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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

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Comments

  • #542
    gkell3
    Closed Accounts Posts: 145 ✭✭gkell3


    PDN wrote: »
    I think it's the one where Christians get on with their lives and concentrate on stuff like loving one another and living out their faith rather than getting worked up about how many times the earth spins in a year.

    Irrelevance is a condition that is central to the apocalypse -

    "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.Because you say, 'I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;' and don't know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see" Revelation

    You are hardly aware of Church history and calendar reform due to the over-compensation of 11 minutes each year hence the addition of not only the extra day of Feb 29th as the 1461 st rotation of the Earth enclosing 4 orbital periods but also the additional correction they need so you and everyone else here celebrates Christmas 4 days after the winter Solstice.When a society can't even manage to match one 24 hour day with one rotation it no longer deserves the designation of a civilization however great Western civilization once was.

    The warning of Revelation is directed at those who forget or do not know that the life Christ offers his followers is not just about ticking boxes but actually getting out there and doing whatever possible from the smallest kindness to the great artistic and scientific endeavors to maintain the spirit of Christ.


  • #543
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    gkell3 wrote: »
    Irrelevance is a condition that is central to the apocalypse -

    "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.Because you say, 'I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;' and don't know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see" Revelation

    You are hardly aware of Church history and calendar reform due to the over-compensation of 11 minutes each year hence the addition of not only the extra day of Feb 29th as the 1461 st rotation of the Earth enclosing 4 orbital periods but also the additional correction they need so you and everyone else here celebrates Christmas 4 days after the winter Solstice.When a society can't even manage to match one 24 hour day with one rotation it no longer deserves the designation of a civilization however great Western civilization once was.

    The warning of Revelation is directed at those who forget or do not know that the life Christ offers his followers is not just about ticking boxes but actually getting out there and doing whatever possible from the smallest kindness to the great artistic and scientific endeavors to maintain the spirit of Christ.

    Given that Jesus almost certainly wasn't born in December anyway, I doubt if it matters much when we celebrate Christmas. I'd be happy to celebrate it anytime - but I'd actually prefer to have it in the Summer so we could barbeque the left over turkey in the back garden.


  • #544
    Wh1stler
    Closed Accounts Posts: 276 ✭✭Wh1stler


    doctoremma wrote: »
    So this is where it starts to sound wrong to me (which, of course, has no bearing on whether it actually IS wrong!). To us on earth, the moon doesn't appear to rotate. To an observer outside the earth-moon system, the moon rotates in absolute space, no? If the moon didn't rotate in absolute space, it would move around the earth in only a translational fashion and therefore, we would see different surfaces of the moon?

    The reasoning is subtle; I see a difference between the moon rotating about its own axis and the moon 'appearing' to rotate because it has been 'grabbed' at one point by the earth's gravity and is being swung around the earth much like a brick on the end of a length of string.

    The brick (or moon) appears to rotate but if it were, it would 'wind' up the string as if it was a bobbin. And the brick would get closer to the axis of rotation (the earth).

    But the moon is receding from the earth. This is happening because a 'breaking' force is being applied to the left hand side of the moon, by earth's gravity, causing the left (near-side) of the moon to move slightly slower than the right (far-side) of the moon. The moon is 'pulling' to the left in the same way that a car 'pulls' to the left when the right-hand brake gets spongy.

    But the moon, like the car is not rotating; it is simply following a modified path. It would be the same if the car were travelling along a road with a steep camber; keeping the steering wheel straight causes the car to 'veer', not 'spin' to the side.

    The moon is 'veering' to the left in my view and not spinning.

    The gravity gradient is equivalent to camber; the moon is travelling in a straight line but earth's gravity interferes with the direction of that line.

    The moon does not spin on its axis, it is twisted by earth's gravity. The moon contributes nothing to the energy that causes it to appear to rotate.

    I think I make a reasoned argument here and one worthy of consideration; the physics that applies to photons should apply to the moon.

    In my view.


  • #545
    Wh1stler
    Closed Accounts Posts: 276 ✭✭Wh1stler


    gkell3 wrote: »
    For whatever reason it is not sinking in and in common sense language you are missing the mark and not getting the point,the older Christian idea of what 'sin' is.

    Many Christians share with you the inability to comprehend that today Saturday 14th of April is both a 24 hour day and a rotation of our planet and that correspondence between one day and one rotation never,ever diverges as one 24 hour day as one rotation progresses to the next

    The struggle is not science vs Christianity or reason vs faith,it is a struggle against irrelevance that is the central issue.

    You do realise that the days will get longer in the future, don't you?


  • #546
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    Wh1stler wrote: »
    You must have a great deal of sympathy for the Afghan Taliban then.
    They oppress women, rather than treating them with honour: 1 Peter 3:7 Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

    Those who treat women as totally like men (except physically), are also oppressing them. They are putting them in roles they were not called to bear and demanding they function like men. Women deserve gentler emotional handling than men, for example. Consideration above that deserved by a man. He should get over it and get on with it.

    *********************************************************************
    Genesis 2:20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

    21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

    23 And Adam said:

    “This is now bone of my bones
    And flesh of my flesh;
    She shall be called Woman,
    Because she was taken out of Man.”
    24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

    25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.


