore no further purebreds can be born in the family tree style way most life on earth is born. The same works for ligers and Tigons, they do not live for very long and are almost always sterile.
In this I find it hard to believe there are actually any species on earth today that weren't here when it was created. Ligers and tigons or leopons are still cats at the end of the day and 'cat' or 'feline' is the species so however funky they look they're no missing link.

These things are what lead me to not believing in evolution and believing the bible in addition to prayer, reading and reflecting on what the world says and what the bible has within it.

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Postby jotabe » Mon Dec 08, 2008 5:41 pm

I believe the often referred to as 'poetry' of Genesis and the creation of Adam, particularly the line of 'dust/mud from the earth' or however the various translations put it, to be God's way (through the hands of men and women writing the bible) of telling that we are carbon based life and the blue print used for all life is similar. As for the breath of life, I believe this to be true because I believe that in order for any of us to be here today viewing this forum, functioning as we do, there had to be an original progenitor born functioning as fully as we are. This reason I believe that in order to get a human, you need a male and female to procreate.
That's not really how it is, though. Dust, mud, soil, earth... the chemical composition is vastly different from a human's. Too little water, little carbon and too many metals.
And you are wrong about needing a male and a female to procreate. Technically we only need an ovulum and a complete genetic load. That's how cloning works, for example.
Except if you begin a point where you have NO humans at all, then you need one of TWO possible miracles...

You either need ALL the cells necessary for a human to bond together at the exact same time [...]
OR
...you'd need all the cells need for a human to be formed by a designer.
... or you could have a community of not-so-human beings that becomes isolated, for whatever reason, certain mutations become endogamic and over the generations they don't resemple their not-so-human beings, resembling humans, instead. And this wouldn't be miraculous.

Of course, in order to have more humans after this first one, you um, need one more otherwise... you're going to have wait for that first "all the cells together" miracle to happen and if it doesn't, well, newly formed Mr. Human is going to die before Mrs. Human ever gets on the scene.
Except that it doesn't quite work that way. No community of a living species, including humans, can survive when the number of members is too low. This has already happened to human communities that, after centuries of isolation, they die out. We have many animal species which are on the road to extinction because there isn't enough genetic variability. For such a human community to survive, we would need an ongoing miracle protecting the human geneme of every newborn... till reaching a population of thousands.

I believe that the reason various species have similar genomes is merely evidence of design, not evoluntionary-Bob-Ross-style-happy-accidents.
Then again, in the geologic scale, there is enough time for such "accidents" (in physics we say that if some event is not forbidden, then it's compulsory). Also, sharing the same basic structure for every creation is not an evidence of design. Of good design, anyway. Imagine that everything we built, be it buildings, cars, planes, ships, dams... had the same basic plan. That would be a bad idea.
I believe that if you get a fossil of a fish with four legs, it's still a fish and possibly extinct but was a fish, not a new species. If you mate a horse with a donkey you get a sterile male MULE 100% of the time.
That's what being different species is about. But the genetic distance still matters: wolves and dogs (any dog) will have perfectly fertile offspring. So will cats and wildcats (technically different species).

If you have a fossile of a fish with lungs, it will still be a fish, too. But what if you have the fossile of a fish with lungs and four legs? That's what the most primitive amphibians look like: fishes with 4 legs and partly-functioning lungs (who said half-a-lung isn't useful? Only from the modern species point of view we can call them "partly-functioning": for the species who had those they were perfectly functioning, and a great advantage over the fishes that didn't have them).
In this I find it hard to believe there are actually any species on earth today that weren't here when it was created.

