A lot of callers to the Bible Answer Man ask me questions about prayer such as: Why pray? Does God really hear our prayers? If God knows what we need, why ask?
For Bible-believing Christians, prayer should be thought of not as a magic formula to get things from God, but instead as an opportunity to communicate and commune with God. In other words, prayer is not about presenting our requests as it is a means of pursuing a relationship with our heavenly Father.
If I want to have a relationship with my wife, Kathy, I have to spend time with her and talk with her. It‘s no different with our Heavenly Father who longs to hear the voice of his children—clear and strong, without the static of everyday cares and concerns.
As Philip Graham Ryken explains in his book, When you Pray, “Prayer does not simply maintain the Christian life; it is the Christian life, reduced to its barest essence. Can there be any greater joy—in this world or the next—then to commune in the secret place with the living God?”
In my next blog post, I will discuss ways to structure our prayers so that they are pleasing to our Heavenly Father.
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39 comments:
"[Prayers] may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but it is the same as asking Santa to bring you something for Christmas." - W.C. Fields
"When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me." - Emo Phillips
"If God listened to the prayers of all men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another." Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?1cor1.18-20
And he said to man, 'The fear of the Lord--that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.'"jb28.28
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 1cor2.14
Can't wait for the structure of prayer blog. thanks hank
Boris, just because you quote some random people does give your post validity. One can at least uphold for the wisdom and validity of scripture as it can be tested over and over and still remain true at it's very core. Not merely written by men but men who were inspired from God. Those men you posted were ignorant of the meaning of prayer itself. Prayer is not one's personal wish list or a means of vengeance. Also God does not answer every prayer.
First of all calling a bunch of ancient retarded fairy tales and barbaric myths "scripture" is a typical Christian distortion of language used to create a false impression. There's nothing special about a group of books written by men, collected, sorted, tampered with and forged and then voted on by a bunch of gay men and pedophiles wearing dresses. How does that make these books divinely inspired may I ask? Oh yeah that's right, the pedophiles who voted on these books were under divine inspiration too! Yeah that's the ticket! Any time we need to explain the impossible and implausible we can just invoke good old Christian magic and miracles. Boogy boogy boogy.
Contrary to your big fat lie the Bible has failed EVERY test for historicity it has ever been given and passed all the tests for fiction with flying colors. The Bible says the earth never moves dude. The Bible believing inbred Christians at Fixedearth.com can prove it with 87 Bible verses. Do you believe the earth moves contrary to what the Bible says? The Bible says Joshua stopped the sun from moving, not the earth. Poof, there goes t your "scripture." Hahahaha
James T. Archibald,
Those Bible verses are human inventions and are just some of the Bible's many defenses against free inquiry and critical thinking. Why were the authors of the Bible so fearful of free inquiry and critical examination of their doctrines? As our founders said, truth is self evidence. If the Bible or Christianity were true then Christian cult leaders would insist that people just embark on an unbridled search for truth knowing they would probably find it. But Christian cult leaders know people WILL find the truth if they search for it only it won't be the "truth" Christians promote. It will be the REAL truth. The kind of truth that can only be found through free thought and critical thinking. What other method does man have to find the truth?
TO BORIS--
I assume the term Christian cult leaders refers to what we call pastors, priests, false teachers, televangelists, modern day prophets, and the kind.
I would also assume that you do not listen to sound biblical teachers. Many of whom do encourage people to seek out truth. They, however, do not tell them to leave the Bible on the wayside as something not to be trusted. That would be narrow minded. Saying the REAL truth is rather subjective for anyone without an objective source of truth.
What other method does man have to find the truth?
What is truth, without a source of truth? We have been given the law of logic to discover truth. That is what you mean by critical thinking, I think. Of course, all laws need a source as well. The problem with logic, however, is that it can be clouded. Clouded by emotions. Clouded by preconceptions. Or even by pride. The true philosopher, the lover of true knowledge, must learn to remove these human stumbling blocks.
I would urge anyone to go down this path because it does lead to the origin of truth. REAL truth. Possibly to the one who was asked "What is truth?" by pontius pilate and also said "I am the Truth..."?
James,
All laws are human inventions including physical laws. Humans are the law-givers. Physical laws are simply human descriptions of how the universe or something in it consistently behaves. For example, if we ask why a rock thrown skyward soon falls back to earth it would be meaningless to says it's because of the Law of Gravity. Gravity or the Law of Gravity is simply the name and description we assign to the observed phenomenon. The true, underlying reason why all objects in the universe attract each other is still a baffling enigma. A physical law then, is a man-made description, rather than a causal explanation of how something consistently behaves. Logic was invented by humans in much the same way mathematics was. Logic works because it is an abstraction out of the principles of the way evolution works. Logic didn't just drop out of the sky magically or get blown by a magic fairy into the first man made from dirt.
You don't know the first thing about logic or philosophy. Philosophy and religion are opposites and completely incompatible. This is because philosophy asks questions that may never be answered and religion gives answers that may never be questioned.
Your claim to have truth is absurd. Real truth doesn't demand belief, it's self evident. If you Christians really had the truth you wouldn't have to keep telling the rest of us and yourselves that you do. It's like Fox News. If it Fox News were really "fair and balanced" they wouldn't have to keep telling us that every couple minutes. We would know it. The same with the Christian system of dogmatic superstitions.
Boris,
Have you ever heard of a book called "The Case for Christ" ?
I know what your thinking...why would I ever read it even if I heard of it. The journalist began just as yourself, an atheist that believed the Christian faith and the Bible were a big sack of lies. You may (I'm sure you will not because you are afraid of the chance that you can not refute the information given by this book, and, therefore, knowing there is a chance Christianity is true.) want to read it and see the conclusion that this journalist reaches by putting each religion (that's right, I said atheism is a religion) on the scale and see which one has more evidence for it.
Anonymous,
I bet I've read a lot more Christian apologetics than you have. I have read several of Lee Strobel's books including 'The Case for Christ.' I've heard Strobel on Hank's show several times. Lee Strobel was not an atheist before converting to Christianity. Strobel has said on Hank's show that when he was an "atheist" he knew there really was a God but didn't want to deal with his own sinful nature so he tried to deny God. He goes on to say that this is the case with all atheists. Hank always agrees with him. How would they know what other people believe or don't believe? Are they mind readers? No they're a couple of liars. Atheists are people who don't believe there are any Gods, not people who reject particular Gods.
Both Strobel and Patrick Glynn openly tell their audiences how a loved ones repentance from sin caused bitter arguments and serious marital problems until they themselves saw the light and repented from sin as well. Eric Hoffer observed that "when we are pressured by family circumstance to change our opinion about an important issue, our recantation is likely to be genuine rather than insincere so that we may honestly look ourselves in the mirror. We may preserve our self-respect if we turned to Jesus 'because science pointed the way' but not when our wives and in-laws nagged our balls off and whipped us into a fundamentalist mentality." Hoffer's insight also explains why Strobels' Evidence for a Creator' (2005) appears much more convincing to ID's own choir that it does to impartial observers.
