I just finished a great book called "God Doesn't Believe In Atheists" written by Ray Comfort.
My understanding is that Agnostics don't know if there is a God or not, this book might be filled with some answers for you, small parts are scripture based but most of it is just common sense. It talks about things like the idea of creation without a creator, the theory of evolution and the "big bang" theory being full of holes. In reading these theories the language mostly goes like this, "perhaps, possibly, we believe, we surmise, suspect, think and presume, where as the Bible is pretty straight foward as far as truth, this is this and that is that, end of story.
I'll warn anyone who might be interested in reading this book, the first 15 pages he's very redundant, but I think he's just trying to drive one specific point home before moving on. It's a very short book and really easy reading. The simplicity of it is what really moved me, I think so many people feel that the idea of God is much more complicated than it really is.
Just thought I would share. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 04-19-04, 04:09 PM jusork I'm not agnostic because god is complicated. I'm agnostic because the probability of his existence as far as I know is very low on the list of possibilites. I'd much rather not know the entire truth and and be left with questionable theories than be given one truth that I am supposed to assume is truth. Those handful of pieces that people can only suspect are that way because we haven't figured them out yet and they are being scrutinized until they are absolutely sure. Maybe we'll never be absolutely sure. But that would mean there are some things you just can't know. I'd certainly rather have fact over substance. I'd rather have no things I am certain of than confident assumptions.
04-19-04, 08:11 PM newnickname
quote:In reading these theories the language mostly goes like this, "perhaps, possibly, we believe, we surmise, suspect, think and presume, where as the Bible is pretty straight foward as far as truth, this is this and that is that, end of story.
So we should believe what the Bible tells us, because it's less puzzling? It's straightforward, and doesn't cause so much wear and tear on the brain? I think that idea might manage to annoy both serious Christians and agnostics.
Is this guy saying that (possibly mistaken) certainty is better than honest doubt?
How do you know the Bible is 'truth'? It's barely even internally consistent. Christianity is just another faith among countless faiths and belief systems. Why should it be 'truth', and not others?
How do you square the idea of the Bible being 'straightforward' with its stance on slavery, for example? It says matter-of-factly that slavery is limited by certain rules; as to how exactly you can beat and sell people. 'This is this and that is that' - but that's hardly the end of the story, is it?
Of course scientific theories are merely our best shot at explaining things, given the evidence we have. That they are full of uncertainties and liable to change is natural.
That messy uncertainty doesn't make a leap of faith into irrational certainties about unprovable superstitions a better alternative; just an alternative.
04-19-04, 10:10 PM newnickname Ms. Ice, I don't suppose you could be persuaded to share Comfort's thoughts on the 'holes' in the theory of evolution?
At the moment, there are four reviews on the book at amazon.com. Two say it's garbage, two say it's wonderful. Judging from the reviews, the book appeals to those who think that way already, but is a turn-off for agnostics.
04-19-04, 10:50 PM newnickname Oh, wait, no need to share. I found Comfort's website and online store. www.livingwaters.com
It turns out he's just another Creationist.
"Today’s earth is seventy percent under water. There are scriptural and scientific indications that the pre-Flood world had greater air pressure, higher percentages of oxygen and carbon dioxide, much more land (above sea level), less water (on the earth’s surface), and a canopy of water to filter out the harmful effects of the sun. This would cause there to be many times more plants and animals on the earth than there are today. The added air pressure would diffuse more gasses into the water and support a much greater fish population. Aquatic plant life per cubic mile would multiply also. Second Peter 3 tells us that the scoffers in the last days will be willingly ignorant of how God created the heavens and the earth. They would also be ignorant of the Flood. These two great events must be considered before making any statements about the conditions on earth today. Only about three percent of the earth today is habitable for man. The rest is under water, ice, deserts, mountains, etc. If the earth before the Flood were, say, seventy percent habitable, it could have supported a huge population. The vast amount and worldwide distribution of fossils shows that the Flood was global and that God hates sin enough to judge the entire world." Dr. Kent Hovind "About 85% of the rock surface around the world is made up of sedimentary rock, indicating that at some time in the past, the world was covered by water." Peter and Paul Lalonde, 301 Startling Proofs & Prophecies" Roll Eyes
04-19-04, 11:24 PM stampeding turtles Clarence Darrow: "Why am I an agnostic"? selections:
"Is the Bible anything but a human book? ... If there is anything that troubles them, "We don't believe this." Anything that doesn't trouble them they do believe."
What about its accounts of the origin of the world? What about its account of the first man and the first woman? Adam was the first, made about less than 6,000 years ago. Well, of course, everybody should know now that human beings have been on the earth at least a half-million to a million years nows probably more. How much did they know about science in those days, how much did they know about the heavens and the earth?
What was the heavens? The sun was made to light the day and the moon to light the night. The sun was pulled out in the day time and taken in at night and the moon was pulled across after the sun was taken out.
The stars, all there is about the stars, "the stars he made also." They were just "also." Did the person who wrote that know anything whatever about astronomy? Not a thing. They believed they were just little things up in the heavens, in the firmament, just a little way above the earth, about the size of a diamond in an alderman's shirt stud. They always believed it until astronomers came along and told them something different.
Adam and Eve were put in a garden where everything was lovely and there were no weeds to hoe down. They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that is that they didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has been the condition of the Christian church from then until now. They haven't eaten as yet, as a rule they do not.
You remember about Joshua. And Joshua Said to the Sun, "Stand Still."
There are several things that that does. It shows how little they knew about the earth and day and night. Of course, they thought that if the sun stood still it wouldn't be pulled along any further and the night wouldn't come on. We know that if it had stood still from that day to this it wouldn't have affected the day or night; that is affected by the revolution of the earth on its axis.
What about the new testament? Here was a child born of a virgin. What evidence is there?