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  • #547
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,254 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    wolfsbane wrote: »

    Those who treat women as totally like men (except physically), are also oppressing them. They are putting them in roles they were not called to bear and demanding they function like men. Women deserve gentler emotional handling than men, for example. Consideration above that deserved by a man. He should get over it and get on with it.

    Wow, thats either the most gentlemanly thing posted here or the most chauvinistic, I'm not sure which.


  • #548
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    Cossax wrote: »
    I once read a similar argument about YEC and how the hell they could explain known distances to other galaxies etc. given creation is only 6000 years old. I copied and pasted it but didn't get the book the forum poster was referencing but I assume it was "Telling Lies for God: Reason vs. Creationism" by Plimer.
    Here is a fairly recent creationist item on the subject, indicating several views:
    Does Distant Starlight Prove the Universe Is Old?
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-starlight-prove


    *********************************************************************
    Genesis 1:16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.


  • #549
    gkell3
    Closed Accounts Posts: 145 ✭✭gkell3


    PDN wrote: »
    Given that Jesus almost certainly wasn't born in December anyway, I doubt if it matters much when we celebrate Christmas. I'd be happy to celebrate it anytime - but I'd actually prefer to have it in the Summer so we could barbeque the left over turkey in the back garden.

    The great Christians always understood that the greatest enemy of Christ and Christianity was irrelevance and not the unbeliever and their creed,diminish creation as the present generation is intent on doing and nothing remains.It is the language of common sense and responsibility that is needed now,where God does not act then the devil does and no script could budget for the collapse of Western sciences in areas where interpretation is required and especially astronomy.

    I have understood what went wrong in the late 17th century arising from the terrible events which preceded it through the actions of individuals and the Church at that time and it has nothing to do with a desperate need to have the Earth at the center of the Universe.The great Copernicus did not fear Church censure,he feared the very thing that happened to his work in falling into the hands of those who couldn't handle the arguments as a mirror for Johannine Christianity which left the Book Of Revelation to protect the words of Jesus -

    "..they wanted the very beautiful thoughts attained by great men of deep devotion not to be ridiculed by those who are reluctant to exert themselves vigorously in any literary pursuit unless it is lucrative; or if they are stimulated to the nonacquisitive study of philosophy by the exhortation and example of others, yet because of their dullness of mind they play the same part among philosophers as drones among bees. When I weighed these considerations, the scorn which I had reason to fear on account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken." Copernicus in a letter to Pope Paul III

    How many opinionated drones there are today unfortunately.

    Even if I have a deep affection for the Christian community as I go to Church tomorrow,it is an aging population which just cannot handle the aggressive scam of empirical science as it goes about its business,presently it is not the Church that is failing but the artificial novelties of empiricism that are succeeding in capturing the attention of those who know no better and have no experience of genuine astronomy.It was not always like this,the Church valued its astronomical heritage even now as it has completely abandoned it to the point where its followers suffer the lost of the cause of sunrise and sunset in the 1461 times these events happen in 1461 days.


  • #550
    doctoremma
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,870 ✭✭✭doctoremma


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Those who treat women as totally like men (except physically), are also oppressing them. They are putting them in roles they were not called to bear and demanding they function like men. Women deserve gentler emotional handling than men, for example. Consideration above that deserved by a man. He should get over it and get on with it.
    Gentlemanly, chauvinistic - the moderate supporting the extremist...

    This is mostly codswallop. Physically, on average, of course there's a difference between men and women. I've seen very little evidence of fundamental differences in other aspects that can't be explained by social conditioning.

    Do you think woman are more emotionally in touch than men because of estrogen or because they've learned that role?


  • #551
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    oldrnwisr said:
    That's great. So we can settle this now then.

    We have observed interfamilial hybrids.

    300px-Guinea-hybrids.jpg

    The bird on the left in the photo above is a hybrid of the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus, family Phasianinae) and a guineafowl (Numida meleagris, family Numididae).
    I stand corrected then on Family being the boundary of 'kind'. I assumed that was where interbreeding did not extent to. Interbreeding is the Biblical mark of 'kind'.
    However, even such a hybrid isn't necessary to show that creationism is full of crap.

    Firstly, membership of a kind depends on the ability to interbreed.
    Agreed.
    That presents a problem whenever lists of kinds are produced by creationists. Take the Felidae kind or baramin for example. There are 42 members of the Felidae baramin. Considering the possibility of different outcomes with male-female crosses of different species, the total number of possible pairings is 1722. There have only ever been 67 confirmed pairings within this group however, or 3% so the creationist postulate looks a little shaky.
    Does inability to breed prove they are not the same kind? That's different from the ability to breed being proof of their kindship.
    Secondly, the intention of the creationists who first began to study kinds was to create a new picture of evolution, replacing the tree of life with the creationist orchard below.