I have also read some of the refutations of Strobel's religious yammering. I suggest you read "The Rest of the Story" (1999) by Jefferey Jay Lowder, a point by point critique of "The Case For Christ" which you can find on the Internet along with critiques of all the other popular Christian apologetic literature. You may (I'm sure you will not because you are afraid of the chance that you can not refute the information given by this critique, and, therefore, knowing there is a chance Christianity is false) want to read it and see the conclusion that this journalist reaches by putting each of Strobel's claims on the scale and see if there is really any evidence for them. There isn't.
Calling atheism a religion is like calling baldness a hair color. Atheists don't get together once or more a week with other like-minded people and shout, scream and sing about what a preacher tells them they must believe. That's what religion is about, not atheism. Yet you'll claim Christianity isn't a religion but a relationship. Sure. A relationship that gets religious tax exemptions! ROFL! When you claim atheism is a religion it just shows you don't know what you are talking about. Where's my tax exemption? You're nuts.
One of Strobel's other lies is that he was an "evolutionist" before seeing the light of Intelligent Design magic. This is false because his writings reflect not even a basic understanding of evolutionary theory, common descent or any other science for that matter. Strobel is a typical creationist scientific ignoramus.
You are not reading my posts. The Bible is not a bunch of lies, it's mythology. All the religions we know about are based on misinterpretations of mythology as history. Christianity is no different. The gospels aren't lies they are a retelling of an ancient solar myth in which Jesus plays the part of the sun traveling through the 12 signs of the zodiac. This is something critics have known all along. It isn't anything new.
All of the arguments in the world won't produce any evidence that Jesus Christ actually existed because he didn't. When Christians point to the writings of the same four historians, Josepehus, Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny - men who were not even born during the time Jesus supposedly lived as extra-biblical evidence for a historical Jesus - it just demonstrates the weakness of their case. The 'Case for Christ' has been dismissed due to lack of evidence. You lose. Now go read that critique of Strobel's book. Those of us who seek truth are interested in both sides of the story. I don't think you're one of us.
TO BORIS:
Thanks for responding. Also, thank you for minimizing the empty meaningless rhetoric. It makes it a real chore to read ur comments.
Math was discovered by man not invented by man.
Gravity was discovered by man not invented by man.
Logic was discovered by man not invented by man.
These things would exist without us knowing about them.
Of course we invented the word law to describe these things. We use tokens to represent all kinds of things that already existed. The English word cat is used to describe a little 4-legged feline. The cat existed before the word was invented.
Man didn't invent the cat when he invented the token word to represent it.
And as for our understanding of something falling and calling it gravity, just because we don't fully understand a law doesn't negate the law, just our description of the law. The thing will still fall.
Please expound on this:
"Logic works because it is an abstraction out of the principles of the way evolution works."
The Laws of math have always existed we simply found a way to use them. We invented tokens to express these laws.
I said,
"We have been given the law of logic to discover truth. That is what you mean by critical thinking, I think."
Was I wrong in that assumption?
Is logic not what u meant when you said,
"It will be the REAL truth. The kind of truth that can only be found through free thought and critical thinking. What other method does man have to find the truth?"
Strawman-ing and 'name calling' kind of unnecessary when your talking directly to me. May be useful in a public debate. It just makes it more of a diatribe or rant.
"
You don't know the first thing about logic or philosophy. Philosophy and religion are opposites and completely incompatible. This is because philosophy asks questions that may never be answered and religion gives answers that may never be questioned.
Your claim to have truth is absurd. Real truth doesn't demand belief, it's self evident. If you Christians really had the truth you wouldn't have to keep telling the rest of us and yourselves that you do. It's like Fox News. If it Fox News were really "fair and balanced" they wouldn't have to keep telling us that every couple minutes. We would know it. The same with the Christian system of dogmatic superstitions."
The question of whether math was invented or discovered is meaningless. We invent the questions and discover the answers. Logic on the other hand is a system of reasoning invented by human beings. Logic can be satisfactorily explained by evolution by natural selection. The idea that God invented logic is absurd. Why would God invent something that would make intelligent people doubt his existence? Why God invent logic and then expect people to believe a bunch of illogical stories and adhere to a bunch of illogical dogmas and doctrines? I can tell you're still in school. You are in for a tough life and a rude awakening if you ever set foot on a college campus. I've net third graders that are better educated and have more sense than you.
I will have to get back to you on the critique of the case for Christ.
I would like to know if you can 100%, without a shadow of doubt, prove that God does not exist. I will admit that Christians can not, fully and without doubt,prove that God does exist. This is where faith comes in. Science can also not fully prove Creation or Evolution, because the results can not be reproduced in a lab. Therefore, neither can be fully proven as a LAW instead of a THEORY (the THEORY of Evolution is what I was taught). Again, this is where it takes FAITH either way to believe in Christianity or Atheism. And faith is what makes each a RELIGION.
My next point is about the use of logic and reason. You agree that logic and reason are come for evolution, natural selection, etc.? If your brain (all of its chemicals, neurons, stimulus, electrical impulses) was created by "accidents" in genetic information (whether beneficial or harmful), how then can you fully trust this logic. How can we be sure that logic and reason are working properly instead of seeming to work correctly, but actually leading us to false conclusions? (idea originally from Clives Staples Lewis, "Mere Christianity")
Anonymous,
No one can prove that God does not exist. Science doesn't prove things absolutely it's true. However science is very efficient at disproving things. We can and have proved that certain Gods do not exist and the God of the Bible has been proved not to exist. All your mental gymnastics and special pleading will not make mythology history. There could be another God but who cares? There are no verifiable consequences either way.
I don't know what you were taught about evolution but no one taught you the definition of the word "theory" as it is used in science. The word theory in the context of science does not imply uncertainty. It means "A coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation of a class of phenomena." Besides the theory there is the fact of evolution, the observation that life has changed greatly over time. The fact of evolution was recognized even before Darwin's theory. The theory of evolution explains the fact.
Evolution has indeed been proved in a lab. Using allopolyploid and artificial selection, scientists have manufactured crop plants and horticultural novelties that are reproductively isolated from their parent stock. Also scientists have observed that salmon in a U.S lake split into two separate populations in just 13 generations or about 60 to 70 years. This has demonstrated the establishment of mating reproductive isolation and genetic divergence reflected in measurable changes in body form. Thus two of three critical steps in the process of formation of new species has been and continues to be observed in these salmon. Looks like you've got a lot bigger things to worry about than transitional fossils now huh? ROFL!