Child, born of a virgin! There were at least four miraculous births recorded in the Testament. There was Sarah's child, there was Samson, there was John the Baptist, and there was Jesus. Miraculous births were rather a fashionable thing in those days, Especially in Rome, Caesar had a miraculous birth, Cicero, Alexander from Macedonia -- nobody was in style or great unless he had a miraculous birth. It was a land of miracles.
What evidence is there of it? How much evidence would it require for intelligent people to believe such a story? It wouldn't be possible to bring evidence anywhere in this civilized land today, right under your own noses. Nobody would believe it anyway, and yet some people say that you must believe that without a scintilla of evidence of any sort.
Now take the soul. People in this world instinctively like to keep on living. They want to meet their friends again, and all of that. They cling to life. Schopenhauer called it the will to live. I call it the momentum of a going machine. Anything that is going keeps on going for a certain length of time. It is all momentum. What evidence is there that we are alive after we are dead?
....It is an absurd piece of theology which they themselves say that you must accept on faith because your reason won't lead you to it."
Matter Indestructible: And everything that is in the body and in the man goes into something else, turns into the crucible of nature, goes to make trees and grass and weeds and fruit, and is eaten by all kinds of life, and in that way goes on and on. Of course, in a sense, nobody dies. The matter that is in me will exist in another form when I am dead. The force that is in me will live in some other kind of force when I am dead. But I will be gone. That isn't the kind of immortality people want. They want to know that they can recognize Mary Jane in heaven. Don't they? They want to see their brothers and their sisters and their friends in heaven. It isn't possible. We know where our life began; we know where it ends. Period. It is evident.
Agnostic Because I Must Reason: If there is any God in the universe I don't know it. Some people say they know it instinctively. Well, the errors and foolish things that men have known instinctively are so many we can't even talk about them all. As a rule, the less a person knows, the surer he is, and he gets it by instinct, and it can't be disputed...."
04-19-04, 11:26 PM methos I don't have any problem with those who don't believe in a god. I don't have any problem with those who do believe in a god, (nearly) whatever god they may believe in. I don't have any problem with those who aren't sure one way or the other. I don't have any problem with those who do believe in creationism. What I do have a problem with, as a scientist, is those who advocate creation "science."
Religion is usually judged by a different standard than science, but if creationism is presented as science, it must stand up to the tests by which we judge science. I've read writings by those hailed as being at the top of the field, and it simply doesn't hold up scientifically.
04-20-04, 02:33 AM newnickname Chewing on the food for thought...
www.leaderu.com This is a longer quote from Robert Jastrow. He concludes, 'This is why it seems to me and to others that the curtain drawn over the mystery of creation will never be raised by human efforts, at least in the foreseeable future. Although I am an agnostic, and not a believer, I still find much to ponder in the view expressed by the British astronomer E. A. Milne, who wrote, "We can make no propositions about the state of affairs [in the beginning]; in the Divine act of creation God is unobserved and unwitnessed."'
Jastrow's an agnostic. He talks about the limitations of science when it comes to the origins of the universe, and the origins of life. We don't know how those things happened, although there are hypotheses. I don't think any scientist would claim that science can explain these two events satisfactorily... yet. Jastrow says, of the first, maybe, in principle, never.
On the other hand, we do have compelling evidence for the evolution of species, and a pretty neat explanation, which has withstood every test so far.
Philip Johnson claims that science itself is all wrong, because it discounts supernatural intervention from the get-go. Scientists, according to him, have a bias against including God in their calculations. In his desire to paint scientists as atheist idealogues, however, he misses the fundamental fact that science is empirical. Yes, there are assumptions underlying science, but they are held because they work. Or, more correctly, have worked up to now. Scientists are prepared to believe the wierdest and most counter-intuitive things, given some reason to - witness relativity, and quantuum physics. Scientists are not bound to any particular system of thought.
God isn't included in science partly because, as soon as you have a magical entity that can explain anything 'just because', enquiry stops. "Q; Why are the fossils there? A; Because God moves in mysterious ways. Q; Oh, I see."
The assumptions of science are, broadly: that the universe doesn't change arbitrarily, that we can trust our senses and our thought processes most of the time, and that we can (eventually) minimise our innate subjectivity through the scientific process. That's not idealism, or atheism. That's the same approach you take to de-virusing your computer, or getting out of bed in the morning.
It works - messily, by trial and error (not the getting out bed I mean - well, that depends... ) and without any great idealogical fanfare. Here's some more on Johnson www.talkdesign.org
The final two selections of quotes on the page in the 'Food for Thought' link follow the tedious Creationist practice of quoting outdated sources as if they were current - and as if personal, or older, opinions of scientists were necessarily an embarrassment to ongoing scientific enquiry. The argument from authority just does not hold in science.
Science doesn't work like religion. As the original post points out, it changes. It moves on - in fits and starts and with false turns - but it moves. The writer of a 1925 quote him or herself would be the first to deny its validity in the light of new ideas or evidence.
Sir Arthur Keith would have described himself as a Physical Anthropologist and an Anatomist. Giving him the more up-to-date sounding title of 'evolutionary anthropologist' doesn't disguise the fact that he died in 1955 - just a couple of years after the discovery of DNA. Everyone now knows that the Piltdown man was a forgery. It was science which proved this. If we dug up Arthur himself, he would - perhaps reluctantly - agree.
And Arthur is wrong on Hitler and evolution. Hitler used a perverted and unscientific form of Darwinism - eugenics - as one support for his evil. He also used a perverted, yet centuries old, form of Christianity - anti-semitism. Hitler wrote that he was doing the Lord's work. You can't blame Darwin for Hitler any more than you can blame the writer(s) of John. www.geocities.com
04-20-04, 09:50 AM methos I haven't and doubt I will, read the whole link that 'Fuse posted, but I took a quick look at the quotes by Darwin. They're the same ones as are always quoted by creation 'scientists.' They are taken completely out of context and, when put in their full context, actually represent fairly good arguments for evolution.
