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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

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Comments

  • #6452
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    MrPudding wrote: »
    Not sure why he is being so coy now...

    6500, plus or minus 500

    MrP
    Thanks Mr P ... but that was then and this is now.:)


  • #6453
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    Brilliant. Let's fire all those pesky geologists, paleontologists, archeologists....
    ... only the Creationist ones tend to get fired !!:(


  • #6454
    Harika
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,594 ✭✭✭Harika


    J C wrote: »
    ... only the Creationist ones tend to get fired !!:(

    Where we are now back to a month ago, where creationist research papers are banned from the public but for some reason you are able to access them,and only you not us normal mortals.


  • #6455
    Timberrrrrrrr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,886 ✭✭✭✭Timberrrrrrrr


    J C wrote: »
    Thanks Mr P ... but that was then and this is now.:)

    So you have changed your stance?


  • #6456
    Leroy42
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,098 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    J C wrote: »
    Thanks Mr P ... but that was then and this is now.:)

    I think JC should be applauded for making this statement.

    Many on here note that science is based on looking at the evidence and updating our position based on the evidence.

    Isn't this exactly what JC has done? He came on years ago stating his belief that the earth was 6000 years old based on the bible. He now has accepted that science shows the earth is not 6000 years old.


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  • #6457
    Delirium
    Moderators Posts: 52,066 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    J C wrote: »
    Thanks Mr P ... but that was then and this is now.:)

    Well unless you state a new position on the age of the Earth, people will take that post as your most recent position on the age of the Earth.

    Do you have a new position? and if yes, what age do you think the Earth is?

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • #6458
    Professor Moriarty
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,392 ✭✭✭✭Professor Moriarty


    J C wrote: »
    ... only the Creationist ones tend to get fired !!:(


    97% of scientists concur with this statement: "Humans and other living things have evolved over time".

    2% of scientists concur with this statement: "Humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time,"

    There is the creationist scientists' problem right there. They are a tiny minority out on their own trying to conflate science and faith. The reason that creationist 'scientists' are sidelined is that their work is never peer reviewed and their methodology is fundamentally flawed as I have demonstrated. That's why they don't allow review of their work - because they know it will be shredded.

    The issue I have with creationism is that it misrepresents science as I've demonstrated. People can believe what they like but when they lie about scientific facts then we are edging into dangerous territory.


  • #6459
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    97% of scientists concur with this statement: "Humans and other living things have evolved over time".

    2% of scientists concur with this statement: "Humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time,"
    As I recall, Galileo was in a minority of one when he proposed a Heliocentric view of the universe ... but this didn't make him wrong ... nor his opponents right.
    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    There is the creationist scientists' problem right there. They are a tiny minority out on their own trying to conflate science and faith. The reason that creationist 'scientists' are sidelined is that their work is never peer reviewed and their methodology is fundamentally flawed as I have demonstrated. That's why they don't allow review of their work - because they know it will be shredded.
    Their work is of the highest quality ... and their scientific conclusions are unassailable. I personally know many scientists who are Creationists, and several operate at the highest levels within conventional science ... whilst obviously keeping shtum about their Creation Science views and activities.
    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    The issue I have with creationism is that it misrepresents science as I've demonstrated. People can believe what they like but when they lie about scientific facts then we are edging into dangerous territory.
    Nobody is lying about the facts ... it's just that the interpretations of what we are seeing differ.
    ... and as for dangerous territory ... it would be very sad if people didn't place their faith in Jesus Christ (and thus not be Saved, as a result) because they believed a lie and adored the creature ... rather than its Creator i.e. believed that living creatures spontaneously generated themselves rather than being divinely created ... when all evidence and logic points to the latter.


  • #6460
    Professor Moriarty
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,392 ✭✭✭✭Professor Moriarty


    1. Yeah. Gallileo was right and religion was his greatest opposition.

    2. Their scientific conclusions are not scientific - which is a bit of a problem. Still waiting for peer reviewed recent research from creationist scientists (who represent less than 2% of all scientists).

    3. When maverick 'scientists' misrepresents religious dogma as science, then we entering dangerous territory. There is no evidence that anything 'divine' created the Earth and its inhabitants. Zero evidence.


  • #6461
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    1. Yeah. Gallileo was right and religion was his greatest opposition.
    Gallileo was right and the dominant religion (as well as the Ptolemaic scientific establishment) of the time, persecuted him. inded when it comes to persecution ... the persecutor is almost invariably wrong ... and the persecuted ... right.
    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    2. Their scientific conclusions are not scientific - which is a bit of a problem. Still waiting for peer reviewed recent research from creationist scientists (who represent less than 2% of all scientists).
    Their scientific conclusions are scientitically valid ... as they are the result of work by eminent conventionally qualified scientists.
    Their work isn't accepted or recognised by the conventional scientific establishment ... as the scientific investigation and peer review of the results of supernatural causation is a priori banned by the rules of science.
    ... so somebody has to do this work ... if conventional science won't do it.
    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    3. When maverick 'scientists' misrepresents religious dogma as science, then we entering dangerous territory. There is no evidence that anything 'divine' created the Earth and its inhabitants. Zero evidence.
    We are entering very interesting terrritory actually ... and eminent conventionally qualified scientists doing research on creation aren't misrepresenting anything ...
    ... and their work on scientifically proving the existence of God and His works ... using observable physical phenomena is something that all Theists should take an active interest in.
    The only possible 'danger' from the results of Creation Science ... is that it might undermine the belief that God doesn't exist !!!:)

    ... thereby leaving some Atheists with a serious dilemma about what they should do on a Sunday morning.:D


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  • #6462
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Just reading a very interesting book called 'Charles Darwin Victorian Mythmaker' by A N Wilson (Published 2017 by John Murray) ... an absorbing, bang-up-to-date, Christmas present from my daughter !!!