Just check the fossiles, and how they spread along time. Dating is correct for all acounts, and within the margin of error. And we have many families (i get the impression you are using the word "species" where you mean family or order) that pop and disappear, and that they aren't present nowadays.
These things are what lead me to not believing in evolution and believing the bible in addition to prayer, reading and reflecting on what the world says and what the bible has within it.
I don't believe in evolution. Believing in evolution is wrong, it means you are intellectually lazy and you just accept whatever they tell you because of the principle of authority. But the evidence obtained by people whose method i know and trust, support it, and in lack of better knowledge, concluding evolution happened is the only honest option.
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Postby lyons24000 » Tue Dec 09, 2008 7:49 am

Except that it doesn't quite work that way. No community of a living species, including humans, can survive when the number of members is too low. This has already happened to human communities that, after centuries of isolation, they die out. We have many animal species which are on the road to extinction because there isn't enough genetic variability. For such a human community to survive, we would need an ongoing miracle protecting the human geneme of every newborn... till reaching a population of thousands.
I'm not going to answer all of these because most of them don't interest me one bit. :P I must say that your statement is not entirely true. After the fall of Assyria to Babylon, a group of Assyrians escaped to some mountains close to that area. They lived there for a long period of time all by themselves before reemerging. The period had to have been longer then a thousand years because by the time they came down Islam was a major religion, at least in that part of the world.

Also, with the Adam and Eve thing: If you or Azarel or I or anyone had sex with their immediate brother or sister and a baby came as a result, the baby would have some types of problems. If you believe the Cain story, he must have taken a wife from either a sister or niece, and neither their daughter or his niece would be messed up in any way. Why? They were much closer to perfection and also had God protecting those first humans. When you have complete faith in God, Jota, nothing can shatter that. I'm sure that in the Genesis account, God did not give a detailed explanation as to how he made humans. He gave a brief description because that needed to be shown humans for some reason. When God said, "From dust you are and to dust you will return" we realize the importance of him telling us we are from dust! To understand what is truly going to happen when we die it had to be revealed that we came from dust. Obviously, the Bible does not say that God "just added water" to Adam or Eve but since humans are majority water, we have to understand ourselves that he must have. Don't get bent out of shape because God didn't give us all the details.

In this I find it hard to believe there are actually any species on earth today that weren't here when it was created.


I do, too. It is believed by many that the variances in fossils is just mutations over time. A mutation (or even adaptation) happens and can cause differences. Also, those big skeletons they find that they attribute to pre-homosapiens, why can't they just realize that they may have found proof of the Nephilim?

Just some of the things that I find interesting.
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Postby lyons24000 » Tue Dec 09, 2008 7:49 am

Except that it doesn't quite work that way. No community of a living species, including humans, can survive when the number of members is too low. This has already happened to human communities that, after centuries of isolation, they die out. We have many animal species which are on the road to extinction because there isn't enough genetic variability. For such a human community to survive, we would need an ongoing miracle protecting the human geneme of every newborn... till reaching a population of thousands.
I'm not going to answer all of these because most of them don't interest me one bit. :P I must say that your statement is not entirely true. After the fall of Assyria to Babylon, a group of Assyrians escaped to some mountains close to that area. They lived there for a long period of time all by themselves before reemerging. The period had to have been longer then a thousand years because by the time they came down Islam was a major religion, at least in that part of the world.

Also, with the Adam and Eve thing: If you or Azarel or I or anyone had sex with their immediate brother or sister and a baby came as a result, the baby would have some types of problems. If you believe the Cain story, he must have taken a wife from either a sister or niece, and neither their daughter or his niece would be messed up in any way. Why? They were much closer to perfection and also had God protecting those first humans. When you have complete faith in God, Jota, nothing can shatter that. I'm sure that in the Genesis account, God did not give a detailed explanation as to how he made humans. He gave a brief description because that needed to be shown humans for some reason. When God said, "From dust you are and to dust you will return" we realize the importance of him telling us we are from dust! To understand what is truly going to happen when we die it had to be revealed that we came from dust. Obviously, the Bible does not say that God "just added water" to Adam or Eve but since humans are majority water, we have to understand ourselves that he must have. Don't get bent out of shape because God didn't give us all the details.

In this I find it hard to believe there are actually any species on earth today that weren't here when it was created.