As an example, the infamous eye quote, where he says it seems absurd that the eye could have evolved by natural selection. The very next sentence (conveniently not quoted by the site) says it is as absurd as the idea that the Earth rotates and travels around the Sun. Since that time, by the way, we have found the range of stages necessary to go from a patch of light sensitive cells to the eye of an eagle, all present in existing species. At least they got the location of the quote right (Origin of the Species), it is usually referenced as a death-bed confession to a woman who wasn't even there.
Based on the twisting of meanings that has been done with Darwin on that page, I can't trust the site and believe that any quotes represent what the person was actually trying to say without reading the context of the quote, and I simply don't have the time to find the context of each one.
04-20-04, 09:54 AM newnickname Piltdown Man. Although often discounted before this time, the Piltdown Man was exposed as a fraud for sure in 1953, when Sir Arthur was 87.
04-21-04, 12:05 AM newnickname If you search for 'Arthur Keith' and "Evolution and Ethics", you'll come up with page after page of hits on Creationist websites, all using the same quotes.
But I also found the text of Arthur Keith’s work online.
Here’s an example of a passage a few sentences later on from a quote in the ‘Food for Thought’ link:
Coldfuse’s link: ”The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice." Evolution and Ethics (1947) p.10
But further down page 10: "I may remark incidentally that in this passage, as in many others, the German Fuhrer, like Bishop Barnes and many of our more intellectual clergy, regards evolution as God's mode of creation. God having created races, it is therefore "the noblest and most sacred duty for each racial species of mankind to preserve the purity of the blood which God has given it.""
Funny how that quote didn’t make the cut, eh? Kind of muddies the waters, doesn't it? It's not all so black-and-white; Hitler wasn't just an 'evolutionist'.
Here’s another.
Coldfuse’s link: ”Christianity makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce? May we not say, then, that Christianity is anti-evolutionary in its aim?" Evolution and Ethics (1947) p.72
This quote immediately continues (sorry, this is a bit long): "This may be a merit, but if so it is one which has not been openly acknowledged by Christian philosophers. St. Paul was by birth a "citizen of Rome"; in proclaiming the equal eligibility of men of all races to the fellowship of Christ he was but following the practice of the government of Rome. In that empire men of all colors and of every race were, as in the British Empire, equal in the eye of the law. The Romans drew no line between races, but did sharply discriminate between the bond and the free. Here St. Paul departed from the Roman practice a definite advance in the spirit of humanity.
The racial differences among the peoples of the Roman Empire were chiefly of a cultural nature; much less were they of a physical character. So much were they alike physically that hybrid progeny would have been hard to distinguish from the racial originals which gave birth to it.
The far flung British Empire is different; it includes races so divergent that hybrid progeny differs from both originals and is unmistakable. No doubt Christianity has favored hybridization in some parts of the world in South America, for example, and in Portuguese colonies but in many instances mongrelization has been due not to Christian teaching, but to a failure of that teaching.
Good men, whether they be Christians or rationalists, do not desire to discriminate between races, but the distinctions implanted by Nature are too conspicuous to escape the observation of our senses. Even the late Lord Bryce, a statesman and historian of sober judgment, let this escape from him:1 "In the meeting of White and Black, Christian brotherhood does not work."
In its origin and spread, Christianity, although anti evolutionary in its aim, has adopted tribal or evolutionary methods in its mode of growth and development. The essential character of a tribal group is its isolation, its separateness, its social exclusiveness. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," so commanded St. Paul (II Cor. 6:14). Later, in the same chapter, he is still more emphatic and Judaic: 'Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord.'" Christ, too, teaches a tribal doctrine: "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their company . . . for the Son of Man's sake" (Luke 6:22). For a tribe is maintained intact not only by the positive love within it, but also by the enmity which surrounds it."
In short, then, the website Coldfuse linked us to is pulling the familiar Creationist trick of pulling quotes out of context, to make them look as if they support one, slanted viewpoint.
In ‘Evolution and Ethics’, Keith actually explores (I think; I haven't read the whole thing yet Smile) how humanity’s ethics evolved, and how we can best deal with our innate aggression and tribalism. From the preface by Hooton: ’In the present book, Sir Arthur Keith steps out of his usual role as the interpreter of man's anatomical evolution to present his conclusions upon the relation of evolution to ethics and the function of war in evolution. The findings of Sir Arthur will afford little comfort to facile political idealists who refuse to recognize the brutal and predatory course of man's rise from apedom.’
And from page 25 of ‘Evolution and Ethics’: "A good tribesman clings to his fellows and tells them the truth; he repels men of neighboring tribes and tells them lies. The real problem which faces us is this: How can the duality of human nature be explained? The evolutionist can offer an explanation which is agreeable to reason; the theologian has to appeal to superstition for an answer.
It is only when we realize the conditions under which the later stages of the evolution of man were carried out that we come by a clue to the duality of his mental nature. Conceive, for a moment, what these conditions were. Throughout all the final stages of our evolution, mankind throughout the whole earth was segregated into small local communities or tribes...
The quotes from the Creationist website, however, represent ‘Evolution and Ethics’ as wedding the theory of evolution to Nazism, and contrasting the evil result with good old Christianity. What a misrepresentation!
04-21-04, 08:10 PM BlueIce63 Sorry guys, I was just trying to share what I considered genuinely good information. I'm not a scientist or Chirstian theologist and wasn't trying to start a debate or convert anyone, just sharing.
Just one thing to think about, I've had to think about it myself:
JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT, DOESN'T MEAN IT'S NOT TRUE.