    EE.tree2_0.jpg
    Indeed.
    This approach is equally baseless because the only thing necessary to undermine this idea is to show where any two kinds share a common ancestor, which has been found repeatedly, particularly humans and other apes, feliformes and caniformes and even whales and hippos.
    Proof that humans have a common ancestor with 'other' apes? It's just another story.
    Thirdly, the creationists who have made it their business to specialise in this kind of snake-oil selling have already by their own publications shown themselves to be dishonest and unscientific.

    From the definitive work "Understanding the Pattern of Life":

    "We creationists rest instead on the philosophical and biblical foundation...Since we believe that something like a diverse unit of biological creation must exist, detecting baramins becomes a matter of adjusting our context until the baraminic limits emerge"

    "Clearly when the Bible claims discontinuity, any other evidence is unnecessary. As a result, the quality of the Australopithecine or whale series is overruled by the biblical claims of discontinuity between humans and apes and whales and land creatures."
    You are confusing our theological beliefs with our scientific claims. They are not the same. We do not advance our beliefs as scientific proof. The scientific argument is quite separate - no dishonesty is involved. You just need to pay closer attention.
    Finally, given that this is the Christian forum I have to say wolfsbane that you and all the other creationists are doing a great disservice to your religion. I think that to suggest that the word kind as originally used in the hebrew bible has any kind of specific meaning in relation to modern biology is to utterly denigrate the message of the original story.
    The word 'kind' was used to describe the original created organisms. Today's scientific classifications are examined in its light, not the other way around. The specific meaning - where exactly on the classification list 'kind' falls - is for science to discover.
    If I were a Christian I would be terribly offended that someone who also proclaims to be a Christian would twist the Bible in such a way in order to peddle some pseudoscientific bullcrap.
    The offence is denying Genesis teaches a mature creation. It takes a lot of twisting to make it say anything else. You might not believe the assertions Genesis makes, but you ought not to deny it makes them.


    *******************************************************************
    Genesis 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.


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  • #552
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    doctoremma wrote: »
    Gentlemanly, chauvinistic - the moderate supporting the extremist...

    This is mostly codswallop. Physically, on average, of course there's a difference between men and women. I've seen very little evidence of fundamental differences in other aspects that can't be explained by social conditioning.

    Do you think woman are more emotionally in touch than men because of estrogen or because they've learned that role?
    I think they are more emotionally vulnerable than men. Chemistry is certainly part of the reason - but then that's how God constructed us. Our physical form is chemical, our spirit not - but both co-exist, and one is expressed by the other.

    Atheists of course will say its all only chemistry. Many people live as if that were so.

    *******************************************************************
    Luke 3:23 Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli...
    38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.


  • #553
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,254 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    wolfsbane
    You might not believe the assertions Genesis makes, but you ought not to deny it makes them.
    This is the problem right as you present it. Creationists claim that genesis teaches a mature creation, when it makes no such claim nor dose anyone else except creationists. And atheists who seek to prove the bible wrong of course but I wouldn't lump you in with them even when you hold similar start points and achieve the same end.


  • #554
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    doctoremma wrote: »
    You have said that the ability to interbreed is indicative of 'kind', indeed the 'only positive test'. This matches how taxonomists determine a 'species'. So domestic dogs are both the same species and the same 'kind'.

    Your grouping of 'kind' is wider though, you call it more like a 'family', meaning a 'family of similar animals'? You acknowledge that genetics helps determine the relatedness of different animals. This matches how taxonomists and geneticists determine the relatedness of different animals. Your 'kind' is now defined at the level of 'genus' (dogs and wolves) or even 'family' (dogs, wolves and foxes).

    The same processes you accept as valid to map dogs and wolves into the same kind are used to map dogs, wolves and foxes into the same family - the clear patterns of genetic relatedness.

    Unless you don't think dogs and wolves are the same kind?

    So, how far back does the 'kind' to which dogs belong extend?

    Only dogs?
    Are dogs and wolves the same kind?
    Are dogs, wolves and foxes the same kind?
    Are dogs, wolves, foxes, cats and bears the same kind?
    Anything that can interbreed is a kind. Some things that cannot interbreed may be a kind - the variation may have been incompatible with fertility. Separate kinds also cannot interbreed - but that does not mean infertility is confined to separate kinds.

    **********************************************************************
    Genesis 1:21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

    24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.


  • #555
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    This is the problem right as you present it. Creationists claim that genesis teaches a mature creation, when it makes no such claim nor dose anyone else except creationists. And atheists who seek to prove the bible wrong of course but I wouldn't lump you in with them even when you hold similar start points and achieve the same end.
    Care to show how, say, the creation of birds on the fifth day can be achieved without them being created mature? Stick to what the text actually says, not what you want it to say.

    *********************************************************************
    Genesis 1:21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

    24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.


  • #556
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,254 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Care to show how, say, the creation of birds on the fifth day can be achieved without them being created mature? Stick to what the text actually says, not what you want it to say.

    It cant, thats the point, it never realy happened that way and no one says it did, it's a story, their are lots of them and they all tell of a creation and all use the creation setting to tell a cultural truth, the kernel in the nut as it were. It's the truth that matters not the wrapping it comes in.
    The Talmud has the words "In a beginning" not in the beginning, theirs a clue their for you.
    Some Jewish scollars say it means "with the Torah" in other words no one takes it literally or ever did and it was never meant to be taken literally.