I do, too. It is believed by many that the variances in fossils is just mutations over time. A mutation (or even adaptation) happens and can cause differences. Also, those big skeletons they find that they attribute to pre-homosapiens, why can't they just realize that they may have found proof of the Nephilim?

Just some of the things that I find interesting.
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Postby Azarel » Tue Dec 09, 2008 9:48 am

Jotabe, I wrote a response to you on paper which I'll type up later...

Lyons, I like your points, and especially the nephilim reference. The verses regarding them are few, but very interesting. I know some people entertain the theory that the flood was sent to rid the world of them aswell as other people/things.

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Postby starfox » Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:26 am

After the fall of Assyria to Babylon, a group of Assyrians escaped to some mountains close to that area. They lived there for a long period of time all by themselves before reemerging. The period had to have been longer then a thousand years because by the time they came down Islam was a major religion, at least in that part of the world.
Do you have any evidence of this?
Also, with the Adam and Eve thing: If you or Azarel or I or anyone had sex with their immediate brother or sister and a baby came as a result, the baby would have some types of problems.
It might have some problems. If your genomes have any negative recessive traits, the chances they will get expressed multiply astronomically. But it might be fine.
If you believe the Cain story, he must have taken a wife from either a sister or niece, and neither their daughter or his niece would be messed up in any way. Why? They were much closer to perfection and also had God protecting those first humans.
Or they didn't have anything particularly bad in their genomes. Or the child didn't live long enough for it to become noticeable. Or they got lucky. Or the story's not true.
In this I find it hard to believe there are actually any species on earth today that weren't here when it was created.


I do, too. It is believed by many that the variances in fossils is just mutations over time. A mutation (or even adaptation) happens and can cause differences. Also, those big skeletons they find that they attribute to pre-homosapiens, why can't they just realize that they may have found proof of the Nephilim?
Really? Here's a list of species WE HAVE OBSERVED being created. As for the big skeletons, they treat them as "pre-homosapiens" because they arose and died out a handful of millions of years ago. The first in the genus Homo arose about 1.9 million years ago. Modern humans have only been around for about the last 200,000 years or so. So that's why they aren't proof of the Nephilim.

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Postby lyons24000 » Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:28 pm

If you believe the Cain story, he must have taken a wife from either a sister or niece, and neither their daughter or his niece would be messed up in any way. Why? They were much closer to perfection and also had God protecting those first humans.
Or they didn't have anything particularly bad in their genomes. Or the child didn't live long enough for it to become noticeable. Or they got lucky. Or the story's not true.
And yet, if we're under the pretense that the Cain story is true, the child had to have lived long enough because the Bible has an entire lineage of Cain's descendent's. Even if that one child died, others must have been born. If you don't believe the Bible then you can disregard it.

Really? Here's a list of species WE HAVE OBSERVED being created. As for the big skeletons, they treat them as "pre-homosapiens" because they arose and died out a handful of millions of years ago. The first in the genus Homo arose about 1.9 million years ago. Modern humans have only been around for about the last 200,000 years or so. So that's why they aren't proof of the Nephilim.
What you have to understand is that evolution is a theory. All the "proof" they have is seen as proof only because others don't want to believe otherwise. I don't care what "TalkOrigins.org" has to say because this is just theories. There is no way to prove evolution to be definitely true.

Starfox, the Bible is true. I know it to be true. And when such Scriptures as 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 and Revelation 19:11-21 find their fulfillment like so many other prophecies in the past, you're going to wish that you had known that, just like I do.
"This must be the end, then."-MorningLightMountain, Judas Unchained

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Postby starfox » Tue Dec 09, 2008 4:35 pm