    It is a road I have travelled myself ... about 30 years earlier than A N Wilson ... and is reflective, in many ways, of this thread and the 'other one' over in the A & A.
    It is also reflective, in part, of my own journey from 'Darwin to God'.

    The following quotes from the Prelude, give a flavour of the book (and are so broadly reflective of my own journey, that I could have written them myself):-

    "DARWIN WAS WRONG. That was the unlooked-for conclusion to which I was inexorable led while writing this book."

    "It was certainly not my intention when I began detailed reading for this book to part company from the mainstream of scientific opinion which still claims to believe, and in some senses does believe, the central contentions of Darwin's most famous book, On the origins of Species."

    "I soon came to realise, when I started my reading, that in fact, there is no consensus among scientists about the theory of evolution."

    "Until I got down to doing my reading, I had assumed that, broadly speaking, scientific opinion had accepted the truth of Darwin's central theories, and that objections to it were motivated not by scientific doubts but by some other set of ideas - most of them religious ones."

    "What interests me is whether he got it right scientifically. And there it is obvious that we are entitled to judge him not merely by the assessments made of his work by scientific and professional contemporaries - nearly all of them rejected it. We are entitled to ask how much our contemporary state of knowledge would lead us to question The Origin of Species."

    "(Stephen Jay) Gould and his colleague Niles Eldrege developed a theory of what they called 'punctuated equilibrium'. The little two-word phrase is a deadly one for the orthodox believer in Darwin. In The Origins, Darwin admitted that the fossil evidence to support his theory was sparse. Gould, one of the foremost palaeontologists of modern times, revealed that it was not sparse: it was non-existent."

    A N Wilson's journey from a simple belief is Darwin(ism) ... to an outright rejection of his scientific ideas on the origins of species, is one that many have followed, including myself.
    It is also a journey that many refuse to make, because there is currently no viable alternative idea, that doesn't involve an intellligent input ... of Divine proportions, in the creation of life. :)

    Like anything that is based on a false premise, the theory of evolution (from pondkind to mankind), continues to have evidence and logical arguments pile up against it, year after year.
    Believers in (pondkind to mankind evolution), also lose their belief ... when they start a detailed objective reading of the ideas and the evidence supposedly underpinning it ... and find that 'they are not all they are cracked up to be' ... to put it mildly !!:D


  • #6463
    Safehands
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,348 ✭✭✭Safehands


    J C wrote: »
    Just reading a very interesting book called 'Charles Darwin Victorian Mythmaker' by A N Wilson (Published 2017 by John Murray) ... an absorbing, bang-up-to-date, Christmas present from my daughter !!!

    It is a road I have travelled myself ... about 30 years earlier than A N Wilson ... and is reflective, in many ways, of this thread and the 'other one' over in the A & A.
    It is also reflective, in part, of my own journey from 'Darwin to God'.

    The following quotes from the Prelude, give a flavour of the book (and are so broadly reflective of my own journey, that I could have written them myself):-

    "DARWIN WAS WRONG. That was the unlooked-for conclusion to which I was inexorable led while writing this book."

    "It was certainly not my intention when I began detailed reading for this book to part company from the mainstream of scientific opinion which still claims to believe, and in some senses does believe, the central contentions of Darwin's most famous book, On the origins of Species."

    "I soon came to realise, when I started my reading, that in fact, there is no consensus among scientists about the theory of evolution."

    "Until I got down to doing my reading, I had assumed that, broadly speaking, scientific opinion had accepted the truth of Darwin's central theories, and that objections to it were motivated not by scientific doubts but by some other set of ideas - most of them religious ones."

    "What interests me is whether he got it right scientifically. And there it is obvious that we are entitled to judge him not merely by the assessments made of his work by scientific and professional contemporaries - nearly all of them rejected it. We are entitled to ask how much our contemporary state of knowledge would lead us to question The Origin of Species."

    "(Stephen Jay) Gould and his colleague Niles Eldrege developed a theory of what they called 'punctuated equilibrium'. The little two-word phrase is a deadly one for the orthodox believer in Darwin. in The Origins, Darwin admitted that the fossil evidence to support his theory was sparse. Gould, one of the foremost palaeontologists of modern times, revealed that it was not sparse: it was non-existent."

    A N Wilson's journey from a simple belief is Darwin(ism) ... to an outright rejection of his scientific ideas on the origins of species, is one that many have followed, including myself.
    It is also a journey that many refuse to make, because there is currently no viable alternative idea, that doesn't involve an intellligent input ... of Divine proportions, in the creation of life. :)

    Like anything that is based on a false premise, the theory of evolution (from pondkind to mankind), continues to have evidence and logical arguments pile up against it, year after year.
    Believers in (pondkind to mankind evolution), also lose their belief ... when they start a detailed objective reading of the ideas and the evidence supposedly underpinning it ... and find that 'they are not all they are cracked up to be' ... to put it mildly !!:D
    Happy Christmas JC. Good to see you haven't let up. I'd be dissappointed if you had succombed.


  • #6464
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Safehands wrote: »
    Happy Christmas JC. Good to see you haven't let up. I'd be dissappointed if you had succombed.
    Luckily, for both of us ... I haven't succombed.:D

    Happy Christmas Safehands.
    It's not about ' not letting up' ... it's about pointing to the truth ... because most of the world doesn't know about it.