  • #557
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    tommy2bad said:
    It cant, thats the point, it never realy happened that way and no one says it did,
    Jesus said it did. Paul said it did. Were they mistaken, mere men of their time?
    it's a story, their are lots of them and they all tell of a creation and all use the creation setting to tell a cultural truth, the kernel in the nut as it were. It's the truth that matters not the wrapping it comes in.
    What's the cultural truth of the Genesis creation account? How is it true if it is based on a fiction?

    Let's apply that to the resurrection of Christ. Is the account of that a cultural truth, not meant to be understood literally?
    The Talmud has the words "In a beginning" not in the beginning, theirs a clue their for you.
    Some Jewish scollars say it means "with the Torah" in other words no one takes it literally or ever did and it was never meant to be taken literally.
    So the speculations of some Jewish scholars = no one takes it literally or ever did? Have you checked how others thought? For example:
    The vast majority of classical Rabbis hold that God created the world close to 6,000 years ago, and created Adam and Eve from clay. This view is based on a chronology developed in a midrash, Seder Olam, which was based on a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. It is attributed to the Tanna Yose ben Halafta, and covers history from the creation of the universe to the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Although it is known that a literal approach is not always needed when interpreting the Torah, there is a split over which parts are literal.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_evolution

    And of course the Christian Church has held until fairly recently to the basis creation week c.6000 years ago.

    You've been listening to too many liberal fools, old wives' tales and Jewish fables.

    ******************************************************************
    Titus 1:13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. 15 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.


  • #558
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,254 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    tommy2bad said:

    Jesus said it did. Paul said it did. Were they mistaken, mere men of their time?

    The used it as it was understood
    What's the cultural truth of the Genesis creation account? How is it true if it is based on a fiction?
    God created the world.
    Let's apply that to the resurrection of Christ. Is the account of that a cultural truth, not meant to be understood literally?
    Different genre

    So the speculations of some Jewish scholars = no one takes it literally or ever did? Have you checked how others thought? For example:
    The vast majority of classical Rabbis hold that God created the world close to 6,000 years ago, and created Adam and Eve from clay. This view is based on a chronology developed in a midrash, Seder Olam, which was based on a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. It is attributed to the Tanna Yose ben Halafta, and covers history from the creation of the universe to the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Although it is known that a literal approach is not always needed when interpreting the Torah, there is a split over which parts are literal.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_evolution
    Except for thees from medieval times
    In his commentary on the Torah, Rabbi Bahya ben Asher (11th century, Spain) concludes that there were many time systems occurring in the universe long before the spans of history that man is familiar with. Based on the Kabbalah he calculates that the Earth is billions of years old.
    A literal interpretation of the biblical Creation story among classic rabbinic commentators is uncommon. Thus Bible commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra (11th Century) wrote,

    If there appears something in the Torah which contradicts reason…then here one should seek for the solution in a figurative interpretation…the narrative of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for instance, can only be understood in a figurative sense.
    And of course the Christian Church has held until fairly recently to the basis creation week c.6000 years ago.
    Jesus wasn't a Christian.
    You've been listening to too many liberal fools, old wives' tales and Jewish fables.

    Well we will see, and when we do, I'll say "I told you so, now lets see what the food is like in this place"
    (Sorry bout the messed up quote, this stuff is hard when you're drunkish)


  • #559
    Wh1stler
    Closed Accounts Posts: 276 ✭✭Wh1stler


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    wolfsbane wrote: »
    tommy2bad said:

    Jesus said it did. Paul said it did. Were they mistaken, mere men of their time?

    The used it as it was understood
    What's the cultural truth of the Genesis creation account? How is it true if it is based on a fiction?
    God created the world.
    Let's apply that to the resurrection of Christ. Is the account of that a cultural truth, not meant to be understood literally?
    Different genre

    So the speculations of some Jewish scholars = no one takes it literally or ever did? Have you checked how others thought? For example:
    The vast majority of classical Rabbis hold that God created the world close to 6,000 years ago, and created Adam and Eve from clay. This view is based on a chronology developed in a midrash, Seder Olam, which was based on a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. It is attributed to the Tanna Yose ben Halafta, and covers history from the creation of the universe to the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Although it is known that a literal approach is not always needed when interpreting the Torah, there is a split over which parts are literal.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_evolution
    Except for thees from medieval times
    In his commentary on the Torah, Rabbi Bahya ben Asher (11th century, Spain) concludes that there were many time systems occurring in the universe long before the spans of history that man is familiar with. Based on the Kabbalah he calculates that the Earth is billions of years old.
    A literal interpretation of the biblical Creation story among classic rabbinic commentators is uncommon. Thus Bible commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra (11th Century) wrote,

    If there appears something in the Torah which contradicts reason…then here one should seek for the solution in a figurative interpretation…the narrative of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for instance, can only be understood in a figurative sense.
    And of course the Christian Church has held until fairly recently to the basis creation week c.6000 years ago.
    Jesus wasn't a Christian.
    You've been listening to too many liberal fools, old wives' tales and Jewish fables.