Atheism is not a religion. When Christians say it is there is always an undercurrent of defensiveness and desperation in this claim as if one's own faith is invalidated by the existence of a genuinely different approach to life and the universe. In making their convoluted arguments people who conflate atheism with religion actually weaken the foundations upon which there own belief is built. Atheism cannot be a religion unless that term carries essentially no meaning. Atheism has no God, no common belief or ideology, there are no laws, there is no church or ritual, there is no unified conception of spirituality, no scripture, no priesthood, no tradition, no founder, no holidays, no identifying clothing, no concept of an afterlife and no creation myth. Calling atheism a religion is like calling baldness a hair color. It's ridiculous.
It takes no faith not to believe in something. No one "believes" in atheism. You have no idea what you are talking about. The definition of faith is believing something in the absence of evidence. In other words it's the opposite of coming to a conclusion based on something real and tangible. The non-existence of something is not a belief. I already pointed out that unbelief is the natural position to take on anything until something has been proved. The existence of God has not been proved and therefore it doesn't require faith to not believe there is a God. It's one thing to disagree with objections to your arguments but quite another to go on making the same claim as if no objections had ever been made. I've already proved it doesn't take faith to be an atheist and that atheism isn't a religion. The fact that you go right on making those claims without responding o the clear objections to them only demonstrates the weakness of your claims and the desperation of your position.
It is well established that the mind is fallible. Ordinary reasoning and memory are mistaken surprisingly often. Pathologies add further complications. This fallibility exists no mater what the source of our minds may be. Doubt exists in all areas of life. Nothing can be proven absolutely. However, many things are certain enough that we call them facts and do not worry about the possibility that they are wrong until we see actual evidence that they are wrong. Without such an attitude we would never be able to get on with our lives. The fallibility of our minds argues more against creationism. Nobody can be certain of it either, and minds as imperfect as ours argue against them being divinely created.
Oh and that last response was the Talk Origins response to C.S. Lewis' argument. Not mine. Mine's better and nastier. You don't want to know.
Boris,
Religion is "manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality". You have religion. You are faithfully devoted to atheism. You have faith in atheism because you do not have 100%, without a doubt proof God does not exist (Boris, "No one can prove that God does not exist." even though, "science is very efficient at disproving things."). You also can not (neither can anyone) prove that either evolution or creation did/did not happen because no one was there to see it and it can not be reproduced in a lab (ohh...they have tried though).
I would like to make it strait that I do believe that MICROevolution did and does happen (cave fish do not use their eyes and so they no longer function, breeding in dogs, etc.). I do not believe in Macroevevolution (pond scum to life to fish to ape to human). No genetic information has been added since the first days of creation. Genes can break down, become deffective, etc. leading to changes in humans and animals. Most of the times these changes are deadly or harmful to the creature, but once in awhile it turns out to be helpful. I would like to here about this third critical step in evolution.
Even if evolution is proved to be true, that does not disprove God. I would also like to here about these other gods that have been proven to not exist.
In my last science class a theory was a proven hypothesis that has not yet been proven to be false. It also did not have enough evidence behind it to become a law. A theory is an assumption, conjecture, proposed idea that has not yet been proven completely true or false.
You stated, "It takes no faith to believe in something." I guess that must mean that I 'know' God exists.
What is truly ridiculous is comparing a hair condition with hair color. When you compare two items I believe they should be fairly alike.
See if your child like mind can understand this: atheism is a LACK OF FAITH. I said it takes no faith NOT to believe something. Unbelief is the natural position to take until something has been proved. The existence of God has not been proved and so there is no reason to believe there is a God. We are all born atheists. No one is born believing in Jesus. Atheism is simply our natural state unless our parents or someone else comes along and indoctrinates us with a particular religion. What you are saying is that it takes faith to not believe in Allah. So using your argument you have faith that Allah does not exist. How can you have such great faith that Allah does not exist?
You said when two items are compared they should be alike. Then you compare religion with atheism which are not at all alike. It is you making the mistake here which I have now proved several times and will once again. The reason baldness and hair color are not alike is because religion and atheism are NOT alike. My analogy proves this point. Baldness is a lack of hair color or even hair and atheism is a lack of belief. Again where did you get this great faith that Allah is not God, the Koran is not God's Word and that Islam isn't the one true religion? Man it takes a lot of faith NOT to believe those things. Where did you get this great faith that the atheists aren't right? Do you see how stupid your argument is yet?
Like I said you and the rest of the creationist wackos look right at objections to your claims and instead of responding to those objections you go right on chanting the same false claims over and over and over again as if no objections to them had ever been raised. Unless you can counter my refutations of your ridiculous claims you stand refuted. Again.
Now tell me what the naturalistic mechanism is that could keep microevolution from becoming macroevolution over time. There is no difference between the two. Science doesn't rely totally on direct observation. Because of advancing science we can put murderers and other criminals in prison even though there were no eyewitnesses to their crimes. Creationism HAS been refuted by science. Your argument that no one was around so nothing can be disproved is ridiculous and as desperate as the rest of your claims. I already defined what a theory is in science. It isn't conjecture or an assumption. A theory is an explanation of the facts. The most important thing about a theory is its usefulness. Our knowledge of evolution had led to advances in medicine, food and many other fields. Meanwhile creation "science" and Intelligent Design magic have produced exactly nothing that has advanced science and the hoaxers promoting this garbage can't even tell us what their "science" could ever be used for. ROFL! You science deniers are so silly. When have Bible believers ever been right about science? Hahahahahahaha
Boris,
Faith is used everyday. You faith that when you sit in a chair it will not fall apart and leave you on the ground. You have faith that your car will start the next day, or that you will be alive tomorrow when you wake up. You do not know for sure that this will happen, so it is left up to faith. Used everyday it begins to feel less like faith and more like knowing this is how it is for sure. You do not know for sure that God is not out there, but you have believed it for so long that it seems like knowledge.
You believe in atheism. There are only three options in this matter. You have faith that God is real, faith that he is not real, or you throw your hands in the air and say that you do not know for sure either way. "The existence of God has not been proved," but it has also not been disproved.
We are born not knowing either way. People are told what to believe. Many meet with someone such as yourself or with a difficult time in life and they then put their faith in one or the other (or go back to not knowing for sure). Very few continue on blindly believing every word they are told. Everyone's beliefs are being tested day to day, and they make decisions about the truth or lie they have been told.
I have faith that God exists and I believe the Bible to be true. I therefore can not believe in Allah because of my belief in the Judeo-Christian God. It would be like believing in creation and atheism, both can not occur at the same time because they are contradictory.