    It's the job of the Christian (and indeed the Creationist) to not let up !!!:)

    ... and this new book is not written by a Creationist ...
    Quote Wikipedia:-
    "In the early 1990s, in the wake of the Fatwah against Salman Rushdie and the continuing troubles in Northern Ireland, Wilson published a pamphlet Against Religion in the Chatto & Windus CounterBlasts series. He wrote biographies of Jesus and St Paul, and a history of atheism in the 19th century entitled God's Funeral, describing its growth as due to influences ranging from David Hume to Sigmund Freud."


  • #6465
    Safehands
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,348 ✭✭✭Safehands


    J C wrote: »
    Luckily, for both of us ... I haven't succombed.:D

    Happy Christmas Safehands.
    It's not about ' not letting up' ... I don't give up pointing to the truth ... because most of the world doesn't know about it.

    Its the job of the Christian (and indeed the Creationist) to not let up !!!:)
    Oh, I know that my friend.
    J C wrote: »
    ... and this new book is not written by a Creationist ...
    Quote Wikipedia:-
    "In the early 1990s, in the wake of the Fatwah against Salman Rushdie and the continuing troubles in Northern Ireland, Wilson published a pamphlet Against Religion in the Chatto & Windus CounterBlasts series. He wrote biographies of Jesus and St Paul, and a history of atheism in the 19th century entitled God's Funeral, describing its growth as due to influences ranging from David Hume to Sigmund Freud."
    So how does he say the whole thing came about?


  • #6466
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Safehands wrote: »
    So how does he say the whole thing came about?
    I've only read part of the book yet ... so far he hasn't said how he believes the whole thing came about ... he is concentrating on debunking Darwin ... as the title of the book suggests ('Charles Darwin Victorian Mythmaker') .

    For example, this is his considered opinion of the scientific validity of the theory of NS ... "Darwin's theory of natural selection, and his claim that the process works as a result of an everlasting warfare in nature, are not laws like Boyle's Law or Newton's Law of Gravity. Although their extreme unlikelihood (especially of the 'struggle for existence' idea) can be demonstrated, they are not strictly speaking verifiable or falsifiable. and in this sense they are not scientific statements at all."

    "And even among Darwinians, down to our own day, there remain deep fissures between the varying sects - for example, those who hold to the true faith of each evolutionary change having come about by infinitesimally slow gradualism or micromutation, and those Darwinians such as Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge whose punctuated eqilibria provided a kind of Fast Forward button on the evolutionary Remote which allowed a species to cut out some of the boring time-wasting and jolt forward to the next stage.

    I too hope that A N Wilson will tell us what he now considers was the mechanism by which the whole thing came about ... but even if he doesn't ... debunking the main theory by which it became possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, to paraphrase Prof Richard Dawkins, is important, in and of itself ... especially so, in a World where Atheism (and Atheistic Secularism) is increasingly 'ascendant' ... and Christianity is equally in decline (in part, at least, due to the ascent of Atheistic Secularist thinking within society).


  • #6467
    Leroy42
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,098 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    J C wrote: »
    "DARWIN WAS WRONG. That was the unlooked-for conclusion to which I was inexorable led while writing this book."

    So what was the purpose of his writing the book then? It would seem rather odd that a person would set out to write a book about evolution and then hand up a debunking essay to the publishers at the end.

    J C wrote: »
    "I soon came to realise, when I started my reading, that in fact, there is no consensus among scientists about the theory of evolution."

    So what is the actual split? Is it 50/50? Because it appears to be the accepted wisdom that the vast majority of scientists, that have actually any knowledge of this area, agree that evolution is proven. How did he unearth all these scientists that have until know been part of a great unspoken conspiracy and yet upon a question from this author were willing to give up the charade.

    Did he question why they had decided to come clean at this late stage and what had been the motivation for the conspiracy in the first place?
    J C wrote: »
    "Until I got down to doing my reading, I had assumed that, broadly speaking, scientific opinion had accepted the truth of Darwin's central theories, and that objections to it were motivated not by scientific doubts but by some other set of ideas - most of them religious ones."

    So the author has admitted that he has no background in the area, no idea of the evidence and was coming from a place of ignorance. The fact that they had lazily 'assumed' rather than actually looking at the evidence themselves says more about them
    J C wrote: »
    "What interests me is whether he got it right scientifically. And there it is obvious that we are entitled to judge him not merely by the assessments made of his work by scientific and professional contemporaries - nearly all of them rejected it. We are entitled to ask how much our contemporary state of knowledge would lead us to question The Origin of Species."

    So how has the author debunked the evidence. He has already admitted that he knows nothing of the subject, one can assume that the book is more a critique of Darwin the man rather than his signal idea, so how has the author now become such an expert as to be able to disprove the majority of scientists?

    Contemporaries is a key word here. It is true that many at the time rejected the ideas, it was such a break from the accepted thinking at the time. But since then, his ideas have been proven in many different areas, areas that Darwin would have known nothing about. DNA etc. As for contemporaries, wasn't Jesus rejected by the elders at the time. Doesn't this prove him to be wrong under your basis?
    J C wrote: »
    Like anything that is based on a false premise, the theory of evolution (from pondkind to mankind), continues to have evidence and logical arguments pile up against it, year after year.
    Believers in (pondkind to mankind evolution), also lose their belief ... when they start a detailed objective reading of the ideas and the evidence supposedly underpinning it ... and find that 'they are not all they are cracked up to be' ... to put it mildly !!:D

    So basically, your daughter bought you a book which agrees with what you think, so much so that even though you hadn't read most of it you felt it was useful to post parts of it as a backup to your position.

    All this without actually reading on what basis the author had made the claims or even what alternative they were offering.