And yet, if we're under the pretense that the Cain story is true, the child had to have lived long enough because the Bible has an entire lineage of Cain's descendants. Even if that one child died, others must have been born. If you don't believe the Bible then you can disregard it.
You missed my point. I came up with four explanations off the top of my head: maybe they were fortunate enough to have relatively defect-free genes. maybe the child didn't live long enough for it to be noticed (Alzheimer's is typically diagnosed around 65, by the way). Maybe they got lucky when the child was conceived. Maybe the story is not true. I can go on. Maybe Cain's wife miscarried five times, but they left that part out. Maybe the child did have defects, but were overlooked by proud parents. Maybe they lacked the technology to diagnose certain defects. But no, you're right. "God protected them" sounds way more likely than any of those.
What you have to understand is that evolution is a theory.
Oh, I know evolution is a theory. On par with germ theory, atomic theory, and the theory of relativity. Or do you dispute those ones too?

All the "proof" they have is seen as proof only because others don't want to believe otherwise. I don't care what "TalkOrigins.org" has to say because this is just theories. There is no way to prove evolution to be definitely true.
I don't even know what your first sentence here means. Did you even look at the link I posted? Those aren't theories, they're a list of experiments. Experiments confirming that evolution takes place. If you want, you can run them yourself. That's how science works. So I'm sorry if you have a hard time believing there are actually any species on earth today that weren't here when it was created. Believe it.

Starfox, the Bible is true. I know it to be true. And when such Scriptures as 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 and Revelation 19:11-21 find their fulfillment like so many other prophecies in the past, you're going to wish that you had known that, just like I do.
And here's the crux of the matter. I don't want to get into it now, but suffice to say that I find the collected findings of modern science more compelling than a single old book.

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Postby jotabe » Tue Dec 09, 2008 6:07 pm

And yet, if we're under the pretense that the Cain story is true, the child had to have lived long enough because the Bible has an entire lineage of Cain's descendent's. Even if that one child died, others must have been born. If you don't believe the Bible then you can disregard it.
Except that it's impossible to trust the story of Cain. For human species to present the genetic variability it does, after only 7k years, the mutation rate had to be so high that the human species would be extinct, having such an unstable DNA. But it's moot point, since it's proven that modern humans have been around for at least 130k years.

What you have to understand is that evolution is a theory. All the "proof" they have is seen as proof only because others don't want to believe otherwise. I don't care what "TalkOrigins.org" has to say because this is just theories. There is no way to prove evolution to be definitely true.
He has shown you that we have proven that evolution happens. We have seen it in the laboratory. We know now that it's a mechanism that nature has. We have seen species changing into different species. What else do you need to accept that there is proof that evolution happens?
Btw, a scientific theory isn't "just a theory". It's a complete corpus of knowledge. A theory is Relativity, a theory is Quantum Mechanics, etc. A theory isn't just a guess, or even a hypothesis.
Starfox, the Bible is true. I know it to be true. And when such Scriptures as 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 and Revelation 19:11-21 find their fulfillment like so many other prophecies in the past, you're going to wish that you had known that, just like I do.
Don't let the trees keep you from seeing the forest. The Bible being true is not about every sentence of the Bible being a fact. The Old Testament is about humans being overcome by the promise made by God. Honestly, how reasonable is God favouring one "chosen" people in conquest wars, or being punished for minor misconducts? It's like the christian catholic notion that God favoured France over England in the 100 year war. The New Testament is about the witness of God among ourselves.
When you have complete faith in God, the fact that the Bible isn't 100% factual truth is perfectly assumible.
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Postby Azarel » Wed Dec 10, 2008 3:40 am

That list of observed instances of speciation is a list mostly comprised of Sterile Hybrids created by direct human intervention (or hmm, design) or species simply FOUND.

If they were found, it means they were there to be found, and that being the case they were most likely always there to be found. Finding something doesn't mean you witnessed it's created and so the observation element of the discovery is little than almost trampling an undiscoverd flower into the dirt.

Also, in regard to the 'new species' which are named as 'sterile hybrids' they're like tigons and ligers in the way that 'we've got a lovely looking new thing here that can't make anymore of itself' and therefore not a species for long. Other examples are them taking flies that already exist and subjecting them to ludicrous games in order to enforce new behaviour which I'm sorry just aint a new species of fly. Simply a fly with different customs.