04-21-04, 08:31 PM jusork We appreciate your post, Ice. We just had to explain why it doesn't make sense.
"JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT, DOESN'T MEAN IT'S NOT TRUE."
That's why I'm agnostic. Based on current evidence and understanding though, what I believe now is what is most likely right.
So you take the possibility of god not existing being possible, right?
04-21-04, 11:44 PM newnickname Yes, no need to apologise. We haven't had a romp with Creationism for quite a while.
"JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT, DOESN'T MEAN IT'S NOT TRUE." I'm not sure that this a statement of agnosticism. It's maybe some kind of universalism - whereby any belief is as valid as any other.
04-22-04, 01:05 AM babthrower Stampeding says:
'You remember about Joshua. And Joshua Said to the Sun, "Stand Still." '
One thing about this line that always make me smile:
What would make the sun appear to stand still would be that the earth would stop rotating.
Can you imagine the sloshing when the momentum of all the water in all the lakes and oceans of the world carried that water across the adjacent lands? Eek
This message has been edited. Last edited by: babthrower, 04-22-04 07:08 PM
04-24-04, 11:46 AM newnickname A couple more quotations from Coldfuse’s site. I’ve seen this one misused in the same way before:
"In the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years (evolutionists are now dating the beginning of the Cambrian at about 530 million years), are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.229"
This passage immediately continues: “Evolutionists of all stripes believe however, that this really does represent a large gap in the fossil record, a gap that is simply due to the fact that, for some reason, very few fossils have lasted from periods before about 600 million years ago. One good reason might be that many of these animals only had soft parts to their bodies: no shells or bones to fossilize.”
Whoever chopped that paragraph in half, to quote it as a support for Creationism, was obviously being dishonest. The 'Food For Thought' site contains page after page of quotes like this.
Other quotes, from Creationists, are little better. On the same page as the Dawkins quote, there is one from Dembski, an ‘intelligent design’ Creationist. He’s talking about ‘bacterial flagellum’; a tiny spinning structure that propels some bacteria. I.D. Creationists claim this as evidence for intelligent design, as each part of the structure is useless without the others. They claim that this structure could not have evolved:
“The fact is that for complex systems like the bacterial flagellum no biologist has or is anywhere close to reconstructing its history in Darwinian terms.” Is Intelligent Design Testable? January 24, 2001
That just isn't true; the flagellum’s evolution can be explained in evolutionary terms. Dembski’s choice of the word ‘reconstructed’ is sneaky. Flagella do not fossilize. However, we do have evidence of evolutionary precursors to the bacterial flagellum. Here’s some more information on it
“In any discussion of the question of "intelligent design," it is absolutely essential to determine what is meant by the term itself. If, for example, the advocates of design wish to suggest that the intricacies of nature, life, and the universe reveal a world of meaning and purpose consistent with an overarching, possibly Divine intelligence, then their point is philosophical, not scientific.
It is a philosophical point of view, incidentally, that I share, along with many scientists. As H. Allen Orr pointed out in a recent review:
Plenty of scientists have, after all, been attracted to the notion that natural laws reflect (in some way that's necessarily poorly articulated) an intelligence or aesthetic sensibility. This is the religion of Einstein, who spoke of "the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence" and of the scientist's "religious feeling [that] takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law." (Orr 2002).
This, however, is not what is meant by "intelligent design" in the parlance of the new anti-evolutionists. Their views demand not a universe in which the beauty and harmony of natural law has brought a world of vibrant and fruitful life into existence, but rather a universe in which the emergence and evolution of life is made expressly impossible by the very same rules. Their view requires that the source of each and every novelty of life was the direct and active involvement of an outside designer whose work violated the very laws of nature he had fashioned. The world of intelligent design is not the bright and innovative world of life that we have come to know through science. Rather, it is a brittle and unchanging landscape, frozen in form and unable to adapt except at the whims of its designer.
Certainly, the issue of design and purpose in nature is a philosophical one that scientists can and should discuss with great vigor. However, the notion at the heart's of today intelligent design movement is that the direct intervention of an outside designer can be demonstrated by the very existence of complex biochemical systems. What even they acknowledge is that their entire scientific position rests upon a single assertion – that the living cell contains biochemical machines that are irreducibly complex. And the bacterial flagellum is the prime example of such a machine.
Such an assertion, as we have seen, can be put to the test in a very direct way. If we are able to search and find an example of a machine with fewer protein parts, contained within the flagellum, that serves a purpose distinct from motility, the claim of irreducible complexity is refuted. As we have also seen, the flagellum does indeed contain such a machine, a protein-secreting apparatus that carries out an important function even in species that lack the flagellum altogether. A scientific idea rises or falls on the weight of the evidence, and the evidence in the case of the bacterial flagellum is abundantly clear.
As an icon of anti-evolution, the flagellum has fallen.
The very existence of the Type III Secretory System shows that the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex. It also demonstrates, more generally, that the claim of "irreducible complexity" is scientifically meaningless, constructed as it is upon the flimsiest of foundations – the assertion that because science has not yet found selectable functions for the components of a certain structure, it never will. In the final analysis, as the claims of intelligent design fall by the wayside, its advocates are left with a single, remaining tool with which to battle against the rising tide of scientific evidence. That tool may be effective in some circles, of course, but the scientific community will be quick to recognize it for what it really is – the classic argument from ignorance, dressed up in the shiny cloth of biochemistry and information theory…”
There’s more. I’d recommend it – I like Kenneth Miller as a writer about science – and he’s also a Christian. Just sharing.
04-26-04, 12:48 AM newnickname Just one more. Coldfuse’s website has a page titled “Are Creationists honest?” This page seems important to the site – as its pages on evolution consist mostly of quotes.