"Man it takes a lot of faith not to believe in those things," and for me it takes more faith for me to believe in evolution and atheism than creation and theism. Allen J. Epling says there is a seven in 10 quadrillion possibility of life forming in this solar system. I am aware that Richard Carrier has provided a critique of several studies done on this matter. Here is the website where the information was given so that Carrier can investigate it http://www.christianpost.com/blogs/creationvsevolution/2009/10/was-the-earth-fine-tuned-for-life-02/index.html). I am sure his first will be that the details of life was not provided, and that it was only done in our solar system. I understand that Carrier will have to find some fault in this probability, so I would like to know where an atheist arrives on this matter when providing true results.
You earlier tried to say that atheism is not religious because it did not: believe in God; have common belief, worship service, figurehead (founder or preacher); have an afterlife; etc. You do not need a belief in God to be religious. Modernism is considered a religion (of course not by you) that has a figurehead, and it is atheistic (sort of) because they provide that they are not sure. Your common belief as an atheist is that there is no God and that the universe formed through evolution. You have have a belief on an afterlife; a belief that it is non-existent. Atheists also have a figurehead and founder. Madalyn Murray O'Hair is the founder of American Atheists, and Ellen Johnson is the current president (or current figurehead). Naturalism is another religion. They are theistic, but they do not have a leader or a sacred text (or official transcript). Whether you read it or not, Atheists have a text called the Humanist Manifesto I and II.
It is one thing to say that small changes add up to large changes over time (adding a dollar to a piggy bank every day leads to a lot of money in 10 years; or breeding bulldogs over time to have wider shoulders, little by little the shoulders become so wide that the mother dog can not have natural child birth). Macro evolution, when used in evolution, is a going from a simple to more-complex structures in organisms. This simple to complex change requires the addition of new genetic information. This is something that does not happen in the physical world we know.
Your corn that was mentioned earlier has two problems that someone may have forgotten to mention. The selection of chromosomes was "artificial" instead of natural, and the chromosomes where artificially mixed together instead of naturally working themselves into the plant. Secondly, even if this amazing plant had happened naturally, it can not reproduce. This means that the plant stops there instead of continuing to become better and turn into a human over millions of years.
Your wonderful story about salmon is so truly convincing...not. They separate and continue to reproduce more fish and more fish and more fish. Some are different this way and some grow different that way, but at the end of a century, a millennium, etc. they will still be little salmon. If evolution was truly happening then we should still see fish growing legs and walking onto land, but we do not see anything of the sort. Because new genetic information, new DNA, is not added to the fishes DNA. The DNA just continues to be mixed showing different characteristics in the fish.
Anonymous,
The existence of God hasn't been disproved but the existence of the Easter Bunny, ghosts, UFO abductions and leprechauns haven't been disproved either. It doesn't take faith to not believe in the Easter Bunny, UFO abductions, ghosts, leprechauns or God because there isn't any evidence for any one of them. Just because you can't prove something doesn't exist is no reason to believe it does. The existence of God is not at all necessary to explain the existence of the universe or anything in it. So why believe in God? It's ridiculous.
There is very big difference between faith that is used every day based on evidence and religious faith which is not. When presented with evidence that their beliefs are false people change them. But not religious people. Religious people cling to their beliefs and are afraid to change them because of fear of punishment by an angry God in an afterlife. You can't compare that kind of fear induced faith with someone expecting their car to start or their chair not to collapse. You are purposely blurring the distinction between faith and religious faith out of sheer desperation as your argument crumbles before your eyes on this blog. Give it up. You just look so stupid and desperate trying to defend your indefensible claims.
Atheists do not have a humanist manifesto, humanists have a humanist manifesto. There is no atheist manifesto. Most atheists would probably consider themselves humanists but not all atheists do.
The universe was not formed through evolution. Your cult leaders have blurred the distinction between the different disciplines of science so that uneducated people like you would not realize that it isn't just evolution creationist hoaxers have a problem with. It's ALL science, cosmology, geology, biology, cell theory, oceanography, archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, quantum physics - ALL of it. This has been the agenda of Bible believers ever since the Bible has existed. All of this science you creationist losers reject is taught at every CHRISTIAN college and university in the world with a science department. EVERY one of them. You're sitting here trying to sell your creationist crap to an atheist when your own CHRISTIAN academic community has not only rejected this nonsense it continues to distance itself from creationism and Intelligent Design magic. It was Christians who fired William Dembski from Baylor, not atheists. It was Christians who denounced Michael Behe in writing at Lehigh, not atheists.
Atheists have no figure head or founder. Atheism was around before there was any religion and it will be around after all religions have disappeared.
"Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?" - Aristophanes (c.488-385 BCE)
"Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock." - Anaxagoras (c. 500-428)
"Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random and careless chance and change alone control the world?" - Euripides (c.480-406 BCE)
"Living creatures arose from the moist element as it was evaporated by the sun. man was like another animal, namely a fish, in the beginning." - Anaximander (c. 610-546 BCE)
None of these atheist Greek philosophers or their contemporaries, all of whom I have studied in depth, had nearly the scientific data available to us today in the 21rst century. Yet they all still realized religious and supernatural explanations were not true. What did THEY have faith in exactly? Nothing. They just knew better than to listen to OTHER PEOPLE when they gave ridiculous magical explanations for things. Yet here over 2000 years later there are still people like you around who don't.
Boris,
Someone never taught you the two different kinds of science: experimental science and origins science. Experimental science would be the one used all the time to test a hypothesis through observation. Through several tests the hypothesis is corrected, proven valid enough to become and a theory, and scrutinized even more to become a law.
Origins science (a.k.a. historical science) can not be observed a second time and therefore must have its own category. You may be able to test details of evolution/creation, but you can not get in a time machine and begin analyzing the beginning of the universe. The entire process that follows the beginning can not be repeated (unless of course you find the small chance of going to a planet that so very closely resembles earth, but even this is not testing the process time and again). That entire process would not be a very accurate experiment because it could not be controlled. You can not say because these two things (the "two out of three steps") happen evolution must be true, you have to bring in all of the evidence (the wrong person would be charged for the crime of murder if you liked at only the evidence you want to see. This is being prejudiced and biased. New evidence is always coming in, so we can not stop with just what we have) to convict the true murderer.
I agree that a theory is an explanation of facts, but this explanation has not been proven to be true. I am only arguing that some scientists view evolution as a law (an infallible fact) instead of continuing to find more explanations and weigh equally the explanations we already have.
You apparently did not weigh all the facts when you said that Creationists have brought nothing to the table of science. Just a few examples include: Copernicus, Galileo, Pascal, Isaac Newton, Carl Linnaeus, Johannes Keppler, Robert Boyle, Louis Pasteur, Jean Henri Fabre, Michael Faraday, John Ambrose Fleming, etc. These great scientists operated within a Christian framework. Maybe some of the current work is not recognized publicly because of an unequal footing between creationists and evolutionists, even in areas outside of origin science (ever seen Expelled featuring Ben Stein).