Here's something I suggest: If these human scientists and flower breeders can create something the world accepts as a new species even though they are sterile...
...How much harder is it to accept the possibility that something/someone greater in intellect and ability than humans, designed and created the life we see today and the human race itself?

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Postby starfox » Wed Dec 10, 2008 9:04 am

That list of observed instances of speciation is a list mostly comprised of sterile hybrids created by direct human intervention (or hmm, design) or species simply FOUND.
Did you even look at it? I'll quote it for you:
5.1.1.2 Kew Primrose (Primula kewensis)

Digby (1912) crossed the primrose species Primula verticillata and P. floribunda to produce a sterile hybrid. Polyploidization occurred in a few of these plants to produce fertile offspring.

5.1.1.4 Raphanobrassica
[...] Plants grown from the seeds were interfertile with each other. They were not interfertile with either parental species.

5.1.1.6 Madia citrigracilis
[...] Crossing M. gracilis and M. citriodora resulted in a highly sterile triploid with n = 24. The chromosomes formed almost no bivalents during meiosis. Artificially doubling the chromosome number using colchecine produced a hexaploid hybrid which closely resembled M. citrigracilis and was fertile.
And that's just from the first six entries. There's another twenty or so, if you care to read more.
If they were found, it means they were there to be found, and that being the case they were most likely always there to be found. Finding something doesn't mean you witnessed its creation and so the observation element of the discovery is little more than almost trampling an undiscoverd flower into the dirt.
What if you start an experiment with one type of animal, and then at the end you have two types of animal? These were not always there to be found:
5.3.5 Sympatric Speciation in Drosophila melanogaster
[...]They established a stock population of D. melanogaster with flies collected in an orchard near Davis, California. [...] After 25 generations of this mating tests showed reproductive isolation between the two strains. Habitat specialization was also produced.
Also, in regard to the 'new species' which are named as 'sterile hybrids' they're like tigons and ligers in the way that 'we've got a lovely looking new thing here that can't make anymore of itself' and therefore not a species for long. Other examples are them taking flies that already exist and subjecting them to ludicrous games in order to enforce new behaviour which I'm sorry just aint a new species of fly. Simply a fly with different customs.
If a mating produces sterile offspring, the outcome is generally not considered a new species. Good thing the ones I linked to weren't that. As for your second point, the "flies with different customs" are actually a new species if they are reproductively isolated. That's one way we define species.
Here's something I suggest: If these human scientists and flower breeders can create something the world accepts as a new species even though they are sterile...
Which we generally don't.
...How much harder is it to accept the possibility that something/someone greater in intellect and ability than humans, designed and created the life we see today and the human race itself?
Which is entirely possible. They just would have had to plant all this evidence indicating otherwise, and erased any trace of their actions. So yes, it's possible. But my friend Bill says you're probably wrong. If someone or something shows up on Earth and can prove they started life here, then I'll buy it. But not before we have evidence.

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Postby jotabe » Wed Dec 10, 2008 9:30 am

Here's something I suggest: If these human scientists and flower breeders can create something the world accepts as a new species even though they are sterile...
...How much harder is it to accept the possibility that something/someone greater in intellect and ability than humans, designed and created the life we see today and the human race itself?
The point is that in many of the speciation experiments, scientists don't splice genes, and see if the result works. Most bacterial speciation experiments, for example, are limited to set up for the bacteria an environmental adversity: presence of predators, absence of their usual nutrients with abundance of nutrients they can't process, etc.
Scientist don't create these new species. Evolution due to environmental changes do.
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Postby Azarel » Wed Dec 10, 2008 11:18 am

Scientist don't create these new species. Evolution due to environmental changes do.
So help me understand something...

If two freerunners living in isolation have kids and teach them to freerun because they live in the mountains but the rock formations are very irregular and even mountain goats have trouble traversing them and they have say, oh I dunno, at least 25 generations of them, all able to free run unlike anything we've seen in movies like district 13 or casino royale...