The introduction to the page says:“Everyone makes mistakes... but there seems to be a common accusation that creationists intend to deceive... The most frequent charge is that creationists take quotes 'out of context'. This is an easy charge to make since no creationist goes to the trouble of quoting the ENTIRE book of the author they quote. In most cases evolutionists believe they have resolved the problems they bring up, however when someone acknowledges a problem it seems reasonable to allow the public to know about the problem and then decide whether the proposed solution is indeed reasonable. If the public can be trusted to accept evolution, that same public should be allowed to question evolution.
The second quotation below this introduction is from ‘Origin of Species’: ”For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived.”
Incredibly, this is a perfect example of taking a quote out of context, dishonestly. The words quoted seem to point to the theory of evolution being merely one possible interpretation of the facts.
But ‘Origin of Species’ was not a conventional scientific work, intended only for other scientists to read. It was aimed at the general public, explaining the new theory concisely and accessibly (it was also intended to be published as quickly as possible; many others were obviously arriving at the same ideas as Darwin around this time).
In the sentence quoted, Darwin was explaining that ‘this volume’ did not give all the details necessary to show that the theory of evolution is the best scientific explanation, so far. He made this clear in the lines directly preceding the one above:
”This Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in, though I hope I have always been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can here give only the general conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most cases will suffice. No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done.”
The answer is, ‘Yes’. Creationists are dishonest; they pull quotes out of context in order to mislead.
04-26-04, 10:56 AM babthrower I think the reason they are dishonest yet insist that they are not lies in the habit of mind of many of them, a habit of mind frequently encountered among fundamentalists of all stripes.
That is the habit of absolutism. That is demonstrated by them in the form of 'text hurling'. They believe every single word in both the OT and the NT is absolutely true. So rather than looking at the big picture , religiously speaking, they chop texts and hurl quotes at each other. Often the quotes give totally contradictory information. So to refute a teaching, you only need to search scripture until you find an obverse, and hurl it at your opponent. That satisfies you and your followers, at least.
They absolutely cannot 'get' that science makes generalizations, but when data is discovered which appears to contradict a theory or 'law', after a certain period of unrest, the scientific community as a whole either acknowledges that the contradictory data was incorrect due to misinterpretation, or that the generalization was incomplete, or just plain wrong.
Such reconsiderations are the heart and soul of science. They form its greatest strength: the ability to recognize and admit mistakes, and learn from them, and carry on.
Unfortunately the rigid mind of the true fundamentalist, who by habit of thought never admits to a mistake, perceives the scientific method to be weak because of this acknowledgment of imperfection.
That is why there are literally thousands of sects. Each is an offshoot of one basic teaching. But for each sect that exists in the world today, at one point one man took a piece of testament, quoted out of context, and took the bit between his teeth, and ran with it.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 104 | Location: South Carolina | Registered: 06-03-02
I just had to jump in with my 2 cents on this one…
Both camps are missing what I think are a couple of the best fundamental arguments on both sides:
Creationists are in a bother claiming that some of the scientific community is trying to prove that there is no God. They are bothered for no reason. Science by its methods can neither prove nor disprove, or even project the probability of a supreme being that exists beyond what we perceive with the five sense alone. The issue is philosophical. By the same token, I chuckle when A/A’s talk of the ‘probability’ of God’s existence. On the one hand, they base their worldview on what can be verifiably observed and tested (nothing particularly wrong with that in itself). On the other, they claim that they can apply a mathematical formula to something (the existence of God) that cannot be verifiably observed or tested in a scientific manner, and do so with such accuracy as proclaim that God is not ‘likely’ to exist. If you can’t see it or test its properties, guys, you can’t formulate mathematical probabilities or any other scientific approach to its characteristics or existence. That’s science, remember?
On the other hand, A/A’s are missing the best argument against creationists (of the Kent Hovind persuasion) by using a creationist argument. Using scientific knowledge as a prop, creationists (of Hovind’s ilk) often point to the precise order of the universe and systems on this planet as evidence of a creator. They are quick to point out how precisely the systems work, and that the slightest change would debilitate the whole system. And every indication we have from science is that that is correct. What keeps the order in order? Precise and unchanging natural laws. But when forced to explain certain views the creationist skips off into explanations of there being far less water on the planet at one time (hovering in the atmosphere) and how the breakdown of the atom somehow changed along the way (refuting carbon dating). The creationist just shot himself in the foot with his own argument. If the slightest change in the system or its properties creates chaos how does he explain the changes he claims have occurred in the system without complete disaster? Science both defends him and slays him.
But hey, that’s just my opinion. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 04-27-04, 10:50 PM methos Well said on both counts, Mike.
As I said, I have no problem with atheists, agnostics, or theist of most stripes, just a problem with those who claim scientific backing where there is none. Though I hadn't heard it before, that would hold for an atheists probabilities of God just as well as for 'scientific' creationists.
Science does not speak to the existance or nonexistance of God. It does speak to the evolution of the universe and life. If someone doesn't buy scientific explanations of this, and believes in creationism, that's fine with me (not that they actually need my permission), so long as they don't pretned that science proves it when it doesn't.
As you pointed out in another thread, quoting out of context that gives the passage a very different meaning is dishonest, no matter who does it.
04-28-04, 12:18 AM newnickname Well, I guess all this discussion is a waste of time. Come summer, we'll know for sure:
Even if excavated and it is found to be an ark, how can they prove that it belonged to Noah as opposed to someone else? Do they have Noah's DNA or fingerprints? That is the only proof that would convince me that this man-made structure was really his!
And how big was the ark purported to be? If it carried two of every animal it must have been enormous! Not an easy thing to excavate.
04-28-04, 09:31 AM babthrower I'm surprised it has taken this long to get to the artefact. I guess shortage of funds for the expedition.