One last thing, you continue to say that Christianity and creationism has been refuted and disproved by science, but you have not offered any details or even others to back up your claims.
For many years until 1993, it was believed that King David of Israel did not exist outside the Bible. At an ancient mount called Tel Dan, in north Israel, the words "House of David" and "King of Israel" was carved into a chunk of basalt.
http://agards-bible-timeline.com/q9_historical_proof_bible.html
I am currently researching to answer your questions. So sorry that it takes time to do. Nothing...hmm...I believe they have a search engines for that. Search that will take you to a dictionary and tell you what it is.
You tried to ask where mass has gone, but you did not answer my question about where it came from. If it came from photons, then where did the photons (and the energy to decay them) come from?
Nothing is the absence (physically) of everything. Like a vacuum is to air,so nothing is to matter, mass, energy, etc (there is none, blank emptiness(without there being space that is empty)). Close your eyes and imagine this you have died and your mind no longer exists, because there is no afterlife (hard to close your eyes and imagine yourself not being there).
Why would God, an all-powerful being, need something to create nothing. It is not exactly presto magic, but it is the closest thing that a humans small feeble mind can come to this power. If He could create this large expanse of a universe (that easily fits in the palm of one of His hands) down to the smallest atom (and string if your into string theory), why would He not have the power to create all of this.
Copernicus and Galileo worked within the Christian framework? Sure they did. You people make the most ludicrous claims imaginable! If Copernicus worked within the Christian framework why did the Church hide and denounce his findings? Why did angry Christians arrest Galileo and threaten him with death for discussing the ideas of Copernicus and doing further research? Why did every Protestant denomination reject the findings of Copernicus and Galileo until well into the 19th century? The Christian framework includes a flat, immovable Earth supported by pillars as clearly described in several places in the Bible. If you don't believe me check Fixedeareth.com where honest Christians don't try to claim their Bible is at all compatible with science. Because it isn't and the people at Fixedearth.com aren't afraid to admit it. They have hundreds of Bible verses to prove it. You're talking mostly about the distant past when people either had to be professing Christians or suffer the wrath of angry Christians including harassment, threats of violence and actual violence, torture, arrest, intimidation and murder. And you're talking about people who you would, if you didn't need them to be Christians for the sake of argument, denounce as non-Christians for not believing in the divinity of Christ, which none of these men did, for not believing in Satan but being subject to all kinds of other occult superstitions like Isaac Newton, who by the way rejected his faith before he died. You're also talking about men who made discoveries every one of which was immediately denounced by both the Catholic and Protestant denominations. This fact completely destroys your argument. Your claim could not be more ludicrous, purposely misleading or hypocritical. From anyone else we would be shocked at the audacity and willful ignorance of a person who would make such an outrageous claim. But we're used to this kind of intellectual dishonesty coming from Bible believers.
On the Prayer and the Psalms thread on January 19th at 12:24 PM I responded to the claim that some wishfully misinterpreted letters on a rock prove anything about King David. It's amazing the conclusions you expect people to draw from that. This supposedly rock proves David killed a giant and won many battles there isn't any evidence for. Sure it does. You people read the exact same fundamentalist propaganda because I see the same stupid arguments over and over and over and over and over again and then several hundred more times after that. Yet there are clear refutations of your ludicrous arguments all over the Internet, in the public library and in bookstores. You people never avail yourselves of the refutations and objections to the claims and arguments you make. Not only that when you do read objections to your claims and arguments when someone like me posts them for you, you ignore them to and go right on making arguments that have already been refuted as if no objections had ever been raised. Arguing with Bible believers is like arguing with a small spoiled child who, whenever he hears something he doesn't like he covers his ears and runs away screaming "I can't hear you." This is frustrating for some atheists but for me I'm quite aware of who I am dealing with. Bible believers have always been the same way: Closed minded, uneducated (the true bottom of the intellectual barrel), fearful of advancing science and hateful of social progress and above all completely untrustworthy.
Scientists don't consider any other explanations for the diversity of life on earth because we don't HAVE any other explanations for the diversity of life on Earth. "God did it" is NOT an explanation.
Boris,
If you will not accept that atheists have written the Humanist Manifesto I, II, and III; because you do not consider yourself 'that kind of' atheist, then you can not put me in same group as the church which persecuted Galileo. You can not judge Christianity as a whole based on this group here or that sect there. It would be like an outsider looking at earth ans saying that there are humans who have murdered other humans, and murderers must be killed. By your logic all humans should be killed because they could be or are a murderer. I do not control the actions of other church leaders (especially from the past), and you do not control the actions of murderers.
You can not tell me that the earth is literally standing still according to the Bible. Those verses are written in poetic prose and are not taken literally (by most Christians). These verses point out the importance of earth as it is the home of mankind, God's greatest creation who He desperately wants to be saved. I understand that there are parts of the Bible that are true and other parts that are poetic, and mean something more. I know that the creation story is true, but the parable of the good Samaritan is a story given to communicate something more. Fixedearth.com is a site maintained by Kabalahists. They do not read the Bible in the same way as Christians, they interpret it to find their own esoteric 'truths'.
You continue to point out that Christian colleges teach evolution, and that they should not teach it if they see it as untrue. It must be taught if the students must go out into a biased evolutionary believing (through LOTS of FAITH) world. It is truly the scientific community that pushes these beliefs. Scientists caught in the middle (there are more out there than you think) go to the side of evolution so that they can keep their job, not because they truly believe it. It is also taught so that Christian scientists are knowledgeable in both fields and can debate the evolutionists. You continue to say that the scientific community is fair in their research, and have supposedly been able to dismiss creationism. Creationism has not been dismissed due to scientific research, but through biased beliefs. Atheistic scientists do their job backwards. They obtain information and try to fight it into an evolutionary world view. They should instead look at all the evidence and facts and see where it best fits. The scientists are working on two puzzles at the same time, and when they find a new puzzle piece they do their best to beat it into the evolutionary puzzle. They also look at the creationist puzzle that is so far fitting together perfectly, and begin throwing out pieces saying this doesn't fit or that piece doesn't match up.
I am clearly not being understood. I am not trying to make you suddenly believe in God. I am trying to show you that the evolutionary model is not as perfect as you believe it to be. You have not viewed each equally from the 'I don't know' point of view. Instead you wait for evidence to come along totally blowing evolution out of the water before you disbelieve. And when something extraordinary comes along, you completely dismiss it.
Isaac Asimov (director of the American Humanist Association) says, "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I have been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge one didn't have. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God didn't exist."
Your quotes do not concern Christianity. They are talking about the Greek gods.