    And I completely agree with your past paragraph. Replace "theory of evolution" with "belief in a God" and it reads the same. There are, however, some major differences. There is plenty of evidence for evolution, there is none for an active God. If understanding of the evidence turns out to be incorrect or additional evidence is uncovered then people will accept the new reality of evolution. You will continue to have faith in God until such time as it is proven, without any doubt, that not only does he not exist, but that he cannot exist.

    People only ask that religious people place the same burdens on their own beliefs that they do on every other aspect of their lives. Why do you accept without any evidence the existence of God, his direct caring for you, his control of your soul after you die. His changing nature for OT to NT. His seeming inability to deal with injustice or unfairness. His ability for even those that know of him directly to accept him (Adam & Eve, Satan, Judas), yet his apparent vengefulness in dealing with anyone who fails to believe in him without evidence?


  • #6468
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    JC's quote wrote:
    "I soon came to realise, when I started my reading, that in fact, there is no consensus among scientists about the theory of evolution."

    There is no consensus among Christians regarding a theology of God.

    Does this mean there is no God? Does this mean that despite there being no consensus, there isn't, in broad ways, agreement about what and who God is?

    Saying there is no consensus isn't a terminal statement about Theory of Evolution.


    -


    Although not having read the book, I'm already starting to get a familiar smell. I used to frequent EvC forum (Evolution vs Creationist), having once held a similar view to JC. There I watched Creationist after Creationist getting shredded by Evolutionists - many of whom were working in (very) relevant scientific fields and who could cut, knife-through-butter-like through the kind of imprecise, mis-directing language which appears to be used in this book.


  • #6469
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Leroy42 wrote: »
    Why do you accept without any evidence the existence of God


    We believe because of the evidence, not in the face of no evidence. The evidence isn't empirical in the first instance - but for us that's not a concern.

    It's only a concern to those who suppose empirical evidence the only/prime evidence admissible. Supposing so is merely a philosophical position - it's not something which can be demonstrated to have any overwhelming merit.






    ..yet his apparent vengefulness in dealing with anyone who fails to believe in him without evidence?

    This is therefore problematic.


  • #6470
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    Leroy42 wrote: »
    So what was the purpose of his writing the book then? It would seem rather odd that a person would set out to write a book about evolution and then hand up a debunking essay to the publishers at the end.
    He seems to have set out to take an objective look at Charles Darwin, expecting to confirm what popular culture claims ... that Darwinian Evolution (or at least its modern synthesis) explains how the diversity of life we observe came to be.
    To his surprise, he found a theory in deep crisis with little evidential support ... and when he researched into Darwin himself ... he found a Victorian mythmaker instead of a man applying objective science to his ideas. For example on page 17
    "In his own lifetime, Darwin attracted little support among his scientific colleagues for his own distinctive take on evolution. His loyal 'Bulldog', Huxlex, however, was usually able to minimise the intellectual and scientific objections to Darwinism by one simple device. He made it seem as if Darwin's enemies objected to his theory only for reasons of religious bigotry. If the Darwinists had not managed to represent themselves as single-minded warriors for truth against obscurantists from the Dark Ages, the unsatisfactoriness of their science might have been made more clearer."
    ... and so it continues right up to the present day ... if they can't question Creation Science ... then the best they can do is caricature Creation Scientists as 'non-scientists' ... when every one of them are eminently qualified conventional scientists.

    Leroy42 wrote: »
    So what is the actual split? Is it 50/50? Because it appears to be the accepted wisdom that the vast majority of scientists, that have actually any knowledge of this area, agree that evolution is proven. How did he unearth all these scientists that have until know been part of a great unspoken conspiracy and yet upon a question from this author were willing to give up the charade.

    Did he question why they had decided to come clean at this late stage and what had been the motivation for the conspiracy in the first place?
    He doesn't claim that there is any conspiracy ... just eminent scientists trying desperately to find objective proof for any purely materialistic mechanism to account for the emergence of life in all its amazing specified complexity and functional diversity ... that doesn't involve an inordinate intelligent input ... and finding nothing plausible to explain it without an intelligent input.
    A N Wilson isn't critical of this exercise ... it is a valid scientific endeavour to attempt to explain natural phenomena by purely physical and materialistic processes. Indeed that is what conventional science is all about.
    He is just surprised that, in the case of life, it hasn't succeeded ... when, before researching the facts ... he thought, like most people, that it had!!:)

    The 'penny is starting to drop' as more and more people (outside of Creation Science circles) start to question the evidence for pondkind to mankind evolution - and find it is eh ... em ... missing.:)


  • #6471
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    There is no consensus among Christians regarding a theology of God.

    Does this mean there is no God? Does this mean that despite there being no consensus, there isn't, in broad ways, agreement about what and who God is?

    Saying there is no consensus isn't a terminal statement about Theory of Evolution.
    Theology isn't a science ... so in many ways, it's a 'you pay your money and take your choice' kind of an activity ... where you choose starting assumptions (that may or may not be valid) ... and extrapolate from there. It's in the realm of philosophy ... rather than science.

    However, Evolutionists claim that pondkind to mankind evolution is scientifically verified ... so a lack of consensus on something that should be repeatably, physically and objectively verifiable is a very big deal indeed ... if evolutionists wish to maintain that pondkind to mankind evolution is a valid scientific theory.
    antiskeptic wrote: »
    Although not having read the book, I'm already starting to get a familiar smell. I used to frequent EvC forum (Evolution vs Creationist), having once held a similar view to JC. There I watched Creationist after Creationist getting shredded by Evolutionists - many of whom were working in (very) relevant scientific fields and who could cut, knife-through-butter-like through the kind of imprecise, mis-directing language which appears to be used in this book.
    The only result which occured, in my experience, in debates between Creation Scientists and Evolutionists is that the Evolutionists always lose.