So if it is a wooden artefact and not a stone hill fort or lookout tower or a stone monument or some such, or even a regularly-shaped natural feature (like those regular polygonal permafrost-generated features in the Northwest Territories that have so exercised the minds of certain sensation-seekers) then the speculation becomes a wildfire.
(If it is wooden it would be remarkable, as I assume the site is above the tree line. But stranger things have been managed in mankind's long search for a way to harness supernatural forces, i.e. Stonehenge, the pyramids, and so forth.)
If it is wooden, we can expect that carbon dating will be gleefully embraced and its infallibility (in this case) proclaimed if the artefact is the 'correct' age; but if it is not, if it is, for example, medieval, we can expect decades of wrangling (a la Shroud of Turin) and no final agreement.
The shape and whether it is on a foundation and the size will not be relevant for years; if it is wooden, that will be enough to produce rapturous claims that the ark has been found.
Science enlisted in the cause of any dogma (i.e. the U.S.S.R.'s Lamarckism) or in the cause of protecting corporate profits (i.e. the tobacco industry's research proving that smoking is not harmful) is bound to be bad science.
The best scientific work is done by people who just want to know the truth, out of innate curiosity about the natural world.
04-28-04, 09:38 AM methos
quote:Originally posted by Vixen: And how big was the ark purported to be? If it carried two of every animal it must have been enormous! Not an easy thing to excavate.
300 cubits x 30 cubits x 50 cubits
Ah, but how big is a cubit? It's one of those measurements based on the size of a body part, in this case, the forearm. Of course, forearms vary and we're not completely sure if it was from the elbow to the tips of the fingers or the elbow to the wrist, but a good estimate is that a cubit is 20 inches. Using that estimate, we'd get 500 ft x 50 ft x 83 ft (152 m x 50 m x 25 m).
04-28-04, 09:42 AM newnickname You guys are so skeptical. Mr McGivern is already convinced that it's Noah's ark.
Noah could surely have gotten around the problem of size simply by building the boat bigger on the inside than on the outside.
04-28-04, 11:41 AM babthrower Oh, hey, NNN! You're a genius! Remember the old dictum,
"If you can't raise the bridge, lower the river?"
Well, there you go. You have explained ALL the knotty little problems which have caused contention for centuries. The inside was bigger than the outside because the stuff inside was miniaturized!
How to fit 50,000 (bare minimum) sexual pairs of animals into a boat the size of the ark, along with food and bedding, and how to have a staff composed only of Noah's sons and their wives, and his own wife, manage the labor of feeding these 100,000 animals and cleaning away the tons of excrement which they would produce daily, and how to sustain this for the duration of the flood (at least a year, if I recall).
(The 50,000 figure comes from the notion, which some creationists hold, that not every last species that exists today need have been on the ark; the others we see today have been produced since the flood by microevolution.)
No, I didn't . NO I DID NOT. I did not use the E-word. Microevolution is not the E-word. There's a vast difference.
Anyhow, now we know. God miraculously miniaturized each animal, and miniaturized their food. (The animals' food, not the people's food. The people would have needed regular-sized food for a year. Even that's a lot. But I digress.)
So the pairs came to the ark of their own volition.
Each Tasmanian Devil pair. Each Komodo Dragon pair. Each hippopotamus pair. Each polar bear pair. Each duck-billed platypus pair. Each ..
Hey, wait a minute. How did the polar bear get to the middle east? It would have taken months and months! Years, maybe. And they don't take to warm weather. And they would no doubt have chosen to swim rather than to cross the Himalayas. But what would they eat while swimming? Their natural prey would have been left behind, except for the pair of seals that were also swimming from the high arctic to the middle east. And god would have made the seals follow a different route, to prevent the very sad accident which those nasty cynics sometimes point out about day-to-day life on the ark: how do you keep predators from eating prey?
But wait! When god called the polar bears, he could also have called the exact number of members of the bears' prey species to accompany them, swimming alongside, as would sustain the bears until they arrived, raggged, panting and exhausted, at the ark. (Plus two extra seals, of course, the mating pair.) Then they would be mm'd.
So you see it all makes sense.
The miniaturization would have to occur at the capture point. Because otherwise the local residents could not have failed to notice 50,000 pairs of animals trouping along, apparently heading for one destination. The pair of Komodo dragons would have been pretty testy, too, having swum from island to island along the Pacific archipelago, then landed in southern India and foraged their way along the coast until they turned into the Persian Gulf and finally headed inland across the desert to where Noah had the ark, because that last leg would have left them pretty hungry. So if they ate any locals, or livestock, the residents would have wanted to know what the heck was going on, and formed a mob, and burned the ark or something else not pleasing to god.
Or the locals might have scooped up some of the more interesting pairs themselves, before they even got to the ark, thereby thwarting god's will. Maybe the duckbilled platypuses, they would have caused quite a stir. Or the moose, wow!
And the sea lions could only have made it to the nearest shore; they don't do well on dry land for any distance. Moving a pair of sea lions for miles and miles across the burning sands would have been quite a challenge.
So, ok. The miraculous miniaturization (which I will refer to subseuently as 'm.m.' to save time) happens at point of capture. Then Noah's sons stash these animals in little packages and put them in their knapsacks or something. Then they would take out these little cages once a day and feed the minute creatures and clean their minute poo. The food would have to be mm'd too, because a little tiny Komodo could not digest normal-sized cells of the putrid meat which is their normal diet. Then all Noah's sons would have had to worry about was the usual problems of travel at the time. The danger of bandits on land and pirates at sea. Most travellers of that time travelled in caravans or flotillas, for safety.
So, having collected the animals who had travelled from regions as diverse as the high artic and the tip of Tierra del Fuego, from Scandinavia to South Africa, bringing their natural food with them ...