I am not expecting you to become converted through our talks. I am aware that Christians do not have full proof of God's existence, and I am not denying that. I want you to understand that you do not have full proof of evolution and God's nonexistence.
Why can't I put you in the same group that persecuted Galileo, denied the findings of Copernicus, burned Bruno at the stake, tortured Campanella, denied the findings of Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Edmond Halley and claimed Isaac Newton had foolishly substituted gravitation for Providence? You are doing exactly the same thing Bible believers have always done ever since the Bible has existed: denying just about every major scientific discovery and theory of the last few centuries. It isn't just evolution you creationists are denying. It's cosmology, geology, anthropology, paleontology, archaeology, chemistry, cell theory, oceanography, quantum physics, astronomy - ALL science. You people still imply scientists are witches who William Dembski claims need to have their feet held to the fire. Translated: we need to go back to burning scientists at the stake. If people like you had their way this is what would still be going on and you KNOW it.
The Bible says the earth is stationary in several passages and clearly implies it is flat in several others. It says Joshua stopped the sun from moving. It doesn't say Joshua stopped the Earth. What scriptural evidence do you have to support your belief that the earth moves and orbits the sun?
Evolution isn't based on faith, it's based on facts. You wouldn't know because you are a scientific ignoramus who hasn't got a clue why science is even done in the first place. Christian colleges teach evolution and common descent because these things are used in the real world and produce real results that make the world a better, healthier and safer place. We would have never figured out that we could test drugs, vaccines, medicines, foods, poisons, chemicals and toxins on animals and which animals we could test which things on had we not realized how we were related to animals and which animals we were most closely related to. If the Christian Church still had its way we wouldn't know anything about the real world and people would still believe demons and devils caused diseases. Many of you people still do and if you don't then you are denying a fundamentalist "biblical truth." But the Christian academic community isn't tied to the Church anymore and they can do what ever they think is best. This is why they teach evolution and it's NOT so their students can argue against it. If that were really true Christian colleges would be teaching creationism or ID magic too but they aren't. Instead the Christian academic community does everything it can to continue to distance itself from these religious hoaxes.
Scientists don't do their jobs backwards or there wouldn't be such magnificent scientific progress especially in the last few centuries since science has been freed from religious interference and oppression and scientists no longer have to fear for their lives because of angry and violent Christians. It is the creationists who freely admit they begin with the assumption that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and then try to fit all observations about nature into that dogma. Scientific method on the other hand, says no finding is the final word and all findings are subject to future revision or even outright rebuttal. And again the fact that you claim scientists don't know what they are doing proves beyond any question that you belong in the group of science hating and fearing Christians who persecuted Galileo and all the other scientists in the past. Your hypocrisy is just off the charts!
The "evolutionary model" has nothing to do with my atheism. Like everyone else I was born an atheist, a person with no belief in God. I was about 4 years old when I first heard about God and God's supposed attributes. After considering those attributes and the source of this "knowledge" - another human being - I was unable to believe that such a being existed or even could exist. I had no ideas about where the universe came from or how human beings, plants or other animals came about. Somehow I just knew they didn't come from a mind reading invisible man in the sky just like I knew there was no jolly fat man who brought presents to good little boys and girls. I just wrote God belief off as Santa Claus for adults. I remember later seeing the drawings of the ascent of man in the encyclopedia and thinking how obvious it was that this is where we humans came from. That wasn't hard to believe at all. The truth almost never is.
The creationist's entire case rests on trying to disprove evolution. Your attacks against evolution are supposed to somehow prove creationism. Beginning philosophy students would immediately recognize this exercise in anti-logic. If evolution could somehow be disproved it would be by a theory that was MORE explanatory not less explanatory like creationism. Creationism explains exactly nothing. Theories don't just fall without anything to replace them. Common descent is a fact, not a theory and any theory that replaced evolution would also have to explain common descent. Creationism and Intelligent Design magic deny common descent and therefore deny known facts.
Trying to disprove evolution to get people to accept that there is a God is just Christian smoke and mirrors. It isn't the existence of a God you are trying to get other people to believe in. It's an entire absurd belief system that includes a lot more than just one supernatural being. If we accept there is a God does that automatically mean that angels, demons, seraphs, Satan, heaven and hell also exist and that all the stories in the Bible must be true? Even if you could show evidence for the existence of a God how are you going to prove all these other absurdities? You aren't because none of these things exist. I don't have to prove that just like I don't have to prove Santa Claus doesn't exist either. The burden of proof is always on the person or group making the absurd and outrageous claims and never on the ones who don't believe these claims.
Nothing can be proved absolutely so falling back on the argument that I don't have full proof of things is nothing but more desperation from someone getting hammered in a debate. You not only don't have full proof either you have no evidence. At least what I believe is based on evidence unlike the insane religious nonsense OTHER PEOPLE have indoctrinated you with.
One of the easiest things in the world to do is debunk the pseudo-scientific claims of biblical creationists. Observe:
Creationist claim: Second, even if this amazing plant had happened naturally, it cannot reproduce. This means that the plant stops there instead of continuing to become better and turn into a human over millions of years.
Rebuttal: This claim is so stupid I don't know where to begin. It is a sublime mix of theology and scientific imbecility. In the case of scientists using artificial selection to create new crop species they don't just create one weird plant. They create a new group that can interbreed within the new group but can no longer interbreed with the parent stock. When the salmon I mentioned can no longer breed with their parent stock they will have become a new species of salmon. Salmon is a common name for several species of fish of the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the family are called trout, the difference being that salmon migrate and trout are resident, a distinction that holds true for the Salmo genus. But your whole idea is based on the belief that evolution has goals other than survival of the species and one of those goals is to turn every living species into a human being! That's what you get when you mix theology with scientific imbecility.
Creationist claim: This simple to complex change requires the addition of new genetic information. This is something that does not happen in the physical word we know.
Rebuttal: How would YOU know this? It's hard to understand how anyone can make this claim since anything mutations can do, mutations can undo. Some mutations add information to a genome, some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition increases in information HAVE been observed to evolve. We have observed the evolution of increased genetic variety in a population, increased genetic material, novel genetic material, novel genetically related abilities. If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place.
Creationist claim: Through several tests a hypothesis is corrected, proved valid enough to become a theory and scrutinized even more to become a law.
Rebuttal: Theories do not become laws. The difference between a theory and a law is that a theory is much more dynamic. A law describes a single action whereas a theory describes an entire group of related phenomena.
Creationist claim: Origins science (a.k.a. historical science) cannot be observed a second time and therefore must have its own category.
Rebuttal: Says who? Not scientists. Science requires that observations can be replicated. The observations on which evolution is based, including comparative anatomy, genetics and fossils are replicable. Repeatable experiments, including experiments about mutations and natural selection in the laboratory and in the field, also support evolution.