    Well we will see, and when we do, I'll say "I told you so, now lets see what the food is like in this place"
    (Sorry bout the messed up quote, this stuff is hard when you're drunkish)

    You're flogging a dead horse dude.

    If you were to somehow substitute a few pages from a Harry Potter story into Wolfsbane's bible without him realising it then he would still claim that every word in his bible was the infallible truth.

    He is not even trying to discern truth from fiction; fact from allegory; if it is in the Bible then it must be truth.

    This is what we must fight against or we could end up burning people at the stake again.

    Even Christians here have a problem with his interpretation of the Bible.


  • #560
    Scientia Perceptum
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4 ✭Scientia Perceptum


    Morbert wrote: »
    I have specifically tendered refutations of creationist literature in this thread. For example, here is a paper demonstrating increase in biological information through natural selection of random mutations.

    http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/28/14/2794

    You are claiming that this has been refuted by creationist literature. Where?

    I am sorry it I am butting in, but having read this post I thought you may be interested to read the rebuttal of this article.
    http://www.trueorigin.org/schneider.asp
    I would be interested to hear your opinion on it.


  • #561
    gkell3
    Closed Accounts Posts: 145 ✭✭gkell3


    Scientia Perceptum wrote: »
    I am sorry it I am butting in, but having read this post I thought you may be interested to read the rebuttal of this article.
    http://www.trueorigin.org/schneider.asp
    I would be interested to hear your opinion on it.

    The first sentence is junk -

    "Living organisms undergo non-random physical and chemical processes with apparent purpose, behavior not typical of inanimate matter."

    Simply not true,quasicrystal growth is balanced between organized and random so there is no reason to take that line of reasoning -

    http://www.scienceu.com/geometry/articles/tiling/penrose.html

    While I don't really distinguish between the irrelevance of empiricists and creationists in natural sciences where interpretation is required,at least both sides have an interest in creation as opposed to the dreary moralizing dummies who think they are Christians because the tick all the right boxes in their own estimation.


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  • #562
    Scientia Perceptum
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4 ✭Scientia Perceptum


    gkell3 wrote: »
    The first sentence is junk -

    "Living organisms undergo non-random physical and chemical processes with apparent purpose, behavior not typical of inanimate matter."

    Hi gkell3,
    I am not exactly sure why you think that this sentence is "junk"
    Are you saying that you believe that 'living organisms undergo random physical and chemical processes without apparent purpose?


    That said, this sentence is not the point of the article that I linked to.

    The article by Thomas Schneider claimed to show that biological information could be added using a computer simulation. The article that I linked to demonstrated that this 'simulation' does not reflect what actually happens in living organisms.


    Perhaps the sentence that you have highlighted is important to you, and I would be interested to know if you have any reason to believe that 'living organisms undergo random physical and chemical processes without apparent purpose' if this is what you do believe.


    I would say that the conclusions of the refutation of Schneider's article
    are more important that the sentence you have chosen to highlight.

    The conclusion being that:

    The simulation described was rigged to converge by using a large number of assumptions which are biologically unrealistic. Many cellular constraints were not included in the simulation, such as: the need for binding sites to be placed correctly with respect to pre-existing genetic elements which are to be regulated; the need for multiple new enzymes for recognizers to be able to work; the need to provide recognizers within an acceptable concentration range. Unrealistic parameter settings were used, including: the rate of mutation; the proportion of available useful mutations; the flawless effectiveness of natural selection.

    Finally, the model is biologically fatally flawed in many ways: organisms with very small genomes which inherit superfluous DNA would be rapidly out-populated by those without it; the organisms are assumed to face only one survival goal; multiple and often inconsistent use of binding locations and recognizers was overlooked; recognizers are assumed to automatically be in the correct cellular compartment (organelle); and all details which could allow the simulation to fail, such as including randomizing mutations elsewhere in the genome, or error catastrophe, were excluded



    This being said, I think that it is inaccurate to claim that there is a viable mechanism to produce the vast amount of prescriptive information in living organisms by purely natural means.


  • #563
    gkell3
    Closed Accounts Posts: 145 ✭✭gkell3


    Scientia Perceptum wrote: »
    Hi gkell3,
    I am not exactly sure why you think that this sentence is "junk"

    Fine,here is the full paragraph -

    "Living organisms undergo non-random physical and chemical processes with apparent purpose, behavior not typical of inanimate matter. The growth of a seed, repair of a wound, digestion, replication of cells and so on, are performed reproducibly, with machine-like accuracy, and are necessary for survival. The scientist and layman recognizes at least intuitively the existence of ‘information’ as driving chemical and physical processes in manners necessary for life to be possible."

    http://www.trueorigin.org/schneider.asp

    Look,to put it in a simple a form as possible,an inanimate material like quasicrystals and their growth do not obey a local step by step growth of one crystal on top of another to create the non periodic pattern so leaving out this information in watching life develop from simple geometric forms to more complex forms is not such a good way to approach the matter.I think readers would benefit more from a simple introduction to this avenue than burying them in details that they are not familiar with -

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2GqU6fdjeQ&feature=related



    What is so irritating about Darwinism as it attached itself in a parasitic way to geological and biological evolution is that it tries to introduce an unnecessary conclusion as to why life develops from simple to complex.A more intricate way is actually to study the development of natural complexity without losing sight of the background geometry and this is why the study of Phi in nature becomes more relevant and way outside any computer simulation or mechanical thinking -

    http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emat6680/parveen/fib_nature.htm

    It is just a different way to approach the development of life on the planet,as the Christian saying is that man does not live by bread/survival alone,there is a facet of nature that is everywhere if people are good enough to come to it and spot it.