...would they be thought of as a new species of human?

Homo Libercursor perhaps? or Homo Marathonius Libertas maybe?

- -
You know, I come to realise in my infrequent visits to philotic web, that evolutionists and creations will argue forever, no matter how much 'proof' exists for either case.

I'm certain I've already discussed my understanding of God's choice and foundation of the Jewish people in other thread that Jotabe has been part of so I won't respond to her repitition of that reference.

As for starfox's rebuttal, I will simply state plainly, that regardless of how many flies change the colour of their eyes due to the sky falling I believe God made life on earth His way and I believe as a supernatural entity He is able to perfom any task and be what He needs to be and make what He needs to make. I believe evolution is a journey of the intellect to deny God's existence and have us believe that life is accidental and the only 'mother' of creation in the world is necessity but in that necessity, let me ask you, what possible necessity was there in the primordial soup?

There were no walls to climb or predators to escape, so what was the motive for all living things in this life? Boredom?

I believe all we see from these experiments being done is at best what scientists call microevolution (variation within kinds) and that is little more than simple adaptation which I would gather all species are possibly capable of. When people go blind, their hearing might improve to compensate; this is not evolution but the development and improvement of already present abilities.

Sorry, I still don't get it, but I believe in God and that He made the first of everything, and created everything with the means to create more of itself and with the means to develop innate abilities through exercise and perseverence. I believe the Bible is the truth. I dont have proof, but I'm fine with that.

From now on, if I contribute to threads like this, it will be in a different manner.

I also notice the author of thios thread has not revisited for a while, maybe hive_king got bored of the thread turning into another quarrel but if HK happens to come back, if you want to really "go to the source", then I'm afraid there is only one option for you...

The source of the bible as the bible states, is God, so in the absence of St.Paul, Moses, King David or the prophets, the only thing to do, is PRAY.

Sounds stupid I know, but, you asked.
Last edited by Azarel on Thu Dec 11, 2008 3:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby starfox » Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:08 pm

So help me understand something...

If two freerunners living in isolation have kids and teach them to freerun because they live in the mountains but the rock formations are very irregular and even mountain goats have trouble traversing them and they have say, oh I dunno, at least 25 generations of them, all able to free run unlike anything we've seen in movies like district 13 or casino royale...

...would they be thought of as a new species of human?
If they were separated for a long enough time that they could no longer interbreed, then yes. It would be a lot longer than 25 generations, though.
You know, I come to realise in my infrequent visits to philotic web, that evolutionists and creationists will argue forever, no matter how much 'proof' exists for either case.
I agree, although if you assert creationism is true you do so in the face of the total evidence against and total lack of evidence for your position.
As for starfox's rebuttal, I will simply state plainly, that regardless of how many flies change the colour of their eyes due to the sky falling I believe God made life on earth His way and I believe as a supernatural entity He is able to perfom any task and be what He needs to be and make what He needs to make. I believe evolution is a journey of the intellect to deny God's existence
The theory of evolution makes no claims as to either the existence or non-existence of god.
have us believe that life is accidental and the only 'mother' of creation in the world is necessity but in that necessity, let me ask you, what possible necessity was there in the primordial soup?

There were no walls to climb or predators to escape, so what was the motive for all living things in this life? Boredom?
Life didn't need a motive to arise. Flip a coin. What was the motive for it coming up tails? Maybe it just happened, without some force or will behind it.
I believe all we see from these experiments being done is at best what scientists call microevolution (variation within kinds) and that is little more than simple adaptation which I would gather all species are possibly capable of. When people go blind, their hearing might improve to compensate; this is not evolution but the development and improvement of already present abilities.
Microevolution is evolution within a species. Eye color in humans, for example. Macroevolution is the creation of whole new species, of which I have provided numerous examples. To deny this happens is to call the scientists, journals, universities, and whole fields of molecular and evolutionary biology liars. Are you saying they're all in on some giant conspiracy?
I believe the Bible is the truth. I have proof, but I'm fine with that.
Did you mean to say you don't have proof? Otherwise I don't really understand this. If you do have proof, I would like to see it, because I haven't yet.