Creationist claim: I agree that a theory is an explanation of facts, but this explanation has not been proven to be true.
Rebuttal: Nothing is the real world can be proven with absolute certainty. However, high degrees of certainty can be reached. All the different lines of evidence are consistent in that they all point to the same big picture. For example, evidence from gene duplications in the yeast genome showed its ability to ferment glucose evolved about eighty million years ago. Fossil evidence shows that fermentable fruits became prominent about the same time. Genetic evidence for major change around that time is also found in fruiting plants and fruit flies. The evidence is extensive and consistent, and it points unambiguously to evolution, including common descent, change over time, and adaptation influence by natural selection. It would be preposterous to refer to these things as anything other than facts.
Creationist claim: If evolution was truly happening then we should still see fish growing legs and walking onto land, but we do not see anything of the sort.
Rebuttal: Oh really? Walking catfish, walking perches, Snakeheads are fish that are capable of transversing across land, using their pectoral fins to walk. Freshwater Hatchet Fish are capable of powered flight, through a sternal region that has become greatly enlarged over time. The flight is used very effectively to escape predators.
Mudskippers live most of their lives on land. The fossil record shows many adaptations to this behavior over time. Anatomical and behavioral adaptations allow them to move effectively on land as well as water. The ability to breathe through their skin AND the lining of their mouth. This is a mode of breathing similar to that employed by amphibians known as cutaneous breathing. Another important observed adaptation that aids breathing are their enlarged gill chambers, where they retain air.
These animals are clearly on the way to becoming more advanced animals, something creationists claim is impossible. Of course we aren't going to see fish growing legs and wings over the span of a few generations, a human lifetime or even a few thousand years. But over time fish have evolved legs and wings and the ability to walk and fly. We have living examples of these transitional species we can observe today.
Anonymous, your claims to know more about science and how science should be done than working scientists who produce tangible results from their work, are a dangerous combination of supreme arrogance and mind-boggling willful ignorance and stupidity. You don't know the first thing about science and you're on here acting like you're some kind of expert or something when you couldn't pass an 8th grade public school science class. What are your qualifications to tell me or anyone else that evolution is a flawed theory? You don't even know what the theory states. All you know is what your delusional, dishonest and desperate cult leaders have told you about science. I can tell you've never read a real science book in your entire life.
Now even though you've seen your best arguments totally destroyed right here on this blog by me it won't keep you from making these stupid arguments again. The next time you debate someone on this subject you'll whip out these same tired useless arguments again hoping that this time your potential convert won't know how to refute them. You'll do this totally aware that your arguments can be easily refuted. This is the kind of intellectual dishonesty we find in all biblical creationists. Creationists are all liars. You people make me sick. There's no way I could ever join such a dishonest group of willfully ignorant morons and liars. You people are the enemy of truth and the faculty by which man arrives at truth: reason.
Boris,
You stated earlier (In the beginning, January 18, 2010 9:44 PM) that the second law of thermodynamics does not undermine evolution because the earth is in an open system, receiving energy from the sun.
If the sun is increasing order than why do I need to protect my wooden fence or deck from it. Why does my cars paint job begin to flake off due to exposure to the sun. Clearly this can not be the whole story.
Simply adding energy to a system doesn’t automatically cause reduced entropy (i.e., increased organized complexity, or “build-up” rather than “break-down”). Raw solar energy alone does not decrease entropy—in fact, it increases entropy, speeding up the natural processes that cause break-down, disorder, and disorganization on earth.
"Speaking of the general applicability of the second law to both closed and open systems in general, Harvard scientist Dr. John Ross (not a creationist) affirms:
“...there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated [closed] systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems ... there is somehow associated with the field of far-from equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself.”
[Dr. John Ross, Harvard scientist (evolutionist), Chemical and Engineering News, vol. 58, July 7, 1980, p. 40]"
For a decrease in entropy (increase in organized complexity) found in 'biological systems' you need two more factors besides an open system being supplied energy. 1. You need a "program" (information) that directs the growth in 'organized complexity'. 2. You need a mechanism for storing and converting the incoming energy.
Each living organism’s DNA contains all the code (the “program” or “information”) needed to direct the process of building (or “organizing”) the organism up from seed or cell to a fully functional, mature specimen, complete with all the necessary instructions for maintaining and repairing each of its complex, organized, and integrated component systems. This process continues throughout the life of the organism, essentially building-up and maintaining the organism’s physical structure faster than natural processes (as governed by the second law) can break it down.
Living systems also have the second essential component—their own built-in mechanisms for effectively converting and storing the incoming energy. Plants use photosynthesis to convert the sun’s energy into usable, storable forms (e.g., proteins), while animals use metabolism to further convert and use the stored, usable, energy from the organisms which compose their diets.
So we see that living things seem to “violate” the second law because they have built-in programs (information) and energy conversion mechanisms that allow them to build up and maintain their physical structures “in spite of” the second law’s effects (which ultimately do prevail, as each organism eventually deteriorates and dies)."
While this explains how living organisms may grow and thrive, thanks in part to the earth’s “open-system” biosphere, it does not offer any solution to the question of how life could spontaneously begin this process in the absence of the program directions and energy conversion mechanisms described above—nor how a simple living organism might produce the additional new program directions and alternative energy conversion mechanisms required in order for biological evolution to occur, producing the vast spectrum of biological variety and complexity observed by man.
In short, the “open system” argument fails to adequately justify evolutionist speculation in the face of the second law.
Boris,
Joshua stopped the sun in the sky. This is being spoken from the point of view from earth. Joshua 10:13 says, " So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped..." If you continued reading in the same verse you would read, " the sun stopped in the middle of the SKY and delayed going down about a full day."
This happens when Scripture is read out of context.
Boris,
Copernicus and Galileo still worked in a theistic framework. Just because their ideas were not accepted right away does not change with which mindset they worked. Sadly, because their ideas were not accepted right away, Galileo was put under house arrest. Darwin's ideas were not accepted right away either, but men in his time were not put under house arrest for it.
Think of being in Galileo's day. Of course it seemed completely crazy to think the earth was moving when you did not feel it move.
Whether Newton denied his faith or not does not change the fact that he worked under a theistic framework (I have found no information saying he rejected his faith). "He never made a public declaration of his private faith. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unraveling his his personal beliefs." Newton still worked under a theistic mindset. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done." Newton claimed that in writing the Principia "I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity". He saw evidence of design in the system of the world: "Such a wonderful uniformity in the planetary system must be allowed the effect of choice".
Even if those three were out of the picture, there were still several others mentioned, and still even more unmentioned.