    I don't believe that this is because of any differential in scientific or debating skills between the two groups ... I believe it to be due to the fact that the Creation Scientists are much closer to the truth of what actually happened when life was created ... than the evolutionists are.
    If you are trying to prove that something (which never happened) did happen, as I believe evolutionists are trying to do, then it isn't surprising if the evidence proffered is less than convincing.:)


    ,


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  • #6472
    J C
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,615 ✭✭✭✭J C


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    We believe because of the evidence, not in the face of no evidence. The evidence isn't empirical in the first instance - but for us that's not a concern.

    It's only a concern to those who suppose empirical evidence the only/prime evidence admissible. Supposing so is merely a philosophical position - it's not something which can be demonstrated to have any overwhelming merit.
    The evidence for the existience of God must be empirical, if the God of the Bible actually exists and did what He has said He did ... i.e. created life and the Universe within which it exists. Such an inordinate input of creative intelligent activity should have left its mark ... and should be objectively verifiable, as a result.
    Christianity isn't some kind of blind faith based on nothing but the received wisdom of a few prophets from deep history ... it is much more than that.
    Christianity makes the claim that it's God Directly Created everything, including living organisms.
    Christianity makes the claim that it's God is a personal God with the attributes of Human Beings, including personalty and intellect.
    These claims should be physically verifiable by examining what He has claimed to have made, if He exists ... and did what He said He did.

    This is so critical to the credibility of Christianity that the idea that God wasn't required to produce life in all of its observed diversity, has dealt a fatal blow to the faith of many Christians who think that this is true. They are left with a 'god' who has neither the right (nor the interest) in how Humans behave towards each other ... and Jesus Christ becomes little more than a good man who came to Save people from the sinful fruits a non-existent Fall.
    It is no co-incidence that the unprecedented decline in the Christian Faith, has occurred at the very time that the unfounded belief that life (including Human life) created itself, is in the ascendent.
    If it is actually true that life did create itself, then we logically owe our admiration (and devotion) to the mechanisms/physical forces that did this ... and not to some 'god', if it exits, that has done nothing ... except, perhaps started the whole thing off at a Big Bang ... and let it run itself thereafter.
    This admiration for the 'forces of nature' is expressing itself in different forms of Nature Worship ... ranging from New Age Tree Hugging to activist environmentalism.
    Under these conditions, the Christian God becomes little more than an impersonal 'god of forces' that logically cares little about what these 'forces' create.

    It's no wonder that some churches are emptying faster than the Titanic ... with young and old, in many cases, racing for the doors. Some may continue to 'go through the motions' of attending church for social support or other personal reasons ... but if they believe that life created itself, how can they rationally accept that God (if he exists at all) wants to Save them from anything? ... which is the primary reason for the existence of the Christian Church.

    The atheist slogan printed on some London Buses recently, that ""There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." is a very reasonable proposition ... if life actually did create itself without any Direct Divine input.


  • #6473
    Leroy42
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,098 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    J C wrote: »
    He seems to have set out to take an objective look at Charles Darwin, expecting to confirm what popular culture claims ... that Darwinian Evolution (or at least its modern synthesis) explains how the diversity of life we observe came to be.
    To his surprise, he found a theory in deep crisis with little evidential support ... and when he researched into Darwin himself ... he found a Victorian mythmaker instead of a man applying objective science to his ideas. For example on page 17
    "In his own lifetime, Darwin attracted little support among his scientific colleagues for his own distinctive take on evolution. His loyal 'Bulldog', Huxlex, however, was usually able to minimise the intellectual and scientific objections to Darwinism by one simple device. He made it seem as if Darwin's enemies objected to his theory only for reasons of religious bigotry. If the Darwinists had not managed to represent themselves as single-minded warriors for truth against obscurantists from the Dark Ages, the unsatisfactoriness of their science might have been made more clearer."
    ... and so it continues right up to the present day ... if they can't question Creation Science ... then the best they can do is caricature Creation Scientists as 'non-scientists' ... when every one of them are eminently qualified conventional scientists.

    Hold on. Is this book about Darwin the man or Darwin the theory. It would appear that it has taken a dislike for Darwin the man and used that to denounce the theory. I care little, at this remove, as to whether Darwin was a nice person or not. i would prefer if he was nice but if not he would simply join the millions that aren't. What this book seems to do is to then decide that his theory is therefore debunked.

    And what is the authors background. It seems he has written many books, mainly biographies ranging from Queen Victoria to Hitler. I see no semblance of any experience in the area of science or in particular evolution.

    I assume he has therefore brought in the evidence of those that are qualified to adjudge the validity, or otherwise, or the current 'evidence'. And explained why so many scientists have colluded to maintain the standing of this deeply flawed person. And why they have continued to extol the virtues of this theory when a layman can work out how shallow it is with minimal effort.

    And where do you get the idea that 'they' can't question creationism. (There is nothing called creation science, its made up to make you feel better about yourself). Even the courts in the USA have ruled that it carries no validity. It has no peer reviews. no evidence that can stand independent analysis etc.