  • #564
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    Scientia Perceptum wrote: »
    I am sorry it I am butting in, but having read this post I thought you may be interested to read the rebuttal of this article.
    http://www.trueorigin.org/schneider.asp
    I would be interested to hear your opinion on it.
    Thank you, Scientia Perceptum for sourcing the article. I'm in the middle of getting a new kitchen installed and have limited time to search for relevant material. This just hits the spot!

    And Welcome to the forum!




    ***********************************************************************
    Proverbs 25:11 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold
    In settings of silver.


  • #565
    wolfsbane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,980 ✭✭✭wolfsbane


    tommy2bad wrote: »
    wolfsbane wrote: »
    tommy2bad said:

    Jesus said it did. Paul said it did. Were they mistaken, mere men of their time?

    The used it as it was understood
    What's the cultural truth of the Genesis creation account? How is it true if it is based on a fiction?
    God created the world.
    Let's apply that to the resurrection of Christ. Is the account of that a cultural truth, not meant to be understood literally?
    Different genre

    So the speculations of some Jewish scholars = no one takes it literally or ever did? Have you checked how others thought? For example:
    The vast majority of classical Rabbis hold that God created the world close to 6,000 years ago, and created Adam and Eve from clay. This view is based on a chronology developed in a midrash, Seder Olam, which was based on a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. It is attributed to the Tanna Yose ben Halafta, and covers history from the creation of the universe to the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Although it is known that a literal approach is not always needed when interpreting the Torah, there is a split over which parts are literal.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_evolution
    Except for thees from medieval times
    In his commentary on the Torah, Rabbi Bahya ben Asher (11th century, Spain) concludes that there were many time systems occurring in the universe long before the spans of history that man is familiar with. Based on the Kabbalah he calculates that the Earth is billions of years old.
    A literal interpretation of the biblical Creation story among classic rabbinic commentators is uncommon. Thus Bible commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra (11th Century) wrote,

    If there appears something in the Torah which contradicts reason…then here one should seek for the solution in a figurative interpretation…the narrative of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for instance, can only be understood in a figurative sense.
    And of course the Christian Church has held until fairly recently to the basis creation week c.6000 years ago.
    Jesus wasn't a Christian.
    You've been listening to too many liberal fools, old wives' tales and Jewish fables.

    Well we will see, and when we do, I'll say "I told you so, now lets see what the food is like in this place"
    (Sorry bout the messed up quote, this stuff is hard when you're drunkish)

    Your desperation is showing when the best you can say to the fact of the Church holding to a recent creation is, Jesus wasn't a Christian.

    No, He is the Christ; those who follow him are Christians. Both He and they held to a recent creation.

    If you prefer the Kabbalah to the testimony of Christ and His Church, then I'm not surprised you hold to evolution.

    Can you point out the things that mark out Genesis as myth, and the gospels as historical narrative?

    Do you think it honest for Jesus and the apostles to back up their ethical commandments with historical example, if that example did not in fact occur?


    ********************************************************************
    Titus 1:13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. 15 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.


  • #566
    tommy2bad
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,254 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    Can you point out the things that mark out Genesis as myth, and the gospels as historical narrative?
    As you wont even accept factual scientific evidence, what would be the point? You would still insist it was historical narrative. If the angel Gabriel himself whispered in your ear as I'm told he's wont to do, you would laugh and say No! No! No! we are right and god is wrong, if we say He made the world in 6 days then He must have done so because thats how we like it.
    Do you think it honest for Jesus and the apostles to back up their ethical commandments with historical example, if that example did not in fact occur?
    No Your right, Jesus was a deceiver using parables and myths and allegory. It's so obvious to me know! Thanks for showing me the error of my ways.


  • #567
    doctoremma
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,870 ✭✭✭doctoremma


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Atheists of course will say its all only chemistry. Many people live as if that were so.
    You didn't get the point of my post. I think most of the non-physical 'gender roles' are entirely social constructs.


  • #568
    doctoremma
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,870 ✭✭✭doctoremma


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Today's scientific classifications are examined in its light, not the other way around. The specific meaning - where exactly on the classification list 'kind' falls - is for science to discover.
    This is exactly where your argument falls apart in a heap of non-scientific and entirely subjective interpretations.

    The scientific disciplines of taxonomy, natural history and genetics have mapped the "tree of life". Science has discovered the relationships of species to genus to family and so on. I have attached a nice picture to illustrate (I'm sure there are some mistakes in there but you get the idea).