Anonymous,
First of all there is no such thing as an "evolutionist." This is a creationist invention to make it seem like evolution is an ideology or a religion. Second you copied your argument from a creationist blog where people posted clear refutations of your argument which you conveniently and dishonestly ignored. Your intellectual dishonesty is just off the charts.
Third you don't even know what the Second Law of Thermodynamics states. It says that heat will not spontaneously flow from a colder body to a warmer one or that total entropy in a closed system will not decrease. This does not prevent increasing order because the earth is not a closed system. Sunlight shines on it and heat radiates off. This flow of energy and the flow that accompanies it powers local decreases in entropy on Earth. Entropy is not the same as disorder. Sometimes the two correspond but sometimes order increases as entropy increases. Entropy can even be used to produce order, such as the sorting of molecules by size. Even in a closed system pockets of lower entropy can form if they are offset by increased entropy elsewhere in the system. In other words order from disorder happens on Earth all the time.
The only processes necessary for evolution to occur are reproduction, heritable variation and selection. All of these are seen to happen all the time so obviously no physical laws are preventing them. In fact connections between entropy and evolution have been studied in depth and never to the detriment of evolution. Highly ordered complex systems evolve simply to dissipate energy. In that sense, life is a very natural thing that emerged simply to satisfy basic physical laws. Our "purpose" so to speak is to redistribute energy on Earth, which is in between a huge energy difference caused by the hot sun and cold space.
Creationists admit that increasing order is possible. They introduce fictional exceptions to the law to account for it. Creationists make claims that directly contradict their claims about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, such as hydrological sorting of fossils during the flood.
Creationist claim: You need a "program" (information) that directs the growth in 'organized complexity.'
Rebuttal: Evolution has a program. It's called the environment.
Do you really think scientists haven't considered all the potential problems with the Theory of Evolution? Do you actually think the creationist wackos at the Discovery Institute are going to find major problems with evolution? These idiots are as ignorant of science as anyone on the planet. They're a joke. You creationists and your retarded Bible based arguments have never made a single dent in any of the scientific theories you disagree with and you never will. When have scientists ever had to revise one of their theories in the face of the never ending, centuries long complaints from Bible believers? You really should ask yourself that question. Your cult of Bible based stupidity has been fighting science ever since the Bible has existed. Your anti-science agenda is the EXACT same agenda that got Galileo in trouble. You make me want to puke.
Anonymous,
You said, "This is being written from the point of view from earth." I thought the Bible was supposedly written by God in heaven. Better get your religious dogma straight. ROFL! The Bible is always written from the point of view of Earth, a very primitive view too. The first verse in the Bible clearly implies that the heavens and Earth are a separate creation. From anywhere else in space however, we can see that Earth is just a small part of the heavens and not at all a separate creation. Genesis also describes a dome OVER the earth clearly implying a flat immovable earth with directions such as up and down also defined. There is no up or down, north south, east or west in space. The Bible has so many scientific inaccuracies in its first few chapters that don't even agree with the scientific knowledge of that time let alone today. If this is the word of some God then that God is an idiot.
Boris,
I am aware that your theory of evolution can work under the constraints that information (DNA) is needed for biological life to work against entropy. But, my point was that how could life form spontaneously from non animated matter. There is no DNA or information there to organize these biological processes. The first life-form would not be able to come together under these harsh conditions.
When you speak to children do you tell them everything you know and all from your point of view. No, you don't, unless you want to confuse the child. Yes, God dictated the Bible men so that it may be recorded, but He did not tell them everything He knew. He also spoke to them from their level and from their viewpoint. They weren't microscopic so he didn't tell them about molecules and atoms. They didn't have spaceships or telescopes so he didn't tell them about all the different galaxies and solar systems.
It isn't my theory of evolution. Every CHRISTIAN college and university in the world that teaches science teaches evolution. Yet you make the absurd claim that "all the pieces of the creationist puzzle fit perfectly." The Genesis creation account conflicts with the order of events known to science. In Genesis the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. From science we know the true order of events was just the opposite. So the pieces of your creationist puzzle don't fit at all, and they never will. They're a joke and the joke is on you.
On what science do you base your claim that the first life-form would not be able to come together under harsh conditions? When a person claims something could not happen because they don't understand how it could happen rather than logical reasons why it couldn't, this is a logical fallacy known as an argument from incredulity.
Biochemistry doesn't work by chance. It invariably produces complex products. Amino acids and other complex molecules are even known to form in space. Nobody knows what the most primitive cells looked like. All the cells around today are the products of billions of years of evolution. The earliest self-replicator was likely very much simpler than anything alive today, self-replicating molecules need not be all that complex, and protein building systems can also be simple. No one denies that the origin of life is a difficult problem. Just because it hasn't been solved yet doesn't mean it won't be. There has been much research in this area leading to several plausible origins for life on Earth.
The problem is with people who would try defund scientific research because they don't think it will lead anywhere or worse, people like you who want to stop ALL scientific research because they know how damaging it is to their religion. There are conservative pin heads in Congress like Sam Brownback who think just like you. The public has to be warned about him and other religious fanatic fascists like you who support them. You people are the most evil and dishonest people on the planet. Not to mention stupid.
It doesn't matter what God supposedly didn't tell a bunch of primitive superstitious sheepherders, what he supposedly did tell them is manifestly incorrect. The scientific and historical inaccuracies in the Bible are just too many and too profound and absurd for them to have come from any God. The descriptions of the universe in the Bible don't even line up with the science of that day let alone 21rst century science.
You might as well give up. I've destroyed your best arguments and you've got nothing left. You'll never convert an adult atheist into your cult of stupidity. The only people you liars can convert are defenseless children. And that's child abuse.
You can compromise what you know to be true, and you can turn off all of your senses, but in the end you'll see nothing stands between a man and his Maker.
Anonymous,
Your fear mongering only reflects what a pathetic excuse for a human being you are and that your entire life is controlled by fear induced superstitions other people put in your head.
There's quite a bit that stands between any intelligent educated person and belief in the God of the Bible. Let me list a few things: Demons and a belief that demons cause diseases and that Jesus and other people cast out demons and cured diseases. That asinine belief stymied medical progress in Western Culture for 1500 years. I'll never believe in angels, devils, seraphs, stories about talking animals or vegetation, giants, cockatrices or any of the other absurd invisible beings the Bible claims exist. I'll never believe in an absurd being like Satan. What evidence do you have for any of these beings? You don't have any. You believe in these things because OTHER PEOPLE convinced you that if you didn't believe the Bible you would be punished for all eternity in hell. These people, whoever they are, appealed to the most base of human emotions: cowardice. Well I have news for you. I'm not afraid. The Bible isn't true and if by chance there really is a God we already know from science and history it isn't the Christian God. I will meet my maker. Mother Nature. It's you who have shut down your senses, not to mention your common sense as well.
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