    J C wrote: »
    He doesn't claim that there is any conspiracy ... just eminent scientists trying desperately to find objective proof for any purely materialistic mechanism to account for the emergence of life in all its amazing specified complexity and functional diversity ... that doesn't involve an inordinate intelligent input ... and finding nothing plausible to explain it without an intelligent input.
    A N Wilson isn't critical of this exercise ... it is a valid scientific endeavour to attempt to explain natural phenomena by purely physical and materialistic processes. Indeed that is what conventional science is all about.
    He is just surprised that, in the case of life, it hasn't succeeded ... when, before researching the facts ... he thought, like most people, that it had!!:)

    The 'penny is starting to drop' as more and more people (outside of Creation Science circles) start to question the evidence for pondkind to mankind evolution - and find it is eh ... em ... missing.:)

    I didn't say he claimed a conspiracy, that is you moving the goalposts. You stated that he stated he had assumed a consensus but quickly found that wasn't the case. I was asking you what is the actual real split then? How many scientists did he interview/question? What were their backgrounds? Why had they, until he asked them, simply accepted the consensus, in total opposite of all their training, and what had happened from them to suddenly break ranks?

    How many of them have put their names forward to join this crusade to rid the world of Darwinism.

    The conspiracy comes from you. I'm not going to bother going back over your posts to get the quotes, but will if I have to, but you have peddled this cast conspiracy in the science world throughout this thread. Now you seem to be suggesting that it is simply that they can't think or anything better but they will never admit that something intelligent did it because something.

    Starting to question? You think it is not being constantly questioned? You yourself, as does the author, state that Darwins contemporaries did not agree at the time. It is some miracle that a man so detested could get so many people to simply accept what he said simply because they were afraid of his assistant. And surely after his death they would have torn it to shreds, freed from his tyranny? But instead, the whole scientific community simply accepted it, right up until A N Wilson broke them down.


  • #6474
    Leroy42
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,098 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    J C wrote: »
    Theology isn't a science ... so in many ways, it's a 'you pay your money and take your choice' kind of an activity ... where you choose starting assumptions (that may or may not be valid) ... and extrapolate from there. It's in the realm of philosophy ... rather than science.

    Seriously? You think that God is happy with that. He has created the world, created a flood, sent his own son down to die in agony, simply so that you can make up whatever you want? And you have faith that this is an all powerful being.

    "You choose starting assumptions and extrapolation from there". That is exactly the problem. I actually think we are finally getting through to you.
    J C wrote: »
    However, Evolutionists claim that pondkind to mankind evolution is scientifically verified ... so a lack of consensus on something that should be repeatably, physically and objectively verifiable is a very big deal indeed ... if evolutionists wish to maintain that pondkind to mankind evolution is a valid scientific theory.

    What lack of consensus? What is the split? There are multiple strands of science all having separate but consistent evidence of evolution. It's not one piece of evidence that proves it, it is when it is all taken together there is simply no alternative.
    J C wrote: »
    The only result which occured, in my experience, in debates between Creation Scientists and Evolutionists is that the Evolutionists always lose.

    I refer you to your earlier quote
    where you choose starting assumptions (that may or may not be valid) ... and extrapolate from there.
    If you start from there of course you always win.
    J C wrote: »
    I don't believe that this is because of any differential in scientific or debating skills between the two groups ... I believe it to be due to the fact that the Creation Scientists are much closer to the truth of what actually happened when life was created ... than the evolutionists are.
    If you are trying to prove that something (which never happened) did happen, as I believe evolutionists are trying to do, then it isn't surprising if the evidence proffered is less than convincing.:)

    Of course there isn't any inherently different levels of skills between the two groups, the difference is in the positions. One group, scientists, are prepared to review their work and others, to question everything, to keep going until no other options are left. The other group, religious, believe that the story told to them by their parents is true and that only evidence that seems to support that needs to be used and all others can be dismissed. They don't need evidence as they have faith, and faith is be believe.


  • #6475
    Leroy42
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,098 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    J C wrote: »
    The evidence for the existience of God must be empirical, if the God of the Bible actually exists and did what He has said He did ... i.e. created life and the Universe within which it exists. Such an inordinate input of creative intelligent activity should have left its mark ... and should be objectively verifiable, as a result.
    Christianity isn't some kind of blind faith based on nothing but the received wisdom of a few prophets from deep history ... it is much more than that.
    Christianity makes the claim that it's God Directly Created everything, including living organisms.
    Christianity makes the claim that it's God is a personal God with the attributes of Human Beings, including personalty and intellect.
    These claims should be physically verifiable by examining what He has claimed to have made, if He exists ... and did what He said He did.

    This is so critical to the credibility of Christianity that the idea that God wasn't required to produce life in all of its observed diversity, has dealt a fatal blow to the faith of many Christians who think that this is true. They are left with a 'god' who has neither the right (nor the interest) in how Humans behave towards each other ... and Jesus Christ becomes little more than a good man who came to Save people from the sinful fruits a non-existent Fall.
    It is no co-incidence that the unprecedented decline in the Christian Faith, has occurred at the very time that the unfounded belief that life (including Human life) created itself, is in the ascendent.
    If it is actually true that life did create itself, then we logically owe our admiration (and devotion) to the mechanisms/physical forces that did this ... and not to some 'god', if it exits, that has done nothing ... except, perhaps started the whole thing off at a Big Bang ... and let it run itself thereafter.
    This admiration for the 'forces of nature' is expressing itself in different forms of Nature Worship ... ranging from New Age Tree Hugging to activist environmentalism.
    Under these conditions, the Christian God becomes little more than an impersonal 'god of forces' that logically cares little about what these 'forces' create.

    It's no wonder that some churches are emptying faster than the Titanic ... with young and old, in many cases, racing for the doors. Some may continue to 'go through the motions' of attending church for social support or other personal reasons ... but if they believe that life created itself, how can they rationally accept that God (if he exists at all) wants to Save them from anything? ... which is the primary reason for the existence of the Christian Church.

    The atheist slogan printed on some London Buses recently, that ""There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." is a very reasonable proposition ... if life actually did create itself without any Direct Divine input.