I wonder how the moose carried the browse with them as they swam across the Bering Strait? Or maybe god mm'd the browse before they left, so they could carry it. But then if the browse was mm'd and the moose were not, the browse would hardly sustain them.
Or maybe god mm'd the moose before they left, so their browse would be sufficient. But then it would have taken the moose decades, centuries even, to reach the middle east, travelling on their little tiny legs….
So I guess the moose would travel full-sized, and carry full-sized food enough to last them the inhospitable parts of their journey, such as the Bering Strait. Somehow it must have happened, because Noah's Flood is no myth!
04-28-04, 12:38 PM methos
quote:Originally posted by babthrower: ... But then it would have taken the moose decades, centuries even, to reach the middle east, travelling on their little tiny legs...
Although it's not clear that he told Noah at the time, according to Genesis 6, God predicted/decided on/announced the flood 120 years ahead of time, which solves some of the migration problems.
04-28-04, 01:56 PM newnickname No, no, no Babs. The animals weren't miniaturized. That would be silly, and would contravene several laws of nature. It's just not scientific. They were smaller because they were further away.
04-28-04, 02:49 PM babthrower Well, I sure don't want to be silly. That would be so embarrassing! Red Face
04-28-04, 02:58 PM Mike121
quote:Originally posted by newnickname: You guys are so skeptical. Mr McGivern is _already_ convinced that it's Noah's ark.
Noah could surely have gotten around the problem of size simply by building the boat bigger on the inside than on the outside.
“98% certain”, he says. There may well be a relic on top of that mountain, but how the heck does he know what it is until they climb up there to examine it? As Bab mentioned, the ancients built all sorts of altars and such on high places like that (just see if they could do it I think, like Donald Trump).
04-28-04, 07:36 PM newnickname
quote:...altars and such on high places...
Are you referring to Trump's hair? It's more of an 'edifice' than an 'alter', isn't it?
04-28-04, 07:57 PM babthrower In Trump's case, it's an 'altar' ego.
04-28-04, 10:43 PM Mike121 Think a few thousand years from now they'll be looking for "Donald's hair"? 04-28-04, 11:56 PM newnickname Well, the hair will certainly outlast him.
For those of you planning to do some hiking at higher altitudes in Turkey this summer, here's a handy plan of the kind of thing you should be looking for. Note the movie theatre.
04-29-04, 12:35 AM coldfuse The animals were smaller because they have since evolved! Both problems solved!
04-29-04, 09:40 AM newnickname Or maybe the animals stayed the same size, but everything else has become smaller.
Apparently, Trump's crowning glory is just one hair, grown to 20m long and artfully curled around and back on itself multiple times, tacked in place every morning by a team of welders. Why they spray-paint it bright orange remains a mystery. 04-29-04, 10:23 AM babthrower Why are you picking on some rich guy's version of a comb-over?
This one is called 'extreme'. I guess Trump's is extremely extreme.
Just because some ugly guy wants to be a tv star and has about as much talent as a Little Debbie Donut Stick? And can make up for that with money but can't fake the charisma? Shame on you. Where is your compassion?
04-29-04, 12:46 PM Silja Ladies and gentlemen, can we get this one back on track please? If you wish to talk about hair or lack thereof, may I recommend the Health forums of Answerpool; this category is for religious discussion.
The Moderator
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Everything in the Universe follows a logical and amazingly simple set of rules. Everything follows a logical course of events, everything can be seen to have its own perfection and the universe, though a vast and complex thing, is made up of simplicity and follows universal Laws (Physics) which suggest a logical order and conservative nature to all things.
The God of the Bible is reputed to have taken 6 days to create, then spends the rest of the bible being highly illogical, apparently making mistakes and covering those mistakes with new mistakes. After all there was error in the ADAM and EVE program, so we had to have the FLOOD and NOAH programs to correct the errors. That failed so we need the ABRAM program and the JEW program. That failed too, so we had to bring out the big guns and use the CHRIST program.
For all intents and purposes it appeared to have failed as well. Two thousand years of Christianity hasn't really changed the basic violent nature of mankind.
The Laws, Rules and Wars in the bible, attributed to a petty, emotional God defy the Natural Order, the fact is that the Universe is not petty, is not illogical. The Universe is conservative, meaning all things are conserved. The acts in the Bible require magic and non-conservative things which fly in the face of the facts.
As a Christian I read the bible and I find it to be puzzling at best that God, a supreme being who is suppose to be all knowing, all doing, all powerful has a serious problem with controlling his Creation which in the whole universe is orderly and follows rules and laws without issue, except here on earth where water parts, water turns into wine, the Sun has to be stopped in its course so a group, a small group of petty savages can wage and "win" a war (Which contravenes the message of Peace and Love by the CHRIST program later on).
I can understand why the A/A's have issues with the Christian concept of God, it doesn't stack up and make sense against what we know about the universe.
I firmly believe that A/A's sense a greater purpose, a "divine" nature to the Universe, but tend to shy away from the word "God" because of 2000 years of Christianity having made God into a man-like, imperfect being.
The Bible is a book of myth mixed with errors, contradictions and many out-dated traditions which are anything put loving, peaceful and Godlike.
But then the Bible was written by men, men who lived 2000, 3,000, more years ago. Back then humanity was ignorant of many things and blamed God for a lot of things which God most likely didn't do.
David ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 06-03-04, 11:07 AM MommyTimesTwo I am agnostic, and it's not because I don't know if God exists or not, it's because I do not know or understand the nature of that God, and I can't know, so I don't try to fit Him into a box or system of beleifs that men came up with to make themselves feel better because they also didn't know the nature of God.