    So, how can science have anything to say about the application of boundaries of "kind"? It is, as far as taxonomy goes, an entirely arbitrary threshold, determined not via any scientific discipline but by the personal preferences of creation scientists.

    Are a lion and a tiger the same "kind"? Genetics can't determine if that's the case - genetics simply maps the DNA relationship between lions and tigers to X%, with a divergence around 5m years ago*. So creation scientists are left with saying they are the same "kind" simply because it fits a story in a book or fits their intuition - after all, they look a bit similar, don't they?

    *Whether you accept that timescale or not, the "relative" timescales of divergence of living creatures will be proportional and therefore the point is valid.

    Are humans and chimps the same "kind"? Again, genetic studies simply say that they are X% similar and diverged 5-10m years ago. The same techniques that map the relationship between tigers and lions were applied to map the relationship between chimps and humans. Are you willing to accept the techniques or reject the wholesale?

    In fact, chimps and humans occupy the same taxonomical subdivision (tribe) as all foxes occupy (in relation to other foxes) - do you think fox species are different "kinds"?

    Nothing more than arbitrary. It perplexes me.


  • #569
    Morbert
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,457 ✭✭✭Morbert


    Scientia Perceptum wrote: »
    I am sorry it I am butting in, but having read this post I thought you may be interested to read the rebuttal of this article.
    http://www.trueorigin.org/schneider.asp
    I would be interested to hear your opinion on it.

    Royal Truman, the author of the rebuttal, does not argue against the conclusion of the paper (That Darwinian mechanisms can give rise to an increase in information.) Instead, he argues that, while the program does exhibit an increase in information, it does not comprehensively model a biological system. So first, it must be made perfectly clear that the eV program categorically demonstrates an increase in information via Darwinian mechanisms. This puts to rest the notion that information cannot increase via Darwinian mechanisms.

    Similarly, the Avida simulation categorically demonstrates the evolution of irreducible complexity through Darwinian mechanisms.
    http://devolab.msu.edu/
    Whether or not they are strictly biological systems is irrelevant to the refutation of the creationist claim that irreducible complexity, formally speaking, cannot emerge through Darwinian mechanisms.

    So, before anything else is said, it must be acknowledged that information theory is perfectly consistent with complexity and Darwinism.

    Now, to the follow-up question of whether or not such mechanisms occur in life. The rebuttal was written in 2001. Since then, the eV program has generated a number of publications related to real-life systems.
    link

    Similarly, Avida, whom Truman has similar objections to, has also complemented numerous real results.
    http://devolab.msu.edu/biblio

    Tom Schneider maintains a website detailing the reactions to his paper.
    http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/blog-ev.html

    So you can see, even without any detailed knowledge, that Truman's rebuttal is either wrong or irrelevant. (Schneider has said it is both.)


  • #570
    gkell3
    Closed Accounts Posts: 145 ✭✭gkell3


    Morbert wrote: »
    Royal Truman, the author of the rebuttal, does not argue against the conclusion of the paper (That Darwinian mechanisms can give rise to an increase in information.) Instead, he argues that, while the program does exhibit an increase in information, it does not comprehensively model a biological system. So first, it must be made perfectly clear that the eV program categorically demonstrates an increase in information via Darwinian mechanisms. This puts to rest the notion that information cannot increase via Darwinian mechanisms.

    Similarly, the Avida simulation categorically demonstrates the evolution of irreducible complexity through Darwinian mechanisms.
    http://devolab.msu.edu/
    Whether or not they are strictly biological systems is irrelevant to the refutation of the creationist claim that irreducible complexity, formally speaking, cannot emerge through Darwinian mechanisms.

    So, before anything else is said, it must be acknowledged that information theory is perfectly consistent with complexity and Darwinism.

    Now, to the follow-up question of whether or not such mechanisms occur in life. The rebuttal was written in 2001. Since then, the eV program has generated a number of publications related to real-life systems.
    link

    Similarly, Avida, whom Truman has similar objections to, has also complemented numerous real results.
    http://devolab.msu.edu/biblio

    Tom Schneider maintains a website detailing the reactions to his paper.
    http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/blog-ev.html

    So you can see, even without any detailed knowledge, that Truman's rebuttal is either wrong or irrelevant. (Schneider has said it is both.)


    When forced to look at where the 'Darwinian mechanisms' lead it is deflected to 'social Darwinism',a deliberate shutting out of the original reasoning,redirecting the reasoning by inflicting human modeling on biological evolution using computers just as their counterparts managed to temporarily destroy astronomy through modeling using clocks.An unrepentant,narrow-minded and dour bunch of humans that ever set foot on the planet followed by an ineffectual crowd calling themselves Christians unable to discern what is going on.