    Now you've got it. Well done and welcome


  • #6476
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    J C wrote: »
    The evidence for the existience of God must be empirical, if the God of the Bible actually exists and did what He has said He did ... i.e. created life and the Universe within which it exists.


    The first problem is deciding how we are to interpret what God said he did. You can go down the road of literalism but needn't
    Such an inordinate input of creative intelligent activity should have left its mark ... and should be objectively verifiable, as a result.

    You'd need an objective way to discern creative intelligent activity from the alternatives. Supposing science (as opposed to the religion of the same name) the way to go, means you're into the realm of competing theories - the best fit leading the race.

    From what I can see, Creationist science is as is often said of it, pseudo.



    Christianity isn't some kind of blind faith based on nothing but the received wisdom of a few prophets from deep history ... it is much more than that.

    Christianity is about faith, where faith is the evidence of things not seen. In other words, non-empirical.

    Sure, I'd expect the physical evidence to reflect the non-physical (such as the state of the world being the result of sin). But the clear cut evidence for God isn't physical. And isn't blind.


    Christianity makes the claim that it's God Directly Created everything, including living organisms.

    ..some of Christianity would be a more accurate way of putting it.


    This is so critical to the credibility of Christianity that the idea that God wasn't required to produce life in all of its observed diversity, has dealt a fatal blow to the faith of many Christians who think that this is true.

    I believe that God is responsible for life in all it's diversity. I'm just not in agreement with how Goddidit. To be honest, I don't have a particular view, given that I'm not particularly interested in solving that conumdrum.

    I do observe that science works as science works (even if clunkily, even if agenda driven and prone to corruption (think: the utterly corrupt funding of science by big pharma)). And that the evidence for evolution stacks up to a far better degree than Creationist attempts at science.

    There is no need to exclude God's involvement, to my mind. A best fit theory has no absolute say in what actually is the case. It's just the best fit so far.

    A Christian whose faith is shipwrecked by Godless evolution is shipwrecked because he placed his faith in a certain view of God. One that needn't be correct.






    It is no co-incidence that the unprecedented decline in the Christian Faith, has occurred at the very time that the unfounded belief that life (including Human life) created itself, is in the ascendent.

    I'm glad that cultural Christianity is dying. It was a travesty.

    If it is actually true that life did create itself, then we logically owe our admiration (and devotion) to the mechanisms/physical forces that did this ... and not to some 'god', if it exits, that has done nothing ... except, perhaps started the whole thing off at a Big Bang ... and let it run itself thereafter.

    The way I see it, people need to be offered a choice for God. Which means "forces" pulling them in the direction of God and "forces" pulling them away from the direction of God. The conscience vs. the sinful nature, for instance.

    The individual has to choose.

    People who are going to chose against God need, in order for it to be choice, a means to justify their decision. I see Godless evolution as serving that need - the need for no God.

    This admiration for the 'forces of nature' is expressing itself in different forms of Nature Worship ... ranging from New Age Tree Hugging to activist environmentalism.
    Under these conditions, the Christian God becomes little more than an impersonal 'god of forces' that logically cares little about what these 'forces' create.

    Which is fine, given my point above. Where people park themselves when plumping against God isn't the issue, the issue is their parking themselves there and whether that is their final choice or not. I don't see the attempt at "proving" God as relevant. If you prove him (by coming up with an iron clad scientific theory) then where the place of faith?


    It's no wonder that some churches are emptying faster than the Titanic ... with young and old, in many cases, racing for the doors. Some may continue to 'go through the motions' of attending church for social support or other personal reasons ... but if they believe that life created itself, how can they rationally accept that God (if he exists at all) wants to Save them from anything? ... which is the primary reason for the existence of the Christian Church.

    As I say, if they don't believe by faith, then theirs isn't belief of worth. If they do believe by faith, then they won't believe in a Godless mechanism. They might not, and need not believe in Creationism (in the way proposed by Creationists), but that isn't a problem - given it's not necessarily how Goddidit.
    The atheist slogan printed on some London Buses recently, that ""There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." is a very reasonable proposition ... if life actually did create itself without any Direct Divine input.

    If...

    I don't think people are going to be lost because of Richard Dawkin's and his ilk. Anymore than people will be saved or not depending on whether I share the gospel or not. I think we partnership with God and are used as tools in his activity to save. But salvation isn't ultimately a matter of whether the idea of Godless evolution holds sway for a while or not.

    So I wouldn't be getting my knickers in a twist about it.


  • #6477
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    J C wrote: »
    However, Evolutionists claim that pondkind to mankind evolution is scientifically verified

    Having spent a good number of years reading what evolutionists have to say (many of whom were active in relevant fields and who typically shredded the plausible, but elemental approaches of the Creationists) I have yet to see them claim what you say.

    They would often fall into the error of supposing well-supported theory = proof, I'd grant them that, given so much of what science has investigated and established is accepted as as-good-as-proven.

    What they say is that the theory is very well supported. Well supported enough to begin to extrapolate out and make predictions, which then transpire to occur. Well supported enough to make it worthwhile to continue delving in that direction to plug gaps and deal with observations which don't fit.

    And the theory is well supported over a number of fields. This isn't to say that it's what happened, but compared to what Creationists posit, the problems and gaps are, in comparison, miniscule.

    ... so a lack of consensus on something that should be repeatably, physically and objectively verifiable is a very big deal indeed ... if evolutionists wish to maintain that pondkind to mankind evolution is a valid scientific theory.

    I would want to know a bit more about this "lack of consensus" As far as I am aware (although it's a few years since I was engaged in the subject) the body science is pretty much behind ToE. This doesn't mean unanimity, but that's a different matter to their not being consensus.