I don't think agnosticism is ignorance, as is often suggested (not knowing if there is a God or not). I think agnosticism is honesty--no one knows for sure the nature of God. Not even those who think they know. 06-03-04, 11:41 AM Elexina
quote:Originally posted by MommyTimesTwo: I think agnosticism is honesty--no one knows for sure the nature of God. Not even those who think they know.
Very well put, MTT. As always.
06-03-04, 02:15 PM MommyTimesTwo Thank you Elexina Smile 08-13-04, 11:05 AM babthrower Back on track:
God doesn't believe in atheists?
Well, god got it wrong. We exist.
08-20-04, 04:45 PM GarColga Wow great thread - I miss you guys!
08-20-04, 04:52 PM juanruiz Hey, gar, good to see ya again!
02-22-06, 09:54 AM socratus Can we know anything concretely about the God ? Is it possible to explain religion with the help of the physical and mathematical theorems? Yes. It is possible. Because to create all MATERIAL WORLD the God could only working in an absolute reference system and only under physical and mathematical laws. * * *
Thanks. Israel Sadovnik . Socratus
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02-22-06, 01:40 PM babthrower It's important in this particular discussion to remember the definition of god:
(a) the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshiped as creator and ruler of the universe
(b) a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship (MW)
This is what I mean I am without, when I say I am a-theist: without a god.
But whether there exists intelligence in the universe, or any cosmic consciousness, and if so whether it is good or morally indifferent or in fact evil, I have no idea.
At any rate, if there is such a being, I am far too modest to imagine that it would require my worship; I'm sure it can get along quite well without it. In fact it would be indifferent to my insults, which I frequently aim at the highly improbable gods of the various savage religions which vie for earthly power. I could not possibly worship any of them! Confused Ugh!
02-22-06, 10:53 PM jusork
quote: Originally posted by socratus:
Yes. It is possible. Because to create all MATERIAL WORLD the God could only working in an absolute reference system and only under physical and mathematical laws.
So would that imply that God is physical then?
02-23-06, 07:17 PM frankvan Babs, I never fail to be amazed at how you manage to encapsulate my beliefs and lack of beliefs so succinctly. If I were half as smart and half as articulate as you I would be expressing the identical sentiments. Thank God I'm an atheist. Wink
02-23-06, 07:51 PM babthrower Thank you, Frank! Wow! Red Face
You'll be amused to hear I got an e-mail once, I've forgotten if it was AP or one of its predecessors, warning me of my fate if I did not bow down humbly and acknowledge a greater being than myself! in the universe. Big Grin
Heck, a Stellar's Jay is a greater being than myself! (I'm admiring them as I'm typing, they're flying past my window.) I can't fly, I don't have beautiful iridiscent feathers and a proud crest on my head, and I can't survive outdoors in rain and sleet -- well, anyhow, you get the picture.
But I won't spend my life studying the various flawed and sometimes downright evil beliefs that quarrel for our alliegiance during my lifetime in hopes of some fantastic reward after death. I'm sure you know what I mean. Life is too wonderful to waste. It's sort of the obverse of Pascal's Wager.
(To give this post some merit besides a 'thank you', I'll show Pascal's W. here, paraphrased.)
" * You may believe in God, and if God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite. * You may believe in God, and if God doesn't exist, your loss is finite and therefore negligible. * You may not believe in God, and if God doesn't exist, your gain is finite and therefore negligible. * You may not believe in God, and if God exists, you will go to hell: your loss is infinite."
Some problems with it:
"1. * You may believe in God, and if God exists, you go to heaven..."
If you picked the right god.
"2. * You may believe in God, and if God doesn't exist, your loss is finite and therefore negligible."
Hardly. The preachers would have you suffer and die for your religion, and give them your money and sometimes they even want your children for sex objects. The loss of freedom and dignity you experience is hardly negligible.
The thing we're sure of is our life, our experience, or consciousness. Why trade that (quality or quantity) for some unverifiable, pie-in-the-sky promise relayed to us as heresay by some mystic -- or con man?
02-24-06, 04:52 AM tsaeb Make that "hearsay." On second thought, make that the Word of God. As for those who worry about your fate, they are at best babes in Christ and at worst themselves deceived.
02-24-06, 07:49 AM frankvan ---"Ah take the cash and let the credit go, nor heed the rumble of some distant drum" Omar Kahyyam.
02-25-06, 07:02 AM socratus Originally posted by jusork: So would that imply that God is physical then? * * * * * Yes! God is physical reality. And it is possible to explain religion with the help of the physical and mathematical theorems. Because to create all MATERIAL WORLD the God could only working in an absolute reference system and only under physical and mathematical laws. The God said:” Physics is the first of all Vacuum.” The physicists confirmed it, when they say, that at the Interaction of the electron with Vacuum the physical parameters of the electron become infinite. Therefore I begin from Vacuum and explain all picture of a Nature Logic. Physics do not dictate the laws to the nature. Laws of nature are a reality, which exists independently from the researcher, and the person only perceives them. The nature develops from simple to difficult; the evolution of the world goes from the lowest condition to the highest one. Therefore, initial conditions of the origin of Genesis cannot be complex. They should be elementary and simple, as a multiplication table: 2.2=4, 2.3=6 etc. Such simple laws of nature can and should be realized by each person from a school bench.
Socratus
Edited to remove link posted as signature.
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02-25-06, 11:12 AM babthrower
quote: Originally posted by tsaeb: Make that "hearsay."
Thanks, tsaeb. Red Face
Sock, who made the laws you speak of?
"... the God could only working in an absolute reference system and only under physical and mathematical laws..."
02-26-06, 05:17 AM tsaeb I think that one reason why Einstein is considered to be the greatest mind of all time is that he debunked some of those mathematical and physical laws of classical physics.
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Posts: 4020 | Location: Leaving land, heading for the ocean | Registered: 06-03-02
) and without any great idealogical fanfare. Here's some more on Johnson 