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Postby lyons24000 » Wed Dec 10, 2008 11:18 pm

I agree, although if you assert creationism is true you do so in the face of the total evidence against and total lack of evidence for your position.
No matter what you say, evolution faces the same problem. You come up with wonderful arguments about why evolution is true and someone else can come up with arguments as to why it is not true. One rule of science is that life cannot come from non-life. It is impossible. You cannot take something from a rock and make a bug. But that isn't evidence enough, I know. Interestingly enough, the "chains" from one species to another in evolution always has a gap. Why is that? It isn't a chain at all. One thing did not evolve from another.

Life didn't need a motive to arise. Flip a coin. What was the motive for it coming up tails? Maybe it just happened, without some force or will behind it.
Except that the coin will either come up heads or tails, no matter what. Life will not nor will it ever come from non-life without some all-powerful force to lead it. The coin analogy isn't a good one because it isn't working on the same foundation. Life arising will never happen. Ever. Period. No one will ever figure out how to do it because it is impossible.

I believe the Bible is the truth. I have proof, but I'm fine with that.
Did you mean to say you don't have proof? Otherwise I don't really understand this. If you do have proof, I would like to see it, because I haven't yet.
He can give you proof of the Bible's inspiration but you will not accept it. You've never seen valid proof because you do not want to see valid proof. We can put it right before your eyes and you will exclaim, "Nope. That isn't proof." Why? You didn't see God put His finger on someone and transfer His thoughts into their minds and make them write something down. No one did. Even if a hundred people were in the room while Peter was writing 2 Peter, one hundred of them could say that there was no inspiration involved. He just wrote it at his will. And since you cannot see it, you will not believe it. You just won't no matter what anyone says because you don't want to. The minute you do want to, you will see their point and believe it.

Funny, though; you have never seen evolution happen nor has anyone else. They may have seen what they believe is evidence of it and know that it is true. Well, I have studied the Bible profusely and seen the evidence of its inspiration and that is enough to convince me that it is the Word of God. That is why we speak of the "evidence of the Bible's inspiration" because there is no concrete proof, unless God comes down and slaps someone and says that it is His Word.

The point is, your belief in evolution can never truly be backed up with provable information because there isn't any. Until then, you will not convince Azarel nor myself to lean towards your position...unless you get that four-legged fish on the shoulder of a homo erectus and both of them use some type of intelligible communication to prove their existence.
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Postby starfox » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:16 am

No matter what you say, evolution faces the same problem. You come up with wonderful arguments about why evolution is true and someone else can come up with arguments as to why it is not true.
I have never seen one. Prove me wrong. Show me one shred of evidence the theory of evolution by natural selection is incorrect. Here are some examples of what forms said evidence could take: A human is born built from not DNA but some other chemical. We find some animal that we can absolutely rule out the possibility of descent from another animal. And so on.
One rule of science is that life cannot come from non-life. It is impossible. You cannot take something from a rock and make a bug.
I'm curious as to where you heard this from. There are many hypotheses as to how life could have arisen on our planet without outside interference.
Interestingly enough, the "chains" from one species to another in evolution always has a gap. Why is that? It isn't a chain at all. One thing did not evolve from another.
There isn't always a gap. Often times, we know exactly what species arose from what predecessor. For example, the fruit fly experiments I linked to earlier. We start with one species of fruit fly. We end up with two species. No flies got in or out. Where did that second species come from? It evolved. We have watched it.