    I don't believe that this is because of any differential in scientific or debating skills between the two groups ... I believe it to be due to the fact that the Creation Scientists are much closer to the truth of what actually happened when life was created ... than the evolutionists are.

    When I was first a Christian, I swallowed the Creationist story, simply because that was the first one I was told. It was through investigating (and through watching the debate) that I concluded tripe. The Creationist "scientists" weren't operating scientifically, they were convinced of their position and were shaping observations to suit their preconceived notions. The claims of conspiracy, to explain why Creation Science only appeared in pop-up peer review "journals". The mis-representation of what the evolutionists (the scientists that is, not the Science-tists)were actually saying (similar to what Dawkins does)...

    I literally didn't encounter a Creationist, scientist or otherwise, who could hold their own against the heavyweights on the Evolutionist side.

    It didn't produce shipwreck of my faith. I simply did what I always do in the face of finding myself running out of road in whatever the area - I look to alter my theology to fit the solid observations I make.

    Just as the good scientific theory does.


  • #6478
    Safehands
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,348 ✭✭✭Safehands


    J C wrote: »
    The evidence for the existience of God must be empirical, if the God of the Bible actually exists and did what He has said He did ... i.e. created life and the Universe within which it exists. Such an inordinate input of creative intelligent activity should have left its mark ... and should be objectively verifiable, as a result.
    Christianity isn't some kind of blind faith based on nothing but the received wisdom of a few prophets from deep history ... it is much more than that.
    Christianity makes the claim that it's God Directly Created everything, including living organisms.
    Christianity makes the claim that it's God is a personal God with the attributes of Human Beings, including personalty and intellect.
    These claims should be physically verifiable by examining what He has claimed to have made, if He exists ... and did what He said He did.

    This is so critical to the credibility of Christianity that the idea that God wasn't required to produce life in all of its observed diversity, has dealt a fatal blow to the faith of many Christians who think that this is true. They are left with a 'god' who has neither the right (nor the interest) in how Humans behave towards each other ... and Jesus Christ becomes little more than a good man who came to Save people from the sinful fruits a non-existent Fall.
    It is no co-incidence that the unprecedented decline in the Christian Faith, has occurred at the very time that the unfounded belief that life (including Human life) created itself, is in the ascendent.
    If it is actually true that life did create itself, then we logically owe our admiration (and devotion) to the mechanisms/physical forces that did this ... and not to some 'god', if it exits, that has done nothing ... except, perhaps started the whole thing off at a Big Bang ... and let it run itself thereafter.
    This admiration for the 'forces of nature' is expressing itself in different forms of Nature Worship ... ranging from New Age Tree Hugging to activist environmentalism.
    Under these conditions, the Christian God becomes little more than an impersonal 'god of forces' that logically cares little about what these 'forces' create.

    It's no wonder that some churches are emptying faster than the Titanic ... with young and old, in many cases, racing for the doors. Some may continue to 'go through the motions' of attending church for social support or other personal reasons ... but if they believe that life created itself, how can they rationally accept that God (if he exists at all) wants to Save them from anything? ... which is the primary reason for the existence of the Christian Church.

    The atheist slogan printed on some London Buses recently, that ""There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." is a very reasonable proposition ... if life actually did create itself without any Direct Divine input.
    I really like this post JC. I also like the answers you have received from the other posters. Very thought provoking.

    The problem for most Christians is that there is no emperical evidence for God. That does not absolutely mean God does not exist.
    There is emperical evidence for the Universe being billions of years in existence, which rules out the creationists theory of a universe whose age can be measured in thousands of years. So perhaps God created the whole thing billions of years ago. We just don't have enough evidence to be definitive about it.
    I would love to hear a scientist come out and tell us that actually, there is some rock solid evidence that the creation story is true. Here is the proof....

    Does your book offer any evidence for what happened, if evolution is not factual?


  • #6479
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Safehands wrote: »
    The problem for most Christians is that there is no emperical evidence for God.

    It's not that there's no empirical evidence for God. The question is: what does the best, most coherent and globally consistent assembly of all the information lead you to conclude?

    So, you can read the geological information in a way that supposes a worldwide flood over a few years. Or you can read it in a way that supposes laid down over many, many years.

    The question is whether, on further delving, the former or latter holds up best. I find the latter does, hands down. Either that, or God made the earth and the universe around it look like it was shaped over millions of years.

    -

    You can, on the other hand, take the question of why the world is the way it is: strife, corruption, selfishness spans the globe, irrespective of religion, culture, politics, era. Then you have man's capacity for great generosity, courage, selflessness running alongside that.

    Does the explanation given in the Bible hold up better than the explanation given by those for whom ToE is utilized to undergird a godless worldview? Well, I find it does, by far and away so. On this question, the godless evolution mechanism is extrapolated and presumed upon in order to arrive at the necessary godless explanation.

    They force the answer out of the theory because it's necessary for them to do so. Just at the Creationists force the physical evidence to fit their preferred worldview.


  • #6480
    Safehands
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,348 ✭✭✭Safehands


    antiskeptic wrote: »
    It's not that there's no empirical evidence for God. The question is: what does the best, most coherent and globally consistent assembly of all the information lead you to conclude?
    It leads me to conclude that there is no empirical evidence for God.


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  • #6481
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Safehands wrote: »
    It leads me to conclude that there is no empirical evidence for God.

    Then you are stuck with the godless explanation for why mankind operates the way he operates. If you find that satisfactory for you then that's fine.

    Ultimately (for all the crusading each side supposes to wage on behalf of others) you will be the prime 'benefactor' of your conclusions.


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