    Is there any part of the empirical/modeling stamp on evolution that people cannot understand ? -


    "One day something brought to my recollection Malthus’s “Principles of
    Population,” which I had read about twelve years before. I thought of
    his clear exposition of “the positive checks to increase”—disease,
    accidents, war, and famine—which keep down the population of savage
    races to so much lower an average than that of civilized peoples. It
    then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are
    continually acting in the case of animals also.. because in every
    generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the
    superior would remain—that is, the fittest would survive.… The more I
    thought over it the more I became convinced that I had at length found
    the long-sought-for law of nature that solved the problem of the
    origin of species." Charles Darwin

    "Till at length the whole territory, from the confines of China to the
    shores of the Baltic, was peopled by a various race of Barbarians,
    brave, robust, and enterprising, inured to hardship, and delighting in
    war. Some tribes maintained their independence. Others ranged
    themselves under the standard of some barbaric chieftain who led them
    to victory after victory, and what was of more importance, to regions
    abounding in corn, wine, and oil, the long wished for consummation,
    and great reward of their labours. An Alaric, an Attila, or a Zingis
    Khan, and the chiefs around them, might fight for glory, for the fame
    of extensive conquests, but the true cause that set in motion the
    great tide of northern emigration, and that continued to propel it
    till it rolled at different periods against China, Persia, italy, and
    even Egypt, was a scarcity of food, a population extended beyond the
    means of supporting it." Thomas Malthus

    "Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find
    the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance
    along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted
    living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the
    danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave
    nation. The National Socialist Movement must strive to eliminate the
    disproportion between our population and our area—viewing this latter
    as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics—between our
    historical past and the hopelessness of our present impotence" Mein
    Kampf


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  • #571
    oldrnwisr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,594 ✭✭✭oldrnwisr


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    I stand corrected then on Family being the boundary of 'kind'. I assumed that was where interbreeding did not extent to. Interbreeding is the Biblical mark of 'kind'.

    Well, not really. The Baraminology Study Group which purports to be the expert group of creationists on "kinds" still maintain that family is the best analog of a "created kind".

    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Does inability to breed prove they are not the same kind? That's different from the ability to breed being proof of their kindship.

    Creationists, for the record, are the ones attempting to prove that kinds exist. They do so on the basis of interfertility. Specifically, they claim that members of a kind are considered to be so if they are continuous with at least one other member. So not every member has to be interfertile with every other, just at least one other. However, the evidence of such breeding in some groups outlined by creationists such as the baramin Felidae is so scant that you cannot reasonably make that determination.


    wolfsbane wrote: »
    Proof that humans have a common ancestor with 'other' apes? It's just another story.

    No, it's a testable scientific fact. I'm amazed I keep having to explain this to people. Here is one short example.

    Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Other great apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes. Therefore, if common descent is true then at some point two pairs of chromosomes in our most recent common ancestors with other apes must have become fused. Evidence of this could then be found using comparative genomic analysis. Guess what? That's exactly what we found.

    hum_ape_chrom_2.gif

    This fusion event was confirmed by comparing the banding patterns on the chromosomes. Additionally, the genetic sequence in the telomeres of the chimp chromosomes is found near the centromere of the human chromosome.


    Research:

    Origin of human chromosome 2: an ancestral telomere-telomere fusion

    Evidence for an ancestral alphoid domain on the long arm of human chromosome 2

    The origin of human chromosome 2 analyzed by comparative chromosome mapping with a DNA microlibrary


    In the meantime, we have gathered numerous other pieces of evidence which confirm our common ancestry with other apes.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=77805609&postcount=8932

    wolfsbane wrote: »
    You are confusing our theological beliefs with our scientific claims. They are not the same. We do not advance our beliefs as scientific proof. The scientific argument is quite separate - no dishonesty is involved. You just need to pay closer attention.

    Not really. The quote in my last post from "Understanding the Pattern of Life" is quite clear.

    "Clearly when the Bible claims discontinuity, any other evidence is unnecessary. As a result, the quality of the Australopithecine or whale series is overruled by the biblical claims of discontinuity between humans and apes and whales and land creatures."

    I'm not confusing anything. Your theological beliefs and your scientific claims are not separate.You have an a priori position that the bible is true. This is not how science operates. The quote above and the creationist position is unscientific and dishonest.

    wolfsbane wrote: »
    The word 'kind' was used to describe the original created organisms. Today's scientific classifications are examined in its light, not the other way around. The specific meaning - where exactly on the classification list 'kind' falls - is for science to discover.

    The offence is denying Genesis teaches a mature creation. It takes a lot of twisting to make it say anything else. You might not believe the assertions Genesis makes, but you ought not to deny it makes them.

    No, as I said previously, the word kind as used in the Hebrew bible doesn't carry any specific meaning in a scientific context.

    The word kind in Hebrew is:

    מִין

    which is almost identical to the Hebrew word min, meaning from:

     מִן

    Furthermore, the adherence of creationists to the idea of the word kind in Genesis as a barrier to variation is weakened by the bible itself. The word kind is again used in Leviticus when establishing dietary laws. In particular:

    "These are the birds you are to regard as unclean and not eat because they are unclean: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat." Leviticus 11:13-17.

    An analysis of the Hebrew text shows the same textual form of kind, namely:
    לְמִינֵ֔הוּ

    (lə·mî·nê·hū)

    used in both Genesis and Leviticus. Additionally, the structure of the text in Leviticus suggests that the little owl, cormorant, great owl etc. are listed so as to be examples of the hawk kind, something not supported by even the loosest creationist definition.


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