Except that the coin will either come up heads or tails, no matter what. Life will not nor will it ever come from non-life without some all-powerful force to lead it. The coin analogy isn't a good one because it isn't working on the same foundation. Life arising will never happen. Ever. Period. No one will ever figure out how to do it because it is impossible.
Or the coin could land on edge. There have been experiments that show it may have been possible for life to have spontaneously arisen on early Earth. Funny how there are possibilities you might not have thought of. Life may have spontaneously arisen on Earth. Impossible is a pretty strong statement.

He can give you proof of the Bible's inspiration but you will not accept it. You've never seen valid proof because you do not want to see valid proof. We can put it right before your eyes and you will exclaim, "Nope. That isn't proof." Why? You didn't see God put His finger on someone and transfer His thoughts into their minds and make them write something down. No one did. Even if a hundred people were in the room while Peter was writing 2 Peter, one hundred of them could say that there was no inspiration involved. He just wrote it at his will. And since you cannot see it, you will not believe it. You just won't no matter what anyone says because you don't want to. The minute you do want to, you will see their point and believe it.
Here you have it wrong. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said I wanted to see some proof. I really do. I want to believe in whatever is the truth. If the Bible is true, I will believe in the Bible. If the Koran is true, I will believe in the Koran. If the flying spaghetti monster is true, I will believe in him. If you prove me wrong, I will gladly change my beliefs, thankful for being corrected.

That said, I have seen 0 evidence for the Bible being divinely inspired. I have seen > 0 evidence it was not. Therefore, I currently believe it was not divinely inspired. Show me some proof and I'll gladly come over to your side.
Funny, though; you have never seen evolution happen nor has anyone else. They may have seen what they believe is evidence of it and know that it is true. Well, I have studied the Bible profusely and seen the evidence of its inspiration and that is enough to convince me that it is the Word of God. That is why we speak of the "evidence of the Bible's inspiration" because there is no concrete proof, unless God comes down and slaps someone and says that it is His Word.
The point is, your belief in evolution can never truly be backed up with provable information because there isn't any. Until then, you will not convince Azarel nor myself to lean towards your position...unless you get that four-legged fish on the shoulder of a homo erectus and both of them use some type of intelligible communication to prove their existence.
I'm sorry you think this. You're simply wrong. We have seen evidence that evolution takes place. We have concrete proof. Not something we believe might be proof, but actual, physical, hard data. You can't fake it or fudge it. It's real.

Human beings are easy to fool. We see patterns where there are none. We are subject to biases, fallacies, and feel-good stories. We tend to believe what we want to be true. That's why I want to see evidence. I don't trust my feelings, because so often they are wrong.

I've shown you my evidence. Can you show me yours?

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Postby jotabe » Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:14 am

No matter what you say, evolution faces the same problem. You come up with wonderful arguments about why evolution is true and someone else can come up with arguments as to why it is not true.
Arguments can be made against evolution. It's a scientific theory, so it must be falsifiable (that is, it has to be possible to prove it wrong, but it can't be proven right). The problem is that so far, all arguments against evolution coming from the creationist-ID side (unlike arguments against evolution coming from the evolutionists themselves) are mistaken, false or specious.
The arguments about evolution correctness deal with physical, tangible evidence, and with processes we know that happen in nature because we have observed them happening.

One rule of science is that life cannot come from non-life.
That is one rule i had never heard. I know of something slightly similar, that is that the observational hypothesis of the "spontaneous generation" (a piece of pop-science that dates from the origin of manking) was proven wrong. Biologists have a hard time defining what is life, as to say that life cannot come from non-life. The origin of biological life from organic matter is nothing at all like the "spontaneous generation".

He can give you proof of the Bible's inspiration but you will not accept it. You've never seen valid proof because you do not want to see valid proof. We can put it right before your eyes and you will exclaim, "Nope. That isn't proof."
Evidence about divine inspiration of the Bible is always circular, as far as i have been shown. Circular evidence doesn't cut it. The Bible sayin it is divinely inspired, and the Bible saying it contains prophecies that it later shows "somehow" fulfilled... well... doesn't seem to be too formal, not even entering in how those supposed prophecies are fulfilled.
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